How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[riptides]

Kudos for OpSec.

Twitter/Telegram is ablaze at trying to figure out what is going on!

"O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands"

 

[pavel.k]

Hello, just a thought. Was it psyop how to clear the area for future operation?

 

[Bearstronaut]

1 hour ago, Letter from Prague said:

Man, the power plant is right there. I assume Ukrainians are forbidden from taking HIMARS with them (*), but they could, uh, safely remove a turbine or two and that would make Russian energy situation much more difficult and would probably be beyond Russia's ability to fix anytime soon, given the sanctions.

(*) I am now imagining a flork meme saying "we didn't fire it into Russia."

I would assume as a resident of central Europe that you wouldn't want missiles being fired at European nuclear power plants. 

[dan/california]

5 hours ago, Grigb said:

RU Nat speculations

Well, here is another interesting rumor  - UKR are waiting for RU to pull units from UKR and weaken something. Only then main strike will come at that location. This main strike will force RU to stop current offensive by pulling units from there to defend against main UKR strike.

So, it is possible that Kurk battle is not raid or land grab. It might be first stage of UKR new offensive. They attract RU reserves and test new tactics. 

The level of effort the opsec must have taken to make this work is just staggering.

1 hour ago, Letter from Prague said:

Man, the power plant is right there. I assume Ukrainians are forbidden from taking HIMARS with them (*), but they could, uh, safely remove a turbine or two and that would make Russian energy situation much more difficult and would probably be beyond Russia's ability to fix anytime soon, given the sanctions.

(*) I am now imagining a flork meme saying "we didn't fire it into Russia."

Already seen one by somebody...

 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

6 hours ago, Grigb said:

Interesting tactical tidbit. There are reports from RU locals that they do not see any more UKR troops. However, any attempt at leaving the settlement in a car attracts small arms fire and/or FPV drone.

So, looks like UKR are using small infantry teams supported by small drone teams to control the settlements without committing significant forces to clear and occupy them.

It is very interesting because an armored column can bypass a lot of things by deploying just a bunch of infantry teams with drones neat it.

If Guderian had those in 1941 we would all be speaking German, if at all

[Letter from Prague]

33 minutes ago, Bearstronaut said:

I would assume as a resident of central Europe that you wouldn't want missiles being fired at European nuclear power plants. 

It's not European power plant, it's Russian one. It is quite literally our enemy's source of power. The energy it makes is used to build weapons and munitions that kill innocents and run disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks and election interference against my people. If it has to go, it has to go.

Moreover Ukrainians are pretty good with their targeting, both at picking targets and at actually hitting them.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

I was struggling with understanding why Ukrainians are doing this, and there is only one thing which makes any sort of sense to me: this is a spoiling attack, designed to channel the expected Russian August- September offensive in a relatively harmless direction of Sudzha-Sumy. Russians have time until late October when bezdorozhe starts and it is likely they will make a strong offensive attempt in that timeframe. If they feel compelled to use that opportunity to try and recover some woody bits of the Motherland for prestige reasons they will do little harm in the overall scheme of things, and Ukrainians will be relatively safe to prepare for the Winter 2024/2025 fighting. That fits well with the choice of Kursk oblast, to make this even more symbolic and compelling to Russians, sort of like why von Falkenheyn picked Verdun.

If that’s the case, this is an extremely risky gamble but potentially very useful, and the success of the endeavour largely hangs on the Ukrainians picking the right position to defend on. Soon we should be seeing them switching to a defensive posture.

[Beleg85]

11 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

It's not European power plant, it's Russian one. It is quite literally our enemy's source of power. The energy it makes is used to build weapons and munitions that kill innocents and run disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks and election interference against my people. If it has to go, it has to go.

Moreover Ukrainians are pretty good with their targeting, both at picking targets and at actually hitting them.

10kms from that plant and all phones in Kyiv start ringing non-stop and Sullivan will tore all three hairs from his face. It's phantasy at this moment. I am more interested how much Americans knew about it before...hard to comprehend they were not informed or didn't have suspicions.

Unfortunatelly, there are not that many targets worth of full offensive in that area. Let's hope Ukrainian casualties will be low enough to be worth of effort.

Edited August 8 by Beleg85

[pavel.k]

I am biased because i am advocating for grabbing russian land since late 2022. But i believe this is part of main event. Zelensky was very sure russians will participate in the next peace summit willing to make a deal. Holding russian land is crucial to end the war.

[Grigb]

To get to Power plant UKR need to push North and North East. They are pushing North and North West. They seems to be pushing more toward Rylsk. One of the versions is UKR plan second attack from direction of UKR Hlukiv town toward Rylsk to cut RU bulge in to URK territory. 

This way UKR will have significant portion of RU territory with both flanks anchored on UKR territory. 

[dan/california]

5 minutes ago, pavel.k said:

I am biased because i am advocating for grabbing russian land since late 2022. But i believe this is part of main event. Zelensky was very sure russians will participate in the next peace summit willing to make a deal. Holding russian land is crucial to end the war.

And if they could take all of it the wedge in question they would not be defending meaningfully more frontage than they are now.

[Grigb]

RU video in which they claim UKR troops are easily wandering around Goncharovka (a settlement on the outskirts of Sudzha) as if it is a deep rear area.

[pavel.k]

15 minutes ago, dan/california said:

And if they could take all of it the wedge in question they would not be defending meaningfully more frontage than they are now.

Russian land is more precious for putin than ukrainian's one. And Peter the Great is looking at him.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

16 minutes ago, pavel.k said:

Russian land is more precious for putin than ukrainian's one. And Peter the Great is looking at him.

Only for a portion of time. Because he is turning in his grave.

[Grigb]

RU propagandists admits (on map) that conservative estimate is what UKR troops hold and optimistic estimate is where UKR recon and sabotage groups are active.

[kimbosbread]

Let’s say Ukraine can force the power plant offline, let’s say just turning it off or busting the transmission lines. Would that force Russia to abandon the Kursk region? What happens if Ukraine holds this territory through the fall, and then winter?

[Beleg85]

1 hour ago, pavel.k said:

Russian land is more precious for putin than ukrainian's one. And Peter the Great is looking at him.

Well, yes and no. On one side it is spit into Tsar's face. But on other, there is no "Ukrainian" and "Russian" land in minds of significant part of population and probably Putin himself; at least not East of Dnieper. Kharkiv is the same as Kursk, so sadly fate of some villages near official border is not that concerning for Moscow. It could be worse.

You can think of it as about nomads from Arabian Peninsula...borders and countries  are theoretical, administrative lines drawn by some vicious external powers to divide one people (in London probably). Unfortunatelly, it is sentiment shared even by many homini sovietici in Ukraine. Borders are really not that important; cultural lineage is. So hard to tell what effect latest events may have politically, beyond embarassment.

Just to remind folks, in twisted muscovite logic, Ukraine currently "occupies" entire Russian oblasts in the south.

Edited August 8 by Beleg85

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.threads.net/@alex.nick.jungle/post/C-a049moT9A?xmt=AQGzVxVev3c5LfGMP9h9slC6TjBSglToz11nIMJTfzXRrr4

" Photo circulating of Ukrainian forward elements reaching Lyubimovka Kursk Oblast placing the furthest line of Ukrainian advance less than 30 km from Kursk. There is a facility in Kursk during the USSR days known as POW Prison Camp No.8 if the Russian authorities reactivated this camp, there may be a number of Ukrainian POW's detained there or kidnapped Ukrainian civilians. "

 

 

Edited August 8 by dan/california

[Grigb]

8 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Let’s say Ukraine can force the power plant offline, let’s say just turning it off or busting the transmission lines. Would that force Russia to abandon the Kursk region?

No. Under normal conditions electricity could be rerouted from elsewhere. On other hand, given recent shortages at South it might not be possible. 

Still, nobody in Kremlin cares much about RU people. So, just electricity shortage would not force RU to abandon it.

 

8 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

What happens if Ukraine holds this territory through the fall, and then winter?

I think it depends on how intense the battle will be. People are scared of arty and missile strikes as well as FPV strikes. Most likely significant portion of RU will run from the territory within 40-80 km from front line around late fall (to prepare for winter elsewhere). 

[Grigb]

9 minutes ago, dan/california said:

 

 

I think there is misunderstanding here. There are two Lyubimovka villages in the Kursk region. One is near Sudzha, while the other is closer to Kurks.The photo is most likely from Lyubimovka, closer to Sudzha, while the tweet refers to the second one.

Could UKR already reach second Lyubimovka? No, RU traffic is usual there. RU traffic now ends at Bolshoye Soldatskoye, around 20 kilometers from the second Lyubimovka.

[Letter from Prague]

2 hours ago, riptides said:

Kudos for OpSec.

Twitter/Telegram is ablaze at trying to figure out what is going on!

"O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands"

 

I think arrogance also played part. Even with their oldschool satellites and not that many Orlans, the Russians must have seen something. You just can't mass forces for something like this without being seen.

But seeing things doesn't mean realising things. Despite all the show how Russia is actually under attack from expanding NATO and what not, they never actually believed that something like that might happen. If you don't believe something, it's way too easy to ignore the signs.

Which goes for us as well, kinda. With the benefit of hindsight, I remember way too many articles "Ukraine hit blah in Kursk Oblast", ammo, airports, communication and electricity infrastructure and thought nothing of it, because it look like normal strategic deep strike. But it wasn't. I think, anyway.

 

9 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Well, yes and no. On one side it is spit into Tsar's face. But on other, there is no "Ukrainian" and "Russian" land in minds of significant part of population and probably Putin himself; at least not East of Dnieper. Kharkiv is the same as Kursk, so sadly fate of some villages near official border is not that concerning for Moscow. It could be worse.

You can think of it as about nomads from Arabian Peninsula...borders and countries  are theoretical, administrative lines drawn by some vicious external powers to divide one people (in London probably). Unfortunatelly, it is sentiment shared even by many homini sovietici in Ukraine. Borders are really not that important; cultural lineage is. So hard to tell what effect latest events may have politically.

Just to remind folks, in twisted muscovite logic, Ukraine currently "occupies" entire Russian oblasts in the south.

I think that's a misunderstanding of Russian mindset.

Russians claim that Ukraine is Russia but none of them actually believe this, it's just another game they play just like the "let's do a ceasefire by which we mean we win" or "we're just defending ourselves against advancing NATO" and so on.

They pretend to claim things that make no sense but they lie, they know they lie a they never believed in anything they said, they are not bound by facts and truth at all. It's just a trap for people who take things at face value and want to debate or understand or something. Their words and especially their promises mean nothing. They have no integrity. They have no values.

It's just a game and they would laugh at you and consider you stupid for putting any value to anything they say. 

I understand that this might be hard to accept - people instinctually assume that others are like them, so normal people with integrity and values might find the Russian Siloviki mindset alien and hurt their heads trying to understand. 

There is a famous quote from Sartre - it's about anti-semites but I find it applicable also to alt-right and MAGAs, and lots more other people, including the Russian regime and whole lot of "ordinary Russians":

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

What is more important with Russia is to watch what they don't say - or how they say things, instead of trying to actually engage with the content, because that content is most likely from bizarro world behind the looking glass except that looking glass is surface of vodka in a glass.

That's what I think, anyway.

[ArmouredTopHat]

Some insightful comments on the whole op. 

[FancyCat]

If Russians believed and cared about saving fellow "Russians" they wouldn't have had the flight of well off Russians in the beginning of the invasion, and wouldn't be throwing loads of money at fewer and fewer recruits.

[Grigb]

Last map for today. We do not have much of reliable info now but I read tea leaves RU traffic and there are following interesting changes (BTW, Yandex maps are likely used by the Russian military as well.)

•  West - RU traffic stops at Glushkove (previously around Snagost')
• North West - RU traffic stops closer to Korenevo (previously closer to Snagost'). All RU traffic between Korenevo and Kromsky Byki disappeared
• North - RU traffic stops at Cheremoshki (previously at Kromsky Byki)
• North East - all RU traffic between Kromsky Byki and Bolshoe Soldatskoe disappeared. It stops closer to Miliutino. Also RU traffic now stops at Bolshoe Soldatskoe (previously at Martynovka)
• East - RU traffic stops now at Belitsia (previously at Cherkasskaya Konopelka)

[Beleg85]

58 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

I think that's a misunderstanding of Russian mindset.

Russians claim that Ukraine is Russia but none of them actually believe this, it's just another game they play just like the "let's do a ceasefire by which we mean we win" or "we're just defending ourselves against advancing NATO" and so on.

They pretend to claim things that make no sense but they lie, they know they lie a they never believed in anything they said, they are not bound by facts and truth at all. It's just a trap for people who take things at face value and want to debate or understand or something. Their words and especially their promises mean nothing. They have no integrity. They have no values.

It's just a game and they would laugh at you and consider you stupid for putting any value to anything they say. 

I understand that this might be hard to accept - people instinctually assume that others are like them, so normal people with integrity and values might find the Russian Siloviki mindset alien and hurt their heads trying to understand. 

There is a famous quote from Sartre - it's about anti-semites but I find it applicable also to alt-right and MAGAs, and lots more other people, including the Russian regime and whole lot of "ordinary Russians":

Ok, a long rant but misplaced since I am from faction on this board who believes Russian is different civilization, not just iteration of European one. Anyway from average Russian perspective, he doesn't give a .... about life in villages on both sides of the border as long as he lives somewhere else. There will be embarassment for Kremlin and giant bakclash in military...but beyond that? Belgorod is taking punches almost daily and there are no marches in order to immediatelly end this. They got used to it.

Many surveys, including from Levada Center, confirms that significant portion of Russians genuinly believe in official causes of this war; it's not a tricky game or simply propaganda mirage like you claim. That they wouldn't lift a finger by themselves in order to actually defend this "Russian world" is another thing, ingrained in this type of passive society. But till it is your neighbour's son and not yours dying, it's perfectly ok. Even good for societal health.

So yeah, beware of this orientalization of Russia too much. Many muscovites are genuine about their vielkorusskij heritage, fully align with propaganda and don't care about some artificial borders. Real question is how Putin's pride will take it; or even if he is informed on the scale of PR fookup here.

Edited August 8 by Beleg85