Huba

To be taken with a grain of salt, but here's what GUR thinks about RU monthly missile production is: 25 Kalibr missiles 2 Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missiles 35 Kh-101 cruise missiles 5 ballistic missiles 9M723 Iskander-M" Not too shabby, but at the peak of the missile campaign they were firing maybe 5 times as many and failed to achieve success. https://twitter.com/markito0171/status/1659492405488254977

Has to happen, there surely are people in the West just waiting for an opportunity to fly an F-16 against the Russians, some declared it openly on social media. Should be even easier for the ground crews, for whom the risk od rather minimal, given RU indolence at striking Ukrainan air bases. Tongue in cheek, I wonder what will be the next fad after F-16s are sent? Some older E-2s could make a difference, what else? Submarines? AAVPs?

Edit: @DesertFox was 5 seconds faster.

This sounds the most realistic to me(from possible optimistic scenarios). We can be pretty sure that there will be a lot of money pumped into Ukraine for rebuilding destroyed infrastructure and then for improving it in general, this is what happened in every country that joined the UE. Given from how a low level of GDP PP Ukraine will be starting and being a part of EU common market, investments and rapid growth would be assured, it is just too good an opportunity to miss. And one thing that can be said looking at Ukrainians here in Poland is that they are hard working people. Perhaps the greatest long-term issue for UA is demography. Between low birth rate, war losses, and several millions refugees who might not want to go back the country will be hard pressed to keep growing economically. As you mention though, their chance might be immigration from Russia - there are tens of millions of people there who are (or can claim to be) of Ukrainian descent. If RU turns into a failed state that Putin is leading it to become, perhaps it might work somehow? Learn the language, get rid of RU passport and repatriate to a country (of your ancestors) that gives some perspectives? Edit: Here's a stream from PISM Strategic Arc 2023 conference hosted by Polish Institute of International Affairs. It is completely in English, and included Q&A session with Polish Chief of General Staff gen. Andrzejczak and SACEUR gen. Cavoli (they even mentioned relation of mass and precision ;P). Surely beats TV if you need some background noise.

I'd read it as "US contractors on the ground are fixing it". Great news nonetheless.

WB Electronics, producer of Warmate, one of the best loitering munitions in UA disposal just announced that it managed to increase the production to 50 units/ week. Another (relatively small, but still...) nail in RU army coffin.

That escalated quickly

Telegraph's article sheds a bit of light on the "attack drones" pledged by the UK: - these will be of "kamikaze" type - with range longer than 125 miles - effect on target similar to an artillery shell - are specially designed and produced for use by Ukraine - available by the hundreds and delivered in upcoming months It basically adds up to a kind of a poor man's cruise missile of sorts. There was no information about the propulsion system, I'd love to see them go with pulse-jet, looks like a perfect application for it. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/05/15/britain-send-ukraine-suicide-drones-twice-the-range-himars/

Here's a video of missile launches over Kyiv that night (taken from RU Telegram channels, so I guess OPSEC does not apply). I counted 31 missiles launched in just 2 minutes, given the trajectories most seem to be PAC-3 CRI. https://t.me/dva_majors/15159?single Edit: and here are some more videos. Indeed the intensity is greater than anything we saw yet: https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin Oh, there's official info from the UA side - reportedly 6 Kinzhals were shot down! Along with 3 Iskanders and some other stuff.

UK promised "hundreds of AA missiles" (I'd love these to be SkySabre, but probably more Starstreak/ Martlet) and "hundred of 200+ km attack drones". In Italy there was talk about air defence, meaning probably the SAMP/T, as the rest of their AA equipment is blocked by the perfidious Swiss. BTW, it was announced today that the first battery is already in Ukraine, and in my book takes the place of most likely culprit of the Saturday massacre of VVS near Kyiv. There are also rumours about numerous Centauros being refurbished in the same plant that fixed M109Ls. The huge package from Germany was already discussed. But from all that Zelensky secured during his trip, the most important IMO are declarations of pilot training officially starting in UK (in summer) and in France (immediately!). Funnily, neither of these countries operates F-16, but at least in the UK the training will be "elementary" meaning either completely fresh pilots, or perhaps experienced ones re-training on NATO avionics on Hawks, before being assigned to actual combat aircraft. There is no info from FR at this point, but their training might be more directly focused on Mirage, that FR has dozens to spare. What it means is that, come next year, or even earlier, we will see the new UA airforce entering the fray. Sources re. the aircraft training: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-welcomes-president-zelenskyy-to-the-uk-ahead-of-anticipated-ukrainian-military-surge https://twitter.com/afpfr/status/1658175594004193281

This made me giggle:

There's a new RUSI article about the Storm Shadow. It is rather short, the most important excerpt below: https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/putting-russias-army-shadow-storm

According to Anna Maria Dyner (one of the leading experts on BY in Poland), who quotes her own sources in Belarus, Lukashenka is suffering from myocarditis(inflammation of the hearth muscle) caused by an infection. He's not going to die (not soon anyway) but has to rest and it will take some time until he's back on his feet.

There's some incoming info about Klischivka being liberated. If it's true, it means that the whole "pincer" south of Bakhmut is no more. Prigozhin has to be pissed https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1657414995167133698

There are some speculations/ suggestions that the 4 aircraft that were shot down were in fact one group on a strike mission. Su-34 was carrying the gliding bombs destined for Chernihiv, Su-35 was providing fighter escort and choppers EW support. Makes sense in my opinion, similar strikes were being reported since some time. RU flying these missions repeatedly would be asking for an ambush to happen - add some new capability on UA side (either new SAMs or A2A missiles) and you have a recipe for disaster.

Here's something interesting: And here's more RU stuff burning:

I'd really like to know what modifications were made on these Polish and Slovakian MiG-29s. It took a year to send them, I'm absolutely positive these weren't send there "naked". Thought to make use of the AIM-120 would require fitting and integrating a new radar, a daunting task for sure. All the "skunk works" going on with UA aircraft during this war absolutely deserves a book or two.

There is even more good news today -it seems that the Swiss will finally lift ban on delivery of their weapons to Ukraine! It means ammunition for Gepards, but more importantly Aspide/ Spada/ SkyGuard SHORADs from Italy and Spain can finally be sent too. These are quite numerous and slated for replacement anyway - just a thing to announce during Zelensky's visit in Rome today https://de.euronews.com/2023/05/12/schweiz-waffenlieferungen

Now there's also a Su-25 being mentioned, on top of the 2 MI-8 and Su-34. Edit: Rybar says that it was a Su-35, not Su-25, which makes it even worse. He suggests an ambush by AIM-120 equipped UA fighters as the reason for this carnage (or saboteurs with MANPADS).

There's going to be a moment when these quadcopters that record all the videos will start being equipped with laser designators. One can be carried by the assault team as well. Have a 120mm/81mm mortar on standby firing laser-guided projectiles (or a 155mm, or 70m rocket launcher or...) and the impact on fight like this will be tremendous. All the pieces to make it work are already there.

Some more maps of alleged positions around Bakhmut. Multiple RU telegrams suggest that RU has been pushed out from some/ all positions east of the water reservoir north of the city. If this trend continues, UA might soon reach Soledar, negating whole quarter of RU advance.

An interesting map by col. Korowaj - helps to associate some numbers and names to the theatre of operations:

This guy just decided to quit. Hard not to respect his fatalistic attitude in some way. Also, one can make an argument for mounting an loudspeaker on absolutely every drone in one's disposal, to manage situations like this.

That is something I was pondering in my head since some time. To quote @The_Capt "...precision beats mass, massed precision beats everything". The actual main UA push (if there's one) will have to follow this principle. Some kind of "Shock and Awe", with the goal of the RU house of cards falling apart after a hearty kick being the goal. We can be sure of mass artillery strikes, HIMARSing everything worth expending a rocket, and GLSDB/ SS strikes on everything not in GMLRS range. I'm sure we are about to see the most intense concentration of firepower yet in this war. The Dildo of Consequences seldom arrives lubed, to quote the NAFO doctrine

The main span below which goes the main shipping canal is firmly on the UA side of the strait I wonder if we are going to see the Himar o'clock redux in the upcoming weeks? One or two strikes similar to todays happening every day, while Muscovites in panic mode move everything out of range or try to disperse. BSF fleeing Sevastopol to Novorosyyisk, etc. etc. I doubt UA got enough SS (this is going to be a fun abbreviation going forward ) to hit every important target in range, but the need to mitigate the risk of getting hit is going to mess up with everything they do on the occupied territories. LMAO!!