"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (3 Viewers)

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Admiral Beez said:
I wonder how well Russian command and control will handle the launch and early days of the UAF counteroffensive. Not well, is my prediction.
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Its a long border and a long defensive line. Its unlikely that there can be much strength in the forces defending it and if Ukraine can break through in one spot, the domino effect could easily kick in. Russia cannot have much in the form of mobile defences to reinforce area's under threat and without the ability to be flexible in their tactics, they are in serious trouble.

Which is a long way of saying that I totally agree with you. If Russia lose control in the first few days and Ukraine break through, Russian C&C issues will multiply significantly and we can all agree that being flexible and adapting to changing situations isn't a Russian strength.
 
How many times have we read "just kick in the door and the whole rotten house will collapse"? Not quite as frequently as "we'll be home by Christmas" but still. I agree with Glider. I don't expect Ukraine sweeping the whole lot out of Zaporizhzhia and Crimea after a week long blitz that also brings down the House of Putin. I am, however, hoping for it.
 
Glider said:
Its a long border and a long defensive line. Its unlikely that there can be much strength in the forces defending it and if Ukraine can break through in one spot, the domino effect could easily kick in. Russia cannot have much in the form of mobile defences to reinforce area's under threat and without the ability to be flexible in their tactics, they are in serious trouble.

Which is a long way of saying that I totally agree with you. If Russia lose control in the first few days and Ukraine break through, Russian C&C issues will multiply significantly and we can all agree that being flexible and adapting to changing situations isn't a Russian strength.
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Bear in mind though, Russia has curtailed offensive operations heavily in the past two weeks (most likely in anticipation of the counter-attack). The last week saw the fewest number of attacks by Russian forces since the start of the war (probably tied to the Wagner withdrawal as well).

Russian troop loss rates are down about a third since mid May and are half what they were in early April. Losses among tanks and IFVs are also down about a quarter. There's a lot fewer Russian troops on the front line at the moment, even with Wagner out of the picture. Once you get south of Donetsk, there's virtually zero Russian offensive action at the moment (barring artillery and air strikes).

Russia seems to be giving itself some breathing space to put in place some reaction forces. There are reports of one grouping based to the west of Mariupol, and another force east of Donetsk. Potentially a third around Melitopol too.

Russia got caught with their pants down at Kharkiv in 2022, allowing exploitation by (mostly) light forces, and don't want a repeat of that in 2023. Which I suspect we won't get anyway, as that was all the UAF really had to go on the offensive with last year. But, Russia is learning and they're not actually dumb (they're just forced to work inside a system that makes it look like they're dumb).

Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to prepare the ground for its counter-offensive, mostly by hitting Russian artillery and ammo/fuel dumps. Russian tube and MLRS losses skyrocketed in May - Ukraine claims to have killed almost 600 artillery systems in the last 30 days, almost double the losses in April and triple the losses from the first few months of the year.
 
The picture I'm seeing from what I've been reading, is Ukraine has been probing and feinting all along Russia's lines recently.

This activity, along with the much touted offensive, is putting Russia off balance, as they are hard pressed to anticipate when and where Ukraine will strike.

Bakhmut was a brilliant move, as it forced Russia to pull in reserves from all cross their lines to maintain strength.

This, in turn, created a weakened line elsewhere that would force Russia to try and reinforce if pressure were quickly applied by Ukraine.
 
Jabberwocky said:
Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to prepare the ground for its counter-offensive, mostly by hitting Russian artillery and ammo/fuel dumps. Russian tube and MLRS losses skyrocketed in May - Ukraine claims to have killed almost 600 artillery systems in the last 30 days, almost double the losses in April and triple the losses from the first few months of the year.
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Yep, this is something that several of us have been observing/commenting. If half of Ukrainian claims regarding artillery are true, Russia will be in trouble sooner or later.
And if it's true that Russia is losing so many artillery systems, there is no hurry to start the offensive while this trend continues.
I'm wondering what is the reason. Western counterbatery systems? Good intelligence? Drones?
 
RogerdeLluria said:
Former Commanding General USArmyEurope


View: https://twitter.com/general_ben/status/1663837712883875840
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"From what I have seen of our Russian friends and Allies during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness. For that reason the old doctrine of a balance of power is unsound."
winstonchurchill.org

The Sinews of Peace ('Iron Curtain Speech')

March 5, 1946 Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri Listen to the full speech from the BBC Archives This speech may be regarded as the most important Churchill delivered as Leader of the Opposition (1945-1951). It contains certain phrases- “the special relationship,” “the sinews of peace ” –...
winstonchurchill.org winstonchurchill.org
 
RogerdeLluria said:
Yep, this is something that several of us have been observing/commenting. If half of Ukrainian claims regarding artillery are true, Russia will be in trouble sooner or later.
And if it's true that Russia is losing so many artillery systems, there is no hurry to start the offensive while this trend continues.
I'm wondering what is the reason. Western counterbatery systems? Good intelligence? Drones?
Click to expand...

Combination of a lot of things.

The big one is a change in Ukrainian targeting priorities. There's been a focus on finding and knocking out heavy mortars and mobile tube artillery.

Then there is shifting Russian operational patterns. Russia changed they way its artillery was operating around March/April. It pulled a lot of guns further back from the front lines and time has been needed to figure out where they were and new operating patterns.

Also, the phasing out of Soviet-era 122mm systems in favour of NATO 105mm and 155mm systems has helped. The 155 in particular out-ranges most Russian systems (don't let the on paper numbers mislead you), giving Ukrainian gunners the confidence to go after similar Russian towed systems.

Plus, there's been the delivery of some Western counter-battery radars (and Russia losing a number of counter-battery radars of its own).

I think another major factor is that Ukraine has slowly chipped away at Russia's firepower advantage. Russian system and fire volume superiority has been whittled down via losses and attrition through use, as well as it's own ammunition shortages (reportedly Russia has fired more than 25 million shells in the last 15 months). Ukraine still has fewer systems and less ammunition, but both have a quality advantage. That means its on much more even terms in artillery than it was even six or seven months ago.
 
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Denniss said:
I would not rule out photoshopping here, the crack lines look too straight. I'd expect much more zigzag in them
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I wouldn't rule it out either. In particular this area looks weird.
FxhrCTnWAAArzlH.jpg


That said, corrosion induced cracking shows as straight vertical uniform cracks. And sometimes splitting cracks can also form such a pattern.
concrete-column-cracks.jpg


Not to mention that Crimea bridge already has known issues.
Russia's Crimea Bridge Could Collapse Anytime
 
Ascent said:

View: https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1664118448773791744?t=Zn1vNAyQHJZGDZW5h3fBTQ&s=19

This is an interesting thread, the Ukrainians are targeting a particular road supply a region. Seems to be similar to Kherson where they made in untenable to maintain a force big enough to conduct a credible defence. Obviously there are big differences but I still found it interesting.
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Since some time I notice that when an ukrainian drone is about to hit a russian vehicle that seems to be in an organized position, it look like some interferences.

Is Rusia employing antidrone electronic measures or is just static interferences?
 
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