Around a month ago Denmark send a special spring offensive support package worth $250 million to Ukraine. The package consisted of, among other things, armored anti-mine vehicles, M/97 man-portable mine-clearing line charges (designed to create a 25m path in a minefield by using a special charge, which is propelled over the area by a small rocket) and special vehicles designed to salvage tanks and break through tank obstacles, Pontoon bridges and night vision equipment, so it has been a bit disappointing to see that hardly any of this seem to have been used so far, except for a few man-portable mine-clearing line charges and one or two mine ploughs. Just running vehicles into a minefield and also moving them so close together is terrible, but it would seem that Ukraine have not really made use of their elite forces so far, and so have been making some terrible blunders.
right - this is one thing that is hard to untangle many of the forces doing these initial probes/attacks are not the new armoured brigades but are the local forces, equipped with the new western stuff. whether that bradley attack was part of the new forces, i don't know.
Yes it's quite sad, but it also mean that Ukraine are keeping their most experienced and well equipped forces to do the main and last push. Btw, if anyone want to see a man-portable mine-clearing line charge being used by Ukraine in the offensive, then go look around 2 minutes and 2 seconds into this vid
It is unusually good quality. Then again, the Russians know that their useful idiots are already in need of fresh copium to ingest and repost on the Kremlin's behalf. An incident where a company-sized attack ran into trouble and suffered a serious reverse is guaranteed to have a number of drones allocated to filming the aftermath 24/7 (with any high-resolution cameras available) until a decent amount of pristine footage has been obtained. The other shoe that hasn't dropped is that there've been dozens of these attacks since the offensive's probing & reconnaissance-in-force phase started, probably dozens per day, and they're still reposting footage of a single incident and not of any others. That rather strongly suggests that none of the other attacks have actually failed and they may have succeeded, at least to some degree. IIRC @mschofield has some experience in this area from his dayjob in reporting. Maybe he'd have some insights he'd be able/willing to share?
I'm a long ways from the front these days. My work these days is restricted to journalist rescue efforts in the region. That said, the counteroffensive isn't going to be quick and isn't going to be pretty. Russia looks to be falling back to their go-to (as we know from the dam), scorched earth. My current work with Russians makes me think it won't so much be a Ukrainian advance as a Russian military collapse that ends this thing. I have a lot of good friends in Ukraine, and I wish it was possible to say this push will break the back of Russian forces by September, but all I'm seeing is a long, horrible, bloody slog. There isn't an option, of course. The Russians have shown their genocide hand in this last year, so Ukraine will continue to fight, and the west will continue to send liquor, guns and ammo. I don't think it's correct to say Ukraine is making mistakes at this point. We don't know their overall strategy. I get the sense a lot of what they're doing is probing.
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Frank Ledwidge, a former British intelligence officer-turned academic was on CNN or France 24 a few hours ago. He's been to Ukraine recently and was briefed by the Ukrainian military on their overall strategy, though not on the detailed plans (which he wouldn't share anyway). The Ukrainians were quite clear that this offensive will not be a "big push" to shatter the Russian army and sweep down to the Azov coast and the gates of Crimea, but rather a series of attacks that will exhaust and stretch disorientate them to breaking point and they, eventually, retreat before they fragment. In other words, the Kharkiv offensive with its swift breakthrough followed by sweeping advances will not, unfortunately, be the template. It'll be much closer to the Kherson offensive, slow and bloody with only local breakthroughs that erode the Russian ability to resist.
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A hotel complex commandeered as an army HQ was on the Arabat split was hit yesterday. This is the aftermath. Reports are that this has the potential for KIA levels on the level of the Makiivka New Year's Eve attack that killed over 300. 1667488182613471232 is not a valid tweet id Incredible destruction at the russian HQ in Shchaslyvtseve, on the Arabat split. Potentially NYE Makiivka levels of KIA, only this time with Storm Shadow instead of HIMARS. pic.twitter.com/dLybJmE7nG— Artoir (@ItsArtoir) June 10, 2023 The difference between that attack and this, is that this is - was - the HQ of the so-called Dnipr Group of Forces, with "group of forces" being the Russian term for a large task-oriented operational formation, similar to an army in British or American terminology. There may of may not have been generals killed here, but there certainly will have been colonels and lieutenant-colonels there, along with a lot of hard-to replace technical specialists. Command and control in Kherson and western Zaporozhye is going to be a bit disrupted over the next few weeks.
You say this, but if you follow General Hertling on Twitter, he is fine with what is happening, particularly since the vehicles appear damaged so far. Hertling notes the big thing Ukraine needs is recivery vehicles so they can come in and drag the vehicles back behind the lines. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1667164676499685376.html
Not to spam everyone with videos of Russian hardware blowing up, but the last few days have been chockers with them. Not just tanks and BMPs but artillery and FPV drone hits on behind the lines equipment.. A military column consisting of vehicles from the 83rd Airborne Brigade of the Russian Federation got discovered and targeted in Zapovitne, Zaporizhzia region. Damage done is reported as: 3 artillery systems, 2 fuel tanks and 8 pieces of various equipment. pic.twitter.com/73gJrFHLuU— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) June 10, 2023
Rybar is posting about major Ukrainian advances in Zaporizhzhia area and a lot of Russian troops falling back to the second defensive lines. Rybar reporting major Ukrainian advances in the Velyka Novosilka area, with Ukrainian forces capturing Neskuchne and Blahodatne "almost without a fight", and moving on Urozhaine and Novodonets'ke. pic.twitter.com/4Xu2Z5YFEw— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) June 10, 2023 Rybar is a Russian source, but they are generally fairly accurate as far as Ukrainian advances are. Ukrainian losses and Russian advances, definitely wrong.
This is one of the reasons not to fret over a video of half a dozen AFVs - we don't know what losses Russia is taking but it seems to be a lot
Of the vehicles in that video that everyone's been banging on about, most were so-called "mobility kills", where a mine blew the track(s) but the vehicle is otherwise undamaged and can be repaired quite quickly. It's just a matter of doing the BDA (battle damage assessment) and the armoured recovery Credible sources say that the Leopard in particular has already been repaired and is back in action. Crucially, the all of the vehicle crews survived with only minor injuries.
And there's another factor that makes the extent of the tankie/tech bro/chomskyite chatter about that video really puzzling. All of that Russian video is missing one, crucial, thing: the follow-up artillery or air strikes that permanently destroyed the Ukrainian vehicles, especially Bradleys and the Leopard. Without those strikes the mobility kill vehicles can be recovered and repaired and the straight-up kills can be recovered and cannibalized for spare parts, which is a known weakness in Ukraine's supply chains. That's an obvious tactical failure by the Russians, which suggests poor decision-making on their part or good recovery measures by the Ukrainians.
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Ukrainian partisans have blown up a major railroad bridge deep inside Crimea. The line the bridge is on is reportedly the primary used to take supplies from the Kerch Bridge to the front lines. According to ru news aggregator 112, the train line was blown in the Kirovskyi region of Crimea. The main line from the Kerch bridge to the rest of the Crimea runs through here. A train was damaged. https://t.co/WHnqs0h65v pic.twitter.com/riwU8CoGjk— Artoir (@ItsArtoir) June 11, 2023
Or there were multiple rail lines attacks this morning. I’m not sure if there were multiple bridges damaged/destroyed, or oje bridge and a rail line damaged…. Ukrainian forces just cut the main rail line connecting Russian occupied Crimea with the frontal area in southern Ukraine, just south of Melitopol. https://t.co/Lo0O9qdd8E pic.twitter.com/HlcWAluwtF— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) June 11, 2023
Reports of Ukrainian liberations are starting to come out. Obviously, a lot of these liberations are going to be small villages, but territory liberated is territory liberated. Milinfo reports that in addition to Storozheve and Neskuchne, Ukrainian forces "were able to gain a foothold on the northern outskirts of Makarivka and Urozhaine"https://t.co/OrYW9PhqZl pic.twitter.com/5aveyFSOcv— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) June 11, 2023
Rybar is reporting further Russian withdrawals. Of true, current lines in this area are about 24km from where the lines were earlier this week. Update, the Russian milblogger Rybar now claims that Russian forces retreated from Blahodatne to a defensive line running along the Mokri Yaly River in Makarivka and Urozhaine. Rybar also reports that a Russian counterattack on Neskuchne failed. https://t.co/JyKc3fPTOY pic.twitter.com/XnALKJfexL— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) June 11, 2023 One thing to keep in mind is that this first defensive line was just a “recon” line, meaning it was meant to just hold for a short period of time and to stop recon units from checking out stronger lines behind. I saw a tweet yesterday that said Ukraine had somewhere between 3 and 7 defensive lines before they even get to fortified lines that are built around Tokmak.
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