Ukraine Invasion: Part 32

[MagicFox]

Gosh, that last one filled up quick! Welcome to 32, all 🇺🇦

Nice work there: I was a bit slow off the mark and should have remembered Baud did an interview for RT France a couple of years back that created a stir...

"Conspiracy Watch" commented that in the interview "Jacques Baud effectively ticked most of the boxes of geopolitical conspiratorial bingo."

PerkingFaintly· Today 21:15
Sorry, should have given the links.

Staff info of this Cf2R:
cf2r.org/le-cf2r/gouvernance-du-cf2r/

Baud article containing the above (and more of the same) is called
BULLETIN DE DOCUMENTATION N°29 / JUIN 2022
LE POINT SUR LA SITUATION MILITAIRE EN UKRAINE AU 2 JUIN 2022
JACQUES BAUD

Thank you for looking into the suggested sources so carefully . I appreciate your open minded but exacting spproach.

Also if taught English by an American they learn the American accent. I met quite a few Russians in a tour years Ago qnd every single one of them spoke with an American accent, they said they’d been taught by Americans.

I think we'd all like to know that ruefully

Given the analysts' views that much Russian equipment is heavily degraded and so are the elite units, plus the new conscripts are poorly trained, perhaps there will be a steady push back with some areas of fierce resistance .. the ZNPP will be one, I think.

But there is still a lot of territory that the Russians hold.

Zelenskyy has said that he will not negotiate with Putin so unless it goes via intermediaries it's hard to see how a negotiated settlement will come about. Plus Ukraine have said that they want all their land back and then they'll stop so ... what is there to negotiate?

Unless Erdogan or someone can persuade Putin to claim de-nazification is complete and Ukraine can be left but given the recent atttempts at annexation, that seems unlikely.

Ah, so the "geopolitical conspiratorial bingo" Baud interview for RT France well pre-dates the Russian invasion of Ukraine?

I've never heard of him, and didn't know he had such a long-held position when I started reading his recent article – so my appraisal is from cold, without any confirmation bias.

Sky News reporting that Navalny’s network is to re-establish itself across the country.

good clear thread on what's actually happening and why

twitter.com/noclador/status/1577324136220839937

aarh it’s age restricted and I am not on Twitter

@Ijsbear

So still in for a long war? I suppose it may be as I don't think Putin has much of an off ramp (hence my nuclear speculation) personally.

Surely a humiliating defeat in the Ukraine with ultimately a 6 figure death toll and economical loss of billions means Putin does not have a future?

I honestly don't know and I'm not trained, mids2019 :) it's just what occurs to me. There are some other options: someone feeds Putin some special tea, Putin does use a nuke. If either of those things happen then it's a different ball game. What happens then would depend on Putin's successor and how hawkish or otherwise he is. If nukes get involved then the view at the moment is that the West / NATO would respond with overwhelming force and really would go into Ukraine.

Then the shills would get the reality they have wanted so badly to be able to claim.

Ok ill copy the thread here. Means a few posts, as the maps are vital

Thomas C. Theiner
@noclador
As things are moving fast on the Kherson front I drew up a few maps to explain the situation.

A short thread🧵:

In Kherson the russians hold a sizeable bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnipro river (shaded red), which could only be supplied by two bridges, one just a bit North of Kherson and the other over the dam at Nova Kakhovka (purple pentagons).
Since the arrival of M142 HIMARS both crossing have been pounded heavily by Ukrainian forces.
Since August the Antonovsky bridge near Kherson is impassable for vehicles (photo), while the dam at Nova Kakhovka is still passable for trucks, but not heavy vehicles (photo).

Over the last month Ukraine has been wearing the russian forces in Kherson down: through artillery fire, constant probing attacks, drone attacks, and by destroying their ammo and supplies.

Russia brought in pontoons to supply its forces in the South near Kherson (photo), but thanks to HIMARS Ukraine has been hitting and sinking these pontoons.

Now Ukraine went on the offensive in the North and quickly overran the starving, demoralized russian forces there

This is the same map as in tweet 1, but seeing this map makes it easier to understand Ukraine's initial attacks (blue arrows):
One attack pierced the russian line near the Dnipro, using the 5 km wide river to cover its eastern flank. At the same time Ukrainian troops attacked from their Inhulets bridgehead - thus fixing the russians forces there in place.
Meeting little resistance Ukrainian forces pushed South to Dudchany. This meant that the russian troops still holding the front in the North are now at risk of being encircled. The latest news indicate that these russians are already fleeing from there (red arrows).
Kherson is steppe = a flat landscape with some thin treelines as only cover. There are no natural barriers, which makes it impossible for the russians to set up an improvised defensive line.

The russians can't stop retreating until the next natural barrier: either the Dnipro river or the Inhulets river

Retreating over the Dnipro Nova Kakhovka would make more sense for the russians, as

(Photo of the landscape in northern Kherson - ideal armored warfare country)

...here their trucks and light vehicles can still cross and once on the left bank the russians could set up a defensive line to secure the rear of their forces fighting in Zaporizhzhia.

The other option is to retreat South to the Inhulets river (blue line). [Map 1]
Retreating to the Inhulets would be what a complete moron does... so the russians will do it.

Let's look again at the map with the second phase of the operation in Kherson: the russians retreat either over the Nova Kakhovka dam or over the Inhulets river:

[map 2]

if they retreat over the dam they will have to leave all their heavy vehicles behind, if they retreat over the Inhulets they will have to abandon most of their vehicles for lack of fuel.
And if the russians retreat over the Inhulets, the Ukrainians can cross the Dnipro and establish a bridgehead on the left bank, from which they can attack towards Crimea and Melitopol. At Kakhovka they can also cut the water to Crimea.

In short the russians only have bad options (putin the "strategic genius" at it again).

Some russians will flee over the Nova Kakhovka dam, but most will retreat over the Inhulets... and as said that's the most moronic option, because then the russians there will be boxed in by Ukrainian troops from three sides, with M777 howitzers able to hit almost every spot, and

[Map 3]

AHS Krab, PzH 2000, Zuzana 2 and CAESAR able to hit every spot. And the only supply line will be pontoons, whose landing spots on both sides of the Dnipro are in Ukrainian artillery range.
Retreating over the Inhulets is retreating into a death trap. Once Ukrainian M777 can hit the pontoons no ammo, no fuel, no food - nothing will reach the 15,000 russians stuck there. It's starve to death or freeze to death or surrender for them.

And they can't flee across the Antonovsky bridge as Ukrainian spotters will see them & artillery will shred them.

And in fall/winter they can't swim across the 1 km wide Dnipro river with its freezing water, as that would mean death by hypothermia.

putin just annexed Kherson, so he refuses to give it up... which means he has doomed all the russian troops there to death.

This is a textbook example how a smart, capable, flexible, motivated army can use terrain, enemy incompetence, and operational art to beat a cretinously led army.

We're gonna see more of this, because putin is a moron and General Zaluzhnyi is a genius.

Some may recall that Sunday I posted on the last thread that it was too early to take the champagne out of the fridge over the news from Kherson. I am teetotal, but I encourage everyone else to get the glasses out and pop the cork.

Ukraine frees thousands of people from occupation as Russian frontline collapses - Kremlin forced to retreat after troops break through its southern lines in lightning advance

@mids2019

So still in for a long war? I suppose it may be as I don't think Putin has much of an off ramp (hence my nuclear speculation) personally.

Putin has two options for deploying the men recently mobilized. He could use the winter to train and equip them and put them in the fight next spring. That would be a meaningful change to Russian capabilities. Instead, he has decided to rush them to the front to fill empty slots in heavily degraded units. That will make little difference on the battlefield.

I think the decision to deploy them now was driven by how rapidly the UAF are retaking territory. If he waits until next spring, he might not have any positions to reinforce. That may be unavoidable at this point. He has some really elite units in Kherson. They're retreating in disarray anyway.

Will Putin just give up? Unlikely, so the war may drag on at a lower level and with a much reduced set of goals for the Russians.

Thank you so much for doing this, I had no idea it would be so extensive. Well worth the wait though.

welcome =)

@notimagain , the fighter that crashed on takeoff in Crimea on 1/10 was a Foxhound.

www.technology.org/2022/10/02/crash-of-russian-mig-31-fighter-jet-at-belbek-airport-caught-on-video/

@MissConductUS any chance you can copy the Telegraph article - it is behind a paywall for me:

Ukraine frees thousands of people from occupation as Russian frontline collapses - Kremlin forced to retreat after troops break through its southern lines in lightning advance

Champagne at the ready ...

Of course. I think I might be on a 30 day free trial.

Ukraine frees thousands of people from occupation as Russian frontline collapses

Kremlin forced to retreat after troops break through its southern lines in lightning advance

Russian forces in southern Ukraine were on the brink of collapse on Tuesday night after they retreated in the face of one of the fastest Ukrainian advances of the war so far.

Ukrainian troops who initially broke through Russian lines on the western bank of the Dnieper river on Monday rolled into several more strategic villages.

Prominent Russian military bloggers said a “regrouping” order had been given to avoid encirclement in the northern part of the Kherson region.

The significant territorial losses suffered by Russian forces appeared to be confirmed in maps used in the background of Moscow’s ministry of defence in its daily briefing, although it did not directly address the changes to the frontline.

It comes after weeks of Ukraine seeking to degrade Russia’s forces in the Kherson bridgehead by attacking the two bridges supplying them with US-provided Himars rocket systems, part of a long-awaited counter-offensive to retake the vital southern city.

Although the attacks initially made slow progress, early gains were reported this week along the bank of the Dnipro, with Ukrainian forces on Monday pressing south in the direction of the riverside town of Dudchany.

Advances accelerated throughout Tuesday after the Russians apparently decided not to fight.

“Due to the breakthrough of the armed forces of Ukraine in the Berislav sector and the threat of physical encirclement a decision was made to withdraw the Russian group of forces from Dudchany and Davydov Brod,” Rybar, a widely read but unofficial Russian propaganda account, reported.

Ukraine covered as much as 15 miles in the space of two days and said more than 50 settlements and approximately 3,500 citizens had been freed from Russian occupation.

Western officials attributed much of Kyiv’s sudden success to its forces’ ability to penetrate Russia's so-called “OODA Loop”.

The well-known military technique, developed by American military strategist John Boyd, stands for observe, orientate, decide and act.

“The Ukrainian armed forces commanders in the south and east are throwing problems at the Russian chain of command faster than the Russians can effectively respond," an official said on Tuesday as the southern offensive appeared to make gains.

“And this is compounding the existing dysfunction within the Russian invasion force."

On the northwestern side of the salient Ukrainian forces crossed the Inhulets river to seize the towns of Davydov Brod, Novo Olenivka, and Staroselye.

Ukrainian soldiers were photographed in each of those villages hours after local residents posted pictures of themselves raising the Ukrainian flag, indicating the Russians had left.

The Inhulets have been the scene of heavy fighting since August, with the Russians trying to maintain it as a natural line of defence against the Ukrainian offensive.

Kirill Stremousov, the Moscow-appointed deputy head of the Kherson region, told residents there was “no reason to panic”.

“Our artillery and fighter jets are hitting enemy forces that enter the sovereign territory of Russia,” he said. “Yes, you can hear explosions at a distance, but they’re infrequent.”

The Russian ministry of defence claimed in an afternoon briefing that it had destroyed “nine tanks, 12 infantry fighting vehicles, 20 vehicles and 250 personnel” in the area of the fighting but made no mention of a retreat.

Russian commanders are expected to try to stabilise the line before the Ukrainians reach Nova Khakova, the site of a hydroelectric dam that also serves as a road bridge across the Dnieper river.

Failure to do so could lead to a general collapse of the Russian army group west of the Dnieper.

Novakhakova is one of only two bridges the Russians are able to use to supply the troops on the western bank of the river.

The other, the Anontonsky bridge in Kherson city, has been rendered all but unusable by Ukrainian Himars strikes.

The Novokhakova dam lies about 33 miles southwest of Dudchany and is deemed a key target for Ukraine's forces.

The apparent retreat came as Russia’s Federation Council on Tuesday ratified the formal annexation of four occupied territories in Ukraine, including the southern Kherson region.

In response, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, signed a decree formally ruling out peace talks with Russia.

@MissConductUSthanks for the Telegraph article. Fantastic progress by UAF. Makes me so happy to hear of people under occupation being freed. An example of slowly, then suddenly. Great news to end a Tuesday.

Good news indeed. By the way, the Telegraph article isn't quite right about this bit:

Western officials attributed much of Kyiv’s sudden success to its forces’ ability to penetrate Russia's so-called “OODA Loop”.

The well-known military technique, developed by American military strategist John Boyd, stands for observe, orientate, decide and act.

Boyd was an American Air Force colonel, and he developed the technique to speed decision making in combat situations. Each of the four elements operates in a loop simultaneously so that situational data is continuously taken in, evaluated and acted upon. Russia doesn't have an OODA loop because everything has to be referred up the chain of command for decision to be made. The UAFs see a weakness and hit it immediately. There's a saying in military science that seconds are jewels beyond price in combat.

The battle for Kherson isn't over, not by a long shot. There are still lots of Russians to be captured or eliminated, but they aren't capable of regaining the advantage now.

Isn't there a danger that if the troops retreat then they would consider using a 'small' nuclear in those territories? I mean, if they don't retreat it's not better for ukraine as such but it raises the risk of a horrible retaliation. It's a question of bluff/not bluff again..

And I'm saying this because surely they knew / could predict that Ukraine will be making more gains seeing that it started just before annexation was announced, it means that the Russian side has plans a, b, etc. They didnt just think oh we will announce it and ukrainians will roll over and that would be it.

There is always that danger, but Kherson is an unlikely target for a Russian tactical nuclear strike because of the thousands of Russian troops trapped there and because it's directly adjacent to Crimea.