dan/california

There isn't any historical precedent at al for the riot police being absolutely abysmal in actual warfare, is there? At this rate they are going to be adjusting all the way to the 2/24 lines, and trying desperately to get a ceasefire there.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Kupiansk,+Kharkiv+Oblast,+Ukraine/Shevchenkove,+Kharkiv+Oblast,+Ukraine,+63601/@49.6789738,37.1650481,10.64z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x4120d75c701fc6d7:0xd2d56a3f976d8606!2m2!1d37.6027997!2d49.7055574!1m5!1m1!1s0x4127337011fcc2f1:0xda3dc1e117af3c8e!2m2!1d37.1778581!2d49.6877737!3e0 36 km from Shevchenkove to Kupiansk by main the main road, ~32 km in a straight line. AFU could hit it with 58 caliber 155.

If true the The AFU are close to a true operational breakthrough. The Russians must have pulled EVERYBODY out of this area to try and do things further south. GLORY TO UKRAINE!

This has to be the opening reel for at least a campaign, if not the entire next game.

He lived, so this very funny, instead of very tragic. He will also feature in training films in 17 languages.

This is a military intelligence test. I suspect the penalty for flunking it is severe.

If the Ukrainians are just close enough to make this a credible head fake it a big deal. If it is true I think the Russians have all but lost the war. Even if it is just trolling it is phd level and will induce huge anxiety in the Russians. Yes I m being a little over enthusiastic, but there has been 24 hours of unrelenting good news.

One of the things the U.S. learned the hard way in the middle east is that when the threat level is high enough that occupying forces can only move around in squads, or even worse platoons, there aren't enough soldiers on the whole planet to provide meaningful coverage of even a medium sized city. The math just doesn't work, so you wind up sitting in 'secure" positions without any idea what is actually happening in the city. Ukraine is infinitely worse for the Russians because they don't even have enough of a language/appearance differential to even be sure the guys pulling up in the Tigr are on their side. This is one of the many reasons Steve said the Russians were doomed even if they took all or most of Ukraine. Edit: throw in the fact that the Russians are drunk, lazy, corrupt, and incompetent....

But you don't have to get all the way there to make a big difference. Just getting into 777 range with conventional shells REALLY reduces the the supply through put. It is the same issue in Kherson What I check with every single settlement that falls is how far they are from hitting Nova Khahovka with 155. Because when that happens the Russian position will just fold.

A sudden out break off Train fires in outermost Siberian nowhere has a great deal of appeal.

Be a great time for some issues with the trans Siberian railway. Is it clear if Russia is down to their war reserve stock levels? Or have they literally let so much ammo corrode and decay into uselessness that they are out out? Ukraine has used HIMARS brilliantly, but GMLRS won't hit the big Soviet depots out past the Urals.

The L/DPR have been taking casualties that approach France in WW1 percentage wise. As well as fighting better than the Russians with leftover gear, at least if you are talking about their trained pre-war units. The mobiks rounded up at random not so much. There are rumors the Republics may be nearing out and out failure, throwing them a bone didn't cost Putin much, and is at least an attempt to get ahead of the problem. Furthermore by any standard whatsoever the Russian MOD deserves a thorough but kicking and worse, so putting a marker down on that isn't terrible for Putin either. Well unless he kicks the hornets nest too hard and gins up a coup he might not have had otherwise. But Putin ran out of merely bad choices about a week after the war started, and it has only gotten worse by the day.

And the thing Russia is going to be terribly short of is technical specialists, Radar, EW, FDC, FO, and higher level repair people for pretty much everything. The Russians are burning thru a twenty year accumulation in all of these folks, and is already eating its seed corn by sending its training cadres to the front. It makes it even worse that a lot of the Russian equipment is more sensitive to operator quality and experience. The specialist the Ukrainians need are being trained in every military school in Europe, and when that wasn't enough Canada and Australia sent people to help. In three to six months in a whole bunch of areas the Ukrainians will get better as the Russians get worse, maybe sooner. I read a really good article about this three months ago and now I can't find it again...

I have a fairly strong impression the uptake has been fairly low, but maybe the Russians have put enough pressure on to increase it? For that matter the way they are literally kidnapping people off the street in Donestk, I doubt they care about your passport if they catch you sitting still in Melitipol. I also doubt the military utility of forcibly recruiting people who will surrender, desert, or betray you at the first possible opportunity. But then nothing the Russians have done has made much sense.

Karma is harsh...

I suspect they would have been better off surrendering to the Ukrainians. But perhaps the next unit to hit the breaking point will draw the correct lessons.

The visa ban would be an extraordinarily obvious place to start. Sorry no gas to waste on Russian tourists. And it would also at least mildly complicate Russian efforts to undermine everything and everyone in sight. Just the way they squeak about makes it clear it needs doing. My two cents would be for a complete border shut down and cut Kaliningrad off again. The failure of Russian artillery seems to be why the Russians got backed up ten kilometers plus in the very northern end of the settlement, or at least that is what the internet thinks. The reason they weren't responding could also be lack of ammo, or shrapnel poisoning. But no artillery clearly means the Russian defense fails, even when manned by the best troops they have left. The Russian line around the Inhulets crossing have, just barely, avoided complete failure because the artillery in that sector is still shooting. When it stops the Russian defense will just fail. The Russian are finally running the full undermine/destabilize campaign they should have started on Feb 25th. I don't think the Russian army in Ukraine has enough time left for it to work. We need to worry les about escalation management, and a great deal more about giving the Ukrainians enough to just WIN this thing. The gas cut ff should at least end any remaining opposition to building more LNG terminals. It ought to also end any opposition to nuclear power, but we probably are not that smart.

Mk1 one eyeball the Russians need pull out the Northern 1/4 of what they are holding in the Kherson pocket while they still have enough room to make it a pull out and not the Highway of Death, Ukrainian edition, part one. They have some their ever shrinking supply of VDV and other elite units up there. Mind I am happy make popcorn and pour a beer to watch that show...

Absolutely outstanding post! Edit, So if it exist, or ever existed, it is in the much slower water above the dam.

I may be having attack of wishful thinking, but I don't think we are going to have to wait weeks for the Russians to crack.

They still have to put fuel in it, and get fuel out of it to frontline units, and those spots are findable.

The Russian intelligence agencies are burning every last match, connection, and Euro in a desperate attempt to freeze the conflict before the Russian army implodes. I think it way too late. The next sign will be Russia offering to return to 2/24 borders as gesture of goodwill, or in return for the legal transfer of Crimea. That should be the signal for the Ukrainians to push hard on the entire front, they aren't going to make that offer until they don't have any choice. Also watching for the more or less complete dissolution of the L/DPR.

They are about to lose the ACTUAL war, too. They even know it, hence the coordinated eratz peace demonstrations and attempts to restart negotiations. Ukraine needs to tell them that negotiations will be conducted by 155 and HIMARS until the last Russian soldier leaves Ukrainian soil. It is damned shame they can't march to Moscow and read out terms in Red Square.

You don't look for the pipelines, you look for the fuel trucks. Those are rather findable.

He is in team Steve, nothing matters but inflicting Russian casualties.