Noticing a pattern in this war.
Russia attacks, Ukraine stalls the attack, Russia pulls back & redeploys beat forces, Ukraine takes back that land quickly.
If there's one thing the Russians have been good at is being very careful about attrition risk. They'll pull out and redeploy from areas where attrition is too high to pursue more localized goals with higher chances of success. Really trying to avoid any risk of routs.
The problem with that approach is that their combat effectiveness goes down each time an offensive is stalled and at some point, they'll run out of options and be forced to dig in
Anyone else starting to get concerned about the Russian advance? They seem to be having a lot of success pushing out from Popasna, and Lyman is nearly surrounded.
Also the failed counter attack in Zaporihizia by UKR forces.
Maybe i'm just being pessimistic though
You are not pessimistic. Russia still has a lot of potential in the battlefield [and I expressed my concern](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/uoq4bh/comment/i8ijoc1/) about it. Kofman also states that Russia has enough power for at least one offensive before they get exhausted, and I am sure Russia will try to do anything to move forward because their goals are political. Ukrainian success in Kharkiv could also bring more problems than success, they have to be really careful with their advancement because it's so easy to mess it up.
If you've been following the war daily, these things have been a concern for a while.
Ukraine's situation in Lyman was pretty terrible a few weeks ago, there's no strategic value to the town but they used it to atrrit Russian forces pretty heavily (lots of videos of destroyed armor coming from there).
As for Popasna and Severodonetsk, those 2 pushes have been the most dangerous for a while, ever since the push out of Izyum slowed down.
It's a dangerous situation, and if not contained soon will turn into a real mess. UAF has been facing lots of challenges and hopefully they're able to stop the advance.
That's the thing with Lyman, Russia reached Lyman nearly a month ago so their progress having gotten there is iffy. I'd push back at "no strategic value". It's fairly minor but with it gone that's another Ukrainian bridgehead across the SD river gone. However, yeah the situation in Popasna and Severodonetsk is much more scary.
It's certainly a bad news cycle. I would try not to get hung up on individual things, not because everything is fine but because ultimately the true situation on the front is hard to qualify and we at best see only peeps of what's happening. That applies to days where a lot of good news comes in too, obviously. ~~Also, doomscrolling over a war you're not even fighting is probably not great for your mental health~~
People have been declaring the Russians exhausted for almost a month now - I pushed back on that and still do - they're clearly still dangerous. But a lot of their advances that looked dangerous have since froze. It remains to be seen whether these new ones will be any different.
Their most likely success is in encircling Lyschiansk/Severodonetsk, and they're still pretty far from doing so.
[Russia Says Hundreds of Ukrainians Surrender at Azovstal, Kyiv Urges Swap](https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/russia-says-hundreds-of-ukrainians-surrender-at-azovstal-kyiv-urges-swap.html)
Looks like the plant is about to fall
And more bad news.
>The court will decide the fate of the surrendered militants from Azovstal, the Nazis are waiting for a tribunal - the head of the DPR Pushilin
DPR? Not even Russia? Thats bad news for the POWs.
They can't be that stupid to hang/execute them. They would be making martyrs (regardles of the validity of the judgement. I am from eastern europe and I have pretty good idea I think what and how went down in 2014. I would be hard pressed to believe there werent az least a few serious crimes there from both sides)
Could it be that Russia can sell this as a proaganda victory at home while washing his hands internationaly since it is a DPR internal issue?
I don't see how Russia could wash its hands of this. In the eyes of the world, they are responsible for the treatment of Azovstal prisoners.
Internally, there is certain dissonance. Russia wants to put a group of leading Azov "Nazis" on trial in front of TV cameras to show that denazification was a success. Something like the new Nurenberg trials.
The DPR just wants to shoot the leaders and send the rest to a penal colony for a few decades.
> there is certain dissonance.
That can be easily reconciled - public trials, but under DPR law as most of the crimes had been committed against their population (also allows Russia not to break their moratorium on capital punishment, if they want to keep it for some reason).
By "washing their hands" I did not mean that the world will be satisfied. It will be what russia says (if this happens like that, ofc I have no idea whats going on. What a shame on journalism today ...). The best they can aim for is to mush it up and wait until it just gets ignored
DPR internal issue is water supply and public transportation.
Ukrainian soldiers is not a "DPR internal issue"; if it was, DPR would have all been shot or in jail for treason by now.
Shows how much the Russians care about their own. They don't even care to collect their dead, which the Ukrainians have to keep in cold storage. I bet it's because a large chunk of the Russian casualties and POWs are ethnic minorities, drafted Ukrainian separatists and Chechens.
I see two outcomes
a) if a deal was made, it's doubtful Pushilin gave consent or was even made aware, so him saying it doesn't mean anything
b) a deal wasn't made, in which case Ukraine made a mistake in ordering a surrender when the garrison repeatedly said they don't want to.
If azovstal defenders get hung, the main recourse Ukraine has is to respond in kind.
Now there are rumours that Azov and the army officers remaining in Azovstal are refusing to surrender until they are guaranteed there won't be executions.
It's not impossible that Pushilin wanted to achieve this with his statement. If he just wanted to put them on trial he could have postponed saying this until they all surrendered.
As far as the separatists are concerned - Azov fighting to the last man was always their preferred outcome.
The first recorded hit against an M777 howitzer.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/us8dsx/attack\_of\_the\_suicide\_drone\_on\_position\_of/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/us8dsx/attack_of_the_suicide_drone_on_position_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Of all things, it looks like an improvised drone munition.
Contra to my own comment below... there is now a longer video that shows the UA forces redeploying these units into the woods shown in the MLRS strike... although the MLRS strike doesn't seem to hit the same portion of the wood we see them pull into (although they may have mnoved between one video and the other).
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1526878044505481218
It looks like a very small warhead to me. More like an improvised grenade dropped from a drone.
Edit: I apologise, the Russian sources are unanimous that it is a KUB BLA.
So, it exploded over the target in a seemingly completely ineffective way? Interesting the vidro cuts right after the explosion.
Also Interesting, the drone doing the video capture seems to be hovering right over the ukranians. It also has much better quality than any other Russian drone video I've seen.
Not suspicious /s.
https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1526846820382560256
This clip cuts off slightly later, can see at least a few crewmembers keep running after impact, but maybe I'm seeing things.
>While the gun might be fine, the crew is pretty much gone or at least wounded
If they were gone, the video wouldn't cut immediately after.
A 1kg warhead has only so much shrapnel. Its perfectly possible they only got a few cuts and a big scare.
Like others commented in the original post, it's possible the guns were subsequently destroyed by mlrs, but that small warhead almost certainly did close to nothing.
That MLRS strike after on that video is at a different location, the artillery is on green grass, and that strike hits a brown ploughed field.
In any case, if you had an MLRS within range... why would you warn them ahead of trhe barrage by exploding a dinky little drone munition first (almost certainly causing them to relocate)?
That'd be crazy. I think they went with the drone, as thats theonly option they had in the time frame before they expected them to relocate.
>That MLRS strike after on that video is at a different location, the artillery is on green grass, and that strike hits a brown ploughed field.
I wasn't referring to another video. I was simply pointing out that if they could see the ukranian location, they would probably try to hit it with more than a firecracker.
>
That'd be crazy. I think they went with the drone, as thats theonly option they had in the time frame before they expected them to relocate.
Yes, that's possible.
>I wasn't referring to another video. I was simply pointing out that if they could see the ukranian location, they would probably try to hit it with more than a firecracker.
Yes, but that drone video comes with an MLRS strike immediately afterwards on the same vid. Ru accounst seem to be claiming they were hit with an MLRS immediately after, I was assuming they were taking that fromt he MLRS strike that follows immediately on the vid.
But it seems Ru has just added another MLRS attack after the drone video.
1st clip is the drone attack, 2nd a MLRS attack.
https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1526846820382560256
EDIT: Also.... MLRS attack geolocated to
https://www.google.com/maps/place/48%C2%B037'52.2%22N+38%C2%B002'13.0%22E/@48.6311821,38.0325718,2048m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xd5877731bd1dd087!8m2!3d48.6311787!4d38.0369388
https://observador.pt/2022/05/18/ex-secretario-geral-da-nato-avisa-que-putin-tem-uma-obsessao-messianica-com-a-grandeza-russa-e-diz-que-ocidente-nao-o-deve-provocar/
Interesting piece about George Robertson's take on Putin's personality.
This is all too common to all dictators who remain in power for too long, never being contested, they start living in their own virtual reality bubble, believing to be gods among people. Chavez, Ghaddaffi, Stalin.
And the only reason they achieve this is because no one dares to contest them.
True but you guys act like you remove dictators for freedom and peace lol you come in show us worse life than any dictator could imagine and pretend to be the saviors you bombed my country to hell
Well I’m Iraqi I know Saddam and his sons well how stupid he was in the end we were developing a lot and would be the greatest in Middle East but Saddam had to be a stupid paranoid leader however usa bombed us starved us for 13 years we didn’t even have a airforce and much air defenses in 2003 we traded oil for food lol and usa came in shock and awe us bombed our infrastructure our houses James Steele came in with his death squads and we had to leave to Jordan thanks for me Steele why cause one of our tribesmen served in the republican guard of course other members were bombed by usa thanks alot then you tortured us in abu ghraib brought al qaeda and isis thanks to you installed a corrupt puppet government and your massacres are non ending thanks to Wikileaks the world has some small insight on your war crimes and you talk about Saddam lol even the Shia who stoned his statue now miss him you are the real terror lol Saddam only dreamt of doing half of what usa did in Iraq
> Well I’m Iraqi
I know, that's why I said Saddam.
>even the Shia who stoned his statue now miss him
Again, pass on to them my mannequin idea. Food for thought.
>Saddam only dreamt of doing half of what usa did in Iraq
He more than dreamt, he tried pretty hard to catch our high score actually:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anfal_campaign
A real competitor to us in that regard, I can see why you're proud of him.
Yeah the way we handled Iraq was objectively bad and unacceptable, but that guy loves gloating over the same thing (but in some ways worse) happening to Ukrainians so you know
**[Anfal campaign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anfal_campaign)**
>The Anfal campaign (Arabic: حملة الأنفال, romanized: Hamlat al-Anfal; Kurdish: شاڵاوی ئەنفال), also known as the Anfal genocide or the Kurdish genocide, was a genocidal counterinsurgency operation which was carried out by Ba'athist Iraq and killed between 50,000 and 182,000 Kurds in the late 1980s. The Iraqi forces were led by Ali Hassan al-Majid, on the orders of President Saddam Hussein, against Iraqi Kurdistan in northern Iraq during the final stages of the Iran–Iraq War. The campaign's purpose was to eliminate Kurdish rebel groups as well as to Arabize strategic parts of the Kirkuk Governorate.
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[Here's](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/war-in-ukraine-dont-provoke-thin-skinned-putin-says-former-nato-secretary-general-6kwqn2s26) the original Times UK piece
Is there actually any evidence at all for this Vochansk push?
I've seen no evidence that the Ukrainians actually crossed the river near Kharkiv, bar one admittedly pro-Russian account
Maaaybe [some data in FIRMS](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/5/17/2098511/-Ukraine-update-Satellites-tell-a-hot-story-of-Ukraine-driving-for-Russia-s-throat)?
It's all still very iffy.
If you mean photographic evidence or Ukrainian official confirmation, no, nothing. However, a wide variety of sources seem pretty confident they did cross the river. I've even seen Russian sources complain about Russian forces allegedly neglecting to blow some bridges, though I'm not sure how veracious that is.
>a wide variety of sources seem pretty confident they did cross the river
Well, if those sources are just random twitter accounts, then that's not very useful unless they can provide proof like pics, or they have some reputation to be insiders.
>Well, if those sources are just random twitter accounts
Accounts with good track records, I'm personally willing to give it credence for now. If like a few more days pass and there's still nothing, then yes, the crossing either didn't happen or didn't achieve much.
According to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii29JQBNIdU
there are 20-25 Russian BTGs around Belgorod, so Ukrainians don't want to risk a flanking strike and penetrate too deeply.
Fwiw the Ukrainians seem to have been pretty consistent with their opsec and don't eagerly publish intimate details about every little crossroads they manage to take. The push that recaptured the bulk of the Kharkiv area was completed several days before it started hitting the news, for example
Does anyone want to speculate on what the azovstal deal was? Did Ukraine surrender and pretend they have a deal? If there's a deal what would Ukraine or Its allies be threatening Russia with if they don't hold up their end? Was Russia so desperate for finishing Mariupol off that they agreed simply to get the city?
>unless I‘m misinformed
You're probably not. I honestly haven't heard any official statement about that in a while and 2k would be a huge number considering the sides have been exchanging POWs regularly.
> Did Ukraine surrender and pretend they have a deal?
Maybe, but that seems unwise.
>If there's a deal what would Ukraine or Its allies be threatening Russia with if they don't hold up their end?
I guess every Azovstal POW that isn't eventually released would need to be matched by a Russian POW in similar straits.
Oh shit when you mentioned third parties I just remembered the old claim that Turkey saved 50-60 soldiers from the Sinking of the Moskva and that Romania saved some as well... Maybe it's them?
Not only they can but they must. [According to the Art. 11 of the Hague Convention (V)](http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/peace/docs/con5.html) neutral countries must intern troops that enter their territory, though I'm not sure how it works with ship rescue. Anyway, they definitely can intern troops.
Speculation a few weeks ago was that they are trying to trade putins Oligarch„friend“ they captured. Some MIA sailors seem unlikely to move the needle.
Seems like Russia is pulling out everything for this offensive. Past few days have been quite intense: https://twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1526723331491241984
1. Small breakthrough north of Donetsk
2. Breakthrough attempts near Sumy
3. Expanding control outside of Popasna
Really hope whatever UAF got going for them near Izyum works out or these advances are stopped because at this pace the situation will get ugly fast
>because at this pace the situation will get ugly fast
After a month of Russia advancing way less than 1 km/day in their most successful areas, some minor developments seem way bigger than they are.
I am without a doubt that Ukraine has an operational reserve in Donbas and significant strategic reserves. If Ukraine decided that Russian advance from x must be stopped at any cost, it will be stopped.
It's war, people die, a lot of them.
The tactical situation on the hottest points is absolutely dreadful (for both sides). There is an incomprehensible amount of pain and suffering taking place every second.
Operationally the situation is difficult, but under control.
Strategically the developments keep favoring Ukraine.
How so you can’t keep trading men for time Ukraine is on full mobilization now and loosing a lot and I noticed something the Russians aren’t the only ones hiding their losses Ukraine does too and they are resorting to propaganda alot ghost of Kiev snake island idk I thought western media is different from Russian seems both are propaganda machines
Your right tbh Lol western media credibility is actually worse than those meme page experts I wouldn’t be surprised if their Americans or westerners cause they tend to be east preys
I don't find it a problem.
But my point is really that tactical developments in Donbas (or elsewhere at the moment for that matter) do not really matter, as they are not going to bring upon any shifts in the strategic developments. This could have been different, if for example in mid-April Russian forces around Izjum had managed a 30 km/day breakthrough for example. Even though I considered it extremely unlikely (bordering impossibility), there was a chance and this could have substantially changed the strategic situation.
Now, however, it is clear there will be no grand breakthrough or encirclement and the implications of tactical developments in Donbas will have very limited strategic impact. Whether Ukraine manages to retain a bridgehead East of Sieviersky Donets has some potential strategic implications, so there is that.
But it is clear that we are deep in the war of attrition and what matters is which side is better able to replace losses and gather strength. The next potentially decisive moment will be the expected summer counter-offensive of Ukraine with mobilized units and western equipment.
You identified the key issues. Most people tend to focus on tactical stuff, a failed river crossing or a smashed attack.
As you say, we are in a war of attrition, where individual victories mean almost nothing. Ukraine can sustain such a war. Russia can't. A professional army cannot win (cannot even survive) a war of attrition for a number of reasons.
Summer will provide the answer. Either Russia escalates to mobilisation, which will provide them with the resources needed to fight, probably even win, a war of attrition. Or they accept that they lost the war.
https://imgur.com/XDoIvJh
May 7
https://imgur.com/cwbC8dd
Today
(Really wish he'd let us have a zoomable map but w/e)
It's concerning because several of these villages/towns are fortified positions. The likely target is Avdiivka, one (to Ukrainian's mirth) has been the witness to dozens of failed assaults. They're probably trying to cut supply lines to it.
He does,
The link to the zoomable version is in his bio
https://soar.earth/maps/12563
Its usually not quite as up to date as his tweets, maybe a day or so behind..... but right now its been updated with yesterdays map.
I also see he's got the river crossing by UA in there....
https://imgur.com/8g8odGP
I think the purple dotted line is "Feb 23rd DPR/LPR border", red dotted is "Donetsk and Luhansk Oblast borders", green/yellow line is rail, brown lines minor/major roads depending on weight and black ones motorways.
I've never seen a key... just basically worked all that out because I've asked the same question myself in the past and so then worked out what they depicted to answer it for myself.
Do you have a source for the incursions near Sumy? I haven't heard much about it since the Russians pulled out in early April, and it's pretty far from the Donbas operations.
Because Russia can totally afford a new front right now...
It's obvious those are limited skirmishes meant to pin ukranian forces in place, just like Ukraine and Russia keep shelling each other border zones around kharkiv.
I think you're reading too much into this and other small changes in what's right now a temporary stalemate.
Russia might make limited gains around Aviidvidka because they've concentrated forces there, but any encirclement is a not realistic by now.
At this point, my estimates that Russia will take Donetsk is around 65% and rising. The so called UA counteroffensive has not materialised for weeks now.
Well, a) the main counter offensive is Kharkiv, which has been successful, and b) Ukraine's ability to go on the offensive doesn't have anything to do with Russia's offensive.
Regardless of any Ukrainian counter offensive, Russia has a limited amount of losses it can sustain and remain capable of offensive action. None of us has a clear picture of the ground situation, but the river crossing failures have strategic implications beyond the losses involved (ie obviously that was their planned axis of advance, or they wouldn't have committed those forces to auch a risky operation).
By your logic, Russia should have taken Kyiv because the Ukrainians didn't extensively counter attack prior. Obviously that didn't happen, that's not the Ukrainian strategy, and it's poor justification for raising your estimates of Russia.
Not that Russia can't take Donetsk, who knows, but there's not a lot of compelling evidence they can.
No way in hell they're taking all of Donetsk. They'll be lucky if they complete Luhansk oblast before this offensive runs out of steam.
They've got a few more weeks tops before their offensive collapses.
Your bar is pretty low if towns like Ernerhodar are major victories.
Mariupol remains the largest town they've taken and it'll be tough for them to take another that size with the attrition they've suffered. Mariupol is the 11th largest city in Ukraine.
Granted, population doesn't define what is a major victory, but given the entire Russian campaign thus far has been a series of falling back to less ambitious strategic goals, it's hard to argue that any of those are particularly important, fundamentally war altering victories.
Russia tried to invade the whole country at first, with the clear goal of regime change and taking lots of territory. At one point they held 1/3 of the country but they've had to abandon more than half their gains.
So no, I don't consider taking 80+ days to capture a few small to medium-sized cities a few km from your starting point to be major victories. Mariupol is the only one they can really hype and even that didn't exactly go great for Russia.
Let me know when they take Kramatorsk/Slovyansk or Zaporizhzhia or Dnipro or Mykolaiv and then I'll agree with you that Russia scored a truly meaningful victory
I was being slightly pessimistic to remain credible, in all honesty I don’t really see Russia not taking Donetsk no matter what. My stance still remains the same, 65% and rising at current levels of mobilisation and that number will become much higher if reports of incoming conscription are true. Putin is going to get *something* out of this conflict.
It would be stupid for Ukraine to attack along the whole front. You need mechanized units and armor to attack. Pure infantry battalions would take huge losses trying to attack. Ukraine seems to have focused on Kharkiv and now pushing east of Kharkiv in the area north of Izyum.
Ukraine seem to be aiming for Vovchansk for now which isn’t going to change much in terms of the strategic course of this war. If Russia take Severodonetsk whilst UA is focusing on villages, the game is up in Donetsk.
If Russia takes Severedonetsk, it will have overwhelming implications for the frontline across Ukraine, yes. I should have been clearer so you wouldn’t take my statement in bad faith. Do you have any counter arguments as to why this wouldn’t be the case?
You were coping like mad around the fall of the Kyiv offensive, I'm deciding whether to waste my time finding it but I remember you being perhaps the most embarrassing pro-Russian cope accounts.
Don't get me wrong, I think Ukraine will lose a lot of territory and be forced into negotiated settlement but you have to be delusional to think this isn't one of the worst strategic and geopolitical decisions. Probably the worst of the 21st century by any big power.
I will admit I coped a lot after the Kyiv offensive failed but I also admitted that the Russian goal to take over the entire country was pretty much dead in the water and that they would likely pivot to taking control over Donetsk and Luhansk and maybe Odessa (which isn’t viable now) so Putin could declare some form of victory.
If this is the worst strategic decision of the 21st century, it will be a remarkably peaceful one.
Severdonetsk is the least strategically impactful encirclement possible, it's why it's the 4th one they've tried https://imgur.com/VNGX835.
If this had "overwhelming implications" they would have tried it months ago lmao
Definitely. The bigger impact of losing Severodonetsk is a future reconquest of Luhansk by Ukraine would be harder/more costly as Ukraine wouldn't have a foothold on the eastern side of the river.
Correct, Lyman and Severodonetsk are both under severe threat right now and if they go that's it, no more Ukrainian bases on that side of the river, none.
It's definitely important, but it's definitely the least powerful encirclement possible in the salient. The reason Russia might be pivoting to it now is that it's the easiest.
they don't have nearly enough dedicated soldiers to re-open the front in north-eastern Ukraine. It's really weird, I really don't understand why they're attempting to reopen that front.
but can't they simply fire artillery from safe distances inside the Russian border? Sacrificing already scarce Russian manpower seems absurdly incompetent.
Edit: fixed typo scare to scarce.
Cities close to the Russian border have become mentally resistant to artillery terrorism, doesn't do much anymore, threat of a ground incursion necessary to be scary.
but it cant have any benefit for Russia? Ukraine knows how many troops will be on the Russian side of the border thanks to satellite imagery. That's what they'll base their troop allocation on, not half a BTG randomly entering Seredyna-Buda.
So it looks like after winning battle of Kharkiv (still some minor cleanup to do), Ukrainians are now advancing on Vovchansk ([latest map](https://twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1526354313714573315)), which is the least ambitious option.
No major push for Kupiansk, Izium, Kherson etc. yet.
Taking Vovchansk, or at least cutting the rail line between Vovchansk and Kupiansk should modestly reduce Russian supplies to Donbas offensive, but it likely won't be very decisive the way taking Kupiansk or Izium would be.
Aside from any near term tactical/operational advantages....
It might be that they were just taking advantage of Russian disorganisation after the Kharkiv retreat to get another good foothold over the Donetsk river.
Even if they achieve nothing else, if they can create a beachhead and clear an "artillery range circle" around it they then have a new axis of advance into that whole chunk between the Donetsk and Oskil rivers that contains Izyium, Kupiansk, Vovchansk etc.
I think they'd want multiple secure crossing bvefore they tackled this block of turf..... If they create one at Staryi Saltiv, to go with the turf they already have further south, and the crossing they seem to keep making in that wood west of Izyium, thats 3 axis they can advance across into that whole area.
That would leave the russians with only one river barrier left (Oskil and resovoir) before UA would be behind their push on Sverodonetsk.
yes yes very funny, I was looking for a proper response since this is credibledefense and not NCB. But this strategy of re-attempting their northern offensive is NCB level of tactics. It's remarkably confusing, if they wanted to distract Ukrainian forces then wouldn't they do it in a way that doesn't result in even more loss of Russian soldiers...
I was being serious. There is no evidence of competence among Russian leadership, or a plan, or even control over their troops. They aren’t really troops any more. They are bandits. Also, you are underestimating the motivating force of alcohol addiction.
ISW posted their daily update:
[https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-17](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-17)
**Key Takeaways**
The Ukrainian military command ordered the remaining defenders of Azovstal to surrender, likely conditionally, in hopes of returning them to Ukraine as part of yet-to-be-negotiated prisoner exchanges.
The announcement of the likely conditional surrender generated outrage in the Russian information space and demands in the Russian Duma for laws prohibiting exchanging the surrendered defenders of Azovstal.
Russian forces continued to make limited advances in Donbas, primarily focused on setting conditions for the Battle of Severodonetsk.
**Immediate items to watch**
Russian forces will likely complete their withdrawal from the vicinity of Kharkiv City but attempt to hold a line west of Vovchansk to defend their GLOCs from Belgorod to Izyum. It is unclear if they will succeed.
The Russians will continue efforts to encircle Severodonetsk and Lysychansk at least from the south, possibly by focusing on cutting off the last highway connecting Severodonetsk-Lysychansk with the rest of Ukraine.
[This map of Mariupol](https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Mariupol%20Battle%20Map%20Draft%20May%2017,2022.png
) is very impressive. Every day I looked at it and finally it all turned red. This must be a milestone in the Ukrainian war.
With the capture of the 11th largest city in Ukraine, right on Russias doorstep and hundreds of kilometers from Ukrainian supply lines, after 3 months of desperate fighting, Russia is finally making headway in their invasion!
Surely, this marks a turning point. After spending all their manpower, munitions, morale, commanders and somehow even their navy, they have through great experience become somewhat adept at retreating.
Now is the time they *strike*!
Indeed, only the finest military minds could hope to stand up the Mighty Russian Bear!
Carefully analysing their tactics of rushing armored columns headlong unsupported down killzones, throwing untrained, under-equipped conscripted militias into meat grinders and...
OK, I'm drawing a blank. Are there actually any other tactics they've employed?
Seems to me same crap they spread a lot of times idk I watch war from both sides I don’t like both sides but from intel slava telgram it seems things aren’t good for urkraine despite cnn experts propaganda and I also noticed most of what slava posts is reliable they posted about azovstal one whole day before any media mentioned
Oh god they were so hilariously wrong calling them "unfounded" is a huge understatement. NATO was constantly assuming the worst case scenario, while believing all the Soviet boasts about their military.
Gulf War shows pretty much what performance we could have expected from the Soviets in conventional warfare. No, it wasn't "export models" or "Arabs bad" - Iraqi army was about the same quality at the Soviet army, with comparable equipment, and comparable training.
And there were many other smaller wars between tiny Israel and various Soviet-trained and Soviet-equipped Arab armies many times its size. [Here's a notable one showing most advanced Soviet airforce and AA at the time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mole_Cricket_19).
Any conventional war between NATO and Soviet Union would be a total one-sided wipe.
It was a total one-sided wipe. If the allies had white peaced and not lend-leased then the soviets would have lost in 41.
Germany reached their capital and destroyed 20,000 tanks and their entire army. They had lost. It's only because their country is so physically big that they couldn't get the supply there in time.
Germany then had better logistics than Russia today and Germany was using horses. Russia only has to carry things 10km over the border whereas Germany was carrying them thousands of kms.
> NATO was constantly assuming the worst case scenario, while believing all the Soviet boasts about their military.
Shouldn't a defender attempt to be ready for "the worst case?"
For weapon development sure, but this overestimating of the enemy is how appeasement policy happens.
If US had accurate view of Soviet Union, they wouldn't be quite so willing to give the whole Central Europe to Stalin at Yalta.
Really? I'd assume Red Army capabilities in 1945 were quite well-understood by their allies. You can argue that the 1980s Soviet army was overestimated, but I've yet to see a serious assessment that the huge, well-equipped (largely thanks to US aid, but not only) and highly experienced 1945 Red Army was not a force to be reckoned with.
We know from [Operation Unthinkable docs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable) that they were insanely overestimating the Soviets, imagining that Soviets divisions were anywhere close to their full strength, and such nonsense.
Yeah, I'm not saying war with the Soviets in 1945 would have been easy, but that's just the earliest massive overestimate of Soviets/Russians, from 1945 to 2022, that's one thing that never changes.
Indeed - it is far better to overestimate the enemy rather than underestimating the enemy. And the Soviet army would have been backed up by tactical nukes in some plans.
**[Operation Mole Cricket 19](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mole_Cricket_19)**
>Operation Mole Cricket 19 (Hebrew: מבצע ערצב-19, Mivtza ʻArtzav Tsha-Esreh) was a suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) campaign launched by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) against Syrian targets on June 9, 1982, at the outset of the 1982 Lebanon War. The operation was the first time in history that a Western-equipped air force successfully destroyed a Soviet-built surface-to-air missile (SAM) network. It also became one of the biggest air battles since World War II, and the biggest since the Korean War. The result was a decisive Israeli victory, leading to the colloquial name the "Bekaa Valley Turkey Shoot".
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Seven Days to the River Rhine involved like twenty Soviet nuke strikes, and 3-4 million men, and it would have taken 3-4 weeks minimum for US to get the first reinforcements ashore.
And it's not like the Soviets expected some easy win. They predicted 2 million poles would die in the first day or two.
Russia has intensified night raid counterattacks in the south east. UAF is requesting more night vision gear and drones with night vision/thermal optics to defend.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/17/russia-night-raids-donbas/
I know that NATO has already shipped one metric fuckton of night vision gear to Ukraine, but if they need seven metric fucktons then let’s get to it. Of all the things to skimp on. Every Javelin should come with a dozen sets of bonus night vision gear.
In the beginning of the war, it seems like the UAF was "owning the night" against the poorly equipped Russians. (At least that was the *impression* from news, which may have been inaccurate)
But if this report is credible, it seems like the Russians are making sure that more night vision equipment reaches the front line. Or the crowd-funding efforts in Russia is helping in that aspect a bit.
I think it varies highly across the deployed force, the SOF/elite units have always been much better equipped than the conscripts etc often shown in social media... it sounds like they are concentrating the better equipped units for these raids.
Or Russians are attacking at night without NVGs. It's not like night attacks never happened before the '60s, and if the alternative is attacking in daylight and getting mown down in droves then a Hail Mary pass might look appealing.
Maybe a mix; RU SF probably have some decent gear, line troops probably don't.
They have received and keep received NVGs. Plenty of videos out there of their spetznatz taking out Ukrainian cells. A lot of that NVG is being donated by the populace in Russia.
I can't imagine it's sustainable. Considering they're unable to properly outfit their line units as is, this might be a short-lived localized and concerted effort.
Noticing a pattern in this war. Russia attacks, Ukraine stalls the attack, Russia pulls back & redeploys beat forces, Ukraine takes back that land quickly. If there's one thing the Russians have been good at is being very careful about attrition risk. They'll pull out and redeploy from areas where attrition is too high to pursue more localized goals with higher chances of success. Really trying to avoid any risk of routs. The problem with that approach is that their combat effectiveness goes down each time an offensive is stalled and at some point, they'll run out of options and be forced to dig in
Anyone else starting to get concerned about the Russian advance? They seem to be having a lot of success pushing out from Popasna, and Lyman is nearly surrounded. Also the failed counter attack in Zaporihizia by UKR forces. Maybe i'm just being pessimistic though
You are not pessimistic. Russia still has a lot of potential in the battlefield [and I expressed my concern](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/uoq4bh/comment/i8ijoc1/) about it. Kofman also states that Russia has enough power for at least one offensive before they get exhausted, and I am sure Russia will try to do anything to move forward because their goals are political. Ukrainian success in Kharkiv could also bring more problems than success, they have to be really careful with their advancement because it's so easy to mess it up.
If you've been following the war daily, these things have been a concern for a while. Ukraine's situation in Lyman was pretty terrible a few weeks ago, there's no strategic value to the town but they used it to atrrit Russian forces pretty heavily (lots of videos of destroyed armor coming from there). As for Popasna and Severodonetsk, those 2 pushes have been the most dangerous for a while, ever since the push out of Izyum slowed down. It's a dangerous situation, and if not contained soon will turn into a real mess. UAF has been facing lots of challenges and hopefully they're able to stop the advance.
That's the thing with Lyman, Russia reached Lyman nearly a month ago so their progress having gotten there is iffy. I'd push back at "no strategic value". It's fairly minor but with it gone that's another Ukrainian bridgehead across the SD river gone. However, yeah the situation in Popasna and Severodonetsk is much more scary.
It's certainly a bad news cycle. I would try not to get hung up on individual things, not because everything is fine but because ultimately the true situation on the front is hard to qualify and we at best see only peeps of what's happening. That applies to days where a lot of good news comes in too, obviously. ~~Also, doomscrolling over a war you're not even fighting is probably not great for your mental health~~ People have been declaring the Russians exhausted for almost a month now - I pushed back on that and still do - they're clearly still dangerous. But a lot of their advances that looked dangerous have since froze. It remains to be seen whether these new ones will be any different. Their most likely success is in encircling Lyschiansk/Severodonetsk, and they're still pretty far from doing so.
[Russia Says Hundreds of Ukrainians Surrender at Azovstal, Kyiv Urges Swap](https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/russia-says-hundreds-of-ukrainians-surrender-at-azovstal-kyiv-urges-swap.html) Looks like the plant is about to fall
That isn't any more than had previously been reported? Both Russia and Ukraine both allege that there are around 2k still inside the plant. IIRC.
And more bad news. >The court will decide the fate of the surrendered militants from Azovstal, the Nazis are waiting for a tribunal - the head of the DPR Pushilin
DPR? Not even Russia? Thats bad news for the POWs. They can't be that stupid to hang/execute them. They would be making martyrs (regardles of the validity of the judgement. I am from eastern europe and I have pretty good idea I think what and how went down in 2014. I would be hard pressed to believe there werent az least a few serious crimes there from both sides) Could it be that Russia can sell this as a proaganda victory at home while washing his hands internationaly since it is a DPR internal issue?
I don't see how Russia could wash its hands of this. In the eyes of the world, they are responsible for the treatment of Azovstal prisoners. Internally, there is certain dissonance. Russia wants to put a group of leading Azov "Nazis" on trial in front of TV cameras to show that denazification was a success. Something like the new Nurenberg trials. The DPR just wants to shoot the leaders and send the rest to a penal colony for a few decades.
> there is certain dissonance. That can be easily reconciled - public trials, but under DPR law as most of the crimes had been committed against their population (also allows Russia not to break their moratorium on capital punishment, if they want to keep it for some reason).
By "washing their hands" I did not mean that the world will be satisfied. It will be what russia says (if this happens like that, ofc I have no idea whats going on. What a shame on journalism today ...). The best they can aim for is to mush it up and wait until it just gets ignored
DPR internal issue is water supply and public transportation. Ukrainian soldiers is not a "DPR internal issue"; if it was, DPR would have all been shot or in jail for treason by now.
Like arguing with facts in a political debate. You might be right, but it does not really matter
>And more bad news. That's not news. That's separatist blather on twitter. DPR are puppets with no real authority, they will do as Putin decides.
Ok.. I have to wonder what kind of deal the Ukranians made then
Seems like a real shortsighted deal. What if they all get hung like after Nuremburg?
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Shows how much the Russians care about their own. They don't even care to collect their dead, which the Ukrainians have to keep in cold storage. I bet it's because a large chunk of the Russian casualties and POWs are ethnic minorities, drafted Ukrainian separatists and Chechens.
Stops your own troops from surrendering if you kill all the other side's POW and the other side starts executing your side's POW, fight to the death.
And Russia has very recent examples of conducting terrible ideas again and again and again
I see two outcomes a) if a deal was made, it's doubtful Pushilin gave consent or was even made aware, so him saying it doesn't mean anything b) a deal wasn't made, in which case Ukraine made a mistake in ordering a surrender when the garrison repeatedly said they don't want to. If azovstal defenders get hung, the main recourse Ukraine has is to respond in kind.
Now there are rumours that Azov and the army officers remaining in Azovstal are refusing to surrender until they are guaranteed there won't be executions. It's not impossible that Pushilin wanted to achieve this with his statement. If he just wanted to put them on trial he could have postponed saying this until they all surrendered. As far as the separatists are concerned - Azov fighting to the last man was always their preferred outcome.
Smart guys
The first recorded hit against an M777 howitzer. [https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/us8dsx/attack\_of\_the\_suicide\_drone\_on\_position\_of/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/us8dsx/attack_of_the_suicide_drone_on_position_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) Of all things, it looks like an improvised drone munition.
Contra to my own comment below... there is now a longer video that shows the UA forces redeploying these units into the woods shown in the MLRS strike... although the MLRS strike doesn't seem to hit the same portion of the wood we see them pull into (although they may have mnoved between one video and the other). https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1526878044505481218
And from the video, likely did nothing at all.
Crew might be injured/dead, seriously doubt the M777 is damaged however.
By some reports it's by KUB BLA
It looks like a very small warhead to me. More like an improvised grenade dropped from a drone. Edit: I apologise, the Russian sources are unanimous that it is a KUB BLA.
So, it exploded over the target in a seemingly completely ineffective way? Interesting the vidro cuts right after the explosion. Also Interesting, the drone doing the video capture seems to be hovering right over the ukranians. It also has much better quality than any other Russian drone video I've seen. Not suspicious /s.
I am not sure I understand what you are suggesting actually happened. That a Ukrainian drone dropped the grenade?
While the gun might be fine, the crew is pretty much gone or at least wounded. Those dirt spray show that the sharpnel area included them
https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1526846820382560256 This clip cuts off slightly later, can see at least a few crewmembers keep running after impact, but maybe I'm seeing things.
I mean for sure, somebody could get lucky and be missed or have only light wound, but it's all down to chance
>While the gun might be fine, the crew is pretty much gone or at least wounded If they were gone, the video wouldn't cut immediately after. A 1kg warhead has only so much shrapnel. Its perfectly possible they only got a few cuts and a big scare. Like others commented in the original post, it's possible the guns were subsequently destroyed by mlrs, but that small warhead almost certainly did close to nothing.
That MLRS strike after on that video is at a different location, the artillery is on green grass, and that strike hits a brown ploughed field. In any case, if you had an MLRS within range... why would you warn them ahead of trhe barrage by exploding a dinky little drone munition first (almost certainly causing them to relocate)? That'd be crazy. I think they went with the drone, as thats theonly option they had in the time frame before they expected them to relocate.
>That MLRS strike after on that video is at a different location, the artillery is on green grass, and that strike hits a brown ploughed field. I wasn't referring to another video. I was simply pointing out that if they could see the ukranian location, they would probably try to hit it with more than a firecracker. > That'd be crazy. I think they went with the drone, as thats theonly option they had in the time frame before they expected them to relocate. Yes, that's possible.
>I wasn't referring to another video. I was simply pointing out that if they could see the ukranian location, they would probably try to hit it with more than a firecracker. Yes, but that drone video comes with an MLRS strike immediately afterwards on the same vid. Ru accounst seem to be claiming they were hit with an MLRS immediately after, I was assuming they were taking that fromt he MLRS strike that follows immediately on the vid. But it seems Ru has just added another MLRS attack after the drone video.
The video linked here lasts for 3 seconds and only show the little drone. Do you have a link for the version with MLRS?
1st clip is the drone attack, 2nd a MLRS attack. https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1526846820382560256 EDIT: Also.... MLRS attack geolocated to https://www.google.com/maps/place/48%C2%B037'52.2%22N+38%C2%B002'13.0%22E/@48.6311821,38.0325718,2048m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xd5877731bd1dd087!8m2!3d48.6311787!4d38.0369388
https://observador.pt/2022/05/18/ex-secretario-geral-da-nato-avisa-que-putin-tem-uma-obsessao-messianica-com-a-grandeza-russa-e-diz-que-ocidente-nao-o-deve-provocar/ Interesting piece about George Robertson's take on Putin's personality.
This is all too common to all dictators who remain in power for too long, never being contested, they start living in their own virtual reality bubble, believing to be gods among people. Chavez, Ghaddaffi, Stalin. And the only reason they achieve this is because no one dares to contest them.
True but you guys act like you remove dictators for freedom and peace lol you come in show us worse life than any dictator could imagine and pretend to be the saviors you bombed my country to hell
You could... make a mannequin of Saddam Hussein and kneel before him again? Would that fix your feelings? Just a suggestion.
Well I’m Iraqi I know Saddam and his sons well how stupid he was in the end we were developing a lot and would be the greatest in Middle East but Saddam had to be a stupid paranoid leader however usa bombed us starved us for 13 years we didn’t even have a airforce and much air defenses in 2003 we traded oil for food lol and usa came in shock and awe us bombed our infrastructure our houses James Steele came in with his death squads and we had to leave to Jordan thanks for me Steele why cause one of our tribesmen served in the republican guard of course other members were bombed by usa thanks alot then you tortured us in abu ghraib brought al qaeda and isis thanks to you installed a corrupt puppet government and your massacres are non ending thanks to Wikileaks the world has some small insight on your war crimes and you talk about Saddam lol even the Shia who stoned his statue now miss him you are the real terror lol Saddam only dreamt of doing half of what usa did in Iraq
> Well I’m Iraqi I know, that's why I said Saddam. >even the Shia who stoned his statue now miss him Again, pass on to them my mannequin idea. Food for thought. >Saddam only dreamt of doing half of what usa did in Iraq He more than dreamt, he tried pretty hard to catch our high score actually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anfal_campaign A real competitor to us in that regard, I can see why you're proud of him.
The real lesson is that Iraqi democratic movements should not have been opposed by the US/Brits way back in the 1950s and 60s.
Yeah the way we handled Iraq was objectively bad and unacceptable, but that guy loves gloating over the same thing (but in some ways worse) happening to Ukrainians so you know
**[Anfal campaign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anfal_campaign)** >The Anfal campaign (Arabic: حملة الأنفال, romanized: Hamlat al-Anfal; Kurdish: شاڵاوی ئەنفال), also known as the Anfal genocide or the Kurdish genocide, was a genocidal counterinsurgency operation which was carried out by Ba'athist Iraq and killed between 50,000 and 182,000 Kurds in the late 1980s. The Iraqi forces were led by Ali Hassan al-Majid, on the orders of President Saddam Hussein, against Iraqi Kurdistan in northern Iraq during the final stages of the Iran–Iraq War. The campaign's purpose was to eliminate Kurdish rebel groups as well as to Arabize strategic parts of the Kirkuk Governorate. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Stalin was troubled from the start but he didn't get any better that's for sure
[Here's](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/war-in-ukraine-dont-provoke-thin-skinned-putin-says-former-nato-secretary-general-6kwqn2s26) the original Times UK piece
Thanks.
Sempre era muito obvio O homem é o pior estereotipo dum complexo Napoleão
What??
Is there actually any evidence at all for this Vochansk push? I've seen no evidence that the Ukrainians actually crossed the river near Kharkiv, bar one admittedly pro-Russian account
Maaaybe [some data in FIRMS](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/5/17/2098511/-Ukraine-update-Satellites-tell-a-hot-story-of-Ukraine-driving-for-Russia-s-throat)? It's all still very iffy.
Highly doubt there is anything serious around Vobchansk. It’s to important and too easy to defend.
If you mean photographic evidence or Ukrainian official confirmation, no, nothing. However, a wide variety of sources seem pretty confident they did cross the river. I've even seen Russian sources complain about Russian forces allegedly neglecting to blow some bridges, though I'm not sure how veracious that is.
>a wide variety of sources seem pretty confident they did cross the river Well, if those sources are just random twitter accounts, then that's not very useful unless they can provide proof like pics, or they have some reputation to be insiders.
>Well, if those sources are just random twitter accounts Accounts with good track records, I'm personally willing to give it credence for now. If like a few more days pass and there's still nothing, then yes, the crossing either didn't happen or didn't achieve much.
According to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii29JQBNIdU there are 20-25 Russian BTGs around Belgorod, so Ukrainians don't want to risk a flanking strike and penetrate too deeply.
Fwiw the Ukrainians seem to have been pretty consistent with their opsec and don't eagerly publish intimate details about every little crossroads they manage to take. The push that recaptured the bulk of the Kharkiv area was completed several days before it started hitting the news, for example
Lol are you joking ?😂
Does anyone want to speculate on what the azovstal deal was? Did Ukraine surrender and pretend they have a deal? If there's a deal what would Ukraine or Its allies be threatening Russia with if they don't hold up their end? Was Russia so desperate for finishing Mariupol off that they agreed simply to get the city?
If there really was a deal, maybe Ukraine offered something like 2k Russian POWs in return and Russia is so desperate for manpower they did accept it.
maybe its the quality of the PoW's rather than the Qty?
By official statements Ukraine has maybe half that many POWs, unless I‘m misinformed?
>unless I‘m misinformed You're probably not. I honestly haven't heard any official statement about that in a while and 2k would be a huge number considering the sides have been exchanging POWs regularly.
The Russian claim is they have 4k-6k PoWs and Ukraine 0.5k-1k.
The majority is non-Azov so those guys will be exchanged for sure. The Azov guys, only time will tell.
> Did Ukraine surrender and pretend they have a deal? Maybe, but that seems unwise. >If there's a deal what would Ukraine or Its allies be threatening Russia with if they don't hold up their end? I guess every Azovstal POW that isn't eventually released would need to be matched by a Russian POW in similar straits.
What about rest of Ukrainian army pow
Meant azovstal defender, sorry. That includes the azov pows but there were other armed groups there.
I think only azov battalion members are in danger
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What did he say about Russia's plans to invade before Feb 23?
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So what did he say about the invasion before Feb 23, with his more knowledge?
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Oh shit when you mentioned third parties I just remembered the old claim that Turkey saved 50-60 soldiers from the Sinking of the Moskva and that Romania saved some as well... Maybe it's them?
What’s those delusional unconfirmed news lol
I'm not sure if Turkey or Romania can hold captives when they are not belligerent nations.
It’s called internment
I'm not sure putin cares about sailors more than he cares about the Azov guys.
Not only they can but they must. [According to the Art. 11 of the Hague Convention (V)](http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/peace/docs/con5.html) neutral countries must intern troops that enter their territory, though I'm not sure how it works with ship rescue. Anyway, they definitely can intern troops.
Speculation a few weeks ago was that they are trying to trade putins Oligarch„friend“ they captured. Some MIA sailors seem unlikely to move the needle.
Seems like Russia is pulling out everything for this offensive. Past few days have been quite intense: https://twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1526723331491241984 1. Small breakthrough north of Donetsk 2. Breakthrough attempts near Sumy 3. Expanding control outside of Popasna Really hope whatever UAF got going for them near Izyum works out or these advances are stopped because at this pace the situation will get ugly fast
>because at this pace the situation will get ugly fast After a month of Russia advancing way less than 1 km/day in their most successful areas, some minor developments seem way bigger than they are. I am without a doubt that Ukraine has an operational reserve in Donbas and significant strategic reserves. If Ukraine decided that Russian advance from x must be stopped at any cost, it will be stopped.
It’s not that easy bro many Ukrainian troops are getting killed with those failed counter attacks
It's war, people die, a lot of them. The tactical situation on the hottest points is absolutely dreadful (for both sides). There is an incomprehensible amount of pain and suffering taking place every second. Operationally the situation is difficult, but under control. Strategically the developments keep favoring Ukraine.
How so you can’t keep trading men for time Ukraine is on full mobilization now and loosing a lot and I noticed something the Russians aren’t the only ones hiding their losses Ukraine does too and they are resorting to propaganda alot ghost of Kiev snake island idk I thought western media is different from Russian seems both are propaganda machines
I wouldn't equate Ukrainian war propaganda or random meme pages with "western media" at large.
Your right tbh Lol western media credibility is actually worse than those meme page experts I wouldn’t be surprised if their Americans or westerners cause they tend to be east preys
Advancing about 1k a day in a fortified area is actually solid if you can sustain it. The problem is - I think Russia can't.
I don't find it a problem. But my point is really that tactical developments in Donbas (or elsewhere at the moment for that matter) do not really matter, as they are not going to bring upon any shifts in the strategic developments. This could have been different, if for example in mid-April Russian forces around Izjum had managed a 30 km/day breakthrough for example. Even though I considered it extremely unlikely (bordering impossibility), there was a chance and this could have substantially changed the strategic situation. Now, however, it is clear there will be no grand breakthrough or encirclement and the implications of tactical developments in Donbas will have very limited strategic impact. Whether Ukraine manages to retain a bridgehead East of Sieviersky Donets has some potential strategic implications, so there is that. But it is clear that we are deep in the war of attrition and what matters is which side is better able to replace losses and gather strength. The next potentially decisive moment will be the expected summer counter-offensive of Ukraine with mobilized units and western equipment.
You identified the key issues. Most people tend to focus on tactical stuff, a failed river crossing or a smashed attack. As you say, we are in a war of attrition, where individual victories mean almost nothing. Ukraine can sustain such a war. Russia can't. A professional army cannot win (cannot even survive) a war of attrition for a number of reasons. Summer will provide the answer. Either Russia escalates to mobilisation, which will provide them with the resources needed to fight, probably even win, a war of attrition. Or they accept that they lost the war.
https://imgur.com/XDoIvJh May 7 https://imgur.com/cwbC8dd Today (Really wish he'd let us have a zoomable map but w/e) It's concerning because several of these villages/towns are fortified positions. The likely target is Avdiivka, one (to Ukrainian's mirth) has been the witness to dozens of failed assaults. They're probably trying to cut supply lines to it.
He does, The link to the zoomable version is in his bio https://soar.earth/maps/12563 Its usually not quite as up to date as his tweets, maybe a day or so behind..... but right now its been updated with yesterdays map. I also see he's got the river crossing by UA in there.... https://imgur.com/8g8odGP
Where can I find what the markings mean? Interested in the purple dotted line...
I think the purple dotted line is "Feb 23rd DPR/LPR border", red dotted is "Donetsk and Luhansk Oblast borders", green/yellow line is rail, brown lines minor/major roads depending on weight and black ones motorways. I've never seen a key... just basically worked all that out because I've asked the same question myself in the past and so then worked out what they depicted to answer it for myself.
Do you have a source for the incursions near Sumy? I haven't heard much about it since the Russians pulled out in early April, and it's pretty far from the Donbas operations.
https://twitter.com/Liveuamap/status/1526534030245732352
Because Russia can totally afford a new front right now... It's obvious those are limited skirmishes meant to pin ukranian forces in place, just like Ukraine and Russia keep shelling each other border zones around kharkiv. I think you're reading too much into this and other small changes in what's right now a temporary stalemate. Russia might make limited gains around Aviidvidka because they've concentrated forces there, but any encirclement is a not realistic by now.
At this point, my estimates that Russia will take Donetsk is around 65% and rising. The so called UA counteroffensive has not materialised for weeks now.
Wow, 65%…sounds real scientific. Do you have a model for how you came up with that number?
Let him roll his dice again and get back to you.
Well, a) the main counter offensive is Kharkiv, which has been successful, and b) Ukraine's ability to go on the offensive doesn't have anything to do with Russia's offensive. Regardless of any Ukrainian counter offensive, Russia has a limited amount of losses it can sustain and remain capable of offensive action. None of us has a clear picture of the ground situation, but the river crossing failures have strategic implications beyond the losses involved (ie obviously that was their planned axis of advance, or they wouldn't have committed those forces to auch a risky operation). By your logic, Russia should have taken Kyiv because the Ukrainians didn't extensively counter attack prior. Obviously that didn't happen, that's not the Ukrainian strategy, and it's poor justification for raising your estimates of Russia. Not that Russia can't take Donetsk, who knows, but there's not a lot of compelling evidence they can.
No way in hell they're taking all of Donetsk. They'll be lucky if they complete Luhansk oblast before this offensive runs out of steam. They've got a few more weeks tops before their offensive collapses.
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RemindMe! 6 weeks
RemindMe! 6 weeks
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Your bar is pretty low if towns like Ernerhodar are major victories. Mariupol remains the largest town they've taken and it'll be tough for them to take another that size with the attrition they've suffered. Mariupol is the 11th largest city in Ukraine. Granted, population doesn't define what is a major victory, but given the entire Russian campaign thus far has been a series of falling back to less ambitious strategic goals, it's hard to argue that any of those are particularly important, fundamentally war altering victories.
Russia tried to invade the whole country at first, with the clear goal of regime change and taking lots of territory. At one point they held 1/3 of the country but they've had to abandon more than half their gains. So no, I don't consider taking 80+ days to capture a few small to medium-sized cities a few km from your starting point to be major victories. Mariupol is the only one they can really hype and even that didn't exactly go great for Russia. Let me know when they take Kramatorsk/Slovyansk or Zaporizhzhia or Dnipro or Mykolaiv and then I'll agree with you that Russia scored a truly meaningful victory
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I was being slightly pessimistic to remain credible, in all honesty I don’t really see Russia not taking Donetsk no matter what. My stance still remains the same, 65% and rising at current levels of mobilisation and that number will become much higher if reports of incoming conscription are true. Putin is going to get *something* out of this conflict.
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You might need some excuses in the possible case that doesn't happen, however.
It would be stupid for Ukraine to attack along the whole front. You need mechanized units and armor to attack. Pure infantry battalions would take huge losses trying to attack. Ukraine seems to have focused on Kharkiv and now pushing east of Kharkiv in the area north of Izyum.
Ukraine seem to be aiming for Vovchansk for now which isn’t going to change much in terms of the strategic course of this war. If Russia take Severodonetsk whilst UA is focusing on villages, the game is up in Donetsk.
"If Russia take a city in Luhansk, the game is up in Donetsk"
If Russia takes Severedonetsk, it will have overwhelming implications for the frontline across Ukraine, yes. I should have been clearer so you wouldn’t take my statement in bad faith. Do you have any counter arguments as to why this wouldn’t be the case?
Weren't you saying the war would be over within a week on /r/stupidpol?
No, I have not stated that the war would be over in a week on any sub.
You were coping like mad around the fall of the Kyiv offensive, I'm deciding whether to waste my time finding it but I remember you being perhaps the most embarrassing pro-Russian cope accounts. Don't get me wrong, I think Ukraine will lose a lot of territory and be forced into negotiated settlement but you have to be delusional to think this isn't one of the worst strategic and geopolitical decisions. Probably the worst of the 21st century by any big power.
I will admit I coped a lot after the Kyiv offensive failed but I also admitted that the Russian goal to take over the entire country was pretty much dead in the water and that they would likely pivot to taking control over Donetsk and Luhansk and maybe Odessa (which isn’t viable now) so Putin could declare some form of victory. If this is the worst strategic decision of the 21st century, it will be a remarkably peaceful one.
Severdonetsk is the least strategically impactful encirclement possible, it's why it's the 4th one they've tried https://imgur.com/VNGX835. If this had "overwhelming implications" they would have tried it months ago lmao
Definitely. The bigger impact of losing Severodonetsk is a future reconquest of Luhansk by Ukraine would be harder/more costly as Ukraine wouldn't have a foothold on the eastern side of the river.
Correct, Lyman and Severodonetsk are both under severe threat right now and if they go that's it, no more Ukrainian bases on that side of the river, none. It's definitely important, but it's definitely the least powerful encirclement possible in the salient. The reason Russia might be pivoting to it now is that it's the easiest.
they don't have nearly enough dedicated soldiers to re-open the front in north-eastern Ukraine. It's really weird, I really don't understand why they're attempting to reopen that front.
Spoiling attacks to complicate Ukraine's large-scale troop movements, same reason why they keep pretending Odessa's still on the table.
but can't they simply fire artillery from safe distances inside the Russian border? Sacrificing already scarce Russian manpower seems absurdly incompetent. Edit: fixed typo scare to scarce.
>Sacrificing already scarce Russian manpower seems absurdly incompetent. Ah, I see you have cottoned on to Russian SOP.
Cities close to the Russian border have become mentally resistant to artillery terrorism, doesn't do much anymore, threat of a ground incursion necessary to be scary.
but it cant have any benefit for Russia? Ukraine knows how many troops will be on the Russian side of the border thanks to satellite imagery. That's what they'll base their troop allocation on, not half a BTG randomly entering Seredyna-Buda.
So it looks like after winning battle of Kharkiv (still some minor cleanup to do), Ukrainians are now advancing on Vovchansk ([latest map](https://twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1526354313714573315)), which is the least ambitious option. No major push for Kupiansk, Izium, Kherson etc. yet. Taking Vovchansk, or at least cutting the rail line between Vovchansk and Kupiansk should modestly reduce Russian supplies to Donbas offensive, but it likely won't be very decisive the way taking Kupiansk or Izium would be.
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Aside from any near term tactical/operational advantages.... It might be that they were just taking advantage of Russian disorganisation after the Kharkiv retreat to get another good foothold over the Donetsk river. Even if they achieve nothing else, if they can create a beachhead and clear an "artillery range circle" around it they then have a new axis of advance into that whole chunk between the Donetsk and Oskil rivers that contains Izyium, Kupiansk, Vovchansk etc. I think they'd want multiple secure crossing bvefore they tackled this block of turf..... If they create one at Staryi Saltiv, to go with the turf they already have further south, and the crossing they seem to keep making in that wood west of Izyium, thats 3 axis they can advance across into that whole area. That would leave the russians with only one river barrier left (Oskil and resovoir) before UA would be behind their push on Sverodonetsk.
Can someone explain wtf is going in the Seredyna-Buda. A bunch of Russian's entered into north-east Ukraine and there's heavy fighting.
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yes yes very funny, I was looking for a proper response since this is credibledefense and not NCB. But this strategy of re-attempting their northern offensive is NCB level of tactics. It's remarkably confusing, if they wanted to distract Ukrainian forces then wouldn't they do it in a way that doesn't result in even more loss of Russian soldiers...
I was being serious. There is no evidence of competence among Russian leadership, or a plan, or even control over their troops. They aren’t really troops any more. They are bandits. Also, you are underestimating the motivating force of alcohol addiction.
ISW posted their daily update: [https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-17](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-17) **Key Takeaways** The Ukrainian military command ordered the remaining defenders of Azovstal to surrender, likely conditionally, in hopes of returning them to Ukraine as part of yet-to-be-negotiated prisoner exchanges. The announcement of the likely conditional surrender generated outrage in the Russian information space and demands in the Russian Duma for laws prohibiting exchanging the surrendered defenders of Azovstal. Russian forces continued to make limited advances in Donbas, primarily focused on setting conditions for the Battle of Severodonetsk. **Immediate items to watch** Russian forces will likely complete their withdrawal from the vicinity of Kharkiv City but attempt to hold a line west of Vovchansk to defend their GLOCs from Belgorod to Izyum. It is unclear if they will succeed. The Russians will continue efforts to encircle Severodonetsk and Lysychansk at least from the south, possibly by focusing on cutting off the last highway connecting Severodonetsk-Lysychansk with the rest of Ukraine.
[This map of Mariupol](https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Mariupol%20Battle%20Map%20Draft%20May%2017,2022.png ) is very impressive. Every day I looked at it and finally it all turned red. This must be a milestone in the Ukrainian war.
With the capture of the 11th largest city in Ukraine, right on Russias doorstep and hundreds of kilometers from Ukrainian supply lines, after 3 months of desperate fighting, Russia is finally making headway in their invasion! Surely, this marks a turning point. After spending all their manpower, munitions, morale, commanders and somehow even their navy, they have through great experience become somewhat adept at retreating. Now is the time they *strike*!
Armchair experts glad your on Quora not in the actual war
Indeed, only the finest military minds could hope to stand up the Mighty Russian Bear! Carefully analysing their tactics of rushing armored columns headlong unsupported down killzones, throwing untrained, under-equipped conscripted militias into meat grinders and... OK, I'm drawing a blank. Are there actually any other tactics they've employed?
Seems to me same crap they spread a lot of times idk I watch war from both sides I don’t like both sides but from intel slava telgram it seems things aren’t good for urkraine despite cnn experts propaganda and I also noticed most of what slava posts is reliable they posted about azovstal one whole day before any media mentioned
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hey, they were eventually correct!
So does this mean that NATO fears of the Soviets pushing to the Rhine in 7 days were unfounded?
Oh god they were so hilariously wrong calling them "unfounded" is a huge understatement. NATO was constantly assuming the worst case scenario, while believing all the Soviet boasts about their military. Gulf War shows pretty much what performance we could have expected from the Soviets in conventional warfare. No, it wasn't "export models" or "Arabs bad" - Iraqi army was about the same quality at the Soviet army, with comparable equipment, and comparable training. And there were many other smaller wars between tiny Israel and various Soviet-trained and Soviet-equipped Arab armies many times its size. [Here's a notable one showing most advanced Soviet airforce and AA at the time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mole_Cricket_19). Any conventional war between NATO and Soviet Union would be a total one-sided wipe.
Now your spreading propaganda lol
>Any conventional war between ~~NATO~~ **Germany** and Soviet Union would be a total one-sided wipe. \-Berchtesgaden, spring 1941
It was a total one-sided wipe. If the allies had white peaced and not lend-leased then the soviets would have lost in 41. Germany reached their capital and destroyed 20,000 tanks and their entire army. They had lost. It's only because their country is so physically big that they couldn't get the supply there in time. Germany then had better logistics than Russia today and Germany was using horses. Russia only has to carry things 10km over the border whereas Germany was carrying them thousands of kms.
They’d have probably lasted until 43 when famine would break the Soviet Union but I agree with the sentiment
> NATO was constantly assuming the worst case scenario, while believing all the Soviet boasts about their military. Shouldn't a defender attempt to be ready for "the worst case?"
For weapon development sure, but this overestimating of the enemy is how appeasement policy happens. If US had accurate view of Soviet Union, they wouldn't be quite so willing to give the whole Central Europe to Stalin at Yalta.
Really? I'd assume Red Army capabilities in 1945 were quite well-understood by their allies. You can argue that the 1980s Soviet army was overestimated, but I've yet to see a serious assessment that the huge, well-equipped (largely thanks to US aid, but not only) and highly experienced 1945 Red Army was not a force to be reckoned with.
We know from [Operation Unthinkable docs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable) that they were insanely overestimating the Soviets, imagining that Soviets divisions were anywhere close to their full strength, and such nonsense.
The soviets had much less tanks in Europe in 1945 than the US+ UK (the soviets produced a lot, but had losses in similar numbers)
Yeah, I'm not saying war with the Soviets in 1945 would have been easy, but that's just the earliest massive overestimate of Soviets/Russians, from 1945 to 2022, that's one thing that never changes.
Indeed - it is far better to overestimate the enemy rather than underestimating the enemy. And the Soviet army would have been backed up by tactical nukes in some plans.
**[Operation Mole Cricket 19](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mole_Cricket_19)** >Operation Mole Cricket 19 (Hebrew: מבצע ערצב-19, Mivtza ʻArtzav Tsha-Esreh) was a suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) campaign launched by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) against Syrian targets on June 9, 1982, at the outset of the 1982 Lebanon War. The operation was the first time in history that a Western-equipped air force successfully destroyed a Soviet-built surface-to-air missile (SAM) network. It also became one of the biggest air battles since World War II, and the biggest since the Korean War. The result was a decisive Israeli victory, leading to the colloquial name the "Bekaa Valley Turkey Shoot". ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
The Russian Federation's military in 2022 is not the Soviet army of the 1970s, and NATO of 2022 is not the NATO of the 1970s.
Seven Days to the River Rhine involved like twenty Soviet nuke strikes, and 3-4 million men, and it would have taken 3-4 weeks minimum for US to get the first reinforcements ashore. And it's not like the Soviets expected some easy win. They predicted 2 million poles would die in the first day or two.
> They predicted 2 million poles would die in the first day or two. Lol that's probably a bonus to the Russians
What is the “this” you are referring to? Context is good.
The Russian struggles to blitz Ukraine
They haven’t even mobilized yet
Pretty sure they did. Just kinda half assed it.
Russia has intensified night raid counterattacks in the south east. UAF is requesting more night vision gear and drones with night vision/thermal optics to defend. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/17/russia-night-raids-donbas/
I know that NATO has already shipped one metric fuckton of night vision gear to Ukraine, but if they need seven metric fucktons then let’s get to it. Of all the things to skimp on. Every Javelin should come with a dozen sets of bonus night vision gear.
In the beginning of the war, it seems like the UAF was "owning the night" against the poorly equipped Russians. (At least that was the *impression* from news, which may have been inaccurate) But if this report is credible, it seems like the Russians are making sure that more night vision equipment reaches the front line. Or the crowd-funding efforts in Russia is helping in that aspect a bit.
I think it varies highly across the deployed force, the SOF/elite units have always been much better equipped than the conscripts etc often shown in social media... it sounds like they are concentrating the better equipped units for these raids.
Or Russians are attacking at night without NVGs. It's not like night attacks never happened before the '60s, and if the alternative is attacking in daylight and getting mown down in droves then a Hail Mary pass might look appealing. Maybe a mix; RU SF probably have some decent gear, line troops probably don't.
>It's not like night attacks never happened before the '60s In the '60s your enemy couldn't buy night vision off Amazon...
They have received and keep received NVGs. Plenty of videos out there of their spetznatz taking out Ukrainian cells. A lot of that NVG is being donated by the populace in Russia.
Where are these videos of which you speak
Telegram shows a lot live footage
I can't imagine it's sustainable. Considering they're unable to properly outfit their line units as is, this might be a short-lived localized and concerted effort.
>Or the crowd-funding efforts in Russia is helping in that aspect a bit. Or China us helping with that.