I couldn't find any confirmation about the surrender in Soledar. There is information that Ukrainians have withdrawn from the city centre. And also that the remnants of Prigozhin's convicts from near Bakhmut were beaten up there. Near Bakhmut, mobiks, i.e. recently conscripted soldiers, are now being eliminated on the war conveyor belt. As of today 12.01.23 Soledar has not been surrendered.
The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
The
I don't know why and I am not going to theorize why Gen. Surovikin has been replaced but what I will say is that his short tenure has been a massive upgrade over his predecessors'. Seeing him leaving this post now makes me more pessimistic given the "caliber" of generals and strategists that Putin has promoted over the years.
Give the new guy a chance and all that, but golden rule number 1:
If it ain't broke, don't fix it
Smart move, Germany; this way the world can really see how well the Abrams goes up against russian armor.
Maybe. But to get 120 Leopards in Ukraine. 10 countries need to donate a company each. Are there that many Leopard 2 users around?
But let's be generous, let's addon Abrams, Leclerc, Challenger 2, K2, and others. How many nations have the appetite donate their tank companies into Ukraine like Poland did? Even if they could achieve that and more. Could 100 - 200 Western tanks with foreign crews defeat the Russian army in Ukraine without aircover, and combined arms integration? We haven't got to logistics yet. These tanks need to be transported and supplied. They need their own bridges, because they are too heavy for many Ukrainian bridges. They need their own workshops. The road and rail infrastructure in Ukraine has severely degraded by Russian attacks. So it's not looking too optimistic after all.
About the role of the weather in the near future.
Every war is a different story and theoretically the Ukrainians, like the Russians, should not be able to conduct major offensive operations just because the mud has turned to ice. The frost allows the caterpillars to move, but the logistics come on wheels and the conditions for Russian men and Ukrainians are just awful... That is why there is not much traffic now. An acquaintance of mine who is a retired Bundeswehr logistics officer knows something about this and remembers it often.....
If you add to this that the Ukrainians may have (it's a strong possibility...) thrown what reserves they had into the Bakhmut meat grinder, they obviously have little if not all they have left in the north to hold off the sycophantic Lukashenko, but these are essentially newly trained and decommissioned troops that lack the assets (essentially tanks and APCs) that NATO coincidentally has to provide...
Artillery ammunition... The Russians are believed to have started with 20 million shells, and have already produced at least 10 million, and in the meantime have produced several million.
In short, they have no shortage of them... Their problem is that HiMARS blow them up in depots... and moving the depots farther from the front beyond the reach of the M30 has led to a logistical burden that makes it difficult to get them from those distant depots straight to the guns... because they have to do it with trucks... And the Russians have a very bad relationship with trucks... they can no longer fire as many shells as they used to, of which a very small percentage will hit something.... and barrel wear and tear is a problem and not a small one.
If anyone wonders why exactly Bakhmut...has become a meat grinder. Well, because it is well connected with the railway. And for the Russians, Bakhmut boils down to sending forward waves of human beings to divert the criminal underworld, while Prigozhin steals uniforms from dead Ukrainians to fool the living (with accompanying brutal ambushes)...
Poland meanwhile wants to put Germany in the Leopard 2 issue before the zugzwang.
Theoretically something should happen after the contact group meeting in Ramstein in 10 days...
Every war is a different story and theoretically the Ukrainians, like the Russians, should not be able to conduct major offensive operations just because the mud has turned to ice. The frost allows the caterpillars to move, but the logistics come on wheels and the conditions for Russian men and Ukrainians are just awful... That is why there is not much traffic now. An acquaintance of mine who is a retired Bundeswehr logistics officer knows something about this and remembers it often.....
If you add to this that the Ukrainians may have (it's a strong possibility...) thrown what reserves they had into the Bakhmut meat grinder, they obviously have little if not all they have left in the north to hold off the sycophantic Lukashenko, but these are essentially newly trained and decommissioned troops that lack the assets (essentially tanks and APCs) that NATO coincidentally has to provide...
Artillery ammunition... The Russians are believed to have started with 20 million shells, and have already produced at least 10 million, and in the meantime have produced several million.
In short, they have no shortage of them... Their problem is that HiMARS blow them up in depots... and moving the depots farther from the front beyond the reach of the M30 has led to a logistical burden that makes it difficult to get them from those distant depots straight to the guns... because they have to do it with trucks... And the Russians have a very bad relationship with trucks... they can no longer fire as many shells as they used to, of which a very small percentage will hit something.... and barrel wear and tear is a problem and not a small one.
If anyone wonders why exactly Bakhmut...has become a meat grinder. Well, because it is well connected with the railway. And for the Russians, Bakhmut boils down to sending forward waves of human beings to divert the criminal underworld, while Prigozhin steals uniforms from dead Ukrainians to fool the living (with accompanying brutal ambushes)...
Poland meanwhile wants to put Germany in the Leopard 2 issue before the zugzwang.
Theoretically something should happen after the contact group meeting in Ramstein in 10 days...
I believe Surovikin is Gerasimov's protege, so from my point of view, it seems that the scope of the war is expanding and thus Surovikin will take charge of the operational aspects, while Gerasimov conducts strategic planning in the same style.
I think this is not too bad. Surovikin applies focus to the on-the-ground maneuvers, Geramisov takes care of enabling the conditions that allow him to exercise his operational expertise.
Technically Surovikin was not demoted from his current post, rather Gerasimov takes a higher rank of Joint Commander.
I think the biggest ramifications of this change is that it means Russia has finally finished preparing the bulk of its mobilization. Surovikin stays as commander of all ground forces, which means he still exerts a huge amount of influence.
But with the influx of new troops and equipment, Surovikin is a general while Gerasimov is the chief of General staff. Putting the higher ranked as overall commander is a more risk averse move, which is in line with how we know Putin acts.
The range at the bottom of the video suggest they likely are Vikhrs
M1 will be a massive strain on Ukranian logistics, though.
100-200 is too few. Out of the earlier donations of 100s such as PT91 and so on, we've by now barely seen any of them anymore. Feel free to correct me if you can find recent pictures of living PT91.
500-800 would be able to essentially add a new army, this is what Zalzuhny asked for as well. 500 tanks, 800 APC, and everything else associated with such a force.
Using a new army, Ukraine can engage Russia in another set piece battle like Bakhmut. But so far, they have never succeeded in winning even 1 direct large scale clash between heavy Russian forces and their own.
And that is why EU is hesitant to send heavy equipment at once in numbers that matter. Success is far from guaranteed even with a 500+ delivery, failure carries a heavy price, and given the trend of earlier fighting, it can be said that the chance of failure outweighs success.
...But I'm sure some pro Ukrainian here will run in and deliver some nugget of wisdom like acktually Russians are just stealing the uniforms of Ukraine and putting them on dead Wagner in Bakhmut... Well, I'm not on the side that is requesting 500 modern tanks and not getting 500 modern tanks. Instead of making merry on this thread, why don't you ask EU why EU is unwilling to take the risk? We are not EU's keepers or decision makers.