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Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine


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10 minutes ago, bickster said:

Ukraine seemingly attacked Sevastopol Harbour with marine drones again last night. All reports are from Russian sources

 

'No hits' according to Russian media, except for satellite footage showing a burned out corvette (?) this morning?

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Just now, magnkarl said:

'No hits' according to Russian media, except for satellite footage showing a burned out corvette (?) this morning?

Stories I'm reading are saying it's a logistics vessel but there's absolutely nothing concrete about what was hit, but something was definitely hit

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Ukrainian official announces season of explosions in Crimea

Natalia Humeniuk, Head of the Joint Press Centre for Operational Command Pivden (South), advised Russians who are used to living and vacationing in annexed Crimea to get used to air-raid warnings and prepare for the explosion season.

Source: Natalia Humeniuk on air during the national joint 24/7 newscast

Details: Humeniuk said that this year's warm season in Crimea has been declared "the season of explosions, not just a resort".

As she states, the occupiers "need to get used" to the sounds of air-raid warnings on the peninsula.

Commenting on the construction of trenches on the sandy beaches in the western part of Crimea, Humeniuk said: "I think they will not go to the beaches. They have already played in the sand there. Their games will end there".

Ukrainian Pravda

Top trolling if nothing else, though I suspect there may be a grain of truth in it

 

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It appears that the bridgehead across the Dnipro at Kherson is over 20km wide. I'm not so sure that this is just another probe. UA apparently using it to ferry SOF and sabotage groups across to get behind the lines further East.

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Answering The Call: Heavy Weaponry Supplied To Ukraine

The list of modern MBTs being pledged and delivered is growing rapidly. The flags of the countries don't follow through, but honourable mentions go to Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Denmark who are donating anywhere between 10-30% of their MBTs to Ukraine.

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Tanks (760+, of which ~575 delivered and 182 pledged)


 8 Leopard 2A4s [March 2023]
 8 Leopard 2A4s [March 2023]
 18 Leopard 2A6s [March 2023]
 6 Leopard 2A6s [Delivered from March 2023 onwards]
United Kingdom 14 Challenger 2s [Delivered from March 2023 onwards]
 60 PT-91s [Delivered from April 2023 onwards]
 100+ Leopard 1A5s [To be delivered] (Purchased from Germany for delivery to Ukraine)
 10 Leopard 2A4s [To be delivered]
 14 Leopard 2A4s [To be delivered] (Purchased from Germany for delivery to Ukraine)
 5 ''Leopard 2A4s or Leopard 2A6HELs'' [To be delivered]
 10 Strv 122s [To be delivered]
 31 M1A1 Abrams' [To be delivered]
 

 

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Silence along Ukraine’s southern front fuels speculation over counteroffensive


Miles of empty fields where you might expect a build-up of armor. Tank tracks that emerge in the mud from nowhere, and lead there too. Distant artillery duels that locals say peak and ebb.

The silence is beginning to be telling. Ukraine has made extraordinary efforts to conceal the start of its strategically vital counteroffensive. Like with its fast and smart push around Izyum and Kharkiv in the late summer last year, we may only learn of success once it has been conclusively achieved.[...]

[...]Over the past 10 days, Ukraine has been noticeably silent about the whole Zaporizhzhia area where its counteroffensive is largely expected. Only there can its military separate the occupied peninsula of Crimea from occupied territory in eastern Ukraine and the Russian mainland.[...]

[...]Gains for Ukrainian forces in Zaporizhzhia, however, could strike a more potent blow to Russia’s wider campaign. It is the land corridor from occupied Donbas to occupied Crimea – the piece of territory seized by Russia last year that is in the long term the most useful, linking by land a peninsula annexed in 2014 with the Russian mainland. Losing this would greatly imperil Russia’s military in Crimea and split its occupation in two. It would also betray the strategic incompetence of its military, if they were unable to prevent this most glaringly obvious of Ukrainian ambitions.[...]

CNN

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The sensible counter attack plan might be to cut off the land bridge to Crimea and then starve it of resources. Keep trying to bomb the Kerch Bridge and then Crimea becomes a resourcing nightmare for the Russians. 

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10 minutes ago, villa89 said:

The sensible counter attack plan might be to cut off the land bridge to Crimea and then starve it of resources. Keep trying to bomb the Kerch Bridge and then Crimea becomes a resourcing nightmare for the Russians. 

Problem with that is resupplying the left bank of the Dnipro. Best they can achieve is disruption to the supply lines with Special Forces I think.

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29 minutes ago, villa89 said:

The sensible counter attack plan might be to cut off the land bridge to Crimea and then starve it of resources. Keep trying to bomb the Kerch Bridge and then Crimea becomes a resourcing nightmare for the Russians. 

Ukraine has been testing their home-made Hrim-2 system on targets close to the Kerch bridge from three different launch positions for a while now. They'll likely swarm the area with drones and then fire a couple of missiles at the bridge once there's enough chaos everywhere else. Transitioning from defense to offense will cause havoc inside the Russian intelligence apparatus either way.

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I still think the main counter(when it happens will be towards Melitopol. For Ukraine to have any chance of success in a counter offensive they will need to split Russian forces and cut off supplies in the South. The eastern front is bogged down around the Donbas with minimal Russian gains which suggests Ukraine are happy to tie them up here for as long as possible whilst they probe elsewhere. I think anything across the Dniper is a ruse to pull Russians in and away from the centre of the Southern defence lines. 

The open land in the South ensures much more flexibility in movement, something an attack from Kherson doesn't allow.   

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1 hour ago, avfc1982am said:

I still think the main counter(when it happens will be towards Melitopol. For Ukraine to have any chance of success in a counter offensive they will need to split Russian forces and cut off supplies in the South. The eastern front is bogged down around the Donbas with minimal Russian gains which suggests Ukraine are happy to tie them up here for as long as possible whilst they probe elsewhere. I think anything across the Dniper is a ruse to pull Russians in and away from the centre of the Southern defence lines. 

The open land in the South ensures much more flexibility in movement, something an attack from Kherson doesn't allow.   

Though you say that and...

I still think your assessment is the correct one though. I just think the Kherson beachhead may just be a little bit more than a ruse. It's not going to be a main front for obvious reasons but if they can establish defence lines it will serve as a good base from which to make Special Ops incursions behind the lines aimed at key infrastructures. Any disruption to that supply line to Crimea will be a massive pain in the arse for RUssia.

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5 minutes ago, bickster said:

Though you say that and...

I still think your assessment is the correct one though. I just think the Kherson beachhead may just be a little bit more than a ruse. It's not going to be a main front for obvious reasons but if they can establish defence lines it will serve as a good base from which to make Special Ops incursions behind the lines aimed at key infrastructures. Any disruption to that supply line to Crimea will be a massive pain in the arse for RUssia.

This to me is the start of pulling Russians to the South West. It's virtually a delta down there so any assault I believe will need to be supported by a lot of amphibious troops. Not something you'd associate Ukraine with. Without doubt if the attack comes from Zaphorizhia then Ukraine will get some sort of secondary advance from Kherson but I just don't see any advance coming from there without serious bottlenecking. 

When the counter comes I think it will need to be swift similar to the Germans advance during WW2 and the Russian counter later on. Slow movement will just not work with so much ground to cover imo. 

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9 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Getting his excuses in early. Sounds promising.

Its a bit more complicated than that. Prigozhin has been sidelined for supplies by the regular army. His Wagner troops and the regular army were even rumoured to have had a street battle against each other day over this (yeah I know the irony of wasting bullets on Rus vs Rus fight). Firstly, this is a change in tune because he's now saying that the regular army also have little ammo. This appears to be a complete change of tune, so something has happened, the blame has now gone from The Army to The Kremlin. He's saying there should be warehouses full of ammo and maybe there should be but also its highly likely there may not be. He's getting closer to having a pop at Putin but he isn't there yet because his Wagner troops are also behind the current Sudan situation and the lust for gold. Now some will tell you that itsn Putin that wants the gold but it might just be Wagner, like all the diamond mines they run in Africa too.

It really is quite complicated trying to understand what is actually going on behind the lines and I don't think anyone really knows

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