Another long one from The Analyst

"FROM THE ANALYST"

SOUTHERN FRONT UPDATE

The latest information is that the artillery bombardment around the Verbove and Novopropivka areas is still ongoing, and it’s had a highly detrimental impact on the Russians. They’re losing vehicles and ammunition dumps, never mind a fair bit of artillery to precision strikes.
The Russians have launched a media spin campaign using outdated footage from 3-6 weeks ago saying the Ukrainian attack has been foiled at Verbove, so be very aware they’re trying to undermine everyone’s confidence.
According to the Ukrainians they haven’t even deployed the three primary brigades yet on Verbove and the troops assaulting Novopropivka have the advantage of holding the higher ground which is why things are so difficult for the Russians. Again, it has to be remembered that long before these assaults started, Novopropivka was clearly understood to be very difficult to defend, because of the surrounding terrain. Verbove on the other hand is on flatter ground with low hills around; it both sides have control over them.
Fighting in Novopropivka has been intense for days but the Russians are moving back.
The biggest problem for the Russians is they can’t rotate out either because the Ukrainian bombardment have trapped them or they’re just not allowed to leave. This has resulted in tremendous losses on the VDV forces whose attrition levels are said to be appalling. There is exhaustion and lack of ammo - some units yesterday claimed that bullets for their guns arrived without gunpowder in them and were as good as useless.
HIMARS have been deployed tactically around the front too as these have a massive impact on their targets.
Published video showed an entire Russian counter-assault group carefully making their way on their stomachs over open ground covered with scrub and a cluster munition terminating that operation rather effectively.
I’m very much of the opinion that for Ukraine this is the rolling thunder of artillery storm that will create the ‘empty’ zone that lets them move with speed and set up a momentum - they can use it to manoeuvre and then the tanks and armoured vehicles will attempt a breakthrough. There are more troops on each side here than the Russians started the invasion with.
The lack of air strikes by the Russians has also been noted- it’s as though they know the Ukrainians have brought up air defence units in their rear and won’t risk it.
I was talking with associates this morning and we’re all mentally drained. I am so committed to the need to defeat Russia and always have been these past 45 years, nobody has come closer than Ukraine - and they have to win, they simply have to. We all know it. This is a battle on the road to that victory.
As the great legend of military thinking, Sun Tzu wrote 3000 years ago:
“How victory may be produced for them out of the enemy’s own tactics - that is what the multitude cannot comprehend.
All men see the tactics by which I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy by which victory is evolved.
Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances.”
Anyone who reads and comprehends Sun Tzu and practices his principles wins. As soon as you stop paying attention to them - you loose. The Russians stopped paying attention a long time ago because they think they knew better. What we have to understand is that Sun Tzu boiled everything down to simple unadorned realities. They are fundamentally correct now as they were then. It strikes me that Ukraine’s leaders read it often.

Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦