How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Kinophile]

The chat here re UKR smart hybrid doctrine vs RUS "dumb hybrid" is very interesting, especially the discussions re how UKR would do v Western doctrine ( because I assume Russia will at some point mimic the UKR approach, in done form).

I would note, though, that for all the terrible carnage, Russia essentially gave Ukraine the only conditions possible for UA to survive the first 3 days.

Let's not kid ourselves - RuAF was not doomed to fail at this invasion. It just had a really, really, really ****ty plan. 

Give it a good plan, give it proper operational surprise, give it proper Air campaign and support, push the d-day 3 months into late spring/early summer, use that time to properly agitate and confuse the UKR socio-political sphere, give it hypersonic decapitation strikes against UKR military leadership, give it's SF unts proper embedding time, give it proper destruction/subversion of UKR internet....and we would be talking about Putin's lightning war in Ukraine.

ALL of the above is technically feasible and even routinely trained for by RuAF

UKR is just incredibly lucky all the wrong Russian leaders were making all the wrong military decisions for all the wrong political reasons.

Put some smarter people in there, have less emotional ego driving everything and this invasion would be very very different.

Russia really screwed up but it is not done yet.

 

[Vet 0369]

3 hours ago, TheVulture said:

Continuing the Belarussian mystery machine, military vehicles with identification markers on the move - away from the border with Ukraine and towards Brest on the Polish border. Plus 11 staff from the Belarussian embassy in Ukraine have left the country, including the ambassador.

 

 

Two possibilities:

(1) The diplomatic staff and Ambassador don’t want to become “collateral casualties when the Russians “try” to raze Kyiv,

(2) There is about to be a “change of Government” in Belarus.

[Haiduk]

5 minutes ago, Homo_Ferricus said:

Liveumap has been painting a lot of areas, namely in the south of the country and north of Luhansk with solid red. I've noticed a LOT less footage of supply convoy ambush aftermath and destroyed trucks in the OSINT sphere. Wondering a few things:

• DLNR and Russian auxiliaries mobilized to guard supply routes--is this having an effect on Ukrainian capacity to disrupt Russian supply convoys?
• Drones/helicopters increasingly tasked with supply route patrols?
• Has there been a UA military/govt directive to avoid publicizing supply convoy attacks for OPSEC or other reasons?
• Is public/TD resolve to launch effective rear-echelon attacks starting to wane, as Russian rear security slowly improves and war-weariness begins to set in?

@Haiduk Wonder if you have any answers to some of these points. Of course would be greatly appreciated as has all your input thus far.

I regularly see the videos of small convoys ambushes, but I post here only most interesting things. One truck or lonely MTLB is not already such interesting, this is more routine work ) 

Though, the enemy really try to control the security of roads. For this they use either servicemen of rear units (for example, even musicizns of military orchestra) or mobilized LDPR conscripts. 

We really have a directive about "fog of war" - the results of some operations and clashes is issuing with 1-2-3 days delay.

[Battlefront.com]

More destroyed Russian equipment out in fields waiting for farmers to liberate them:

I've been struck by the seemingly random collection of the vehicles in such ambushes.  A couple of tanks here, a couple of AD systems there, some artillery over here, a couple of supply vehicles a bit over there, etc.  Are such columns replacement vehicles for front line units that are being moved together for security reasons?

Steve

[Pablius]

Do we know how this high ranking Russian officers are being killed?

• Do they happen to walk into an artillery barrage?
• Are they leading from the front "Willam Wallace Style"?
• Is there an Ultra like level of intelligence and the capability to act on it in real time by the Ukrainian special ops/drones?

It is really something impressive to follow

[Battlefront.com]

9 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

The chat here re UKR smart hybrid doctrine vs RUS "dumb hybrid" is very interesting, especially the discussions re how UKR would do v Western doctrine ( because I assume Russia will at some point mimic the UKR approach, in done form).

I would note, though, that for all the terrible carnage, Russia essentially gave Ukraine the only conditions possible for UA to survive the first 3 days.

Yes, it seems that Russia decided to play "rock" and the Ukrainians were sitting there with "paper" at the ready.  If Russia had instead played "scissors" we'd be looking at a totally different war.

The thing is... I'm pretty sure the Russians were only capable of playing "rock".  So I don't think the Ukrainians got lucky as much as they correctly anticipated Russian capabilities and came up with an appropriate counter for them.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, Pablius said:

Do we know how this high ranking Russian officers are being killed?

• Do they happen to walk into an artillery barrage?
• Are they leading from the front "Willam Wallace Style"?
• Is there an Ultra like level of intelligence and the capability to act on it in real time by the Ukrainian special ops/drones?

It is really something impressive to follow

From the little we know they seem to be mostly dying in artillery strikes.  There was some talk of one of the first Major Generals being taken out by a sniper, but that absolutely wasn't verified and has an odor of fiction.

It is probable that at least some of these deaths are the result of Ukrainian intel on when/where to strike.

Whatever is killing them, these guys are very close to the frontlines.  Experts who study how the Russian chains of command work have speculated that they are more forward than they ordinarily would be and the possible reason for that is they are having to sort out problems personally.

Steve

[womble]

5 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I've been struck by the seemingly random collection of the vehicles in such ambushes.  A couple of tanks here, a couple of AD systems there, some artillery over here, a couple of supply vehicles a bit over there, etc. 

Could it just be that these were the elements destroyed or m-killed out of a more rationally-structured larger column, and the other pieces of it that survived moved on or withdrew?

[Battlefront.com]

13 minutes ago, womble said:

Could it just be that these were the elements destroyed or m-killed out of a more rationally-structured larger column, and the other pieces of it that survived moved on or withdrew?

I'm sure this is only a portion of the column, so that's probably part of it.  However, it still seems a rather odd mixture of tactical ground fighting vehicles with more specialized support vehicles.  In some cases the wrecks are next to each other, which indicates that was their march order.

One theory that just popped into my head is separate columns are getting intermingled at intersections due to poor traffic control.  Another is that the columns started out well organized but after various scares or attacks are not being properly reorganized before continuing.

Steve

[ASL Veteran]

27 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

Two possibilities:

(1) The diplomatic staff and Ambassador don’t want to become “collateral casualties when the Russians “try” to raze Kyiv,

(2) There is about to be a “change of Government” in Belarus.

I believe most, if not all, embassies have moved from Kiev to Lvov.

[kraze]

40 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Fairly lengthy article from Radio Free Europe, complete with on-the-ground reporting, of Russian casualties moving through Belarus:

https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-morgues-russian-soldiers/31760144.html?fbclid=IwAR0fJup5am2uHO6K2v7iknokZOiSkSzc6F22-5uWhbOXAwZhlId3wXLW_Uw

According to a source working at the main hospital they have already loaded 2500 Russian dead onto special trains headed to Russia.  The trains were reported on by several sources more than a week or even two ago.

Taking the number at face value, we have to keep in mind that this only represents the KIA from the operations around Kiev, it does not include all the dead left on the battlefield (or scattered, as it might be), or those who die from their wounds later.  And it might be that this is not the only facility that is handling dead coming out of the Kiev operations, though it probably is.

Steve

They have two in Belarus. The one with 2500 mentioned is in Gomel, there is another big soldier morgue in Mozyr.

Edited March 19, 2022 by kraze

[ASL Veteran]

22 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

From the little we know they seem to be mostly dying in artillery strikes.  There was some talk of one of the first Major Generals being taken out by a sniper, but that absolutely wasn't verified and has an odor of fiction.

It is probable that at least some of these deaths are the result of Ukrainian intel on when/where to strike.

Whatever is killing them, these guys are very close to the frontlines.  Experts who study how the Russian chains of command work have speculated that they are more forward than they ordinarily would be and the possible reason for that is they are having to sort out problems personally.

Steve

Given the poor Russian communications security and all the satellite coverage available to the Ukrainians (from US and others) I would assume that it would not be very challenging to identify HQ locations.  Even in WW2 HQ units had to be very careful and were regularly targeted when not exhibiting communications discipline.  I imagine that would still apply to modern and probably be even more of an issue.

[The_Capt]

34 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

The chat here re UKR smart hybrid doctrine vs RUS "dumb hybrid" is very interesting, especially the discussions re how UKR would do v Western doctrine ( because I assume Russia will at some point mimic the UKR approach, in done form).

I would note, though, that for all the terrible carnage, Russia essentially gave Ukraine the only conditions possible for UA to survive the first 3 days.

Let's not kid ourselves - RuAF was not doomed to fail at this invasion. It just had a really, really, really ****ty plan. 

Give it a good plan, give it proper operational surprise, give it proper Air campaign and support, push the d-day 3 months into late spring/early summer, use that time to properly agitate and confuse the UKR socio-political sphere, give it hypersonic decapitation strikes against UKR military leadership, give it's SF unts proper embedding time, give it proper destruction/subversion of UKR internet....and we would be talking about Putin's lightning war in Ukraine.

ALL of the above is technically feasible and even routinely trained for by RuAF

UKR is just incredibly lucky all the wrong Russian leaders were making all the wrong military decisions for all the wrong political reasons.

Put some smarter people in there, have less emotional ego driving everything and this invasion would be very very different.

Russia really screwed up but it is not done yet.

 

So if Russia had set the pre-conditions I suspect thing could have gone differently, to a point.  I still think it likely the quick war would have failed but Russia may have circled and even taken Kyiv.  I think we will be seeing debates on how this war could have gone years.

However, what is more important is the technology that the UA was able to exploit to do what they did.  The trends on that technology are accelerating not plateauing.  Now how fast defensive/counter tech will be developed is going to be interesting.  I ask myself, what is the UA had unmanned ground vehicles?  What if they had field networks that were impossible to destroy.  What if they had fully autonomous UAVs, flying minefields?  None of that is sci-fi, it is doable right now.

Anyway, it has got everyone’s attention that’s for sure.

[Vet 0369]

2 hours ago, Haiduk said:

I was a NATO membership supporter even more than EU membership. But now I dissapointed in NATO, Turned out this is old scared bureaurocratic structure which can only fight in local conflicts with weak opponents like Libya, for example, but already not capable to withstand the own main opponent, for which it was created. Mainly not in military sence (though....), but in political. Not only because NATO officials scare "to escalate", but because Gemany, France, Italy - the countries, whose elites connected closely with Russian business (read "political elites") never allow Ukraine to be a member - neither NATO, and much likely EU. Many people here will tell me about NATO will fight in the case of Russian attack  on Baltic states, but I say - I doubt. 

There is a good if Ukraine become a full EU member for now, but... "Old Europe" is under great influence of "left-progressive" ideology, which never be accepted in Eastern Europe, especially in traditionally conservative Poland and Ukraine. Contradictions inside EU between Westrn and Eastern Europe memebers will be grow, like and probably in EU part of NATO

So, sooner or later we will need new military and political allince. UK+Poland+Baltic states+Ukraine ? Maybe.

While I can completely understand your evolved feelings about NATO, as I understand it, NATO has it’s hands are tied by it’s own charter. It cannot enter a conflict between non-NATO members. I believe that Libya was a different situation. I think that NATO was able to set up the “no-fly zone” and intercede because the Government of Libya bombed a U.S. air carrier over Scotland. That would undoubtedly have triggered an “Article V” of the NATO Charter, allowing such an action.

What really infuriates me, as a U.S. Citizen, and one whose family has lived within 15 miles of where we live now, for just shy of 400 years, is how the U.S. failed to abide by it’s 1994 agreement to protect Ukraine in 2014 by the weasel words of “well, we can’t be sure the little green men are Russian.” What really worries me is that the SAME person that handled that response is handling this invasion of Ukraine when there is no doubt of the aggressor, and STILL refuses to meet it’s obligations of the 1994 agreement. That disgusts me.

[kraze]

38 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

The chat here re UKR smart hybrid doctrine vs RUS "dumb hybrid" is very interesting, especially the discussions re how UKR would do v Western doctrine ( because I assume Russia will at some point mimic the UKR approach, in done form).

I would note, though, that for all the terrible carnage, Russia essentially gave Ukraine the only conditions possible for UA to survive the first 3 days.

Let's not kid ourselves - RuAF was not doomed to fail at this invasion. It just had a really, really, really ****ty plan. 

Give it a good plan, give it proper operational surprise, give it proper Air campaign and support, push the d-day 3 months into late spring/early summer, use that time to properly agitate and confuse the UKR socio-political sphere, give it hypersonic decapitation strikes against UKR military leadership, give it's SF unts proper embedding time, give it proper destruction/subversion of UKR internet....and we would be talking about Putin's lightning war in Ukraine.

ALL of the above is technically feasible and even routinely trained for by RuAF

UKR is just incredibly lucky all the wrong Russian leaders were making all the wrong military decisions for all the wrong political reasons.

Put some smarter people in there, have less emotional ego driving everything and this invasion would be very very different.

Russia really screwed up but it is not done yet.

 

Russia never ever fought smart.

Remember - for 30 years russians fought only civilians or lightly armed fighters. They never fought a real army, yes even in 2014 in Ukraine the army was mostly units chaotically put together, some coming to war with their own hunting weapons.

Ukraine however fought the war against a real army and in 8 years learned how russians operate.

Russia came to war expecting to fight like they always do - throw cannon meat in metal boxes at the problem until the problem is resolved.

The sole fact that looting food is an official order should tell you a lot about how they adapt to sudden issues. E.g. they don't. And, hopefully, will never learn how to.

[TheVulture]

39 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

I would note, though, that for all the terrible carnage, Russia essentially gave Ukraine the only conditions possible for UA to survive the first 3 days.

Let's not kid ourselves - RuAF was not doomed to fail at this invasion. It just had a really, really, really ****ty plan. 

Before the  invasion started,  when all the discussion was of whether this was a bluff or not,  I posted a quote I'd read (might not have been in this thread) that if Russia were planning on invading,  they seemed to be doing everything they could to maximise their chance of failure.  And they've largely continued in the same vein.

[Haiduk]

51 minutes ago, Homo_Ferricus said:

@Haiduk Wonder if you have any answers to some of these points. Of course would be greatly appreciated as has all your input thus far.

I want to add. There is time of massive invasion and Russian advance is finished. All 100 % and already even some more Russian troops entered in Ukraine. They stuck and turn to defense or conduct heavy assault actions or active probes around some cities. So, there is a time of large columnes is gone until no decisive advance. Only small groups of vehicles now on the road 

Several examples of ambushes of last days:

Chernihiv oblast - abandoned BMP-2 and MTLB

Night hunting of SOF results

Edited March 19, 2022 by Haiduk

[kraze]

4 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

Before the  invasion started,  when all the discussion was of whether this was a bluff or not,  I posted a quote I'd read (might not have been in this thread) that if Russia were planning on invading,  they seemed to be doing everything they could to maximise their chance of failure.  And they've largely continued in the same vein.

Their main mistake was thinking they can occupy and hold a 40 mln country with 180k troops.

Especially when they had to plug holes in those 180k with conscripts and cops.

Even USSR had to keep a 500k occupation force here in 1920s and do three country-wide genocides (1921, 1932, 1947) to finally break the resistance.

[c3k]

52 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

, give it proper Air campaign and support,

 

^^^

In Gulf War, allied air was able to create "gorilla" packages of ~80 aircraft and push in and destroy their targets.

Russian air rarely practices more than a two-ship and the largest (parades excepted) would be a four-ship.

It takes a lot of time and money to create proficiency in planning and executing a true air campaign, from the HQ down to the individual pilot. A -lot- of time and money...

[Battlefront.com]

It appears that Russia might be thinking that assaulting Kiev directly isn't going to work.  Various reports are stating, and in some cases showing via drone footage, that Russians are digging in deep.  Digging in takes a lot of effort, including moving around scares engineering resources.  This is not something that is done for short term benefit.

https://militaryland.net/ukraine/invasion-day-23-summary/

The two reasons you'd want to do this are:

1. you do not have any near term chances of moving forward, but you don't want to withdraw
2. you want to establish a safe starting point for a renewed offensive by other forces

We do have the equivalent of 6 BTGs of Marines newly arrived in Belarus.  This could be to either reinforce the first possibility or to act as the offensive punch for the second possibility.

Steve

[dan/california]

I am fairly sure the Russian guy in question is well around the fascist bend, but his view of the military situations seems very close to board consensus that the Russians best scenario now is losing slow and ugly.

[Vet 0369]

1 hour ago, sburke said:

Nothing says we are just fighting a limited 'special operation" against a few Nazis like launching the most advanced expensive weapon you have.

I wonder how they spin the deaths of so many generals when they are saying they have lost less than 500 men so far.

Perhaps it isn’t the UKR forces that are killing those high-ranking officers. Perhaps it’s Putin’s own “Operatives” killing them for their failures, or to eliminate the threat of a coup, “ala Stalin?”

[dan/california]

 

4 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

It appears that Russia might be thinking that assaulting Kiev directly isn't going to work.  Various reports are stating, and in some cases showing via drone footage, that Russians are digging in deep.  Digging in takes a lot of effort, including moving around scares engineering resources.  This is not something that is done for short term benefit.

https://militaryland.net/ukraine/invasion-day-23-summary/

The two reasons you'd want to do this are:

1. you do not have any near term chances of moving forward, but you don't want to withdraw
2. you want to establish a safe starting point for a renewed offensive by other forces

We do have the equivalent of 6 BTGs of Marines newly arrived in Belarus.  This could be to either reinforce the first possibility or to act as the offensive punch for the second possibility.

Steve

If Putin gets his entire empire wide emergency reserve bogged down in the Ukrainian mud, while his economy burns down to slag, there ARE going to be rebellions other places. 

[sburke]

2 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

Perhaps it isn’t the UKR forces that are killing those high-ranking officers. Perhaps it’s Putin’s own “Operatives” killing them for their failures, or to eliminate the threat of a coup, “ala Stalin?”

so far most of them seem to be either being killed in arty strikes or some UKR counteroffensives.  That officer from the 45th is the only indication we have so far of Russia removing people for failure.  That and that Putin's inner circle is supposedly no longer appearing in media with him. if Putin wanted to eliminate them, I think it'd be more in the style of making them scapegoats publicly to shift blame for this thing bogging down.  There has been a little of that, I am guessing we'll see more as this drags on.

[kraze]

5 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

Perhaps it isn’t the UKR forces that are killing those high-ranking officers. Perhaps it’s Putin’s own “Operatives” killing them for their failures, or to eliminate the threat of a coup, “ala Stalin?”

Are you saying that some kinda russian black ops, who always completely and royally mess up every thing they do (see literally anything in Europe) - would they suddenly be that smooth in killing their own high profile commanders, who are surrounded by troops at all times?