How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Haiduk]

UKR troops withdrew from Metiolkino village on the SE outskirts of Siverodonetsk. The head of Luhansk oblast military administration Haidai claimed Russians increased the number of artillery and MLRS shellings and airstrikes on Siverodonetsk area

[Grigb]

11 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

There was a very humorous video taken from one of these city systems.  It was watching a column of Russian vehicles moving through the city, then someone got smart and you could see soldiers shooting out the cameras.

Steve

On other hand hardening as well as integration of civilian surveillance infrastructure in to territorial defense forces might be a good idea also. Hardened Lifeguard beach cameras might be of great use for one Asian island in case of invasion.

And I mean, ok, you shot the hardened camera with rockets launcher. Next day, official road worker will pass by and legally replace it because you know, traffic blablabla, road police blablabla. Even if you block the worker after couple of days somebody somewhere replace some cameras and got at last some coverage of the road network.  

  

[Grigb]

9 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Interesting. It seems we underestimated the Chechens fighting streetlights. Kadyrov is indeed a true mastermind.

Kadyrov is not smart per se, but he is extremely cunning and ruthless. Otherwise, he would be dead long time ago. And we should not underestimate Tik Tok battalion (but we should not overestimate it as well). Their Tik Tok activities must be seen as image thing - they show they are above average RU unit because they can avoid participating meat grinder and do fun stuff around. It is like they are trolling other RU forces for the sake of reputation back in Kavkaz region.

[Huba]

This is being repeated everywhere at the moment, no photos or official confirmation yet.

It is not clear if it was M142/M270 job at this point, or if UA found some BM-30 rockets, either would be totally devastating to area of just 500x500 meters. The attack coincides with the sinking of supply tug, and the info below:

 Also this:

 

Edited June 20, 2022 by Huba

[Grigb]

3 hours ago, kraze said:

Part of that "pro-russian"* lobby is Gerashchenko hence why I, just as Haiduk, strongly advice you to avoid him. Same as I advise you to ignore Podoliak, Arakhamiya and Arestovich as they are from that very same lobby. It's our burden to deal with them.

Do you have a feel that at least Geraschenko is pushing toward a peace deal? Is it possible that there is power game among Ukraine political elite to portrait current situation as losing, push Zelinsky to get a peace deal then blame him for bad ending and remove him from power? Everybody will be back to business as usual...

@Haiduk what is your opinion?

[Huba]

Even more interesting stuff happening on the Black Sea today:

 

[Beleg85]

2 hours ago, Grigb said:

Kadyrov is not smart per se, but he is extremely cunning and ruthless. Otherwise, he would be dead long time ago. And we should not underestimate Tik Tok battalion (but we should not overestimate it as well). Their Tik Tok activities must be seen as image thing - they show they are above average RU unit because they can avoid participating meat grinder and do fun stuff around. It is like they are trolling other RU forces for the sake of reputation back in Kavkaz region.

This.

There is another layer there. There was an article about month ago from one of polish Caucasus experts who explained Kadyrovites rationale in detail (guy know Chechen lanuage and even held honorary membership of one of the teyps - tribes).

While some elite Chechens are indeed parts of the Russian forces and nothing to be laugh about (they did fought and sustained casualties), most of Tik Tokers are in fact "feudal" levies recruited by web of family allegiance to Kadyrov. They avoid real battles by order, beacuse their death need to be repaid by Kadyrov himself according to tribal traditions and could raise greviances among elders who support regime. And since martial traditions are alive there, young ones who want to have some respect from elders need to shot those TikToks as "proofs" (jn non western meaning, i.e. everybody knows they are faking but tradition need to be held).

Despite brutality of Kadyrov, this society is still collection of tribes, clans and families run by Elders. Kadyrov need to navigate that.

And of course Kadyrovites are useful as Putin oprychniks to bite legs of lagging Russian troops.

 

 

Edited June 20, 2022 by Beleg85

[LongLeftFlank]

6 hours ago, Suleyman said:

That would be detected fast, especially since that is a major focus of the Russian military right now. 

Perhaps. But making your enemy crap his pants when he enters a building is a fairly straightforward part of modern industrial scale warfare. Once the tide turns, expect the Russians to wire up all this, and more. So may as well play the same brutal game whilst on defence....

If AQIZ or the Talibs had been able to pull off such things, they would have in a heartbeat. Their main thing of course was VBIEDs, some of them quite large.

ISIS did some fairly monster IEDs in Mosul.

Also, not to be too flippant, but river assault crossings and airborne desants were reputed to be Russian specialities as well, and yet....

Edited June 20, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Grigb]

2 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

While some elite Chechens are indeed parts of the Russian forces and nothing to be laugh about (they did fought and sustained casualties), most of Tik Tokers are in fact "feudal" levies recruited by web of family allegiance to Kadyrov. They avoid real battles by order, beacuse their death need to be repaid by Kadyrov himself according to tribal traditions and could raise greviances among elders who support regime. And since martial traditions are alive there, young ones who want to have some respect from elders need to shot those TikToks as "proofs" (jn non western meaning, i.e. everybody knows they are faking but tradition need to be held).

Despite brutality of Kadyrov, this society is still collection of tribes run by elders.

Thanks! I believe Kadyrov end game is to become legendary ruler of de jure sovereign Chechnia. For that he definitely needs legitimacy of recognition by tribes elders.

[Beleg85]

31 minutes ago, Grigb said:

Thanks! I believe Kadyrov end game is to become legendary ruler of de jure sovereign Chechnia. For that he definitely needs legitimacy of recognition by tribes elders.

The King Under The Mountain he will be...

From antropological perspective, North Caucasus societies are indeed fascinating. They are like mosquitos dipped inside a drop of amber that held into modernity. One have there tribes, elders, crazy martial culture of honour, raiding warfare,  generational conflicts dragging for centuries and hospitallity pushed into absurd (other journalists in 90's was once abducted as a guest to another house, which almost sparked a bloody feud). A lot of these traits they share with Afghani.

It's  pesimistic way of life, but probably most our fellow humans lived similar in way for thousands of years. Very interesting if one try to reconctruct our long-gone past and understan how pre-modern societies worked.

 

Oh, one more thing about Kadyrovites I forgot. They are very unwilling to take part in any daily chores, especially digging trenches. This is also common to many guys form North Caucasus and their view of honour- reportedly even during Afghanistan intervention, Soviet officers would have problems if publicly order them to dig, unload ammo or do a lot of manual labour. They would not be listened to. Even during Chechen wars most warriors were not very willing to dig trenches because of this kind of culturall barrier.

Edited June 20, 2022 by Beleg85

[LongLeftFlank]

Kamil Galeev's long awaited piece on the Russian 'National Divorce'. Fairly short, a little too short frankly for those who are not regular readers of his, although he has been discussing the ways and means of that divorce for some time.  I expect he'll either finally get a proper blog or issue some elaborations.

I'll go straight to the punch line:

 

Yes, even the 'orcs'.

Edited June 20, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Huba]

3 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

The King Under The Mountain he will be...

From antropological perspective, North Caucasus societies are indeed fascinating. They are like mosquitos dipped inside a drop of amber that held into modernity. One have there tribes, elders, crazy martial culture of honour, raiding warfare,  generational conflicts dragging for centuries and hospitallity pushed into absurd (other journalists in 90's was once abducted as a guest to another house, which almost sparked a bloody feud). A lot of these traits they share with Afghani.

It's  pesimistic way of life, but probably most our species history lived like that for thousands of years. Very interesting if one try to reconctruct our long-gone past and understan how pre-modern societies worked.

They seem to be much closer to the way Tribes of Israel lived than our modern societies are  It  seems to be a legacy of nomadic ways of life, settled agricultural societies rather don't share that silliness.

[Beleg85]

1 hour ago, Huba said:

They seem to be much closer to the way Tribes of Israel lived than our modern societies are  It  seems to be a legacy of nomadic ways of life, settled agricultural societies rather don't share that silliness.

Yep. However Wainakh tribes, which were ancestors of Chechens, were mountaneers rather than steppe or desert dwellers.

 

Curious, if true Ukrainians are getting serious with their meritime Black Sea counteroffensive.

Edited June 20, 2022 by Beleg85

[LongLeftFlank]

23 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Curious, if true Ukrainians are getting serious with their meritime Black Sea counteroffensive.

To requote some (T)wit from back in April:  "welp, good thing we all quit using plastic straws!"

2.  Apocalypse Now (update)

Q. "Кто здесь главный?"

A. "Разве ты не???? "

3. What number Battle of Kharkov are we up to again?

 

 

 

Edited June 20, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Huba]

22 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

To requote some (T)wit from back in April:  "welp, good thing we all quit using plastic straws!"

2.  Apocalypse Now (update)

Q. "Кто здесь главный?"

A. "Разве ты не???? "

To be fair those are gas drilling platforms, so the environmental impact shouldn't be nowhere near the Deepwater Horizon level.

Edit: more RU ammo depot hits:

 

Edited June 20, 2022 by Huba

[LongLeftFlank]

18 hours ago, The_Capt said:

We are definitely entering into an age of denial and firepower, which may mean the Defensive may be shifting towards primacy…or until a week or two from now when someone pulls off operational offensive and we all wonder “what the hell just happened”…again.

Yeah, watching these guys arm a tiny USD200 drone with a 30mm gave me the same queasy feeling.

 

 

[The_Capt]

8 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

From yesterday (June 19th) ISW report.  More signs of the consequences of Russia's stripping of "quiet" sectors to provide forces for Donbas:

Two things in this passage that is consistent with my view of how Ukraine wins the war.

Russia strips forces from one place to concentrate elsewhere, Ukraine waits until the line is thin enough and then launches a fairly small scale counter attack that threats that local area.  Russia then has to rush SOMETHING back to this area from SOMEWHERE to arrest the threat.  If Russia had forces to space, it wouldn't need to strip some from the front in the first place, therefore rushing something back means it's coming from some other place OR would have if it wasn't diverted.

Relocating forces like this is bad on a number of levels.  One is that it takes time for a unit to acclimate to it's battlespace, get used to who it is fighting, who it has on its flanks, local commanders, supply routes, and any number of other things.  Ripping a unit out of an area it is familiar with reduces the effectiveness of the units that remain.  Adding new forces to an area requires readjustments by everybody.  Therefore, rushing units around from here to there is generally a bad thing, especially from static positions.

Steve

So this makes a lot of sense and likely explains why the UA is sticking put in Severodonetsk/Donbas and "taking it", when terrain-wise they really do not have to.

In Phase 1 of this war we saw the projection of what I call vertical friction - the UA projected enormous friction along the length of the Russian system from the front to the SLOC entry points.  They did so through attrition and threats of strikes which ultimately caused the Russian operational system to over-stress for what it was designed for, and fail.  Or at least that is a working hypothesis.

In phase 2, by pulling and pushing Russian forces to and from crisis points, the UA is projecting horizontal friction on their opponent.  The strain on Russian planning and logistics to do this is significant.  Constant "reacting and surging" on someone else's timetable creates wear and tear on staffs and field forces (logistics, maintenance, etc).  It also has a major impact on morale; soldiers are like any other animal, they get used to their environment and get to know its patterns, constantly forcing them to re-adapt to a new location on the line has negative phycological impacts (e.g. "we lost Sergei over this lump of dirt last night and now we are leaving?!").  

Finally, this sort of action - and why the initiative is so important in war - feeds the Ukrainian military learning engine.  Given that the battlefield is basically fully illuminated, the UA is able to see how much stress this constant to-and-fro is causing and further, they can gauge the speed and effectiveness of Russian reaction over time.  As it grows more sluggish and strained they will be able to see it.  In effect those 500 troops per day in the Donbas could be providing the UA with a learning advantage, which is significant and supports cognitive advantage.  

What happens next?  No idea.  The UA could be waiting for their moment to do something big, or this is truly an attritional fight and they are just watching the Russian system strain until it eventually does fail.  It is too early to confirm any of this, so take it as an educated hunch...but it is freakin brilliant if this is deliberate and I think we have seen this at least three times now - Kherson, Izyum and Kharkiv (I think I am missing one).

Edited June 20, 2022 by The_Capt

[Grigb]

Murz published clarification regarding recent video of UKR platoon running away. I will not put video here as it is just light platoon of UKR guys running away (for RU guys reading us - your army was founded by a guy who managed to ran away from Germans like through the half of RU before being forcibly stopped). It was celebrated by Murz as a glimmer of hope. Bright clean spot on RU pants full of crap [sorry, got very emotional reading Murz].

The video is not important, but Murz clarification is. Girkin (and many others) criticized Murz that video is bad as it shows UKR running away without Ghost [Murz related battalion] arty interfering and killing them once and for all. Murz responded with clarification describing what was really going on.

As I can see from other sources it is a more or less typical platoon-company battle at Donbass and will give feel of current fights.

Quote

I will answer. Because there are fewer of our people storming these [UKRs] than you see in the frame of the running [UKRs]! And the attack initially looks like a preliminary hitting non-brothers with 120-mm mortars from dispersed positions, and then - throwing 152-mm shells from D-20 there as well. After that, the main thing for those who lead the attack is not to throw a [UKR] herd running to the rear, but to make sure that in the epicenter of the fun, where the assault group is about to enter, there were no surviving machine gunners, grenade throwers or even just automatic riflemen capable of shooting someone from an ambush.

What happens at the moment when the [UKRs] start to run away from the bridge? The authority to adjust the fire paving the way for the assault group is transferred to its commander, who has a small quadric in order to inspect the battlefield "at low-level". And the task of the operator of the main UAV is to track where the [UKRs] ran, whether they will stopped, whether they will regroup for a counterattack. The operator of the main UAV insures those who clean the bridge and the surrounding area will not be hit with a counterattack, and howitzers are placed back to the area of the bridge so that there are definitely no combat-ready [UKRs] under the bridge.

Well, I'm sorry that we don't have a separate newsreel with another "Mavik 3", which at this moment would shoot beautifully, from what, having thrown down their weapons, the [UKRs] are running. At the beginning there is a small moment with a view of the fire, but then the operator had to do his job.

If the battalion had been given a battery of Grads from the brigade division on a permanent basis and given them to train properly, this whole running herd, of course, would have been covered with a couple of Grad bags, turned into minced meat, and all the respected viewers would have been satisfied. If the battalion was given on a permanent basis and allowed to train an additional artillery battery from the brigade GADn [howitzer artillery division, usually 3 batteries (12-24 guns)], would also be nice. In the meantime... (attention, military experts!) we don't even have one arty battery!

According to the ΤΟΕ, the scary people, omitting their previous merits, responsible since February 24 of this year for a lot of frags, often disassembled by close hits to the state of "parts for puzzle" in the vicinity of the 29th checkpoint, are ... (don't laugh, military!) an anti-tank platoon. Which was supposed to be armed with outdated anti-tank guns "Rapier", but by some kind of miracle they got 4 D-30s instead of them at one time, and then their number by hook or by crook managed to increase to six pieces, which, of course, not without the help of the battalion's mortar battery, made the trenches of the AFU across The "Ghost" [LDNR unit] probably the longest and deepest in the LPR.

Not even a battery in number! Platoon, damn it! In which, in order to pretend to be the number of barrels and the speed of raining hell on the enemy's head, everyone ****s [works heavily] for two, servicing the 152-mm D-20 howitzers received recently instead of the D-30.

Well, someone wanted to reform the "Ghost" in the most miserable TOE  in 2015, and the TOE of the "territorial defense battalion" was applied with infantry squads of five people, in which the position of "assistant grenade launcher" exist, but the position of "grenade launcher" does not. Yes, the will to Win and the titanic organizational and pedagogical efforts of the officers who were available as of 2015 and who came later made this Territorial Defence Battalion a rather dangerous opponent for the AFU. It allowed to build communication and combat control, staff work, training of people. But they did not change the battalion's staffing table.

Yes, there is no second battery in this battle, and the first, which is a platoon, is busy burning out the surroundings of the bridge in front of the advancing infantry, so yes, "the departed UKRS will return to the front with new experience and new anger "for the brothers." But that will be later. And if the Arty guys would have missed someone at the bridge, we would have lost experienced people, who would then be nowhere to take. Therefore, let them run, let them be given new machines, let them come again, get a new unforgettable experience. The artillery will provide it for them. [Arrogant basterd, I will give him that]

And no, no one thinks that "well, since they ran, then you don't have to shoot at them." In order not to be shot at, username [RU nickname for a reader who reading this] , you have to run in the other direction and with your hands up. Over the past week, 11 APU soldiers did this at the site of the 14th BTRO, and if the press service of the 2nd AK NM LNR did not show them to you, well, spit in her eye with a chewed carrot, I can't work for the press service of the 2nd AK.

I quote the battalion chief of staff on this occasion: "I don't care whose area of responsibility, who is advancing there, we or the neighbors. If I reach there with a "Mavik" and see UKRs, if I reach there with a howitzer, I KILL ALL THE UKRS THERE THAT I SEE!" [Oh, yes, yes basterd, your running away from Kiev army, your burned en mass tanks, your dead in droves generals, your chicken aviation, your submarine Moscow cruiser and fryied Bach boat approve your message. Sorry, guys for being emotional but I really hate these f*cks]

In general, if there will be more competent gunners in touch with the combat commander leading the battle - no one will run away. Well, in the meantime, yes, the pearls are small, sorry.

About the failure of the offensive and the purely tactical nature of our further successes, can I say later?
I'm going to have to work a little more now.

But I agree with all the gloomy forecasts that everything is bad, everything is sad.

 

[LongLeftFlank]

This is my shocked face. 

My other shocked face. 

And while I'm getting close to straying OT....

 

 

 

Edited June 20, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Billy Ringo]

Regarding the increase in Russian to Chinese oil imports, China is going to make Russia its' bitch.  Negotiating while in obvious desperation has devastating consequences.  This is only the start, it will get worse.  IMO, Xi played Putin like a fool.

Which makes me wonder if Taiwan is still, for the next few years, really that much of a priority for China.

[Harmon Rabb]

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/snake-island-gut-feelings-and-impressions/

Good article explaining the importance of Snake Island.

[dan/california]

4 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

This.

There is another layer there. There was an article about month ago from one of polish Caucasus experts who explained Kadyrovites rationale in detail (guy know Chechen lanuage and even held honorary membership of one of the teyps - tribes).

While some elite Chechens are indeed parts of the Russian forces and nothing to be laugh about (they did fought and sustained casualties), most of Tik Tokers are in fact "feudal" levies recruited by web of family allegiance to Kadyrov. They avoid real battles by order, beacuse their death need to be repaid by Kadyrov himself according to tribal traditions and could raise greviances among elders who support regime. And since martial traditions are alive there, young ones who want to have some respect from elders need to shot those TikToks as "proofs" (jn non western meaning, i.e. everybody knows they are faking but tradition need to be held).

Despite brutality of Kadyrov, this society is still collection of tribes, clans and families run by Elders. Kadyrov need to navigate that.

And of course Kadyrovites are useful as Putin oprychniks to bite legs of lagging Russian troops.

 

 

It appears that as the war has developed that the Chechens have mostly gotten the job of standing behind the Russian lines and telling the Russian/Buryat troops doing the actual fighting that we will kill if you run, too, so you might as well fight. I am not sure how explicitly this is stated, but it seems to be how it works. Now the Chechens are probably being committed to some the ugliest urban combat of the whole war, at the exact moment that better western artillery has arrived and the Russian artillery advantage is is starting to diminish. The very interesting question is what happens when the Chechen's   have been attrited to the point that THEY don't want to be there anymore. Is there some other incredibly ugly fascist/totalitarian glue holding this excuse for an army together?

Edited June 20, 2022 by dan/california

[Grigb]

DNR Minister of the Interior about current plans:

Quote

The situation is tense. The tension relates to the incessant shelling of the city of Donetsk, Makiyivka and Yasinovataya. Currently, the special operation is going according to plan. Now the troops are being reorganized with the aim of further advance. The main task now set is to ensure the impossibility of inflicting artillery and missile strikes on the territory of the city of Donetsk, Makeevka and Yasinovataya, on the territory of the DPR. To this end, plans have now been revised. Most likely, they will have to work on the territory of other regions, because the weapons supplied by NATO countries, which are now in Ukraine, allow them to work from a distance of 120 km. This is now the main problem. Because of this, the pace of the special military operation has probably been slightly reduced. But I think we will resolve this issue within a week.

So,

1. LDNR reorganize troops for further offensive
2. The goal of the new offensive will be buffer zone 120 km from LDNR region  
3. They hope to start it within the week

Due to way he is speaking about other regions I got the feeling they are back to previous plan with big pincers to cut the whole east region.  But we will see.

[Grigb]

1 minute ago, dan/california said:

 The very interesting question is what happens when the Chechen's   have been attrited to the point that THEY don't want to be there anymore. Is there some other incredibly ugly fascist/totalitarian glue holding this excuse for an army together?

Kadyrov will not allow his little army be attrited. He will pull them long before that. Informally I believe he answers only to Putin and can leave the party whenever he wants. 

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, Grigb said:

DNR Minister of the Interior about current plans:

So,

1. LDNR reorganize troops for further offensive
2. The goal of the new offensive will be buffer zone 120 km from LDNR region  
3. They hope to start it within the week

Due to way he is speaking about other regions I got the feeling they are back to previous plan with big pincers to cut the whole east region.  But we will see.

Given that they have been breaking their teeth in in Severodonetsk for a month, and still don't have it seems a wee bit optimistic to declare that there will be huge new push even as our entire logistics infrastructure goes up in flames.