How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[FancyCat]

Interestingly, if the bridges are a indicator, Russia actually intends to attempt to hold the area south of the Seym River? Or merely set up to facilitate their evacuation assuming that occurs? Or I suppose both scenarios are viable.

Quote

A high-resolution @planet satellite image taken on Aug. 17th shows the pontoon bridge across the Seym River, constructed by the Russians between Aug. 15 and Aug. 16, east of Glushkovo village in Kursk Oblast (51.35109, 34.67668), after Ukraine began targeting bridges in the area.

Yet another pontoon bridge across the Seym river build built by Russians east of Zavannoe (51.376050, 34.612800). Satellite image by @planet taken on August, 17th.

A screenshot from our dynamic Kursk Offensive map (smarturl.click/O0Xla), showing destroyed/damaged bridges (bridge icons) and pontoon bridges (shark icons) across the Seym river in Kursk oblast, Russia:

 

[Letter from Prague]

12 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Another part of the paradox is how Russians can so emotionally and honestly say how much they care about Russian greatness, but then completely not care when its greatness is thrown into question.  Huge amount of denial going on within the mindset of the average Russian. 

"Our land is everything to us!  We will defend every inch of our soil to our last breath!  Well, except the soil that a weaker nation just rolled in and occupied"

Steve

I think in this case "we will suffer until the enemy gets tired runs out of steam and then we win" is a very specific way of fighting to the last breath. It is very convenient because it allows you to gloriously defend your motherland by not actually doing anything.

[Beleg85]

31 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Another part of the paradox is how Russians can so emotionally and honestly say how much they care about Russian greatness, but then completely not care when its greatness is thrown into question.  Huge amount of denial going on within the mindset of the average Russian. 

"Our land is everything to us!  We will defend every inch of our soil to our last breath!  Well, except the soil that a weaker nation just rolled in and occupied"

Steve

Yup, a Paradox already descibed, believe me or not, in XVII century. In such empire ruled by de facto despotic rulers with religious charisma, "land" and "borders" are unlike what we know from, let's say, US-Mexican border or Western Europe states. Borders of Muscovy with its former subjects are imaginary and antropological concepts rather than strictly established areas and lines on the map; hence also this surprising lack of problems with invading one's neighbours. Wsie budu Rossija. Here we once again observe this deep, generations-spanning genealogy of mentallity at play.

Also collective Russian political psyche dwell on denials and is very comfortable with them, so it's not a big problem. It would be different if some bigger aglomeration would be truly in danger. AFU would need to encircle Leningrad so Russians would finally notice.

Edited August 19 by Beleg85

[FancyCat]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Russia has shown, and Mashovets just pointed out, that Russia has displayed no patience in terms of force rebuilding.  It expends new resources as fast as they can be fed into the front instead of building up forces to use in a cohesive way.  This has always been the case, but what seems to be different now is there aren't enough volunteers to keep up this strategy.  Therefore, it can't increase its force presence in Ukraine while also continuing its costly offensive grind.

Steve

Conversely, it seems Ukraine has the ability to generate and reserve force and maintain and conserve it until warranted. Very happy to see that Ukraine isn't betting on straight up seeking a attrition fight with Russia.

Perun did a new video and while I've only heard the first few minutes so far, he notes that Ukraine following the Kharkiv offensive by Russia, continued to emphasize that further Russian offensive actions were impending in the Sumy region. He thinks that it may well have been cover for assembling the force that began the Kursk offensive under the guise of defending Sumy. Interesting use of public statements and deception in plain sight.

[FancyCat]

Prime Minister Modi will be visiting Poland and Ukraine soon. I'm very keen to see if Russia attempts a display of power like it usually does when other diplomatic figures have visited Ukraine.

Quote

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Poland on 21-22 August 2024. This will be the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Poland in the past 45 years. Thereafter, Prime Minister will travel to Ukraine. This will be the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Ukraine after establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1992: MEA

 

[Centurian52]

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

how the UA are supposed to pull off manoeuvre on anything besides a largely undefended border sector is still not clear.

This was the topic of a lengthy paper recently published by ISW:

https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Ukraine and the Problem of Restoring Maneuver in Contemporary War_final.pdf

Maneuver is impossible right now because the challenges which are preventing it haven't been solved yet. But the challenges which prevented maneuver on the Western Front of WW1 from October 1914 to March 1918 were solved (maneuver was restored in March 1918), and the challenges which are currently preventing maneuver in Ukraine are likely no less solvable. The challenges that ISW identified are:

1. How to achieve surprise on a transparent battlefield.

2. How to suppress the enemy's Tactical Reconnaissance Strike Complex (TRSC) to prevent if from striking forces massing for a penetration battle, without also suppressing your own TRSC (which will be needed to support your own advancing forces).

3. How to recreate the effects of air interdiction in an environment where neither side can establish air superiority in order to prevent the enemy from bringing up reserves to plug any breakthrough.

Obviously the Russian defenses in Kursk were so thin that this operation has not proven that a penetration battle against a stronger defense can be followed by exploitation. But the Ukrainians demonstrate that they are starting to develop effective solutions to some of the problems identified by ISW.

The Ukrainians probably couldn't hide their buildup of forces from Russian ISR. But they seem to have achieved surprise regardless by disguising offensive preparations as defensive preparations. The Ukrainians have been publicly claiming for months that they were concerned about another Russian offensive into Sumy Oblast similar to the Russian offensive into Kharkiv Oblast. So when Russian ISR detected Ukrainian forces massing in Sumy, they may have assessed that they were preparing to defend against an attack from Kursk Oblast, rather than conduct an attack into Kursk Oblast. It seems that it is impossible to hide the disposition of forces on the modern transparent battlefield. But it is apparently still possible to to hide the intent of forces on the modern transparent battlefield (a certain amount of Russian incompetence and reluctance to pass information up the chain of command likely helped).

So the Ukrainians demonstrated a possible solution to challenge number 1, how to achieve surprise on the modern transparent battlefield. Disguise offensive preparations as defensive preparations. But they also may have demonstrated a possible solution to challenge number 2, how to suppress the enemy's TRSC without suppressing your own. It sounds like the Ukrainians were able to effectively jam Russian drones in Kursk in the opening days of the operation, while their own drones were operating on frequencies that the Russians weren't jamming yet. Jamming the enemy's drones and changing the frequencies of your own drones is nothing new in this war. And the effects are always temporary. Before long the enemy will switch their drones off the frequencies that you are jamming, and their own EW will find the frequencies that your drones are operating on. What the Ukrainians likely demonstrated was an ability to time those temporary effects to be felt at the decisive moment, the opening days of a new offensive operation.

There have also been some videos suggesting that the Ukrainians have used a combination of drone reconnaissance and GMLRs rockets to partially recreate some of the effects of air interdiction by striking Russian convoys moving up to reinforce defenses in Kursk. The Ukrainians likely need a much larger supply of long range missiles (Storm Shadow and ATACMS) to more fully recreate the effects of air interdiction.

So the offensive in Kursk hardly proves that the Ukrainians have cracked the problem of maneuver on the modern battlefield just yet. But I think they have demonstrated that some of the pieces are starting to come together.

Edited August 19 by Centurian52

[Centurian52]

39 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

in XVII century.

Oh god! It took me a solid minute to work out that stood for '17th century'. Roman numerals worked fine for the Romans because they had nothing better. But we have Arabic numerals now, which are much much better.

Edited August 19 by Centurian52

[Beleg85]

4 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

Oh god! It took me a solid minute to work out that stood for '17th century'. Roman numerals worked fine for the Romans because they had nothing better. But we have Arabic numerals now, which are much much better.

We still adhere here to Romanesque habit of using Roman numerals for centuries; I think in english both systems are still used. For me it is more convinient (at least for several centturies more, until we hit XXXst *) as it is easier to differentiate what timespan we are reading  about in longer historical texts.

* By that time naturally we will all live in some nuclear wasteland, but hey: at least it will be cool traditionalism.

[The_Capt]

8 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

This was the topic of a lengthy paper recently published by ISW:

https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Ukraine and the Problem of Restoring Maneuver in Contemporary War_final.pdf

Maneuver is impossible right now because the challenges which are preventing it haven't been solved yet. But the challenges which prevented maneuver on the Western Front of WW1 from October 1914 to March 1918 were solved (maneuver was restored in March 1918), and the challenges which are currently preventing maneuver in Ukraine are likely no less solvable. The challenges that ISW identified are:

1. How to achieve surprise on a transparent battlefield.

2. How to suppress the enemy's Tactical Reconnaissance Strike Complex (TRSC) to prevent if from striking forces massing for a penetration battle, without also suppressing your own TRSC (which will be needed to support your own advancing forces).

3. How to recreate the effects of air interdiction in an environment where neither side can establish air superiority in order to prevent the enemy from bringing up reserves to plug any breakthrough.

Obviously the Russian defenses in Kursk were so thin that this operation has not proven that a penetration battle against a stronger defense can be followed by exploitation. But the Ukrainians demonstrate that they are starting to develop effective solutions to some of the problems identified by ISW.

The Ukrainians probably couldn't hide their buildup of forces from Russian ISR. But they seem to have achieved surprise regardless by disguising offensive preparations as defensive preparations. The Ukrainians have been publicly claiming for months that they were concerned about another Russian offensive into Sumy Oblast similar to the Russian offensive into Kharkiv Oblast. So when Russian ISR detected Ukrainian forces massing in Sumy, they may have assessed that they were preparing to defend against an attack from Kursk Oblast, rather than conduct an attack into Kursk Oblast. It seems that it is impossible to hide the disposition of forces on the modern transparent battlefield. But it is apparently still possible to to hide the intent of forces on the modern transparent battlefield (a certain amount of Russian incompetence and reluctance to pass information up the chain of command likely helped).

So the Ukrainians demonstrated a possible solution to challenge number 1, how to achieve surprise on the modern transparent battlefield. Disguise offensive preparations as defensive preparations. But they also may have demonstrated a possible solution to challenge number 2, how to suppress the enemy's TRSC without suppressing your own. It sounds like the Ukrainians were able to effectively jam Russian drones in Kursk in the opening days of the operation, while their own drones were operating on frequencies that the Russians weren't jamming yet. Jamming the enemy's drones and changing the frequencies of your own drones is nothing new in this war. And the effects are always temporary. Before long the enemy will switch their drones off the frequencies that you are jamming, and their own EW will find the frequencies that your drones are operating on. What the Ukrainians likely demonstrated was an ability to time those temporary effects to be felt at the decisive moment, the opening days of a new offensive operation.

There have also been some videos suggesting that the Ukrainians have used a combination of drone reconnaissance and GMLRs rockets to partially recreate some of the effects of air interdiction by striking Russian convoys moving up to reinforce defenses in Kursk. The Ukrainians likely need a much larger supply of long range missiles (Storm Shadow and ATACMS) to more fully recreate the effects of air interdiction.

So the offensive in Kursk hardly proves that the Ukrainians have cracked the problem of maneuver on the modern battlefield just yet. But I think they have demonstrated that some of the pieces are starting to come together.

I have read that paper in detail and it frames the problem very well but falls short on solutions.  At Kursk we have reports they suppressed the RA TRSC but it was very thin in that sector.  Further those minefield were also thin and very lightly defended.  In order to conduct a breakout battle, the UA will need to “suppress” a much more robust TRSC in depths of 10s of kms.  This will include the “S” of Russian indirect fires, stand off air and UAS/missiles.  Also, in order to actually break out, the UA has to suppress that TRSC even further as its own LOCs stretch.  Add to this good old LOS systems such as ATGMs and the problem stacks up very quickly.

Surprise on intent does hold promise but the RA will not likely fall for the same tricks repeatedly.  I suspect there may be other ways to muck about but the reality is that the RA can swing fires faster than the UA can physically position and then sustain a breakout.

To be harsh but truthful, the ISW solutions really look like they were written by academics from the post-911 era (and they were), complete with hand waving in some key areas.  In two main areas they remain almost silent: 1) A TRSC is plugged into Operational and Strategic complexes, all of which have higher resolutions than in the past…so it ain’t all about EW and drones. And 2) logistics.  As a force advances, it now has to protect a long stretched put LOC so we are talking suppression of TRSCs for very long distances.  The paper offers “attacking into culminating offence” as a solution - easy to say, damned hard to do.  And then is weakest on its Exploitation concepts (pg 54).  Integration of fires holds the most promise but again the strike complex needed to do it at very high resolution, at scale does not exist yet.

As to the rest, they have a bunch of lists that frankly I am not sure the US could pull off, let alone the UA “They must prevent the Russians from moving reserves to block the penetration or exploitation.”  Oh, is that all.

My assessment is that we are in an “Attrit to Manoeuvre” reality right now.  One has to crack an opponent system through rapid precise attrition, set conditions for tactical isolation and sanitization of a break in point and then use the breach to engineer a systemic collapse in an opponent.  That is a very tall order. I think it requires a level of swarming strike that we simply have not seen in this war.  In fact we might not see it as the technology does not exist to project it, yet.  To my mind it comes down to precision fires, if one can create enough pressure with these an opponent will crack.  Manoeuvre with fires to create disruption and dislocation making an enemy operational system brittle…then try the hammer.  This is a much bigger problem than “blind all the drones and advance”.

[Letter from Prague]

14 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

Oh god! It took me a solid minute to work out that stood for '17th century'. Roman numerals worked fine for the Romans because they had nothing better. But we have Arabic numerals now, which are much much better.

<math nerd>Archimedes actually came up with modern number system. Carl Gauss was allegedly crying because if it became widespread, we might have had modern math and science few thousand years earlier.</math nerd>

[Tenses]

39 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

Oh god! It took me a solid minute to work out that stood for '17th century'. Roman numerals worked fine for the Romans because they had nothing better. But we have Arabic numerals now, which are much much better.

Some of the most advanced countries in the World still use even weirder habits from the past. Like foot(God knows how old) for measurement of distance and pund(also ancient Roman) for weight. It doesn't matter that we have metric system based on some physical properties of surrounding universe, when one guy 10000BC has used his foot to measure some mammoths hide and it all started...

So its not like it is something out of the blue to use roman numbers for centuries. I personally like it as it is always clear what someone has in mind(think: "When has this happened? In 17th. OR In XVII).

[sross112]

4 minutes ago, Tenses said:

Some of the most advanced countries in the World still use even weirder habits from the past. Like foot(God knows how old) for measurement of distance and pund(also ancient Roman) for weight. It doesn't matter that we have metric system based on some physical properties of surrounding universe, when one guy 10000BC has used his foot to measure some mammoths hide and it all started...

So its not like it is something out of the blue to use roman numbers for centuries. I personally like it as it is always clear what someone has in mind(think: "When has this happened? In 17th. OR In XVII).

And don't forget we still measure horse height in hands. I'm just thankful that everyone's hands and feet are the same length so there is never any possible confusion on actual dimensions.  

[FancyCat]

Quote

Yet another pontoon bridge across the Seym river build built by Russians east of Zavannoe (51.376050, 34.612800). Satellite image by @planet taken on August, 17th.

It got a wild beating today, judging by FIRMS

 

Edited August 19 by FancyCat

[Bulletpoint]

Is Belarus preparing to attack Ukraine?

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/belarus-lukashenko-says-nearly-third-army-sent-ukraine-border-belta-reports-2024-08-18/

The story goes that Lukashenko says Ukraine is massing 120,000 troops on the border with Belarus. And that he has deployed a third of the army to counter that threat.

It sounds a bit like the same ruse that Ukraine recently used - they claimed that Russia was gathering a big force to attack Sumy, but it was just a cover to justify redeploying formations north to attack into Kursk.

It could be that Lukashenko has been told by Putin to attempt something similar. At the very least, massing troops on his side of the border might force an already extended Ukraine to shift more units away from the fighting in Donbas and Kursk.

If Belarus did attack into Ukraine, their relatively small standing army wouldn't be able to take much ground, but maybe they might be able to take a chunk like Ukraine did in Kursk? They do have quite big reserves that could be mobilised though. And in any case they could put more pressure on Ukraine at a critical moment.

[FancyCat]

Quote

New satellite imagery released by @SvobodaRadio shows the catastrophic blaze engulfing the Russian Rosrezerv oil depot in Rostov Oblast, hit by a pair of Ukrainian attack drones yesterday. Russian channels report that the blaze is currently uncontrolled.

 

[hcrof]

9 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Is Belarus preparing to attack Ukraine?

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/belarus-lukashenko-says-nearly-third-army-sent-ukraine-border-belta-reports-2024-08-18/

The story goes that Lukashenko says Ukraine is massing 120,000 troops on the border with Belarus. And that he has deployed a third of the army to counter that threat.

It sounds a bit like the same ruse that Ukraine recently used - they claimed that Russia was gathering a big force to attack Sumy, but it was just a cover to justify redeploying formations north to attack into Kursk.

It could be that Lukashenko has been told by Putin to attempt something similar. At the very least, massing troops on his side of the border might force an already extended Ukraine to shift more units away from the fighting in Donbas and Kursk.

If Belarus did attack into Ukraine, their relatively small standing army wouldn't be able to take much ground, but maybe they might be able to take a chunk like Ukraine did in Kursk? They do have quite big reserves that could be mobilised though. And in any case they could put more pressure on Ukraine at a critical moment.

I wonder how much pressure Poland is putting on Belarus to avoid such an adventure? 

[Bulletpoint]

6 minutes ago, hcrof said:

I wonder how much pressure Poland is putting on Belarus to avoid such an adventure? 

I'm sure there is a lot of diplomacy going on behind the scenes that we never hear about. But what could Poland realistically threaten Lukashenko with?

[TheVulture]

26 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Is Belarus preparing to attack Ukraine?

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/belarus-lukashenko-says-nearly-third-army-sent-ukraine-border-belta-reports-2024-08-18/

The story goes that Lukashenko says Ukraine is massing 120,000 troops on the border with Belarus. And that he has deployed a third of the army to counter that threat.

It sounds a bit like the same ruse that Ukraine recently used - they claimed that Russia was gathering a big force to attack Sumy, but it was just a cover to justify redeploying formations north to attack into Kursk.

It could be that Lukashenko has been told by Putin to attempt something similar. At the very least, massing troops on his side of the border might force an already extended Ukraine to shift more units away from the fighting in Donbas and Kursk.

If Belarus did attack into Ukraine, their relatively small standing army wouldn't be able to take much ground, but maybe they might be able to take a chunk like Ukraine did in Kursk? They do have quite big reserves that could be mobilised though. And in any case they could put more pressure on Ukraine at a critical moment.

Every time since the war started that Putin has apparently wanted Belarus to attack Ukraine (or all the pundits start talking about it), Belarus has made a few token gestures of shuffling units around at the border and then done precisely nothing.  I don't see why now is the time that they'd chose to go all in in support of Russia, since if anything now the chances of win are even lower, and the chances of a no-holds barred NATO military (or at least unilateral Polish) response are higher than they've ever been. 

Edited August 19 by TheVulture

[sburke]

5 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I'm sure there is a lot of diplomacy going on behind the scenes that we never hear about. But what could Poland realistically threaten Lukashenko with?

if you are gonna ask that question maybe we should first ask what Belarus is gonna threaten Ukraine with.  IIRC correctly the Russian advance from the north got absolutely creamed.  If Belarus goes to full on warfare with Ukraine, the UA has options to mess with Lukashenko's hold on power. I doubt very much Lukashenko is considering any open hostilities.  Putin is no longer in the driving seat in that relationship.  

[Beleg85]

37 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Yet another pontoon bridge across the Seym river build built by Russians east of Zavannoe (51.376050, 34.612800). Satellite image by @planet taken on August, 17th.

It got a wild beating today, judging by FIRMS

What an odd place to put it.

It is btw. very interesting how at this phase of the war, pontoon troops of both sides manage to do their work. With precise fires, drones and satellites, it must be nighmare to sustain such exposed target over long periods.

16 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I'm sure there is a lot of diplomacy going on behind the scenes that we never hear about. But what could Poland realistically threaten Lukashenko with?

In reality? Cutting on border business, difficulties in financial transactions etc. Duda was speaking with Xi circa 3 months ago in Beijing, and suddenly migrant waves Belarus throw at our borders fall by 80%. We don't have large toolbox here and anything even close to military is only in NAFO memes.

Edited August 19 by Beleg85

[Bulletpoint]

6 minutes ago, sburke said:

if you are gonna ask that question maybe we should first ask what Belarus is gonna threaten Ukraine with.  IIRC correctly the Russian advance from the north got absolutely creamed.  If Belarus goes to full on warfare with Ukraine, the UA has options to mess with Lukashenko's hold on power. I doubt very much Lukashenko is considering any open hostilities.  Putin is no longer in the driving seat in that relationship.  

I don't know exactly how much leverage Putin has over Lukashenko, but as far as I understand it, his power (and life probably) depends on Putin staying in power.

As for how much military threat he could pose, if he deploys 20,000 men in an offensive posture on the border, Ukraine will at least have to redeploy some kind of units to fight them off if they invade. And they probably don't have that much to spare these days.

[Eug85]

36 minutes ago, hcrof said:

I wonder how much pressure Poland is putting on Belarus to avoid such an adventure? 

Russia's nuclear weapons are deployed on Belarus' territory. Therefore, Lukashenko need not fear either Poland or Ukraine

[Jiggathebauce]

Polish mechanized thrust towards minsk not on the bingo card?

[Letter from Prague]

Lukasenko lives because when it looked like he will hang from a streetlamp, Russia deployed its forces to keep him in power.

Russia either is not, or soon might not be in position to do that again - especially if the unlikely but possible Belarusian insurrectionists show up with few machine guns and RPGs that fell of the back of a truck somewhere.

I don't think he will rock the boat much beyond the bare minimum needed for Putin to get off his back.

Edit: moreover, Belarusian military is mostly conscripts, the core is very small. They have never been in real fight. Belarusians don't have as strong internet censorship as Russia does so they have probably seen more about what it means to fight. They might have seen the piles of mobik bodies and burning vehicles.

If Lukasenko orders his military to attack Ukraine, they might say "no". And then what? Lamppost? I don't think he wants to risk that.

Edited August 19 by Letter from Prague

[TheVulture]

13 minutes ago, Eug85 said:

Russia's nuclear weapons are deployed on Belarus' territory. Therefore, Lukashenko need not fear either Poland or Ukraine

Russian nuclear weapons are also deployed at Briansk and Belgorod, and one site (Belgorod-22 was within a few Km of Ukraine's "free Russian" attack into Belgorod in 2023). So I'm not sure that there's any real deterrent effect to them being deployed in Belarus either, as long as everyone is very clear that they are not targeting Russia's nuclear weapons (and that really Russia ought to move them in the event of an attack on Belarus).

Edited August 19 by TheVulture