The War in the Ukraine

This is for those folks who talk "why isn't Russia hitting Ukrainian vehicle supply columns".

Ukraine doing their usual stitch of using civilian marked vehicles for military purposes.
When this war ends they will be commiserating about how Russia started blowing up "civilian" transportation trucks.

Ukrainian fighters at Bakhmut reported encircled​

"Chances of escape or counteroffensive diminishing as Wagner mercenaries take major stronghold Yahidne

...
February 26, 2023
...
The weather is about to turn rainy and overcast. This makes it difficult for Ukrainian forces to retreat from the city in any orderly way. The roads are all but blocked, and forces evacuating across muddy farm fields will be difficult, leading to high casualties.

So far, at least, Kyiv has admitted only that the Bakhmut situation is “difficult.” There has not been any general order to pull out, a move that would have been feasible earlier.
...
Russia’s offensive may be aided by the Bakhmut disaster for Ukraine’s army. The decision to hold their forces in the Bakhmut pocket could turn out to be the worst war decision yet made by Ukrainian leaders, undermining army morale and accelerating criticism of both the political and military leadership."

abc123 said:

Considering that Russia used Belarussian territory to attack Ukraine, don't see why the territory of Belarus should be spared?

Click to expand...

They are still no party to the conflict. Unless we start to define that every place were the US has a base has been complicit in their wars, then

Suriyak is mapping more progress towards Bohdanivka:

There's been rumors of a Polish counteroffensive but I don't see anyone else mapping this, probably not true:

The way the pincer looks it's a repeat of Lysychansk. The pincer is actually a bit tighter than the Lysychansk-Severodonetsk one. People are using the Stalingrad metaphor but to me it's like Dien Bien Phu.


On a lighter note, more on something I learned today thing, the Russians are using ATVs.

On the military decisions making level, some cleavage are in the making. Clearly I don't know if it's because of Bahkmut but the number of times that the situation was identified as bad, it's clearly a strange time to shuffle the board.

A new toy that both sides are playing with: the FPV. The Commander presented two different sizes of FPV, a small one of 35,000 rubles and a large one of 50,000 rubles. They carry bombs at such a low cost that they can be left out of the calculation. Even the small bombs are powerful enough to penetrate ceramic bullet-proof inserts and apparently do enough damage to the tank's observation equipment. These drones are cheaper than conventional anti-tank missiles, from Alibaba. One is the original video from boostery, which requires a subscription, and a pirated version from Bilibili.

Suffice to say if Bukhmut is encircled Ukraine will lose their last chance for a dignified position at negotiation table. Some of their best units are trapped. It will be a catastrophic loss. They can kiss good bye to any future counter attack initiative. On top of that they need to stretch rest of the force on defense after Russian breakthrough. I can't see how Ukraine can hold Donestk oblast after that. Only large city like Kharkov and Dnipro river works for next line of defense.

TK3600 said:

Suffice to say if Bukhmut is encircled Ukraine will lose their last chance for a dignified position at negotiation table. Some of their best units are trapped. It will be a catastrophic loss. They can kiss good bye to any future counter attack initiative. On top of that they need to stretch rest of the force on defense after Russian breakthrough. I can't see how Ukraine can hold Donestk oblast after that. Only large city like Kharkov and Dnipro river works for next line of defense.

Click to expand...

Most of their elite units and foreign(NATO) mercenary would evacuate already. Those who stay are likely territorial defense or some unlucky units that are chosen to trade off for buying time to retreat and build next defensive line.

Seeing a spate of reports as Wagner keeps advancing and tightening the pincer. It appears they might be trying to link up both their northern and southern forces. The Ukrainians blew a dam to delay the Russians but it's likely to be counterproductive as the water flows heads to the backs of Ukrainian soldiers holding the northern line.