The War in the Ukraine

Deino said:

I‘m really amazed by him even if I don’t like him nor his group and I think in the long term it will be quite hard for him to stay alive?!

ttps://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1672203268796055554

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But I thought this thread was supposed to be devoid of politics and sarcastic statements (Tsar Prigozhin ???). The instructions on the first page say so at least.

Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi, I guess ...

The village of Spornoye on the Seversky section of the front

According to reports, the village is now being covered by the 4th Brigade, supported by the 14th Brigade, and has taken the dominant heights. Though the advance is small and amounted to about 2 km, but it should be understood that we have not been able to break the AFU defence in this place since July 2022!

Many things are changing now for OUR benefit.


Some reports that units of the Russian Armed Forces in the area of Kupyansk crossed the Oskol River at night and occupied a small bridgehead on the other side

The terrain is very convenient for defending and holding positions.

tankphobia said:

A return to offensive action would be very costly at this time, even if the Ukranian armored corps are exhausted from the current offensive, NATO has spun up enough anti air and artillery production such that I'm not sure Russia will have a decisive artillery advantage. Currently combined western production of 155mm shell is ~150k/month and will only increase from here as contracts are drawn up and plants committed.

Best case for Russia will be a frozen conflict imo.

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a few months ago NATO claimed that the Russians have 3 to 1 artillery superiority.


This article, which sources many Ukrainian commanders (RUSI interviewed them) claims that the Russians are hovering more or less at 40,000-10,000 rounds a day. (exact number in the article). They also claim that Russia produces 3-2.5 million artillery rounds/rockets a year and this is increasing.

However, all in all the Russian forces are not firing as much in 2023 as they did in 2022. There is a notable decrease in the number of rockets. In 2022 they fired 12 million rounds and if the current rate in 2023 is maintained they will fire 7 million in this year.

The Russian MIC claims 'many multiples' increased production of shells and other ammunition (eg. Q12023 equal to fiscal 2022 combined, etc.) in the news. A lot of boasting, but who knows what the real numbers are.

Anlsvrthng said:

Well , simple propaganda by the CIA/Ukrainan KGB.

Simple propaganda, worded in CIA style.

Either actor that we see, or simply rubbish transcript underneath of him

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Just to see the methods and tools of the British Colonial administration and the Capitol favorite dog , the CIA..

USA/UK has long track record to plant and boardcast lies to conduct violence in foreign countries, to achieve control above regions. Or to prevent development of controlling .

Or because the USA/UK decision maker is a psychopath , and enjoying the killing of millions.

This video carry all halmark of the typical british/CIA operation .

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I don't think so, it is consistent with earlier broadcasts from Prigozhin, all of which were nonsense. So this is an attempt at sowing discord by the Russians themselves.

The intention might be to deceive the Americans on various topics, but I don't think actual American strategists would ever fall for it.

At this point, it has been proven over and over again that Prigozhin is allowed to say anything on public channels, up to and including that he has Putin's whole family hostage. And at the same time, none of these statements impact the way Wagner operates, as a direct extension of the Russian army.

Anlsvrthng said:

Well , simple propaganda by the CIA/Ukrainan KGB.

Simple propaganda, worded in CIA style.

Either actor that we see, or simply rubbish transcript underneath of him

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Just to see the methods and tools of the British Colonial administration and the Capitol favorite dog , the CIA..

USA/UK has long track record to plant and boardcast lies to conduct violence in foreign countries, to achieve control above regions. Or to prevent development of controlling .

Or because the USA/UK decision maker is a psychopath , and enjoying the killing of millions.

This video carry all halmark of the typical british/CIA operation .

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Well, I'm a bit surprised? Not that I like nor that I would rate him trustworthy, but I find it amazing that a Russian with such an exposed role in this operation is "allowed" to speak that way.

As such I cannot believe you really think this is faked by the CIA - as you suppose to claim - ... the question however why does he rant that way all the time and even more what's his role in this ugly war besides being the boss of Wagner? And IMO surely not a propagandist "by the CIA/Ukrainan KGB."

Biscuits said:

I don't think so, it is consistent with earlier broadcasts from Prigozhin, all of which were nonsense. So this is an attempt at sowing discord by the Russians themselves.

The intention might be to deceive the Americans on various topics, but I don't think actual American strategists would ever fall for it.

At this point, it has been proven over and over again that Prigozhin is allowed to say anything on public channels, up to and including that he has Putin's whole family hostage. And at the same time, none of these statements impact the way Wagner operates, as a direct extension of the Russian army.

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Agreed ... but the question again is, why is he allowed to speak that way?

Stierlitz said:

But I thought this thread was supposed to be devoid of politics and sarcastic statements (Tsar Prigozhin ???). The instructions on the first page say so at least.

Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi, I guess ...

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PS/NOTE: per request link changes for one with the same video but without a sarcastic comment

In fact I see nothing that is here sarcastic nor does it include something like your quot of "Tsar Prigozhin". I only noted that I find him and his role amazing to speak that way.

This reply below however is clearly a political statement; and here you have nothing to add?

sndef888 said:

Off topic but I have a feeling the US kept the Titanic submersible story cooking for so long (instead of instantly telling people it was an implosion) in order to distract from the failure of the counteroffensive (or at least the first stage)

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plausible... apparently the navy heard sounds of implosion on Sunday (5 days ago).

Deino said:

In fact I see nothing that is here sarcastic nor does it include something like your quot of "Tsar Prigozhin". I only noted that I find him and his role amazing to speak that way.

This reply however is clearly a political statement; and you have nothing to add?

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The tweet you posted contains sarcastic statement I quoted above and is inherently political. It has nothing to do with tactics, strategy, events and movements on the battlefield, military equipment etc.

How was my reply a political statement ? I simply highlighted the violation of the thread rules. What else do you expect me to add ?

This video is great footage though it ends tragically. A company of Ukrainian troops in a trench in a major firefight with friendly BMP supporting them with fire. In one part, a Ukrainian soldier nearly buys the farm. The BMP is attracting a lot of fire too. Decided that the spot was too hot, the entire company boarded the BMP and made a run in the open fields, while the BMP nearly bought it with a near hit. The BMP nearly made it to safety when it all ends suddenly by running over a mine.


Fighting in the front lines. A Ukrainian T-64BV and a MaxxPro burning in the distance.


Soldiers of the 20th Division of the DPR using a lethal combination of FPV drones and incendiaries.

Tootensky said:

If true, it would mean that the Russian gamble with not calling up any more reserves and banking on playing it more defensively paid off. They managed to siphon off 300 thousand reservists and make the operation attractive enough for volunteers, they still get an influx of however many new recruits enter the system every year, they've increased their rate of military production, and they did all of that while managing not to club their economy on the head at the same time. Impressive.


I'm still of the opinion, that for Russia, anything short of complete victory is going to be a strategic loss. The main reason behind this war was physically pushing away NATO sphere of influence. If Russia pushes it only to, say, the Dnieper river, while leaving western Ukraine be, sooner or later whatever remained of Ukraine will become a heavily militarized thorn in Russia's side, and will enter NATO anyway. At the same time, any Russian bases in Belarus will be literally surounded by NATO forces. That, to me, is a strategic defeat. At this moment, in my opinion Russia should stay far away from the peace table, and aim for what probably was the initial aim of the whole operation - occupy eastern territories and either force a regime change in what remains of the country, or, if no other solution can be found, occupy all of it (at the cost of long-term insurgency, yes). It could only be achieved years and years down the line, but there is no other way for Russia to truly achieve its original aim - neutralization of Ukraine and creating a thick buffer for a future conflict. As a side benefit for Russia, a percolating conflict like this hurts NATO countries a lot more and doesn't give them any respite. If Russia can't catch up to the NATO countries on its own merits, it can at least drag them down. As the saying goes, there is noone taller than the last man standing.

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Here are some of Putin's recent talks. Since the 'China Peace Plan' he has repeatedly giving out 'feelers' that he wants a peace deal. Recently he claimed in a conference that during the spring of 2022 Moscow was willing to let go of the demilitarization goal and allow the Ukrainian leadership to exist and also have only a partial demilitarization. He claims that the talks were a debate about the exact quantities of military forces. Russia wanted few; Ukraine wanted many.


The extremely heavy use of separatists and prisoners, plus the relatively low cost of the war also is consistent with the idea of a long war that can go on for a decade. I agree that the peace deals' prospects appears to be dim for the time being. As it follows the Russian strategy is to pursue a generational war, like Chechnya but against a much larger population and break them completely over the course of many years.

The funny thing is that Gerasimov is a fan of attritional-defensive Soviet theorist Svechin (seeing that economics, politics, mass psychology, logistics trumps the combat area) and the war has so far been conducted more on these lines than the classical Napoleonic/WW2 approach that people assume to be the case. I read Svechin's Strategy and found that there are many similarities to the war in Ukraine. Gerasimov & Putin appear to be risk-adverse actors in practice after the failure of plan A. Afterwards they only did one encirclement operation (Mariupol).

Svechin argues stridently against encirclement operations in his book as they limit strategic options. He favors a long string of limited offensive ops and an overall defensive stance to win a war of attrition while always keeping the economic and political side in balance. At the end there is a decisive battle (s) waged against a weakened enemy. Sounds familiar? Putin's 2nd Chechen war..


Summary of Svechin pg. 7-11

If the Russian MOD reaches their goal of a dozen new divisions they may attempt a decisive battle by 2026 or earlier.

Currently, unless something dramatically improves with Russian military reform.. their units taking the offensive requires a lot of risks of losses from Ukrainian artillery fire and PGMs. It is Ukraine that is getting wrecked with their offensive with a very unfavorable exchange. Playing defensive war of attrition/limited offensives and making Ukraine damage themselves (in the absence of Russian flashy and big battles of encirclement/annihilation with divisions) looks like a more economical approach in the current conditions.