The War in the Ukraine

plawolf · Jul 5, 2022

Temstar said:
Remember when we discussed Mr Su's theory from last week's Guanqi?

The War in the Ukraine

There is speculation that after negotiations between the EU and Russia, the Snake Island has been exchanged for an unblocking of the transport blockade of Kaliningrad and transport to Kaliningrad should be restored next week. But this is just speculation, I have no source. EU is enemy of...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

Specifically:

Well we've just got news confirming this a few hours ago:

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Announcement could come as soon as this week.

Assuming this does go down, Putin is going to see this and think "well the old man has already lost one war just now, why not two?" He's for sure going to stretch this war till winter. When the days are short and nights are long and the cold wind sweep down from the Urals and across Europe he's going to turn off the gas entirely and increase he's attack at the same time. There's going to be a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth when Russians come again with General Winter.

He might as well get himself a chair made up of NLAW and Javlin and Panzerfaust and Stingers, a fur coat and a big sword to act the part.

Frankly, Putin would have to be an idiot to not drag this war into winter at a minimum. Let’s see how ‘worth it’ the British and Germans etc still feel about continuing propping up Ukraine as they literally freeze in their homes.

FADH1791 · Jul 5, 2022

He makes an interesting point at the 6:00 mark. Basically a month ago the Severodonetsk/Lysychansk frontline was 123km. Russian military doctrine is 1 BTG for every 5km. So for the operation to take both cities Russia used 25 BTGs. Now the frontline has shortened to 55 km. Which means Russia only needs 11 BTGs. This means there is 14 extra BTGs Russia has in reserve. And likely they’ll be rotated out for fresh troops so Russia will always have 14 extra BTGs. He thinks Russia will send these extra BTG’s to south of Bakhmut to help with the encirclement of the town and likely lead an assault into Niu York. Interesting to say the least. The Russians know what they are doing with this BTG system.

SampanViking · Jul 5, 2022

FADH1791 said:
He makes an interesting point at the 6:00 mark. Basically a month ago the Severodonetsk/Lysychansk frontline was 123km. Russian military doctrine is 1 BTG for every 5km. So for the operation to take both cities Russia used 25 BTGs. Now the frontline has shortened to 55 km. Which means Russia only needs 11 BTGs. This means there is 14 extra BTGs Russia has in reserve. And likely they’ll be rotated out for fresh troops so Russia will always have 14 extra BTGs. He thinks Russia will send these extra BTG’s to south of Bakhmut to help with the encirclement of the town and likely lead an assault into Niu York. Interesting to say the least. The Russians know what they are doing with this BTG system.

This is a repeat of the strategy used in Syria, which broke the Jihadi strongholds one by one, eliminating powerful Jihadi fighting groups and releasing ever larger numbers of government and allied forces to concentrate on the remainder. It was slow and painstaking at first but eventually the tide was turned to such a degree that the Syrian army rolled on like an Avalanche and cleared huge swathes of enemy held territory in a matter of weeks.

This is what we are seeing in the Donbass where the best of what is left of the Ukrainian army is still locked in place.
My bet is still like the analyst in the video, is to turn Siversk very quickly and to pour these released BGT's into the empty countryside between what would be left of the Siversk Bakhmut line and the Slavayansk Kramatorsk line.

The objectives would be to look the main defense of the Slavayansk line in place, encircle Bakhmut from behind and also come to the rear of the massive fortified area north of Horlivka.

For the Russians to eliminate these two positions and much of the forces within them, would in turn unlock another massive quantity of Russian and Militia forces to deal with the main remaining Ukrainian forces which would then be holding the line from Slavayansk all the way down to the other and last remaining main fortified area, on the contact line adjacent to Donetsk City.

Once those positions are taken, I seriously wonder what forces the Ukrainians will have left of any significance or quality?

No doubt Kiev will reset the balance by dropping a NATO flag on Snake Island!

Strangelove · Jul 5, 2022

Wagner dudes...

Kich · Jul 5, 2022

It's so neat reading my old comments and seeing stuff I predict come into fruition. This is me from May 17.
link

Kich said:
Mariupol was a special case that should not be considered for other cities that Russia might face.

Azov were a fierce fighting group, with a craze dogmatic cult behavior. But if Mariupol was in the middle of Ukraine somewhere and not locked in by a sea controlled by Russia, they would have escaped or flee before the siege had begun.

In this situation, locked by land and couldn't escape by air, they had no option but to flee to the tunnels with their backed to the sea. They would have given up a long time ago were it not for the Zelensky and the West egging them to stay put to divert in Russian resources.

These guys were there to simply buy time for Ukraine but I guess for some reason, the toll is too much and now they surrender.

Going forward, I don't think Russia will face this kind of resistance again. Just look at how they are approaching Severodonetsk. They've left a corridor while simultaneously cutting off all other axis. If they trap in UA troops they will face resistance but if they leave a corridor (in a way that allows them to target any reinforcements/supplies) those troops will retreat themselves and fall back to another position. They've captured many villages and small cities with this tactic already.

The battle for Severodonetsk is the one to watch for. It will determine in my view, the pace of this war. I predict by end of June, Russia will capture it, but I think if they leave a corridor, it will fall even faster. Where the Russians go afterwards, I don't know. They might pause to regroup. Again this is going to be long war and time is on the Russian's side.

Anyone thinking Ukraine has infinite supplies from NATO and US is fooling themselves. Elections is coming in the US and everyone here is worried about Baby Formula and gas prices. If people starts seeing more billions of aid being sent to Ukraine while they suffer from inflation and even from a recession, it's not going to be "Slava Ukrainian" anymore. Biden has 2 more years left; a year actually until campaigning for relections. Time is not on Ukraine's side.

Abominable · Jul 5, 2022

Temstar said:
Latest from HistoryLegends, he too thinks the next move for Russians will be against Seversk.

He's usually right on things but he's off the mark with his insistence that the Ukrainians should have withdrawn from Lisichansk earlier. If they withdraw to Seversk, pretty soon they will find themselves in the same situation.

You can't win a war if you keep withdrawing, you need to withdraw to a position that gives you an advantage. It could be geographical, a river, forest, a valley and so on. It could just be to try and stretch enemy supply lines.

The Ukrainian plan seems to me to have been the same as Mariupol, to try hold the region to delay the Russians as much as possible. I don't think the withdrawal was coordinated with Kiev, I think individual units heard the Russians were coming and just left. The same as what happened in Sieverdonetsk.

I don't know why he's so sure that Seversk will be next. The frontline is massive and there are many other targets. If I was Russian I'd be concerned about pushing forward too quickly.

drowingfish · Jul 5, 2022

plawolf said:
Frankly, Putin would have to be an idiot to not drag this war into winter at a minimum. Let’s see how ‘worth it’ the British and Germans etc still feel about continuing propping up Ukraine as they literally freeze in their homes.

you are absolutely right here. strategically, europe stands to lose the most the longer this drags on, and is already showing cracks. operationally, ukrainian army is also exhausting its combat power at a much quicker pace than the russians. politically, the unique lineage of eastern ukraine to USSR means that united russia's biggest competitor, the communist party, has thrown its support behind the war effort, allowing putin to enjoy broad-based support so long as the war effort does not falter.

the only potential pitfall to all this would be russia's own tolerance to rising casualties and sanctions. so far it seems to be holding up well as early spike in casualty and the subsequent plateau means that the public have become acclimated to the hardship. Russia's economy has also demonstrated remarkable resilience for whatever reason, thus alleviating pressures for the government to seek compromise.

drowingfish · Jul 5, 2022

Abominable said:
He's usually right on things but he's off the mark with his insistence that the Ukrainians should have withdrawn from Lisichansk earlier. If they withdraw to Seversk, pretty soon they will find themselves in the same situation.

You can't win a war if you keep withdrawing, you need to withdraw to a position that gives you an advantage. It could be geographical, a river, forest, a valley and so on. It could just be to try and stretch enemy supply lines.

The Ukrainian plan seems to me to have been the same as Mariupol, to try hold the region to delay the Russians as much as possible. I don't think the withdrawal was coordinated with Kiev, I think individual units heard the Russians were coming and just left. The same as what happened in Sieverdonetsk.

I don't know why he's so sure that Seversk will be next. The frontline is massive and there are many other targets. If I was Russian I'd be concerned about pushing forward too quickly.

i think the difference between severedonetsk and lisichansk was the river that runs between the two. Kiev must have initially wanted to hold the line in lisichansk, using the river as a natural obstacle. but once it's right flank gave it was only a matter of time before the line collapsed.

i agree that seversk doesn't have to be the next one for sure. it makes more sense to go for soledar or bakhmut first and let AFU in seversk figure it out themselves. if Seversk defenders opt to retreat, they will be doing the entire thing under fire from both the north and the east.

Biscuits · Jul 5, 2022

drowingfish said:
you are absolutely right here. strategically, europe stands to lose the most the longer this drags on, and is already showing cracks. operationally, ukrainian army is also exhausting its combat power at a much quicker pace than the russians. politically, the unique lineage of eastern ukraine to USSR means that united russia's biggest competitor, the communist party, has thrown its support behind the war effort, allowing putin to enjoy broad-based support so long as the war effort does not falter.

the only potential pitfall to all this would be russia's own tolerance to rising casualties and sanctions. so far it seems to be holding up well as early spike in casualty and the subsequent plateau means that the public have become acclimated to the hardship. Russia's economy has also demonstrated remarkable resilience for whatever reason, thus alleviating pressures for the government to seek compromise.

Russian economy has greatly exceeded expectations.

More shockingly, its the economies of NATO which are showing signs of cracking first. Despite Russia having a small gdp compared to China or USA. I believe, the most optimistic estimate for most ppl is that Russia would survive sanctions, but there would also be no major backlash against NATO. That is however seemingly soon proven wrong.

The war may be inadvertly revealing that Western economic might, long supposed to be equal or larger than the East, has become highly inflated due to worthless bureaucratic sectors, privatised public services and plain old corruption in accounting methods.

Surely, with a large chunk of information control at home and complete control over their central banks, it would be well within the ability of Western governments to fudge their gdp numbers, the same way they have fudged a lot of other data.

FriedButter · Jul 5, 2022

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Security services official takes over Moscow-occupied Kherson region
An official from Russia’s powerful FSB security services has taken over the government of the Moscow-occupied Kherson region in southern Ukraine, Kremlin-installed authorities have said.

Sergei Yeliseyev, until now the deputy head of government in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, “became head of the government in the Kherson region”, Vladimir Saldo, who heads the Russian occupational administration, said.

“Ukraine is forever in the past for the Kherson region. Russia is here forever,” the Moscow-installed authorities said on instant messaging service Telegram.

Russian-backed forces head for Donetsk front: TASS
Forces of the Russian-backed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics are moving towards the Donetsk region, TASS has reported.

The Russian state news agency cited Donetsk People’s Republic leader Denis Pushilin as the source of the information.

Though Russia took the final Ukrainian strongholds in Luhansk region last week, Kyiv still controls about 45 percent of the neighbouring Donetsk region.

Russia isn’t leaving Kherson. Best you get use to it.

The War in the Ukraine

plawolf

Lieutenant General