How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Beleg85]

27 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Another decent video of a small scale Ukrainian attack on the usual Russian bunker system.  It is as we have seen before with a tank going out on its own, shooting things up, then an IFV dropping off a squad to clean things up.  The tank almost got hit by (probably) a disposable RPG. 

What Russians have with these suicides? There is wave of them lately in various videos. Muscovite at the end shot himself, not even being sorrounded or harassed by drones.

 

Some mapping and visual confirmation of Russian withdrawal:

 

[Battlefront.com]

Here's a satellite

1 minute ago, Haiduk said:

One more video from Luhansk. Local "authorities" claimed the strike was conducted with "Hrim-2" LoL )))

 

Looks like the area in the red box I made is completely gone and the part in yellow totally destroyed, whereas the green area looks like it was seriously damaged but is still intact.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

What Russians have with these suicides? There is wave of them lately in various videos. Muscovite at the end shot himself, not even being sorrounded or harassed by drones.

Maybe these guys know what they've done and don't think Ukraine will treat them very well.  I'm sure Russian propaganda is still pushing that narrative and Wagner is probably x10.

Steve

[Haiduk]

Locals also isuued a video, where some large UAV was flying before the strike (lower video)

 

[Haiduk]

21:55 Melitopol. Powerful explosion. After this electricity is gone in the whole city.

 

[Letter from Prague]

37 minutes ago, sburke said:

heh I really love this guy.

Zelenskyy predicts deaths of Kremlin officials: Medvedev experiences aggressive outburst (yahoo.com)

"Our people are the priority; our land is the priority. And those in the Kremlin, believe me, they will end up badly. I don't know how, to be honest, but I would like things to end as soon as possible. But they will definitely not end up dying naturally."

I think being shot, poisoned or falling out the window would definitely count as dying of natural causes for a dicktator and his mob.

[Battlefront.com]

And that is 17.3km2 that Russia will never have under its control again.

Steve

[sburke]

6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

And that is 17.3km2 that Russia will never have under its control again.

Steve

aren't we due for another prig rant?

[sburke]

good lord, really? 

"We have attractive new option for you, A nice stay in Bakhmut.. maybe a bit east of Bakhmut.. *what's that?, oh*  Okay maybe a lot east of Bakhmut!"

Concerned about exodus from Russia, Putin orders country to be made "attractive" (yahoo.com)

Quote

 

Putin has signed a decree amending the migration policy concept for 2019-2025.

The concept now includes a clause stating that the authorities should create "attractive financial, social and other mechanisms for retaining human capital and reducing the outflow of the population" in Russia. The reason is that emigration from Russia increased in 2022 "under the influence of altered social and economic conditions".

 

and then this -

Putin announces call up of Russians to military training camps (yahoo.com)

Quote

"[I hereby order to] call up the citizens of the Russian Federation, who are a part of the reserve army, to the military training in the Armed Forces of Russia, forces of the National Guard of Russia, bodies of state security and the Federal Security Service (FSB), in 2023."

 

Edited May 12, 2023 by sburke

[Battlefront.com]

Rybar is reporting that the Russian 200th MRB retreated "several hundred meters" from their positions in the area of Grigorovka and Dubovo-Vasilievka

 

Steve

[Probus]

Don't you think that if UA is going to maintain surprise, the opening push should be hot and heavy. I don't think there will be any doubt that operations have kicked off but there should be a good number of strikes on Logistics and C&C wherever the low hanging fruit is before things get going.

[billbindc]

Looks like we are in the vehicle and fuel phase with at least some effort at pulling Russian reinforcements towards Bakhmut. 

 

Edited May 12, 2023 by billbindc

[Jiggathebauce]

24 minutes ago, sburke said:

 

Concerned about exodus from Russia, Putin orders country to be made "attractive" (yahoo.com)

"Everyone's leaving my shiddy police state that's leaving everyone futureless and impoverished! Nobody loves dear leader?What ever will we do to fix it?" 

It would be funny if it wasn't tragic 

[Beleg85]

53 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Maybe these guys know what they've done and don't think Ukraine will treat them very well.  I'm sure Russian propaganda is still pushing that narrative and Wagner is probably x10.

Steve

Quite possibly, but they must know that their companions occassionally do surrender and survive, yet still suicides were noted among different units, not only Wagnerite kamikaze. This entire war starts to resemble Pacific one, especially in areas with heavy concentration of trench warfare.

 

Smart.

[Haiduk]

10 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Are you sure? I thought it is the other way round -I read the Offensive Guards are more of infantry type organisations, so more likely to be used in the breakthrough rather than exploitation.

No, all "Offensive Guard" units of National Guard are fomer special purpose regiments and since 2014-2015 - operative purpose regiments/brigades, which had more combat than law-protecting role. 4th Rapid reaction brigade was established in 2017 like completely combat brigade in National Guard composition (existed 100 % combat units like "Donbas", "Azov", Kulchitskiy's battalion weren't independent units and belonged to different regiments and brigades of mixed pupose). 

Operative pupose regiment typically had two battlions - armored on BTR and on armored cars. Brigades had three battalions. Now all these units "rebranded" to "assault brigades" - actually they got third battalion, brigade's set of support&supply units, so probably these brigades will be very similar to Army air-assault brigades for tactic and usage   

[Haiduk]

More than a year of war, but Russian General Staff continue to use old maps. In today's Russian MoD statement was meant "Maloilyinovka direction", toward which UKR troops attack in Bakmut area. But you will not find it on modern maps. Maloilyinoka was a village, existed until 1963, then was included into Artyomovsk city (former Soviet name of Bakhmut), now this extreme northern district of the city with name Stupky (like railway station). But despite village ended own existance in 1963, it still depicted on military topomap even in 1989 (this was really good and precise map, it in free acees now). And looks like Russian General Staff still use 1989 map to this time

Edited May 12, 2023 by Haiduk

[Probus]

If Russia starts conscripting big time again, what percentage of the population would be eligible approximately?

[Haiduk]

23 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Quite possibly, but they must know that their companions occassionally do surrender and survive, yet still suicides were noted among different units, not only Wagnerite kamikaze. This entire war starts to resemble Pacific one, especially in areas with heavy concentration of trench warfare.

 

Smart.

There weren't "multilple launches of Patriots" at Kinzhal. All theese "multiple missiiles" had to explode in the air, but I heard triple explosion sound. First one and since less the half of second double loud BOO-BOOOOMMM like a rolling thunder.

[Haiduk]

1 minute ago, Probus said:

If Russia starts conscripting big time again, what percentage of the population would be eligible approximately?

Their training centers together with Belarusian are unable to train more than 250-300 000 men in two months.

[Kinophile]

Ok, this rude, but... 

I shall shortly delete... 

[Kinophile]

https://twitter.com/WhereisRussia/status/1657018686069264386?t=6-wMcS6DS5-BLlXFNt3Y4w&s=19

[Centurian52]

2 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Ok, this rude, but... 

I shall shortly delete... 

[akd]

Pretty good evidence that strike in Luhansk was at least in part against high level C2, not just logistics:

Also:

 

Edited May 12, 2023 by akd

[Letter from Prague]

According to this guy's Patriot video (which is maybe a bit overdramatized but you know it's a real military video because he spends half the time on Patriot battery orgchart), Patriot seems to default to firing two missiles at a target. Maybe that is where the rumors are coming from.

 

[photon]

12 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

More than a year of war, but Russian General Staff continue to use old maps. In today's Russian MoD statement was meant "Maloilyinovka direction", toward which UKR troops attack in Bakmut area. But you will not find it on modern maps. Maloilyinoka was a village, existed until 1963, then was included into Artyomovsk city (former Soviet name of Bakhmut), now this extreme northern district of the city with name Stupky (like railway station). But despite village ended own existance in 1963, it still depicted on military topomap even in 1989 (this was really good and precise map, it in free acees now). And looks like Russian General Staff still use 1989 map to this time

On the one hand, this isn't super surprising. The US spends an arm and a leg maintaining up to date maps, and even then infrequently used ones can go a long time between refreshes. I once worked on a map update project where the most recent ones were from the 1960s. It's faster and easier now that there's abundant good open source mapping, but still time consuming and expensive.

That said, we did that map refresh because we thought we might have to intervene in a year or two in a particular country. The idea that you'd intentionally invade a country with thirty year old maps reveals a focus (like the IJN) on the cult of the shiny object, and not on the boring but essential things that make an army work.