How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[sburke]

3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Hey, but at least it stayed in one piece!  Here's a luxury condo in Florida that got quite a bit of attention not to long ago:

true, but the top building is brand new, not a 40 year old building with serious neglect issues.

I have more if we want to establish a pattern

53 dead in China building collapse as rescue effort ends (nbcnews.com)

point is I have seen enough in China to know that while Russia has more serious issues with corruption and corner cutting, so does China.  Don't get me started on India - I'll try to keep focused on the subject of China support for Russia.

squirrel.

Edited March 10, 2023 by sburke

[chuckdyke]

I am puzzled why they don't take out legitimate Russian targets inside Russia. The reason most of the Israeli infrastructure is functioning because its enemies realize the consequences. My first target would be the propagandists in Moscow and their TV broadcasting. Go up like a puff of smoke in the middle of their vitriolic nationalist broadcast. Especially their golden calf.

Edited March 10, 2023 by chuckdyke

[Battlefront.com]

Another example of how disruptive/deadly drone bombers can be.  Here is a collection of night time attacks.  Check out at 1:25 where a dropped grenade apparently ignites a bunch of explosives (my guess RPG rounds) on some soldier's back:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/11n2ni7/thermal_equipped_drones_operated_by_the_36th/

Steve

[chrisl]

19 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Many thanks for this.

Suyi's analysis is excellent, although since my foreign language skills (beyond tres mal high school French) are limited to ordering  beer and finding a WC in 3 dozen countries, I mainly check in on his English Twitter feed.

While house experts here like to beat me up over doomsaying (and should feel free to do so), I continue to check 'the other side of the hill' for early indicators or hints of improvement. It's too important not to.

****

There is only one industrial power in the world today capable of ramping production of low tech artillery shells and other low-to-medium tech consumables within 6 month timeframes, and it's China.  Russia, no way.

I'm not in the miltech business, but I have watched China basically eat the entire global (high tech but mature) wind turbine OEM sector alive over the last 5 years.

No foreign maker competes today unless they put their branding on a 95%+ Chinese built product, that is (outside the West) installed (and likely maintained by) Chinese EPC engineers and technicians all the way down to welders, using Chinese construction equipment and hand tools. Vertically integrated.

Let us not fool ourselves about their capabilities to ramp up production of pretty much any mature tech by orders of magnitude in periods measured in months, given a directive from Beijing. 

They are well beyond the cheap knockoffs stage now, although they'll certainly cut corners, if they can make money off it (and not get shot in a stadium).

****

IMHO, the 'European Slavic' countries, using US and EU capital and knowhow, and where most people still make things (experienced engineers and machinists and, sorry, plumbers are still available), need to become (one of the) Western alternatives to China ASAP, first in the heavy military and then more broadly in the wider heavy manufacturing sector.

But it is not clear (again IMHO) whether the 'old West' business sector, even old 'MIC' fixtures like Boeing and GE, have not already gone too far up their own McKinseyized/ financialized/Black Rock ESG activist posteriors to be more of a help than a barrier in aiding this transition.

Let's just say it, this needs to be a government led effort and let's face it, that's Team America (**** yeah!).

[/screed]

And we come back to the age old precision vs. mass.

If you can see every vehicle in theater on the ground or in the air, and for targets you really care about tell if they picked up their coffee cup in the last 20 minutes, and then target them from halfway around the world without even sending people into harms way, you don't need 10^9 artillery shells.  Especially if you can deny the opponent virtually all of their own ISR.  With enough ISR and precision you don't even need as many individual munitions as there are enemy troops.  

The US/NATO isn't quite there yet (I think), but that's the clear intent and path.  It's a combination of how US tech has developed since WWII and the range of adversaries that the US has pissed off on the way.  It serves well in the fighting parts of things the US has gotten itself involved in (we lose in the "now what?" part), but it's not serving Ukraine as well as it could because of unwillingness to give them the full range of stuff for a variety of reasons, some good, some bad.  NATO doesn't have enormous quantities of artillery because it's slow and expensive to move that stuff around in expeditionary actions. But if you have big fleets of deadly jets and suitably large fleets of refueling planes to get them close the theater, you can hit everything you want to hit without having to wait for cargo ships to sail halfway around the world.  

[chrisl]

20 minutes ago, sburke said:

mmm count me as one of those skeptical of China's prowess.  Yeah they can create a slave factory to make iPhones but they also build stuff like this....  This is not an Escher drawing, that building is now horizontal.

Impressive construction quality, if only they had managed to anchor the feet to the ground.

[Battlefront.com]

I went to Radio Free Europe to link to the original instead of Reddit.  It is an interview with one of the brave Ukrainians that helped the world see what a Russian invasion looked like in person.  I am sure folks here will recognize some of the footage.  As a reminder this was all during the "liberate our brothers" BS:

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-borodyanka-cameraman-tank/32304241.html

While at RFE/RL I found several other timely pieces:

1.  Coverage of what's going on in Georgia and why the government backed down from the proposed "Foreign Agents" legislation.  And yet the protests continue for a third day, hinting that the idiotic legislation was not the cause of the protests but just the straw that broke the camel's back.  It will be interesting to see how far this goes, because up until now Russia's "southern flank" has been largely compliant.  A change in government might not go so well for the Kremlin.

https://www.rferl.org/a/georgia-withdraws-foreign-agent-law-protests/32309759.html

2.  A disturbing, but hardly surprising, video of Ukrainian recruitment officers misusing their power.  I don't think this is indicative of anything special in a society with conscription during a time of war.  There's always someone who doesn't want to fight and there's always someone who doesn't know how to handle a confrontation.

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-war-recruitment/32310040.html?withmediaplayer=1

3.  Short piece that says Lithuanian intelligence has assessed that Putin is taking steps to keep the war going for at least another 2 years, but in order to do so is pretty much going full autocrat:

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-two-more-years-of-ukraine-war/32310697.html?withmediaplayer=1

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

47 minutes ago, sburke said:

I'm gonna bring up squirrels again

43 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

oh, yeah, sorry for continuing derailment of thread.  I'm done, I promise.  Unless someone brings up the NFL.  Or guitars or amps.  Or sausage. 

Mate, I am very hard to pigeonhole on the political spectrum, in any country. There's times to let smart kids 'move fast and break things', and there's times to let technocratic institutions mobilise and direct resources. 

We are in phase B.  I'm also too old to be a smart kid anymore.

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

While house experts here like to beat me up over doomsaying (and should feel free to do so), I continue to check 'the other side of the hill' for early indicators or hints of improvement. It's too important not to.

Absolutely.  Looking at what the Russians or Chinese are doing is critically important.  As is correctly interpreting what comes out of those two sources.  Otherwise you get people predicting Russia could take over Ukraine in a couple of weeks

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

****

There is only one industrial power in the world today capable of ramping production of low tech artillery shells and other low-to-medium tech consumables within 6 month timeframes, and it's China.  Russia, no way.

I'm not in the miltech business, but I have watched China basically eat the entire global (high tech but mature) wind turbine OEM sector alive over the last 5 years.

No foreign maker competes today unless they put their branding on a 95%+ Chinese built product, that is (outside the West) installed (and likely maintained by) Chinese EPC engineers and technicians all the way down to welders, using Chinese construction equipment and hand tools. Vertically integrated.

Let us not fool ourselves about their capabilities to ramp up production of pretty much any mature tech by orders of magnitude in periods measured in months, given a directive from Beijing. 

They are well beyond the cheap knockoffs stage now, although they'll certainly cut corners, if they can make money off it (and not get shot in a stadium).

****

This is all true more than it isn't.  It leaves out the part that much of the know-how and tech that allows China to do this came from the West.  This doesn't mean much in the context of producing dumb artillery rounds, but it does in terms of producing smart ones.

And let's also not forget that all of the things mentioned above are for-profit items.  They generate income for China, mostly from abroad.  Mass production of millions of artillery rounds for their own use costs money, not earns it.  China is in the same boat as everybody else when it comes to this fact.  There is also no inability for the West to ramp up ammo production if it wants to for the same reason it's a no-brainer for China to do the same.  The West ramping up wind turbines?  Well, that would be a much bigger task, but it's not relevant to the ammo production aspecft.

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

IMHO, the 'European Slavic' countries, using US and EU capital and knowhow, and where most people still make things (experienced engineers and machinists and, sorry, plumbers are still available), need to become (one of the) Western alternatives to China ASAP, first in the heavy military and then more broadly in the wider heavy manufacturing sector.

But it is not clear (again IMHO) whether the 'old West' business sector, even old 'MIC' fixtures like Boeing and GE, have not already gone too far up their own McKinseyized/ financialized/Black Rock ESG activist posteriors to be more of a help than a barrier in aiding this transition.

Let's just say it, this needs to be a government led effort and let's face it, that's Team America (**** yeah!).

[/screed]

This is starting to happen in the US.  The Pandemic kick started the movement towards government sponsored action, even by some Republicans who are usually against government taking the lead and by Democrats who are generally against "corporate welfare".

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

A random thought as I was reading yet another article citing last year's Russian mobilization.  For quite a lot of last year we had some information that the bulk were being kept in Russia and Belarus for training.  The presumption at the time was that they would be introduced as new units to reinforce sagging frontlines.  However, I'm wondering if the bulk has already been introduced into Ukraine and that they've been sent in as individual replacements or battalion sized units that an existing unit divides up as it sees fit.

Anybody have an opinion or some information on this? 

Either way, by now I'm guessing all of the mobilized have been rotated into Ukraine by now, which means that whatever Russia has in the field now is (mostly) what it will have for the coming Spring/Summer season without a new mobilization.  Maybe this is why ISW is reporting that Russia has revamped it's "covert mobilization" strategy very recently?  You know, to keep the flow of replacements now that the mobilized men from last year are long since absorbed already.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

ISW assesses that Russian forces are undergoing some sort of reorganization/reinforcement/refit in Bakhmut:

Quote

The Wagner Group’s offensive operation in eastern Bakhmut appears to have entered a temporary tactical pause and it remains unclear if Wagner fighters will retain their operational preponderance in future Russian offensives in the city. There have been no reports of Wagner fighters conducting offensive operations from eastern Bakhmut into central parts of the city since Russian forces captured all of eastern Bakhmut located east of the Bakhmutka River on March 7.[17] Wagner fighters have been conducting highly attritional frontal assaults on eastern Bakhmut for nine months and are likely not prepared to conduct a crossing of the Bakhmutka River to the Bakhmut city center at this time. The frontal offensive on eastern Bakhmut likely consumed a significant amount of Wagner personnel and resources, although it is not yet evident whether this effort has caused Wagner’s offensive within Bakhmut itself to culminate. Ukrainian Eastern Grouping of Forces Spokesperson Serhiy Cherevaty stated on March 9 that an increasing number of unspecified Russian airborne and mechanized reinforcements have recently arrived at Bakhmut.[18] The arrival of an increased number of conventional Russian forces to the area may suggest that Russian forces intend to offset the possible culmination of Wagner's offensive operations in Bakhmut with new conventional troops. Wagner Group fighters may also be conducting a temporary tactical pause to wait for these conventional Russian reinforcements and replenish themselves in preparation for costly operations within central Bakhmut.

Also, there is this tidbit:

Quote

The 155th Naval Infantry Brigade bore a significant proportion of the catastrophic losses that Russian forces suffered in their culminated three-week February offensive to capture Vuheldar and has reportedly been reconstituted at least seven times since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

I did the bolding.  SEVEN TIMES?  Yesh.  Now, we do have to keep in mind that the Brigade was likely down to one battalion soon after the initial invasion, so reconstituting is likely about maintaining a battalion's worth of combat power instead of a whole brigade's worth.  Not a sign for the unit no matter how it's looked at.

Steve

[chrisl]

The thing about Bakhmut that I keep coming back to is how small the gap is that Russia has to close, and they're not only unable to close it, they can't even deny Ukraine the ability to supply through it.  The extreme edges of the pincer have been as little as 5 km to close the circle (I'm not sure what they are right now). If there were no trees, that's clear LOS for a human standing 6 ft tall from one arm of the Russian pincer to the other.  And they can't even prevent Ukraine from supplying through it. It boggles the mind.

[Battlefront.com]

CISI report on attritional warfare in Ukraine.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/ukrainian-innovation-war-attrition

The first half is nothing new for us here, but it's a good summary of how we got to where we are.  Also confirms that we're doing a good job keeping up with this war as nothing in there surprised me.  Not even this:

Quote

According to CSIS estimates, there have been approximately 60,000 to 70,000 Russian combat fatalities in Ukraine between February 2022 and February 2023. These estimates include regular Russian soldiers from the Russian armed forces, Rosgvardiya, Federal Security Service, and Federal Guard Service; fighters from pro-Russian militias, such as the Donetsk People’s Militia and Luhansk People’s Militia; and contractors from such private military companies as the Wagner Group.[23] Overall, Russia has suffered roughly 200,000 to 250,000 total casualties—personnel wounded, killed, and missing—during the first year of the war. These casualty estimates also include regular Russian soldiers, militia fighters, and private contractors from the Wagner Group.[24]

This is inline with several other estimates we've seen.  Yup, this means they've lost roughly 100% - 130% of their original starting force size, depending on how one counts what they went in with and if the 200k or 250k estimate is used.

The upshot of this is that Ukraine needs to continue its track record of innovation in order to skew attrition wildly in its favor.  The report gave Ukraine big credit for use of UAS, information systems, and use of Western arms.  It says it has to keep on doing more of the same going forward.

Their conclusion is similar to some of what's been written here about Bakhmut, which is that since Russia has chosen an attritional approach, Ukraine needs to make sure that it suffers disproportional consequences for doing so.

Steve

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-9-2023

Russian forces continued offensive operations in and around Bakhmut on March 9 but have not completed a turning movement, envelopment, or encirclement of the city. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Bakhmut, within 11km northwest of Bakhmut near Orikhovo-Vasylivka and Dubovo-Vasylivka, and within 15km southwest of Bakhmut near Ivanivske and Oleksandro-Shultyne.[39] Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that Wagner Group fighters completely captured Dubovo-Vasylivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut), and geolocated footage published on March 9 indicates that Wagner forces likely captured the settlement.

 

A  hundred meters on a good day, none at all on a bad one, with a bill that looks like the Somme. At least relative the size of the frontage and forces involved.

Edit: So about three hundred days, and anywhere between 50,000, and 150,000 casualties, to get to the defenses in front of Kramatorsk. The Ukrainians have been digging in there since 2014. Mind those casualties would just be for the Bakmuht front.

Edited March 10, 2023 by dan/california

[sburke]

Ukraine's Offensive Guard newcomers to train for 2-4 months (yahoo.com)

Quote

 

"They will only be deployed to carry out combat operations when they complete a full training cycle and there is appropriate coordination between the company and battalion levels. This will depend on the military-political leaders’ intentions regarding how to deploy these assault brigades: on which front and how many of them.

Right now we are looking at fully staffing them and ensuring they receive top quality training, which will last 2–4 months."

 

Don't they know training should only take 2-4 days?

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is starting to happen in the US.  The Pandemic kick started the movement towards government sponsored action, even by some Republicans who are usually against government taking the lead and by Democrats who are generally against "corporate welfare".

Steve

Wind turbines are highly complex machines Steve, but that's fine. I don't mouth off about munitions cuz I am regularly reminded I'm not in the business.  Anyway, it's a risk, nothing guaranteed. 

As somebody aptly said a while back, the Arsenal of Democracy is no longer the only kid on the block here and the US Navy's rule of the waves doesn't apply. Nuff said.

***

1.  Sadly, absent an existential WW3 level Clear and Present Danger, resulting in broad societal mobilisation -- and that would take some time, assuming no nuclear fireballs -- I cannot share your optimism about a heavy manufacturing rejuvenation in the US (or Canada), not at the scale we're discussing here. Alas, Russia is not the only one whose social mobilisation capability has withered.

2. Ergo, my thought is that the first urgent installation has to take place in 'Greater non-Russian Slavdom', where folks still remember how to manage and work in large industrial combines.  Ironically, thanks to the legacy of Stalinism.

3. I know you live out in the semi rural homelands of 'Yankee ingenuity', where there are small workshops with practical problem solvers, but as you know that hasn't scaled up to support a conventional war machine since 1781.  Anyway, those folks live on the margins of society now.  The credentialed people with all the money and power, whether in the town county clubs (Repubs) or in the Coastal metropoles (Dems) don't even speak the same language as the Doers anymore, not even when their basements flood out. So the folks with the resources to do tangible stuff at scale basically have no connection to those who actually know how.

4. Infra-wise, the 'bones are there', mainly with existing defence and aircraft plants, but even with a Uniparty consensus and some quality technocrats put in charge (big stretch there), we're talking a decade long process....

5. Requiring massive subsidies, with ample opportunity for subversion and diversion, by that same self-involved managerial class that sold 2 generations down the river and overseas, starting around 1990 (That Giant Sucking Sound). 

6.  And even without the waste, fraud and abuse thing, 40 years of 'managers' focused on fluff like marketing, outsourcing and HR toy soldiers and dumb financing tricks are functionally useless: you'd literally need to fire them all and start again.  This are the people who own America (and Canada) today, lock stock and barrel.  They won't go quietly.

Sorry to be a downer.

[Grigb]

15 hours ago, Chibot Mk IX said:

2, most interesting part, he states that Russia rapidly expended the ammunition production back in 2016, he put two references ,

https://tass.ru/ekonomika/13526061    

https://realnoevremya.ru/articles/81757-opk-gotovitsya-zavalit-rynok-feyerverkami-vmesto-patronov

I am not sure how strong the evidence is because usually it doesn’t tell too much if the market of ammunition + special chemicals increased 23% revenue from 2015 to 2016.  But I have never heard any other similar opinion claims Putin prepare this “SMO” as early as 2016.

Anyway, an interesting read.

Indeed, these are poor examples:

The first link's description suggests that a very old manufacturing plant was simply being renovated. The second link really refutes the main point.

Quote

"Bring the cartridges": how the Russian defense industry is preparing to flood the market with fireworks instead of ammunition
Having experienced a sharp increase in turnover due to military operations in Syria, enterprises producing ammunition and special chemicals are preparing for conversion [to peace time production].

The topic of this article was that the RU MOD had ammunition difficulties in Syria (and Ukraine). They ordered extra ammunition, but it does not look like a significant shift in RU MOD policy.

[Grigb]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

ISW assesses that Russian forces are undergoing some sort of reorganization/reinforcement/refit in Bakhmut:

...There have been no reports of Wagner fighters conducting offensive operations from eastern Bakhmut into central parts of the city since Russian forces captured all of eastern Bakhmut located east of the Bakhmutka River on March 7.[17] Wagner fighters have been conducting highly attritional frontal assaults on eastern Bakhmut for nine months and are likely not prepared to conduct a crossing of the Bakhmutka River to the Bakhmut city center at this time...

The eastern section is largely made up of village-type areas. They are dominated by urban-type areas from the west. It is extremely difficult for RU to bring reinforcements and equipment required for crossing and urban assaults.

Quote

although it is not yet evident whether this effort has caused Wagner’s offensive within Bakhmut itself to culminate.

It's really unlikely. Prig appears to be attempting to figure out how to proceed without experiencing excessive casualties that he can no longer afford.

Additionally, I have a feeling the RU offensive isn't done yet.

Quote

 The arrival of an increased number of conventional Russian forces to the area may suggest that Russian forces intend to offset the possible culmination of Wagner's offensive operations in Bakhmut with new conventional troops. Wagner Group fighters may also be conducting a temporary tactical pause to wait for these conventional Russian reinforcements and replenish themselves in preparation for costly operations within central Bakhmut.

It appears that RU are preparing for major pushes all along the front line, from Svatove (really from Kupyansk) to Vuhledar.

 

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Also, there is this tidbit:

I did the bolding.  SEVEN TIMES?  Yesh.  Now, we do have to keep in mind that the Brigade was likely down to one battalion soon after the initial invasion, so reconstituting is likely about maintaining a battalion's worth of combat power instead of a whole brigade's worth.  Not a sign for the unit no matter how it's looked at.

Steve

I'm not sure about the seven times, but it looks like the front line strength consists only of mobiks and HQs. It no longer exists as a regular formation.

To be honest, I believe the RU regular army is now dead. 

 

[LongLeftFlank]

4 hours ago, chrisl said:

And we come back to the age old precision vs. mass.

If you can see every vehicle in theater on the ground or in the air, and for targets you really care about tell if they picked up their coffee cup in the last 20 minutes, and then target them from halfway around the world without even sending people into harms way, you don't need 10^9 artillery shells.  Especially if you can deny the opponent virtually all of their own ISR.  With enough ISR and precision you don't even need as many individual munitions as there are enemy troops.  

The US/NATO isn't quite there yet (I think), but that's the clear intent and path.  It's a combination of how US tech has developed since WWII and the range of adversaries that the US has pissed off on the way.  It serves well in the fighting parts of things the US has gotten itself involved in (we lose in the "now what?" part), but it's not serving Ukraine as well as it could because of unwillingness to give them the full range of stuff for a variety of reasons, some good, some bad.  NATO doesn't have enormous quantities of artillery because it's slow and expensive to move that stuff around in expeditionary actions. But if you have big fleets of deadly jets and suitably large fleets of refueling planes to get them close the theater, you can hit everything you want to hit without having to wait for cargo ships to sail halfway around the world.  

Age old? not so sure.  Don't take the bait, I'm just being cute.

Just for fun though, what could we argue to be the world's earliest 'precision weapons'? (let's talk actual battlefield weapons, not kamikazes or bomb dogs, or Viking longships or Mongol horsemen bringing 500 warriors out of nowhere to achieve overwhelming tactical odds).  Rifle musket?

...But yeah, this old anyway (speaking of being a Doumer )

Of course, the confident voice over sounds just like some of the folks on here lol. Pride goeth before a fall.

....so how long before we get to here?

 

Edited March 10, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[Grigb]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

CISI report on attritional warfare in Ukraine.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/ukrainian-innovation-war-attrition

The first half is nothing new for us here, but it's a good summary of how we got to where we are.  Also confirms that we're doing a good job keeping up with this war as nothing in there surprised me.  Not even this:

This is inline with several other estimates we've seen.  Yup, this means they've lost roughly 100% - 130% of their original starting force size, depending on how one counts what they went in with and if the 200k or 250k estimate is used.

In Afghanistan, the Soviets lost 15k soldiers killed and 50k injured. I recall that RU society was filled with dread. That was a major societal trauma. The Army's and, to a lesser extent, the USSR's reputation was shattered. 

[chuckdyke]

13 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

the world's earliest 'precision weapons'?

The sling used by David against Goliath. He had little armor but had the range for a precision shot. He also could slay lions and bears with his weapon according to the book of Samuel. Sounds like a staff sling or a mini trebuchet. The tactical principle survives till today. 

Edited March 10, 2023 by chuckdyke

[chrisl]

 

17 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

The sling used by David against Goliath. He had little armor but had the range for a precision shot. He also could slay lions and bears with his weapon according to the book of Samuel. Sounds like a staff sling or a mini trebuchet. The tactical principle survives till today. 

The trojan horse was used to "blow" the gates of Troy.

But for the modern era, use of radar by the RAF to detect Luftwaffe formations that outnumbered them and be able to fight back with smaller numbers of aircraft.  And later use of radar to detect U-boats and accurately bomb them on the surface, rather than having to carpet bomb the ocean.

[chuckdyke]

12 minutes ago, chrisl said:

The trojan horse was used to "blow" the gates of Troy.

 It was used for infiltration by a raiding party who opened the gates. Also repeated ad nauseum. 

[womble]

3 hours ago, chrisl said:

The thing about Bakhmut that I keep coming back to is how small the gap is that Russia has to close, and they're not only unable to close it, they can't even deny Ukraine the ability to supply through it.  The extreme edges of the pincer have been as little as 5 km to close the circle (I'm not sure what they are right now). If there were no trees, that's clear LOS for a human standing 6 ft tall from one arm of the Russian pincer to the other.  And they can't even prevent Ukraine from supplying through it. It boggles the mind.

I wonder if this is because any RU arty positioned in numbers sufficient to interdict or support any attack on the supply route has to be within CB (and ISR) range of UKR systems, due to the geography. It's been noted several times that UKR CB has been flaying the RU arty train, and that this might be one of the major objectives for the stand being held for so long.

[LongLeftFlank]

5 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Jesus.

Ok, I won't play this odd game, let's better get back to topic perhaps.

FWIW, I am always happy to read your posts, and I usually learn something new. But hint: you can pick who you bother to reply to. Silence doesn't mean they've won (and if they think so, who gives a rats?)

[DesertFox]