Will be a very short Sunday update, as little seems to have changed from yesterday's news. Combat intensity across Ukraine remains low as gauged from Ukrainian claims of Russian losses
Tank losses have been trending down for weeks, and now firmly in single digits. APC losses also now have started trending considerably lower too. Might be that the massive Russian equipment losses in armored vehicles of all types has made forward movement very difficult.
Claimed Russian artillery/MLRS losses have not trended downwards nearly as clearly, so evidence that we are moving to the ranged warfare stage.
@GeneralStaffUA morning update has a little some evidence of Russian attempts to move forward at Lyman, but otherwise pretty clear Russian army is not pressing.
Big picture. The Russians seem to have lost the initiative almost everywhere. In the southwest, they are mostly on the defensive, and when they have tried to counterattack the Ukrainians, the Ukrainians are claiming they have been driven back with losses.
In the Donbas, the Russian offensive is really dragging. I do hope all the media that has spent the last few weeks talking about supposed Russians victories in the region, might start recalibrating.
Indeed, in the battle of the Donbas, none of the villages/small cities taken are of any strategic value (as they dont effect Ukraine's ability to wage the war going forward). The key thing from these battles is what the losses were on each side and whether they can be made up.
My guess is that the Ukrainians have won the battle in that term, that the Russians have further burned themselves out trying to take objectives for domestic political objectives not strategic one. And that soon the Russians will find themselves on the defensive more and more.
Remember, its the Ukrainians that are getting and learning to use better systems than they had at the start of the war. The Russians are trying to get by with the same or worse systems.
Speaking about newer and better systems…does anyone know about the Spanish army’s kit?
I wonder if what has happened with cyber power is akin to what happened with the use of sonar in the Cold War. Originally everyone thought of sonar as an active measure, and subs maintained very powerful active sonar throughout.
However, using active sonar, while very effective in helping you locate an enemy target, also revealed your own location. As such, the reliance over time switched much more to passive detection technologies. Not as effective at quickly finding, but you didn’t reveal yourself.
What we have seen with cyber in this war is that the most powerful tool has been the collection of information coupled with quiet operations. The tradeoff is that undertaking large cyber attacks is de-emphasised.
Interesting to see how the Ukrainians describe the military situation in the Donbas tip, precisely where Zelensky visited. He certainly would have been in range of Russian artillery fire from multiple directions.
An early weekend update, building on this tweet thread of yesterday, this morning's sitrep from @GeneralStaffUA does have more elements of confidence on the situation stabilizing in the Donbas, that seem noteworthy (at least to me).
Here is a link to the tweet--actually had to use a translator as the English link actually goes to a Ukrainian text. Still the translator seems to do well.
When it comes to the different elements of the Donbas fighting. lots of Russian ranged attacks, no successes in advancing, in fact Ukrainians claiming alot of rebuffs. Ukrainians make a point to say that they are still fighting in Severodonetsk.
Read this article, which tries to make a historical case for agreeing a semi permanent neutral position for Ukraine, using the example of Belgium as what can be achieved. Seems profoundly flawed on a number of levels.
First, Ukraine’s neutrality is to be purchased at an enormous cost. Ukraine will have to acquiesce in real (if not legal) terms to Russia keeping all parts of Ukraine it has seized. It’s not even to revert back to the 24 Feb border, it’s to take everything it holds now.
Ukraine’s future guarantees of security are basically purchase by it not being able to try and take back the territory Russia militarily holds. Why Ukraine would accept this is not clear, but it’s also very different than the situation with Belgium.
As someone who has lived in Scotland for well over two decades, it’s been remarkable to see how the Ukraine War has changed the debate over nuclear weapons and NATO in a few weeks more than anything in the previous 20+ years. scotsman.com/news/politics/…
There has been a clear cut public opinion shift, now extremely strong support for NATO membership and maintaining nuclear deterrence. So much so that the anti nuclear lobby (see above) is now throwing in the towel on NATO membership. dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/…
Ukraine has exposed a few things that will not change for a while. The first is that NATO membership is now seen as the foundational element of basically all of Europe’s security. Can’t see that changing for decades.
Sharing news stories this morning because the Battle of the Donbas remains in the same basic situation it has been in for weeks. Some incremental gains for the Russians, at best. Attritional losses on all sides.
Another day of what looks to be very low direct combat intensity, Ukrainians saying only 4 Russian tanks and 12 APC destroyed. Only thing high is 15 artillery systems. Looks more and more that Russia is running very short of AFV and we are transitioning to the ranged phase alone.