TheOldGuy @TheOldGuy@qoto.org
I am a Democrat who supports Ukraine in their battle against The Russian Z fascist invaders.
I am a 72 year old Covid hermit who
lives on 10 acres in a sparsely populated area of the Ozarks. I heat with wood that is leftover by the lumber industry. When cutting oak for lumber only the trunk is used.
The largest town is population 2992. The county is 13k people scattered over 713 square miles.
Joined Dec 2022
Romania did not shoot down the russian Shahed UAVs that entered the country's NATO airspace
One UAV flew all the way to Sabangia in Romania and then entered Ukraine through Vylkove and moved in the coastal waters of the Sea of Odesa.
A Shahed is an airborne weapon with a high-explosive warhead that weighs 30–50 kilograms (66–110 lb).
Allowing the enemy to fly this attack weapon unchallenged poses an obvious risk to life, all too often experienced by the people of Ukraine.
MILITARY & STRATEGIC:
BATTLE FOR POKROVSK ENTERS NEW STAGE
Russian assaults on a wide front designed to push their lines closer to Pokrovsk have increased to as many as 28 per day in many parts of the front. The war here is intense with some of the most demanding fighting so far encountered. Russian desperation to break the lines here is palpable.
Pokrovsk is the centre of six major highways that supply the frontlines over a wide area as well as a major rail junction. Its loss would be a strategic blow of some significance. It is the domino that should it fall, has the potential to take down so many others along the front. This is why Russia is expending so much effort on it.
Ukraine’s defence in the centre hangs on two villages currently in the heat of the battle - these are the last urban areas before open land and Pokrovsk itself.
The Russians are also trying to force their way south of the salient to widen it because they’re aware it’s become too extended and risks counter attacks and spoiling operations.
Their fear is that if the salient remains too narrow the Ukrainians will have too easy a time of hitting their artillery as they move it forward for the assault on Pokrovsk itself. Widening the salient is just as important as moving it forward.
They’re already trying to move artillery up but it’s quickly spotted and destroyed by FPV drones.
Moving south from the salient and west from the front below it also puts pressure on the important town or Kurakov.
The problem the Russians are facing is that months of repair and refurbishment work on hundreds of soviet era BMP type armoured vehicles has largely disappeared- the loss rate has been phenomenal during these offensives and there’s clearly a lack of vehicles to support secondary operations if the main Pokrovsk front is to proceed.
The result of the level of intensity the Russians have maintained is rapidly increasing exhaustion of its fast dwindling armour reserves. It’s becoming difficult to find any of the many Russian stockpiled armour bases with anything but dregs left in them.
Their own pace of operations in trying to do too much is undermining their ability to achieve their primary goal.
Part of Ukraine’s problem has been its own commanders from the regional to the three tactical commands.
This became such an issue that Syrski and his staff - obsessed with the Kursk operation had to down tools and head for the Pokrovsk command to sort it out. This resulted in some changes in structure and after banging a few heads together a new vigour and sense of purpose was created. This had reasonably rapid results and Ukrainian coordination and defence capabilities rose noticeably.
Russian manpower losses just in the Pokrovsk front are close to 1,200 per day, let alone the rest of the frontline. It simply isn’t sustainable.
Ukraine has placed rested combat ready formations into the line and recommenced counter attacks against weaker areas of the Russian lines - actually halting the Russian advance for almost eight days now. One inventive Ukrainian tank commander used his vehicle to drag destroyed Russian armour under a railway bridge so that the Russians couldn’t get through.
It’s a little early to declare the Russian offensive culminated but it’s certainly looking like they have no chance of reaching Pokrovsk this year - and maybe they never will. The vast expenditure of men and material is finally sapping their capacity to attack.
Russia is likely reorganising accepting that the Pokrovsk target is unviable. They will therefore have to carry on trying the southern expansion of the salient because it’s vital to Russia to prevent Ukrainian counter attacks. Ukraine knows this and isn’t going to make it easy for them.
The fact it took Syrski and the General Staff weeks to identify what was happening at Pokrovsk because they were so caught up in the Kursk offensive, and that it took their personal intervention to put it right - and then only after a wave of complaints publicly aired by frontline troops, is not an encouraging sign.
Former British defense minister calls for lifting restrictions on Storm Shadows strikes against Russia
Former minister Grant Shapps also called on the British government to encourage France, the US and "more restrained" Germany to also lift restrictions on long-range weapons for Ukraine "with a simple ultimatum to Putin: stop your constant attacks on Ukraine or we will support Ukraine's response."
In recent weeks, Ukraine has actively urged its allies to lift all restrictions on strikes with their long-range weapons against Russia, explaining that this would allow it to hit, in particular, aircraft that launch cruise missiles and guided aerial bombs.
CONTINUED (1/2)
Doctors removed 156 pieces of shrapnel from the body of a Ukrainian Defender.
A Warrior from the 20th Separate Battalion, Oleksandr, call sign "Koshchei," was seriously wounded in action near Urozhaine in Donetsk region. Russians attacked with gas and stormed the positions, supporting their attacks with artillery. During a battle with drones, the man received numerous injuries, including serious damage to his right arm and debris in his right lung.
Despite his injuries, Oleksandr continued to fight, destroying the enemy. On his way to evacuation, he was attacked by a drone again, but he survived and managed to get to medics. His life was saved.
His son, who is also a Ukrainian Defender, brought Oleksandr an award from the President of Ukraine.
Glory!
📷: 20th Separate Battalion
Time will tell
Speaker of Ukrainian Parliament, Stefanchuk has met with his US counterpart, Mike Johnson in Italy regarding ending the US policy that protects Russia's airfields and launchers.
📢 Subscribe to Kyiv Post
From "The Analyst":
RUSSIANS OPEN SECOND VUHLEDAR ATTACK
With the northern pincer attack already underway the Russians launched the second pincer move future south and west, by striking at the village of Prychistivka. Ukraine knew this was likely as they’d observed Russian forces massing for the attack.
Once captured the next village to the north is Novokranka and from there they can begin the swing northeast towards Vuhledar and come in from behind it.
Prychistivka, by the time you go through the months of combat reports, has been under almost daily bomb and artillery assault for three months so there is little left in terms of defensive positions. The Russians do this and signal their intention only when they want to take a settlement relatively quickly so they can move on to the next.
The trouble with Russian old style thinking is that they don’t account for the fact that by doing this and making it impossible to defend, they push the Ukrainians to find another defence line and prepare other fortifications that the Russians even if they see them, largely ignore.
The Russians have been given a target and that’s what they’re going to work on, that’s how success or failure is measured in their world.
Part of the Ukrainian defence was to move to a small river just above Prychistivka and install defences in the village of Novokranka.
Prychistivka is in a shallow valley, the Ukrainian defences look down into it, so the Russians are faced with a literal uphill battle against prepared defences in open farmland that’s also probably mined- and they have a river to cross they seem to have forgotten even existed. This is what happens when all initiative is removed and nobody is allowed to question or offer up advice to higher command. You do or die, you don’t ask why.
An armoured group of 12 vehicles with 100 supporting storm troopers assaulted the village - and they took it inside if two days because the Ukrainians weren’t stupid enough to defend a pointless ruin at a disadvantage. A covering force did as much damage to the advancing Russians as it could then slipped away to prepared defence lines over the river.
However there have been noticeable changes to the way the Russians operate.
They have finally become aware they have manpower limits. This is reflected in other areas too.
Operations have a reserve force, large meat wave attacks have stopped and while still wasteful in their approach because men are not well trained and prone to higher loses, they are better organised and less haphazard in their approach. There is even evidence of improved coordination. In a word the Russians are showing a degree of ‘semi-professionalism’ in their approach rather than throwing mud at the wall and hope it sticks. This is going to help them stretch out their obviously dwindling resources by being more efficient and ultimately productive. It still doesn’t stop them making stupid mistakes and they still rely on numbers.
The Ukrainians have long recognised that the Russians would eventually have to operate differently to the way they have in the past and have adapted their defences and strategic outlook to match it. Russian behaviour has evolved because they have no choice. The war they have waged has been wasteful, high cost and ineffective for the most part - now they no longer have the luxury of being so wasteful and that means the cost of the war is starting to increasingly effect their behaviour and reduce their capabilities.
Ukraine made some excellent defensive preparations locally and the Russians obtained a minor success that’s brought them no advantage. Despite operating more efficiently, their overall planning and performance is still hampered by centralised command and lack of initiative.
‘The Analyst’ MilStratOnX
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦!
J.D. needs to take a class on how to impersonate a person.
https://open.substack.com/pub/jefftiedrich/p/this-week-in-stupid-september-7-edition?r=70k1h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Trump has one thing he stands for. CORRUPTION!
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/trumps-got-nothing/58050/
From "The Analyst":
AMERICA ISN’T CHANGING ITS MIND
Nothing says ‘no’ more clearly than the SecDef Lloyd Austin repeating the same thing America has been saying for weeks.
The Russians have moved their aircraft so you don’t need ATACMS (and by default anything else) supplied by the West to hit their airbases.
And then have your own efforts pushed back at you, ‘because Ukraine clearly has weapons of its own that can reach those targets anyway’. So you don’t need our stuff and the risk of escalation we think comes with it.
There is no way the US is crossing that line this side of an election and I’m not sure it will even after it.
They’re not bothered about Ukraine using anything it makes domestically- that’s their business. But at the moment they are using the ‘over my dead body’ approach to frankly tell the Ukrainians they are fed up with being asked and they won’t change their minds, so let it go.
Zelensky was at the Ramstein meeting in person and it was clearly a message delivered to him to stop embarrassing the administration by asking for what he is never going to get.
The Americans are so intransigent over it I can’t help but wonder if the Russians have actually made it a red line the Americans believe this time.
History will tell us eventually.
I am a Democrat who supports Ukraine in their battle against The Russian Z fascist invaders.
I am a 72 year old Covid hermit who
lives on 10 acres in a sparsely populated area of the Ozarks. I heat with wood that is leftover by the lumber industry. When cutting oak for lumber only the trunk is used.
The largest town is population 2992. The county is 13k people scattered over 713 square miles.
Joined Dec 2022
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