How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Beleg85]

6 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

SAMP/T were offered not early than in June...

Yup, that's what I heard too, but on the other side we are barely two weeks before...and theoretically its newest version Aster-30 could reach this region. Quite possibly muscovite aviators didn't even know the danger.

[Haiduk]

"Kalibrs" are launched from Black Sea. Direction - western Ukraine. Reportedly explosion over Ternopil, some missiles heading to L'viv oblast.

[Haiduk]

One episode of war...

Today my husband has conducted own 300th combat flight. This is biggest personal number among all Air Forces pilots. This is more, than conducted most famous pilot of WWII Ivan Kozhedub. But every time he emphasizes this it's not something he wants to be proud of.

 

[kevinkin]

What type of training would be required to integrate MALD and Storm Shadow to use them together effectively?

Classroom training, simulator training, live fire training, all the of these? Is it just a matter of the ground teams learning how to input the coordinates/way points and the pilot getting into the correct position? Is this training occurring now or has it been completed over the winter? MALD has been used just recently. I am confident they are pretty much ready to go in tandem. I have played around with MALD in CMO over the years and they are interesting to use against well defended targets. So their implementation in Ukraine will be followed closely. 

 

[akd]

More footage of 56th Brigade assault:

 

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

The offensive of the Third Assault Brigade or how the 72nd Brigade of the Russian Federation "fled" from Bakhmut TEASER

 

looks to be a darn goldmine of footage to come

Heh... well, looks like the video I posted a couple of days ago was legit and not training footage.  Parts of it were in this one, but from the other YPR (to the left of the other video).

Steve

[FancyCat]

Khmelnytskyi, i saw a poster state that the attack came from Moldova airspace? Anyone have info about that? Was it merely a flyover by Russians over the country or perhaps from Transnistria launch?

[Haiduk]

9 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Was it merely a flyover by Russians over the country

This. Maybe Shakheds route was along the border with Moldova

[chrisl]

5 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

The offensive of the Third Assault Brigade or how the 72nd Brigade of the Russian Federation "fled" from Bakhmut TEASER

looks to be a darn goldmine of footage to come

Something I've wondered about a bit is what those berm-enclosed spaces are for in the Ukrainian farm fields, like in the the picture that I left in the quote.  There was one near the battle of of the T, too.   They don't look like they're used as a divider between fields - the tree strips seem to serve that function. They look a bit like they could be seasonal reservoirs, but they don't have obvious inlets and outlets, or indications that they have variable water levels.  

They do break up lines of sight and make somewhat natural defensive positions in the open spaces.  

So does anybody know what they are/what they're called?

[TheVulture]

From the BBC, Russia doing Russia things:

Ukrainian act's home city attacked by Russia just before performance - reports

Vitaliy Shevchenko

BBC Monitoring

Russia attacked the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil as the Ukrainian Eurovision entry Tvorchi - who hail from the city - were about to take to the stage in Liverpool, reports say.

Ternopil regional state administration head Volodymyr Trush says two civilians have been injured and warehouses belonging to commercial companies and a religious organisation were hit.

Tvorchi said on Instagram they read reports of their city being attacked 10 minutes before taking to the stage.

[Artkin]

12 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Something I've wondered about a bit is what those berm-enclosed spaces are for in the Ukrainian farm fields, like in the the picture that I left in the quote.  There was one near the battle of of the T, too.   They don't look like they're used as a divider between fields - the tree strips seem to serve that function. They look a bit like they could be seasonal reservoirs, but they don't have obvious inlets and outlets, or indications that they have variable water levels.  

They do break up lines of sight and make somewhat natural defensive positions in the open spaces.  

So does anybody know what they are/what they're called?

I was thinking how pointless it would be to clear them out manually. One artillery hit inside and the bowl would be saturated with shrapnel. A dangerous place to fight from. 

[DavidFields]

5 hours ago, DesertFox said:

Found this map-site helpful to keep track of the Bakhmut situation. Some of you might know that site already:

The War in Ukraine : Scribble Maps

And a tweet about the actual situation:

 

 

Perhaps the attacks north and south of Bakhmut are in preparation for UKR to leave the city proper.  With a fighting, mobile, withdrawal, the Russians would either have to commit offensive resources to pursue (which they might want to hold for counter attacks later elsewhere), or let the area go quiet (they can have their little parties in the rubble), which might suit UKR well at this time.

 

[Beleg85]

40 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

Vitaliy Shevchenko

BBC Monitoring

Russia attacked the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil as the Ukrainian Eurovision entry Tvorchi - who hail from the city - were about to take to the stage in Liverpool, reports say.

Ternopil regional state administration head Volodymyr Trush says two civilians have been injured and warehouses belonging to commercial companies and a religious organisation were hit.

Tvorchi said on Instagram they read reports of their city being attacked 10 minutes before taking to the stage.

Don't worry, Russia apparently has thousands of missiles it can spare on purely symbolic issues just to make Ukrainians angry while their soldiers get beaten up more every day.

Meanwhile, some important developments may be underway on Belarus direction. Backa was admitted to Minsk hospital, officially with a flu but barely anybody get it seriously- opposition speculate it may be stroke. He was visibly already sick in Moscow, and as we know Kremlin loves to use its nerve agents; on the other side, he was under immense stress last year and is not the youngest. Whatever the case, if Lukashenka possibly would go to hell now, it would seriously change dynamic of war in Ukraine. Ofc. all of it pure speculation for now.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Beleg85

[Kinophile]

5 hours ago, dan/california said:

You know there is only so much good news a person can ingest on a weekend morning without cracking a beverage early.

And the big things haven't even really begun yet...

[Battlefront.com]

42 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Something I've wondered about a bit is what those berm-enclosed spaces are for in the Ukrainian farm fields, like in the the picture that I left in the quote.  There was one near the battle of of the T, too.   They don't look like they're used as a divider between fields - the tree strips seem to serve that function. They look a bit like they could be seasonal reservoirs, but they don't have obvious inlets and outlets, or indications that they have variable water levels.  

They do break up lines of sight and make somewhat natural defensive positions in the open spaces.  

So does anybody know what they are/what they're called?

Someone stated, definitively, that they are reservoirs.  No idea what they are called, but if you go onto Google Maps/Earth you'll see there's lots of them around.   There's two good sized ones between Ivanivske and Klishchiivka, for example.

I had a quick look and couldn't find a location that matches the video and is in territory that Ukraine has for sure retaken.  Best I could find is just west of Andriivka, which is probably too far in from recent gains.

48.49949444829666, 37.95031288036819

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

15 minutes ago, Rankorian said:

Perhaps the attacks north and south of Bakhmut are in preparation for UKR to leave the city proper.  With a fighting, mobile, withdrawal, the Russians would either have to commit offensive resources to pursue (which they might want to hold for counter attacks later elsewhere), or let the area go quiet (they can have their little parties in the rubble), which might suit UKR well at this time.

 

This is one of those things that looks good to a wargamer, but doesn't work in real life.  Bakhmut has massive political importance for both sides and Ukraine has held it at a huge cost.  Russia has 0.0% chance of capturing it now, and in fact might soon be pulling out and moving eastward.  I have no doubts if Ukraine pulled out that Prig would rush Wagner in and could, theoretically be bottled up there by a major Ukrainian trap, but it's really unlikely.  Prig would definitely smell a trap and would likely just rush a few guys in to haul up a flag and then pull out.

Nothing good could come from this on the Ukrainian side.

Obligating Russia to either pour in more resources to keep current ground or be obligated to retreat is the right move.  No matter what, Ukraine comes out way ahead of whatever effort it needs to make that happen.

Steve

[DesertFox]

Meanwhile at Dachi on the southern side of the Dnjpro.

 

 

 

[chrisl]

49 minutes ago, Artkin said:

I was thinking how pointless it would be to clear them out manually. One artillery hit inside and the bowl would be saturated with shrapnel. A dangerous place to fight from. 

Only if you're not digging in additionally inside them.  They're big enough that they provide cover for moving among positions, but you'd still want to dig in positions, and those positions would be elevated relative to surrounding terrain.

[Battlefront.com]

16 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Don't worry, Russia apparently has thousands of missiles it can spare on purely symbolic issues just to make Ukrainians angry while their soldiers get beaten up more every day.

Meanwhile, some important developments may be underway on Belarus direction. Backa was admitted to Minsk hospital, officially with a flu but barely anybody get it seriously- opposition speculate it may be stroke. He was visibly already sick in Moscow, and as we know Kremlin loves to use its nerve agents; on the other side, he was under immense stress last year and is not the youngest. Whatever the case, if Lukashenka possibly would go to hell now, it would seriously change dynamic of war in Ukraine.

Now this is interesting!  Obviously we've been expecting it since May 9th.

Two scenarios...

1.  Older man who is naturally sick or naturally had a stroke, no assistance

2.  This:

Two very different scenarios in terms of what follows.

If we assume this is natural, then it's probably very bad for Russia.  No matter what Putin is going to be distracted by managing whatever happens next.  If this was deliberate, then Putin must have something very specific in mind and a presumption that he can manage the variables.  Which, if I were him, I wouldn't have confidence in that!

Either way, if Luka starts his journey to whatever ring of Hell he's assigned to, things are going to be very interesting very quickly.  As I said a few days ago, any signs of instability and I think the Belarus volunteers in Ukraine are going to be involved.  Why wouldn't they?  Think of the damage those guys could do.

Steve

[JonS]

7 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

They did.

I see what you did there

[danfrodo]

Here's rundown of where the current western tanks & IFVs are going.  Being put into mixed brigades it looks like.  One unit pairing bradleys w the upgraded T55S tanks.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/28/2166439/-Quick-Explainer-Ukraine-s-strategy-of-mixed-force-tank-brigades

what does it all mean?  Where & how will these be used?   So hard to say, but at least there's some extra punch for UKR, w more on the way.  ~100 tanks ~ 200 IFVs aren't gonna win the war on their own, but are certainly better than not having those.

[JonS]

11 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

tear gas

ISTR that tear gas is a no no in a military context because of the prohibition on chemical weapons. Tear gas is - again, ISTR - included in order to avoid accidental escalation.

As for the dude not following up immediately on the grenade, that could be for loads of reasons - a hinky feeling, convering fire from another position (too much if it was enemy, not enough if it was friendly), fear, confusion, inexperience, a weapon jam, uncertainty about the position and the enemy, his boss suddenly calling him back for some reason, some piece of equipment breaking, twisting an ankle, and so on.

Soldiers aren't like pawns on a chessboard, that always and only do what they're 'supposed' to do

Edited May 14, 2023 by JonS

[Beleg85]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Now this is interesting!  Obviously we've been expecting it since May 9th.

Two scenarios...

1.  Older man who is naturally sick or naturally had a stroke, no assistance

2.  This:

Two very different scenarios in terms of what follows.

If we assume this is natural, then it's probably very bad for Russia.  No matter what Putin is going to be distracted by managing whatever happens next.  If this was deliberate, then Putin must have something very specific in mind and a presumption that he can manage the variables.  Which, if I were him, I wouldn't have confidence in that!

Either way, if Luka starts his journey to whatever ring of Hell he's assigned to, things are going to be very interesting very quickly.  As I said a few days ago, any signs of instability and I think the Belarus volunteers in Ukraine are going to be involved.  Why wouldn't they?  Think of the damage those guys could do.

Steve

Heh, perhaps served by Boss himself.

If Putin planned it, it would mean he already choose successor for transitional phase. From what we know, there were no such serious attempts to promote any Kremlin candidate for now; there are pro-Russian agents in Belarusian government, but none annointed officially. Also as we agreed long before, timing is fatal for Russia now.

On the other hand, if Vova get crazy, he could try to sweeten his gruelling Ukrainian defeat wirh Belarus incorporation...war is going bad, probably even he understand that, so he may be tempted to show he is still able to shake things up. No logic in it, but there are undoubtedly behind-the-curtain factors we don't know yet.

[sburke]

4 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Heh, perhaps served by Boss himself.

If Putin planned it, it would mean he already choose successor for transitional phase. From what we know, there were no such serious attempts to promote any Kremlin candidate for now; there are pro-Russian agents in Belarusian government, but none annointed officially. Also as we agreed long before, timing is fatal for Russia now.

On the other hand, if Vova get crazy, he could try to sweeten his gruelling Ukrainian defeat wirh Belarus incorporation...war is going bad, probably even he understand that, so he may be tempted to show he is still able to shake things up. No logic in it, but there are undoubtedly behind-the-curtain factors we don't know yet.

that would require commitment of additional Russian resources.  Doubt this is Putin inspired, but doesn't necessarily mean someone else isn't.

[kevinkin]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I think the Belarus volunteers in Ukraine are going to be involved. 

I am very interested in this angle since we have young friends from Belarus trying to get their family out of there into the US. We have never talked much about the war since the situation is very troubling to this couple. They came to the US on work Visas and did everything right in the hope to get their parents into the US. College grads etc. Couple got married without their parents being at the ceremony. If you have a link to post, it would be great.