How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Grigb]

Good example of RU fake reality. It literally says that AFU [soldiers] are waving white flag to save their lifes.  

Except it is UKR drone filming RU soldiers near RU held Pravdine - the original was posted here recently.

[Grigb]

I know everybody is waiting for update but from yesterday morning not much is coming. So far, we know that yesterday RU counter attacked at all three battles (West, Bridgheads and Vysokopillia). However, it seems from yesterday evening there is pause with local static fire fights and artillery duels. RU claim UKR are not stopping, and new fresh reserves are comming at Vysokopillia  direction.   

[Aragorn2002]

19 minutes ago, Grigb said:

New RU Kherson narrative - Glorius RU defenders gloriously defend against overwhelming UKR forces. 

Overwhelming has a nice ring to it.

[Grigb]

10 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Overwhelming has a nice ring to it.

28 panfilovces all over again.

[chuckdyke]

Truth is the first casualty in a war.

[Grigb]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

BTW, as an American I am insulted about the RU Nat's obsession with the UK military.  My tax Dollars have been training Ukrainians for two decades and what thanks do they give me?  And don't even get me started on how much money we sent in aid.  Plus, have they forgot that one American woman, Nuland, single handedly overthrew Yanukovych and appointed all Ukrainian governments since then?

It's a sad state of affairs when the UK gets more blame than the US does.

Hurumph.

Steve

Looks like TV hosts did not get memo about the new villain - good old discussion about assassination of heinous Americans!

 

 

[chuckdyke]

Discussion about logistics, a German opinion. The Google translator does a decent job. Logistics don't win wars but without logistics you can't win a war..

 

[Grigb]

RU report that they are preparing big push toward Posad-Poskrovske (West). Throwing in main reserves?

[Zeleban]

21 minutes ago, Grigb said:

RU report that they are preparing big push toward Posad-Poskrovske (West). Throwing in main reserves?

 

A big push with broken communications? I doubt it, more like misinformation

[Huba]

18 minutes ago, Grigb said:

RU report that they are preparing big push toward Posad-Poskrovske (West). Throwing in main reserves?

Before UA moved to the offensive there was quite a bit of talk about RU intending to attack in the south, moving against Mikolayiv and/ or Krivy Rih. I heard some opinions that what we are seeing now is Ukrainian preemptive strike aimed primarily at disrupting RU plans. If RU is in fact strong enough to attack the main UA position on Mikolayiv direction, this take might prove more right than I thought.

[DesertFox]

1 hour ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Overwhelming has a nice ring to it.

With Steiner's counter-attack everything will be alright...

[Grigb]

7 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

A big push with broken communications? I doubt it, more like misinformation

We should not dismiss their forces yet.

4 minutes ago, Huba said:

Before UA moved to the offensive there was quite a bit of talk about RU intending to attack in the south, moving against Mikolayiv and/ or Krivy Rih. I heard some opinions that what we are seeing now is Ukrainian preemptive strike aimed primarily at disrupting RU plans. If RU is in fact strong enough to attack the main UA position on Mikolayiv direction, this take might prove more right than I thought.

Frankly speaking, RU already attacked around mid-august, but few noticed as it was not impressive. It stalled and it is when UKR started to push back culminating in the current offensive. So, it is unlikely RU had any significant forces for attack toward Mykolaev.

What is more probable is that UKR are baiting RU to commit main defensive reserves. Because once they are destroyed it game is over.

I mean - what deep breakthrough gives UKR? Cutting RU bridgehead in half is good but it means UKR will be much closer to RU airfields and RU artillery on the other side all while having significant RU forces shored up in Kherson city. Assaulting Kherson city under RU arty and aviation strikes is not what you want to do.

The reasonable thing to do is to break into RU frontline defenses, create impression that you are breaking through to bait reserves but stay close to frontline to be in range of your support. And so far, this is exactly what I see.

The only intrigue is I my subjective feeling RU either did not commit reserves yet or lost them already (got minced by HIMARS).

[Huba]

RUSI published a high level analysis of how UA offensive will look like. I recommend the whole article, but here are some TLDR points:

- UA goal on the right bank of Dnipro is it contract the RU positions, which will then become a meatgrinder similar to Severodonetsk. Storming Kherson city is not in UA interests, bleeding RU till they do another "goodwill gesture" is the way to go

- it's unlikely we'll see large offensive operations during winter, more probably skirmishing and attacks of opportunity

- RU strategy is based on waning western support through the energy crisis, RU is hoping that harsh winter will break the UA spirit too

-  to counter that, West should commit to long term support of Ukraine on a level that RU won't match, including aircraft etc.

- if that alone doesn't push RU into negotiating peace acceptable to Ukraine, hostilities will continue well into 2023

 

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by Huba

[Grigb]

Now they are discussing claim they took prisoners at station landing and that captured foreigners need to be brutally tortured. 

[Butschi]

6 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

The fascinating thing about Kherson is that we know tons about both the general and specific conditions in which this offensive started.  Not just weeks, months.  Based on all of this, here are my predictions.

 

Background

Ukraine has been conducting a series of deep strikes against the Russians in Kherson.  This consists of cutting off their LOCs (bridges over the Dnepr), smashing HQs and logistics bases that support Kherson, and increasingly violent partisan attacks.  Other things have been going on outside of Kherson, but I'm going to leave those out even though they are tangentially related at a minimum.  Obviously the purpose is to weaken Russia's ability to defend its positions.

It's not been explicitly stated in this thread so far, however it's a sure bet that Ukraine has been conducting extensive recon of Russian positions.  The more they've dug in, the easier and more accurate Ukraine's planning be.  With drones, small patrols, and partisans I'm sure Ukraine might have a better picture of Russian positions as the Russians do

 

Russian Logistics

Strategically, the entire Kherson region is cut off from resupply and reinforcements.  Effectively, at least.  This means the entire Russian force on the western bank of the Dnepr has to make do with what it has.  Ukraine, on the other hand, has the shortest supply routes of any sector on the front.

Russia's positions in Kherson are not all equal in terms of internal lines.  Presuming the bulk of Russia's supplies are in/around the city, the northern area is the most exposed to problems.  It is the longest distance and is most vulnerable to being cut off as there are only two significant roads and one of them has been under fire for months now.  The other could be put under pressure fairly easily by HIMARS or advancing forces from the Center or a thrust from the northeast.

The center is not all that much better because here is one primary road to Kherson and it is already under threat from the existing Ukrainian bridgehead south of Davydiv Brid.  Russia was unable to destroy the bridgehead, which tells us something about Russia's abilities in this area.

The south is the most difficult to disrupt as it backs up into Kherson itself.  Breaking through towards Kherson means fighting troops with the shortest logistics tail and good urban terrain eventually to fall back into.  Also, Russia knows if it loses Kherson it's lost everything else, therefore it is likely heavily defended.  Still, there's really only one major road and a rail line between Russia's forward positions in the Mykolaiv direction and Kherson.  All within artillery range.

 

Supply Reality

Ukraine's "ace up its sleeve" is how uniquely vulnerable the Russian force is to supply problems.  Obviously Russia's ability to move anything significant into Kherson is pretty much zero and whatever is already there is under direct threat of being destroyed by HIMARS/artillery.

Making matters worse, they have already lost vast amounts of supplies (ammo in particular) that took months to build up with logistics that no longer exist.  Even the inadequate alternatives, such as barges and ferries, are also easily targeted whenever Ukraine wishes to hit them.  The result is that for every 10 rounds of ammo the Russians expend, maybe they can mange to sneak over 1 to replace it.

All Ukraine has to do is oblige Russian forces to fire off their ammo and consume their fuel.  Without direct confrontation this could take weeks or months, but with a high intensity fight on their hands?  Could be days for all we know.  Probably a week or two is stretching it.

 

Ukraine's Likely Plan

We have to keep in mind that Ukraine is cautious.  They can't afford to screw this up, and losing too many men and fighting equipment is screwing up.  They are likely to try tactically bold moves within an overall conservative operational plan.  If a tactical move gets defeated, even badly, then the overall plan has a greater chance of survival because it isn't dependent upon dramatic tactical successes.  Russia, on the other hand, has conducted it's attacks for much of this war with bold operational plans that required dramatic successes at the tactical level.  We all know how that turned out

For a large scale offensive there's three likely areas of focus... the northern most positions (south of Kryvyi Rih), the central area of the existing Ukrainian Inhulets bridgehead (south of Davydiv Brid), and southern area (between Mykolaiv and Kherson).  Pretty straight forward, really.  I'll call these the obvious north, central, and southern areas.

It looks like the best thing to do is smash into the center while putting intense pressure on the north and more moderate pressure on the south.  The center can degrade the ability to defend the north and, eventually, cut it off from the south.  The north can dislodge Russians in some places to make it easier to cut up the rest as the center group progresses.  The south is, for the time being, there to keep forces in and around Kherson too busy to help center or north.

When the time is right I expect the Ukrainian forces in the south to attack more aggressively frontally with limited expectations for advance.  However, if Russian forces begin to withdraw they will move up more rapidly.

If any one of these three thrusts yields significant results, Russia will be in trouble.  Lose the north and now its position in the center have their frontage doubled.  Lose the center and the north is pocketed and Kherson is threatened from it's likely weak northerly flank.  Push into Kherson without taking either center or the north means pocketing the bulk of Russia's forces.  Taking none of the three still maintains Russia's cut off status.  Worst case Ukraine just waits for winter to hit and see if they withdraw before they freeze or starve to death.

 

Predicated Outcome

As long as Ukraine plays this conservatively, Russia will lose everything it has in Kherson except for the strong swimmers who make it to the river.  Why so confident?  Russia can't resupply.  Their demise is as inevitable as the brave defenders of Mariupol.  It's physics... nothing to shoot at the enemy means the enemy doesn't die.  If the enemy is able to shoot back, then you die.  It doesn't get much more certain than that, providing that some other circumstance doesn't change the fundamental equation.  I don't see Russia being able to do anything to trick their way out of disaster.

 

Thoughts?

Steve

What strikes me is that all of this is pretty obvious. (Once someone points it out to me ) So even the Russian have to know it and it has to have been clear even with the bridges fully intact. Now, the Russians have shown little subtlety so far but that doesn't mean they are brain dead and totally incompetent (well maybe they are but let's stay cautious here). That to me mean dome or all of these points:

* Because it is so obvious it is precisely what the UA is not going to do.

* The UA is very confident they know what they are doing.

*@FancyCats thought is correct that the Russian sacrifice troops there in order to bind UA forces while trying to make progress in Donbass.

Then again...

Magnum: I know what you're thinking. I was thinking it too. In fact, when I write my private investigator manual, there'll be a chapter on "The Oldest Tricks in the World." Now, this had to be one of them. An anonymous tip? A mysterious meeting? The only trouble with the oldest tricks is, they usually work.

 

[kevinkin]

1 hour ago, Grigb said:

Looks like TV hosts did not get memo about the new villain - good old discussion about assassination of heinous Americans!

Those clips display utter desperation and embarrassment. But I have no idea how popular the broadcasts are within Russia. Do they represent the chagrin of everyday Russians? But related to attacks on US/Western interests - I have not seen anything on Russian cyberattacks against foreign infrastructure. This capability has been discussed in the media over the years pretty consistently. Has Russia been neutralized in this Domaine, or are there ongoing operations we are not privy to? Maybe the last thing Putin wants to do is turn the power off in Peoria when his adventure is going so badly. 

 

[Grigb]

Today Shoigu declared  - they liberated Blagodatne and reached Mykolev region border. Glorious Victory, comrades! While UKR are making pathetic attempts at advancing we are making real progress!

But let's look at the map 

They already liberated it sometime ago and it is right on the border. And with new offensive it simply became contested. Nothing changed from an objective point of view. 

This is the second fake victory RU military manufacture in a span of two days. But you do not need to manufacture fakes if you are already defeating UKR. Just saying...

 

[Beleg85]

8 hours ago, sburke said:

Any thoughts Steve on this one as a message to the Oligarch faction?

Just a nitpick, but important- there is certainly no such thing in Russia as oligarch faction. Oligarch is just an occupation licensed by the state, not even  institution like FSB or militaries (btw. it is also debatable how autonomous those can be in Putin's system, i.e. if we can call them factions or blocks). But being oligarch has simple rules: if you earn the money, you can "eat" a lot of extra by yourself. But under any consequences you don't engage in serious politics, not official nor behind the courtains, unless specifically asked by Kremlin himself. Putin's rise to power and one of main claims to authority (his tsarist deed) nowadays is that he curbed oligarchs and mafias of 90's . Khodorkovsky and several others served a good example here.

Edited September 2, 2022 by Beleg85

[poesel]

This is a lengthy article (in German from a Russian) about what could happen when Putin falls:

https://www.boell.de/de/2022/08/24/wenn-putin-stuerzt

TLDR: it is highly unlikely that Russia can reform itself or that Russian expats can form a new government. The West needs to support & educate Russians (expats) so that they will be able to create a functioning Russian government. Else, Russia will stay what it is.

[kevinkin]

"Gorbachev, who died on Tuesday aged 91, would also not receive an official state funeral, a Kremlin spokesperson indicated, making him the first leader since Nikita Khrushchev not to be given that honour."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/01/putin-will-not-attend-gorbachev-funeral-kremlin-says

[Beleg85]

9 hours ago, fireship4 said:

You have summoned me once again, this thread is no place for the bearer of the jeweled crown of Aquilonia!

Boris Johnson as imagined in Russian propaganda, AD 2022.

 

It seems IAEA inspectors survived assassination by ukro-british hit squads and now cooperate with Russian authorities in fruitfull process of colelcting the evidences:

https://twitter.com/DefMon3/status/1565636025111691267

Edited September 2, 2022 by Beleg85

[Grigb]

  

3 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

Those clips display utter desperation and embarrassment. 

Because it is. The less they have ways to cause trouble the more they switch to the propaganda outbursts. 

 

3 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

But I have no idea how popular the broadcasts are within Russia. Do they represent the chagrin of everyday Russians? 

Well, these are not some unknown freaks from small channels. On other hand RU TV does not represent anybody except one man

But their purpose is simple - these are akin to 5 minute hate shows from 1984. They surve is to constantly prime the audience with hate toward heinous foreigners for better acceptance of RU gov policies. Audience must feel that they are under siege and RU gov criminal policies are not criminal but simply retaliation for heinous anti-RU actions.

Cult preaching that's what it is.

 

3 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

But related to attacks on US/Western interests - I have not seen anything on Russian cyberattacks against foreign infrastructure. This capability has been discussed in the media over the years pretty consistently. Has Russia been neutralized in this Domaine, or are there ongoing operations we are not privy to? Maybe the last thing Putin wants to do is turn the power off in Peoria when his adventure is going so badly. 

RU are active there, for example recently they hit Baltic republics. But it is not in Kremlin  interests to trigger article 5. So, I suppose they are on a leash not to cause any critical damage above article 5 threshold. 

[kevinkin]

19 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

But under any consequences you don't engage in serious politics, not official nor behind the courtains, unless specifically asked by Kremlin himself.

Wonder what this guy was up too? Perhaps not part of a faction, but just a shadowy dude up to no good within a loose network of like minded Russians. 

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/investigations/feds-search-park-ave-high-rise-southampton-estate-in-russian-oligarch-probe/3847764/

[LongLeftFlank]

3 hours ago, Grigb said:

It was like watching magician show. Female assistant flashed fake boobs. Audience attention focused on her, and the magician quietly pulled Kherson cart completely out of the scene.  

 

If you stare long enough, eventually Godzilla appears. Just like magic!

[Zeleban]

it seems that it is very hot in Visokopyla