How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Grey_Fox]

4 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Rouble has stopped plummeting and has in fact been slowly strenghtening since March 7. Is this a sign that the santions are not working?

https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=RUB&view=1M

You can't infer anything from that, market exchange rates can be affected by events in either country, or by events in other countries.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Grey_Fox

[Battlefront.com]

10 hours ago, danfrodo said:

I hope these UKR infantry attacks don't get caught by russian artillery.  They hopefully have enough missiles to fight off armor & helicopters, but arty could be ugly.  Ambushes are a lot safer than attacks, as all us CM folks know.

This is exactly why Ukraine has waited as long as it has to concentrate its forces.  So much damage has been done to Russia's operational capabilities that they should be able to carefully counter attack and hopefully avoid playing against what little strengths are left on the Russian side.

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

1. Kinetic kills: UA tank picks off 2 RA vehicles advancing down a road. Watch the southeast corner of the screen starting around 0:15 of the clip.

For CMx3, will BFC be working up some much bigger new smoke, flames and charred flaming wreck mods/decals, in light of all these live action brew ups?

2.  Vehicle recovery in action:

3.  Good counter battery fire! against amateurishly deployed Russian heavy mortar gunpits. Look at those ammo carriers, out in the open. A WW2 battery could go to town on them, forget the drones....

From the original Telegram feed (autotranslate): 

Guys from 72 OMBR with brothers from the Right Sector destroyed the 122 mm howitzer, D-30 gun and ammunition stockpiles.

And also slightly damaged 2 D-30 and 120 mm mortar. Well, a little, it will not shoot. Well, two infantry fighting vehicles will no longer buzz the residents of Vyshhorod under the windows

Edited March 11, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Battlefront.com]

6 hours ago, Taranis said:

Russian army "propaganda"
 

 

 

If I had time on my hands I'd edit this video, and every other Russian propaganda videos, that have each of these scenes cut to scenes of the same vehicles destroyed and smoldering.  That would be an easy project, but I don't have the time for it.

Steve

[dan/california]

6 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Rouble has stopped plummeting and has in fact been slowly strenghtening since March 7. Is this a sign that the santions are not working?

https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=RUB&view=1M

You need to know a lot more about the market to answer that question. Who is buying, who is selling, what the volumes are, and probably twenty plus other things. The Russian government has basically seized all the hard currency it could reach in the Russian economy, all  bank accounts forcibly converted to rubles and so on. This of course completely impoverished every person and private business in Russia that was functioning much above subsistence level. The Russian Government may be using some of this newly seized foreign currency to defend the ruble in what is left of its currency markets, but it is a clear case of eating your seed corn.  

[DesertFox]

column rolling towards Brest (belarussian - polish border)

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1502311475586686981?s=20&t=RpBM_hooIUT265By4Rf3Yw

Edited March 11, 2022 by DesertFox

[Haiduk]

Russian Forpost UAV (licensed IAI Searcher II) shot down over Zhytomyr

[Bulletpoint]

3 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

column rolling towards Brest (belarussian - polish border)

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1502311475586686981?s=20&t=RpBM_hooIUT265By4Rf3Yw

Not marked with any letters...

[akd]

4 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

column rolling towards Brest (belarussian - polish border)

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1502311475586686981?s=20&t=RpBM_hooIUT265By4Rf3Yw

Belarusian AD battalion?

[Haiduk]

24 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Rouble has stopped plummeting and has in fact been slowly strenghtening since March 7. Is this a sign that the santions are not working?

https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=RUB&view=1M

Central Bank of Russia just burns own reserved to support official exhange rate. But there is almost no free USD as a cash to echsnge. Black market price is around 350 RUB for 1 USD. 

[dan/california]

3 minutes ago, akd said:

Belarusian AD battalion?

was their a single piece of gear that wasn't forty years old?

 

[TheVulture]

9 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

column rolling towards Brest (belarussian - polish border)

If Ukraine are right that Belarus are being pressured into joining Putin's war this evening then maybe they want to beef up their western border in case of NATO action against them.

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, kraze said:

It's not like western companies didn't lose all that already when they left. It's already de facto, just not de jure yet.

So what russians will be left with is a bunch of empty buildings nobody will even be able to rent, what's with one dollar already selling for 1000 rubles right now.

This is the most important thing about the war of seizing assets.  I will simplify this...

UK seizes properties in London, Russia seizes properties in Moscow worth 10x as much.  Both sides decide to liquidate the assets to take the cash value out of the property and put it back into their economies.

The UK puts the properties out on the open market.  Since supply of such properties is constrained and demand is high from buyers all over the world, they will get a good price for them.  There is also no sanctions or concerns about the stability of the UK, constraints on future sale, or ability to physically complete the financial transaction there is no real reduction in value.

The exact opposite is the case in Russia.  The economy is cratered already and getting worse.  Russian companies are getting hammered, so why would they invest in unnecessary properties at a time when they are likely concerned about remaining in business?  What do Oligarchs want with a bunch of empty properties that need to be maintained if they are to hold their value and what value they hold is dubious?  Also, things are likely going to get worse for property values in Russia, so why buy now?  Why not wait until things really go to pieces?  Then there's the problem of liquidity.  The ability for the Russian government, Oligarchs, and corporations to access cash to make these purchases would likely involve assets that are sitting outside of Russia that are frozen at the moment.

Then ask yourself... would you rather be a nation state with $1b in assets that nobody is paying taxes on or spending on upkeep, or would you rather have $10b that nobody is paying taxes on or spending on upkeep?  Anybody in government who deals with "tax acquired properties" can answer this question rather easily.  Hint... less is sometimes better than more!

This is not a symmetrical problem.  This is an unmitigated disaster for Russia and, ironically, the more foreign property they have in their hands the worse it is.

Steve

[DesertFox]

 

 

[DesertFox]

7 minutes ago, akd said:

Belarusian AD battalion?

Maybe. I can´t tell.

[Kinophile]

" ‘The officers started stationing themselves further and further away from the fighting … they are out of radio range at this point, and no one can contact them’.

Which makes them vulnerable to drone/arty strikes, SOF attacks and TD harrassment.

Have Russian EW cadres refrained from a heavier weight of electronic attack to avoid friendly fire against the civilian communications their troops rely on? This theory must be entertained.

RUS crappy tactical comms are vulnerable to their highly effective EW equipment. So the EW units must hold back so that the combat units can fight, but which need the EW units to do their job so that they have secure comms, but if the EW units DO their job then the combat units cannot communicate effectively in unfamiliar terrain.

The irony is so ironic its rusting in real time.

Link

Edited March 11, 2022 by Kinophile

[kraze]

6 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

" ‘The officers started stationing themselves further and further away from the fighting … they are out of radio range at this point, and no one can contact them’.

Which makes them vulnerable to drone/arty strikes, SOF attacks and TD harrassment.

Link

The number of high ranking command stuff they lost in two weeks would make any western president / top ranked military guy retire 10 times over

[BeondTheGrave]

16 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is the most important thing about the war of seizing assets.  I will simplify this...

UK seizes properties in London, Russia seizes properties in Moscow worth 10x as much.  Both sides decide to liquidate the assets to take the cash value out of the property and put it back into their economies.

The UK puts the properties out on the open market.  Since supply of such properties is constrained and demand is high from buyers all over the world, they will get a good price for them.  There is also no sanctions or concerns about the stability of the UK, constraints on future sale, or ability to physically complete the financial transaction there is no real reduction in value.

The exact opposite is the case in Russia.  The economy is cratered already and getting worse.  Russian companies are getting hammered, so why would they invest in unnecessary properties at a time when they are likely concerned about remaining in business?  What do Oligarchs want with a bunch of empty properties that need to be maintained if they are to hold their value and what value they hold is dubious?  Also, things are likely going to get worse for property values in Russia, so why buy now?  Why not wait until things really go to pieces?  Then there's the problem of liquidity.  The ability for the Russian government, Oligarchs, and corporations to access cash to make these purchases would likely involve assets that are sitting outside of Russia that are frozen at the moment.

Then ask yourself... would you rather be a nation state with $1b in assets that nobody is paying taxes on or spending on upkeep, or would you rather have $10b that nobody is paying taxes on or spending on upkeep?  Anybody in government who deals with "tax acquired properties" can answer this question rather easily.  Hint... less is sometimes better than more!

This is not a symmetrical problem.  This is an unmitigated disaster for Russia and, ironically, the more foreign property they have in their hands the worse it is.

Steve

There is one more wrinkle to the asset seizure issue. The reason why Russians invested in the US, UK, EU, etc in the first place is the same reason why oligarch around the world do it. The US, UK, and EU wont seize your property unless they really really have to. I mean how long have people been clamoring for these countries to do something about Russia and Chinese buyers? Real estate is a solid investment in safe western markets. Even if you have a 0% ROI, as long as you dont lose money you have an asset that Putin et al cannot touch. 

Everything in Moscow is subject to Putin's rules. If he wants to squeeze an oligarch he can do that. Maybe an apartment catches fire. Or the company suddenly decides to force a sale. Or the Duma passes a law capping real estate investments at $1mil USD. Whatever. For oligarchs Russia is not a safe investment. Being forced to invested in Russia will give Putin tremendous control over billions in oligarch wealth. Maybe the oligarchs will tolerate that, or maybe they wont. 

[The_Capt]

5 hours ago, Kinophile said:

@Haiduk @Battlefront.com @kraze @The_Capt

So my impression is that:

• In the North UKR forces are in decent shape, pushing back locally and constantly fighting, but vulnerable to massed, concentrated assault (which RUS seems to be building for). They have the shortest supply lines, the political center of gravity and excellent terrain for large scale defense (large flood plains, cities, the river to break up the RUS front). This is the beating heart of Ukrainian national defense and will be the base for long-term resistance or counter-attack.

 

• In the Center East, UKR forces are holding on, but are not the center of gravity of the UKR defense - they're getting enough to hold but not push back. They MUST hold in order to evacuate the South East region forces shortly. If they collapse then the SE forces will also collapse by default, leading to mass-scramble by UKR units to escape the kettle. And that won't be pretty at all at all.

 

• In the South East UKR forces are very much on the back foot, falling back and have suffered heavy losses. They are still coherent, still have some form of regional command cohesion but have lost battalion-level initiative and are purely reactive, while still highly motivated and effective at company and below. They have the most vulnerable supply lines and are in real danger of being snipped off as a region.

How's that reading?

 

Well the first thing to remember when looking at UKR forces is that there are layers here.  Unlike the Russian forces who, for the most part, try to control where they are with LOCs back to Belarus or Russia, these are horizontal forces and relationships.

The Ukrainians have vertical forces and relationships in addition to horizontal ones.  So take any map of the conflict:

This one from wikipedia - So the interplay of red and yellow with tac signs is horizontal.  And from this it does look like the Russians are trying to do some operational pinching which would normally point to some trouble for the UA.  The reality is though that the map is really three dimensional.  Vertically there is a foundation of local and regional support and combat power in the form of an ever growing resistance (I hear a lot of western experts say "insurgency", I think I even used the term early once and this is inaccurate, a resistance is really something else from a lot of directions).  Further, for every day that the Russians bog down, that vertical resistance gets better armed, better organized and better prepared. 

So what?  Well from a Russian viewpoint that vertical layer underneath means two very bad things: support and friction.  Ukrainian force will be able to draw support from that layer in the form of manpower and logistics.  This means the Russians are now force to make those "pinches" air tight, which is extremely labour intensive.  For example, locals can push fuel and ammo into a pocket, through all the backroads and farmers fields, which they know very well, and continue to supply fighting power to seemingly cut off troops.  The level of control required for that is extreme, as the US learned in Vietnam.

Second is friction.  Having even low tech resistance everywhere is exhausting in terms of constant attrition and morale.  Every move you make is watched and reported on, every road move is like the freakin Memphis Bell mission over Germany - someone is going to get killed and we are all hoping it isn't us.  Logistical lines need to be iron-cladded.  And this will inevitably lead to over use of force on civilians which does nothing for the information war.   

So in this sense it is really hard to judge where the Ukrainians stand by using the pins on the mapboard.  They have already gone hybrid.  For example, how many major tank battles have we heard about?  There have no doubt been clashes but the Ukrainians are already fighting like Comanches with drones right now offensively and it is working for them.  Defensively, again layers, they can dig in and be very difficult to dig out, and even if you do, you still have a deeper resistance to deal with in the civilian population.

My assessment matches what we have been seeing all over mainstream.  The Russians have stalled...bad.  This was not a consolidation or re-org or clever trap, it was a significant stalling an a systemic level going all the way back through those LOCs.  The Ukrainians have created so much friction on the Russian advance that the war machine looks like it broke.  They are now staging local c-attacks and very visible attrition actions from what I can see. 

The question the remains is "can the Russians re-org/re-boot and somehow regain the operational offensive?" This, particularly around Kyiv.  Or are we going to see what I call "zombie muscle twitches" as formation commanders try and look busy to get the heat off them that is coming from Moscow?  These can even seem dramatic but they do not translate into any real operational gains.  Don't know, a lot of opinions out there for either side.

Few things I do notice:

- Russians are not even talking about Western Ukraine anymore.  If the aim was to take the whole perogy, Kyiv is more symbolic.  In order to do that "entire Ukraine" thing, one has to cut off support from the West.   Which really means that all this prom-night groping in the East - so sweaty but not really going nowhere - is missing the point entirely once we accept that Ukrainians will very likely keep on fighting both conventionally and unconventionally even after Kyiv falls.    Why there was not a very sharp attack from Western Belarus at what it the real strategic Center of Gravity in all this, Lviv, to seal up the western end of Ukraine, including the Carpathians, was the first sign that the Russians did not think this through.

- Operationally, the Russians have still not established pre-conditions and we are over two weeks in.  Air, info, electronic, cognitive/decision and logistical superiority have all been a hard fail.  For example, Russian Air Forces should be hitting logistical resupply from the west 24/7 - an air campaign for the history books- and they are largely tepid and absent.  They need to work on that or this grind is going to be much longer, to the point they very may well not be able to sustain.

- Operationally, the Ukrainians are not showing signs of buckling in all those pre-conditions areas. There is no doubt erosion but they still can find, fix and finish Russians and even do local offensive actions. All the while they coordinate and communicate effectively and are still able to push support in from the West as they get better and better prepared. 

So in summary, keep an eye on that vertical Ukrainian dimension because it is decisive and something needs to demonstrate the Russians are even able to set what should have been initial conditions and I may start to buy in on the "Russian Grind" strategy.  Until then we are at Balkan-No-Step, everyone digs in and tries to influence the negotiation table, or Death March to Moscow as the Russian military simply quits.  I mean the Russians do have the numbers for the Russian Grind but that is on paper and looking at the horizontal dimension only.  This is unfolding like a European version of that anecdote from Afghanistan, "Russians have all the fancy watches but the Ukrainians have all the time".      

Edited March 11, 2022 by The_Capt

[kraze]

48 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Rouble has stopped plummeting and has in fact been slowly strenghtening since March 7. Is this a sign that the santions are not working?

https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=RUB&view=1M

It didn't. Whatever number russians announce it's worth is irrelevant.

Why?

Because russian government forbid banks from selling dollars to population. Every USD account is in faux dollars now that will be forcibly converted into rubles at 110 rubles a piece when trying to withdraw.

No russian can buy dollars (or euros) legally anymore.

And on black market the real money, paper dollar is already being sold as high as 1000 rub in Moscow with Haiduk's mentioned 350 being the best deal you can get.

Ruble is over.

 

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

@Haiduk @Battlefront.com @kraze @The_Capt

So my impression is that:

• In the South East UKR forces are very much on the back foot, falling back and have suffered heavy losses. They are still coherent, still have some form of regional command cohesion but have lost battalion-level initiative and are purely reactive, while still highly motivated and effective at company and below. They have the most vulnerable supply lines and are in real danger of being snipped off as a region.

How's that reading?

Good post, here's a data point. These tanks aren't in combat positions, so assume they were hiding (unsuccessfully) from air strikes. No sign of 'captured' though, look like wrecks.

Edited March 11, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Kinophile]

Thanks @The_Capt!

Excellent appraisal, especially the reminder to think 3D sociologically.

The Irish War of Independence followed a similar path in miniature, with the BRIT military having nominal free run of the country (horizontal) but the vertical support of the populace steadily constricting their freedom of maneuver and rpaidly eroding any battlefield successes. There are countless stories of locals protecting and hiding the IRA, hindering BRIT S&D efforts. I think its well known and accepted at home that popular support was why we won. It enabled the military and intelligence successes, amplifiying the effects and solidifying the gains.

 

[sburke]

While Russia is squabbling internally about who to blame and trying to figure out what to do next, Zelensky is keeping Ukrainians eye on the end game and the will to fight.

Zelensky says Ukraine has 'reached a strategic turning point' in its fight against Russia (msn.com)

 

[The_Capt]

[From "elsewhere", apologize for repeat of some terms - I only have some many clever turns of phrase in the bank]

Can Russia win a war of attrition?  I think that is the question the Russians are asking themselves right now.  My assessment is "probably not" based on a couple dimensions:

- Quantitative - Russia is quickly coming up on 20% of declared invasion forces lost. As of this morning, Oryx is reporting 18 BTGs worth of tanks gone from the Russian side, they cannot sustain that indefinitely.  On paper Russia has 12500 tanks but some serious questions as to how much of that fleet is actually in any state of readiness need to be asked. Russian assessment is 200 BTGs in total or there abouts,  so they likely have between 2-3000 actual battle ready tanks or 25% of their total fleet.  I would think they may have another 2-3000 they can spool up, but from what we have seen about corruption I am willing to bet half that 12500 are basically wrecks maintainer-wise or museum pieces and will not be seen in this fight.  This extends well beyond tanks obviously and the Russian logistics losses are even worse, in what was already recognized as a weak system. 

   In the end it comes down to loss ratios, right now assessments are somewhere between 3:1 and 4:1 with Ukrainians being the "1".  In infantry numbers the Russians and Ukrainians are near parity in trained troops and Russia is upside down in manpower numbers once you take into account Ukraine has conducted general mobilization (listed as high as  900,000) while Russia has not.  Equipment wise, Russia has the recognized advantage but that is rapidly diminishing.  At those loss ratios Russia will likely lose it advantage as an offensive force (e.g. trying to keep 3:1 in their favour) fairly soon, the may already have.  Either way they need to reduce that loss ratio substantially to quantitatively have a hope of attriting the UA to the point of collapse. 

  Further if you look at the Oryx page an even more disturbing trend appears to have occurred, the Ukrainians have made a "net gain" in MBTs since this war started.  They have lost "46" tanks (and here we only have social media which is likely tightly skewed) while having captured "83".  So even if the Ukrainians have lost double what is being reported they are still at something like 9 tanks as a net loss.  This skews the loss ratios into crazy directions.  This is not just for MBTs, it carries over to just about every vehicle system.

- Qualitative - the Russians need to learn and "get better" faster than the Ukrainians and there is very little evidenced of this.  They will learn and adapt, war is Darwinian that way, however, the Ukrainians are producing veterans and evolving as well.  The question is what is the competitive equation?  The Ukrainians came in with a serious advantage (e.g. home ground, western backing) and appear to be learning very fast as we see integration of UAVs with ambushes etc.  Russia may be learning but it is much slower.  As late as yesterday we see complete cluster-f#$*s in Russian columns as they get hit, best thing for that one Russian unit on CNN was the commander getting killed.  In the logistics battle the Russians need to learn faster and better than the Ukrainians are learning how to kill Russian logistics, again not seeing it. 

Looking at those two pieces together, it is not looking good.  I mean Russia can keep conducting zombie muscle twitches for some time but tying those into some operational gains is a long shot.  As to "grinding", I think this is actually going the other way, Russian will can only be sustained off the power of one man for so long, especially one that does not have an ideology on his side.  Everyone keep wondering if Russia is willing to "double down" or "go all in", when in reality the Ukrainians are already there.  So when we get to attrition of will, the thing that really matters, time is also not on the Russian side.  Things are in balance, but I go by "follow the options" and right now Russian spaces are compressing while Ukraine is sustaining theirs, and in some places expanding.   The real battle of attrition is in that space and one of "how long can the Russians last?"

Edited March 11, 2022 by The_Capt

[sburke]

Captured Russian Pilot Says He Was Ordered to Hit Civilian Targets (msn.com)

Have not seen video yet of the actual press conference.