How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

1 minute ago, Ultradave said:

And I haven't seen evidence they are capable of doing so since the invasion began. 

Correct.  And it's only getting worse for Russia.  Now if Ukraine agrees to a cease fire it is essentially condemning a large part of its civilian population to death, torture, and deportation.  Ukraine also knows that Russia doesn't carrying out its obligations under cease fires, so Ukraine knows full well that whatever Russia claims it will do it won't.  And that means even a cease fire will result in misery upon the civilians as the Russians will continue their pogrom every minute of it.

You all might remember that the US intel released information saying that Russia was going in with "kill lists".  Some didn't believe it even if they did believe that Russia might invade.  Those of us who know Russia didn't doubt the reports for a second.

I am betting that quite a few of the people shot in the back of the head were on those lists.  Some evidence already exists to suggest this is true.

Steve

[BletchleyGeek]

22 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

WW2 is not a reference for this fight, it just leads to misconceptions.

Some points of comparison which do make sense and check out:

- [X] Importance of tightly integrated aerial observation and massed artillery fires working in near real time (something the US Army could do in 1944-45)

- [X] Extensive, deep fortifications containing efficiently numerically superior enemy (the JFO fortifications have withstood now 1 month of fires with 21st century tech and seem to be holding mostly)

- [X] Overextended mechanised forces being eventually ground to dust by local "pinprick" counterattacks (happened to the Germans all the time in 1941)

- [X] "Cheap" tank rushes do not work unless coordinated with infantry and artillery (happened to the Red Army a lot throughout the war)

- [X] Urban battles being sinkholes of time, blood and materiel (Stalingrad, Breslau, ... so many to count...)

- [X] Much vaunted militaries looting whatever to keep themselves fed 

...

[TheVulture]

23 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

That's very close to Kherson. I brace myself for what is going to be found there.

The front lines seem to be getting very confused in Kherson Oblast, both here in the south and north in the Kryvyi Rih direction. On this map, I've put in blue Okeksandria which Ukraine definitely holds, then three villages in red that Ukraine says it withdrew from in the last day or two. Yellow is Bilozerka, where there is fighting (and where there was fighting reported 3-4 days ago I believe). And for reference, purple is the frequenly on fire Kherson airport.

If all these reports are still accurate, some of the Russians along the T1501 road are in danger - there would be no way out of there without swimming.

Note, once again, the if those reports are still accurate though.

[dan/california]

This is the guy with real info on the Donbas front, orders of magnitude more detail. Indeed The Cap'n ought to take a look if this should all be out or not.

[A Canadian Cat]

11 hours ago, sburke said:

Russia on Thursday appeared to give the most damning assessment so far of its invasion, describing the "tragedy" of mounting troop losses

<snip>

Russia has previously acknowledged its attack has not progressed as quickly as it wanted, but on Thursday Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov lamented the rising death toll.

"We have significant losses of troops," he told Sky News. "It's a huge tragedy for us."

Someone else reported an increase in reporting on social media of the death of individual Russian service personnel. I wonder if this comment was the trigger for that. By trigger I mean people felt more comfortable talking about actual casualties now that a government official acknowledged that the casualties are much higher than previously claimed.

 

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

The people that continually argue that Russia has these massive reserves of men and material because 70 years ago they did are not keeping up with reality.  Even the US would have great difficulty scaling up like this.  Russia has absolutely no chance of it.  Period.  Which means any theory of Russia's options that is based on pure fantasy is, well, not going to happen.

Yet another indication that fighting these day is "come as you are". You have to have the personal and equipment at the ready or in reserve and that is all you have to fight with. It is a wake up call that seems to be resonating in many countries. My own government's budget from yesterday has a large increase in defence spending and a defence minister with a proven procurement track record.

[BletchleyGeek]

3 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

The front lines seem to be getting very confused in Kherson Oblast, both here in the south and north in the Kryvyi Rih direction

It kind of looks like an Ukrainian pincer closing on Kherson... but definitely not one of those neat "animated arrows" in the style of documentaries and "setting the scene" war movie prologues.

[dan/california]

7 hours ago, Saberwander said:

Ok. Let's see. Putin gives full authority to one guy.

1. Order a massive false flag attack against Russia proper - let's say a chemical plant in middle of a city with a poisonous gas. Seems simplest way to ensure massive civilian casualties. I am sure there are other options. This can be done either with painted Mi-24 into Ukrainian colors or with Tochkas moved to Kharkov area. Maybe even multiple attacks, every few days. Also some kind of false flag excursion into Russian territory is not a bad idea as well although harder to fake (maybe fake Azov "nazis" are unleashed on Russian villages at the border,  leave a couple of survivors to be used for propaganda later).

2. Claim that you are forced to go to war against Ukraine. 

3. Order a large scale mobilization - hundreds of thousands of soldiers (conscripts from previous years, reservists, ...). Bring out equipment (even third rate) that they can use. 

4. Prepare a large scale offensive (maybe starting early summer) - I won't outline details of which directions to go exactly - doesn't really matter. What is important is that it would require total commitment from the Russian Air Force - meaning large losses of airplanes and helicopters. There needs to be continuous air support regardless of losses. 

5. Hope it breaks Ukrainian defenses and resolve and causes a collapse.

 

This being said, I don't think it is doable. Even if they successfully execute 1-4, I don't think that they can defeat Ukraine because Ukrainian morale is so high after successfully defeating Russia in combat - something not many expected. Even if Russia breaks through the lines and takes some land, Ukraine will not surrender and then Russia is in a long term conflict while under sanctions and with Ukraine receiving foreign military and economic aid.

But step zero here goes back to the problem with appointing a strong, competent overall commander in a regime like Putin's. The newly appointed commander's first assessment is CAN he win this war. If the answer is yes, he wins it, and then deposes Putin and makes himself the new Czar, justifying it by pointing to all the casualties from Putin's initial cockup up. If the answer is that the disaster is too far gone to fix, he cuts bait on Ukraine and deposes Putin immediately. Then he mails Putin's corpse, and presumably those of most of his close confidants, to NATO headquarters in Brussels and begs them to turn the Russian economy back on before he has to sell the Russian far east to the Chinese outright.

Now you can debate which of these is better for Russia, and clearly plan b is better for the Ukraine and the rest of the world. Putin , though, looks at both possibilities, and either appoints a nonentity he thinks he can trust, or so hobbles a real general that Russias grinding defeat just continues

 

[Kinophile]

My gut says UKR are fighting very fluidly at a tactical level, to prevent RUS from creating localised consolidation of the front. If UKR can keep the fighting shifting from place to place it increases the attrition on RUS forces, not just in combat proper but exposure to ATGM as they maneuver.

It also ****s with RUS fire support, requiring constant adjustment to keep up.

Spoken as non-soldier, of course...

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Kinophile

[Battlefront.com]

1 minute ago, BletchleyGeek said:

It kind of looks like an Ukrainian pincer closing on Kherson... but definitely not one of those neat "animated arrows" in the style of documentaries and "setting the scene" war movie prologues.

This is an interesting concept to explore. 

We know Ukraine is VERY GOOD at conducting small scale, fairly self contained counter attacks, ambushes, and defenses.  Russia has not figured out how to counter these.  We also know that Ukraine is rightly avoiding larger scale actions as this is something that Russia is better able to counter.  We also know that Russia is extremely dependent upon roads and not all that good at logistics even when roads are clear to them.

Taking a road junction or segment in a built up area is fairly easy for Ukraine to do.  Platoon + might be sufficient in most places most of the time.  This is something TD and partisan units can achieve without much support of the regular armed forces.  All they need to do is deny Russia the ability to use the road, that's it.

Now picture a larger area that Ukraine has decided it wants to retake.  It has conventional forces arrayed along the border of that area.  Why not have a half dozen or more platoon sized forces infiltrate and take key points in a loosely coordinated way, then move the conventional forces forward as soon as the Russians start to feel their rear threatened?

Very much the theory of airborne ops, but without all the expensive airborne stuff.

This could be the path forward for liberating areas where Russia is struggling to maintain troop density sufficient to thwart small scale losses of key terrain.  I presume the area around Kherson would be just such a place.

Steve

 

[Battlefront.com]

12 minutes ago, IanL said:

Someone else reported an increase in reporting on social media of the death of individual Russian service personnel. I wonder if this comment was the trigger for that. By trigger I mean people felt more comfortable talking about actual casualties now that a government official acknowledged that the casualties are much higher than previously claimed.

I noticed a lot more reporting of low level deaths and wondered if it was just me or if that was really happening.

At the start of this war I said reminded people that under Russian law they have 10 days to make notifications of the dead.  I said for sure Putin would not honor this and would stretch out the time as long as he could in hopes that the war would be successfully concluded before the flood of notices arrived.  Russians would be distracted by the win.

But there is no win on the horizon and trying to keep tens of thousands of deaths under wraps is getting harder and harder to do.  It's not like the relatives of the dead aren't wondering why they haven't heard anything.  Most have at least heard the rumors that the war isn't going well an certainly the war is not over.  So yeah, I think this is a sign that Russia has run out of time.  Now what we all know to be true will be known to the Russians, though in a controlled way.

12 minutes ago, IanL said:

Yet another indication that fighting these day is "come as you are". You have to have the personal and equipment at the ready or in reserve and that is all you have to fight with. It is a wake up call that seems to be resonating in many countries. My own government's budget from yesterday has a large increase in defence spending and a defence minister with a proven procurement track record.

Yes, this is definitely a wake-up-call to the West that "just in time" military spending need to be reexamined.  The US already had a brush with this back in 2003/2004 when ammo was coming off the production lines and going straight to Iraq because prewar stocks were exhausted.

Steve

[Kinophile]

I wonder if UKR is aiming to cross the Dnipro below Kherson, using light infantry and SOF.

Threaten the south end of the bridge, disrupt the Kherson defense balance, threaten the Crimea logistics trail and reinforce the partisan activity there.

 

[Haiduk]

1 hour ago, acrashb said:

Everyone says this like Ukraine has an unlimited number of artillery pieces and ammunition.  For all I know that's correct, but it seems to me that, in the excitement about Switchblades, Javelins and NLAWS, no-one is talking about resupply of arty ammunition.

Does anyone have an analysis of Ukraine's stocks and usage rates?  I presume that can't be manufacturing much right now, so it's whatever was in stock.

After explosions on several ammunition storages in 2016-2018 we have some... not a lack, of course, but significant reduction of some types of ammunition. As if this is first of all 152 mm shells for Giatsynt heavy guns (2B36, 2S5) and 270 mm rockets for Uragan MLRS. But this is on the level of forum talks...  

Edited April 8, 2022 by Haiduk

[kraze]

7 hours ago, Saberwander said:

Ok. Let's see. Putin gives full authority to one guy.

1. Order a massive false flag attack against Russia proper - let's say a chemical plant in middle of a city with a poisonous gas. Seems simplest way to ensure massive civilian casualties. I am sure there are other options. This can be done either with painted Mi-24 into Ukrainian colors or with Tochkas moved to Kharkov area. Maybe even multiple attacks, every few days. Also some kind of false flag excursion into Russian territory is not a bad idea as well although harder to fake (maybe fake Azov "nazis" are unleashed on Russian villages at the border,  leave a couple of survivors to be used for propaganda later).

2. Claim that you are forced to go to war against Ukraine. 

3. Order a large scale mobilization - hundreds of thousands of soldiers (conscripts from previous years, reservists, ...). Bring out equipment (even third rate) that they can use. 

4. Prepare a large scale offensive (maybe starting early summer) - I won't outline details of which directions to go exactly - doesn't really matter. What is important is that it would require total commitment from the Russian Air Force - meaning large losses of airplanes and helicopters. There needs to be continuous air support regardless of losses. 

5. Hope it breaks Ukrainian defenses and resolve and causes a collapse.

 

This being said, I don't think it is doable. Even if they successfully execute 1-4, I don't think that they can defeat Ukraine because Ukrainian morale is so high after successfully defeating Russia in combat - something not many expected. Even if Russia breaks through the lines and takes some land, Ukraine will not surrender and then Russia is in a long term conflict while under sanctions and with Ukraine receiving foreign military and economic aid.

The problem with this is that russia already committed the best men they could with the best tech they had.

And now imagine mobilizing scared, unmotivated, inexperienced russians to fight here, while armed with little more than an AK and a cold war era helmet. Russia doesn't have much more in terms of armor than what's already involved.

If you think their motivation can come from "attack on the homeland with many victims" - you are most likely wrong. The value of life in there is rock bottom. Russia is an extremely violent society with little regard for people. Only so so different from muslim countries surrounding Israel. If mass murder of children in their very own Beslan by their own army motivated zero russians to dethrone putin when he was a lot weaker - similar stuff will only result in another Belgorod panic and putin's macho image getting hit. His throne stands on russians (both literally and figuratively) never suffering the consequences of their misdeeds.

Because otherwise putin would have already ordered the thing. And he'd have hundreds willing to execute it - don't even doubt it for a second.

Edited April 8, 2022 by kraze

[DesertFox]

 

 

[DesertFox]

That will have a decade long impact...

 

 

[sburke]

9 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

That will have a decade long impact...

 

 

at least.  Foreign investment in Russia is off the table until there is fundamental long-term change there.  Putin decided a shovel wasn't enough and ordered a backhoe to dig that grave.  It will be interesting to see if they actually go through with this.

[sburke]

A senior Russian official was sent to a notorious Moscow jail in retribution for poor Ukraine intel, expert says (businessinsider.nl)

A senior Russian foreign intelligence official has sent to prison, a respected Russian expert said, after President Vladimir Putin launched a purge of officials blamed for failings in the faltering invasion of Ukraine. 

Andrei Soldatov, an leading expert on Russia's security services, tweeted Friday that Sergei Beseda, head of the Fifth Service of the FSB intelligence agency, had been taken to Lefortovo prison.

 

Lefortovo is a notorious FSB jail on the outskirts of Moscow. 

Beseda along with his deputy had been placed under house arrest in March, Soldatov had previously said, as officials from investigated whether moles had buried into Russia's spy agencies and leaked intelligence on Russia's invasion and the planning behind it. 

[Kraft]

36 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

Tweet of BMP-2 destruction

Not just claimed, Azov uploaded a video with the whole squad of supporting infantry taken out as well.

They are inflicting a lot of pain, I've been reading pro rus telegrammer alexandr skif (shared by someone a hundret pages ago here  thx ) who tells his stories about the fight in Mariupol and they seem to be burning through troops like crazy

[womble]

13 minutes ago, sburke said:

officials from investigated whether moles had buried into Russia's spy agencies and leaked intelligence on Russia's invasion and the planning behind it.

Ahahahahah. "It must have been moles. Couldn't possibly be incompetence and a climate of fear of telling upalatable truths. Oh, nosireee.... Perfidious Nazi Westerners did it to us. We are not to blame. They made us do it, then ran away."

[DesertFox]

4 minutes ago, Kraft said:

Not just claimed, Azov uploaded a video with the whole squad of supporting infantry taken out as well.

They are inflicting a lot of pain, I've been reading pro rus telegrammer alexandr skif (shared by someone a hundret pages ago here  thx ) who tells his stories about the fight in Mariupol and they seem to be burning through troops like crazy

Yeah. Saw that 2nd vid of 7 dead russians behind that brick wall of the same spot. Seems like the thermobaric effect finished them off.

[akd]

Well, now we have an official name for the conflict: The Borscht War.

 

[billbindc]

10 minutes ago, womble said:

Ahahahahah. "It must have been moles. Couldn't possibly be incompetence and a climate of fear of telling upalatable truths. Oh, nosireee.... Perfidious Nazi Westerners did it to us. We are not to blame. They made us do it, then ran away."

In reality, it's probably both incompetence and pretty deep penetration.

[Taranis]

23 minutes ago, Kraft said:

Not just claimed, Azov uploaded a video with the whole squad of supporting infantry taken out as well.

They are inflicting a lot of pain, I've been reading pro rus telegrammer alexandr skif (shared by someone a hundret pages ago here  thx ) who tells his stories about the fight in Mariupol and they seem to be burning through troops like crazy

Could you give us a link ?

[Haiduk]

128th mountain assault brigade claims on own FB, they pushed off the enemy from Kreminna town on 6-10 km. This is NW of Rubizhe, Luhansk oblast.

Resourse Ukraine War Map (twitter @War_Mapper) claims also Zhytivla village was liberated, but I didn't see this in 128th press-service post. Though, it could be withing this "6-10 km"

Kreminna wasn't captured by the enemy, but Russians/LDPR assaulted the town like neighbour Rubizhne.  

[Kraft]

6 minutes ago, Taranis said:

Could you give us a link ?

To the 2nd video or the guy?