dan/california

I am sure he Kremlin still has a spot on the wall for detached heads, I wonder whose we will see first...

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-means-war/id1629454648?i=1000612600682 Outstanding podcast about airpower lessons learned in Ukraine, and what Europe needs to do going forward.

The Ukraine war happened because Lukashenko was in the process of getting kicked out by his own people, and was only able to hang on by selling his soul to Putin. It was being able to start the invasion of Ukraine from Belarus, only a ~hundred miles from Kyiv that convinced Putin he could win this thing in three days. LOSING Belarus reduces Russia's option space massively, probably for generations, as the The_Capt likes to put it.

If it looks like things in Belarus are on a knife edge we need to make the upper layer of the Belarusian military some truly spectacular retirement offers. If they declared for the President in Exile, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sviatlana_Tsikhanouskaya, and Minsk rose in a mass uprising, Putin would be in one heck of a pickle. And if he just tries too outright invade the place, we should tell the Poles they can join the party. There are about nine optimistic assumptions/lucky breaks in that scenario, but if it worked it would be the complete ruin of Putin's dreams.

You know there is only so much good news a person can ingest on a weekend morning without cracking a beverage early.

I wrote something a few days ago about upside surprises in terms of what Ukraine has been given. AIM-120 is a bigger upside than I dared to hope for. This and Storm Shadow in the same week are a pretty obvious message to Putin that this is his last chance to pull out of Ukraine with a functioning military. I doubt he will have the sense to take it, but there is always some chance that someone with a pistol will help him decide.

I don't know the answer to the question now, but I will bet a lot of money little expendable robot dogs are going to be a thing

There is a great vid I couldn't find again of Ukrainian soldiers hanging demo charges on cords so they could throw them from a blind spot relative to the bunker, and hopefully go off above the floor. They seemed pretty sure those were solving the problems.

His cheery little screed needs to be spammed/blasted all over Russia with a reminder to run like bleep when they come to grab you for the army. I would recommend getting at least one country away, two to be safe.

Have the drones drop a decent sandwich and a note that the Ukrainians will cheerfully feed them instead of shoot them if they surrender.

They have made it clear to the Russians, and the rest of the world, that they are never taking Bakmuht. So now is it militarily advantageous to keep pushing on the Bakmuht front? Or wait and see if the Russians are dumb enough to feed a few more tens of thousands of mobiks into the meat grinder? Obviously it depends in part on the state of the Russian forces.

They don't seem to want to put any of that ammo back on the truck.

Another video of Russians flat out running away. The Ukrainians seem on track to gain back most of what Russia gained all winter around Bakmuht in a week or two. And we haven't seen a single Leopard, Bradley, Cheiftan, ect in action I am aware of yet. The Russians may just be worn out.

Interesting take from one of the most useful sources of the whole war.

I suspect we will know soon enough.

With longer range precision munitions finally available, which means things are going to blow up throughout Crimea. The Ukrainians might do even better than this. I really think an approximation of the 2/24 lines are a possibility. Not a certainty by any means, but certainly possible. Mobik morale isn't looking so good.

He is sort of exaggerating about the five kilometer front. But that is an approximation of what they have available to shove through the hole once they make it. I rather suspect they will make more than one actually.

Given the way Russia has smashed itself to measure gains in meters, in the few places it got any at all I think Ukraine can live with a relatively small reserve, at least while they are actively wrecking somewhere between a third and half of the Russian army. War is risk, it worth taking some to turn a successful offensive into a decisive one. Remember If Ukraine is truly successful and pushes Russia back to ~2/24 lines in the south it would shorten the front they have to hold considerably. That would free up a lot of forces to rest, refit, and train for the next step. Of course ideally the Russians would get a clue and quit, but who knows.

It might be there is a reason Ghrkin and Prigozhin are singing "We are about to die" in tune, together, even as they hate each other with the heat of a thousand suns.

Well here is one guys take. And he is a former Italian army officer with deep Ukrainian connections.

Sadly I think this is what happens AFTER the Russian army in Ukraine is smashed beyond recognition, not before.

The U.S. announcing a couple of Hundred ATACMs, 250 more Bradleys, and a hundred or so of the very latest model Abrams is the kind of kick that might push Russian morale over the edge. Of course the best way to announce anything is a an entire battalion of the equipment in question smashing a few kilometers of Russia's defensive lines.

Oh good, someone did a map. In addition to Crimea, is there anything in the L/DPR that has been out of range until now, and just cries out for a smoking accident?

Russians aren't getting Bakmuht, this decade, or century for that matter.

If you have to ask...