Russia Ukraine Update Thread - part 2

originally posted by: chinesewarrior
a reply to: Xcathdra

Wow. That's a big number. I suppose they could recruit locals to do that.

The same Ukrainians that are currently fighting the russians at every opportunity?

That's funny.

Good god is this thread really that much of a threat to Russia?!?

Informed commentary concerning the Russian's gross failure in attempting an opposed river crossing. People who have noted the Russians neglecting combined arms won't be surprised at the outcome.

Moreover, parallels with the Italian campaign (WW2) are on display. First, like the Germans, the Ukrainians excel at counterattacks that regain lost real estate. Second, allied forces struggled at times with opposed river crossings. In any era, coordinating the units involved with combined arms operations involving river crossings is a tough assignment.

a reply to: xpert11

The Russians inability to effectively use, or should I say Russia's inability to use, combined arms is on full display. Apparently they also still have issue bombing their own ground force from the air as well as their ground forces shooting down Russian planes.

Taking a step back one has to wonder if the Russian military is intentionally going out of their way to act as incompetent as possible to lose the war.

With Zelnskyy's latest war goal update, removing all Russian forces from all Ukrainian land (The Donbas, the southern coast as well as Crimea)...

While losing a war, and battle buddies, sucks, in this case it has the added advantage of possible seeing the removal of Putin. Putin is alienating the 3 groups that saw him rise to power - the military, the intelligence community and the Oligarchs.

All that is left is for Putin to piss of the Russian population and he has started doing that. There are rumors going around about Putin declaring martial law so take control of businesses to get them to actually produce needed war items. Add in the fact that Russians are downloading VPN's and searching out foreign media to get the entire picture and not just what Russia wants them to see...

The other thought is maybe the Russian people are getting tired of being used by their government as nothing more than a cheap commodity easily discarded.

The river crossing being discussed failed - twice now. The amount of manpower along equipment (Tanks / IFV / Pontoon pieces) that were lost..


ETA - for those who track it, we survived Friday the 13th (eastern / central US time zones - mountain and pacific your on your own).

originally posted by: xpert11
Informed commentary concerning the Russian's gross failure in attempting an opposed river crossing. People who have noted the Russians neglecting combined arms won't be surprised at the outcome.

Moreover, parallels with the Italian campaign (WW2) are on display. First, like the Germans, the Ukrainians excel at counterattacks that regain lost real estate. Second, allied forces struggled at times with opposed river crossings. In any era, coordinating the units involved with combined arms operations involving river crossings is a tough assignment.

Those lightweight drones and addition of precision artillery seem to be making quite a difference too, the russians were having much better luck (still pretty poor by our standards though) at river crossings earlier in the war.

Now that the front lines have dramatically shrunk (maybe 1/3 of what it was?), it's almost impossible for russian troops to attempt a crossing without quickly being seen by those drones, and with the addition of M777s and more mobile vehicles like Bushmasters, Ukraine now has the ability to accurately target individual pieces of equipment at much longer range than Javelins could, including being able to quickly get direct hits on pontoon bridges.

Ukraine can do the above without putting any of it's forces within range of any russian weapons in the area.



During one of the latest pontoon bridge destructions, the M777's got close enough to destroy over 100 russian armored vehicles hidden in a forest (maybe even over 200) that were massed on the russian side of the bridge.

Final count hasn't been confirmed yet, but there was soft confirmation that zero russian vehicles of any type escaped that crossing attempt.

* - Donetsk Oblast(07:17). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - Kramatorsk(07:15). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - Kharkiv, Kharkivska Oblast(05:59). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - Zap️ US to rotate 10,500 soldiers stationed across Europe. Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said on May 13 that U.S. Defense Secretary Austin Lloyd ordered the rotation of several brigades. The number of deployed troops in Europe will not change, remaining at roughly 100,000

* - Kharkiv, Kharkivska Oblast(03:01). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - Donetsk Oblast(02:58). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - According to local channels loud explosion in Belgorod, not connected with smoke over city, but missile launches from aviation

* - Sumska Oblast(00:06). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - Kharkiv, Kharkivska Oblast(23:58). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - Odeska Oblast(22:06). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - Mykolaiv, Mykolayivska Oblast(22:04). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - Odesa(22:03). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - Russian forces shelling Novoluhanske town

* - Sumska Oblast(20:58). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - Donetsk Oblast, Chernihivska Oblast, Zaporizka Oblast, Kirovohradska Oblast(20:56). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - Kyiv Oblast, Cherkaska Oblast, Kryvyi Rih, Zhytomyr, Zhytomyrska Oblast, Poltavska Oblast, Kharkiv, Kharkivska Oblast, Dnipro, Dnipropetrovska Oblast, Vinnytska Oblast(20:54). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - Kyiv(20:52). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - All operating submarines of the Russian Black Sea Fleet went to sea from Sevastopol

* - The U.S. has now sent 89 of 90 howitzers offered to Ukraine, the majority of them in a "forward deployed" area near the battlefield: senior U.S. defense official

* - Russian aviation conducted airstrikes in Tovstodubove of Sumy region, in Dolyna and Adamivka of Donetsk region

* - Kurahove(18:36). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - In a phone call with his Russian counterpart, the US Secretary of Defense called for a ceasefire in Ukraine and the preservation of lines of communication

* - Pentagon readout of US and Russian defense chiefs call today — their first conversation today since Feb. 18, before the invasion of Ukraine

* - Kharkiv, Kharkivska Oblast(17:18). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Dnipropetrovska Oblast(17:18). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - Donetsk Oblast(17:09). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - Kharkiv, Kharkivska Oblast(16:31). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - Scholz: Three points from my long phone call with Putin today: There must be a ceasefire in Ukraine as quickly as possible. The claim that Nazis are in power there is false. And I also reminded him about Russia's responsibility for the global food situation - Any ceasefire will allow Russia to regroup / rearm / restaff units.

* - Donetsk Oblast(14:13). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

* - Kharkiv, Kharkivska Oblast, Donetsk Oblast(13:21). Red Alert: aerial threat. Sirens sounding. Take cover now!

As a reminder

Just so people know and understand. Information from war zones can become confusing as there will no doubt be info released from the players (on both sides) involved that might not necessarily be true.

As such take everything as a possibility and NOT as absolute truth.

The very first casualty in a war is the truth and all warfare is based on deception

Resources - Where most of the updates come from.
* - Flightradar24 - tracks flights worldwide
* - Live Ukraine control map 1 - updates on the ground
* - Ukraine Control Map 2
* - Ship radar
* - Military vessel tracker
* - Institute for the Study of War (ISW)
* - Stopfake - Countering Russian propaganda about Ukraine
* - MilitaryLand - Maps

Youtube resources -
* - Speak the Truth
* - War in Ukraine
* - Artur Rehi - Estonain soldier
* - Daily Report

Social media resources -
* - Twitter - Jomini of the West - Battlefield Maps

Is this Russia's endgame now ?

Key Takeaway: Russian President Vladimir Putin likely intends to annex occupied southern and eastern Ukraine directly into the Russian Federation in the coming months. He will likely then state, directly or obliquely, that Russian doctrine permitting the use of nuclear weapons to defend Russian territory applies to those newly annexed territories. Such actions would threaten Ukraine and its partners with nuclear attack if Ukrainian counteroffensives to liberate Russian-occupied territory continue.

Conquest of territory and nuclear saber-rattling as 'foreign policy' in Russia's 'near abroad'.

Cheers

13 May update

Key Takeaways

* Ukraine has likely won the Battle of Kharkiv. Russian forces continued to withdraw from the northern settlements around Kharkiv City. Ukrainian forces will likely attempt to disrupt Russian ground lines of communication to Izyum.

* Ukrainian forces have likely disrupted the Russian attempt to cross the Siverskyi Donets River in force, undermining Russian efforts to mass troops in northern Donbas and complete the encirclement of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.

* Russian forces have likely secured the highway near the western entrance to the Azovstal Steel Plant but fighting for the facility continues.

* Russian forces in Zaporizhia Oblast are likely attempting to reach artillery range outside Zaporizhia City.

* Ukrainian forces are reportedly attempting to regain control of Snake Island off the Romanian coast or at least disrupt Russia’s ability to use it.

More at URL above.

Cheers

a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

# Putin.. if no country is going to recognize Putin's claims then we must stand our ground. Appeasing Putin in this way says he can invade any country he wishes, declare the conquered land part of Russia and threaten nukes.

and when Putin decides he wants the Baltic nations? He has already rescinded the recognition of Lithuania as a country.. If Putin decides to revoke the sale of Alaska to the US?

Putin sent 400 operatives to assassinate Zelinskkyy. I say turn about is fair play.

a reply to: PatriotGames4u

The Russians struggle with military basics 101, so they probable skipped over recce before conducting the attempt to cross the river. But it is possible they ignored or failed to assimilate the related intel, and if that is the case, they are victims of their hubris.

Yet the Ukrainians are likely employing international military assistance to extinguish spot fires. In addition, troop transports allow for mobility away from the country's rail network. Moreover, Russian forces are relatively static, leaving them vulnerable to Ukrainian firepower and transport options. But, of course, that is subject to logistical constraints.

a reply to: Xcathdra

That question concerning the intent of Russian military competence is fascinating to ponder. My conclusion is those systematic failures that are built into the Russian military. Whereby racism played in the events behind the Fall of Singapore and Pearl Harbor, structural flaws and corruption are the leashes on the Russian military's battlefield performances.

a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

A Russian Army mutiny mirroring their French counterparts in 1917 is highly unlikely. The reasons aren't related to morale and esprit de corps but the threat of execution for allegations of desertion or cowardice. In that sense, one might consider how German forces in Berlin operated under similar conditions.

a reply to: xpert11

I think you are right in a way the Russian military is by design temporary. What I mean is the military poses no threat to dictators because by its nature of conscription you never genuinely get people who dedicate their lives to the military. So every 2 years the army starts over and makes it difficult for a general to have enough loyalty from troops to say storm Moscow.


It's also no coincidence that Putin actually has military guards he can call upon if necessary they do not leave Moscow.

Sat 5.14.2022

McConnell and crew went to Ukraine for some reason. What does the makeup of his visiting party tell us?

Mitch McConnell lead a Senate delegation to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Saturday.

The meeting was “a powerful signal of the two-party support of Ukraine by the United States’ Congress, as well as the American people,” Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post that was translated by NBC News.

Senators John Barrasso, John Cornyn, and Susan Collins were among the delegation, according to a video posted on social media. It’s unclear if the group is still in Ukraine.

www.cnbc.com...