How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[LongLeftFlank]

45 minutes ago, sburke said:

highlight the text you want a quote box for then hit the icon above with the quote mark.  So easy even a caveman can do it.

example

Nope, the Android device I use only offers a very few formatting icons. And nothing additional appears when I highlight text.

[Holien]

32 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-1-september-2022-manoeuvre-warfare-for-beginners-534edb28873d

I forget, is Tom Cooper a "Friend of The Thread"? 

Excellent article and a good reminder on how to interpret maps. Thanks for posting it here.

[womble]

3 hours ago, Kinophile said:

after  Kherson...

[snip]

If UA can take Kherson, and let's assume also cross the Dnipr,  then Crimea is very much on the menu. 

 

My highlight is the first obvious problem with the prospect of a drive to Sevastopol. There won't be any bridges across the river that far south. UKR have already seen to that, largely, and once the front line is the river, any attempts to repair or replace are going to be vulnerable to Russian strikes. The Russians might not be able to play "join-the-dots" on the bridge deck, like St Himars can, but they can make using the constriction very difficult, even if they can't make the crossings themselves unusable.

I think transferring their main effort to the Donbass would give them a better chance of maintaining their LOCs.

 

[LongLeftFlank]

Wondering if halal buffet boy is looking nervously at the Chechens who are actually fighting 

P.S. been seeing the Byzantine 'Chi Rho' cross on a lot of imagery lately (superimposed on the arty vid above).

All your Third Rome are belong to us!

P.P.S. Full mobilisation....

 

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Haiduk]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

P.S. been seeing the Byzantine 'Chi Rho' cross on a lot of imagery lately (superimposed on the arty vid above).

All your Third Rome are belong to us!

This is sign of "Bratstsvo" ("Brotherhood") party, established by Dmytro Korchynskyi, excentric and  scandal  firgure in UKR politic in 90th. Korchynskyi was one of UNA-UNSO founders - nationalistic paramilitary organization, which was very popular in right spectre at the begining of 90th. Later inside UNA-UNSO conflict is happened, because it leaders had each own vision of paramilitary national movement and Korchynskyi left this organization. 

His political credo is "permanent turmoil" - he believs, permanent well-being and satiety of society lead to degradation of passionarity and this as result lead to degradation of the nation, so to keep society in tonus, it need in permanent stresses - protests, revolutions, wars etc. Korchynskyi positioned ideology of own "Bratstvo" party as christianity revolutianry national-anarchism. Also he adheres (or adhered in not far past) to the ideology of pan-slavism, but unlike Russians he believes that exactly Ukraine have to be a center of slavic world, so from there are "third Rome" and "Byzantine cross" as their party signs. Interesting that in 1992, during the war in Transnistriya, Korchynskyi personally led UNA-UNSO fighters, which fought on the side of Transnistriya, together with Russians , "protecting Ukrainan population against Great Romaina ideology". But during the war in Georgia in the same 1992, he supported Georgians angians Russians in Abkhazia, "protecting Ukrainain interests and friendly Georgian people against Russian imperialism".  

Need to say at the begining of 2000th Korchynskyi was an ally of Russian Euro-Asian ideology of Dugin. And interestingly, that deputy of Korchynskyi in his party was Oleksiy Arestovych, who also had maney meetings with Dugin and his  folowers. There was information, that "Bratstvo" was hired by Viktor Medvedchuk, but it is a fact during Orange Revolution in 2004, Korchynskyi and his party actively fought against Yishchenko and pro-western course of Ukraine. After Orange Revolution won, in the frames of own "permanent turmoil" philosophy (and likely for Medvedchuk and Yanukovich money) Korchynskyi has made a political bloc with the same loud-crying marginals from "Progressive socialists party of Natalia Vitrenko" - radical left anti-Ukrainian party. In next several years they together had been conducting many anti EU and anti-NATO actions in Ukraine. 

But close to 2013 either Korchynskyi turned ot unnecessary for Yanukovich regime or he, followig to "permanent turmoil" ideology decided to change a side, but in 2013 his force supported Revolutin of Dignity, though in own manner - exactly his people provoked force variant in first day of revolution, wich finished with bloody beating of protesters. When the war began in 2014, Korchynckyi's paty established volunteer unit  "Rota Isusa Khrysta" (Jesus Christ Company), which fought together with Azov, libarating Mariuopol. Further this unit was converted to special police battalion "Sviata Mariya" (St.Mary), which was disbanded in 2016. Now "Bratstvo" probably established air-recon volunteer unit, but I don't know under which subordination. 

Interestingly that in 2016 Korchynskyi said  "Main crime of Russians - they didn't let us to complete our revolution. We havn't played enough barricades yet. So, now insurgents are forced to waste own energy, fighting eith intervents"

Edited September 4, 2022 by Haiduk

[Fernando]

Der Untergang

[Huba]

2 hours ago, womble said:

My highlight is the first obvious problem with the prospect of a drive to Sevastopol. There won't be any bridges across the river that far south. UKR have already seen to that, largely, and once the front line is the river, any attempts to repair or replace are going to be vulnerable to Russian strikes. The Russians might not be able to play "join-the-dots" on the bridge deck, like St Himars can, but they can make using the constriction very difficult, even if they can't make the crossings themselves unusable.

I think transferring their main effort to the Donbass would give them a better chance of maintaining their LOCs.

 

But it isn't about keeping good LOCs per se I think, it is about keeping ones  better than the enemy's. It would be much easier to isolate parts of the southern theatre, and later Crimea itself (assuming relevant weaponry is available of course) than anything in Donbas. As Kinophile mentioned, it is about dropping Kerch and few bridges out of Crimea and then hitting ports and ferries. 

UA would have to start by taking Melitopol, and then going along the river west though, no way they could do the opposed crossing of the Dnipro. I suppose that some logistics could be done with ferries but most would have to go from Zaporozhya by land. 

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Huba

[Calamine Waffles]

3 hours ago, Kinophile said:

https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-1-september-2022-manoeuvre-warfare-for-beginners-534edb28873d

I forget, is Tom Cooper a "Friend of The Thread"? 

Cooper makes good observations, though he has this obsession with Western "oligarchy". However, he has an interesting perspective given his background mostly writing on the neglected Middle Eastern conflicts.

[cyrano01]

4 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

The key shortage, prosaically enough, is middle management. ‘They don’t have very many ... kind of middle level commanders, battalion and brigade staffs who know how to integrate machine guns, snipers, mortars, armour artillery, into the same battle space ... But if they want to conduct a major attack, they need to make sure that they’ve got enough people who are trained and prepared and have a clear plan down at the tactical level. If they don’t do that, there is a risk that they will take very heavy casualties.

There seems nothing new in the world. That description could have been lifted from any one of a number of accounts of the major difficulties facing the British and Imperial armies during their massive expansion of 1914-16.

[Huba]

New Girkin is out. He of course believes in victory, but in his analysis there isn't much to support this belief with. UA has parity in artillery, RU is holding for now but logistics problems are getting bigger and bigger. Worth the read:

Quote

The most difficult battles are taking place on the Kherson frontline.

 

As of this morning, the enemy is not conducting offensive operations in the Mykolaiv direction. The front line has not changed overnight. In all likelihood, they are replacing the battered 28th brigade with reserve units. At the same time, their artillery continues to inflict strikes on the forward and rear positions of the RF Armed Forces. Our troops are firing back.

 

Fierce battles continue at the bridgehead of the Ingulets River, where the enemy (expectedly) transferred the main efforts after the initial success. Apparently, the Armed Forces of Ukraine managed to completely capture the village of Blagodatovka, having strengthened the right flank of the bridgehead by occupying the bend of the indicated river. Also – according to a number of sources – the Armed Forces of Ukraine retain control over the ruins of the Sukhoy Stavok settlement and continue to put pressure in the western direction, on the Berislav-Davydov Brod highway, threatening the encirclement of the latter.

 

The main obstacle to the development of the success of the Armed Forces of Ukraine here are:

 

– steppe flat terrain with a small number of natural shelters (which makes it possible for our aviation and artillery to sequentially attack the discovered columns and places of concentration of equipment);

 

– destruction of pontoon crossings over the river Ingulets.

 

At present, the enemy is intensively constructing new crossings, pouring gravel and earth dams in several places towards their bridgehead. The transfer of troops to it continues.

 

As for the battles on the western frontline of our Zadneprovsky bridgehead (Nikopol direction) – I still have no data. According to fragmentary information, in some places the enemy also managed to achieve some tactical successes.

 

The Armed Forces of Ukraine continue to inflict massive missile strikes on the places of crossings over the Dnieper and Ingul rivers, on military and civilian targets in Kherson, Nova Kakhovka, Berislav and other settlements.

 

Assessment of the situation:

 

In terms of the “successes-suffered losses” ratio, the attack of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on our Zadneprovsky bridgehead as a whole is unsuccessful. – I.e. the large losses of the advancing forces in personnel and equipment are not justified by territorial successes, not a single Russian grouping has been defeated.

 

At the same time, it is too early to talk about overcoming the operational crisis of our defence on this front. Because:

 

1) The enemy managed to create a powerful artillery grouping (primarily a missile grouping), capable of fighting on an equal footing with our artillery units and tangibly supporting their attacking combined arms formations;

 

2) The main thing is that the Armed Forces of Ukraine managed to destroy ALL stationary crossings to the point of impossibility of moving even light military equipment across them (yesterday, when trying to cross the bridge in Kherson, the Tigr armoured car fell down), and they also inflict constant strikes on engineering crossings – pontoon ferries. This creates significant difficulties in supplying our Zadneprovskaya grouping, which will increase as the accumulated stocks of ammunition and equipment are exhausted;

 

3) The Armed Forces of Ukraine managed to expand their bridgehead on the southern bank of the Ingulets River and will now certainly accumulate forces for a further offensive in the direction of Berislav – threatening to cut our grouping and surround its western part in the area of Davydov Brod – Vysokopole – Lyubimovka. The RF Armed Forces cannot allows this, but also cannot eliminate the threat without a powerful counterattack. And for a counterattack, the most important thing is sorely lacking – infantry. Since neither superiority in aviation nor in artillery will in itself deal a blow the enemy, not to mention their defeat and the elimination of a dangerous bridgehead.

 

Predictions:

 

I assume that the enemy will continue offensive operations until the complete exhaustion of their reserves, trying to penetrate as much as possible into the location of our troops, after which he will make an operational pause to build up forces and prepare for a further offensive. – “Battle of attrition” does not frighten them – a lot of human resources have been accumulated, and “dear Western friends” continue to deliver equipment and (especially) ammunition “in quantities”. For our army, such a course of events is (expectedly) unfavourable, but there is no alternative to it – our troops are not able to decisively (with strategic goals) attack without a sufficient amount of manpower.

 

The outcome of the battle depends on many factors, but it still seems to me that for the time being (this time) the RF Armed Forces will have enough strength to overcome the crisis and stabilise the front line without serious “de-escalations” [i.e. rout]. Although this result, alas, is not guaranteed.

 

P.S. They have just confirmed the surrender of Blagodatovka, as well as – in the Nikolaevsky direction – Lyubomirovka / Red Banner (north of Ternovy Pod), and another (an hour and a half ago) strike by “HIMARS” on a military crossing.

 

The enemy is exerting strong pressure on Belogorka (on Ingulets southeast of Davydov Brod) – the enemy is trying to expand the bridgehead in this direction.

https://wartranslated.com/igor-girkin-south-ukraine-frontline-update-for-4-september/

[Haiduk]

Military correspondent Roman Bochkala claims "Vysokopillia is ours!"

Officially not confirmed

Edited September 4, 2022 by Haiduk

[Beleg85]

15 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Military correspondent Roman Bochkala claims "Vysokopillia is ours!"

Officially not confirmed

I am curious if they managed to flush out Russians, cut them off and capture or simply killed in fighting.

Anyway, great news!

[Grigb]

55 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Military correspondent Roman Bochkala claims "Vysokopillia is ours!"

Officially not confirmed

Seems Ru confirms

Quote

The airborne forces retreated with a battle from Vysokopolye (Berislavsky district).The AFU wanted to encircle them with two pincers, from the side of Olhino and Potemkino.

So, the UKR pincers on the diagram from Olhine and Potemkino around Vysokopplia succeeded.

[Huba]

9 minutes ago, Grigb said:

Seems Ru confirms

So, the UKR pincers on the diagram from Olhine and Potemkino around Vysokopplia succeeded.

That cognac was supposed to be for cooking only, but given the occasion... Really great news!

 

Edit: on top of that, UA is at least doing patrols on the northern bank of Seversky Donets:

And a video:

 

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Huba

[Grigb]

That's why I stopped with Girkin for a moment. He is good at describing RU situation but he is inherently bad judging UKR. So, read him with extreme caution. And it extends to any RU - they are inherently bad judging anything non-RU. 

But on other hand some parts are good (like description of hat UKR arty is doing).

[Beleg85]

It seems Ukrainians crossed Siviersky Donec and captured Ozerne as well...

Judging by good eqiupment of Ukrainain soldiers in other videos they could be special forces (?) but it seems they are at the heart of the town. Even if temporary, it is very interesting development.

[Haiduk]

1 minute ago, Grigb said:

Seems Ru confirms

So, the UKR pincers on the diagram from Olhine and Potemkino around Vysokopplia succeeded.

 

Translation: in Vysokopillia and it outskirts there are no enemy. It was pushed back from whole salient on Vysokpillia direction, somewhere behind Novopetrivka. 

 

Allegedly Russians withdrew 6 km south to the like Novopetrivka - Novovoznesenske. There is irrigation canal suitable to delay UKR troops, advancing from the north. Yesterday there was a video how UKR troops seized Russian position in Liubymivka - Myroliubivka area (16-18 km east). From there more suitable to advance to Novovoskresenske - the crossing point of minor roads, then assault canal from Vysokopillia or Arkhanhelske. If you have a time depict this on map please )

[Huba]

Mi-28 shot down near Hulai Pole:

 

[Haiduk]

11 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Judging by good eqiupment of Ukrainain soldiers in other videos they could be special forces (?) but it seems they are at the heart of the town. Even if temporary, it is very interesting development.

I post a video from Ozerne, which has common acess. This is not SOF. The soldier says the forces, liberatad Ozerne are rifle battalion of 15th National Guard operative regiment (Sloviansk) and 63rd TD battalion of 103rd TD brigade (L'viv oblast). Also he says their opponents was a Rosgvardiya unit, but he could mistake.

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Haiduk

[Haiduk]

5 minutes ago, Huba said:

Mi-28 shot down near Hulai Pole:

 

Shot down on 21st of April. Now our troops advanced and reached the crash site 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Haiduk said:

Military correspondent Roman Bochkala claims "Vysokopillia is ours!"

Officially not confirmed

This and the reports of taking/threatening (I forget the most likely status) Bruskynske means a very serious degradation of supply routes to everything the Russians have along the Inhulets River.  At least that's how I read the map.

Interesting side show... Ukraine apparently took a small village on the NORTH side of the Siverskyi Donets!  This is the sort of diversionary attacks that Ukraine needs to keep Russia concerned that it can't take any sector of front for granted.  This obligates them to spread their few reserves out more than they might otherwise do.  Translated (crude) text of this Tweet says they defeated Chechen troops holding the town:

 

[Huba]

Just now, Haiduk said:

Shot down on 21st of April. Now our troops advanced and reached the crash site 

Oh dang. There were some reports about it going down in various other sources, I thought  it was legit

[Battlefront.com]

Heh... ninja'd several times over on the Ozerne report!  An old English saying is "no moss grows on a rolling stone"

Steve

[Beleg85]

1 minute ago, Haiduk said:

I post a video from Ozerne, which has common acess. This is not SOF. The soldier says the forces, liberatad Ozerne are rifle battalion of 15th National Guard operative regiment (Sloviansk) and 63rd TD battalion of 103rd TD brigade (L'viv oblast)

Very interesting development. It is curious if those guys simply seized the moment locally, or it is part of something bigger. Like keeping Russians in the dark about next UA advances. And Makkela used good nickname for henchmen from PMC- DirleWagnerites. Quite appropriate.

 

[Haiduk]

6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Ukraine apparently took a small village on the NORTH side of the Siverskyi Donets! 

About week ago there was strange report of General Staff, that UKR troops repelled Russian attacks in Staryi Karavan area and about two days later Russian wrote that "volunteer cossack battalion Kuban' repelled attack of Polish merceneries near Lyman". Looks like UKR crosed SD as far as week ago, but only now tough OpSec was slightly lifted

Edited September 4, 2022 by Haiduk