How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[danfrodo]

16 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Now, this is a fun read!  For those who are not aware, Mark Hertling was one of few former high ranking officers that has been calling the war correctly fright from the start.

This is one of the most important points in the article:
 

The people who are thinking the offensive isn't going well for Ukraine because it hasn't taken large amounts of territory in the first few days clearly don't understand what Ukraine is trying to do.  And that is to "shape" things so that you don't have to fight for every single meter of ground by forcing all of Russia's problems in Kherson (no resupply, poor morale, degraded capabilities, etc.) to come to a head.  So far, it looks like it's going very well.  This map that Grigb made clearly shows this:

Ukraine has already made Russia's positions in the northeastern line highly vulnerable as it has clipped the primary supply routes in two places.  The positions along the Inhulets River, the most defensible of the entire line, no longer have primary roads for resupply.  Looking at secondary roads... not a pretty picture.  Looks like there's a decent road going to Velyka Oleksandrivka, but it is inferior in terms of distance and capacity.  Russia needs less stress on their logistics, not more.

Some speculation here... I don't expect that Russia has constructed significant backup lines of defense in the interior.  I highly doubt whatever they did establish are designed well enough to keep the Ukrainians from advancing from multiple directions simultaneously. 

The bigger problem for Russia is that once their forces pull back... will they do so in a disciplined way like the Ukrainians have repeatedly done, or are they going to be trashed to the point that they can't mount an effective defense?  If they do, how much of a fight might they put up from a secondary position?  Third position?

The destruction of supply dumps all throughout this area a HUGE problem.  How much of their limited supplies are in the vicinity of the backup positions?  The further away they are, the more novel the paths to get the supplies to where they are needed, the less likely they will get there.  Russian communications and coordination hasn't shown itself very capable when under stress.

Bottom line, Ukraine is getting the Russian front to move.  That's difficult for a defender to do even when conditions are favorable.  I think we can all agree that Russia's situation is not favorable.  Ukraine did a lot to make that happen already and is doing more by the day.

Steve

As sectors of the front are unhinged via cuts to LOC and attacks, it brings up not only the question of whether the secondary lines of defense are any good (as per Steve), but who is manning those lines?  Reports indicate much of the better RU units were put into Putler's Pocket, but were those unit placed in the first lines?  Who is defending further back? 

If it's a bunch of poor quality troops, then UKR advantages will increase and things will move faster.  The width of the pocket is 15-25km, so losing even 10km is a very serious issue since even heavy mortars are now banging away well into your contracted rear areas.  UKR can locally lose 10km in Kherson front and it's no big deal; it's a disaster for RU. This is getting good. 

I am hoping collapse in the NE sectors starts a stampede in the rear of the western half of the pocket. 

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Looking at the summary of the video I'd say the arguments he pushed are akin to those made by people to convince us the war wasn't going badly for Russia because they have something up their sleeve we haven't seen yet.

Steve

Oh man, this. I've had too many conversations that arrive at "well, Russia has thermobaric weapons (or nukes, or reserves or Soviet Man Hulk Power)" and they sound a lot like pipeline guys. There's just a lot of emotional investment in Russian power and only a decisive loss in Ukraine is going to change it.

[billbindc]

Russia buying shells from North Korea. As Alperovitch notes, a likely sign of severe supply issues and an overestimation of what they had originally.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/05/us/politics/russia-north-korea-artillery.html

[chuckdyke]

Looks like they play Combat Mission Black Sea in Russia and report their Action Reports as news. 

 

[Combatintman]

10 hours ago, sburke said:

wonder if that has anything to do with that ruling on Islamic religious texts.

No - more about utterly demolishing the Taliban narrative that IS-K poses no threat.  The IS-K claim for the incident made specific reference to oft-made Taliban promises to guarantee the security of international missions.

[chuckdyke]

He did his bit, hope he will keep full use of his legs.

 

[chrisl]

3 hours ago, dan/california said:

And the thing Russia is going to be terribly short of is technical specialists, Radar, EW, FDC, FO, and higher level repair people for pretty much everything. The Russians are burning thru a twenty year accumulation in all of these folks, and is already eating its seed corn by sending its training cadres to the front. It makes it even worse that a lot of the Russian equipment is more sensitive to operator quality and experience. The specialist the Ukrainians need are being trained in every military school in Europe, and when that wasn't enough Canada and Australia sent people to help. In three to six months in a whole bunch of areas the Ukrainians will get better as the Russians get worse, maybe sooner.

I read a really good article about this three months ago and now I can't find it again...

 

They're basically bashing themselves back to the stone age - Russia already had problems retaining STEM types when it was just about better jobs abroad. For a while they had a budding security software industry that was born from the depth in math education you get when you have a lot of smart people to educate but don't have the resources for them to work with hardware.  That's sort of degenerated into troll farms, which do have some interesting technology and take some cleverness.  But when you can't afford to pay the trolls (and there does seem to have been a dropoff in outside trolling -not sure if it's because they're all focused on RU or not getting paid), even they'll go work outside the country.  And maybe even get straight jobs because the money is good.

You can see it in the equipment Russia is fielding - there really hasn't been much advancement since 1991, and they just don't have the engineering depth to develop new stuff, or the manufacturing depth to make it.  And probably won't have the resources to even build more copies of the old stuff when this is over - anything developed after 1991 is full of foreign parts that will be embargoed for a long time.  So it doesn't matter so much that they're burning through 20 years of skilled specialists with their military equipment - they're burning through 60 years of accumulated equipment that they'll mostly never be able to replace.  

In reading random pages about the death of Gorbachev I think I came across something that discussed the politics that basically froze their technology in the early 70s - I'll have to see if I can find it again.

Meanwhile, as you point out, Ukrainians are getting trained on modern NATO stuff, and rapidly developing drone tech, among other things.  And they seem to have Uber-for-artillery down to an art form.  And spent 8 years developing NCOs and small unit independence.  And more.  

 

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So how many RA troops north of that river?  Was it 20-25k, assuming they only take half, that is a lot of PoWs to deal with.  Well looks like the Russians have a new clever strategy to hurt UA logistics; overburden it with Russian prisoners of war.  

Snarky comment aside (and a fun one!), the question of how many troops Russia has currently exposed in the north is an interesting one.  Looking at supposedly deployments from a week or two ago it looks like 1/2 of the Russian forces is there.  That's roughly 10,000 including logistics tail (I think for this sector that guy is named Yuri).  Figure Russia has lost probably a couple thousand out of action for all reasons since the battle started, that still leaves a fighting force of at least 5,000-6,000.

What happens to this force when they realize that they can't hold their positions, their fallback positions aren't great, and there's Ukrainians cutting off their paths for retreat?  How much is the average soldier aware that there's no real reserves to stabilize the situation and that resupply is not assured?  Because if the soldiers at the front area aware of how dire the operational picture is for this side of the river, that's not going to inspire a lot to either stay put or fight it out.  They might figure that they're going to either be killed or taken prisoner even if they fight like Hell to get back to Kherson.  If they do, history suggests most will opt for surrender.

One of the variables at play here is the specific units fighting in this area.  Some of Russia's better surviving units are in this area.  They likely have better motivation than most, but as we just saw it doesn't really matter too much if their flanking units melt away or their artillery doesn't provide adequate support.  Eventually the most motivated to fight will find themselves pressured to flee.  Sudden collapse is far more likely than fight to the death.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

28 minutes ago, Combatintman said:

No - more about utterly demolishing the Taliban narrative that IS-K poses no threat.  The IS-K claim for the incident made specific reference to oft-made Taliban promises to guarantee the security of international missions.

Interesting that they chose Russia's mission and not someone else.  Any idea why they didn't choose someone else?

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, billbindc said:

Oh man, this. I've had too many conversations that arrive at "well, Russia has thermobaric weapons (or nukes, or reserves or Soviet Man Hulk Power)" and they sound a lot like pipeline guys. There's just a lot of emotional investment in Russian power and only a decisive loss in Ukraine is going to change it.

As was talked about a few pages ago with retired Colonel MacGregor... they should have the wherewithal to either know better or to consult those who seem to have a better handle on the situation than they do.  Otherwise they just come off as being foolish or worse (as is the case with Macgregor).

I have to say that events like this remind me that there's some officers, sometimes still in uniform, that are mentally unfit to hold positions of influence and authority.  Yet they somehow made it to the senior ranks.  At least some have TBI to possibly explain the otherwise explainable.

Steve

[Fenris]

40 minutes of footage from a foreign volunteer who says it's from the start of the conflict.  Notable for showing how completely chaotic it was.  Pretty brave and/or crazy to just jump right in like this with a couple of strangers, no comms and a language barrier.

Complete GoPro of my 1st mission in Ukraine

 

Edit - watching another vid from the same guy he says that his team leader and the UKR army unit they were with weren't happy with them tearing off like this and he got transferred to another unit because of it.  After a while he ended up in a SOF unit with a mix of UKR and other well trained/experienced foreign fighters.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Fenris

[Battlefront.com]

Well, this is one way to motivate Russian troops to fight better...

Quote

Putin publicly praised DNR and LNR forces (and denigrated the Russian military) on September 5, likely to motivate proxy recruitment and reframe Russian coverage of the war. Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on September 5 that personnel in the 1st and 2nd Army Corps (the armed forces of the DNR and LNR) are fighting better in Donbas than professional Russian soldiers and insinuated that he is unhappy with the performance of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Putin’s comments are likely intended to promote recruitment and force generation in the DNR and LNR and refocus coverage of the war in the Russian media space away from the fighting in southern Ukraine. Russian forces have increasingly relied on DNR and LNR personnel as core fighting forces, and the Kremlin likely seeks to rhetorically elevate their role in the war to enhance recruitment and increase morale. Putin additionally likely seeks to elevate the Kremlin’s preferred (and false) narrative of its invasion of Ukraine as an effort to “protect” the DNR and LNR by praising their forces. 

This is from yesterday's ISW report.  I wonder what implications this has for internal Kremlin politics.  Clearly the military has no reason to be pleased by this.  I also don't see it doing anything to get the likes of Girkin and Munz to suddenly sing the praises of where this war is headed.  I also don't see this being of comfort to the guy kidnapped while trying to pick up his kids at school and forced into the DPR forces.  And outside of Russia this looks pretty bad to have Putin admitting things aren't going well.

It seems to me this wasn't a very smart move on Putin's part.  But maybe I'm missing some angle here?  Is there an important audience that Putin needs to influence that would find this sort of statement reassuring?

I think we're going to see some sort of major shift in official Kremlin policy as we've seen Putin and/or the military make dramatic WTF statements just ahead of a major shift from the status quo.  We saw that a few days before the invasion (which is why it was clear full invasion was the plan), a couple of days before the withdrawal from Kyiv, and just before the abandonment of Snake Island.  Other examples too, but those are the big ones that stick out for me.  

Putin's comments has a feeling of getting ready for some bigger and more direct announcement of a policy change.  Which means if something comes next it will ride on the shoulders of the statement yesterday.  The most pragmatic thing I can think of is Putin is getting Russians ready for a military defeat in Kherson.  "Well, it was always about the Donbas.  The rest would have been nice to have, but we've been betrayed by our military leadership.  I'm going to have a bunch of them shot and redeploy our armed forces to the Donbas to give them the support they deserve".

I'm only half kidding. 

Putin must know how badly things are going in Kherson by now.  More specifically SOMEONE must have told him that even if the immediate attacks are contained that long term it it's a lost cause, therefore sooner rather than later a significant military defeat (either slaughtered in place or withdrawing Dunkirk style) is inevitable.  Putin always tries to get out ahead of a pending disaster in some way so as to make it seem like he has more control over the situation than he does.  Yet we've seen nothing from him about losing Kherson.  He's going to have to address it either before or after Kherson is lost.  My guess is he'll do it before.

Steve

[dan/california]

 

 

27 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Well, this is one way to motivate Russian troops to fight better...

This is from yesterday's ISW report.  I wonder what implications this has for internal Kremlin politics.  Clearly the military has no reason to be pleased by this.  I also don't see it doing anything to get the likes of Girkin and Munz to suddenly sing the praises of where this war is headed.  I also don't see this being of comfort to the guy kidnapped while trying to pick up his kids at school and forced into the DPR forces.  And outside of Russia this looks pretty bad to have Putin admitting things aren't going well.

It seems to me this wasn't a very smart move on Putin's part.  But maybe I'm missing some angle here?  Is there an important audience that Putin needs to influence that would find this sort of statement reassuring?

I think we're going to see some sort of major shift in official Kremlin policy as we've seen Putin and/or the military make dramatic WTF statements just ahead of a major shift from the status quo.  We saw that a few days before the invasion (which is why it was clear full invasion was the plan), a couple of days before the withdrawal from Kyiv, and just before the abandonment of Snake Island.  Other examples too, but those are the big ones that stick out for me.  

Putin's comments has a feeling of getting ready for some bigger and more direct announcement of a policy change.  Which means if something comes next it will ride on the shoulders of the statement yesterday.  The most pragmatic thing I can think of is Putin is getting Russians ready for a military defeat in Kherson.  "Well, it was always about the Donbas.  The rest would have been nice to have, but we've been betrayed by our military leadership.  I'm going to have a bunch of them shot and redeploy our armed forces to the Donbas to give them the support they deserve".

I'm only half kidding. 

Putin must know how badly things are going in Kherson by now.  More specifically SOMEONE must have told him that even if the immediate attacks are contained that long term it it's a lost cause, therefore sooner rather than later a significant military defeat (either slaughtered in place or withdrawing Dunkirk style) is inevitable.  Putin always tries to get out ahead of a pending disaster in some way so as to make it seem like he has more control over the situation than he does.  Yet we've seen nothing from him about losing Kherson.  He's going to have to address it either before or after Kherson is lost.  My guess is he'll do it before.

Steve

The L/DPR have been taking casualties that approach France in WW1 percentage wise. As well as fighting better than the Russians with leftover gear, at least if you are talking about their trained pre-war units. The mobiks rounded up at random not so much. There are rumors the  Republics may be nearing out and out failure, throwing them a bone didn't cost Putin much, and is at least an attempt to get ahead of the problem. Furthermore by any standard whatsoever the Russian MOD deserves a thorough but kicking and worse, so putting a marker down on that isn't terrible for Putin either. Well unless he kicks the hornets nest too hard and gins up a coup he might not have had otherwise.  But Putin ran out of merely bad choices about a week after the war started, and it has only gotten worse by the day.

[sburke]

Putin Stuck 'in a box' as Ukraine Foils Russians at Dnieper River: General (msn.com)

 

Retired four-star U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has his country stuck "in a box" against Ukraine as the war intensifies on the Dnieper River, and strategies seem to be dwindling.

McCaffrey made the comment during an interview on MSNBC amid unconfirmed reports from Ukrainian officials that Russian soldiers are voluntarily choosing not to engage in combat due to a lack of resources like water. Another report indicated that Russia is recruiting volunteers from a mental health unit in St. Petersburg, offering various incentives like lump-sum payments, compensation for housing and communal services, and educational opportunities in order to encourage military service.

"This is pretty surprising," McCaffrey told MSNBC host Jose Diaz-Balart. "Tactically, [Russians have] been stupid, drunk, brutal, out of control, low morale, bad leadership, bad operational directive and, right now down in the Kherson area, a better part of 15,000 Russians are stuck north and west of the Dnieper River, and Ukrainians are going to try and take them apart deliberately, piece by piece."
Putin is scrambling to make up manpower to fight in the war, McCaffrey added, saying the president is too afraid to conscript "city boys" to fight so he is using contract mercenaries "and it's not going well for him."

He also predicted that within the next 90 days, Ukrainian forces will "bag" a large number of Russian soldiers across the Dnieper River.

Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling predicted on Labor Day that "extremely poor soldier discipline" and "horrible fieldcraft/training" will lead to future Russian surrender in the Kherson region.

The prognostications came as Alexander Stupun, speaker of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said in a Facebook post Monday that Russia "continues to focus efforts on establishing full control over the territory of the Donetsk region, keeping temporarily occupied districts of Kherson, parts of Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv regions." That has allegedly included Russia committing "illegal actions" in the Kherson region, such as disconnecting a hydroelectric station.

"The threat of mass aviation and missile strikes on military and civilian infrastructure throughout Ukraine remains," Stupun said, according to an English translation, adding that on Monday, Russia fired over 40 bombardments from jet-fire systems and over 25 airstrikes aimed at military and civilian objects.

"Defense Forces continue to conduct a defensive operation, maintain defined boundaries and prevent invaders from advancing deep into Ukraine....Successful actions of the Defense Forces led to the withdrawal of transportation in the Kherson area and once again foiled the aggressor's attempt to resume the transfer of troops across the Dnieper River," he said.

[Maquisard manqué]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

That's roughly 10,000 including logistics tail (I think for this sector that guy is named Yuri).

Haha, thanks for this! Laughing into my coffee…

[Huba]

RU reports Ukrainian progress in the west:

 

[G.I. Joe]

18 hours ago, DesertFox said:

Happy fishing...

 

 

Interesting...they have their landing gear extended. Could be a system malfunction or footage taken close to a base, but I wonder if that's a procedure to provide some chance of surviving a brief, low rate of descent brush with terrain? At tactical speeds I'm guessing it would probably blow out the tires on solid ground, but much better to have a helicopter need to belly land back at base and need some repairs than to lose both the helo and its crew...

13 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Before the big war we had a crash of Su-25 with young pilot, who conducted a training flight on low altitude and hooked power lines. Also as I recall the same accident was with some helicopter Mi-2 or Mi-8

By the way, since 2015, when UKR aviation didn't participate in ATO, pilots big part of time had beeen training to fly and use weapon on extreme low altitude. During 2014 UKR aviation was used in "classic" way and suffered sensitive losses, so tactic was changed

  

 

 

Power lines are definitely a major concern...

In any case, it definitely seems that the new training and tactics have paid off.

Edited September 6, 2022 by G.I. Joe

[Grossman]

4 hours ago, chrisl said:

They're basically bashing themselves back to the stone age - Russia already had problems retaining STEM types when it was just about better jobs abroad. For a while they had a budding security software industry that was born from the depth in math education you get when you have a lot of smart people to educate but don't have the resources for them to work with hardware.  That's sort of degenerated into troll farms, which do have some interesting technology and take some cleverness.  But when you can't afford to pay the trolls (and there does seem to have been a dropoff in outside trolling -not sure if it's because they're all focused on RU or not getting paid), even they'll go work outside the country.  And maybe even get straight jobs because the money is good.

You can see it in the equipment Russia is fielding - there really hasn't been much advancement since 1991, and they just don't have the engineering depth to develop new stuff, or the manufacturing depth to make it.  And probably won't have the resources to even build more copies of the old stuff when this is over - anything developed after 1991 is full of foreign parts that will be embargoed for a long time.  So it doesn't matter so much that they're burning through 20 years of skilled specialists with their military equipment - they're burning through 60 years of accumulated equipment that they'll mostly never be able to replace.  

In reading random pages about the death of Gorbachev I think I came across something that discussed the politics that basically froze their technology in the early 70s - I'll have to see if I can find it again.

Meanwhile, as you point out, Ukrainians are getting trained on modern NATO stuff, and rapidly developing drone tech, among other things.  And they seem to have Uber-for-artillery down to an art form.  And spent 8 years developing NCOs and small unit independence.  And more.  

 

By reputation Ukrainian soldiers were the best fighters in the Red Army in WW2. Surprisingly the Ukrainians consisted of 60-80% of the Red Army, and mobilisation continued until the end of 1944.  Like today, the Russians had others to do their fighting for them, as we see exploitation of the manpower in the Donbas and the purchase of foreign mercenaries.

[Bulletpoint]

14 hours ago, Bufo said:

 

 

Some Ukrainian women are real bombshells...

 

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Bulletpoint

[Taranis]

At the heart of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, the wait for "reinforcements" before considering new conquests

Quote

It is an ordinary Ukrainian village, that is to say, in these times of war, very depopulated and very militarized. In the center, a café, still surprisingly open despite being only 10 kilometers from one of the most violent fronts in the country, welcomes soldiers who are resting for a few hours. They buy vitamin drinks, protein cereal bars, cigarettes. Many leave quickly. Some take the time to drink a coffee at the two tables set up on the terrace, while the sound of cannons rumbles a few kilometers away, Ukrainian planes regularly fly over the area and a helicopter arrives at low level to evacuate the wounded from a field hospital.
The village of B. is at the heart of the Ukrainian counter-offensive waged since August 29 against the Moscow army in the Kherson region, in southern Ukraine. It is a rear base for the troops who managed to break through the Russian defense lines and recapture several villages – the places and the interlocutors are covered by anonymity, the Ukrainian general staff having officially prohibited journalists from circulating near of the battlefield and for soldiers to communicate with them.

At the end of a week of offensive, the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, announced on Monday, September 5, that "the Ukrainian flag is returning to where it should be", specifying, after a meeting with the State -major, that “the information [was] good”. Moscow announces for its part that the counter-offensive would have already failed.

V., an officer of a combat unit who agrees to brief Le Monde regularly on the evolution of the battle, believes that "the Russians have put enormous resources, village by village, in the fortification of their defenses", in a region where they intended to organize “referendums of self-determination” in the near future in order to legalize the military occupation. At the same time, or almost, a Kherson official, Kirill Stremoussov, indicated on Russian television that, "due to current events", the organization of such a vote was going to mark "a pause". “In almost every village, continues V., we face tanks, artillery, minefields. After the first trench, progress is necessarily very slow.
"In every village, the Russians are fighting" "We feel we have created a sense of panic on two levels in the Russian army: in the very front line, where the soldiers are considered cannon fodder and s often run away without a fight; and, according to our military intelligence services, in the staffs, where the officers are surprised by our attacks in depth and do not understand our battle plans, ”said the officer.

Source : Le Monde

[Butschi]

Interesting read:

https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/financing-putins-war-fossil-fuel-exports-from-russia-in-the-first-six-months-of-the-invasion-of-ukraine/

Some takeaways:

* During the first six month Russia earned a staggering 158 bln Euros from exporting fossil fuels.

* While EU has drastically decreased pipeline gas imports (whether by forced or by choice) from Russia, revenues did not really suffer because prices have skyrocketed.

* What we really should be looking at is Russian oil exports. They continue with some help from Europe (Greece ships, UK and Norwegian in insurers).

* The top buyers where China, Germany (only 2nd best, again...) and the Netherlands but also Poland is among the top 6 mainly due to oil imports.

* In the long run high prices and unreliable deliveries will probably hurt Russia [but also other fossil fuel exporters] as lots of countries now drastically ramp up their investments in renewables, especially China.

[Calamine Waffles]

"This video may confuse you"

Also interesting they mention using an 82-mm M-37 battalion mortar. Yet another WW2 relic lives on...

[Huba]

Long analysis of Macron's recent controversial speech. A worthy read for sure:

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Huba

[Pete Wenman]

1 hour ago, G.I. Joe said:

Interesting...they have their landing gear extended.

Its likely a Mi-35m which has non retractable undercarriage in order to reduce weight.

P

[Grigb]

2 hours ago, Huba said:

RU reports Ukrainian progress in the west:

 

Unfortunately, I do not think UKR will move east from Shmidtove - there is a river there. Most likely they want to anchor their flank there.