"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (4 Viewers)

[Thumpalumpacus]

Your right, its a race to repair the equipment and the men, retrain learning the lessons of the recent conflict and reconstitute the units. On this I am a little hopeful as the vast majority of the people in Ukraine want to defend their homeland, and the majority of the Russian forces (and their allies) don't want to be there

Maybe, just maybe this is one where the Ukraine have a slight advantage. The average quality of the new equipment Ukraine is getting is at least as good and often better than what they had originally. Whereas the average quality of the equipment the Russian forces are getting is worse than they originally had. Russia still has a very significant numerical advantage, but that advantage seems to be getting slowly eroded

Totally agree. It's something that I have been banging on about since the start of this conflict.

I kept these together as in Training and Planning, these are two areas where the Ukraine does seem to have a firm advantage. If they had fought the way they had been trained prior to 2014 they this conflict could easily have been over by now. We have seen ordinary civilian workers manning Tanks and other complex weapons with aplomb and self evident success.
Russian planning at both strategic and tactical levels has been shocking, and training would need a serious amount of rebuilding from the ground up.
Ukraine worked hard from 2014 on listening to US, Canadian and UK advisors and made a fundamental shift in their planning and training. Who are Russian going to turn to for advice and would they listen anyway?

If the Ukrainians can hold out until the autumn rasputsitsa sets in, they should be okay. I suspect that's exactly why the Russians are mounting a full-court press right now. British intel is reporting that the Russians are scraping up reserves from around the country to deploy in support of capitalizing on the "success" of the capture of the twin cities.

 

[GTX]

Russia accused of 21,920 war crimes . . . and counting

Ukraine’s chief prosecutor smoothes out the document she has on the table before her which lays out the terrible count of Russian war crimes in black and white.

www.thetimes.co.uk

 

[wlewisiii]

 

[SaparotRob]

Has it been corroborated?

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Let us hope this is true.

 

[RogerdeLluria]

For those who can access The Times

Ukraine has one million ready for fightback to recapture south

Ukraine is massing a million-strong fighting force equipped with western weapons to recover its southern territory from Russia, the nation’s defence minister h

www.thetimes.co.uk

Seems like Ukrinians favor retaking the south over the Donbas

 

[RogerdeLluria]

ISW paragraph on the use of S-300 on the ground to ground role.

Institute for the Study of War

Russian forces are in the midst of a theater-wide operational pause in Ukraine. This operational pause has been largely characterized by Russian troops regrouping to rest, refit, and reconstitute; heavy artillery fire in critical areas to set conditions

www.understandingwar.org

Ukraine's Southern Operational Command notably stated that Russian forces conducted a massive missile strike with S-300 anti-aircraft missiles on ground targets in Mykolaiv and Kherson Oblasts.[26] The use of anti-aircraft missiles in such a manner is inefficient, as such missiles carry small payloads and are optimized for destroying fragile aircraft in flight rather than ground targets. The reported Russian use of S-300 missiles in a ground attack role is also notable because of reports and indications that the Russians are having difficulty defending against Ukrainian manned air operations and missile strikes in the Southern Axis area. The decision to use S-300 missiles in this role in these circumstances may indicate that Russia is running out of surface-to-surface missiles or that it is running low on parts needed for the missiles' air-to-air guidance or communications systems.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

For those who can access The Times

Ukraine has one million ready for fightback to recapture south

Ukraine is massing a million-strong fighting force equipped with western weapons to recover its southern territory from Russia, the nation’s defence minister h

www.thetimes.co.uk

Seems like Ukrinians favor retaking the south over the Donbas

Retaking the south makes some sense. While the eastern part of the country does indeed contain much industry, the south contains the ports, and that's where the money will come into the country from agri-sales.

 

[ThomasP]

re "Seems like Ukrainians favor retaking the south over the Donbas"

Ukraine can not 'safely' advance large forces into the Donbas until their southern flank is secure, due to having to fight on multiple fronts and the dangers of being cut-off in a similar manner to what potentially could have happened at Sievierodonetsk/Lysychansk. The southern/coastal regions are farther from Russia and Belarus, and so will have less effective opposition from Russian air power. Also, it will be easier to cut the supply lines to the RF forces, and put the RF forces in danger of being cut-off. Taking back the coastal areas will allow greater interdiction opportunities against RF naval operations, and against logistics via Crimea.

Add to this the fact that the Crimean populace appears to be a very unwilling participant in the war . . .

edit: Plus what Thumpalumpacus just posted.

 

[wlewisiii]

 

[Dimlee]

This is the Germany I respect.

 

[Glider]

Hard to disagree with anything he said.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Had to disagree with anything he said.

Really? All of it? What do you disagree with specifically?

 

[Glider]

Really? All of it? What do you disagree with specifically?

Major Typo now corrected

Had should have been Hard

 

[GTX]

Vladimir Putin's stooges threaten to reclaim Alaska from US

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Vladimir Putin's stooges threaten to reclaim Alaska from US

Alaskans by themselves could likely handle it with an assist from the USAF. They're no folk to be messing with ... and they're used to dealing with grouchy bears.

 

[GTX]

Putin's revised theory of victory in Ukraine is starting to become clear

Throughout Putin's war against Ukraine, his primary objective has not shifted. What has evolved since February 24 has been the ways and means he has used to achieve it, writes Mick Ryan.

www.abc.net.au

 

[GrauGeist]

Dear Mr. Putin, regarding reclaiming territory, the Japanese would like to have a word with you...

 

[SaparotRob]

Vladimir Putin's stooges threaten to reclaim Alaska from US

It took them more than three months to cross a river against a "fictitious" country that's begging for ammo.
They lost 3 large ships in a land war.
Their aircraft carrier was put out of commission by its own dry dock.
How they gonna' cross the Bering Straight against unusually heavily armed (even for America) Americans?

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

It took them more than three months to cross a river against a "fictitious" country that's begging for ammo.
They lost 3 large ships in a land war.
Their aircraft carrier was put out of commission by its own dry dock.
How they gonna' cross the Bering Straight against unusually heavily armed (even for America) Americans?

The last time they managed that was fourteen thousand years ago ... and Alaska was unpopulated then.