How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Haiduk]

Situation on Sloviansk direction going worse. Russian troops captured Yampil'. UKR forces blew up the overpass bridge near Lyman over the road Yampil' - Lyman.

From NW our forces withdrew behind Olexandrivka. Looks like Russsians have too big advantage in personnel and vehicles, so our General Staff decided to narrow the front

 

 

Edited April 27, 2022 by Haiduk

[Combatintman]

5 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Situation on Sloviansk direction going worse. Russian troops captured Yampil'. UKR forces blew up the overpass bridge near Lyman over the road Yampil' - Lyman.

From NW our forces withrew behind Olexandrivka. Looks like Russsians have too big advantage in personnel and vehicles, so our General Staff decided to narrow the front

 

That withdrawal is timely, maybe they read my post about 57 Motorised Brigade at risk of being cut off ... 

Bridge in more detail here:

Dropped Bridge.kmz

More of a nuisance to the Russians than anything else because it can be bypassed but certainly a taste of more to come if they want to push into the woods on the Rte T0514 axis.

[Haiduk]

@sburke @Kinophile

Mayor Alexey Varnavskiy. Data of death and unit unknown. He has signs of signal troops on lapels. His rank corresponds to HQ of divisional level signal unit.

 

[dan/california]

3 hours ago, c3k said:

Interesting article.

It's obvious that the US military has an arrogance in their approach to air defense, but I didn't realize it was this bad. No new Stingers produced in 18 years? 

The assumption seems to be that the USAF will be given enough operational flexibility to be able to defend the airspace, and Patriots can shoot down any leakers?

I'd think that this should be a wake-up call that the US Army needs a Manpad. Something that will be as revolutionary to local air defense as the Javelin has been to anti-armor. 

I can't find the article, but they have had an active early stage development program for a while. They were originally looking at receiving the first new missiles ~2027. I am sure they are trying to figure out if it costs less to move that up, than it does to make an interim model stinger with an Iphone for its brains.

[sross112]

In reference to the not knowing they were going to war and thinking they were only on training ops etc, unless there is a huge difference (which is possible) I'd call bull***t. The only time we were issued live ammo, especially a full combat load is if you were expecting to go into harm's way. I doubt there is a "training" exercise anywhere involving 200,000 troops that are running around with real bullets. Range time, yep. CQB, yep. Field maneuvers, nope.

We always knew real bullets meant real world. The 100% indicator that you are going in is when the morphine gets issued. So unless the RA just wanders around all the time with full combat loads for all their vehicles and people I'd say they had to know. There was never a doubt in our minds when things were training vs real.

[dan/california]

https://www.defensenews.com/land/2022/04/07/us-army-initiates-plan-to-replace-stingers-with-next-gen-interceptor/

Found the article, army has been in the early stage for at least a year. Is hoping for test/demo launches 2023-2024. And delivery 2027. I am sure they are scrambling to see if they can move that up, since it looks like they will have to scramble fairly hard anyway to build more stingers. They are doing a LOT of work on drone defense, too. It seems like they get that the low altitude battle has changed completely.

[FancyCat]

So I forgot, and just remembered, historically, Russia has had successful coups/revolutions initialized/joined by conscripted soldiers who usually do it, following military defeats, so for the Kremlin, it's not just unpopularity and civilian protests it's worried about, but a precept with long history.

Considering how badly Ukraine is kicking Russia in the teeth, mobilization may be the only route to actually defeating Ukraine even simply forcing Ukraine to a stalemate, but if they miscalculate and suffer military defeats, certainly Putin's head is on the chopping block moreso than this current "special operation". There's a pretty good chance mobilization never occurs, that this is all they have. (What a miscalculation so far...)

I suppose Ukraine will try and hold what they can while prepping a counter offensive that it will unleash at the right moment, I hope the front can hold until then.

[dan/california]

 

1 hour ago, Haiduk said:

Situation on Sloviansk direction going worse. Russian troops captured Yampil'. UKR forces blew up the overpass bridge near Lyman over the road Yampil' - Lyman.

From NW our forces withdrew behind Olexandrivka. Looks like Russsians have too big advantage in personnel and vehicles, so our General Staff decided to narrow the front

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Combatintman said:

That withdrawal is timely, maybe they read my post about 57 Motorised Brigade at risk of being cut off ... 

Bridge in more detail here:

Dropped Bridge.kmz 698 B · 4 downloads

More of a nuisance to the Russians than anything else because it can be bypassed but certainly a taste of more to come if they want to push into the woods on the Rte T0514 axis.

Russia was always going to make some gains with a HARD push Donbas. Ukraine seems to have bee quite successful in making those gains so expensive that that hard push actually accelerates the collapse of the the Russian army. 

[acrashb]

4 minutes ago, dan/california said:

https://www.defensenews.com/land/2022/04/07/us-army-initiates-plan-to-replace-stingers-with-next-gen-interceptor/

Found the article, army has been in the early stage for at least a year. Is hoping for test/demo launches 2023-2024. And delivery 2027. I am sure they are scrambling to see if they can move that up, since it looks like they will have to scramble fairly hard anyway to build more stingers. They are doing a LOT of work on drone defense, too. It seems like they get that the low altitude battle has changed completely.

While I don't know official doctrine, my observation is that the US armed forces do relatively little, compared to many other states, with ground-based AD because the working assumption is air superiority - which explains both the low investment in AD and the high investment in air-to-air and supporting things like AWACS, SEAD and DEAD.  

To The_Capt's point, air superiority is now in question.

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Bearstronaut said:

I actually did this a couple years ago in Korea. Didn’t throw brass at the LT and I was only an E5 but I chewed him out pretty good. 

Funny

This is all about the "culture" aspect of NCOs in Western style organizations.  The NCOs are trained and experienced.  They have responsibilities that are critical to the functions of the units they serve.  They are entrusted with making sure everything works.  The officers know this and, on the whole, respect it because it is a good system and without it they of all people know things go to Hell quickly.

The other interesting thing is that NCOs are the extension of an officer's authority.  As long as the NCO is working within guidelines, he's got the backing of the officer he serves.  I was with a 1SGT one time that worked directly for a COL.  IIRC in one case he was sent to an office to rip a Major a new hole in his posterior.  The Major knew where the chewing out was coming from so he had to take it. 

In your situation you were in charge of safety.  That isn't a rank thing, that is a responsibility thing.  Therefore, you were expected to bark at someone that was putting lives at risk.  The CO for whatever you were doing would be a fool if he didn't want it that way.

Anyway, this is what is sorely lacking in the Russian military.  NCOs are simply privates with a little more responsibility and a slightly bigger paycheck.  One of the interviews a POW mentioned that even the most senior soldier he knew only had 8 years of experience.  Compare that to the US military, for example, where it isn't hard to find NCOs with double or even triple that experience.

Ukraine has been working hard to move away from this model and adopt the Western approach.  Here is a NATO article from 2016 when the program was kicked off:

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_129998.htm

For those who feel they want to know more about the culture element, I found this really good article written by a a guy who served in a MRLS platoon in Germany as a grunt.  There's a lot of good stuff in here:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/24/2087772/-Ukraine-update-What-is-an-NCO-and-why-does-Russia-s-lack-of-them-cause-them-so-much-trouble?pm_campaign=blog&pm_medium=rss&pm_source=main

Steve

[dan/california]

https://static.rusi.org/special-report-202204-operation-z-web.pdf

There is NEW stuff in this, especially about Russian EW, military procurement, and details about the Kyiv campaign I have seen anywhere else. Worth your time.

 

Edit

They stacked stuff in those endless convoys heading towards Kyiv in the wrong order, and it COST them.

Edited April 27, 2022 by dan/california

[Battlefront.com]

9 hours ago, kraze said:

The "we were going on exercises" is a legend they were all told to tell when captured similarly to "we didn't know anything".

I have zero doubt that Russian senior command kept the invasion from the soldiers until the last minute.  Anything other than that would be the opposite of Russian behavior.  Especially this time when they knew information was leaking to the West, the last thing they wanted was for there to be 170,000 points of confirmation that the invasion was coming and when.

I think some of this happened in 2014/2015 as well, especially because officially Russia said they weren't fighting in Ukraine.

I am 100% convinced that most of the first wave of soldiers didn't know they were going into Ukraine until they were already in a vehicle headed that way.  The last time we discussed this several ex-NATO soldiers said they experienced the same thing (in peacetime) where they were told one thing and then when they got off the plane found they were somewhere else.  This happened to my own father in 1959 as a US paratrooper.

The difference here is that if a NATO force were to go into another country, for real, they would not go in clueless about their mission.  A few hours or more before the move they would shut down all external communications, brief their soldiers, assign tasks, get everything ready for those tasks, and only then move out.  Russia thinking this wasn't important to do is consistent with their past practices.  Plus, I don't think the middle level of officers knew that much more than the grunts did.  I think senior level incompetence and paranoia prevented this from happening.

Everybody after the first day or two, of course, would know they were going into Ukraine.  Which is why these specific POW interviews are were all part of the first wave.  Their experience is unique.

9 hours ago, kraze said:

In fact it got so ridiculous when in just a week the number of POWs was equal to several BTGs and they were all repeating the same thing word for word - that even russian command and FSB with its troll farms, that were spamming Ukrainian parts of social media with "poor innocent 18 y o boys sent here by evil putin" that whole week in support, had to cancel that legend. You don't hear it anymore.

The two things are not mutually exclusive.  The grunts on the ground could have been uninformed *and* the troll farms could be amplifying that to soften the Russian image.  And again, we're only talking about the first wave and not those that followed, which is why you don't hear it any more.

9 hours ago, kraze said:

So yeah, they all knew they were going to Ukraine. In fact on Feb 21st all russian soldiers signed papers, agreeing to perform military actions on foreign soil. 3 days before they got here.

They should have suspected, agreed.  That said, I don't have a lot of respect for the analytical capabilities of Russians these days.

9 hours ago, kraze said:

But that's just a formal thing. You don't stay near a border of another country for 3 months with field hospitals and stuff and not figure out what's going to happen.

Yes, and several of the POWs said exactly this.  They did not know for sure they were going to invade because nobody told them this was for sure going to happen, but they suspected it. 

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, akd said:

@sburke @Kinophile

FSB Lt. Col. Aleksey Kryukov, possibly FSB Special Purpose Center Alfa group:

 

I wonder if he was part of the leadership decapitation attempts in Kyiv.  IIRC they were still trying to do this up until the end of the 2nd week.

Steve

[Haiduk]

About Yampil' information is contraversal. Now local source in Lyman writes Russians are still assaulting the town. 

[The_MonkeyKing]

Interesting point came up with an interview with Michael Koffmann couple days age.

Why are the railway bridges across the Dnieper not being targeted? There is only around 30 of them. Michael doesn't have any idea, this move could be very helpful for the Russians.

[kraze]

2 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Interesting point came up with an interview with Michael Koffmann couple days age.

Why are the railway bridges across the Dnieper not being targeted? There is only around 30 of them. Michael doesn't have any idea, this move could be very helpful for the Russians.

Because why would russians cut themselves from actual parts of the country they want to occupy?

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, FancyCat said:

So I forgot, and just remembered, historically, Russia has had successful coups/revolutions initialized/joined by conscripted soldiers who usually do it, following military defeats, so for the Kremlin, it's not just unpopularity and civilian protests it's worried about, but a precept with long history.

Considering how badly Ukraine is kicking Russia in the teeth, mobilization may be the only route to actually defeating Ukraine even simply forcing Ukraine to a stalemate, but if they miscalculate and suffer military defeats, certainly Putin's head is on the chopping block moreso than this current "special operation". There's a pretty good chance mobilization never occurs, that this is all they have. (What a miscalculation so far...)

I suppose Ukraine will try and hold what they can while prepping a counter offensive that it will unleash at the right moment, I hope the front can hold until then.

I heard it put very well by an expert (Kofman, I think?) that the fact that Putin has not implemented mobilization despite the obvious need is telling us he is afraid to do it.  There could be many reasons for it, including economic disruption, but the desperation to avoid it (including getting foreign mercenaries involved) clearly shows that Putin thinks it will end his regime.

I have a similar theory about the use of conscripts.  It is possible senior leadership decided to use conscripts as long as nobody complained, but the complaints came in fast so that it had to be reversed.  Whether Putin knew about any of this is unknown.  We need to remember that Putin is likely ignorant of many details.  Leaders tend to be some of the least informed people out there IMHO.

Steve

[The_MonkeyKing]

4 minutes ago, kraze said:

Because why would russians cut themselves from actual parts of the country they want to occupy?

Michaels point to this is they must realize that is no longer possible. Almost under any circumstance.

Also normal bridges would remain, no guarantee that the Ukrainians would not blow the bridges if Russians ever got close...

Edited April 27, 2022 by The_MonkeyKing

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, kraze said:

Because why would russians cut themselves from actual parts of the country they want to occupy?

This was logical for the first month, maybe even month and a half.  But now?  It seems even senior leadership knows they'll never get over the river, so why not blow the bridges?

[edit... ninja'd by a Finn ]

Steve

[Haiduk]

Two US volunteers were wounded near Orikhove, Zaporizhzhia oblst

 

[Erwin]

Re the "big picture:

The Biden administration has made weakening Russia (rather than “winning”) a major strategic goal and that so far seems to be working.  But that strategy may have a long way to go.  The only way that Russia will not be able to replace its losses in the next few years after the Ukraine war ends, is via lack of the microchips needed to make high tech weapons work.  That’s where China comes in as a major manufacturer and supplier.  China has a vested interest in maintaining Russia’s military capabilities as major threat to east Europe to distract the west from its designs in the Pacific.  China recently signed an agreement with the Solomons and it appears we’ll soon see a Chinese military base there – perfectly situated to threaten the supply routes between Australia and the US.

It is becoming clear that Russian strategy is now to maintain a secure land bridge thru Mariupol from Russia to Crimea.  But what’s next? 

The Russian navy is mounting a blockade of Ukraine's most important ports in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov breaking the transit chains. Ukraine is one of the world’s major producers of wheat and sunflower seeds and other agricultural products. Even if some farmers are able to plant this year, getting their harvest to market without ports could be nearly impossible. According to the United Nations, global food prices have already risen sharply, up 12% over the last few months.

Concerns are growing that neighboring Moldova, another former Soviet republic, could be dragged into the conflict. The breakaway pro-Russian enclave of Transnistria (a strip of territory east of the Dnieper) is a breakaway pro-Russian enclave.  The narrow strip of land was carved out of Moldova after a civil war in 1992 and is held by pro-Russian nationalists. Many in the population of 350,000 hold Russian passports.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria

Three separate attacks earlier this week targeted a Transnistrian military base, two radio towers and the headquarters of its state security service stirring concerns that the 1,500 Russian troops (described by Moscow as “peacekeepers”) stationed in Transnistria could be deployed in western Ukraine.

The Kremlin on Tuesday said it was following the situation in Transnistria closely. “Obviously the news coming from there is causing concern,” said President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.  Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said Russia “hopes to avoid being drawn into a conflict over Transnistria”.

This indicates possible “Phases 2 and 3” to the Russian strategy.  

1) Russia secures the Crimea land bridge.  That gives Ukraine a dilemma.  Does it attack to eliminate it by recapturing Mariupol which could weaken Ukraine’s southern and western areas allowing Russia to attack and capture the Black Sea ports like Odessa – thus isolating Ukraine from its main supply routes.  Many of Ukraine's industrial harbors are in even worse shape than Odessa. Kherson and Mariupol have suffered enormous destruction from the Russian army. The port city of Mykolaiv, 60 miles away, now faces nightly rocket attacks.

2) Start a campaign from Transnistria east and south into Ukraine, with the ultimate goal of extending the “Crimea Bridge” all the way to Transnistria – using the Black Sea port of Odessa.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61233095

In this strategy one can see how Russia could claim a victory to the only audience it cares about – the Russian population and China.

Putin can only be said to have lost if Russia is completely driven from the Donbas and the Crimea.  Alternatively, there is a serious threat that in a few years Putin may have effectively pushed the borders of his political power and military presence west to include Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova.  From there…?  The only measure that will stop Putin is his removal from power and authority.  The question is whether this can be accomplished by merely supporting Ukraine with weapons.

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Situation on Sloviansk direction going worse. Russian troops captured Yampil'. UKR forces blew up the overpass bridge near Lyman over the road Yampil' - Lyman.

From NW our forces withdrew behind Olexandrivka. Looks like Russsians have too big advantage in personnel and vehicles, so our General Staff decided to narrow the front

This is, of course, unfortunate for Ukraine.  However, it is to be expected.  Russia is absolutely determined to gain this ground and it is using all of its remaining forces to take it.  They have enough forces to conduct this offensive, but not much beyond it.  Which is why I was hoping they were going to try a larger offensive to overextend themselves quicker.

I am hoping what we are seeing is similar to the last offensive moves by the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge.  They made big gains, they slowed down, they regrouped, they made one last push, then they collapsed.

Steve

[womble]

10 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Interesting point came up with an interview with Michael Koffmann couple days age.

Why are the railway bridges across the Dnieper not being targeted? There is only around 30 of them. Michael doesn't have any idea, this move could be very helpful for the Russians.

This was discussed only a couple of pages ago. A brief and probably incomplete summary of possible reasons they haven't:

1. RUS Air doesn't want to go deep enough into the UKR AD envelope to accurately drop sufficient weight on enough bridges often enough to keep them out of action in the face of determined attempts to keep them in commission.
2. There are dam-based crossings that would take specialist ordnance (which, short of tac nukes might not be available) precisely applied to delete, and would lead to downstream consequences that might be OTT for the Russians at their current desperation level, plus they'd have to enter UKR AD too deeply.
3. They don't have enough, heavy enough precision munitions to do the job without the flyboys.

Which boils down to "They can't," and this is backed up by "They probably should, and they haven't."

[kraze]

6 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Michaels point to this is they must realize that is no longer possible. Almost under any circumstance.

Also normal bridges would remain, no guarantee that the Ukrainians would not blow the bridges if Russians ever got close...

For the past three decades and 8 years in particular russians made sure to bet their whole empire on capturing Ukraine. Russians legit believe we are untermenschen that must be eradicated unless our mere existence destroys their empire.

Not taking whole Ukraine thus is not an option.

In fact our own military believes that russians haven't stopped considering taking Kyiv. Somehow.

Do remember that reality and russian nazi ideology aren't quite aligned.

[Haiduk]

26 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Interesting point came up with an interview with Michael Koffmann couple days age.

Why are the railway bridges across the Dnieper not being targeted? There is only around 30 of them. Michael doesn't have any idea, this move could be very helpful for the Russians.

They struck railway bridge in Zaporizhzhia three days ago (or about this), but both missiles missed.

Today Russians hit the bridge in Zatoka, Odesa oblast in second time and destroyed it. Yesterday they launched at it three  missiles, probably coastal AsM "Bastion" (SSC-5), but only one hit the bridge, which kept possibility of wheeled transport movement. 

There is an opinion, railway through this bridge was last possibility to transport Ukrainain grain to our Danube river ports Reni and Izmayil, from which possible export to Europe.

The bridge in Zatoka had raising section to maintaining of cargo ships passing to Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi port

 

Edited April 27, 2022 by Haiduk