UPDATE: Tuesday, Nov 8, 2022 · 12:51:05 AM +00:00
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kos
OMG:
Russian children’s show teaches that children deserve to die for misbehaving This atmosphere of total violence shapes people who are ready to murder, people who think it’s the norm and people who are ready to be murdered. pic.twitter.com/2PB30nS2ox— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) November 6, 2022
OMG.
We haven’t talked much about Pavlivka before (prewar population: 1,000).
Pavlivka is located in a grinding part of the front. Russia has occupied the purple territory on this map since 2014, so you can see the general lack of progress pushing westward since the war began. Most of those red gains have come from the south, up from Mariupol.
UPDATE: Tuesday, Nov 1, 2022 · 1:05:33 AM +00:00
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kos
Russia has serious problems keeping their artillery operational.
Novolyubivka, Luhansk Oblast, footage of the Ukrainian HIMARS strike that destroyed a modern 5-gun Russian MSTA SM2 battery. https://t.co/4IcRG0royX pic.twitter.com/6wcnjFO96C— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) November 1, 2022
Daaaamn….
Ukraine is tight-lipped about its advances, and Russia has effectively muzzled its Telegram milbloggers, forcing them to report on Russia’s glorious victories under threat of imprisonment. So getting accurate information has suddenly gotten a bit tougher, and the fog of war has always been a challenge to see through.
The front around Svatove and Kreminna is a perfect example, with claims and counter-claims and rumors muddying the picture.
UPDATE: Tuesday, Oct 25, 2022 · 12:49:38 AM +00:00 · kos
Good points:
And lastly – it’s really fucking depressing that some people have learnt nothing from history, nothing at all.— Anastasiia Lapatina (@lapatina_) October 24, 2022
She also notes:
These democrats want “a new European security arrangement acceptable to all parties that will allow for a sovereign and independent Ukraine”. This is the problem.
Sunday’s report from Ukraine’s southern command was … light, announcing just seven Russian troops killed in a single counter-battery radar system. Given that the usual number is in the dozens to low hundreds, it signaled that absolutely nothing happened on that front. This is likely the reason:
Rain and cloud cover mean everything grinds to a halt.
UPDATE: Sunday, Oct 23, 2022 · 11:28:32 PM +00:00 · kos
Bakhmut update:
Bakhmut axis: ➡️Russian forces have been pushed back completely to the M03/06 intersection. What they fought for for 2 (!) months, the AFU (particularly through the 93rd mechanical brigade) regained it in just 2 days. ➡️🇷🇺 tried breaking trough to Klischchiivka but failed. pic.twitter.
UPDATE: Monday, Oct 17, 2022 · 7:53:10 PM +00:00 · kos
Look how miserable the mud is.
Some people are cold in their apartments, but our boys continue to work in any weather🔥 May God protect the sons and daughters of Ukraine who are fighting for its independence and freedom!🙏 pic.twitter.
UPDATE: Sunday, Oct 16, 2022 · 6:33:02 PM +00:00
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kos
Ukraine is VERY aggressively asking people to abide by operational silence in Kherson, and there is wide adoption by the pro-Ukrainian side.
We still don’t know the extent of a new Ukrainian offensive down in Kherson oblast in southern Ukraine. While Russian Telegram sources and at least one Ukrainian artilleryman on Twitter (quickly deleted, because OpSec) have reported mass artillery barrages, there has been no conformation of on-the-ground movements.
NASA FIRMS data, which tracks forest fires and burning military equipment, shows action happening south of the front-line city of Mylove.
UPDATE: Saturday, Oct 15, 2022 · 4:52:05 AM +00:00
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kos
🧵 An interesting analysis of the 🇷🇺 logistics in the south by the 🇷🇺 military researcher Atomic Cherry.
Yesterday I noted that Russian Telegram had been hyping up a supposed offensive out of Kreminna, pushing west toward Lyman.
According to pro-Russian Telegram https://t.co/IXWllJFJlQ Russian forces took (or retook, unclear) Terny and Novosadovoe along the Luhansk & Donetsk border, west of Kreminna. pic.twitter.
Battlefields are loud, but in the sense of movement, the Ukrainian front lines have been stable. Russians are happy to dig new fortifications and weird WWII-style straight trenches, and Ukraine is happy to let HIMARS and Excalibur precision-guided artillery shells degrade Russian artillery, command and control, and logistics in the rear. Unseasonably wet weather and the return of the famous mud isn’t helping.
In the first few months of the war, the news was rampant with Belarus is joining the war hysteria. Terrorist Vladimir Putin was clearly leaning on Belorussian dictator Alexander Lukashenko to join the war, and Lukashenko was happy to pretend, time and time again, that he was ready to do his master’s bidding. Yet he never followed through.
It was clear that Lukashenko had zero interest in joining the war.
On Saturday morning, local time, just before dawn when the bridge was at its emptiest, Ukraine somehow struck the Kerch bridge on occupied Crimea. The bridge is a key logistical strategic asset for Russia, supplying its entire southern war effort. As I explained yesterday, it is a legitimate target under the Geneva Conventions, the rules of war.
The images of Ukraine’s attack on the Kerch bridge were dramatic. And while we still don’t know how Ukraine managed it (truck bomb has actually emerged as the most plausible explanation, even if the details don’t quite fit right), Russia has thrown all caution to the wind.
OMFG.
Kerch Bridge pic.twitter.com/vdRgEj5NyE— Michael MacKay (@mhmck) October 8, 2022
The road side is collapsed, the rail side will collapse soon.
This is the bridge that connects Russia with Crimea, and it’s the main way of resupply for the southern front. It’s also a symbol of Russian strength and annexation of Ukrainian territory.
This is a bit of a potpourri update, as there’s only so many ways to say “Ukraine keeps advancing.” Note that as much as we want to see Kharkiv-style lightning advances, what we’re seeing now—10-15 kilometers per day—is the upper end of what could be reasonably hoped for. The reality is far less, as advancing forces have to, at bare minimum, clear roads and approaches of land mines. In Kharkiv, Russia was caught 100% unawares.
Russia rushed its fake “referendums” in the occupied territories for a simple reason: Vladimir Putin continues to resist declaring formal war, so pretending that Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts are “Russia” will allow him to both deploy conscripts to the region (Russian law does not allow their deployment outside Russian soil), as well as enable nuclear brinkmanship.
Mark Sumner was awesome this past week, covering Ukraine through the weekend, on his days off, giving me space to spend precious time with my son Ari at Fort Benning, Georgia between his graduation from infantry advanced training, and entering the Ranger school pipeline—one of the hardest schools in the entire U.S. military, the black and gold Ranger tab one of its most prestigious honors.
There is an article of faith among certain circles that Ukraine “needs” ATACMS in order to finish off the Russians. ATACMS are long-range rockets fired by HIMARS/MLRS launchers.
With Ukraine moving forward on multiple fronts, I scoured recent Ukraine General Staff reports to see if Russia was still managing any offensive actions. Turns out that yes, but just a few. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the same town names popped up:
During the current day, units of the Defense Forces repelled enemy attacks in the areas of the settlements of Bakhmut, Zaitseve, Pervomaiske, Mykolayivka Druga and Novomykhailivka.
The situation on the ground is … hazy. Ukraine continues to mop up in Kharkiv Oblast, maybe it is attacking in Kherson Oblast, maybe it’s attacking in Luhansk, maybe Russian and proxy forces are retreating and/or deserting and/or surrendering. Let’s give it another day or two for some of the fog of war to clear.
Instead, let’s do another check in on the Tankies.
A quick update to get the news up, I’ll flesh this out throughout the day.
Russians confirm they are leaving the whole of Kharkiv Oblast. That’s right, now leave a few more. pic.twitter.com/bbyhNYBi8M— Dmitri (@wartranslated) September 11, 2022
HIMARS caught a retreating Russian unit:
Here is the what remains of the Russian military column. pic.twitter.
Reports continue to stream in of confirmed and rumors Ukrainian advances. In Mark Sumner’s last update, he gave up trying to post an accurate map. There isn’t one that can keep up with Ukraine’s shockingly fast rate of advance.
Tomorrow, Sunday, I’ll make an effort to collate advances.
Mark Sumner’s two stories today (morning, afternoon) have a great deal of information on Ukraine’s operational gains today. As I write this, it’s night in Ukraine and while undoubtedly stuff is happening, we won’t hear about any of it until morning.
Remember when we’d sit here and talk, months on end, about Ukraine “shaping the battlefield” and dream of future counterattacks? We never lacked topics to discuss, but there was breathing room to explore topics in great depth. But I like this better!
Mark Sumner tracked territorial changes this morning, and all I can add to that is “Ukraine has probably pushed further ahead.
Things are moving quickly in Ukraine, so you guys get a bonus update. Even better, it’s all great news! My Sunday update covered the first big moves of Ukraine’s multi-front counteroffensive, which I saw as the long-awaited culmination of Russia’s war effort. Mark Sumner mapped many of the changes on Tuesday, and this morning he updated big overnight advances. Since then, Ukraine has punched through Russian lines in the Kharkiv front and is romping in their rears.
Short update today because it’s a holiday and I still haven’t recovered from yesterday’s monster update. If you haven’t seen it, it’s still a current representation of public information on the ground situation in Ukraine. In short, I went out on a (short) limb to declare Russia’s offensive culmination, with a clear shift to defensive ops as their war machine runs out of steam.
Culmination: “The culminating point in military strategy is the point at which a military force is no longer able to perform its operations. On the offensive, the culminating point marks the time when the attacking force can no longer continue its advance, because of supply problems, the opposing force, or the need for rest.