The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

[Feanor]

@Feanor a couple of questions.

1. Recently I have been seeing a lot of video of ambushes conducted by alleged Russian Spn. They are the night vision videos, of small group of Russian forces ambushing UA patrols and check points, and late night low altitude drone strikes on UA forces hiding int the forests. I posted around 3 of them here and your updates had the more recent ones. Have these groups been active since the start of war and we are only seeing videos because they are releasing them now or is this a shift in Russian tactics? I know combat clips are not a good indicator of over all tactics and progress, but these night vision videos have more enmy KIA on average than even the most optimistic Russian propaganda videos launched before.

I suspect much of this has gone on before. We probably do have some increase in SpN and recon activity as the front lines around Kharkov and Nikolaev stabilize. I really think Ukraine has taken horrific losses in personnel throughout this war, and I'm not surprised to see these kinds of things on camera. Ukraine has a serious number advantage. If they weren't taking significant losses, they could have pushed Russia out by now.

2. Are there any Russian or Ukrainain sources that are showing the actual effects of Russian cruise missile strikes. We have seen enough videos of them, but what is the actual assessment of their effectiveness. the videos look impressive, but those are really expensive muntions. All those Khalibres, Bals, Iskanders, Oniks etc. what is their real combat efficacy. I am an aboslute novice and know almost nothing of proper military strategy or tactics, but a 1000 cruise missile hits (if we take the pro UA social media claims of 50% of the cruise missile failing, (I doubt the failure rate is that high)), should be doing a lot of damage.

They are doing a lot of damage to military infrastructure, and in some cases have caused huge one-time personnel losses. They were also used to destroy Ukraine's air defense grid early in the war, and Ukraine's airbases throughout the war. However Ukraine is a large country and hitting every single plausible target is hard. Ultimately missiles are a tool. You rarely win a war with missile strikes. But you can use regular missile strikes to make sustained air operations from regular bases all but impossible. You can use them to destroy fuel storage facilities, making it hard for the enemy to refuel. You can use them to hit large armored repair plants, and basing/staging areas of Ukrainian forces both to cause casualties and to force the enemy to spend resources relocating, dispersing, and hiding their forces. If your recon is good, you can use them to hit enemy troops massing for counter-offensives.

3. LNR DPR guys dont really follow opsec much andd upload a lot, and recently ( last one month) they have been showing the usage of drones much more heavily. There is no way they had this many drones in Feb or March, otherwise they would have uploaded it, the Russian regulars dont upload that much, so their videos are not an indicator of their numbers of drones, but the DPR LNR start posting bragging videos of every equipment they have. So did these guys get new shipments of small UAVs from Russia and if so, where are these being sourced from? UA is getting huge number of commercial drones for surveillance, but tis not like Russia can tap into the same channel.

They're being sourced from donations. There is an entire network of volunteer groups across Russia that send things to the rebels. I posted one of their videos when they were delivering items to rebel reservists in one of my posts. Small civilian UAVs have been a big item requested by rebel units for a while and they're definitely getting them. Hell, colonelcassad (also know as Boris Rozhin) was involved in supplying them to rebel forces and he's a Russian civilian blogger out of Crimea. Organizations like the KTsPN (Coordination Center for Aid to Novorussia) had been doing it for years.

Отчёты о работе Координационного центра помощи Новороссии. Сводка последних новостей Донбасса. Ситуация в ополчении.

Докладываем какая сейчас ситуация на Донбассе. Последняя сводка новостей от ополчения. Последние сводки ополчения ДНР и ЛНР. Новороссия бригада Призрак

kcpn.info

Look in the link above, I've linked to where they tell their contributors what they are supplying to the rebels as proof. You can see optics, weapon sights, radios, cables, batteries, body armor, tents, uniforms, UAVs...

4. I have seen the UR-77s in action in Ukraine only recently in the manner they are being used now. This is something Russia used a lot in Syria. Using these mine clearer to clear our urban areas from the anti assad forces. Is the usage of the UR-77 a sign of the new Russian general and officers who have done tours in Syria?

I doubt it. Russia has used UR-77s this way for a long time, most notably during the Chechen wars.

 

[Rock the kasbah]

A person over on the warzone proposes that this may be the ghost pheonix
A ghost is silent and apparently a pheonix is a Thunderbird ( no idea)

ST-35 Silent Thunder | Athlon Avia - Unmanned solutions

athlonavia.com

 

[Sandhi Yudha]

This seems to be the Ukrainian An-26 recently crashed.
According to this article

At least one person is dead after a plane crash in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region

Ukrainian officials and satellite images point to evidence of mass graves outside the besieged city of Mariupol as Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed its "liberation." Follow here for live updates.

edition.cnn.com

it seems to be a "technical flight". What do they mean with that? A test flight after maintenance or a ferry flight to get maintenance somewhere else?
And is this a civilian or military aeroplane? There were some explosions after the crash, could it be that there were weapons on board?

 

[Croc411]

Interview from 2022-04-21 with a frontline Ukrainian artillery officer on the overall situation in the East (with good English subtitles):

Seems to be from UKR TV, so one should take a healthy dose of pro-Ukrainian bias into account. Nevertheless, I find it very interesting. That guy appears rather confident and relaxed.

Some key statements:

- Russian army has stopped advancing recklessly (leaving their flanks and rear open) and now acts much more carefully
- Russian army right now is throwing in almost everything they have, not many reserves left
- Ukrainian army still has vast reserves
- Ukrainian command is using its assets wisely
- Terrain in Northern Donbass heavily favors defender
- Russian Donbass offensive will likely fail as well
- Ukrainian counter-offensive will eventually happen
- Majority of casualties of the war on both sides is due to indirect fire
- About 80% of Russian casualties is due to UKR artillery [this sounds way too high to me, but hey, he's an artillery guy after all ]

There is much more, so I really recommend watching the whole video. My favorite quote: "these would be used to break the Maginot line"

 

[Cult Icon]

This war has an enormous amount of distortion/propaganda of the military situation, at a daily basis and US/UK media is very poor & filled with wishful (Ukr biased) thinking with biased opinion and few receipts/verification.

As a consequence I have been following the war (day 1-60) carefully using mostly Ukrainian and some Russian sources, aided by some more trustworthy analyts/mappers, ISW daily reports/militaryland maps, Ukrianian military website, etc., plus my own judgement as a longtime WW2 Eastern front/Western front tactically/operational focused student with 2000+ hrs of study of secondary/primary sources w/ 1000 volumes. Of these sources, the ISW has been flawed but overall the most useful, if one approaches the reports very cautiously (they use few Russian sources, only Ukrianian ones and their opinions are based on specious footing). As a whole compared to the subject of WW2 the quality of the sources is very poor.

 

[Cult Icon]

The Russians have a great superiority in artillery, armor, and airpower but their infantry is weaker than Ukraine, and massively outnumbered by several orders of magnitude. This makes their assaults clumsy and slow, as the very small Russian infantry screen relies on firepower to shred the Ukrainian defenders, while they advance slowly to mop them up. This results in a slow tactical advance and makes the execution of highly effective maneuver warfare a non-starter.

The problems that the dire shortage of infantry can cause remind me of the German forces, particuarly in 1943-1945. The use of artillery to continuously bleed opponents resembles the Allies in WW2. There is a lot of evidence that the Russians are extremely pressed for infantrymen, trying to grab them from a variety of sources, plus shifting units around.

The Russians are currently steadily advancing everyday in the Donbass under a curtain of firepower but final success in the Donbass depends on whether or not they have enough infantrymen left at the end to push out the Ukrainian JFO. A lot of their elite infantry units (Airborne, Naval, SOBR, etc.) that were massed West of Kyiv are still hidden in the rear, they will likely emerge later on. The Russians are also making small local gains in the southern front, which is much more quiet than the Donbass

I estimate that it will take 1-2 months to clear the Donbass, if the Russians have enough front-line combatants left to do it. If they run out before they clear the Donbass, Putin will have to declare war on Ukraine and this war may be fought into 2023. This possibility looks to be factored in as the Russian state-controlled media is becoming more aggressive in promoting the need to declare war.

I think the losses on the Ukrainian regular army at this point are very severe, and as the war continues the massive and poorly equipped/trained Ukrainian territorial militas, equipped with a lot of NATO donated equipment will gradually take more and more of the combat burden. The ability of the Ukrainian regular army to attack and take ground remains very low. The abilities of the territorial militas are even worse, but if morale remains high they can still be very hard to destroy due to how massive they are compared to the Russian infantry.

Institute for the Study of War

Russian forces continued offensive operations along multiple axes even as they completed moving reinforcements drawn from the retreat from Kyiv into the east and continued redeploying some forces from Mariupol to the north. The Russians have not taken

www.understandingwar.org

"The objectives of Russian offensives around the Izyum-Donetsk City salient are unclear. Russian forces may seek to reach the Izyum-Debaltseve road along two or more axes to encircle a large concentration of Ukrainian forces and built-up areas. Ukrainian officials suggested on April 23 that Russian forces near Rubizhne and Popasna may seek to encircle the Severodonetsk-Lysychansk area rather than pursue the deeper envelopment."

Bingo. The small solution is more likely than the much more ambitious option (from the Izyum salient) as the Russians are in the final stage of winning the battles for Popasna and Rubizhne. Lyman and/or Yampil are likely the next towns to be attacked. If the Russians pursue this goal than the Izyum salient can be see as a diversionary manuever, to draw many Ukrianian brigades towards it and soften up the decisive fighting to the East.

The Russians appear to be racing against the clock, attacking with what they have rather than performing an operational pause. Spring is here and as the days go by, more and more foilage will appear which will favor the defender.

 

[QEDdeq]

The Russians have a great superiority in artillery, armor, and airpower but their infantry is weaker than Ukraine, and massively outnumbered by several orders of magnitude. This makes their assaults clumsy and slow, as the very small Russian infantry screen relies on firepower to shred the Ukrainian defenders, while they advance slowly to mop them up. This results in a slow tactical advance and makes the execution of highly effective maneuver warfare a non-starter.

The problems that the dire shortage of infantry can cause remind me of the German forces, particuarly in 1943-1945. The use of artillery to continuously bleed opponents resembles the Allies in WW2. There is a lot of evidence that the Russians are extremely pressed for infantrymen, trying to grab them from a variety of sources, plus shifting units around.

The Russians are currently steadily advancing everyday in the Donbass under a curtain of firepower but final success in the Donbass depends on whether or not they have enough infantrymen left at the end to push out the Ukrainian JFO. A lot of their elite infantry units (Airborne, Naval, SOBR, etc.) that were massed West of Kyiv are still hidden in the rear, they will likely emerge later on. The Russians are also making small local gains in the southern front, which is much more quiet than the Donbass

I estimate that it will take 1-2 months to clear the Donbass, if the Russians have enough front-line combatants left to do it. If they run out before they clear the Donbass, Putin will have to declare war on Ukraine and this war may be fought into 2023. This possibility looks to be factored in as the Russian state-controlled media is becoming more aggressive in promoting the need to declare war.

I think the losses on the Ukrainian regular army at this point are very severe, and as the war continues the massive and poorly equipped/trained Ukrainian territorial militas, equipped with a lot of NATO donated equipment will gradually take more and more of the combat burden. The ability of the Ukrainian regular army to attack and take ground remains very low. The abilities of the territorial militas are even worse, but if morale remains high they can still be very hard to destroy due to how massive they are compared to the Russian infantry.

Institute for the Study of War

Russian forces continued offensive operations along multiple axes even as they completed moving reinforcements drawn from the retreat from Kyiv into the east and continued redeploying some forces from Mariupol to the north. The Russians have not taken

www.understandingwar.org

Bingo. The small solution is more likely than the much more ambitious option (from the Izyum salient) as the Russians are in the final stage of winning the battles for Popasna and Rubizhne. Lyman and/or Yampil are likely the next towns to be attacked. If the Russians pursue this goal than the Izyum salient can be see as a diversionary manuever, to draw many Ukrianian brigades towards it and soften up the decisive fighting to the East.

The Russians appear to be racing against the clock, attacking with what they have rather than performing an operational pause. Spring is here and as the days go by, more and more foilage will appear which will favor the defender.

This is my opinion as well, that the Russians will go for small scale encirclements that once achieved are easier to cover and defend. The most visible one is the attempt to develop the encirclement of Severodonetsk urban area. The Russians play this as on a chessboard where they try to hold the initiative and with each move suggest the Ukrainians that a position becomes untenable and expect them to retreat. Then once one positions falls the cookie starts to crumble and they move to the next point of pressure. For example if Severodonetsk is being evacuated (or falls to the Russians after being encircled and assaulted) then the flank towards Gorlovka will be exposed and Ukrainians will again need to recognize that the line becomes untenable and chose to retreat (according to Russian logic).

Meanwhile the Northern pincer developing from Izium in the North and Velikia Novosilka in the South will progress slowly. The point of these pincers is to maintain pressure on the wider flanks and squeeze supply lines and finally to suggest to the Ukrainians that the entire Donbass pocket is untenable. Possibly even making a full encirclement attempt if situation develops favorably for them.

However, there is a problem for the Russians with this approach. What if Ukraine says no to any retreat and instead instruct their soldiers to hold their positions to the last one, as we see in Mariupol. The Ukrainian controlled part of Donbass is full of entrenchments and urban areas. It is an ideal zone to delay and attrition an enemy. This will allow them to frustrate the Russians in endless sieges over the summer while they mass Western provided artillery and AA systems which they can use to counterattack and reconquer the territories lost. I think this is the approach that makes the most sense for the Ukrainians, bringing those Western artillery piece meal to the front lines doesn't make much sense, the Russians will pick them up one by one as they arrive. What they need is to achieve critical mass of sufficient weapons to counter and recapture their lost territories. The longer the Russians take to clear out Donbass the more exposed they will be while the Ukrainians will have the time to form a western equipped and trained army somewhere like for example in Poltava area ready to engage the weaken enemy with full force and capability.

 

[GermanHerman]

There was an attack in Tiraspol (Transnistrien) on the ministry of state security.

I lately thought about the 1999 apartment bombings which were the pretext for Putins war in Chechnya. There are not a few people convinced that the FSB was involved.

I believe russia might be building pretext to declare a formal war. First the shelling of russian villages, now this Attack. If this are NATO weapons russia will point at Ukraine and declare that they are threatening and attacking russians abroad.

 

[QEDdeq]

There was an attack in Tiraspol (Transnistrien) on the ministry of state security.

I lately thought about the 1999 apartment bombings which were the pretext for Putins war in Chechnya. There are not a few people convinced that the FSB was involved.

I believe russia might be building pretext to declare a formal war. First the shelling of russian villages, now this Attack. If this are NATO weapons russia will point at Ukraine and declare that they are threatening and attacking russians abroad.

Yep, there are many things happening, first there is tomorrow's visit of Guterres to Moscow. Then the day after tomorrow there is some sort of political meeting between Putin and members of the Duma. There's also the 'attack' in Transnistria, last night fires in Briansk, accusations in the Russian media against Boris Johnson claiming he said he would use tactical nukes against Russian forces, accusations against Zelenski for attempting to murder Russian journalists, Estonia closing its consulate in St. Petersburg, new alleged attacks on border villages, renewed treats regarding nationalisation of Western assets in Russia, the list can go on.

I think Putin is ready to escalate to a new phase. Indicators to watch out for in the coming hours/days: foreign embassies in Russia withdrawing personnel, level of Russian nuclear alert being raised, further building of casus beli and attacks on the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government. I hope I'm wrong, if Russia mobilises and goes full in it will be horrific since NATO will pump Ukraine as much as possible from the other side too. The consequences will be massive for the European continent.

 

[Ranger25]

Thoughts on the recent number of fires at chemical and Petrochemical plants inside Russian as well as the fire at the

A big fire broke out in Korolev Industrial Center at the gates flies, which includes several factories related to the production of energy and space components, including TsNIIMash-NII-88, a Russian science center dedicated to the development of rockets and spacecraft, and RKK Energija, a company that deals with activities related to spaceflight.

Pictures of the fire spread. Various Ukrainian social channels, combined with the hypothesis that it may be anti-Russian sabotage. In fact, Korolev’s case is not an isolated case. yesterday Two other flames It erupted in Russia, one at the Air Defense Research Institute in Tver and the other at the Dmitrievsky Chemical Plant in Kineshma

The fire at the Air Defense Research Institure also seems suspicious to me.

Rumors ( and I say rumors) swirling on social media that they’re TB2 attacks, well within range but hard to believe imo. If anything possible, saboteurs, make more sense. Or simple coincidences

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1518591504499023873

 

[Redlands18]

Ukraine – Non-Standard Ammunition | Defense Security Cooperation Agency

www.dsca.mil

$165m worth of Ammo sales has been cleared by the US for sale to Ukraine, including Ammo for
152mm Arty
Vog-17 for AGL
120 and 82mm Mortar
122mm Arty
125mm for T-72s
as well as transportation, logistical and program support.

 

[John Fedup]

What about 155 mm for M777 guns as the US will be supplying these guns along with a few from Canada. Will ER 155 mm ammo be sent?

 

[Redlands18]

What about 155 mm for M777 guns as the US will be supplying these guns along with a few from Canada. Will ER 155 mm ammo be sent?

All that ammo is for non standard NATO weapon systems (ex Warsaw Pact). Probably splitting NATO and non-NATO into separate programs.

 

[Cult Icon]

Ukraine – Defense Politics Asia (DPA)

defensepoliticsasia.com

I believe this is the social media claim for today's progress at the Izyum salient. Over at ISW Ukraine deny this.

 

[OPSSG]

Ukraine – Defense Politics Asia (DPA)

defensepoliticsasia.com

I believe this is the social media claim for today's progress at the Izyum salient. Over at ISW Ukraine deny this.

The narrator of Defense Politics Asia’s approach lacks humility and on occasion wrong in his second hand Ukraine info analysis that is speculative in nature — he has tried to contact others in the Singaporean community of ‘military nuts’ before; but is now firmly on an ignore list. Please do not waste time on this nonsensical coverage.

If you notice, for Singaporeans, like me — defence is with a ‘c’ (whereas he spells it with an ‘s’). Clearly his viewership audience targeting is towards other countries. Defense Politics Asia’s goal is to make money from his broadcasts but it is based on hearsay (with a little thinking on battlefield geometry but disregards real problems faced by both sides and lacks terrain study).

By way of background, the Ukrainian Army is generally organised into brigades, which are supported by assets such as intelligence, communications, logistics, air defence and so on. In defence, the organisational structure works fine. In offensive action, it is slightly more problematic due to lack of vehicles and lack of fires superiority. Ukraine seems to have a problem with massing their vehicles for offensive action at a brigade level.

The UK Defence Secretary says Russia committed over 120 Battalion Tactical Groups to its war in Ukraine - about 65% of its entire ground combat strength. Two months later, the UK assesses more than 25% of that force has been "rendered not combat effective" — an amazing Day 61 performance by Ukraine after Russia's invasion began.

I wish Defense Politics Asia well but I don’t regard his hearsay mapping efforts as backed by sound analysis. The plus point of his YouTube videos is that it is very newsy; if that is your cup of tea.

 

[Cult Icon]

The narrator of Defense Politics Asia’s approach lacks humility and on occasion wrong in his second hand Ukraine info analysis that is speculative in nature — he has tried to contact others in the Singaporean community of ‘military nuts’ before; but is now firmly on an ignore list. Please do not waste time on this nonsensical coverage.

I have not found his mapping efforts to be bad personally, the sources are identified, he uses both Ukr and Russian which leads to differences with the Ukrianian General Staff maps (ISW and militaryland) I just posted earlier.

 

[Cult Icon]

This is my opinion as well, that the Russians will go for small scale encirclements that once achieved are easier to cover and defend. The most visible one is the attempt to develop the encirclement of Severodonetsk urban area.

I agree that an approach such as you say, that the Russians will be attempting to force the withdrawal of the JFO and perform small encirclements. However any larger one is a non-starter unless they actually refitted and are planning to reinsert the various airborne divisions and brigades, and at least 1 ? naval infantry brigade plus some special forces units (police and spetznaz) massed in Kyiv West. This was the biggest source of prime-infantry. The DPR / LPR forces have sustained significant losses, these were reported in their government websites. Last week I checked it was approx. 25% of their personnel, however there was a report that they raised 5 regiments. The other source of infantry are the Russian National Guard. There are various units operating in Ukraine, and largest source appears to be paramilitary and police units from Chechnya. In the second Ukraine war rally they claimed 10,000 men.

Further in Mariupol the "Somali" separatist battalion supposedly left (Russian footage) and so did the 810th Naval infantry brigade.

Transcripts

Your one-stop shop for Defense Department news and information.

www.defense.gov

On April 18th the following was claimed by the Pentagon:

Again, in the JFO, the heaviest fighting is -- is really -- that we've seen is around Donetsk and a town called Popasna. This -- this is -- this is where there -- there's a focus on artillery and -- and -- and airstrikes. So there's -- there's quite a bit of active fighting in -- in those areas.

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: I think, Bob, as most of the airstrike activity and artillery continues to be in the east focused on the Donbas, Mariupol in particular. We did see some strikes in Kyiv and Lviv over the last 24 hours or so, but they were I would say by exception, and we're not seeing a lot of other airstrike activity elsewhere in Ukraine. Almost all the airstrike and artillery action is in the Donbas or in the south by Mariupol.

So it's difficult to say that that's some sort of sign that, you know, that there's an imminence here. We still believe that the Russians are doing a fair amount of shaping. They're still moving in command and control, artillery, other enablers into the Donbas. And as I've said since the last time we've talked, you know, they've increased their footprint by another 11 BTGs in Ukraine. Again, I don't know where all of them are, but all of their troops are in the east or in the south.

The other thing to remembers is that they've got quite a bit of ground forces in and around Mariupol because they're still fighting for Mariupol. And so, you know, should Mariupol fall to the Russians that would free up, you know, another almost a dozen battalion tactical groups to be used elsewhere in the east and in the south. That's a big if because the Ukrainians are still fighting very, very hard for Mariupol, but that's another source of manpower that they could use should it come to that.

Q: All right. Can I get one more on -- that you might be able to answer? There's been a lot of speculation that the Donbas fight is going to be like a World War II classic type of armor formations. Are you seeing massed armor along in Russia, ready to strike into the Donbas area, or is the Pentagon thinking mostly that tanks or armor formations would basically come from those in the battalion tactical groups?

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: I mean, I -- I -- it's not that -- we're -- I -- I -- I wouldn't say that we're seeing massed, you know, columns of tanks on the -- on the -- on the other side of the border. What we have seen over the last few days is them continue to try to set the conditions. We called it "shaping operations." They are moving in -- they are moving in heavy artillery, they're moving in command and control enablers, they're moving in aviation, particularly rotary aviation support.

They are -- it appears as if they are trying to learn from the failed lessons of the north, where they didn't have proper sustainment capabilities in the area they were about to operate. We do assess that, be -- because of the geography in that part of Ukraine, that -- that there will be a reliance on armored capabilities and -- and artillery, but I -- I don't have, you know, individual movements of -- of tank columns to -- to speak to. Again, they've already got quite a lot available to them.

And -- and again, I -- I think I'd just -- would leave it at that. They've moved in an additional 11 battalion tactical groups into Ukraine over the last few days. We -- we have to assume, Tony, that some of them have armor capabilities that -- that -- that are not -- that they are -- that they are -- that -- that they represent combined arms capabilities and not just -- you know, not just infantry or not just armor or not just artillery.

But again, we just don't have a -- a -- a lot more visibility than -- than that.

We do assess that there's still about 22 BTGs that are not committed, that are -- that are probably, in some form or fashion, going through refit and resupply to the north of Ukraine, but I -- I couldn't tell you more detail about how they manned up these 11 and where they came from.

Do you know of the sources regarding the evauation of Severodonetsk? I have heard this from several analysts, that Ukr/Rus sources say that there is heavy and continous artillery fire being delivered on the Eastern edge and there is a 'plan' for an organized withdrawal to a more western facing defensive line.

Meanwhile the Northern pincer developing from Izium in the North and Velikia Novosilka in the South will progress slowly. The point of these pincers is to maintain pressure on the wider flanks and squeeze supply lines and finally to suggest to the Ukrainians that the entire Donbass pocket is untenable. Possibly even making a full encirclement attempt if situation develops favorably for them.

Per the Izyum salient, the mass of Russian forces there are approaching the Barakove road net. A major supply road (GLOC) to the Donbass is now being threatened with capture. Some analysts believe that there are at least 4 Ukr infantry brigades blocking them, and there is at least one to the east in front of the important town of Lyman.

 

[Cult Icon]

The longer the Russians take to clear out Donbass the more exposed they will be while the Ukrainians will have the time to form a western equipped and trained army somewhere like for example in Poltava area ready to engage the weaken enemy with full force and capability.

Whether or not they reach the level that you say would require a lot of training, a lot of equipment, and a lot of expertise from the West. I just don't think so far in the future. The Ukrianian army have not demonstrated much offensive capability at all. The word "counteroffensive" gets thrown around a lot but it is not an accurate word to my WW2 brain. A counteroffensive is an attack by an army group/army or Soviet/Russian front. A counterstrike is an attack by a corps or a Soviet/Russian army. A counterattack is anything smaller than that. The Ukrainians perform counterattacks. Perhaps the attack on Kyiv West near the end was a counterstrike. Nevertheless it only took various villages on the outskirts, while it was known that the Russians were leaving the area.

The attack of an alleged Ukrianian brigade (93rd IIRC) in the Kharkiv region, towards the two GLOC feeding the Izyum salient last week was the most impressive attack they did in the entire war.

In the Southern front, both sides have settled into positional warfare and the Russians have moved in more units. The deliberate Ukr counterattack activity has been aggressive here but with little results.

I must say that the Ukrianian operational/tactical situation has some echos of resemblance to the Germans in the Spring of 1945 or during the Normandy campaign, where they were tactically and operationally crippled as they had troubles massing their forces. The Russians, while not impressive in their attacks are nevertheless defending adequately, presumably with their unbalanced BTG units with so many heavy artillery guns and MLRS.

 

[Señor Pomidor]

A little offtopic about things I recently found out that could be interesting but not directly related.

Probably everybody here knows who is Victoria Nuland. During the Obama presidency she was appointed in 2013 as the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and during Biden presidency she was appointed in 2021 as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs under Secretary-designate Antony Blinken. She has been accused of instigating the Maidan revolution of 2014 and she was the center of a scandal which included leaked phone conversations shortly after the Maidan in which she discussed who should or shouldn't be appointed in the new government of Ukraine and also said the (in)famous "F*ck the EU".

But the interesting part comes now. Her husband is Robert Kagan, he is considered a "neo-con" and has being a prominent foreign policy advisor for several members of the Republican Party including John McCain during his 2008 presidential campaign, and even created a now defunct think tank in the 90s, advocating for US hegemony through military interventions. Here is his wiki page (Robert Kagan - Wikipedia ).

Then, I was looking for today's ISW report when I noticed in my google search that the founder of ISW is a women named Kimberly Kagan. And I was like hmmm, Kagan again? A quick search help me found that Kimberly Kagan is married to Frederick Kagan, brother of Robert Kagan (Victoria Nuland's Husband). Everything's stay in the family, uh?

How much influence does this family have in US foreign policy?


Sorry for the offtopic.

 

[Sandhi Yudha]

Ukraine – Non-Standard Ammunition | Defense Security Cooperation Agency

www.dsca.mil

$165m worth of Ammo sales has been cleared by the US for sale to Ukraine, including Ammo for
152mm Arty
Vog-17 for AGL
120 and 82mm Mortar
122mm Arty
125mm for T-72s
as well as transportation, logistical and program support.

I expect it will be sourced from Ex-Warsaw Pact NATO-countries or Middle-East allies. Quite unlikely these items will be ordered from Belarus or Rusia.