dan/california

This NOT the right way to achieve a hull down position.

I have some brief experience teaching in the U.S. in a school where there were ~20 languages spoken. Sometimes you just have to do the best you can, reading literally anything is good, anything about the subject is better. At least this influx is of one language, so it may be possible for the schools to do something more organized by next year. Presumably a lot of Ukrainian teachers have left with their own children. I realize it cost money...

Two U.S. heavy brigades could run the Russians out of Ukraine in three days If the fuel and ammo could keep up.

This guy seems to be worth a follow. The Baltics have never forgotten they are next on the bears menu.

Good thread from General Hertling

https://saveualist.com/ A sort of official version of the the Ukrainians' shopping list.

My concern is that while the Russians are having one attack of sense, at least in strictly military sense, they might have another one. I agree completely that if the Russians try to attack on any scale they will get wrecked, and hopefully wrecked so badly they have withdraw to 2/24 lines at a minimum. I am concerned that if they just stand pat with exactly what they have they are going to be HARD to dig out. Putin can BS that hie has a land bridge and that constitutes some sort of victory. The parts of Kherson on the far side of the bridge excepted. That bridge can be dropped, and then Russians on the other side would be bleeped. But I just can't figure out how the Ukrainians conduct a set piece attack against prepared positions without vastly more air and missile defence in terrain as exposed as it is around the Black Sea coast.

It is not that he can't ,but there are several layers of friction he has to deal with. First of all he has to admit that it has gone VERY badly so far. He doesn't want to do that. And then he almost has to train the trainers to turn more conscripts than the usual yearly take into even the current lousy Russian standard of soldier. Since they are apparently raiding the training schools for competent personnel now, that is even harder than usual. Then he has too equip said conscripts when 15 years of supposedly significant investment has gone up in smoke. All of these problems could be addressed, mostly, with time and enormous amounts of money. I would hazard a guess that he is a lot closer to two years to show up with a whole lot more army than he currently has, than two months, though. Even then he would need REAL help from the Chinese to equip them with much more than rifles. Russia's supposedly vast war stocks seem to be mostly unprocessed scrap metal.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/04/02/why-ukraine-must-win Economist is really pushing the upside of an outright Ukrianian victory. I 100% agree

It seems the thought of burning to death in a piece of bleep AFV for the Gory of Czar Putin is ever less appealing. The Russian public may not get it yet, but the military types have seen enough obituaries to understand their odds of coming a hero, or at all.

I think you are overestimating what the unit withdrawn from Kyiv have left, by quite a lot. There are multiple reports of units more or less mutinying when ordered back into the fight in the Donbas. The Russian troops are murderous **^&$$&*, but they are NOT brave or motivated murderous &%&$%&. The ones who faced Ukrainian ATGMs and artillery in combat are exhibiting ZERO motivation to do that again. An additional issue is that the troops withdrawn from the Kyiv area have already had an opportunity to loot one of the richest areas in Ukraine. That is not a description that can be applied to the Donbas/Mariupol front. So they don't even have that incentive. I really think that if the Russians try to shove those units back in without several weeks of refitting they are at great risk of them just collapsing utterly.

However, to pull this off they had to move fast and moving fast probably meant leaving a lot of stuff behind that could have been withdrawn if there was more time. That added to the losses suffered while in Ukraine does seem to indicate that the units there aren't in good enough shape to immediately feed back into the frontline. Steve I can't find the link now, but an entire company of well equipped Russian infantry was feeling hard pressed enough to literally dump all their gear, ballistic vest, rifles, radios, packs....everything, and swim across one of the small rivers west of Kyiv. Given the probable water temperatures in that part of world at this time of year that is leaving in a VERY large hurry.

They seem to be doing three quarters ok against the Russian planes. Where they really have a problem is missiles, both short range ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles. They seem to shoot down some of them, but not nearly all. It will hard to run an offensive on open steppe down towards Mariupol if they can't ever have a troop or logistical concentration stand still for more than half an hour. I really don't see a good solution other than NATO air defense systems, if they absolutely have to have NATO crews, just have them join the Ukrainian foreign legion. I don't think they would lack for volunteers. They are purely defensive systems after all. I am ever less tolerant of fine distinctions in how we will and won't encourage the Russians to go home. After at LEAST ten thousand ATGMs and and probably several thousand stingers, I think we can just assume the Russians are mad.

I think on some level it was decided that if the Russians wanted to give ALL the land around Kyiv back, that the retreat would be left open. It a decision you can debate, but if we wanted ALL those Russian troops around Kyiv dead or captured NATO could have put its planes in the air and gotten that done. It also figures in that the most mechanized, most professional part of the Ukrainian army that could have really pushed a pursuit is in the Southeast. Except for the Unit that held Cherniv against a month of ferocious attacks by five or ten times their number. I think we can agree they did their part. And to a large extent it may simply be that the one thing tanks do better than light infantry in this war is retreat.

Saw a news article that the first Russian soldier from their Chernobyl entrenchment misadventure had died of radiation poisoning. I am wondering if any of that battalion will live till 2023. Of course the evidence from Bucha is that it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys.

Sending Marders is as flawed as those suggesting giving Ukrainians F-16s or Patriots. After the war is over? Sure, that is a great idea and I fully endorse that and more. But what Ukraine needs now is stuff they already know how to use and keep running. Hence my vote for mortars with PGMs, I guarantee anyone who has already been trained on a mortar could figure out the specifics in a day.

Steve mentioned this earlier to some extent, but the Russians have given up on taking much/any more territory in Ukraine and started systematically attacking rail lines. I think the nationwide attacks on fuel depots are part of the same thing. The Russians are trying wreck Ukrainian logistics as far into Ukraine as they can reach. It is going to take the second coming of the Red Ball express to keep the Ukrainians in the fight. NATO needs to start organizing this TODAY. Including supplying engineering assets for temporary bridges. There also needs to be intelligent thought about how far things can move in civilian trucks, and how to transfer to smaller loads and/or military grade transport while minimizing vulnerability to Russian attack.

In terms of increasing the Ukrainians already considerable indirect fire capability and expertise, would current U.S. spec 120mm mortars be just about the easiest system to train them up on? Both the U.S. and the swedes make some nice guided rounds for it. Unless I radically misunderstand something you just stick the guidance bits on both ends of a standard round, and feed it GPS coordinates. Ukrainians seem to understand gps just fine. Range is shorter than 152/155 obviously, but they are a lot easier to hide and move, too. They would be just the thing to make the Russians want to go home in all sorts of deservedly unpleasant ways if the lines go more static.

Read this, then tell me why EVERY plane, armored vehicle, and soldier in NATO is not being fueled armed and dispatched to the front lines in Ukraine right now. If the Russians are still there when they get there it's on them.

It is much easier to make a guided mortar round than it is to make a guided artillery round. So if Ukraine was 80% of the way to a guided 152mm round, they were 99% or maybe a 101% of the way to a guided mortar round. The U.S. also has some very nifty guided mortar rounds, and I think they would be one of the very simplest systems to train the Ukrainians up on.

There is a line in a WW2 country music song "When all our new ships and bombers make a graveyard of Japan"

All the evidence so far is that the Russian Army is on the poor side of virtually every soft factor you can think of. And the Ukrainians in Mariupol are certainly coming back as EXTREMELY vengeful ghosts ,after fighting to the last man. I still can't wrap my brain around what they have done there. Glory to Ukraine!

I wonder how many of them drowned? I am guessing that water is beyond cold, the kind of cold where your muscles just stop working.

Did you see the head of the EU parliament in Kyiv yesterday or the day before? It was hurting the poor woman not to announce Ukraines membership while the battle is still raging.

LivemapUA is quoting Ukrainian Joint forces as saying the destroyed 78 Russian vehicles of various types today in the Donbas. There may another whole battle the Russians are busy losing that we aren't hearing much about because the Ukrainian regulars don't put everything on social media. Just discovered Livemap so I can't vouch for accuracy one way or another.