How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[LongLeftFlank]

This is the first source I've run across to state explicitly what is fairly obvious from studying the maps: that with the failure and stallout of the pincer moves, there is no 'cauldron' to be had at Sieverdonetsk!

Occupying Siev'sk (while the UA rearguards withdraw in decent order) merely presents the Russians with *another* defensive belt to assault: the river and Lyschansk (on higher ground). And behind that, the fortified (and mined) refineries (Novodruzhesk) and mining works. They don't get into open country for miles yet.

 2. Ukr. and Russian sources say ... that there was constant fierce fighting for every street. Ukrainians say that the Russians stormed the city with the forces of up to 25-30 of their best BTGs.

4. The Russians are counting on the fact that it will not be the second #Mariupol for them, because apparently Ukrainian troops, and especially terit. they withdraw. But only the toughest area ahead of them - the industrial zone 

....Basically, this is a WW1 Somme or Verdun approach, or the Wehrmacht deciding to punch into the Maginot Line in 1940. And the RuAF still seem to be running a steady BTG per day in KIA and vehicle losses....

So when the hell does the Collapse kick in?

P.S.  Just noticed, what in the Sam Hill is happening behind RU lines near Mykhailivka?????  Bombardment or a non-military fire?

Edited May 31, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[akd]

Election fraud is national defense!

 

[Probus]

I'm beginning to believe that Ukraine has only been armed with defensive weapons. They don't have the force type to effectively launch large counter attacks that can take heavily defended areas. Does anyone think this will change (or hopefully is not true)?

[Pete Wenman]

Suggestion that UKA forces continue to advance north of Kherson

 

[sburke]

Top Russian Military Brass Caught Venting, ‘You’re F*cked, Putin—Motherf*cker!’ (thedailybeast.com)

cover your ears children, this is very crude talk.

[Battlefront.com]

LLF posted this for a different reason than my post, but here it is again:

 

For those of you who have wondered about Russian AFV "swimming" capabilities on paper vs. in reality should take a look at the first BMP-1 picture.  Look at the state of the rubber seal around the left rear hatch.  Most of the lower section, where soldier's boots come into contact with the vehicle, is completely gone.  The right rear hatch seal looks to be in better condition, but is still compromised.  Rubber components fail over time and need to be replaced if the function they perform is to be maintained.  Not surprisingly, this particular element of a likely 40+ year old vehicle was not maintained.

If this BMP pushed into a body of water there would be an instant rush of water into the rear compartment.  The longer it is in the water, the more water comes in.  Due to the way the BMP stays afloat, it is likely that the rate of flow into the vehicle from just these two points would be extremely bad.  Probably not enough to sink it, but definitely enough to create panic that it might sink.

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

4 minutes ago, sburke said:

Top Russian Military Brass Caught Venting, ‘You’re F*cked, Putin—Motherf*cker!’ (thedailybeast.com)

cover your ears children, this is very crude talk.

At this point I'm starting to wonder whether Putin's "plan B" is to get the professional army killed in Ukraine (and also discredited) so he can hold power in Moscow with the FSB, the mafiyas and Kadyrov's Chechen thugs, or sumfink.  With the nukes immunizing Russia from invasion. Just mind boggling.

[A Canadian Cat]

On 5/30/2022 at 9:48 AM, Battlefront.com said:

I make no pretenses of knowing the future, however in analyzing the facts we have in front of us it appears we should be finding historical examples that are less positive for the Russian side.

I think this is true. I'd like to see that scenario be the removal off all Russian troops on Ukrainian soil.

On 5/30/2022 at 9:48 AM, Battlefront.com said:

As has been said by me and others, there is no real ability to know what the heck is going to happen until it has happened.  Timing is extremely hard to judge, so the best we can do is look at the situation and anticipate what might happen instead of when. 

<snip>

There is only so long this can go on without a collapse of some sort.  It is either a collapse like we saw in Kyiv, Mykolaiv, and Kharkiv, a systemic front collapse, the collapse of the war effort at some other level, or Putin fundamentally changing the nature of the conflict.

Something has to give.  And soon.

It is clear that the Russian Army is very degraded and in terrible shape. My concern though is so far the Ukrainian Army has not shown it has the ability to really push hard on the teetering wall. The RA has been on the verge of collapsing for quite a while now but they are holding the front together, mostly. For something to give and soon the UA needs to push hard to get the ball rolling. If they are just getting ready then that's good and we will see something happen but if they are actually not capability of that push then this could last a longer than anyone likes.

I'm rooting for a good hard shove...

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, akd said:

Remember that tank that hit a mine and decided to see if it could find more mines in the minefield? Things just got worse after the second mine:

In the 28th second of the video with the mine hits you can see a bright flash in the opposite corner of where the second mine detonated.  I wonder what caused that?

The other video shows a crew member standing on the deck making a phone call, even as the tank starts to brew up.  In the video that LLF just posted (dragging wounded comrade) one of the crew members stayed crouched down next to the tank and was then blow several meters from another hit to the tank.

These guys apparently don't understand how dangerous it is to be around any tank, not to mention a Soviet one, that is actively burning or at high risk of another hit.  No point surviving bailout to be shredded by ammo cooking off or a follow up ATGM shot.

Steve

[akd]

@sburke @Kinophile

Major Evgeny Sulokhin, deputy commander of 331st Guards Airborne Regiment, 98th Guard Airborne Division:

 

[Battlefront.com]

48 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

This is the first source I've run across to state explicitly what is fairly obvious from studying the maps: that with the failure and stallout of the pincer moves, there is no 'cauldron' to be had at Sieverdonetsk!

Same thing at Lyman.  Ukraine held the eastern side of the river as long as it was practical to continue causing disproportional casualties.  Unlike Mariupol, superior defensive positions were readily available, so it would be stupid to keep fighting for a useless position instead of pulling back to something worth defending.

50 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

So when the hell does the Collapse kick in?

Yup, that's the question.

What we're seeing more and more of is increasing "gimmickry" on the Russian side to keep the war going.  It's not dissimilar from a Ponzi Scheme that is in a state of collapse.  Sure, there are ways to prolong the day of reckoning, but no ways to avoid it.  And when they day finally comes, and there's no more gimmicks to be used, the collapse is usually far more spectacular than it would have been if gimmicks hadn't been used.

Since you are fond of cultural references to make a point, I give you this...

We all know how this turned out in the end!

Steve

[sburke]

'That's my boiler': Refugee sees Russian tank loot (msn.com)

[danfrodo]

Op-ed in NYTimes today by Christopher Caldwell, influential conservative writer.  He basically says the war is all USA's fault, and we are prolonging it.  He even quotes Chomsky -- conservative quotes Chomsky, WTF??   I'm not going to honor this with a link.

I'll paraphrase:

'This whole was is fault of the US, and particularly Biden.  You see, small minded fools, the US sent weapons to Ukraine, which made Putin scared so he was forced to annex territory.  And then we sent more weapons so he was forced to invade and try to annex the whole country.  I'll throw in some legitimate facts about naughty things the US has done to distract you from the utter absurdity of my main premise.  And now US is keeping the war going and won't be happy until all of Ukraine is destroyed.'  

Uh huh, yeah, that totally makes sense given how we are forcing those poor Ukrainians to risk their lives fighting to not be part of Russia.  And ignores what Russia itself has been saying for months about how its going to basically enslave Ukraine.

What I love most about this is that a well armed Ukraine was never going to attack Russia.  Russia continually boasted about its every strengthening military, and most experts thought that was true.  But if Ukraine gets weapons to defend itself against a known aggressor state on its border, well, that's cause for war!  Sadly, lots of folks will fall for this very reasonable sounding, well written horsedung. 

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, Probus said:

I'm beginning to believe that Ukraine has only been armed with defensive weapons. They don't have the force type to effectively launch large counter attacks that can take heavily defended areas. Does anyone think this will change (or hopefully is not true)?

Yeah, while I know the plural of (video) Anecdote is not Data, whenever I see the UA get whacked recently, it seems to be when they're 'acting like Russians', i.e. trying to conduct mechanised movement, as opposed to doing their (unbunched) 'partisans with panzerfausts' thing....

To wit:

So in response to your query, it seems like we're hoping the Russians get unable/unwilling to sustain an organised defence more than the Ukes figuring out how to attack with mechanised 'mass'.

[akd]

Perhaps we should go ahead and add them to the list?

 

[Vacillator]

8 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

This whole was is fault of the US, and particularly Biden

I've recently had it said to me that if Trump was still in power there would have been no war in Ukraine.  My view of that was that there would have been but it would probably all be over by now, and not in a good way.  Happy to be enlightened otherwise, or ignored if this is a bit too political for this place...

[Battlefront.com]

As I said earlier, with each passing day, with each gimmick they employ, with each weapon that gets to Ukraine, the options for Russia to end this war become fewer in number and worse in outcome.  People still see Russia fighting and think "not much has changed" without understanding that Russia's military strength is just a facade that is getting thinner every minute this war keeps going. 

It is getting harder and harder for Russia to keep this up the facade, not only for us fairly analyzing the war, but also for the Russians who are fighting in Ukraine.  They no longer believe the lies and false hopes that give them some hope that things will get better.  In fact, the soldiers understand that the situation is getting worse.  The gimmicks Russia is employing to keep things from collapsing (lately a variety of threats) are largely played out.  We know it, Ukraine knows it, and increasingly the Russians on the ground know it.

Two conditions are needed to push a particular Russian force that is already on a knife's edge (losses, poor morale, physical misery, etc.) into collapse:

1. The apparent inability to conduct offensive activities
2. The apparent inability to conduct defensive activities

These two conditions are what we saw around Kyiv, Mykolaiv, and presumably Kharkiv (it is unclear how deliberate the pullback there was).  The Russians on the ground there saw that there was no way they were going to advance, then they saw it was unlikely they would be able to defend.  Their options were to die in place of to retreat.  In all three cases it seems higher Russian commands understood when this moment arrived and proactively ordered withdrawals before things collapsed.  In other words, they reversed the second of the two conditions by providing the soldiers with hope that they could live to fight another day somewhere else.

So far Russia has been able to localize and compartmentalize its near-collapse threats.  This was only possible because Russia still had reserves to draw upon (mostly through one time gimmicks) and not all of its frontline forces were worn out.  In my view Russia is out of gimmicks of any real significance and the frontline forces are decidedly and totally spent as offensive tools.

What is needed now is for Ukraine to start showing Russian soldiers that things are going to go from bad to worse.  Yet, Ukraine should not rush the process.  Yes, everybody wants the war to end ASAP, but rushing can produce setbacks which could undermine some of the progress made over the past 3+ months.  If it means giving Russia more time to pretend it's in control of the situation, that is a small investment to ensure ultimate victory.

The limited counter offensive around Kherson is a good continuation of what was started in Kharkiv area.  Putting pressure on both Izyum and Popasna, however, should be the priority.  Not only is it needed to make sure Russia's last offensive is truly dead, but it also helps with convincing Russian soldiers that they are decidedly on the defensive from now on and that maintaining the ability to defend is questionable.

If Ukraine keeps up this "slow" and steady counter pressure on Russia's frontlines, they will collapse even without some massive scale strategic counter offensive.  And if it doesn't, then a massive scale strategic counter offensive will succeed as soon as it is practical to launch it.

I am going on the record now as saying that I do not think Russia can maintain its general defensive line through June.  Something will break somewhere and result in a major reversal that Russian commanders did not voluntarily make happen.  I do not know where this is most likely first because there are several good candidates for such a reversal.  Because such a reversal is likely to have more systemic effects across the entire Russian defensive line, it really doesn't matter where Ukraine manages to succeed.  Which is good for Ukraine and very bad for Russia.

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

I used to have a rule that kept conversation civil: whoever mentions the 'T' word first, pro or anti buys drinks!

So can we please not?

...

Anyway, back to the war.  More harrowing video and accounts in this thread here from BBC:

Mosul levels of destruction here.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61634050

 

Edited May 31, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[danfrodo]

Hey all, wasn't trying to get political.  I posted it as an example of the kind of talking points that will probably be used to undermine the US efforts to support the war going forward.  Note that Chomsky & Caldwell are both on the same page.  The message is "the US is at fault for setting up the causes of the war and for making the war continue, and this is nothing but a proxy war for the US" -- which, as I mentioned, ignores the reality of what Russia has clearly stated it would do to a conquered Ukraine and its people. 

But these talking points are a way forward for undermining US popular support and will probably be amplified.

[billbindc]

3 minutes ago, Vacillator said:

I've recently had it said to me that if Trump was still in power there would have been no war in Ukraine.  My view of that was that there would have been but it would probably all be over by now, and not in a good way.  Happy to be enlightened otherwise, or ignored if this is a bit too political for this place...

Avoiding any partisan statement whatsoever, it's clear that in virtually every US administration before this one there was a distinct lack of desire and/or political will to grab the nettle on Russia. In some cases those reasons were understandable and justifiable at the time and some were not. What is quite clear is that this administration decided as of last April that the time had come to do so and then put considerable effort and time in to alter the outcome Putin expected. This was not without cost. I personally think that the conduct of the exit from Afghanistan was affected as officials were at the time already feverishly working the issue. DC observers were criticizing Jake Sherman at the time for seeming preoccupied as Kabul fell. Now, we know why. 

In short, I think Putin would have succeeded at almost any time before 2020 in getting a better outcome with greater or lesser levels of resistance depending on the particular occupant of the office but the reaction of this White House has been highly exceptional in scope and degree. 

[Vacillator]

15 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

I used to have a rule that kept conversation civil: whoever mentions the 'T' word first, pro or anti buys drinks!

So can we please not?

That's a fair rule, now where's the bar?  Apologies, I will say no more.

[danfrodo]

12 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

As I said earlier, with each passing day, with each gimmick they employ, with each weapon that gets to Ukraine, the options for Russia to end this war become fewer in number and worse in outcome.  People still see Russia fighting and think "not much has changed" without understanding that Russia's military strength is just a facade that is getting thinner every minute this war keeps going. 

It is getting harder and harder for Russia to keep this up the facade, not only for us fairly analyzing the war, but also for the Russians who are fighting in Ukraine.  They no longer believe the lies and false hopes that give them some hope that things will get better.  In fact, the soldiers understand that the situation is getting worse.  The gimmicks Russia is employing to keep things from collapsing (lately a variety of threats) are largely played out.  We know it, Ukraine knows it, and increasingly the Russians on the ground know it.

Two conditions are needed to push a particular Russian force that is already on a knife's edge (losses, poor morale, physical misery, etc.) into collapse:

1. The apparent inability to conduct offensive activities
2. The apparent inability to conduct defensive activities

These two conditions are what we saw around Kyiv, Mykolaiv, and presumably Kharkiv (it is unclear how deliberate the pullback there was).  The Russians on the ground there saw that there was no way they were going to advance, then they saw it was unlikely they would be able to defend.  Their options were to die in place of to retreat.  In all three cases it seems higher Russian commands understood when this moment arrived and proactively ordered withdrawals before things collapsed.  In other words, they reversed the second of the two conditions by providing the soldiers with hope that they could live to fight another day somewhere else.

So far Russia has been able to localize and compartmentalize its near-collapse threats.  This was only possible because Russia still had reserves to draw upon (mostly through one time gimmicks) and not all of its frontline forces were worn out.  In my view Russia is out of gimmicks of any real significance and the frontline forces are decidedly and totally spent as offensive tools.

What is needed now is for Ukraine to start showing Russian soldiers that things are going to go from bad to worse.  Yet, Ukraine should not rush the process.  Yes, everybody wants the war to end ASAP, but rushing can produce setbacks which could undermine some of the progress made over the past 3+ months.  If it means giving Russia more time to pretend it's in control of the situation, that is a small investment to ensure ultimate victory.

The limited counter offensive around Kherson is a good continuation of what was started in Kharkiv area.  Putting pressure on both Izyum and Popasna, however, should be the priority.  Not only is it needed to make sure Russia's last offensive is truly dead, but it also helps with convincing Russian soldiers that they are decidedly on the defensive from now on and that maintaining the ability to defend is questionable.

If Ukraine keeps up this "slow" and steady counter pressure on Russia's frontlines, they will collapse even without some massive scale strategic counter offensive.  And if it doesn't, then a massive scale strategic counter offensive will succeed as soon as it is practical to launch it.

I am going on the record now as saying that I do not think Russia can maintain its general defensive line through June.  Something will break somewhere and result in a major reversal that Russian commanders did not voluntarily make happen.  I do not know where this is most likely first because there are several good candidates for such a reversal.  Because such a reversal is likely to have more systemic effects across the entire Russian defensive line, it really doesn't matter where Ukraine manages to succeed.  Which is good for Ukraine and very bad for Russia.

Steve

Interesting stuff here.  I agree w putting pressure on Izyum and Popasne but this does come at the cost of putting forces in the cross hairs of the main RU assets on the whole front.  And it seems UKR is looking for cheap wins, not wanting to take casualties.   It seems UKR generally wants to unhinge RU forces by threatening supply lines, not directly taking offensives against strong RU units, which is what I suspect Steve means by 'pressure'. 

I asked yesterday but didn't see much response:  what is the state of the contract forces?  Are there really large numbers of soldiers w contracts about to expire?   And will they be allowed to leave? -- a post earlier noted pressure on contractors who want to leave.

And as LLF says above, loses are still ~1 BTG per day (assuming understrength BTGs I suppose).  Like Steve says above, RU getting weaker and weaker.  They are now down to two tiny little areas of offensive operations -- Popasne and Sieverodonetsk, where advance are made at the rate of a city block per day.  What's this going to look like by end of June for RU?  Not good.

 

[Battlefront.com]

I am going to be very apolitical with the statements that follow.  I understand that there are those reading this thread that are overly sensitive to criticism of their political views and heroes, but we regularly point out the political failings of other leaders (including Biden, but especially Sholtz) and there's no temper tantrums from their supporters.  I would like to think that supporters of Trump could show the same level of respect for this discussion as everybody else does and not get into pointless partisan driven political attacks.

And so here goes...

3 minutes ago, Vacillator said:

I've recently had it said to me that if Trump was still in power there would have been no war in Ukraine.  My view of that was that there would have been but it would probably all be over by now, and not in a good way.  Happy to be enlightened otherwise, or ignored if this is a bit too political for this place...

This has been a popular talking point from his supporters.  Not long ago I did a local public talk about the underlying causes of this war, going all the way back to Kievan Rus through today.  The theme I kept hammering on was that Russia's attempt at taking over Ukraine goes back centuries and Putin's specific attempts decades.  Putin launched the war during Obama's admin and kept the war going all the way through Trump's.  At the end someone stood up and asked me if this phase of the war was all Biden's fault.  I said, quite diplomatically, that I just sent over an hour explaining that it is much bigger than any one person.  She said that Glenn Beck said otherwise, then stormed off.

The world DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND THE US PRESIDENT!!!!!  There's all sorts of things that Putin took into consideration that have absolutely nothing to do with who held that office.  Putin's health might have been a huge factor.  Russia's economic state of health likely was another.  Ukraine's increasingly effective military and political reforms.  Etc.

The fact is that this war was inevitable.  Some think that the only reason why Putin didn't launch a full scale war under the Trump Admin is that he thought he could wait for Trump to cause so much damage/disruption to NATO and trans-Atlantic relations that he could basically walk in and get it without paying a significant price.  He might have thought another couple of years of a 2nd Trump Admin would do the trick.  Then when Trump lost the election he realized that waiting would be a very bad option as Biden would certainly work to strengthen NATO and defend Ukraine's interests.  Putin might also have thought that giving the US military time to recover from 2 decades of fruitless warfare wasn't a good idea either.

If Trump had won the election instead of losing I think Putin would have launched the war no later than next year no matter what.  He might have launched it at exactly the same time as he did.  In fact, I'd put it at greater than 50% chance that if Trump were President today there would be a war in Ukraine of some sort.

Steve

[dan/california]

4 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Avoiding any partisan statement whatsoever, it's clear that in virtually every US administration before this one there was a distinct lack of desire and/or political will to grab the nettle on Russia. In some cases those reasons were understandable and justifiable at the time and some were not. What is quite clear is that this administration decided as of last April that the time had come to do so and then put considerable effort and time in to alter the outcome Putin expected. This was not without cost. I personally think that the conduct of the exit from Afghanistan was affected as officials were at the time already feverishly working the issue. DC observers were criticizing Jake Sherman at the time for seeming preoccupied as Kabul fell. Now, we know why. 

In short, I think Putin would have succeeded at almost any time before 2020 in getting a better outcome with greater or lesser levels of resistance depending on the particular occupant of the office but the reaction of this White House has been highly exceptional in scope and degree. 

Which is why I CANNOT understand the hesitation on sending MLRS and the other weapons the Ukrainians need to to turn the pressure on the the Russians up to eleven, and force them into a large scale retreat. Maybe they are working on some sort of "shock and awe" package announcement, but they need to get it done. 

I have pretty much come around to believing that the Afghanistan withdrawal was done in part to deny the Russians the ability to hit back there when the balloon went up in Ukraine.

[AlsatianFelix]

Ukrainians have a pontoon bridge across the Inhulets at Velyka Artakove. Satellite image from today.