Russia Ukraine Update Thread - part 3

originally posted by: F2d5thCavv2
6 March Update

"Ukrainian Ground Forces Commander Lieutenant General Oleksandr Pavlyuk stated on March 6 that Ukraine will try to seize the initiative and conduct unspecified counteroffensive actions in 2024.
...
Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Kupyansk and Donetsk City and in western Zaporizhia Oblast."

Ukraine's building their analog of Russia's "Surovikhin defense lines", but they need to work faster on those since they aren't completed yet. When Russia makes an advance, Ukraine will often conduct a counteroffensive on the advanced location and try to take it back. Other than that, which they will probably continue, I don't see why they would announce counteroffensives, seems like there's more downside to announcing them, than upside.

Russia continues to make small advances. How small? This youtube channel William Spaniel calculated that in February 2024, 0.02% of Ukraine's territory changed hands.


That sounds about right because if you zoom out to look at a map of all of Ukraine, you can't really see significant movement in the front lines, you have to zoom in to see it.
That's from this video where he points out that NATO countries seem to be waking up from their "sleep" of years of low military spending, which is why he talks about the possibility of Russia's offensive being self-defeating.

Why Russia's Offensive Could Be Self-Defeating

He cites the quote from the movie about the bombing of Pearl Harbor that the Japanese feared they may have just woken a "sleeping giant", and says there's at least a possibility that NATO is also giant that has been sleeping.


NATO's GDP really is giant compared to Russia's GDP:


So, Spaniel says, if NATO ever decides to get really serious about supporting Ukraine, they have the resources to offer a lot of support. But so far Russia has ramped up their military spending from ~2% to ~7% GDP, while most of NATO is still somewhere around 2% GDP and some countries even less than that, the notable exceptions being the US at over 3% GDP and Poland expected to be over 4% GDP in 2024.

So far in 2024 it looks like Ukraine can't count on US support, but even if the US is half that GDP, the remaining half in non-US countries still dwarfs Russia's GDP. I noticed Macron in France recently seems to be much more supporting of Ukraine, even talking about the possibility of sending troops there, presumably not to the front lines but for non-combat duty.

Someone suggested if NATO just sent forces to guard Ukraine's border with Belarus where there's no active fighting, that would free up a lot of Ukraine's soldiers to engage on the front lines, or to rotate the troops more often. It seems like both Russia's and Ukraine's troops don't get rotated out as often as they should. But even if NATO doesn't send troops to Ukraine, they have resources to provide a lot more support than they have so far.

a reply to: Kenzo

Yeeh i remember that story , not sure but Ukrainian Kiev city was set up by Viking people , at least as partly . Or something...

short summary on the Rurik Dynasty, the Varangians ( old norse), Βάραγγοι, Várangoi (old east Slavic )

depending on what chronicles you want to read or believe except ol farty and other rooshkin revisionist historians , three brothers were invited to bring order and peace to the slavic tribes.
their names were Rurik who settled in novgorod, Sineus and Truvo, some sources say there was a sister included. later the two brothers died leaving Rurik sole leadership. after this two of Rurik's men came and asked for permission to go and raid Constantinople. on their way they found and conquered and became rulers of the city of Kiev which was a tributary of the Khazars. and these two also came to be the rulers of Poland.

Rurik, whose men and blood line founded Kievan Rus, appointed his relative / kinsman ( there is debate as whether or not he was related) before he died according to the primary chronicles to rule over his empire until his son Igor could take the throne in 879. in 880 to 82 Oleg led a conquest down the Dnieper river capturing cities along the way until he took Kiev killed the leaders where he setup his capitol, united all the principalities and declared Kiev the Mother Of Rus' cities.

now here is a interesting point, moscow wasn't nothing but a little dump water river town at the time and stayed that way until the first record mention of it in 1147.at that time was part of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality which had adopted the Kievan Rus', traditions in 1156 the Mongols burned the dump water down and killed all the inhabitants.

then youngst son of alexander nevsky who was grand prince of kiev, grand prince of vladimir, and prince of novgorod, daniel inherited the town and for a very long time after moscow leaders kissed the knans ass, and sided with the Golden Horde.
hell one of them even married one of a khans sister.

back stabbin bastards they were, all of them.

so depending on what date you want to use, 1147 or 1270 moscow/ russia/ ussr/ russia didn't amount to anything until 265 to 388 years after Kievan Rus was founded.

a reply to: BernnieJGato

Thanks for history lesson So there was the 3 viking amigos back then .

This is another hole on Putins claims about Ukraine being part o Russia .

Ukraine has now newer Sea Baby naval drone with a new hull design. As said new model can carry up to allmost 1000kg of explosives over distances of up to 1000km .

this model will not be limited only to use in the kamikaze role. It is said that the design of the drone allows the installation of modules for firing at enemy coastal targets. There is also said to be the possibility of installing air defense systems on the platform.




Look`s good to me the distance that can go is impressive also .

7 March Update

Lithuanian intelligence assessed that Russia has the capability to continue sustaining the current tempo of its war in Ukraine and will likely have the capability to gradually expand its military capabilities in the near term.

Sweden formally joined NATO on March 7, becoming the 32nd member of the alliance.

Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Kupyansk and Donetsk City amid continued positional engagements along the entire line of contact on March 7.

More at URL above.

Cheers

Putin thought 'he could capture Kyiv in three days , now the targets are deep in Russia , also 2 new NATO countries ....the master strategist Putin can only make wise decisions


Map Shows Ukraine Strikes Reaching Deeper Inside Russia

originally posted by: Kenzo

Putin thought 'he could capture Kyiv in three days ,

Source?

Where Putin said he could capture it in exactly “3 days” ?

All sources show that Western analysts and U.S. general Milley were the ones that actually said it could fall within 72 hours etc.

www.foxnews.com...

while there is little doubt through sheer force of numbers Russia can eventually grind ukraine into the mud, the cat is already out of the bag.

Russia still cannot do logistics and are struggling against a force that is in uniform in the field arrayed against them in a for the most part conventional war.

The longer Ukraine waits to sue for peace the fewer outs Putin will have that will allow him to save face.

If Ukraine had better field commanders instead of a similar version of russian commanders, they had a real shot to win the war but that ship has sailed.

a reply to: Imhere

The 3 days was from fsb leaked documents, which analyst think were genuine source .

DOOMED TO FAIL How deluded Putin thought he would defeat Ukraine in 3 DAYS, leaked docs show – as disastrous war rages one year on

originally posted by: Kenzo
a reply to: Imhere

The 3 days was from fsb leaked documents, which analyst think were genuine source .

DOOMED TO FAIL How deluded Putin thought he would defeat Ukraine in 3 DAYS, leaked docs show – as disastrous war rages one year on

Again, any source where Putin officially stated he would capture it in exactly “3 days” ?

Besides some single “theSUN.uk” article? Which apparently some “analyst” thought was “genuine”?

8 March Update

Ukrainian Air Force Commander Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk .... stated that the recent reported downing of Russian A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft and Su-34 and Su-35 fighter aircraft have caused Russian forces to ”significantly reduce” the frequency of Russian air strikes in Ukraine.

Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Avdiivka amid continued positional engagements along the entire line of contact on March 8.

BBC Russian Service and Russian opposition outlet Mediazona published a joint report on March 8 that at least 46,678 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, including at least 1,555 confirmed killed in the past two weeks.

More at URL above.

Cheers

a reply to: Imhere

"Thought", not stated.

Do you really believe he might have thought over two years on he'd be no nearer to Kyiv?

a reply to: Imhere

What about the sources for the article?

Interesting reports of the uneasy alliance between Kadyrov's Chechen Soldiers and Russian soldiers breaking down , there have been reports of friction between the two groups for a while but the latest reports , if true , say conflict between has taken place between the two groups with Chechens unhappy with dictates from Kadyrov placing them under the control of what the Chechen fighters believe to be inferior fighters leading them to rebel.

Because the leader of the Chechens, after long struggles, had agreed to be under the command of Russia. In this way, he was able to come to power in Chechnya. But the price of this power was the deprivation of the freedom of Chechen citizens. As is the case today. Chechens today serve in the Russian army, paying the price for the rule of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Recently, however, a group of Chechens could not take it anymore and took action and made an unexpected move against the Russian army. So what are the details of this move? Let's take a look at the developments together.

Another report from a different source tells a similar tale but also claims Putin has Sent Kadyrov into Exile.


Not claiming anything just putting it out there as a possibly interesting development but given the history between the two sides I can see why it may be true.

a reply to: Imhere

Do you think it's all going to plan for Putin?

Do you think that he expected the West to support Ukraine to the extent it has?

a reply to: Imhere

"Again, any source where Putin officially stated he would capture it in exactly “3 days” ?"

No one said he 'officially stated" that and nobody said "exactly" 3 days.

Nice try.

a reply to: Oldcarpy2

Well, let's not quibble. Three days, three weeks whatever. What's important is that Russians marched on Kyiv but failed to conquer it and had to back down. Then, unable to capture Kyiv, they focused on Donbas. But clearly Kyiv was their primary goal. Capturing the capital, removing Zelenski and installing some puppet government there would allow them to finish the war quickly and at relatively low cost.

Putin might not state he was going to conquer Ukraine in three days but he appealed to the Ukrainian military to lay down their arms and to ordinary Ukrainian people not to oppose the Russian army. He also stated that he wasn't going to occupy Ukraine.

So we can conclude from this that he counted on Ukraine's quick surrender and creating there something akin to Belarus, a weak submissive country with a marionette president but officially "independent" one. He expected neither a full blown war lasting years nor military occupation of Ukrainian territories. The latter is no less costly than the former.

Safe to assume he enacted a plan B option.


a reply to: twistedpuppy

a reply to: cookalldafood

If he had a plan B because I honestly doubt it. It looks as if he's making things up as he goes along.

a reply to: cookalldafood

Like what?

Failing to take Kyiv? Failing to take that airport?

Plan B. A senseless war of attrition and attacking civilians.

What a military genius?