Well, turns out they even got the wrong settlement. Yermak was talking about somewhere else entirely ... and it's a significant one if the Ukrainians secure it. Hola Pryzstan.
The end?
- Thread starter borolad259
- Start date
RedAsABeetroot
Well-known member
That was one of the points I'd made.
Decent_Left
Well-known member
More like a fortnight.
It fits entirely with General Swedes POV that the west is operating some bizarre measurement filter on Ukrainian gains - massively downplaying the real impact vs Doom and gloom boosting Ruzzian advance when they basically move from one side of a hedge to another.
RedAsABeetroot
Well-known member
Wow. What a fantastic firework display to end Benidorm's Fiesta week. Sadly, much as I love fireworks, modern fireworks are so loud and they always invoke the feeling in me of being bombarded. Obviously those in Ukraine, Gaza and Israel have experienced this recently and it must be hell.
The only other thing in modern life that reminds me of warfare is standing alongside the track at York during a 6/7 furlong novice sprint. These are relatively light horses but the sound of 30 of them charging towards the finishing line is immense. How infantry lines withstood cavalry charges with huge destriers charging at them is beyond me.
The only other thing in modern life that reminds me of warfare is standing alongside the track at York during a 6/7 furlong novice sprint. These are relatively light horses but the sound of 30 of them charging towards the finishing line is immense. How infantry lines withstood cavalry charges with huge destriers charging at them is beyond me.
Missed a couple of updates, but here's some latest ... the UAF have a new toy.
"There is a lot of things happening along the frontline, and for the first time in almost two months the least interesting part is Avdivka.
Since we are more and more seeing a Baba Yaga-effect I thought I should explain the name.
The Baba Yaga is the most horrible entity in Russian mythology.
I will not go into the story here, there are better sources for that.
Anyway, Baba Yaga and her 3 sisters named Baba Yaga live in a round house that is constantly spinning as it is propelled by 8 birds legs.
And the center of the drone looks like a round house and since it is an octocopter it indeed has 8 "bird legs".
The name for the drone was initially differen, but someone tried out another giant octocopter with a claw on it that was trialed as a logistics drone, and used it to kidnapp a couple of Russians out of a trench.
The Russians named that drone Baba Yaga and on that section of the front they henceforth lived under terror of the "Baba Yaga" drone.
Ukraine in the end did not use that drone for various reasons, but why not reuse this terrifying name?
So, basically Russia named Ukraines mega-super-duper killer drone.
Ironic and fitting at the same time.
The Baba Yaga is currently the most advanced and powerful FPV-drone on the planet, and it is built inside Ukraine by a Ukrainian company in yuuuuuge numbers per month.
As superweapons go this one is truly effective and is helping a lot with shortening the war.
On top of that, the insane skill level of the Ukrainian drone operators is closing in on being magical at this point.
The most pertinent thing is though that now it is used in all active sections of the frontline, whereas previously it was only used in Kherson and Avdivka due to production was not fast enough to distribute them everywhere initially, but now it has cought up and both Zyrskiy and Oleksandr swear that they want to marry the things...
Bakhmut
Russia tried yet another attack on Klichiivka, this time from Opytne, it was detected at range and the meatwave was broken up with artillery and Baba Yaga's.
The Russians here are not liking being Baba Yaga's any more than the Russians in other directions.
Let us commisserate upon their woe's with the usual phrase:
Oh, well...
Avdivka
Two somewhat anemic meatwaves that was undersupported by armour.
Tank Girl continued to hunt Russians far and deep with Baba Yaga's.
Tokmakish
Here things has fired off majorly.
The reason is that Russia started to sneak off a few units towards Kherson, and what remained at the frontline was degraded by artillery and Baba Yaga's.
This made Oleksandr smile like a poetic Santa Clause from a Stephen King novel, and he exclaimed Showtime!
A few hours later he attacked in 6 places simultaneously to overwhelm the Russians.
In the East he flattened out that protrussion and started to restorm Verbove under heavy artillery and drone usage.
In Verbove a young soldier fired off a last text-message.
"Mother, Baba Yaga is coming for me".
He did not survive.
This is how legends are born.
For the first time in a long time Novoprokopivka was assaulted, this time from two differed axis of attack, one from the East and one from West.
Heavy fighting is ongoing, and yes you guessed it...
Artillery and Baba Yaga's are hunting inside the town supporting each other since the Baba's are custom built to also feed to artillery units.
From Robotyne one axis of attack went once against towards Kopani, and a second from the North.
Russia is buckling all along the frontline and areas along the entire contact line are now moving from red to grey.
Russia was definitely not expecting any offensive here, and so was quite frankly nobody in Ukraine either.
But, getting a free shot at it by missing Russians, Baba Yaga's, was just to much for a simple warriorpoet, and he went for it with lightning speed.
There's a lot of Terrified Russia Noises emanating out of this area.
Kherson
The forces taken out of Tokmakish was sent to perform a counter-attack in Kherson.
They were hunted along the entire distance they travelled.
One battalion was killed by Himars strikes as they arrived at their cosy barracks in a chicken factory filled with chicken **** (cosy by Russian standards).
The others tried an infantry assault through the forrest towards Krynky, the second was an armoured attack from the East.
The armour was blown up by artillery, and in the forrest infantry, artillery and the proverbial Baba's hunted Russians for a day.
It did not end well.
This is why Russia is now holding the forth behind the T2206 roadbank since a couple of days.
More good news is on the way.
But a tidbit now that Russian sources have said it.
Tanks have now crossed the river and is being used against the Russians.
There's Desperate Russia Noises emanating out of Kherson."
"There is a lot of things happening along the frontline, and for the first time in almost two months the least interesting part is Avdivka.
Since we are more and more seeing a Baba Yaga-effect I thought I should explain the name.
The Baba Yaga is the most horrible entity in Russian mythology.
I will not go into the story here, there are better sources for that.
Anyway, Baba Yaga and her 3 sisters named Baba Yaga live in a round house that is constantly spinning as it is propelled by 8 birds legs.
And the center of the drone looks like a round house and since it is an octocopter it indeed has 8 "bird legs".
The name for the drone was initially differen, but someone tried out another giant octocopter with a claw on it that was trialed as a logistics drone, and used it to kidnapp a couple of Russians out of a trench.
The Russians named that drone Baba Yaga and on that section of the front they henceforth lived under terror of the "Baba Yaga" drone.
Ukraine in the end did not use that drone for various reasons, but why not reuse this terrifying name?
So, basically Russia named Ukraines mega-super-duper killer drone.
Ironic and fitting at the same time.
The Baba Yaga is currently the most advanced and powerful FPV-drone on the planet, and it is built inside Ukraine by a Ukrainian company in yuuuuuge numbers per month.
As superweapons go this one is truly effective and is helping a lot with shortening the war.
On top of that, the insane skill level of the Ukrainian drone operators is closing in on being magical at this point.
The most pertinent thing is though that now it is used in all active sections of the frontline, whereas previously it was only used in Kherson and Avdivka due to production was not fast enough to distribute them everywhere initially, but now it has cought up and both Zyrskiy and Oleksandr swear that they want to marry the things...
Bakhmut
Russia tried yet another attack on Klichiivka, this time from Opytne, it was detected at range and the meatwave was broken up with artillery and Baba Yaga's.
The Russians here are not liking being Baba Yaga's any more than the Russians in other directions.
Let us commisserate upon their woe's with the usual phrase:
Oh, well...
Avdivka
Two somewhat anemic meatwaves that was undersupported by armour.
Tank Girl continued to hunt Russians far and deep with Baba Yaga's.
Tokmakish
Here things has fired off majorly.
The reason is that Russia started to sneak off a few units towards Kherson, and what remained at the frontline was degraded by artillery and Baba Yaga's.
This made Oleksandr smile like a poetic Santa Clause from a Stephen King novel, and he exclaimed Showtime!
A few hours later he attacked in 6 places simultaneously to overwhelm the Russians.
In the East he flattened out that protrussion and started to restorm Verbove under heavy artillery and drone usage.
In Verbove a young soldier fired off a last text-message.
"Mother, Baba Yaga is coming for me".
He did not survive.
This is how legends are born.
For the first time in a long time Novoprokopivka was assaulted, this time from two differed axis of attack, one from the East and one from West.
Heavy fighting is ongoing, and yes you guessed it...
Artillery and Baba Yaga's are hunting inside the town supporting each other since the Baba's are custom built to also feed to artillery units.
From Robotyne one axis of attack went once against towards Kopani, and a second from the North.
Russia is buckling all along the frontline and areas along the entire contact line are now moving from red to grey.
Russia was definitely not expecting any offensive here, and so was quite frankly nobody in Ukraine either.
But, getting a free shot at it by missing Russians, Baba Yaga's, was just to much for a simple warriorpoet, and he went for it with lightning speed.
There's a lot of Terrified Russia Noises emanating out of this area.
Kherson
The forces taken out of Tokmakish was sent to perform a counter-attack in Kherson.
They were hunted along the entire distance they travelled.
One battalion was killed by Himars strikes as they arrived at their cosy barracks in a chicken factory filled with chicken **** (cosy by Russian standards).
The others tried an infantry assault through the forrest towards Krynky, the second was an armoured attack from the East.
The armour was blown up by artillery, and in the forrest infantry, artillery and the proverbial Baba's hunted Russians for a day.
It did not end well.
This is why Russia is now holding the forth behind the T2206 roadbank since a couple of days.
More good news is on the way.
But a tidbit now that Russian sources have said it.
Tanks have now crossed the river and is being used against the Russians.
There's Desperate Russia Noises emanating out of Kherson."
Evening
"As you may remember there has been an ongoing issue with ISW and Deep State Map about them not accurately changing things all over the frontlines.
And that they dutifully, almost gleefully, put in any Russian advance as Red, and even take Russian attacks into red omitting making them grey even.
And, the other way they do not accurately show even officially reported liberations, or at best make them grey.
This has obviously made the maps shambolic at best, and pointless in most respects.
So, being the proud owner of two Terrakons that are marked as Red and the latest now as Grey, Tank Girl exploded in one of her rather spectacular moments.
She sort of reminds of Hekla when she goes off...
So, she sent some of her rather ominous looking Cossaks to have a discussion today with the two founders Roman Pohoriliy and Ruslan Mykula in Kyiv about insulting certain field commanders.
I hope for their sake that they understood the full implication of the memo.
Frontline updates
Just assume that even if I do not mention a place, just assume that the Russians attacked.
Also, assume that the Russians lost, both the battle and their lives.
Horlivka
Yesterdays nipple is now a nicely shaped small A-cup 3 km wide and 1 km deep.
It was here that she exploded when the DeepState Map just erased the entire area previously held Russian area and made it in the regular map colour, not grey, not green, it was like Russia had never been there.
She has been prickly ever since she took the Ramparts and DSM just left it red for months even after the video of Stepne with a flying Ukrainian flag was issued by the Ukrainian MOD.
Yes, it is sort of vain, but soldiers paid for that ground with their lives, and then being denied the recognition when winning...
Note that this is only really prevalent in this Military Command Sector.
It does happen in other areas, but far more infrequently, and it is corrected quite quickly, not so much here.
This has led me to develop a theory.
I think they are a bunch of incel-basement computer-dweebs, and they try to make the only female Field Commander look bad.
And since her "boys" are both fanatically loyal to her, and behave as older brothers protecting their little sister who has gotten up in the world, I suspect that the talking to was memorable.
This has sort of been an ongoing thing, with certain generals in the beginning not taking her seriously, and so on and so forth.
This has though changed, but it is galling that a woman always must be 3 times better than a man to achieve the same paygrade...
Avdivka
Russia seems to run out of any even remotely good troops now.
Left are the drug-addict dregs, they are so stoned that if they are captured the Ukrainians have to send them straight to detox facilities. Let us say that they are not especially effective as they see thing nobody else is seeing.
Another trend is that they have gotten into their heads that they are safer if they undress and go stark naked over to the Ukrainian lines.
I told Tank Girl that she is now so famous among the Russians that they are braving minefields naked to be near her.
She sort of found that to be amusing, and commented that it would be the any time she had any sort of use of naked Russian men.
Kherson
5 days ago Ukraine committed to the liberation.
Prior to that it was probing attacks, trial runs, shaping operations, etcetera.
5 days ago it was that Alea Iacta Est (The Dice is moment, and they crossed Rubicon for good.
Do or die, this is now it.
It is incredibly bloody, think Juno, Omaha and Sword beaches.
There is no nice way to storm across open water against an enemy who is waiting for you, and know you are coming where and when.
There are truly no secrets any longer in war.
Ukraine did though have 3 advantages compared to D-Day.
1. The Russians aren't the Werhmacht under Erwin Rommel.
2. Due to months of raids, preparatory bridgeheading, etcetera, they already toeholds.
3. The main attack operation was performed during the night.
Still it was incredibly bloody, there are hundreds of Ukrainian boys flooting towards the sea and the eternal rest.
Hundreds more died as they stormed the beaches.
Hundreds more died as they threw themselves against heavily fortified villages and towns to secure port facilities and clear strongpoints.
In 48 hours more than 1 000 Ukrainian soldiers died, and thousands got wounded.
But, they carried the day.
It was the single most bloody battle for Ukraine since The First Battle of Kharkiv where they defended the city with rifles and molotov cocktails against tanks.
It has now been declared officially that Ukraine has cleared or are about to clear 3-8km back from the shore all the way from Hola Pryzstan to Korsunka.
This means the T2206 road along it's entire length between these two points.
Nobody here is though celebrating.
Everyone understand the price paid for the budding victory.
Why the T2206?
Simple, it is the first defendable line in the region.
By holding it Russians will have a much harder time seeing what is crossing the river, and their artillery will be far less effective.
Behind the road the Outbacks of Ukraine starts, and there are no more large settlements until you reach the Southern Coast, or Crimea.
All there is is Europes largest sand desert.
It will still take hundreds of more lives to completely secure the area, but secured it will be.
Russia just do not have troops enough to move in to reverse this, not without giving up on Avdivka, and if try that Tank Girl will immediately strike Horlivka and Donetsk.
Russia truly backed themselves into a trap in Avdivka, they could get in, but if they try to get out TG's much larger Army will take huge chunks out of Russian territory, and towards Donetsk City there's just a thin sliver of a mine field.
If they take troops from Luhansk and upper half of Donetsk, then Zyrskiy will strike.
Southern front and Oleksandr will punch through.
Whatever Russia does now they will loose a limb.
Two things made it possible, Vuhledar and Avdivka.
Without either of those Russia would have to much reserves to move forward.
Vuhledar was always the key, that is why at the beginning of the war Ukraine placed their best half of all the tanks they had there to defend.
Vuhledar is the reason for Avdivka, because you can't take Vuhledar with Avdivka in the back.
This is why Mizintsev and Teplinsky couldn't take it with the entire army that took Mariupol in January.
I hope that the historians will note that it was the 2nd Tanks Army Group is what won the war by being incredibly stubborn b***ds with a plan.
I previously told about the magicians trick when they hid the entire army group in tunnels.
The second part of the trick was that there never was a 1st Tanks Army Goup, that was a ruse to fool the Russians.
They spent months trying to find where that non-existent army group hid.
It is not until recently that the 1st Armoured Army Group came into being as the second leg of the 1st Combined Arms Army...
The arms are the 3rd Artillery Army Group and the 4th Drone Army Group, and the Torso is the 5th Infantry Army Group.
And the head is a cranky general who is calling me about once every other hour..."
.
"As you may remember there has been an ongoing issue with ISW and Deep State Map about them not accurately changing things all over the frontlines.
And that they dutifully, almost gleefully, put in any Russian advance as Red, and even take Russian attacks into red omitting making them grey even.
And, the other way they do not accurately show even officially reported liberations, or at best make them grey.
This has obviously made the maps shambolic at best, and pointless in most respects.
So, being the proud owner of two Terrakons that are marked as Red and the latest now as Grey, Tank Girl exploded in one of her rather spectacular moments.
She sort of reminds of Hekla when she goes off...
So, she sent some of her rather ominous looking Cossaks to have a discussion today with the two founders Roman Pohoriliy and Ruslan Mykula in Kyiv about insulting certain field commanders.
I hope for their sake that they understood the full implication of the memo.
Frontline updates
Just assume that even if I do not mention a place, just assume that the Russians attacked.
Also, assume that the Russians lost, both the battle and their lives.
Horlivka
Yesterdays nipple is now a nicely shaped small A-cup 3 km wide and 1 km deep.
It was here that she exploded when the DeepState Map just erased the entire area previously held Russian area and made it in the regular map colour, not grey, not green, it was like Russia had never been there.
She has been prickly ever since she took the Ramparts and DSM just left it red for months even after the video of Stepne with a flying Ukrainian flag was issued by the Ukrainian MOD.
Yes, it is sort of vain, but soldiers paid for that ground with their lives, and then being denied the recognition when winning...
Note that this is only really prevalent in this Military Command Sector.
It does happen in other areas, but far more infrequently, and it is corrected quite quickly, not so much here.
This has led me to develop a theory.
I think they are a bunch of incel-basement computer-dweebs, and they try to make the only female Field Commander look bad.
And since her "boys" are both fanatically loyal to her, and behave as older brothers protecting their little sister who has gotten up in the world, I suspect that the talking to was memorable.
This has sort of been an ongoing thing, with certain generals in the beginning not taking her seriously, and so on and so forth.
This has though changed, but it is galling that a woman always must be 3 times better than a man to achieve the same paygrade...
Avdivka
Russia seems to run out of any even remotely good troops now.
Left are the drug-addict dregs, they are so stoned that if they are captured the Ukrainians have to send them straight to detox facilities. Let us say that they are not especially effective as they see thing nobody else is seeing.
Another trend is that they have gotten into their heads that they are safer if they undress and go stark naked over to the Ukrainian lines.
I told Tank Girl that she is now so famous among the Russians that they are braving minefields naked to be near her.
She sort of found that to be amusing, and commented that it would be the any time she had any sort of use of naked Russian men.
Kherson
5 days ago Ukraine committed to the liberation.
Prior to that it was probing attacks, trial runs, shaping operations, etcetera.
5 days ago it was that Alea Iacta Est (The Dice is moment, and they crossed Rubicon for good.
Do or die, this is now it.
It is incredibly bloody, think Juno, Omaha and Sword beaches.
There is no nice way to storm across open water against an enemy who is waiting for you, and know you are coming where and when.
There are truly no secrets any longer in war.
Ukraine did though have 3 advantages compared to D-Day.
1. The Russians aren't the Werhmacht under Erwin Rommel.
2. Due to months of raids, preparatory bridgeheading, etcetera, they already toeholds.
3. The main attack operation was performed during the night.
Still it was incredibly bloody, there are hundreds of Ukrainian boys flooting towards the sea and the eternal rest.
Hundreds more died as they stormed the beaches.
Hundreds more died as they threw themselves against heavily fortified villages and towns to secure port facilities and clear strongpoints.
In 48 hours more than 1 000 Ukrainian soldiers died, and thousands got wounded.
But, they carried the day.
It was the single most bloody battle for Ukraine since The First Battle of Kharkiv where they defended the city with rifles and molotov cocktails against tanks.
It has now been declared officially that Ukraine has cleared or are about to clear 3-8km back from the shore all the way from Hola Pryzstan to Korsunka.
This means the T2206 road along it's entire length between these two points.
Nobody here is though celebrating.
Everyone understand the price paid for the budding victory.
Why the T2206?
Simple, it is the first defendable line in the region.
By holding it Russians will have a much harder time seeing what is crossing the river, and their artillery will be far less effective.
Behind the road the Outbacks of Ukraine starts, and there are no more large settlements until you reach the Southern Coast, or Crimea.
All there is is Europes largest sand desert.
It will still take hundreds of more lives to completely secure the area, but secured it will be.
Russia just do not have troops enough to move in to reverse this, not without giving up on Avdivka, and if try that Tank Girl will immediately strike Horlivka and Donetsk.
Russia truly backed themselves into a trap in Avdivka, they could get in, but if they try to get out TG's much larger Army will take huge chunks out of Russian territory, and towards Donetsk City there's just a thin sliver of a mine field.
If they take troops from Luhansk and upper half of Donetsk, then Zyrskiy will strike.
Southern front and Oleksandr will punch through.
Whatever Russia does now they will loose a limb.
Two things made it possible, Vuhledar and Avdivka.
Without either of those Russia would have to much reserves to move forward.
Vuhledar was always the key, that is why at the beginning of the war Ukraine placed their best half of all the tanks they had there to defend.
Vuhledar is the reason for Avdivka, because you can't take Vuhledar with Avdivka in the back.
This is why Mizintsev and Teplinsky couldn't take it with the entire army that took Mariupol in January.
I hope that the historians will note that it was the 2nd Tanks Army Group is what won the war by being incredibly stubborn b***ds with a plan.
I previously told about the magicians trick when they hid the entire army group in tunnels.
The second part of the trick was that there never was a 1st Tanks Army Goup, that was a ruse to fool the Russians.
They spent months trying to find where that non-existent army group hid.
It is not until recently that the 1st Armoured Army Group came into being as the second leg of the 1st Combined Arms Army...
The arms are the 3rd Artillery Army Group and the 4th Drone Army Group, and the Torso is the 5th Infantry Army Group.
And the head is a cranky general who is calling me about once every other hour..."
.
Decent_Left
Well-known member
It’s conflicting isn’t it? Cheering on the Ukrainians but tempered with thoughts of the cost of pushing back the criminal ambitions of a delusional lunatic.
TeessideCleveland
Well-known member
MOD reckon not much movement now, but surely if the part of the far side of the River Dnipro that has been liberated is established that is a good thing
Some updates (given the above)
"Let us begin in Russia where the Deputy Defence Minister and Chief of the Aerospace Forces General Vladimir Sviridov was found dead together with his wife.
The official Russian explanation is that they died after eating poisonous mushrooms.
At this point in time it is the highest ranking Russian general to be assassinated and it is definitely a sign of the fight for power in Russia intensifying.
He was a member of the Hawk faction that have so far mainly been safe from any machinations, so it seems like it is no longer true that they are safeguarded.
I bet that Shoigu is busy welding his windows shut, and that he has stopped drinking tea.
So sad... Oh well!
The advance at Pivdenne has moved forward with little resistance to the industrial complex on the outskirts of Horlivka. This is all territory that the Ukrainians have not held since 2014.
Tank Girl has gotten cheesed off with the deep state maps and ISW maps not updating to reflect Ukrainian gains, so she sent some Cossacks to have a word. They seem to have got the memo now.
Kherson
Ukraine Army Marine Division have put out an official map showing 5 liberated areas under their control.
Thing is that Ukrainian MOD never says anything that is not true, but it is rarely if ever all of it for obvious reasons.
But, if they only put out liberation map updates unless it is a permanent thing, and they have moved on already.
Everyone here understand that, and have figured out how to read between the lines.
First there is a statement of intent, and the day after there is a map showing how it started.
They always do this, but by now everyone here knows that if the map arrives the stated mission is either well underway, or done and dusted.
Every Ukrainian hear that they will take the land on the South of Dnipro 3-8km deep just looked at the map and figured out that the T2206 road is exactly between 3 and 8km deep, and then they added on top the Russians saying that they had fallen back to the T2206, and tried to retake land from there.
And then they extrapolate that it is happening the entire way.
On the map was five breachheads, west of Oleshky, Antonivka Bridgehead, Pidstepne/Poima Breachhead, one East of that, and then the Krynky Breachhead.
And for the first time it was shown that the Island are all liberated, which happened months ago and every Ukrainian already knows.
As such the map is roughly 10 days old.
So, let me walk you down the T2206 road from the East to West and describe the situation using Red/Green/Grey colour codings.
The entire riverbank from Krynky to Oleshky is Green, at Krynky and Pidstepne it is green up to around 500 meters from the road with the rest of the distance being Grey (contested), this is now being rapidly expanded to make these two green blobs meet up.
Oleshky is partially red, and partially grey now, and with the entire area behind Oleshky up to the T2206 being grey...
The area West of Oleshky is green, and from here down to Hola Pryzstan and out to the road it is Grey.
Half of Hola Pryzstan is grey, with the port facilities in green and the inland parts being red.
In the report it said that all of the Marines are now across, but not a word was mentioned of the mechanized infantry that is pouring over, even though the Russians have put up video of Ukrainian mechanized units fighting them.
Now even the more well developped and well staffed areas of the frontline is starting to break due to Russia pulling troops to primarily assault in Vuhledar and Avdivka, and secondarily try to hold in Kherson.
Out of the 9 brigades holding at Tokmakish Russia have withdrawn 4 of them.
Now contemplate that Oleksandr is sitting there with 16 brigades applying constant pressure.
That quickly started to erode the remaining 5 brigades, and exhaust them beyond breaking point.
Also here remember that when we take about Russian Brigades, none of them are at strength, whereas most Ukrainian Brigades are at strength, or near to.
If a Ukrainian Brigade is understrength it is pulled back, is reconstituted, and then given time to excercise.
This means that the numbers of Ukrainian visavi the number of Russian Brigades is not giving the true strength in numbers.
Sidenote: 1 Russian Brigade was sent to Kherson, 1 to Vuhledar and 2 over to Avdivka.
They did not fare well.
A few days ago he attacked Eastward and expanded the salient, and attacked again towards Verbove.
This was to force the Russians to put their attention in this direction, and to concentrate their meagre resources here.
After two days he then sent a second Brigade to start storming the trenches Westward from 5 separate directions towards Kopani.
And, while those forces was slowly clearing the way forward he closed the trap.
A battalion of his has been spending 2 months practicing with my old boys to learn how to be special operations operatives.
These SOG trained SOOs was sent during the night to sneak around the lines SOUTH of them, true SOGery there
They then entered the fortifications inside Kopani and massacred the troops in their underground barracks in their sleep with machine guns and grenades, and pulled out without losses.
This has left a gaping hole in the Russian lines towards the West.
A hole that Russia has to fill up.
With 1 brigade holding to the East, 1 brigade holding around Verbove, 1 brigade holding the southern side, and 1 brigade holding Novoprokopivka, and the one brigade in the Kopani direction trying out how to be dead, it beggers belief now how they are gonna solve that conundrum.
Final Thoughts
As everyone is dithering about support from the US and delivery delays from Europe everyone here are quietly smiling over their gains.
The US arms are still coming, everyone knew about the delays in weapons production in Europe.
It was after all over-eagerness among EU-politicians that accounted for those delays, the industry immediately told the Ukrainians that it was impossible to do what the well-meaning politicians promised, and they gave the real delivery dates and production increases, so the Ukrainian MOD planned according to that.
Also, the French did this months "miscalculation" of shells and found exactly 100 000 shells to many in storage and gifted that to Ukraine (and sent the check to EU).
Next month I have it on good authority that Sweden and Norway will discover a similar miscalculation...
All this fibbing is double-directed, it is to grow a sense of urgency among the Muricanos and increase political support in EU + Friend.
Oh, "Friend" is also gonna discover a miscalculation next.
So many armies being so bad at counting shells...
The second part of it was sort of a trap for the Russians.
If they had known that even though shells are somewhat sparse, they are coming in sufficient numbers, they would never have made this huge attack trying to deplete the Ukrainian shell stocks.
To goad them on Zelenzkyy even went out and publically stated that "unless more shells arrive we will have to fall back".
A somewhat perplexing statement since Ukraine is on the offensive, and successful such offensives at that, but the Russians are thick as logs so it might work.
Obviously the shell thing is real, it has just been greatly "improved upon" in the narrative.
It should be obvious since the frugal Ukrainian army would never go on the offensive if they knew that they are really starting to run out."
"Let us begin in Russia where the Deputy Defence Minister and Chief of the Aerospace Forces General Vladimir Sviridov was found dead together with his wife.
The official Russian explanation is that they died after eating poisonous mushrooms.
At this point in time it is the highest ranking Russian general to be assassinated and it is definitely a sign of the fight for power in Russia intensifying.
He was a member of the Hawk faction that have so far mainly been safe from any machinations, so it seems like it is no longer true that they are safeguarded.
I bet that Shoigu is busy welding his windows shut, and that he has stopped drinking tea.
So sad... Oh well!
The advance at Pivdenne has moved forward with little resistance to the industrial complex on the outskirts of Horlivka. This is all territory that the Ukrainians have not held since 2014.
Tank Girl has gotten cheesed off with the deep state maps and ISW maps not updating to reflect Ukrainian gains, so she sent some Cossacks to have a word. They seem to have got the memo now.
Kherson
Ukraine Army Marine Division have put out an official map showing 5 liberated areas under their control.
Thing is that Ukrainian MOD never says anything that is not true, but it is rarely if ever all of it for obvious reasons.
But, if they only put out liberation map updates unless it is a permanent thing, and they have moved on already.
Everyone here understand that, and have figured out how to read between the lines.
First there is a statement of intent, and the day after there is a map showing how it started.
They always do this, but by now everyone here knows that if the map arrives the stated mission is either well underway, or done and dusted.
Every Ukrainian hear that they will take the land on the South of Dnipro 3-8km deep just looked at the map and figured out that the T2206 road is exactly between 3 and 8km deep, and then they added on top the Russians saying that they had fallen back to the T2206, and tried to retake land from there.
And then they extrapolate that it is happening the entire way.
On the map was five breachheads, west of Oleshky, Antonivka Bridgehead, Pidstepne/Poima Breachhead, one East of that, and then the Krynky Breachhead.
And for the first time it was shown that the Island are all liberated, which happened months ago and every Ukrainian already knows.
As such the map is roughly 10 days old.
So, let me walk you down the T2206 road from the East to West and describe the situation using Red/Green/Grey colour codings.
The entire riverbank from Krynky to Oleshky is Green, at Krynky and Pidstepne it is green up to around 500 meters from the road with the rest of the distance being Grey (contested), this is now being rapidly expanded to make these two green blobs meet up.
Oleshky is partially red, and partially grey now, and with the entire area behind Oleshky up to the T2206 being grey...
The area West of Oleshky is green, and from here down to Hola Pryzstan and out to the road it is Grey.
Half of Hola Pryzstan is grey, with the port facilities in green and the inland parts being red.
In the report it said that all of the Marines are now across, but not a word was mentioned of the mechanized infantry that is pouring over, even though the Russians have put up video of Ukrainian mechanized units fighting them.
Now even the more well developped and well staffed areas of the frontline is starting to break due to Russia pulling troops to primarily assault in Vuhledar and Avdivka, and secondarily try to hold in Kherson.
Out of the 9 brigades holding at Tokmakish Russia have withdrawn 4 of them.
Now contemplate that Oleksandr is sitting there with 16 brigades applying constant pressure.
That quickly started to erode the remaining 5 brigades, and exhaust them beyond breaking point.
Also here remember that when we take about Russian Brigades, none of them are at strength, whereas most Ukrainian Brigades are at strength, or near to.
If a Ukrainian Brigade is understrength it is pulled back, is reconstituted, and then given time to excercise.
This means that the numbers of Ukrainian visavi the number of Russian Brigades is not giving the true strength in numbers.
Sidenote: 1 Russian Brigade was sent to Kherson, 1 to Vuhledar and 2 over to Avdivka.
They did not fare well.
A few days ago he attacked Eastward and expanded the salient, and attacked again towards Verbove.
This was to force the Russians to put their attention in this direction, and to concentrate their meagre resources here.
After two days he then sent a second Brigade to start storming the trenches Westward from 5 separate directions towards Kopani.
And, while those forces was slowly clearing the way forward he closed the trap.
A battalion of his has been spending 2 months practicing with my old boys to learn how to be special operations operatives.
These SOG trained SOOs was sent during the night to sneak around the lines SOUTH of them, true SOGery there
They then entered the fortifications inside Kopani and massacred the troops in their underground barracks in their sleep with machine guns and grenades, and pulled out without losses.
This has left a gaping hole in the Russian lines towards the West.
A hole that Russia has to fill up.
With 1 brigade holding to the East, 1 brigade holding around Verbove, 1 brigade holding the southern side, and 1 brigade holding Novoprokopivka, and the one brigade in the Kopani direction trying out how to be dead, it beggers belief now how they are gonna solve that conundrum.
Final Thoughts
As everyone is dithering about support from the US and delivery delays from Europe everyone here are quietly smiling over their gains.
The US arms are still coming, everyone knew about the delays in weapons production in Europe.
It was after all over-eagerness among EU-politicians that accounted for those delays, the industry immediately told the Ukrainians that it was impossible to do what the well-meaning politicians promised, and they gave the real delivery dates and production increases, so the Ukrainian MOD planned according to that.
Also, the French did this months "miscalculation" of shells and found exactly 100 000 shells to many in storage and gifted that to Ukraine (and sent the check to EU).
Next month I have it on good authority that Sweden and Norway will discover a similar miscalculation...
All this fibbing is double-directed, it is to grow a sense of urgency among the Muricanos and increase political support in EU + Friend.
Oh, "Friend" is also gonna discover a miscalculation next.
So many armies being so bad at counting shells...
The second part of it was sort of a trap for the Russians.
If they had known that even though shells are somewhat sparse, they are coming in sufficient numbers, they would never have made this huge attack trying to deplete the Ukrainian shell stocks.
To goad them on Zelenzkyy even went out and publically stated that "unless more shells arrive we will have to fall back".
A somewhat perplexing statement since Ukraine is on the offensive, and successful such offensives at that, but the Russians are thick as logs so it might work.
Obviously the shell thing is real, it has just been greatly "improved upon" in the narrative.
It should be obvious since the frugal Ukrainian army would never go on the offensive if they knew that they are really starting to run out."
On the fronts, things progressing well for UAF.
Meanwhile something about golf carts, Pandas and geopolitics.
"In the last couple of weeks the pundits have been waxing lyrical about China delivering 2 000 advanced military terrain vehicles to the Russian Army.
This is ad verbatim from the Russian statement.
And a few have even been spotted behind the frontlines.
What we do not know is if there are 2 000 of them, but let us say that it is.
Oh boy, how will we survive these 2 000 state of the art chinese military terrain vehicles?
Let us take a look at them.
First of all we can safely say that they are Chinese, you can order them on Wish and Alibaba in those quantities if you wish.
Normally they come in red, british racing green, blue, yellow... but the Russian ones are a nice sand-colour reminiscent of Desert Storm.
What they are is gardening trucks for use in cemeteries, golf courses, parks, etcetera.
What the lack is 4-wheel drive, terrain suspension, wind shields, doors, etcetera.
And they are powered with a 3 cylinder low powered diesel engine, not a big brawny army diesel.
Russia bought unusually large diesel-powered golf carts and did a paint job.
Obviously checking these details that take all of 1 minute is obviously beyond the punditary skillset of said pundits.
Much easier to run a Russian statement through google translate and sit down in a ****-circle and republish each others pundifications.
Pandas
Weirdly little has been written about Xi's visit to Biden.
Let me start in the other end, the Panda end.
China only issues their precious pandas to their best friends, they only issue them as a big neon-coloured peace sign.
And if the relations ever sour, they will demand said pandas back.
The US have previously received Pandas, then the Panda-flow stopped, and in the last years China has demanded the Pandas back from the US.
A couple of months ago Russia had to hand over their pandas.
And China has not issued Pandas to anyone for 5 years.
Until now.
The San Diego got two whole Pandas in one go, a breeding pair.
What was also stated at the meeting?
"Normal and friendly relations and open communication between China and the United States is the most important thing in the world".
"China will not seek a military solution with Taiwan, and will seek peaceful co-existance with Taiwan".
Basically, here came the shift I pointed out more than a month ago when the Hawkish Defence Minister was fired, dis-partied, and arrested.
Behind closed doors Ukraine was discussed, and the same message was given as was given to the European Union, and that is that they will support a peace deal securing the return of all occupied lands to Ukraine, and that they would not support Russia if they are militarily defeated.
Backstab
Finally Russia noticed that the world was not like they believed it was, or western pundits still believe it is.
For a week now they have been openly calling this a backstab, and privately they are hellishly scared about how far China is willing to go.
They woke up and smelled the week old dead cod that they had been hit with.
I know what they said and did give to the EU to go and ask the US for this meeting on their behalf.
It was far reaaching, and they delivered on their words, and it was no crappy park-vehicles they delivered for forwarding to Ukraine.
We didn't get Pandas, instead Ukraine got 300 000 shells, missiles, components for the Baba Yaga's and so on and so forth, at no cost.
All for arranging a date with the US.
Why?
Volvo
I will get back to this surprising headline in the end.
The Chinese economy is in death-throws.
No, this is not an hyperboli, it is that bad.
China has suffered a perfect economic storm, mostly in their own making.
We have the housing developer crisis with hyper-loan financing, entire cities that was being built and ended up as ghost-cities, built by cheap government loans, and all of them prepaid by the buyers.
When those giiiiinormous propery developers started to go bust, or went into receivership those government loans became worthless, and then you have millions of Chinese that stand there with loans they have to pay back with interest, and no apartment to show for their loans.
Then we had the Chinese closedown festival, it scalloped their economy further as companies was closed down for weeks at a time due to the Chinese vaccine not working at all.
Basically the Chinese export industry was operating at half speed for a full year.
On February 24th the war started, and the already strained relations with the West exploded into a frenzy due to the partnership with Russia and the continued threatening acts against Taiwan.
EU and the US started to pull out production of all core necessities needed during a war, investments was put on hold, and entire newly opened technology factories was closed down as more and more Western companies pulled out of China, permanently.
China has two government owned gigantic car conglomerates, BYD is fully owned, Geely is half-private but it is the Government that pulls the strings and bankrolled it.
In 2010 Geely bought Volvo and delisted it from the stock market.
Unlike what everyone believed Geely turned out to be fantastic owners.
They poured in capital, building the worlds most modern factories, starting a car design University in Gothenburg, and so on and so forth.
They treated it as the star jewel of what China owned, and they made damn certain that they didn't interfear with the company culture or design philosophy, instead they went 180 degrees the other way, Geely was more or less run from Gothenburg, no Geely car was released without approval by the engineering department and design department in Gothenburg.
This meant that these departments rapidly expanded into behemoth's of car design and car engineering.
For China this was their star possesion, their way into the European market, the jewel in the crown of companies they own.
And all Geely cars run on platforms engineered and designed in Gothenburg by Volvo to their exacting standards.
At the same time a private Company in China was started, the goal was to produce the best electric cars the world has ever seen.
It is known as Xpeng, pronounced Chia Pung, coincidentally this means "Hello Scrotum" in Swedish, so here they are pronounced X Peng (X Money in Swedish).
And they do build some of the best electric cars in the world, but they make a bit to many weird noises for my taste, Chinese love their cars to ding all the time.
But, quality wise they are up there with Mercedes and the other big boys, just half the price.
In China this was seen as proof that a privately owned company could make good if they got Government funding.
A few months ago the Chinese government declined the next financing round out of the blue.
The founder used to be a banker for Morgan Stanley, and helped facilitate Geely's purchase of Volvo from Ford.
So, he immediately turned westwards to save his company, this is normally not allowed in China if it is a government funded company, but for "reasons" a special permission was given.
And the mighty Volkswagen Group bought a 30 percent stake in cash to the company for further development.
It is widely known that in the next round they will become majority owners.
This sent shockwaves around the world, and it was indeed a sign of things not being well in China.
One of their brightest shining jewels bailed out by a German company?
Unheard of.
At the same time Geely relisted Volvo on Nasdaq.
In doing so they had to issue 10 percent new shares for other owners, it was then assumed that the money would go into the coffers of Volvo, instead they where yeeted with lightspeed back to Geely in China.
Still no real bells went off, after all Volvo is making a big profit and did not need any cash, and Geely had after all invested around 20 Billion Euro in Volvo.
Last week Geely started to sell Volvo shares at such a rate that the stockprices was pushed down considerably since there was all of a sudden more shares available than there was people able to buy them.
The Wallenbergs and their company Mercedes started immediately to buy up shares on the cheap.
Yeah, I know it is weird that Wallenbergs sold Swedish Volvo, and much later took control of Mercedes...
So, a Swedish company is now being rapidly sold by a Chinese company being bought by a Swedish-owned German company. That is irony for you.
Now people started to dig into why the hell Geely would sell off their crown jewel in such a desperate manner.
Especially since they are selling their engineering and design departments which will hurt all of their car manufacturing for the next decade.
Turns out that the Chinese government had demanded payback on loans to finance themselves due to their deep economic problems.
That left Geely teetering very near bankruptcy, and the only thing worth anything to foreign investors was Volvo Cars.
I used these very public instances, and well known companies, to point towards that the Chinese economy is bust.
And in bust I mean in need of immediate bailout.
They need foreign loans to just stay afloat, and those sums can only come from EIB, IMF and the World Bank.
Medium term they need trade relations somewhat restored, at least so they can hanker on.
Longterm they need investment capital into China and foreign companies to cash buy Chinese companies.
In other words, Chinas bid for superpowerdom has failed at the same time as their economy failed.
And if China need to chuck Russia under the bus they will do so at a speed never previously seen.
After all, wars are bad for business, and China desperately need business at any cost now.
Selling a few million shells to the EU? Good business from a paying customer, and to hell with Russia.
Heck, they offered to retool into 155 and churn out stainless grenades to full NATO-spec for 50cent on the Euro...
How much? 10 million shells per year for as long as we are paying, and China has oodles of idling factories able to produce them so it is not a joke.
EU has provisionally said yes, but said that the US must also approve it since it is NATO-spec.
I think this was high on the agenda in the US.
After all, EU can afford buying as much as is needed and beyond that, and China can produce many things Ukraine desperately need.
If this is signed off on Russia will not last the winter.
Oh, and every single one of the delivered 152mm and 122mm Soviet-style shells are working flawlessly, very much unlike the Russian and North Korean crapola that is exploding in the barrels.
Handled correctly it could bring world peace for a decade at least.
We will see.
In Russia the fear is real... they know obviously already.
Their fate is now truly in the balance, and their fate is decided by the 3 largest powers on the planet.
At least they have crappy park-utility vehicles to comfort themselves with."
Meanwhile something about golf carts, Pandas and geopolitics.
"In the last couple of weeks the pundits have been waxing lyrical about China delivering 2 000 advanced military terrain vehicles to the Russian Army.
This is ad verbatim from the Russian statement.
And a few have even been spotted behind the frontlines.
What we do not know is if there are 2 000 of them, but let us say that it is.
Oh boy, how will we survive these 2 000 state of the art chinese military terrain vehicles?
Let us take a look at them.
First of all we can safely say that they are Chinese, you can order them on Wish and Alibaba in those quantities if you wish.
Normally they come in red, british racing green, blue, yellow... but the Russian ones are a nice sand-colour reminiscent of Desert Storm.
What they are is gardening trucks for use in cemeteries, golf courses, parks, etcetera.
What the lack is 4-wheel drive, terrain suspension, wind shields, doors, etcetera.
And they are powered with a 3 cylinder low powered diesel engine, not a big brawny army diesel.
Russia bought unusually large diesel-powered golf carts and did a paint job.
Obviously checking these details that take all of 1 minute is obviously beyond the punditary skillset of said pundits.
Much easier to run a Russian statement through google translate and sit down in a ****-circle and republish each others pundifications.
Pandas
Weirdly little has been written about Xi's visit to Biden.
Let me start in the other end, the Panda end.
China only issues their precious pandas to their best friends, they only issue them as a big neon-coloured peace sign.
And if the relations ever sour, they will demand said pandas back.
The US have previously received Pandas, then the Panda-flow stopped, and in the last years China has demanded the Pandas back from the US.
A couple of months ago Russia had to hand over their pandas.
And China has not issued Pandas to anyone for 5 years.
Until now.
The San Diego got two whole Pandas in one go, a breeding pair.
What was also stated at the meeting?
"Normal and friendly relations and open communication between China and the United States is the most important thing in the world".
"China will not seek a military solution with Taiwan, and will seek peaceful co-existance with Taiwan".
Basically, here came the shift I pointed out more than a month ago when the Hawkish Defence Minister was fired, dis-partied, and arrested.
Behind closed doors Ukraine was discussed, and the same message was given as was given to the European Union, and that is that they will support a peace deal securing the return of all occupied lands to Ukraine, and that they would not support Russia if they are militarily defeated.
Backstab
Finally Russia noticed that the world was not like they believed it was, or western pundits still believe it is.
For a week now they have been openly calling this a backstab, and privately they are hellishly scared about how far China is willing to go.
They woke up and smelled the week old dead cod that they had been hit with.
I know what they said and did give to the EU to go and ask the US for this meeting on their behalf.
It was far reaaching, and they delivered on their words, and it was no crappy park-vehicles they delivered for forwarding to Ukraine.
We didn't get Pandas, instead Ukraine got 300 000 shells, missiles, components for the Baba Yaga's and so on and so forth, at no cost.
All for arranging a date with the US.
Why?
Volvo
I will get back to this surprising headline in the end.
The Chinese economy is in death-throws.
No, this is not an hyperboli, it is that bad.
China has suffered a perfect economic storm, mostly in their own making.
We have the housing developer crisis with hyper-loan financing, entire cities that was being built and ended up as ghost-cities, built by cheap government loans, and all of them prepaid by the buyers.
When those giiiiinormous propery developers started to go bust, or went into receivership those government loans became worthless, and then you have millions of Chinese that stand there with loans they have to pay back with interest, and no apartment to show for their loans.
Then we had the Chinese closedown festival, it scalloped their economy further as companies was closed down for weeks at a time due to the Chinese vaccine not working at all.
Basically the Chinese export industry was operating at half speed for a full year.
On February 24th the war started, and the already strained relations with the West exploded into a frenzy due to the partnership with Russia and the continued threatening acts against Taiwan.
EU and the US started to pull out production of all core necessities needed during a war, investments was put on hold, and entire newly opened technology factories was closed down as more and more Western companies pulled out of China, permanently.
China has two government owned gigantic car conglomerates, BYD is fully owned, Geely is half-private but it is the Government that pulls the strings and bankrolled it.
In 2010 Geely bought Volvo and delisted it from the stock market.
Unlike what everyone believed Geely turned out to be fantastic owners.
They poured in capital, building the worlds most modern factories, starting a car design University in Gothenburg, and so on and so forth.
They treated it as the star jewel of what China owned, and they made damn certain that they didn't interfear with the company culture or design philosophy, instead they went 180 degrees the other way, Geely was more or less run from Gothenburg, no Geely car was released without approval by the engineering department and design department in Gothenburg.
This meant that these departments rapidly expanded into behemoth's of car design and car engineering.
For China this was their star possesion, their way into the European market, the jewel in the crown of companies they own.
And all Geely cars run on platforms engineered and designed in Gothenburg by Volvo to their exacting standards.
At the same time a private Company in China was started, the goal was to produce the best electric cars the world has ever seen.
It is known as Xpeng, pronounced Chia Pung, coincidentally this means "Hello Scrotum" in Swedish, so here they are pronounced X Peng (X Money in Swedish).
And they do build some of the best electric cars in the world, but they make a bit to many weird noises for my taste, Chinese love their cars to ding all the time.
But, quality wise they are up there with Mercedes and the other big boys, just half the price.
In China this was seen as proof that a privately owned company could make good if they got Government funding.
A few months ago the Chinese government declined the next financing round out of the blue.
The founder used to be a banker for Morgan Stanley, and helped facilitate Geely's purchase of Volvo from Ford.
So, he immediately turned westwards to save his company, this is normally not allowed in China if it is a government funded company, but for "reasons" a special permission was given.
And the mighty Volkswagen Group bought a 30 percent stake in cash to the company for further development.
It is widely known that in the next round they will become majority owners.
This sent shockwaves around the world, and it was indeed a sign of things not being well in China.
One of their brightest shining jewels bailed out by a German company?
Unheard of.
At the same time Geely relisted Volvo on Nasdaq.
In doing so they had to issue 10 percent new shares for other owners, it was then assumed that the money would go into the coffers of Volvo, instead they where yeeted with lightspeed back to Geely in China.
Still no real bells went off, after all Volvo is making a big profit and did not need any cash, and Geely had after all invested around 20 Billion Euro in Volvo.
Last week Geely started to sell Volvo shares at such a rate that the stockprices was pushed down considerably since there was all of a sudden more shares available than there was people able to buy them.
The Wallenbergs and their company Mercedes started immediately to buy up shares on the cheap.
Yeah, I know it is weird that Wallenbergs sold Swedish Volvo, and much later took control of Mercedes...
So, a Swedish company is now being rapidly sold by a Chinese company being bought by a Swedish-owned German company. That is irony for you.
Now people started to dig into why the hell Geely would sell off their crown jewel in such a desperate manner.
Especially since they are selling their engineering and design departments which will hurt all of their car manufacturing for the next decade.
Turns out that the Chinese government had demanded payback on loans to finance themselves due to their deep economic problems.
That left Geely teetering very near bankruptcy, and the only thing worth anything to foreign investors was Volvo Cars.
I used these very public instances, and well known companies, to point towards that the Chinese economy is bust.
And in bust I mean in need of immediate bailout.
They need foreign loans to just stay afloat, and those sums can only come from EIB, IMF and the World Bank.
Medium term they need trade relations somewhat restored, at least so they can hanker on.
Longterm they need investment capital into China and foreign companies to cash buy Chinese companies.
In other words, Chinas bid for superpowerdom has failed at the same time as their economy failed.
And if China need to chuck Russia under the bus they will do so at a speed never previously seen.
After all, wars are bad for business, and China desperately need business at any cost now.
Selling a few million shells to the EU? Good business from a paying customer, and to hell with Russia.
Heck, they offered to retool into 155 and churn out stainless grenades to full NATO-spec for 50cent on the Euro...
How much? 10 million shells per year for as long as we are paying, and China has oodles of idling factories able to produce them so it is not a joke.
EU has provisionally said yes, but said that the US must also approve it since it is NATO-spec.
I think this was high on the agenda in the US.
After all, EU can afford buying as much as is needed and beyond that, and China can produce many things Ukraine desperately need.
If this is signed off on Russia will not last the winter.
Oh, and every single one of the delivered 152mm and 122mm Soviet-style shells are working flawlessly, very much unlike the Russian and North Korean crapola that is exploding in the barrels.
Handled correctly it could bring world peace for a decade at least.
We will see.
In Russia the fear is real... they know obviously already.
Their fate is now truly in the balance, and their fate is decided by the 3 largest powers on the planet.
At least they have crappy park-utility vehicles to comfort themselves with."
More front news. Our man is away from there now, but still able to provide better info that you'll get elsewhere.
"The Ramparts
After having demined large areas and held it for a long time it has now been abandoned for the time being.
Why now would someone abandon an area that was held securely?
Because it was a nipple, and holding nipples cost a lot in resources, both equipment, munitions and soldiers.
And those are needed elsewhere for now.
And, any area that has been taken and demined is a pretty fragile spot that is easier to take back again.
Obviously it is not ideal, but sometimes it is for the better.
This also gave a unified frontline in the area that requires 1/10th of the forces to hold.
Marinka
Holding here is for now more key to the future than the ramparts.
It sucks large resources from the Russians since they truly need to take it back.
Having lost several suburbing villages and towns, plus more than half of Marinka itself, the next place over is Donetsk City proper.
Avdivka
The freed up heavy armour from the Ramparts together with other forces made it possible to take advantage of the lull between the Second group of 35K soldiers and the presumed third group of 40K (might though be less of them).
Here the Westernmost field of the Northern pincer was taken back, and the grey zone expanded both around there, and near to the chemical factory.
Basically all the gains that the second group gained are now reversed, same that happened at the end of the first when I attacked.
Knowing that I would throttle her if she led it from the front herself TG let the Commander of the 2nd TAG do the honours of the attacks.
Yes, plural.
She also ordered an attack straight out of Avdivka City due North and drove the Russians back from the area near the artificial lakes that they had gained there during the first 40K group.
Something that I had planned to do, but never got around to doing.
She is teasing me for it now, stating that women are better at multitasking attacks.
I pointed out that she has a bonus general that I did not have...
Obviously it is stunning that she is able to perform as many attacks as she is doing at the same time.
Almost forgot, she counter-punched from Siverne and regained some ground there too, she wanted to the Southern Pincerians to know that she has them in her thoughts too.
In regards of those 40K in the next wave, we are now a bit unsure if they will use them for an immediate attack.
We now think they might be held back until the ground freezes over.
If so, it is freebe.
Having 40K soldiers withing strike range is a bonus, and they will be attrited so heavily during this time that nothing will remain for a new big wave.
They might also be diverted to plug gaps.
My personal thought is that as long as feet in Moscow is not muddy, wet, cold and miserable they will wade through the mud towards the Ukrainian positions.
Main Show
All of the above was though just the preamble to the main show.
Due to the rapid successes here a decission was made by Zelenzkyy to take as much as is feasible of Horlivka before Russia get their **** together.
Tank Girl needs to pull attention from Avdivka, and on top of that, going for Horlivka will make certain that most of that 40K is pulled that way and not to plug gaps all the way down to Kherson if the Russians decide to not push further in Avdivka for now.
The last part swayed everyone into voting for this operation as long as it is limited in scope in regards of stopping if a sizeable force is allocated here.
After taking 5km the attack on the industrial complexes was started, and at the same time the breach was expanded to a full 7km.
From there she struck deep towards Horlivka and breached the second larger defence line out of the two there was.
The first two mining plants are now completely under her control, and she is deep into the main plant now taking terrakons as she is moving ahead.
If the main plant falls and the Russians have not arranged a sturdy response at that point she will continue into Horlivka proper.
Going around and encircle the City would be way to costly in resources, so a frontal assault is the only way.
The orders to evacuate has not yet been issued, but the locals are already moving on their own accord.
After all they are not getting any sleep due to the heavy artillery barrages ripping apart the plant infront of their eyes, and the artillery is also working deep into Horlivka now to take out Russian bases, ammo dumps, and command posts.
It is very emotional for the Ukrainians seeing flags being erected in parts that have not seen Ukrainian soldiers since 2014.
At the same time they recognize that Horlivka will not exist when the battle is over.
The Ukrainians will be careful and try to save as much as possible as the enter, but the Russians will rip it apart as they are potentially pushed out.
Effects
Inside Russia this and the the offensive in Kherson is sending shockwaves.
In their minds they where gonna attack Avdivka, take it, and then celebrate.
Instead they have almost 80K in wounded and dead, and absolutely nothing to show for it.
And, instead Ukraine is rapidly taking ground in two new directions during a time period they had counted on that Ukraine would not perform large scale offensive operations, and they themselves had openly declared that they would not do so.
For the Russian soldiers fighting at Horlivka life has turned into a nightmare, 24/7 fourdifferent versions of Baba Yaga's are hunting them, with up to 500 in the air at the same time.
There's now not only the bomber version, there is also the machinegun version, and a version with an RPG7, and the latest is a drone carrier that carries smaller drones deep inland and then releases them, and work as a relay for the smaller attack drones.
And if the drones do not take them they will be hunted during the night by infantry using nightvision capabilities, and then you constant artillery barrages blowing things up around them.
And if they survive that they get wave after wave with tanks firing point blank together with the ubiquituous combat vehicles rattling their autocannons.
And the ones in the rear does not have a nicer time with missiles dropping on top of them constantly all the way back to and across the border.
How bad is it? There is an entire scrounged together division of soviet barreled artillery running constant walking wallfire barrages.
That is when you lob up to 100 shells in a line, then you correct and fire another line 25 meters forward, and so on in rolling barage that nothing survives.
Those 300K 152mm chinese shells are working hard here.
This tactic will obviously not be used inside the City itself, both due to it demolishing the City completely, and because it would take 5 million shells to do it...
But, it is perfect for the industrial part, and to breach up to the City.
It is also hugely demoralising for the Russians seeing this since it is their own tactic used on them, and a tactic that they themselves no longer are able to perform.
I find it ironic that a Soviet-era shell is doing its last appearance in its intended Soviet-era standard tactic against Russia itself.
If anything ever was the perfect swansong of the Soviet Empire this would be it.
I also suspect that Tank Girl love doing it, she has always been a tad heavy handed on the artillery side.
She seems happy about how things are going now.
Fun fact, the Russians are using more forces attacking in Bakhmut than they have defending Horlivka.
They truly have a strange obsession with that place, and obviously with Avdivka.
It is like if they get an order to take something that stands and is never rescinded, even if they have taken the place...
If we count on the Russians having the same decission speed here as they did in Kherson, she has about a free week of getting stuff done.
That should at the going rate be enough to be inside Horlivka City proper.
But, only an idiot would assume that to be a universal truth, after all this is far closer to large Russian units, and having half a city's population fleeing is sort of creating a logistical mess for them.
I tentatively for that reason give her another 48 hours of free reign here, and another 24 after that to move sufficient forces.
It is a race.
We will see."
"The Ramparts
After having demined large areas and held it for a long time it has now been abandoned for the time being.
Why now would someone abandon an area that was held securely?
Because it was a nipple, and holding nipples cost a lot in resources, both equipment, munitions and soldiers.
And those are needed elsewhere for now.
And, any area that has been taken and demined is a pretty fragile spot that is easier to take back again.
Obviously it is not ideal, but sometimes it is for the better.
This also gave a unified frontline in the area that requires 1/10th of the forces to hold.
Marinka
Holding here is for now more key to the future than the ramparts.
It sucks large resources from the Russians since they truly need to take it back.
Having lost several suburbing villages and towns, plus more than half of Marinka itself, the next place over is Donetsk City proper.
Avdivka
The freed up heavy armour from the Ramparts together with other forces made it possible to take advantage of the lull between the Second group of 35K soldiers and the presumed third group of 40K (might though be less of them).
Here the Westernmost field of the Northern pincer was taken back, and the grey zone expanded both around there, and near to the chemical factory.
Basically all the gains that the second group gained are now reversed, same that happened at the end of the first when I attacked.
Knowing that I would throttle her if she led it from the front herself TG let the Commander of the 2nd TAG do the honours of the attacks.
Yes, plural.
She also ordered an attack straight out of Avdivka City due North and drove the Russians back from the area near the artificial lakes that they had gained there during the first 40K group.
Something that I had planned to do, but never got around to doing.
She is teasing me for it now, stating that women are better at multitasking attacks.
I pointed out that she has a bonus general that I did not have...
Obviously it is stunning that she is able to perform as many attacks as she is doing at the same time.
Almost forgot, she counter-punched from Siverne and regained some ground there too, she wanted to the Southern Pincerians to know that she has them in her thoughts too.
In regards of those 40K in the next wave, we are now a bit unsure if they will use them for an immediate attack.
We now think they might be held back until the ground freezes over.
If so, it is freebe.
Having 40K soldiers withing strike range is a bonus, and they will be attrited so heavily during this time that nothing will remain for a new big wave.
They might also be diverted to plug gaps.
My personal thought is that as long as feet in Moscow is not muddy, wet, cold and miserable they will wade through the mud towards the Ukrainian positions.
Main Show
All of the above was though just the preamble to the main show.
Due to the rapid successes here a decission was made by Zelenzkyy to take as much as is feasible of Horlivka before Russia get their **** together.
Tank Girl needs to pull attention from Avdivka, and on top of that, going for Horlivka will make certain that most of that 40K is pulled that way and not to plug gaps all the way down to Kherson if the Russians decide to not push further in Avdivka for now.
The last part swayed everyone into voting for this operation as long as it is limited in scope in regards of stopping if a sizeable force is allocated here.
After taking 5km the attack on the industrial complexes was started, and at the same time the breach was expanded to a full 7km.
From there she struck deep towards Horlivka and breached the second larger defence line out of the two there was.
The first two mining plants are now completely under her control, and she is deep into the main plant now taking terrakons as she is moving ahead.
If the main plant falls and the Russians have not arranged a sturdy response at that point she will continue into Horlivka proper.
Going around and encircle the City would be way to costly in resources, so a frontal assault is the only way.
The orders to evacuate has not yet been issued, but the locals are already moving on their own accord.
After all they are not getting any sleep due to the heavy artillery barrages ripping apart the plant infront of their eyes, and the artillery is also working deep into Horlivka now to take out Russian bases, ammo dumps, and command posts.
It is very emotional for the Ukrainians seeing flags being erected in parts that have not seen Ukrainian soldiers since 2014.
At the same time they recognize that Horlivka will not exist when the battle is over.
The Ukrainians will be careful and try to save as much as possible as the enter, but the Russians will rip it apart as they are potentially pushed out.
Effects
Inside Russia this and the the offensive in Kherson is sending shockwaves.
In their minds they where gonna attack Avdivka, take it, and then celebrate.
Instead they have almost 80K in wounded and dead, and absolutely nothing to show for it.
And, instead Ukraine is rapidly taking ground in two new directions during a time period they had counted on that Ukraine would not perform large scale offensive operations, and they themselves had openly declared that they would not do so.
For the Russian soldiers fighting at Horlivka life has turned into a nightmare, 24/7 fourdifferent versions of Baba Yaga's are hunting them, with up to 500 in the air at the same time.
There's now not only the bomber version, there is also the machinegun version, and a version with an RPG7, and the latest is a drone carrier that carries smaller drones deep inland and then releases them, and work as a relay for the smaller attack drones.
And if the drones do not take them they will be hunted during the night by infantry using nightvision capabilities, and then you constant artillery barrages blowing things up around them.
And if they survive that they get wave after wave with tanks firing point blank together with the ubiquituous combat vehicles rattling their autocannons.
And the ones in the rear does not have a nicer time with missiles dropping on top of them constantly all the way back to and across the border.
How bad is it? There is an entire scrounged together division of soviet barreled artillery running constant walking wallfire barrages.
That is when you lob up to 100 shells in a line, then you correct and fire another line 25 meters forward, and so on in rolling barage that nothing survives.
Those 300K 152mm chinese shells are working hard here.
This tactic will obviously not be used inside the City itself, both due to it demolishing the City completely, and because it would take 5 million shells to do it...
But, it is perfect for the industrial part, and to breach up to the City.
It is also hugely demoralising for the Russians seeing this since it is their own tactic used on them, and a tactic that they themselves no longer are able to perform.
I find it ironic that a Soviet-era shell is doing its last appearance in its intended Soviet-era standard tactic against Russia itself.
If anything ever was the perfect swansong of the Soviet Empire this would be it.
I also suspect that Tank Girl love doing it, she has always been a tad heavy handed on the artillery side.
She seems happy about how things are going now.
Fun fact, the Russians are using more forces attacking in Bakhmut than they have defending Horlivka.
They truly have a strange obsession with that place, and obviously with Avdivka.
It is like if they get an order to take something that stands and is never rescinded, even if they have taken the place...
If we count on the Russians having the same decission speed here as they did in Kherson, she has about a free week of getting stuff done.
That should at the going rate be enough to be inside Horlivka City proper.
But, only an idiot would assume that to be a universal truth, after all this is far closer to large Russian units, and having half a city's population fleeing is sort of creating a logistical mess for them.
I tentatively for that reason give her another 48 hours of free reign here, and another 24 after that to move sufficient forces.
It is a race.
We will see."
Update (from this morning)
"For some reason the Russian aerospace forces decided to hold a huge celebration of the Russian Missile Day in a barracks complex in the deep rear in Donetsk Oblast.
500 of their officers and their families gathered in an auditorium on base to listen to a somewhat famous Russian female singer, and the base was full of soldiers.
About half in the auditorium died, including the singer, and the rest got wounded, plus a similar number of soldiers in the barracks.
It is to date the highest numbers of officers taken out in a single strike.
Well worth the 12 GLSDBs used.
Avdivka
Taking advantage of the temporary lack of sufficient Russian forces in the Northern pincer Tank Girl hit midway down the railway from the Stepove direction towards Krasnohorivka.
The Russian front quickly cracked and the Russians was driven back to their main strongpoint in Krasnohorivka with the Ukrainians following them all the way to the border of Krasnohorivka village.
Currently Ukraine is digging in new positions and trenches before the inevitable Russian counter-attack.
This attack has serious weakened the effectiveness of the Northern Pincer.
I find it interesting how easy it is now to take pieces out of it, remember that this is the second such piece taken in as many days.
It is sort of making me suspect that the new wave of troops to Avdivka is either delayed, held back, or diverted to more painful orifices.
Let me explain Stepove.
Russia has spent more than 10 000 troops in wounded and killed to take it, a number of soldiers normally associated with taking a fair sized city under heavy urban fighting.
So, spending that number of soldiers on a very small village consisting of seven houses is just ridonculous.
Especially since taking the village will not bring them even a single step closer to closing the encirclement of Avdivka.
So, 10K for taking a tiny sliver of land with 7 houses in the wrong direction, and then failing in taking it... only in Russia.
It is also important here to understand one thing.
This attack was not done by armoured forces, it was done the hardcore world war one style with a lot of artillery fire and troops swiming (literaly) through the horrendous mud.
Oleshky
Once again, remember that I am here following generally the 10 day delay rule, and right now I am sort of gonna follow it since Ukrainian MOD issued a notice requesting everyone to blanket the info for Kherson.
The Russians are now reporting about the near encirclement of Oleshky by regular Ukrainian forces that are attacking both from the East and the West from two different beacheads.
From there they have followed the outskirts of the City and are now closing in on the supply road on the backside of Oleshky.
There's also skirmish fighting along the entire city perimeter.
The Russians are now crying about problems of resupplying the small city, and problems with getting reinforcements into the area.
It is here good to remember that Oleshky is the "capital" of Southern Kherson, so it would be a big blow for the Russians if they lost it.
Shrink Day
3 months ago Russia had 450 000 troops in Ukraine, and was adding about 20K troops per month to cover for losses.
Due to a higher loss rate Russia has now passed below 400K troops in Ukraine, and the rate of new troops have dropped to 15K per month.
This means that Russia has lost about 110 000 troops from combat service, either due to being killed or being wounded enough to being sent back home, and this in 3 months time.
And the drop in "renewables" indicate that Russia is now starting to slowly run dry on its last great resource, human meat-targets.
What now?
Remember that there was just 8 million Russians to draw on to begin with.
1.2 million have been killed or wounded beyond repair.
4 million men have fled Russia, and about 1 million are refuseniks/campniks.
That is a staggering 6.2 million men out of the pool of Russian men.
Now one could say that 1.8 million remain, and that is true.
But someone need to build the tanks, weapons, operate oil-pumps, etcetera.
Now one could say that Russia could replace those with women.
Problem is that they already have done that, and injected retiree's and so on and so forth.
There's none left to replace them with.
Obviously Russia will not give a crap about that and they will still try to send them to the front.
Problem is just that the Russians have finally caught on to the not so small fact that if you go to the front, you are not coming back unless you are lacking a limb or 4.
This means that if they even smell a recruitment letter they vamoose, or go to prison instead.
Heck, even a Russian prison is preferable to what is awaiting them in Ukraine."
"For some reason the Russian aerospace forces decided to hold a huge celebration of the Russian Missile Day in a barracks complex in the deep rear in Donetsk Oblast.
500 of their officers and their families gathered in an auditorium on base to listen to a somewhat famous Russian female singer, and the base was full of soldiers.
About half in the auditorium died, including the singer, and the rest got wounded, plus a similar number of soldiers in the barracks.
It is to date the highest numbers of officers taken out in a single strike.
Well worth the 12 GLSDBs used.
Avdivka
Taking advantage of the temporary lack of sufficient Russian forces in the Northern pincer Tank Girl hit midway down the railway from the Stepove direction towards Krasnohorivka.
The Russian front quickly cracked and the Russians was driven back to their main strongpoint in Krasnohorivka with the Ukrainians following them all the way to the border of Krasnohorivka village.
Currently Ukraine is digging in new positions and trenches before the inevitable Russian counter-attack.
This attack has serious weakened the effectiveness of the Northern Pincer.
I find it interesting how easy it is now to take pieces out of it, remember that this is the second such piece taken in as many days.
It is sort of making me suspect that the new wave of troops to Avdivka is either delayed, held back, or diverted to more painful orifices.
Let me explain Stepove.
Russia has spent more than 10 000 troops in wounded and killed to take it, a number of soldiers normally associated with taking a fair sized city under heavy urban fighting.
So, spending that number of soldiers on a very small village consisting of seven houses is just ridonculous.
Especially since taking the village will not bring them even a single step closer to closing the encirclement of Avdivka.
So, 10K for taking a tiny sliver of land with 7 houses in the wrong direction, and then failing in taking it... only in Russia.
It is also important here to understand one thing.
This attack was not done by armoured forces, it was done the hardcore world war one style with a lot of artillery fire and troops swiming (literaly) through the horrendous mud.
Oleshky
Once again, remember that I am here following generally the 10 day delay rule, and right now I am sort of gonna follow it since Ukrainian MOD issued a notice requesting everyone to blanket the info for Kherson.
The Russians are now reporting about the near encirclement of Oleshky by regular Ukrainian forces that are attacking both from the East and the West from two different beacheads.
From there they have followed the outskirts of the City and are now closing in on the supply road on the backside of Oleshky.
There's also skirmish fighting along the entire city perimeter.
The Russians are now crying about problems of resupplying the small city, and problems with getting reinforcements into the area.
It is here good to remember that Oleshky is the "capital" of Southern Kherson, so it would be a big blow for the Russians if they lost it.
Shrink Day
3 months ago Russia had 450 000 troops in Ukraine, and was adding about 20K troops per month to cover for losses.
Due to a higher loss rate Russia has now passed below 400K troops in Ukraine, and the rate of new troops have dropped to 15K per month.
This means that Russia has lost about 110 000 troops from combat service, either due to being killed or being wounded enough to being sent back home, and this in 3 months time.
And the drop in "renewables" indicate that Russia is now starting to slowly run dry on its last great resource, human meat-targets.
What now?
Remember that there was just 8 million Russians to draw on to begin with.
1.2 million have been killed or wounded beyond repair.
4 million men have fled Russia, and about 1 million are refuseniks/campniks.
That is a staggering 6.2 million men out of the pool of Russian men.
Now one could say that 1.8 million remain, and that is true.
But someone need to build the tanks, weapons, operate oil-pumps, etcetera.
Now one could say that Russia could replace those with women.
Problem is that they already have done that, and injected retiree's and so on and so forth.
There's none left to replace them with.
Obviously Russia will not give a crap about that and they will still try to send them to the front.
Problem is just that the Russians have finally caught on to the not so small fact that if you go to the front, you are not coming back unless you are lacking a limb or 4.
This means that if they even smell a recruitment letter they vamoose, or go to prison instead.
Heck, even a Russian prison is preferable to what is awaiting them in Ukraine."
afcb_acklam
Well-known member
a few stories knocking around about the wives & mothers in russia, even in moscow itself, starting to get a bit political
RedAsABeetroot
Well-known member
Russian actress killed in Ukrainian strike on event for troops
About 20 Russian soldiers were killed in the attack in the occupied Donetsk region, Ukraine says.
www.bbc.co.uk
Is this the same concert or a different one?
Russian actress killed in Ukrainian strike on event for troops
About 20 Russian soldiers were killed in the attack in the occupied Donetsk region, Ukraine says.www.bbc.co.uk
Is this the same concert or a different one?
I think that's the one. obviously the numbers differ, but I have seen the video, and that looks like her.
Cheesenbiscuits
Active member
Bit if a difference in numbers attending and reported killed.
I doubt either figure is that accurate. My mate will have taken his from UAF intelligence reports as he was in Kiev at the time.
The most surprising thing is that it has taken this long.
RedAsABeetroot
Well-known member
The BBC report says its source was from her theatre company in St Petersburg in which case they might not have the full details.