How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Huba]

More translated info from TG @Grigb

 

[Grigb]

UKR DeepStateMap guys are discussing there is fake Zaluzhny account and that there is no  official statement yet. So, the below might be fake.

 

[Huba]

@Grigb see my post above, info anout Sukhyi Stavok is corroborated by this TG channel. 

[Aragorn2002]

27 minutes ago, Huba said:

More translated info from TG @Grigb

 

The turning of the tide hopefully.

[Calamine Waffles]

If they kill one, two more shall take its place.

[Grigb]

9 minutes ago, Huba said:

@Grigb see my post above, info anout Sukhyi Stavok is corroborated by this TG channel. 

Yes, it is confirmed by this and other RU channels but anything under Zaluzhny name so far seems to be fake. Official announcement will be later.

Update with the Gray Zone post

Discussion:

• It appears UKR made multiple deliberate attacks at Eastern part
• According to RU three of them succeeded (but I would say they either small or they just push RU back somewhat - nothing serious to be excited about)
• One of the successful penetrations is the capture of Sukjy Stavok. Two others we do not know
• At Visokopyllia RU claims attacks were unsuccessful but the fighting is ongoing, and situation is fluid
• The attacks seems to be preliminary to capture jump points for main forces. RU expects main forces to arrive at night. 

We need to hold our horses and say calm. Nothing really exciting has happened yet.  

[Ultradave]

Listening to MSNBC talking about nuclear power plant in Ukraine. It would have been better to have some kind of expert to talk to and not just a reporter and the host discussing it. Their general mood was, OMG they are distributing iodine tablets because a leak could occur at any time. Potassium iodide (KI) is what they are talking about. It's actually standard procedure that people living in the immediate area of a nuclear power plant have them on hand. When I lived in Niantic, CT we had them in our dresser drawer because the 3 unit Millstone power plant was across the bay in Waterford, CT. 

Potassium iodide when taken in the immediate aftermath of a radioactive release involving spent nuclear fuel will flood the thyroid gland with stable iodine, leaving any radioactive iodine-131 no place to attach too. The biological half life of iodine is pretty short, so it's quickly excreted from the body if it has no place to attach itself. This is also the reason that it must be taken immediately, 1) before the radioactive iodine can be ingested, and 2) any remaining excess iodine of any isotope is quickly eliminated.

Saying all this, it's a very good precaution to go around and make sure everyone has them. If they were ever issued, they may be misplaced, there may be refugees from other areas living there, etc. Or who knows, maybe they never had them. Thyroid cancers resulting from I-131 ingestion are the most common long term effect from exposure to radiation stemming from a spent fuel accident. "Fortunately," these days it's also one of the most treatable and survivable. Fortunately in quotes because cancer patients/survivors kind get peeved when you tell them how lucky they are that they have a "good" cancer. Cancer sucks, no matter which kind.

Most of the rest of the spot discussed Chernobyl and how it was run by the Russians and look what happened to it (paraphrasing). Yup. It was on Ukrainian soil and they suffered for it. A lot. Still do. Chernobyl was caused by a combination of poor reactor plant design and incompetence. This reactor design is more robust. Russian competence? There is obviously still a severe problem there, Russia wide - nuclear, military. Chernobyl would have been much more vulnerable to combat damage had there been combat around it as an operating power plant. They have no containment. At all. Russia claimed no containment was needed since their stringent operating procedures would assure safety. Then they violated about 6 of those stringent operating procedures, did not understand the problem they were having and made choices that aggravated the problem, leading to the almost simultaneous steam explosion followed by hydrogen detonation. (there was no nuclear explosion - that's physically impossible), and release of millions of curies of activity to Europe.

Dave 

[Huba]

6 minutes ago, Grigb said:

Yes, it is confirmed by this and other RU channels but anything under Zaluzhny name so far seems to be fake. Official announcement will be later.

Update with the Gray Zone post

Discussion:

• It appears UKR made multiple deliberate attacks at Eastern part
• According to RU three of them succeeded (but I would say they either small or they just push RU back somewhat - nothing serious to be excited about)
• One of the successful penetrations is the capture of Sukjy Stavok. Two others we do not know
• At Visokopyllia RU claims attacks were unsuccessful but the fighting is ongoing, and situation is fluid
• The attacks seems to be preliminary to capture jump points for main forces. RU expects main forces to arrive at night. 

We need to hold our horses and say calm. Nothing really exciting has happened yet.  

As I said previously, I'd be looking for a true success in UA being able to locate and hit RU reserves when they start moving. If UA does that, mopping up the poor sods on the first line shouldn't be that hard. 

[Grigb]

Axis Posad-Pokrovke-Kherson along the road Mykolaev-Kherson is quiet.

[Grigb]

12 minutes ago, Huba said:

As I said previously, I'd be looking for a true success in UA being able to locate and hit RU reserves when they start moving. If UA does that, mopping up the poor sods on the first line shouldn't be that hard. 

Sorry, Huba, I just do not want anybody to feel bad if it turns out that nothing really good has happened. 

[FancyCat]

Remember when Russia dislodged the Ukrainian push into Davydiv Brid with aviation and reinforcements?

The true test of these pushes is whether Ukraine can hold new territory against sustained Russian fire and reserve units.

There is little point in advancing if that opens Ukraine up to Russian aviation and out of Ukrainian AD. That they got to that village is quite good, that's much further than anything previously but....can they hold it?

I would lean towards Grigb's outlook more as a result.

Now...if Ukraine somehow has effectively neutralized Russian artillery and Air units....sure, sure Huba's outlook, comes into play big time for creating further exploitations.

[Harmon Rabb]

3 minutes ago, Grigb said:

Sorry, Huba, I just do not want anybody to feel bad if it turns out that nothing really good has happened. 

That's a healthy attitude to have.

While emotionally I think all of us want Ukraine to win as soon as possible, we still need to be as objective as possible so we can make accurate predictions and assessments of the situation.

[Battlefront.com]

Just caught up on today's news.  My opinion is this is a cautious start to the ground offensive we've all been waiting for.  One of ways I've been using to gauge importance is the "feel" of the OSINT coming in. 

The first question to ask is "is it nature of the chatter different than yesterday?"  Clearly it is.  Next question I ask is "is it different than the trend over a longer period of time?"  Yes to that as well.  Then I ask "is there something to indicate the character of the activities is different?"  By that I mean either the mix of weapons, the scale of forces, the reaction of the other side, etc.  I think we have a yes to this as well.

This gives me confidence in saying that something very different is going on today.  It will take some days to determine what that something is, but I think we can rule out small scale tactical pushes.  The RU Nats are usually pretty good with describing what Ukraine is using in a particular battle, and so far we seem to have three interesting tidbits:

• larger than usual commitment of Ukrainian armor
• HIMARS being used against frontline and tactical rear positions
• aviation in action (at least helicopters)

This seems to be a pretty large scale effort by Ukrainian standards.  However, I don't think we've seen anything more than softening up, probing, and projecting chaos.  This might not last too long or it could last several days.  Depends on how the Russians react to it.

If I were the overall commander for Ukraine I would not have launched this scale of attack unless I was prepared to send everything in at a moment's notice.  However, I would not commit more than a small portion of my force until I had a better idea of how much fight the Russians have in them.  Being over confident that the Russians are going to pack up and swim home could result in a lot of unnecessary friendly casualties, but on the other hand not being prepared for a Russian collapse would mean potentially throwing away an opportunity to exploit the situation to the fullest extent.

I'd push in a few widely dispersed places (which does seem to be what Ukraine is doing) and if any one of them shows signs of collapse, invest more heavily in the surrounding area on the assumption that "there's more where that came from".  If that's what Ukraine is doing, then we could see some interesting developments tonight or tomorrow.

Steve

[Huba]

Just now, Harmon Rabb said:

That's a healthy attitude to have.

While emotionally I think all of us want Ukraine to win as soon as possible, we still need to be as objective as possible so we can make accurate predictions and assessments of the situation.

That's what I meant too actually - taking some ground is one thing, holding it against an inevitable counterattack is another. Let's see how good UA was able to isolate the battlefield. 

In the meantime, US is expanding GMLRS production facilities:

 

[danfrodo]

2 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Remember when Russia dislodged the Ukrainian push into Davydiv Brid with aviation and reinforcements?

The true test of these pushes is whether Ukraine can hold new territory against sustained Russian fire and reserve units.

There is little point in advancing if that opens Ukraine up to Russian aviation and out of Ukrainian AD. That they got to that village is quite good, that's much further than anything previously but....can they hold it?

I would lean towards Grigb's outlook more as a result.

Now...if Ukraine somehow has effectively neutralized Russian artillery and Air units....sure, sure Huba's outlook, comes into play big time for creating further exploitations.

What will RU do?  Well, we've already seen Putin pump more & more resources into a very vulnerable LOC situation, when it would have been militarily better to just leave.  And if he thinks there's trouble there I suppose he'll throw more stuff in that direction, hopefully.  which takes pressure off Donbass.  I am hoping for lots of knee-jerk RU command reactions.  Like suddenly shift the new 'corps' to the west -- where it can't do anything useful.  I want RU armored vehicles driving lots of miles, breaking down and falling out.  Messed up LOCs, confusion in general as commanders try to implement Putin's panicky orders.

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Remember when Russia dislodged the Ukrainian push into Davydiv Brid with aviation and reinforcements?

The true test of these pushes is whether Ukraine can hold new territory against sustained Russian fire and reserve units.

There is little point in advancing if that opens Ukraine up to Russian aviation and out of Ukrainian AD. That they got to that village is quite good, that's much further than anything previously but....can they hold it?

I would lean towards Grigb's outlook more as a result.

Now...if Ukraine somehow has effectively neutralized Russian artillery and Air units....sure, sure Huba's outlook, comes into play big time for creating further exploitations.

Yes, this.  In my previous post I should have explicitly stated that Ukraine is very interested in seeing how well Russia can hit back.  Everything we know about Ukrainian thinking is that it is cautious.  Very cautious.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

30 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

Listening to MSNBC talking about nuclear power plant in Ukraine. It would have been better to have some kind of expert to talk to and not just a reporter and the host discussing it. Their general mood was, OMG they are distributing iodine tablets because a leak could occur at any time. Potassium iodide (KI) is what they are talking about. It's actually standard procedure that people living in the immediate area of a nuclear power plant have them on hand. When I lived in Niantic, CT we had them in our dresser drawer because the 3 unit Millstone power plant was across the bay in Waterford, CT. 

Potassium iodide when taken in the immediate aftermath of a radioactive release involving spent nuclear fuel will flood the thyroid gland with stable iodine, leaving any radioactive iodine-131 no place to attach too. The biological half life of iodine is pretty short, so it's quickly excreted from the body if it has no place to attach itself. This is also the reason that it must be taken immediately, 1) before the radioactive iodine can be ingested, and 2) any remaining excess iodine of any isotope is quickly eliminated.

Saying all this, it's a very good precaution to go around and make sure everyone has them. If they were ever issued, they may be misplaced, there may be refugees from other areas living there, etc. Or who knows, maybe they never had them. Thyroid cancers resulting from I-131 ingestion are the most common long term effect from exposure to radiation stemming from a spent fuel accident. "Fortunately," these days it's also one of the most treatable and survivable. Fortunately in quotes because cancer patients/survivors kind get peeved when you tell them how lucky they are that they have a "good" cancer. Cancer sucks, no matter which kind.

Most of the rest of the spot discussed Chernobyl and how it was run by the Russians and look what happened to it (paraphrasing). Yup. It was on Ukrainian soil and they suffered for it. A lot. Still do. Chernobyl was caused by a combination of poor reactor plant design and incompetence. This reactor design is more robust. Russian competence? There is obviously still a severe problem there, Russia wide - nuclear, military. Chernobyl would have been much more vulnerable to combat damage had there been combat around it as an operating power plant. They have no containment. At all. Russia claimed no containment was needed since their stringent operating procedures would assure safety. Then they violated about 6 of those stringent operating procedures, did not understand the problem they were having and made choices that aggravated the problem, leading to the almost simultaneous steam explosion followed by hydrogen detonation. (there was no nuclear explosion - that's physically impossible), and release of millions of curies of activity to Europe.

Dave 

Thanks for that Dave!  It is always good to have someone who knows a thing or two correct the mass media narrative.  Be it military, political, economic, or f'n nuclear.  Grr.

There are reports that Russia is torturing the Ukrainian plant workers ahead of possible international inspection.  Trying to convince them they should cooperate only in the way Russia wants them to.  Not surprising at all, but also not good for confidence in how the plant is being managed.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

The big question Ukraine needs to figure out is the state of Russia's ability to defend itself in Kherson.  Yes, yes, yes... this is generally what an attacker wants to know, but in this case it's far more important for Ukraine because they have spent considerable time and resources on weakening Russia's cohesion, morale, supplies, and ability to reinforce.  This seems to be the first time to "stick a fork in and see if the turkey is done".

Because Ukraine is inherently cautious, I think it is a real possibility that if Ukraine determines "the turkey needs more time in the oven" that they will hold back the ground portion of the offensive and instead continue to hit positions with artillery for a while longer with periodic probes attacks here and there.

What I'm saying is that the offensive seems to be "on", but that the ground offensive portion might not happen for a while.  Depends on what the Russians do and don't do.

Steve

[Huba]

Mofe details from Girkin:

 

[Battlefront.com]

UK is reporting that they believe Shoigu has been sidelined.  This seems to jibe with reports that Putin is directly communicating with the three military district leaders in the field.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/3619311-russian-defense-minister-possibly-sidelined-uk-intel/

The question to ask is if Putin has sidelined Shoigu, is it primarily due to dissatisfaction with the military's performance in Ukraine or is it mostly a precaution against a threat to regime stability?  Impossible for us to know the answer, or even guess, but either way... bypassing Shoigu instead of replacing him shows that Putin doesn't have faith in the military leadership.

Steve

[Calamine Waffles]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

UK is reporting that they believe Shoigu has been sidelined.  This seems to jibe with reports that Putin is directly communicating with the three military district leaders in the field.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/3619311-russian-defense-minister-possibly-sidelined-uk-intel/

The question to ask is if Putin has sidelined Shoigu, is it primarily due to dissatisfaction with the military's performance in Ukraine or is it mostly a precaution against a threat to regime stability?  Impossible for us to know the answer, or even guess, but either way... bypassing Shoigu instead of replacing him shows that Putin doesn't have faith in the military leadership.

Steve

I don't think Shoigu was ever a threat to Putin as a non-ethnic Russian. Shoigu has no military experience (neither does Putin for that matter) so I think Putin just feels confident enough to just bypass him, especially given the failures.

[akd]

Said to be from offensive ops in the Kherson direction (YPR-765s):

[Grigb]

As per Huba post Girkin claims UKR are pushing toward Bruskinse and that it breakthrough. However neck is still narrow. Also, it looks like UKR recaptured previously lost positions outside of Oleksandrivka and managed to push to atleast to outskirts of the settlement. 

 

[UPDATE] There is minor mistake - Girkin confused Oleksandrivka (to West from Kherson) and Mala Oleksandrivka (to North East from Kherson near Davidiv Brid). Push was at Mala Oleksandrivka

Edited August 29, 2022 by Grigb

[Taranis]

6 minutes ago, akd said:

Said to be from offensive ops in the Kherson direction (YPR-765s):

So it could be from 5th Armored Brigade. UAWarData and JominiW state it's in the northern part of the Kherson bridgehead. (It was previously said that 5th AB recieved YPR-765)

Edited August 29, 2022 by Taranis

[Grigb]

39 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

• aviation in action (at least helicopters)

Small addition - seems to be fixed wing aviation as well. RU claim they downed two Su-25.