Breakthrough to Kherson. This is where the eyes of all analysts are now directed. We climbed for 2 days near Soledar. Yes, the place is not hype, but it is important for understanding the overall picture on the front.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine recently made a rotation of personnel. Motivated fighters entered the position. If earlier we talked about retention groups consisting of poorly trained reservists. Now they have been replaced by a new set, equipped with NATO weapons. The new shift switched to the tactics of aggressive defense. Small groups are not afraid to come close to our positions and try to take individual points in a hurry. We walked around familiar places. If earlier they went there during the day, now they move exclusively at night.
[Ukrainian] Armed forces are increasingly using wing-type UAVs. Shooting them down is more difficult, and they fly farther and longer than the Mavics. The number of attacks on our positions has increased markedly. The lack of shells in this sector of the front of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been overcome, and they can work on a single target from 155mm guns.
In addition, I note the counter-battery fight. The new shift brought radars with them, which seriously spoils the nerves of our gunners. In a word, the approach of Ukrainian fresh forces is felt along the entire front line. Shabby connections are brought to the rear. There they will be reinforced, reequipped with NATO equipment and prepared for new attacks. It is important not to underestimate this moment.
Comment: This is from “Повёрнутые на Z войне” (Rotated in the Z War), a Russian war reporter’s Telegram channel (Alexandar Kharchenko) with over 440,000 subscribers. Soledar is northeast of Bakhmut in the Donbas, far from the Kherson front. This observation means that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are in far better condition than the Russian trolls think. Their immediate and full mobilization back in February and the continuous flow of Western aid set the stage for this turn of events. Meanwhile, Russia’s much vaunted 3rd Army Corps is getting drunk and assaulting local Russians while Moscow figures out what to do with them.
Zelenskiy, his armed forces and the Ukrainian people are intent on regaining every inch of their land and killing, capturing, accepting the surrender of or chasing every Russian SOB out of Ukraine… every swinging dick one of them.
TTG
You don’t like Russia, do you?
walrus,
Russians who invade Ukraine or other European countries and commit wide ranging atrocities and war crimes? No, I don’t like them. Once they go back beyond their own borders, I’ll be fine with them, again.
TTG,
This never would have happened without the CIA backed coup in Ukraine in 2014. All Russia asked is to keep long range weapons off their borders. We did the same with Cuba in the US. We would do the same with Mexico and Canada simply because there is no time to react. Not any harder than that.
It’s a horrible situation but hopefully a lesson is learned globally. Do not threaten to put long range weapons on the border of a country with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. It’s stupid.
Do it an many will die which is what is happening. It is time to accept reality. The US and the UN messed up. Learn from it an move on. Nobody is putting long range weapons next to the capitol of a country with a lot of nukes. Hate Russia, hate the US, hate the CCP. None of these countries will allow it.
Babeltuap
“All Russia asked is to keep long range weapons off their borders. ”
That wasn’t happening and still isn’t, though the ranges are getting longer as Russia draws this out. And to go back to your comparison with Cuba. The US didn’t invade. We threatened in response to real long range missiles in transit. We worked it out. The missiles never arrived. (At least officially. If they did, then they were kept very quiet.) Castro lived out the rest of his life as the power in Cuba. We didn’t like it much, but we didn’t overpower their system with our bullying. We tested the waters at the Bay of Pigs, found out that the support wasn’t there, and gave it up. If Russia had done the like, we would think they were assholes. But nothing very serious would have come of it. They had some support in Donetsk and Luhansk. They could have kept those areas and Crimea forever and nobody would have tried to do much about it. They could have incorporated the Donbas if they actually wanted it. Nobody would have done more than complain. For 8 years the US and Nato carefully refrained from giving Ukraine anything resembling “long range”. So “all they wanted..” is bullshit. In terms of their stated goals their policy, as annoying as they found it, was working.
Oh yes indeedy. And killed 6.5 million Vietnamese just for fun and target practice.
fredw,
“Castro lived out the rest of his life as the power in Cuba. We didn’t like it much, but we didn’t overpower their system with our bullying. ”
You obviously don’t know any Cuban Americans who are here because the communist SOB named Castro ruthlessly oppressed, as other communists still do, the people of Cuba.
Babeltuap
The US and the UN messed up but Russia did not ?
If you were living in Ukraine, in Dnipro for example, would you now be rooting for the Ruskies to push forward and bring the war and destruction to your family ?
Because the US messed up and the Russians now have the right to destroy the place to protect it from nazis or something ?
No the invasion of Ukraine was guaranteed in the summer of ’91, not 2014. Why? B/C Ukrainians declared they were free men and not Russian subordinates. That is what happened. It was provoked, by 2014. But why? B/C thereafter it was clear Ukrainians were not going to be under the Russian hegemon any longer. Ukrainian/Russian history d/n start in 2014. BTW, this is precisely the issue w/t Poles, Slovaks, Balts, Finns, and Swedes. Russia’s n.w. neighbors aren’t “taking it anymore”. So 2014 is not why, but maybe 1914 is a better date.
I like Russian culture, sport, their history is amazing. Russian contributions to science and medicine are wonderful. I like Russia. My sister in law is Russian, some other relatives are Russian, I like Russia. But why can’t they leave others alone? Are we still , again, constantly talking about Russian security concerns? Lets see, in order to protect her security Russia invaded Germany 1914, Ukraine 1919-1948, Poland 1939, Finland 1939, Hungary 1953, Czechoslovakia 1968, Afganistan 1979, Ukraine 2022, and who knows who’s next. Of course its all b/c the Russians are concerned about THEIR SECURITY right.
“Of course its all b/c the Russians are concerned about THEIR SECURITY right.”
It is much worse than what you think, not sure if you can hear French (I do not know any English translation/dubbing), but this is the hardcore/i> “non official” Russian position by a professional diplomat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xedMf06kWdU
Bill Roche
it is interesting that you as a US citizen find the concept of bombing and invading other countries because of security concerns so scandalous.
Maybe you paint w/too broad a brush?
Can we get an update on that “counter offensive”? Your go-to “source”, the ISW is now saying it was just a feint. Lol. This nonsense is so silly it’s to the point of farcical.
ISW is describing a method of conducting offensive operations against a numerically superior foe. They surmise the Ukrainians may be employing this method. Outside of the Ukrainian MOD, probably USI and maybe the Russian MOD, no one knows the true state of the counteroffensive. Ukrainian OPSEC has been excellent so far.
“Military forces that must conduct offensive operations without the numerical advantages normally required for success in such operations often rely on misdirections and feints to draw the defender away from the sectors of the line on which breakthrough and exploitation efforts will focus. The art of such feints is two-fold. First, they must be conducted with sufficient force to be believable. Since they are feints, however, rather than deliberate attacks expected to succeed, they often look like failures—the attacking units will fall back when they feel they have persuaded the defender of their seriousness. Second, they take time to have an effect. When the purpose of the feint is to draw the defender’s forces away from the intended breakthrough sectors, the attacker must wait until the defender has actually moved forces. There will thus likely be a delay between the initial feint operations and the start of decisive operations. The situation during that delay may well look like the attack has failed.” (from ISW 31 Aug assessment)
TTG
so the attack on Kiev was a feint after all ? 🙂
Pretty funny quote from ISW. It’s exactly what the Russians say about their feint against Kyiv at the beginning of the SMO.
borko and drifter,
The Russians had an overwhelming numerical advantage over the Ukrainians at the beginning of the war. Their attacks across the entire border didn’t draw Ukrainian forces away from the Donbas. The attack on Kyiv and Kharkiv were large penetrations, not limited feints. They lost the flower of their Army in that failed penetration. If anything, the very limited initial advance by DNR/LNR formations against the strong defenses along the line of contact was a feint to fix the Ukrainian units on that front in place.
The Russian advance into Kherson was the most successful Russian advance and that was accomplished at the same time as they advanced all along the border, including towards Kyiv and Kharkiv. There was no reliance on a feint on that front.
Ukraine war and oil don’t mix?
8 Russian Energy Executives Have Died Suddenly
“The death of Ravil Maganov, chairman of the Russian oil giant Lukoil, at a hospital in Moscow on Thursday appears to mark the eighth time this year that a Russian energy executive has died suddenly and under unusual circumstances,” CNBC reports.
“Maganov died after falling out of the window of the capital’s Central Clinical Hospital.”
Wonder what the Russian trolls will say about this?
SRW, Fewer Russians Putin has to divide corrupt $$ with.
Well TTG, I guess we will have to wait and see whether the Ukrainians can evict, as you put it, the “swinging dicks” from their land. You must admit it may be a difficult task to de”dick” them, as Mr Kalibre, Mr Kinzhal and literally countless artillery shells and grads will be coming their way to stop the procedure.
My guess is when the dust and blood spray settles, the “swinging dicks” will prevail.
Pardon the earthy post, but you did bring the pejorative to the discussion first.
Morongo Bill –
You may be right if some Russian pockets can hang on long enough in the Donbas or Crimea for the West to lose interest. But it won’t be due to Mr Kalibre and Mr Kinzhal. They plus their baby tube and rocket artillery batteries are too busy killing women and children. Destroying residential areas takes a lot of time so they can’t be bothered with actually targeting Ukraine’s Armed Forces.
Meanwhile there are Russian telegraph accounts that are thoroughly PO’ed at Putin. Openly calling him Putina, the feminine form, for what they say is going too easy on Ukraine. They are demanding full mobilization or nukes. Will it happen? Darned if I know, but if they get him to use that second option the radiation fallout would blow west over Europe. Let’s hope we never get to that.
Never mind the women and children. The Russians are deliberately targeting hospitals, museums, grocery stores, libraries, churches, pawn shops, and nuclear power plants that they occupy. We’re talking animals!
The mistake cheerleaders on both sides make in this war is to believe their own propaganda. That is the other side has poor leadership, poor morale, poor logistics, etc. (but our side doesn’t, or at least is not as bad).
Both sides have issues, not exactly the same, but both sides are equally adaptable, and similarly equipped. Right now Ukraine has a manpower advantage but in the end it will come down to this: Russia has an armed force at least double that of Ukraine and a GDP per capital double that of Ukraine.
It’s not realistic to think they will be pushed out of Crimea or the Donbass or Kherson.
Klapper
Putin’s decision to wage a limited SMO, increasingly with whatever cannon fodder he can scrape together, makes the overall size of Russia’s armed forces irrelevant. It is the size (and more importantly the composition) of the forces in the conflict that matters. Ukraine on the other hand has been fully mobilized for over 6 months. I can only see the manpower advantage going in one direction from here – unless Putin commits more forces or bites the bullet and calls for a mobilization.
As for propaganda, I read the report TTG posted here a couple of days ago on Boris Rozhin’s Telegram (@boris_rozhin). This guy has 700k subscribers and is fully committed to operation ‘Z’ (he raises money for drones & other kit to be sent to Russian forces). He posted the report without comment, which indicates to me he does not see it as propaganda.
And if you want an on the ground view of how wonderfully equipped the Russian forces are I’d recommend Murz’s LiveJournal account which is for the moment unsuspended. A machine translation mangles it somewhat, but you’ll get the gist. He bemoans the lack of signals capability, among other things, and describes the new Third Corps as “a huge, monstrous unruly crowd of deer”.
https/kenigtiger.livejournal.com (in Russian)
Much of what you say is likely true but none of it matters as long as the Russians stay committed. Ultimately they have way more resources than the Ukrainians and they can win if they want to. I think they are committed to that goal. Winning for them is not taking all of Ukraine, but it certainly means retaining Crimea and the Donbass and gaining Kherson.
klapper
“Ultimately they have way more resources than the Ukrainians.” No. the Russians have to be willing to fight. How long will that last?
klapper
You won’t see it until it happens.
almost quadruple the population and triple the GDP PPP
TTG: “ Zelenskiy, his armed forces and the Ukrainian people are intent on regaining every inch of their land and killing, capturing, accepting the surrender of or chasing every Russian SOB out of Ukraine… every swinging dick one of them.”
…..So that Zelenskys Western backed Ukrainians can resume murdering the ethnically Russian Ukrainians of Donbass, as they have been doing since 2014?
I would have hoped that you might have developed a comprehensive approach to resolving this crisis with a minimum of disruption and bloodshed, as it appeared (at least on the surface) that the Russians tried to do right up until their hand was forced by increasing Ukrainian artillery activity in February.
In my opinion the borg still thinks that this war is a great idea – a win/win for America.
– The Russians are humbled. We know from Austin’s own mouth that this was a desired outcome. The Chinese are chastened – do they want to be handcuffed to a Russian corpse?
– The Russian and European economies are destroyed returning America to its pre eminent position post 1945. Sanctions on Russia and the resulting collateral damage to the European union economies cement the preeminence of the American technology, energy and agriculture sectors.
– The object lesson of Russia and China forces the rest of the world to adopt the global neo capitalist economic model. The world is now safe for Amazon, Visa and google to monetize the planet.
– The war consumes all old stocks of defence materiel that now must be replaced, reinvigorating the U.S. defence industry for years to come.
– Domestic American issues to do with infrastructure, energy, climate change and economic reform can be safely ignored – “don’t you know there’s a war on?”
I mean, what’s not to like?
walrus,
I agree with you completely. I think you have summed it up beautifully.
Walrus,
” The world is now safe for Amazon, Visa and google to monetize the planet.”
I disagree. That’s Blackrock, Vanguard, and the City of London. Loosely, or tightly, wedded to the Davos/WEF crowd.
Fred –
What is going on with Vanguard? Should I move my IRA somewhere else?
Leith,
Thats up to you. I reccomend looking at what they are doing with ESG and how they vote the shares held in street name. It’s a long way from what Bogle did when he started the firm.
I mostly agree with your assessment. However with the Russian economy doing relatively well and even the inflationary pressures decreasing compared to the combined west including ourselves, as well as the Global South’s support (could be luke warm nevertheless not against those damn Rooskies) I am inclined to think perhaps may be Russia will survive but what about the West?
Russian Trolls…….
Why is it that people need derogatory names for people with another perspective? Doesn’t that signal weakness? In my opinion it does. Love the art on display, but I’m afraid reality is a bitch, and with messages about western ‘advisors’ urging the Ukrainians to limit themselves to pin-prick operations, and to go slow, with everybody already talking about what may happen this winter, I’d strongly advise the ‘Biden Crew’ running this show to look up, and prepare for popular revolts as a result of their efforts to break the back of Russia. This is not looking good at all.
“This is where the eyes of all analysts are now directed.”
That is the entire point of this counter-offensive, to be blunt.
The spice must flow. And that won’t happen if the West starts to lose interest in this war.
If regaining the rapt attention those eyeballs means launching a forlorn hope towards Kherson then that is a price that Zelensky is more than willing to pay.
There are numerous reports about the extensive problems the Russian military has to deal with and they cannot all be just dismissed. Thus, for the sake of argument, it takes 5 Russian soldiers to militarily accomplish what one Ukrainian soldier can, then the numerical advantage is meaningless. If those Russian soldiers are arriving at the front, it is questionable how many will return. It may also come down to who is the most motivated to take the necessary risks to prevail.
Russia will also pay an increased cost of this war, both socially and economically and once that realization spreads, their government will have additional problems to deal with and at some point, it will be too much for them. The main problem for everybody else is what will happen afterwards?
The Russian cheerleaders consider nuclear weapons to be the deciding factor, but given the numerous problems the Russian military has, can they rely on them even working? Besides, using even one device can in short order end Russia as a country and I am sure at least in the military that is known.
I’m sure you are right about Russias military problems but I take a more dynamic view. All armies have problems all the time, Ukraine included.
However war is both a learning experience and democratic. It is how fast and the quality of your response to your problems that matters, including the problems your enemy creates for you.
If the reports and commentaries are to be believed, then Ukraine is currently more agile than the Russian forces and also more innovative.
Regarding economies, we will see. While the Russian economy is no doubt under stress, so is Europe’s’. I see no sign yet of a new Marshall plan to heat British pensioners homes and feed Europe.
Billy Conn was more agile, more crafty, then Joe Louis for 12 rounds, then he got hit. Louis, a full heavy weight, finally caught him in the 13th and it was all over. The longer this goes, the more I believe Russia will go to full mobilization. That might be embarrass Putin, father of all the Russias. It will be more embarrassing if the Ukrainians win. Putin need not worry. America cant arm and supply Ukraine alone. The callow Europeans will cave and turn their backs on Ukraine. In my old age I am seeing Europe through clear eyes. They will be easy marks for Islam when it arrives.
BR
They are close to full mobilization now and reduced to using foreign mercenaries.
Bill R-
There is a limited mobilization going on. But it is only targeted at indigenous ethnic minorities in the Autonomous Republics or Oblasts that are mostly non-Russian.
Plus the Russian Army is recruiting men out of homeless shelters.
The Wagner mercs are recruiting in prisons.
And the Ukrainians aren’t? Tornado, anyone? Why do people always accuse the other side of what their own “team” are doing?