Let’s start with Bakhmut this time, and extrapolate out from there, since Bakhmut is the current central point of the war from which everything flowers outward.
Is there any actual evidence that this has happened? Don't get me wrong, I support the move. Use every tool in the toolbox. There are millions of 100mm shells lying around in Russia gathering dust. However, all we have seen was the photo of a train of T-55's somewhere in Russia.
If T-55s were actually moved, it was likely to receive upgrades prior to being sold abroad. But if actually deployed, they would be used as SPGs with their 14 to 16km max range depending on ammo and wind conditions. In which case they would drive up to the FLOCs, dump rounds and drive back, largely immune to counter battery fire.
120 mm mortar is a very versatile weapon, heft and range!!!
the russians may have shot down a ground launch missile kluged together a guided rocket body to a guided piece of ordnance such as a small diameter bomb.
this approach is much easier than integrating a guided weapon to a soviet designed fighter platform. one does not merely hang the smart weapon on the loading points and fly off. several ways: a unique display hardwired to the weapon (space on the control panel in the cockpit), and wiring around the aircraft, or run a unique software package through the aircraft data bus.... either requires unique integration, design and detailed engineering info on the aircraft.... then you modify a jet and do tests. the us' classified budget has had 8 years to do some of this, but!
unless the motor has excess fuel the fighter would need to launch from altitude at distance which gives a lot of time and aspect to track and engage.
usa seems to have trouble with hyper-sonics; boeing's entry failed long ago, lockheed seems to be able to keep a loser prototype going better. see f-35!
One of the dangers of GLSDB is that if Russia were ever to get to the western side of Ukraine, then NATO forces could clandestinely launch SDB's from stealth aircraft over Poland (F-35's etc) at Russian forces, and Russia would never know the difference as they would appear no different than GLSDB's launched by Ukrainian HIMARs units. So this would allow NATO to destroy Russian forces with full impunity and plausible deniability by pretending it's Ukraine that's doing it.
As for hypersonic, it's much more difficult than it appears for a variety of reasons. The primary one is that if you're flying at hypersonic speed in atmospheric conditions, it creates plasma bubble around the object which is impervious to electromagnetic signals -- which means the missile is impossible to "communicate" to or send/receive guidance. There were variety of theories/proposed solutions such as towing a cable behind the missile which would extrude out of the 'plasma shield' and act as an antenna.
NASA rockets and such don't have to worry about this because they quickly get to outer space where there is no longer an atmosphere and don't accelerate to hypersonic speed until they're already in 'space' anyway.
You can try to use a missile with INS (inertial guidance) exclusively and no midcourse correction etc but that's much less accurate.
With that said, I can only assume that wasn't the issue that led to the complete collapse and end of the US AGM-183 ARRW program announced today, but probably something more to do with the propulsion/engine capabilities etc. But as you said, for whatever reason, US has never been able to do hypersonic well, even in its ballistic missiles--for instance US's 'Iskander' equivalent, the ATACMs is supersonic only, while Iskander-M can hit Mach 6 or more.
Excellent analysis as always. I cannot commend you enough for your work. What is horrifying to me? That my country with a NSA/CIA/Homeland Security budget bigger than many countries entire budgets cannot do this. But of course, they get the analysis that they want. Not the truth.
Great info. I saw somewhere for their spring offensive Ukraine bought 1000s of Chinese drones and was putting bombs on each one. If Ukraine can buy Chinese drones, why can't Russia, and how do you fight a thousand drones except with EW? Is high volume drone warfare the wave of the future, or can they be conveniently disarmed?
Russia is buying tons of Chinese drones as well. In fact, a report from yesterday said that Chinese citizens are a little miffed because they can't even buy the drones themselves in China. They said the war is buying up all their stocks of drones, so even consumer/drone enthusiasts in China are finding most of the drones sold out.
Both sides are buying plenty of Chinese drones, Taiwan is said to be building special order killer drones for Ukraine as well.
Yes unfortunately high volume drone warfare is likely the wave of the future and only EW stands a chance of dealing with them as you said. Countries will have to explore EMP technology again because it's the only thing that can shut them down en masse.
As per the previous report, I talked about new Ranets-E Russian microwave system that's said to be taking out tons of Ukrainian drones at ranges of 6-7km+ on frontlines etc.
Aliexpress is export e-commerce for Alibaba. It's just consumer sales. The real volume selling is via the middleman who signs orders,in bulk with Chinese payment and Chinese shipping addresses. DJI is not going to bother about where their drones end up at the other end of the funnel. DJI is not deluded that after US kills off TikTok, they and Hikvision are next to be banned from the Empire.
A lot of Fog of War, and endless disinformation daily, primarily from the Ukrainians and the West, who have a fanatical need to control the airwaves, which they will inevitably regret. Commentators like MSC are only able to focus on daily tactical battles based on territory movement, missing the whole point of the SMO from Russia's standpoint. Its clear Russia is patiently building up and waiting for the West's next move or escalation, and they will respond very powerfully. You don't win a war losing 10 times the number of men as your opponent, especially when your opponent has only committed a small fraction of their fighting capacity to date. Ukraine will launch their offensive and lose their last Army. My guess is that the West wants an offensive so they can then declare "victory", when they have in fact lost, and agree to Russia's terms and spin it as their win. Ukraine will get memory holed in the West and forgotten.
Well Russia did win the Winter war with Finland, but it wasn't pretty. I think the red armies poor performance might have been one of the factors that convinced Hitler that all he had to do was push the door in and the entire edifice would collapse.
One supposes the same thing can happen here. The ostensible 'poor performance' the West sees in Russia is making the west salivate at the mouth at the chance to catch Russia with its pants down. So maybe they'll try something and get the same lesson Hitler got.
It was a full UK Bojo decision after kiev (bucha false flag was MI6 sponsored), sometime I'm asking myself: is the UK or the US who is the real leader decisions maker?All escalations came from London(depleted uranium being the last one).Never really understood why the brits hate Russia so much?
Rudolf Steiner saw Russia as the spiritual counter to Britains commercial, industral, materialistic dominance. "We could have ruled the whole world, if not for those meddling Russians!"
It is always interesting how the “poor performance” of the Red Army gets discussed. Of course, the British army failed to win a meaningful land victory against the Wehrmacht until Alamein in late 1942. Up to then the whole land effort was one debacle followed by another, unless you count a couple of victories against predominantly Italian forces in Africa. The Red Army also managed to win the Winter War and in 1939 smashed the Japanese army; something that both the British and Americans later had great difficulty in doing. Am a little wary of all these judgments that are part of the “standard” western narrative.
Agree with the comment about the west’s offensive. Ukraine has to Do Something. Proxy Kamikaze states are not paid billions of dollars to just sit and defend. They have to do something that looks impactful on the evening news. My instinct is that the idea is to recover some territory, irrespective of casualties incurred. The former is visible and the latter can be covered up or ignored in western media. Or else even if admitted they will just claim that Russia suffered more. Then they can potentially hope to call Putin’s and Xi’s bluff on a ceasefire or negotiations from a position of territory having been regained. That way, the optics work.
Putin is unlikely to accept that, given he knows that failure to win will simply mean he has to fight again. He has even said in various pronouncements that this war was a preventative one to avoid having to fight in the future. Geoffrey Roberts has written an excellent paper on that. https://jmss.org/article/view/76584/56335 But it would create difficult diplomacy so my guess is that this time around the Russian Army will resist any urge to make tactical retreats of any scale and will seek to destroy a Ukrainian offensive before it gets anywhere.
The video of a Ukrainian column being destroyed highlights just how tricky any big arrow Blitzkrieg style WW2 offensive would be on a modern networked and highly observed battlefield. Especially in the sort of flat terrain that it would seemingly need to advance over. Even if “successful” in advancing casualties would surely be very high.
Thanks for this top sitrep even if a bit alarming in terms of our ammo capacities. About the date for their 'offensive' as these idiots only live in a virtual P R mode believing war is a video game and only happens on twitter or CNN, the best P R (for them maybe?), would be of course the 9th of May..Victory day becoming 'defeat day' (for us, keep on dreamin ZE)...I bet you a good bottle of champagne that it will be their choice.At the start of the SMO (and probably a few weeks or months before), up to 254 P R com, agencies were taking care of the public propaganda on all msm + SM.I heard that this nr has been vastly decreased but, one overpaid Madison Avenue genius will sell ZE that 'victory/defeat day' option, and he will be paid 1 million for this fantastic idea.
nb: one question about North Korea..I saw on twitter and tm channels talks about KIM was willing to send (if asked and if China ok)between 50 and 250k men to reinforce Wagner.I guess this is pure desinfo probably?
nb2: any news of Iran or China weapons deliveries? Not heard anything about Iranian 'ballistic' missiles, which have been talked about during the winter and massive ammo from Beijing.
The North Korea stuff I believe was exposed as B.S. from Ukrainian side. Sure, Sladkov himself stated that NK would give soldiers if Russia asked but Russia's not going to ask so it's likely a moot point.
As for the Chinese 'Geran', I don't think I've heard of it yet, if you find info you can link it and I'll check it out.
No news about any major weapons deliveries apart from possibility that Iran is delivering 152mm shells to Russia by way of ships on Caspian Sea. This as well as shells from North Korea would alleviate Russia's own shell hunger and there's a fair chance of this being likely as such 'low tech' military procurements are much more realistic for now.
The ballistic missile stuff though, we'll have to wait and see. There's possibility Russia has purchased them but is training crews on them and waiting for future offensives to use them, but no real info on that yet.
Well, let's take a different angle. NK is always in need of oil, gas and food, etc. from Russia but hasn't much to offer in exchange. So they could offer some train loads of ammo (ofc with Russian inscriptions). Russian, on the other hand, usually favours growing trade with everybody - so, no reason to say no.
It's bullshit. NK only wants the south.And rhey don't take orders from the Chinese. They are super independent and abhorrent of any perceived Chinese pressure. And China is very much not interested in any hegemon. It's pure US invention to smear NK and cause strain between them and China.
That UA column was a mess with only a few shots. If that's Gran 120mm every company should have a crew or 2. Mustve been drone guided. Spotter on high ground never hurts but he wasn't even calling coordinates in & with no obvious laser or drone controls, he basically just cheered the accuracy. Regardless of what was used, it worked.
Great Article. I would say though that Russia is under any pressure to end that war. A recent call from Erdogan to Putin confirmed he wants it over. I don't know what China and India are saying, but I suspect it is much the same. Certainly that is the case with India who is under constant pressure from the US to break with Russia and impose sanctions.
I might be in a minority, but I found Russia firing 50,000 to 60,000 shells a day to be somewhat wasteful. Certainly it was never followed up by any big advancements. Put me in the camp of getting a bigger bang for less.
Yes, I'd say everything is in a sliding scale, there are no hard-fast black/white binaries. So Russia has some pressure but no where near the levels Ukraine has. Which means in a situation of 'who can outlast who', I believe Russia can easily outlast Ukraine by whose side will crack under pressure first.
As for the shells, sure--Russians themselves admitted it. There are a few writeups by people who were on the ground on the Russian side who criticized the way some of the opening of the war was done, particularly in area around Izyum where they said Russian forces fired 50k a day blindly into the 'Sherwood Forest' as they called it, nearby, and did not achieve much effect. However this was mostly due to green troops not having true battle experience yet nor having mastered the drone fire-correcting coordination (and still adhering to older Soviet 'grid' artillery systems). Now they've improved a lot and are much more efficient so even if they shell less they can achieve more. And as precision guided munitions continue to upscale, this will only improve.
Last I heard was that Russia was firing 45,000 shells/day and Ukraine was firing 5,000 shells/day. So Russia is firing nine times more shells/day than Ukraine is, or 9-1. Interestingly, Russia's casualties mirror this figure as Russian KIA is 1-10 Ukrainian KIA. Russia, etc. has lost 25,000 troops, but I believe Ukraine has lost 249,000 minimum. It's quite interesting that the shell ratio and the KIA ratio are almost a perfect match!
It is interesting to read the differing views on the value of Bakhmut. Politically it has, unfortunately for the Ukrainians, become important -- we can't afford to lose it! Look how much we have put into it!
Look how bravely our soldiers are fighting! Realistically, it makes tactical and operational sense to defend it "for a while": it is a built up area on a river which increases the natural advantage of the defender. But I think "for a while" has expired and the Ukrainians will soon be forced to withdraw or to lose substantial forces. Again realistically the loss of Bakhmut is not much. Its only advantage is that it is relatively easy for Ukraine to defend. Otherwise it is of little value. Given how stable the rest of the front has been for the last several months, I don't expect much to change after Bakhmut's fall.
Bakhmut is a major road hub and its fall means the Kramatorsk-Slavyansk conurbanation comes under indirect artillery fires from Divisional Artillery and Russian Forces can then besiege the cities directly.
They have made veiled threats at the British over the DU. I don't know what Russia will do in response. Given their reaction, I don't think it is an option for them to fo nothing.
I found it interesting the other day for the first time the spokesman for the MOD said that if Ukraine keeps attacking Russian territory, Russia may target the decision makers on Bankova. Now, I know we have heard this threat countless times from people like Medvedev, but I think this is the first time that the Russian military has stated this. I would like to know what they mean though. Everyday Ukraine shells Russian territory. Sends drones deep into Russia. Is that what they mean or is it the terrorist attacks on Russian terrority in Bryansk? They tried again the other day apparently but were stopped this time. A whole slew of officials were fired as a result of the failure to interdict them from the previous attack.
Certainly launching a thousands drones at Crimea will qualify.
Sharing with you this good analysis from a non military specialist.
USA is the central battlefield in the global total war
Even as the shooting war rages in Ukraine, the main show is in the United States
There can be little doubt that we are at war, except it's not quite like in the movies. This war is unlike any others about which we learned in school where two opposed forces meet in a battlefield and fight it out until one side prevails. That kind of war is happening in Ukraine, but that’s only a part of the conflict that's engulfed nearly all the rest of the world. It manifests in different and seemingly unrelated ways, but it is part of the same conflict.
Some analysts like to use the phrase "hybrid" or "asymmetrical" to describe it, by which they mean that in addition to shooting, the conflict has information, cultural, economic and financial dimensions. But I think that the war is still bigger than that: it is global and total - perhaps it should be called total global war. The “Trans Day of Vengeance” planned in Washington DC, is only the latest and weirdest part of it.
"To have 2:1 advantage perhaps might still not be enough, seeing as how even with 5:1 previous advantage Russia was still not achieving massive break throughs. "
Except Russia wasn't trying for massive breakthroughs. They were trying to attrition Ukrainian forces.
Once the Ukraine forces manage to lose their third reconstituted army, then the Russians will make moves. Whether they will be massive or more incremental remains to be seen.
I think artillery production rates in 2024 and beyond are relevant only if one expects a war between NATO and Russia. Ukraine is going to be done by then. And if there is a war between NATO and Russia, Russia will not rely on its artillery. It will rely on its stand-off weapons to damage NATO drastically before NATO even gets onto the field. One missile takes out NATO Brussels HQ... A few more and NATO doesn't have any field HQ. A few more from the Russian Fleet and NATO doesn't have any carriers. A few more and NATO doesn't have any aircraft. Who cares about artillery and ground troops at that point?
As Scott Ritter and others have pointed out, NATO is a paper tiger. They don't have anything to match Russia and won't for at least several years, and that's assuming the EU economies even allow for military expansion, which is problematic. The EU is talking a big game, but there is zero evidence they can produce.
Ukies forces from the first destroyed army and some of the second one were(even if not nato officialy), probably the best 'Nato army' with Turkey at least in Europe.Don't forget they are slavs and many Russians even if they deny it. UK, France and Germany are a joke.Poles are weaker than ukies. UK is very good in false flags and terror attacks.Even better than CIA.
If you think through a NATO-Russian engagement, it would have a couple of stipulations: NATO wouldn't engage Russia in land warfare, because that's where Russia is the strongest. NATO would prefer a sea or air engagement, but Russia won't engage in that. Also, Russia would only engage if NATO was doing an incursion into what Russia percieves as it's own terf. So the most likely battlefield currently is Belarus or Ukraine.
Russia might have the capability to destroy NATO command centers in Western Europe or mainland US, but they almost certainly wouldn't do that. They would want attack the west where they are the weakest: their morale. Western countries are very casualty averse, they want to fight a low-casualty, shock and awe blitzkrieg. They don't want a high-casualty, drawn out conflict. Western publics want to see large gains against an inferior opponent. If Russia halts the momentum of the initial NATO push, and force the West into the same position Ukraine is, fighting trench-warfare with mass-artillery, western public support will wilt away, and they will have to withdraw, as they cannot justify casualties if territorial gains are not being achieved.
I agree that if the West engaged Russia on the ground, they would lose as badly as the Ukrainians. But in that event, Russia would also sustain casualties they would prefer to avoid. They can't avoid them in Ukraine because they need that territory for their security requirements.
However, in a war with the West, they would prefer to keep the West as far away as possible from the homeland and minimize casualties. Using standoff weapons from land and sea (including submarines as many of the new Russian subs are missile-heavy with Zircons and other types of missiles) would be optimum. They could interdict NATO forces and more importantly logistics before they even got to Ukraine or Belarus.
Andrei Martyanov makes the point that if your forces lose their behind-the-front command centers and logistics, you are going to lose. Russia can do this to NATO. Whether this has the effect of spurring NATO on is irrelevant - they won't have the capability to continue the war.
Russia is not interested in having a long, drawn-out war with the West just to rely on Western morale to falter. That is too expensive in terms of material, personnel and the economy. The West can do such things, as in Afghanistan, because their losses are low and their military-industrial complex profits from it and the servile American continues to pay taxes for it. Russia can't afford to do that in a major war. They don't want to suffer the sort of problems they had in WWII. That's why they developed their missile arsenal - to hit enemy command centers in the rear.
Is there any actual evidence that this has happened? Don't get me wrong, I support the move. Use every tool in the toolbox. There are millions of 100mm shells lying around in Russia gathering dust. However, all we have seen was the photo of a train of T-55's somewhere in Russia.
If T-55s were actually moved, it was likely to receive upgrades prior to being sold abroad. But if actually deployed, they would be used as SPGs with their 14 to 16km max range depending on ammo and wind conditions. In which case they would drive up to the FLOCs, dump rounds and drive back, largely immune to counter battery fire.
My money on anything but the....3
PCR is very good in economy, in geopolitics but a bit paranoid in terms of nuclear war.
As always great work!!! Thank you so much!!
Very informative. I always look forward to your updates.
120 mm mortar is a very versatile weapon, heft and range!!!
the russians may have shot down a ground launch missile kluged together a guided rocket body to a guided piece of ordnance such as a small diameter bomb.
this approach is much easier than integrating a guided weapon to a soviet designed fighter platform. one does not merely hang the smart weapon on the loading points and fly off. several ways: a unique display hardwired to the weapon (space on the control panel in the cockpit), and wiring around the aircraft, or run a unique software package through the aircraft data bus.... either requires unique integration, design and detailed engineering info on the aircraft.... then you modify a jet and do tests. the us' classified budget has had 8 years to do some of this, but!
unless the motor has excess fuel the fighter would need to launch from altitude at distance which gives a lot of time and aspect to track and engage.
usa seems to have trouble with hyper-sonics; boeing's entry failed long ago, lockheed seems to be able to keep a loser prototype going better. see f-35!
One of the dangers of GLSDB is that if Russia were ever to get to the western side of Ukraine, then NATO forces could clandestinely launch SDB's from stealth aircraft over Poland (F-35's etc) at Russian forces, and Russia would never know the difference as they would appear no different than GLSDB's launched by Ukrainian HIMARs units. So this would allow NATO to destroy Russian forces with full impunity and plausible deniability by pretending it's Ukraine that's doing it.
As for hypersonic, it's much more difficult than it appears for a variety of reasons. The primary one is that if you're flying at hypersonic speed in atmospheric conditions, it creates plasma bubble around the object which is impervious to electromagnetic signals -- which means the missile is impossible to "communicate" to or send/receive guidance. There were variety of theories/proposed solutions such as towing a cable behind the missile which would extrude out of the 'plasma shield' and act as an antenna.
NASA rockets and such don't have to worry about this because they quickly get to outer space where there is no longer an atmosphere and don't accelerate to hypersonic speed until they're already in 'space' anyway.
You can try to use a missile with INS (inertial guidance) exclusively and no midcourse correction etc but that's much less accurate.
With that said, I can only assume that wasn't the issue that led to the complete collapse and end of the US AGM-183 ARRW program announced today, but probably something more to do with the propulsion/engine capabilities etc. But as you said, for whatever reason, US has never been able to do hypersonic well, even in its ballistic missiles--for instance US's 'Iskander' equivalent, the ATACMs is supersonic only, while Iskander-M can hit Mach 6 or more.
Excellent analysis as always. I cannot commend you enough for your work. What is horrifying to me? That my country with a NSA/CIA/Homeland Security budget bigger than many countries entire budgets cannot do this. But of course, they get the analysis that they want. Not the truth.
Great info. I saw somewhere for their spring offensive Ukraine bought 1000s of Chinese drones and was putting bombs on each one. If Ukraine can buy Chinese drones, why can't Russia, and how do you fight a thousand drones except with EW? Is high volume drone warfare the wave of the future, or can they be conveniently disarmed?
Russia is buying tons of Chinese drones as well. In fact, a report from yesterday said that Chinese citizens are a little miffed because they can't even buy the drones themselves in China. They said the war is buying up all their stocks of drones, so even consumer/drone enthusiasts in China are finding most of the drones sold out.
Both sides are buying plenty of Chinese drones, Taiwan is said to be building special order killer drones for Ukraine as well.
Yes unfortunately high volume drone warfare is likely the wave of the future and only EW stands a chance of dealing with them as you said. Countries will have to explore EMP technology again because it's the only thing that can shut them down en masse.
As per the previous report, I talked about new Ranets-E Russian microwave system that's said to be taking out tons of Ukrainian drones at ranges of 6-7km+ on frontlines etc.
I read a few articles that seems that Alibaba and even DJI have restricted sale and components of DJI drones to Russia. See below:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/aliexpress-blocks-sale-drones-russia-194000940.html
https://www.oreanda-news.com/en/torgovlya_i_uslugi/chinese-companies-have-banned-russians-from-buying-drones-on-aliexpress/article1467697/
This will make the acquisition of parts and control apps difficult. Will be interesting to see you cover what alternatives Russia has to this.
Aliexpress is export e-commerce for Alibaba. It's just consumer sales. The real volume selling is via the middleman who signs orders,in bulk with Chinese payment and Chinese shipping addresses. DJI is not going to bother about where their drones end up at the other end of the funnel. DJI is not deluded that after US kills off TikTok, they and Hikvision are next to be banned from the Empire.
And good human intel in 404 to localize where they hide them, and then 'geranize' or kalibrate their drones depots.
A lot of Fog of War, and endless disinformation daily, primarily from the Ukrainians and the West, who have a fanatical need to control the airwaves, which they will inevitably regret. Commentators like MSC are only able to focus on daily tactical battles based on territory movement, missing the whole point of the SMO from Russia's standpoint. Its clear Russia is patiently building up and waiting for the West's next move or escalation, and they will respond very powerfully. You don't win a war losing 10 times the number of men as your opponent, especially when your opponent has only committed a small fraction of their fighting capacity to date. Ukraine will launch their offensive and lose their last Army. My guess is that the West wants an offensive so they can then declare "victory", when they have in fact lost, and agree to Russia's terms and spin it as their win. Ukraine will get memory holed in the West and forgotten.
Well Russia did win the Winter war with Finland, but it wasn't pretty. I think the red armies poor performance might have been one of the factors that convinced Hitler that all he had to do was push the door in and the entire edifice would collapse.
One supposes the same thing can happen here. The ostensible 'poor performance' the West sees in Russia is making the west salivate at the mouth at the chance to catch Russia with its pants down. So maybe they'll try something and get the same lesson Hitler got.
Exactly. They mistook Putin's magnanimity at the beginning of the SMO as Russia's weakness. The west miscalculated badly.
Forcing Ukraine into this suicidal banzai charge seems to me to be especially cruel. This coming from the people that claim to love Ukraine so much.
It was a full UK Bojo decision after kiev (bucha false flag was MI6 sponsored), sometime I'm asking myself: is the UK or the US who is the real leader decisions maker?All escalations came from London(depleted uranium being the last one).Never really understood why the brits hate Russia so much?
Rudolf Steiner saw Russia as the spiritual counter to Britains commercial, industral, materialistic dominance. "We could have ruled the whole world, if not for those meddling Russians!"
It is always interesting how the “poor performance” of the Red Army gets discussed. Of course, the British army failed to win a meaningful land victory against the Wehrmacht until Alamein in late 1942. Up to then the whole land effort was one debacle followed by another, unless you count a couple of victories against predominantly Italian forces in Africa. The Red Army also managed to win the Winter War and in 1939 smashed the Japanese army; something that both the British and Americans later had great difficulty in doing. Am a little wary of all these judgments that are part of the “standard” western narrative.
Agree with the comment about the west’s offensive. Ukraine has to Do Something. Proxy Kamikaze states are not paid billions of dollars to just sit and defend. They have to do something that looks impactful on the evening news. My instinct is that the idea is to recover some territory, irrespective of casualties incurred. The former is visible and the latter can be covered up or ignored in western media. Or else even if admitted they will just claim that Russia suffered more. Then they can potentially hope to call Putin’s and Xi’s bluff on a ceasefire or negotiations from a position of territory having been regained. That way, the optics work.
Putin is unlikely to accept that, given he knows that failure to win will simply mean he has to fight again. He has even said in various pronouncements that this war was a preventative one to avoid having to fight in the future. Geoffrey Roberts has written an excellent paper on that. https://jmss.org/article/view/76584/56335 But it would create difficult diplomacy so my guess is that this time around the Russian Army will resist any urge to make tactical retreats of any scale and will seek to destroy a Ukrainian offensive before it gets anywhere.
The video of a Ukrainian column being destroyed highlights just how tricky any big arrow Blitzkrieg style WW2 offensive would be on a modern networked and highly observed battlefield. Especially in the sort of flat terrain that it would seemingly need to advance over. Even if “successful” in advancing casualties would surely be very high.
Thanks for this top sitrep even if a bit alarming in terms of our ammo capacities. About the date for their 'offensive' as these idiots only live in a virtual P R mode believing war is a video game and only happens on twitter or CNN, the best P R (for them maybe?), would be of course the 9th of May..Victory day becoming 'defeat day' (for us, keep on dreamin ZE)...I bet you a good bottle of champagne that it will be their choice.At the start of the SMO (and probably a few weeks or months before), up to 254 P R com, agencies were taking care of the public propaganda on all msm + SM.I heard that this nr has been vastly decreased but, one overpaid Madison Avenue genius will sell ZE that 'victory/defeat day' option, and he will be paid 1 million for this fantastic idea.
nb: one question about North Korea..I saw on twitter and tm channels talks about KIM was willing to send (if asked and if China ok)between 50 and 250k men to reinforce Wagner.I guess this is pure desinfo probably?
nb2: any news of Iran or China weapons deliveries? Not heard anything about Iranian 'ballistic' missiles, which have been talked about during the winter and massive ammo from Beijing.
The North Korea stuff I believe was exposed as B.S. from Ukrainian side. Sure, Sladkov himself stated that NK would give soldiers if Russia asked but Russia's not going to ask so it's likely a moot point.
As for the Chinese 'Geran', I don't think I've heard of it yet, if you find info you can link it and I'll check it out.
No news about any major weapons deliveries apart from possibility that Iran is delivering 152mm shells to Russia by way of ships on Caspian Sea. This as well as shells from North Korea would alleviate Russia's own shell hunger and there's a fair chance of this being likely as such 'low tech' military procurements are much more realistic for now.
The ballistic missile stuff though, we'll have to wait and see. There's possibility Russia has purchased them but is training crews on them and waiting for future offensives to use them, but no real info on that yet.
Well, let's take a different angle. NK is always in need of oil, gas and food, etc. from Russia but hasn't much to offer in exchange. So they could offer some train loads of ammo (ofc with Russian inscriptions). Russian, on the other hand, usually favours growing trade with everybody - so, no reason to say no.
It's bullshit. NK only wants the south.And rhey don't take orders from the Chinese. They are super independent and abhorrent of any perceived Chinese pressure. And China is very much not interested in any hegemon. It's pure US invention to smear NK and cause strain between them and China.
That UA column was a mess with only a few shots. If that's Gran 120mm every company should have a crew or 2. Mustve been drone guided. Spotter on high ground never hurts but he wasn't even calling coordinates in & with no obvious laser or drone controls, he basically just cheered the accuracy. Regardless of what was used, it worked.
Great Article. I would say though that Russia is under any pressure to end that war. A recent call from Erdogan to Putin confirmed he wants it over. I don't know what China and India are saying, but I suspect it is much the same. Certainly that is the case with India who is under constant pressure from the US to break with Russia and impose sanctions.
I might be in a minority, but I found Russia firing 50,000 to 60,000 shells a day to be somewhat wasteful. Certainly it was never followed up by any big advancements. Put me in the camp of getting a bigger bang for less.
Yes, I'd say everything is in a sliding scale, there are no hard-fast black/white binaries. So Russia has some pressure but no where near the levels Ukraine has. Which means in a situation of 'who can outlast who', I believe Russia can easily outlast Ukraine by whose side will crack under pressure first.
As for the shells, sure--Russians themselves admitted it. There are a few writeups by people who were on the ground on the Russian side who criticized the way some of the opening of the war was done, particularly in area around Izyum where they said Russian forces fired 50k a day blindly into the 'Sherwood Forest' as they called it, nearby, and did not achieve much effect. However this was mostly due to green troops not having true battle experience yet nor having mastered the drone fire-correcting coordination (and still adhering to older Soviet 'grid' artillery systems). Now they've improved a lot and are much more efficient so even if they shell less they can achieve more. And as precision guided munitions continue to upscale, this will only improve.
“ this was mostly due to green troops not having true battle experience”
I imagine there must’ve been a fair amount of ‘training on the job’ at the beginning of the SMO.
Last I heard was that Russia was firing 45,000 shells/day and Ukraine was firing 5,000 shells/day. So Russia is firing nine times more shells/day than Ukraine is, or 9-1. Interestingly, Russia's casualties mirror this figure as Russian KIA is 1-10 Ukrainian KIA. Russia, etc. has lost 25,000 troops, but I believe Ukraine has lost 249,000 minimum. It's quite interesting that the shell ratio and the KIA ratio are almost a perfect match!
It is interesting to read the differing views on the value of Bakhmut. Politically it has, unfortunately for the Ukrainians, become important -- we can't afford to lose it! Look how much we have put into it!
Look how bravely our soldiers are fighting! Realistically, it makes tactical and operational sense to defend it "for a while": it is a built up area on a river which increases the natural advantage of the defender. But I think "for a while" has expired and the Ukrainians will soon be forced to withdraw or to lose substantial forces. Again realistically the loss of Bakhmut is not much. Its only advantage is that it is relatively easy for Ukraine to defend. Otherwise it is of little value. Given how stable the rest of the front has been for the last several months, I don't expect much to change after Bakhmut's fall.
Bakhmut is a major road hub and its fall means the Kramatorsk-Slavyansk conurbanation comes under indirect artillery fires from Divisional Artillery and Russian Forces can then besiege the cities directly.
ukraine will desperately use depleted uranium in their offensive. I hope that Russia is ready to retaliate in kind to those who supplied them
They have made veiled threats at the British over the DU. I don't know what Russia will do in response. Given their reaction, I don't think it is an option for them to fo nothing.
I found it interesting the other day for the first time the spokesman for the MOD said that if Ukraine keeps attacking Russian territory, Russia may target the decision makers on Bankova. Now, I know we have heard this threat countless times from people like Medvedev, but I think this is the first time that the Russian military has stated this. I would like to know what they mean though. Everyday Ukraine shells Russian territory. Sends drones deep into Russia. Is that what they mean or is it the terrorist attacks on Russian terrority in Bryansk? They tried again the other day apparently but were stopped this time. A whole slew of officials were fired as a result of the failure to interdict them from the previous attack.
Certainly launching a thousands drones at Crimea will qualify.
Sharing with you this good analysis from a non military specialist.
USA is the central battlefield in the global total war
Even as the shooting war rages in Ukraine, the main show is in the United States
There can be little doubt that we are at war, except it's not quite like in the movies. This war is unlike any others about which we learned in school where two opposed forces meet in a battlefield and fight it out until one side prevails. That kind of war is happening in Ukraine, but that’s only a part of the conflict that's engulfed nearly all the rest of the world. It manifests in different and seemingly unrelated ways, but it is part of the same conflict.
Some analysts like to use the phrase "hybrid" or "asymmetrical" to describe it, by which they mean that in addition to shooting, the conflict has information, cultural, economic and financial dimensions. But I think that the war is still bigger than that: it is global and total - perhaps it should be called total global war. The “Trans Day of Vengeance” planned in Washington DC, is only the latest and weirdest part of it.
https://alexkrainer.substack.com/p/usa-is-the-central-battlefield-in
Did you see Alex's piece last week about the Russian hypersonics? Pretty interesting stuff...appreciate the link
"To have 2:1 advantage perhaps might still not be enough, seeing as how even with 5:1 previous advantage Russia was still not achieving massive break throughs. "
Except Russia wasn't trying for massive breakthroughs. They were trying to attrition Ukrainian forces.
Once the Ukraine forces manage to lose their third reconstituted army, then the Russians will make moves. Whether they will be massive or more incremental remains to be seen.
I think artillery production rates in 2024 and beyond are relevant only if one expects a war between NATO and Russia. Ukraine is going to be done by then. And if there is a war between NATO and Russia, Russia will not rely on its artillery. It will rely on its stand-off weapons to damage NATO drastically before NATO even gets onto the field. One missile takes out NATO Brussels HQ... A few more and NATO doesn't have any field HQ. A few more from the Russian Fleet and NATO doesn't have any carriers. A few more and NATO doesn't have any aircraft. Who cares about artillery and ground troops at that point?
As Scott Ritter and others have pointed out, NATO is a paper tiger. They don't have anything to match Russia and won't for at least several years, and that's assuming the EU economies even allow for military expansion, which is problematic. The EU is talking a big game, but there is zero evidence they can produce.
Ukies forces from the first destroyed army and some of the second one were(even if not nato officialy), probably the best 'Nato army' with Turkey at least in Europe.Don't forget they are slavs and many Russians even if they deny it. UK, France and Germany are a joke.Poles are weaker than ukies. UK is very good in false flags and terror attacks.Even better than CIA.
If you think through a NATO-Russian engagement, it would have a couple of stipulations: NATO wouldn't engage Russia in land warfare, because that's where Russia is the strongest. NATO would prefer a sea or air engagement, but Russia won't engage in that. Also, Russia would only engage if NATO was doing an incursion into what Russia percieves as it's own terf. So the most likely battlefield currently is Belarus or Ukraine.
Russia might have the capability to destroy NATO command centers in Western Europe or mainland US, but they almost certainly wouldn't do that. They would want attack the west where they are the weakest: their morale. Western countries are very casualty averse, they want to fight a low-casualty, shock and awe blitzkrieg. They don't want a high-casualty, drawn out conflict. Western publics want to see large gains against an inferior opponent. If Russia halts the momentum of the initial NATO push, and force the West into the same position Ukraine is, fighting trench-warfare with mass-artillery, western public support will wilt away, and they will have to withdraw, as they cannot justify casualties if territorial gains are not being achieved.
I agree that if the West engaged Russia on the ground, they would lose as badly as the Ukrainians. But in that event, Russia would also sustain casualties they would prefer to avoid. They can't avoid them in Ukraine because they need that territory for their security requirements.
However, in a war with the West, they would prefer to keep the West as far away as possible from the homeland and minimize casualties. Using standoff weapons from land and sea (including submarines as many of the new Russian subs are missile-heavy with Zircons and other types of missiles) would be optimum. They could interdict NATO forces and more importantly logistics before they even got to Ukraine or Belarus.
Andrei Martyanov makes the point that if your forces lose their behind-the-front command centers and logistics, you are going to lose. Russia can do this to NATO. Whether this has the effect of spurring NATO on is irrelevant - they won't have the capability to continue the war.
Russia is not interested in having a long, drawn-out war with the West just to rely on Western morale to falter. That is too expensive in terms of material, personnel and the economy. The West can do such things, as in Afghanistan, because their losses are low and their military-industrial complex profits from it and the servile American continues to pay taxes for it. Russia can't afford to do that in a major war. They don't want to suffer the sort of problems they had in WWII. That's why they developed their missile arsenal - to hit enemy command centers in the rear.