How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Haiduk]

Russian tank is ass-knocked by Stugna-P of 128th mountan-assault brigade. Judging of missile flight time, the range was about 4000-4300 m

And here a short video of combat work of this brigade, who asked about footage of Ukrainain regular units.

 

Edited April 21, 2022 by Haiduk

[The_Capt]

43 minutes ago, Nicdain said:

He just wanted to lay waste on a neighbor country in order to deny or delay its development and welfare. It's a barbaric act, perpetrated by an evil, sick man.

If he just wanted Donbass, why kill civilians/military and destroy properties, as well as send to death ten of thousands of his own soldiers in the useless Kyiv operation? So in Putin mind, life have so little if not no value?

I am not an expert in military operations, but each and every day this war makes very little sense.

I am an expert on military operations and this war makes very little sense in both purpose and execution.

[dan/california]

10 minutes ago, Offshoot said:

I read an opinion that people around Putin want the war to continue in order to cover their backsides after their failings.

"Putin’s domestic political base consists of two rival power blocs: the intelligence apparatus and the military. Both have suffered major blows to their credibility during the war. However, as they continue to jockey for Putin’s favour, both also have a vested interest in prolonging the conflict in some form."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/20/putin-ukraine-russia-humiliated-military-intelligence-war

 

This makes a great deal of sense to me. Once the war actually ends the Russian military/FSB are going to have spectacular circular firing squad, as everyone tries to blame everyone else for bleeping this up, and stealing so much the army was dysfunctional. A lot of the operations now may be more about different factions gaining an advantageous position for the post war internal grudge match.

It is worth pointing out that Putin looks EXTREMELY unhealthy in the video of him and Shoigu  that released in the last few hours. So the winning the post war blame game also positions your side for the post Putin power struggle. Since absolutely every organ of the Russian state has failed spectacularly in Ukraine so far I doubt they are ready to quit yet. Somebody needs some sort of actual success to hang their hat on. It is worth at least hoping that the incipient conflict within the Russian state apparatus will make their war "planning" even more dysfunctional.

The question of what happens if Putin drops dead of natural causes in the next week deserves some thought. Does the succession struggle lead to an immediate Russian withdrawal, or a doubling down on the war to prove the war factions fitness to rule post Putin Russia?

 

[Battlefront.com]

7 hours ago, Fenris said:

More crowd sourced intel...

 

Interesting!  When we saw the drone footage of the aftermath I was wondering what the structure had been.  Now I know AND it's incredible to hear that the owner called in the strike.

Steve

[Combatintman]

3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Interesting!  When we saw the drone footage of the aftermath I was wondering what the structure had been.  Now I know AND it's incredible to hear that the owner called in the strike.

Steve

His wife had probably insisted on a pink bathroom or something ... 

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

I know we are in early days here but this whole thing has a half-hearted feel to it.  I am left wondering why Russia is going through all this theatre when it can simply draw new lines on the ground, shift the goal-post and come up with whatever fabricated "victory" it wants, just like Putin did in Mariupol.

Re-draw the lines on the map and declare the DNR/LNR as "free", point to this strategic land bridge as a major victory and come up with some BS narrative that "this was the plan all along".  I also suspect that the Russian higher-ups already know this hence the somewhat tepid start to this whole thing.

I don't think Putin is in a corner on this, he is just trying to figure out where to paint the arbitrary line of "victory".  This has been a failing on the western analysis side from Day 1, we continue to see this war through our own lens.  What this operation should look like in western frameworks must be what Russia is doing - big sweeps, dramatic deep operations.  What victory looks like, again in western terms, and projecting it on the Russians. 

I am getting the sinking sense that all Putin needed to do was get into Ukraine and shoot up the place, and he could spin it as the greatest victory since the Great Patriotic War.

    

I have some sympathy for the latter perspective but it's very early days yet. A "victory" announcement by Putin has short term benefits in the Russian political sphere but the truth is that sanctions aren't going away and the Russian economy is not even close to as bad as it's going to be in six months. Additionally, the EU/US are not going to suddenly stop supporting Ukraine militarily and Ukraine isn't going to accept whatever lines Putin decides on. The fighting will continue regardless of whatever fiat he attempts to invoke. In short, this is going to be a frozen conflict that works against the regime in Moscow rather than for it. 

Moscow's original calculation was in part that it needed to get control of Ukraine before Ukraine was militarily too powerful to dominate. That ship looks like it has now definitively sailed. Another major objective was to reconstitute the Soviet sphere, at least in part, so that domination of the near abroad would be assured. Given where Finland/Sweden and the EU are now going, quite the opposite has happened. Putin can say whatever he wants to but the reality of all of this will be all too clear to anyone who cares to notice and the braying fools on Russian state TV aren't going to change that.

Edited April 21, 2022 by billbindc

[dan/california]

1 minute ago, billbindc said:

In short, this is going to be a frozen conflict that works against the regime in Kyiv rather than for it. 

 

Did you mean the regime in Moscow?

[Hapless]

2 hours ago, Degsy said:

Interview with captured Russian airborne soldier.

Good find man, this is really interesting!

Haven't gotten all the way through yet, but when he starts talking about what they did when they reached Hostomel, it's so fascinating to listen to someone describing the blunt end of a battle drill army.

"We came off the helicopter so we made a horseshoe formation- because that's the drill."
"The commander told us to hold a position, so we dug in- because that's the drill."

Drills are not tactics, but they're easier to teach and judge. To train a platoon attack, go through the checklist from the manual, tick the boxes, training complete, well done, schedule again the next time the qualification comes up.

Free play exercises- where you *use* drills to practice tactics- aren't just harder to pull off effectively, but harder to justify in a budget because you can't be certain of the result. When you've got 3 platoons to qualify and a limited time to do it in, it's difficult to explain how you spent x hours on an exercise where all one of those platoons does is sit there, or where another one gets wiped out and the other is the only one that passed.

I don't think I've ever seen anything from the RU side approaching a free-play kind of exercise. Things like Zapad are most operational/strategic and the filmed chunks are clearly just highly scripted demonstrations. Certainly nothing like the NTC.

I don't mean to imply that drills are useless- everyone learns drills and they *should* learn drills, but when you can't use the building-blocks to make a coherent effort, or your drills fall apart because war is a kaleidoscope of chaos, confusion, uncertainty and stress in a way that exercises aren't then you sit on an airfield for a week getting pulverised by air and artillery.

I'm over-exaggerating a little, but I do think there is a drills vs tactics tension we're seeing play out at the tactical level.

Or, you know,... seeing a battle drill army that has been ticking off that it's been doing it's drills properly for the last 20 years and selling off the ammo allocation for vodka...

Edited April 21, 2022 by Hapless

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Hapless said:

On the other hand... not clearing Azozstal because you can't, or because you can't afford to seems like a serious admission of failure, will or capability. It doesn't feel like a victory.

As you say, it is does give Putin some PR points to say "I am concerned about the lives of our soldiers".  Not that he lets people know that he was the one who originally told them to rush the capture of Mariupol or that by "lives of our soldiers" he means the couple of guys that are still left alive from all that winning.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, TheVulture said:

Heart-warming footage of a Russia tank previously from Kyiv area, now burning merrily in Mariupol

 

This is another indicator of how rushed the redeployments are.  They didn't even have an hour or so to paint over and repaint the tactical ID markings.  This isn't the first time I've seen this either.  There was a bunch of "O" marks seen in the Izyum area IIRC, or at least somewhere in the "Z" territory.

Steve

[Haiduk]

Ukr troops shot down Russian helicopter (filming from the drone) in Zaporizhzhia oblast. Judging on the form of the pond this could be near Temyrivka village. Claims this is Ka-52, but it's hard to recognize the type because bad quality of video. The second video - aftermath from the groud, the guy claims two helicopters were shot down. This twitter account claims the second is Mi-8

So for this day we have already two or even three visually confirmed downed manned targets Su-34 (?), Ka-52 (?), Mi-8 (?). All three were shot down with Igla MANPADs. Russian Su-34 fell on occupied territory, bailed out pilots probably landed also on Russian-controlled ground.

Air-assault Comamnd also claimed they shot down Russian Su-25 and UAV Orlan-10 with Stinger and Starstreak MANPADs, but for now only Orlan-10 visually confirmed

Edited April 21, 2022 by Haiduk

[AlexUK]

20 minutes ago, Hapless said:

Good find man, this is really interesting!

Haven't gotten all the way through yet, but when he starts talking about what they did when they reached Hostomel, it's so fascinating to listen to someone describing the blunt end of a battle drill army.

"We came off the helicopter so we made a horseshoe formation- because that's the drill."
"The commander told us to hold a position, so we dug in- because that's the drill."

Drills are not tactics, but they're easier to teach and judge. To train a platoon attack, go through the checklist from the manual, tick the boxes, training complete, well done, schedule again the next time the qualification comes up.

Free play exercises- where you *use* drills to practice tactics- aren't just harder to pull off effectively, but harder to justify in a budget because you can't be certain of the result. When you've got 3 platoons to qualify and a limited time to do it in, it's difficult to explain how you spent x hours on an exercise where all one of those platoons does is sit there, or where another one gets wiped out and the other is the only one that passed.

I don't think I've ever seen anything from the RU side approaching a free-play kind of exercise. Things like Zapad are most operational/strategic and the filmed chunks are clearly just highly scripted demonstrations. Certainly nothing like the NTC.

I don't mean to imply that drills are useless- everyone learns drills and they *should* learn drills, but when you can't use the building-blocks to make a coherent effort, or your drills fall apart because war is a kaleidoscope of chaos, confusion, uncertainty and stress in a way that exercises aren't then you sit on an airfield for a week getting pulverised by air and artillery.

I'm over-exaggerating a little, but I do think there is a drills vs tactics tension we're seeing play out at the tactical level.

Or, you know,... seeing a battle drill army that has been ticking off that it's been doing it's drills properly for the last 20 years and selling off the ammo allocation for vodka...

I watched the first section. I just cannot get my head around them not being told of the operation. I really struggle to believe that. Everything that flows from that - not getting correct equipment, no briefing and practice of seizing an airfield, etc etc. Could this just be something they were told to say to interrogators?  

[TheVulture]

51 minutes ago, Huba said:

Edit:

Nothing about weapons

- 500M for UA budget

- new program for UA refugees in US

Now there's something about weapons:

 

 

[The_Capt]

24 minutes ago, billbindc said:

A "victory" announcement by Putin has short term benefits in the Russian political sphere

Agree, however, at this point there is nothing that Russia can do beyond this above.  Russia can not shoot its way out of this larger "loss" with respect to political/diplomatic isolation, western perceptions, actual concrete regional influence or gains in context of Ukraine itself.  That ship sailed about 2 weeks into this thing to be honest.

So all Putin has left is shoring up domestic support and internal power structures aka staying in power.  So we are back to "why do this whole drama, when you can make up whatever end state you like...Vlad?"

 

[CHEqTRO]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

I know we are in early days here but this whole thing has a half-hearted feel to it.  I am left wondering why Russia is going through all this theatre when it can simply draw new lines on the ground, shift the goal-post and come up with whatever fabricated "victory" it wants, just like Putin did in Mariupol.

Re-draw the lines on the map and declare the DNR/LNR as "free", point to this strategic land bridge as a major victory and come up with some BS narrative that "this was the plan all along".  I also suspect that the Russian higher-ups already know this hence the somewhat tepid start to this whole thing.

I don't think Putin is in a corner on this, he is just trying to figure out where to paint the arbitrary line of "victory".  This has been a failing on the western analysis side from Day 1, we continue to see this war through our own lens.  What this operation should look like in western frameworks must be what Russia is doing - big sweeps, dramatic deep operations.  What victory looks like, again in western terms, and projecting it on the Russians. 

I am getting the sinking sense that all Putin needed to do was get into Ukraine and shoot up the place, and he could spin it as the greatest victory since the Great Patriotic War.

    

I think you all give too much importance to whatever opinion the people of Russian can get about the result of this war and wether the Kremlin could sell it as a victory.

At the end of the day, if the war ends now, with the current frontline and the current balance of forces, this would have been a huge strategic defeat for Putin. Yeah, his propagandist home and abroad would spin it as a victory, as the Russian army "always" just had the intention of "freeing" the Donbass and the land corridor, and probably Putin would survive the political fallout. But he knows, and all of the Russian high command, that this "little" adventure of them has been a complete disaster. They have lost too much and won too little. Russian strategic situation not only has not improved (probably the situation pre war was bad enough that they decided to go ahead with the war), but they are now even in a worse position (NATO has actually gotten stronger, Ukraine still remains a functional country, and so does his army, the land they have taken is esentially worthless in the big picture, his army has taken a gigantic hit wich it will not recover in some time, his economy has taken a hit, etc..) than before.

The question is not wether they think that they can spin this as a victory, is rather if they think that is better to (or they are able to just) cut their losses, and lick their wounds for the next round; or if they they think that the stratetig situation is too poor to be left as it is, and whatever cost a prolonged war might cause would be worth it in order to reverse (or atleast aliviate) their poor situation.

[dan/california]

13 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

Now there's something about weapons:

 

 

Somebody is getting serious. That will reequip a substantial fraction of the Ukr artillery with 155 that can draw on Nato stores. Hopefully the will have the sense to include a bleep load of guided rounds/fuse kits. That would really let the Ukrainians step up the counter battery fight.

[Huba]

Strelkov is not happy with the progress. What caught my attention is the notion of UA having lost almost all of their heavy equipment. We hardly see photo evidence of that, I wonder how true it is:

 

[The_MonkeyKing]

 

[The_MonkeyKing]

and for these asking about the "Phoenix"

[CHEqTRO]

2 minutes ago, Huba said:

Strelkov is not happy with the progress. What caught my attention is the notion of UA having lost almost all of their heavy equipment. We hardly see photo evidence of that, I wonder how true it is:

 

He is refering to ukranian heavy equipment in Mariupol, not in general. Considering that they have been forced to the interior of the Azovstal factory, one could imagine that all heavy equipment would have been either destroyed or abandoned beforehand.

[dan/california]

3 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Agree, however, at this point there is nothing that Russia can do beyond this above.  Russia can not shoot its way out of this larger "loss" with respect to political/diplomatic isolation, western perceptions, actual concrete regional influence or gains in context of Ukraine itself.  That ship sailed about 2 weeks into this thing to be honest.

So all Putin has left is shoring up domestic support and internal power structures aka staying in power.  So we are back to "why do this whole drama, when you can make up whatever end state you like...Vlad?"

 

 

2 minutes ago, CHEqTRO said:

I think you all give too much importance to whatever opinion the people of Russian can get about the result of this war and wether the Kremlin could sell it as a victory.

At the end of the day, if the war ends now, with the current frontline and the current balance of forces, this would have been a huge strategic defeat for Putin. Yeah, his propagandist home and abroad would spin it as a victory, as the Russian army "always" just had the intention of "freeing" the Donbass and the land corridor, and probably Putin would survive the political fallout. But he knows, and all of the Russian high command, that this "little" adventure of them has been a complete disaster. They have lost too much and won too little. Russian strategic situation not only has not improved (probably the situation pre war was bad enough that they decided to go ahead with the war), but they are now even in a worse position (NATO has actually gotten stronger, Ukraine still remains a functional country, and so does his army, the land they have taken is esentially worthless in the big picture, his army has taken a gigantic hit wich it will not recover in some time, his economy has taken a hit, etc..) than before.

The question is not wether they think that they can spin this as a victory, is rather if they think that is better to (or they are able to just) cut their losses, and lick their wounds for the next round; or if they they think that the stratetig situation is too poor to be left as it is, and whatever cost a prolonged war might cause would be worth it in order to reverse (or atleast aliviate) their poor situation.

I think we have to look at the entire war, as an epically bleeped up attempt to gain the upper hand in an INTERNAL Russian power struggle. If the three day immaculate victory had happened the faction that conceived and ordered the "special operation" would have gained enormously in what I am ever more convinced is the struggle to succeed Putin. Everything that has happened since is attempt at blame shifting, and positioning for said post Putin power struggle. And since NOTHING the Russians have done has worked, the factions have to keep trying to avoid being the unlucky party at the center of the upcoming circular firing squad that has definitively lost before this sub rosa civil war even gets started. Will the civi war stay sub rosa? Who knows?? 

[danfrodo]

29 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

Now there's something about weapons:

 

 

YES YES YES!!!!!!!  I hope these can get there in time to help drive the orcs out of Rohan. 

[The_Capt]

4 minutes ago, CHEqTRO said:

The question is not wether they think that they can spin this as a victory, is rather if they think that is better to (or they are able to just) cut their losses, and lick their wounds for the next round; or if they they think that the stratetig situation is too poor to be left as it is, and whatever cost a prolonged war might cause would be worth it in order to reverse (or atleast aliviate) their poor situation.

The flaw here is that any outcome in Donbas will somehow translate to a better strategic situation.  Externally we already know that it is a frim "no".  A long war is in Ukarine's favor, not Russia's.  The West's attention stays on Ukraine and the money keep flowing, while Russia's economy and military keeps bleeding; in the long war, Russia is more likely to break than Ukraine.  No matter what happens in the next weeks, the west is not going to go "oh sorry about that" and stop support, pull back and reject Finland/Sweden into NATO, defund NATO and/or re-normalize with Russia economically.  Ukraine will be westward facing for a century no matter what happens as well.  Nothing in this whole Donbas dance is going to change the external strategic position.

So internally, what is the magic flag waving moment (that they cannot manufacture) that makes it better for an internal audience?  What are they doing this for if they can manufacture giant lies for their own people?

[Huba]

Just now, CHEqTRO said:

He is refering to ukranian heavy equipment in Mariupol, not in general. Considering that they have been forced to the interior of the Azovstal factory, one could imagine that all heavy equipment would have been either destroyed or abandoned beforehand.

Reading =/= understanding You're right of course. 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

I know we are in early days here but this whole thing has a half-hearted feel to it.  I am left wondering why Russia is going through all this theatre when it can simply draw new lines on the ground, shift the goal-post and come up with whatever fabricated "victory" it wants, just like Putin did in Mariupol.

Re-draw the lines on the map and declare the DNR/LNR as "free", point to this strategic land bridge as a major victory and come up with some BS narrative that "this was the plan all along".  I also suspect that the Russian higher-ups already know this hence the somewhat tepid start to this whole thing.

It is feeling like this to me too.  In fact...

I think today I have the answer... there won't be an attempt at a big offensive.

Or at least I think there's good indications that it won't happen.

"What changed?" you might ask.  No, that's the wrong question.  "What did NOT change?"  is what should be asked.

What should have happened today was either the main effort clearly underway, but at a minimum some clear signs of intensification of ground attacks on a couple of points.

Yet all I have seen so far is random shelling, apparently even less than yesterday, and a decision by Putin to publicly announce they aren't storming the bunkers in Mariupol.  That is not only a lack of a sign the offensive is on the way, but an indication that it isn't going to happen.

While I am not surprised that an objective look at the facts by Russian leadership would conclude this attack won't work, I'm surprised that they are taking an objective look at the facts!  If that is what is happening.

 

So this has been churning around in my head... is it possible that senior levels of the Russian military have correctly assessed that a large scale offensive has got no chance of working and they've just been going through the motions while they try to talk Putin out of it? 

Although I argued yesterday that this is a typical Soviet style set piece offensive, there's been one different gnawing at me the whole time... the Russians MUST know they don't have the resources to pull it off.  In particular infantry.  Couple this with the apparently increasing cases of mutiny, the rising tide of Ukrainian reserve units, and zero indications that Ukrainians are going to do anything but fight hard in the Donbas.  Which is a problem because an implied element in Soviet offensive doctrine is fanaticism and determination, two things we know Russian troops don't have.

Objectively this attack is suicide and we've all been saying that from the start.  So, again, if Putin has canned the big offensive it makes sense from a pragmatic military standpoint.  However, there is still the political standpoint...

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

I don't think Putin is in a corner on this, he is just trying to figure out where to paint the arbitrary line of "victory".  This has been a failing on the western analysis side from Day 1, we continue to see this war through our own lens.  What this operation should look like in western frameworks must be what Russia is doing - big sweeps, dramatic deep operations.  What victory looks like, again in western terms, and projecting it on the Russians. 

I think we, and those sources we think are clued in, have been calling this correctly in that we've been guessing what Putin has been trying to do.  What I think we've not had as much success with is figuring out how much Putin is understanding his limitations.  The pull back from Kiev was the first sign of pragmatism, but part of that was that it offered him a "second chance" elsewhere.  I fully expected him to play out the "second chance" before shifting to something else.  I'm wondering if it already played out and we just didn't see it because it wasn't all dependent upon combat.

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

I am getting the sinking sense that all Putin needed to do was get into Ukraine and shoot up the place, and he could spin it as the greatest victory since the Great Patriotic War.

I am sure Putin never thought he would fail to secure Ukraine, but I am also sure that for the last 6 weeks or so that's been the plan.  At the beginning he might have thought that he could break the Ukrainian and/or international will to resist, but even to him it must have been clear a few weeks ago that neither of these things was going to happen.

My guess, and it is a total guess, is that a couple of weeks ago when he pulled away from Kyiv he really did think a concentrated Donbas attack would get him what he wanted.  Here's a short list of some random thoughts that Putin might be getting Putin to change his mindset:

• bleeding white in Mariupol convinced him Ukraine is in this to the death?
• finally enough reports warning about the chance of military collapse of his forces reached his desk?
• thinking through the ramifications of a sudden collapse of his forces on regime stability?
• shutting down of various defense production got him worried about the long term?
• the sinking of the Muskova was an "a-hah" moment where he realized Ukraine is capable of striking really obvious pain on the Russian national psyche?
• he doesn't have enough time to secure more territory before Ukraine's reserves tip the balance?
• with ever heavier weapons coming to Ukraine there's reason to fear things are going to get worse and not better?
• domestic situation is rapidly deteriorating and he worries he can't fight in Ukraine and keep his throne?

Obviously I have no f'n clue what, if any, of this stuff is doing anything for Putin's calculations, but objectively it should.

Steve