The Situation in the Ukraine. #24

Khepesh wrote:ukrops are making a commotion because they say that Colonel-General Alexander Lentsov is to be in PMR from 10 to 15 April. Lentsov is long accused by ukrops of being the real commander of all VSN. ukrops point out that this arrival date of 10 April is significant as it is the anniversary of liberation of Odessa during GPW, and they try to say that some large scale provocations may occur in Odessa. A visit by general Lentsov to PMR is denied, and it is asked why ukrops are fabricating this story, unless as smokescreen to use as excuse for any provocations they might be preparing in Odessa. Lentsov was leader of the control and co-ordination mission from September 2014 to monitor the ceasefire.

Also said that the S-300 batteries that were deployed on the eastern side of Odessa have been moved east of Kherson towards Crimea. This is said by ex Verkhovna Rada deputy Alexei Shuravko. Previously it was only vague rumors, but now it seems more solid evidence of re-deployment.

One pebble lofted across the border in to Krimu and the retaliation will closely resemble a monkey having conjugal relations with a football and it will be ukropov who are wearing the black and white checked 'do me, baby' suit.

Krimu is an island in everything but name. A good amount of the border on the orc side is swamps and marshes so any attack by the orc wannabes will be channeled through two areas. Think Kalibr for those concentration points. Our Flot has them and to hit the orcs they won't even have to untie from the quays, in essence they can sip their chai while they push the button.

auslander wrote:Krimu is an island in everything but name. A good amount of the border on the orc side is swamps and marshes so any attack by the orc wannabes will be channeled through two areas

One area - every Ukro attack must come along the E97 route, passing through Armyansk. It is small, weirdly positioned and there is a channel passing right through it but no oother place can serve as a staging area (the axis advance along the E105 route can be simply blocked by blowing up the bridge)

With all superiority in air and arty assets, you could defend entrance to Crimea with frontline strength of 1 regiment.

Ispan wrote:Khepesh, is there are any evidence they are deploying military units to Crimea border? Not just trains with material, but proper units with infantry, headquarters and logistical tail.

I still think it is a sleight of hand and those tanks and artillery are bound for Volnovakha.

From militia reports it seems as of last night and today the VSN are trying to take back PROMKO, the industrial zone at Avdeyevka.

Also, the capture of prisoners , two officers, seems to confirm indeed an Ukrainian offensive is planned. The increase in the fighting over the past week and the buildup confirm this.

Nobody sees them returning back up the line to Kherson. Seems they detrain and disperse into the field when they get to Mirnoe. If they are from refurbishment then they have come down either from Lvov and via Nikolaev, or from Kharkov and via Zaporozhye, and if they had been redeployed from ATO then still via Zaporozhye. I must admit that it is curious that these trains full of equipment only get seen coming out of Kherson towards Crimea, not heading into Kherson from other directions, but there is nowhere south of Kherson except the border, no lines leading anywhere else.

Pavel Zhebrivsky, head of administration of Kiev occupied DNR territory, has said that for them to take all of Donetsk, and by extension LNR as well, will need a major war with Russia. At this point a normal rational person would think, "Ooops, not doing that, goodbye", but ukrops are not normal, so Zhebrivsky says that he welcomes war and that UA will beat "Russian terrorists" out of "occupied territories" in two weeks. He said this today on channel 5. This is not the first time he has given strong hint of imminent war this year, but he is told what to say, and ukrops media told what to broadcast.

Walther von Oldenburg wrote:

auslander wrote:Krimu is an island in everything but name. A good amount of the border on the orc side is swamps and marshes so any attack by the orc wannabes will be channeled through two areas

One area - every Ukro attack must come along the E97 route, passing through Armyansk. It is small, weirdly positioned and there is a channel passing right through it but no oother place can serve as a staging area (the axis advance along the E105 route can be simply blocked by blowing up the bridge)

With all superiority in air and arty assets, you could defend entrance to Crimea with frontline strength of 1 regiment.

Yes, all true. An attack at the Peredmistni crossing is foolish, the bridges can be blown in an instant and whatever was allowed to enter Krimu will be in the POW camps shortly after dawn the first day. On the west side the orcs are reduced to attacking on a narrow front with their logistics and second echelons concentrated in a narrow neck of land. Think target rich environment.

The swamps and marshes along the water barriers are charming, I and my wife have been in them with the oozing black slime up to my chest and her neck. The land surrounding the marshland will not support a Niva with balloon tyres let alone anything military. An attack on Krimu is suicidal to a fault.

The orc navy is a bad joke. They have one aging frigate that is marginally serviceable, the rest are small patrol boats. The last of the 'ships' they abandoned in Sevastopol Harbor are being cut up for scrap in Inkerman as I write. They were nothing but rusted hulks and when the hull is cut open everything inside is nothing but rust and decaying machinery.

Khepesh wrote:Pavel Zhebrivsky, head of administration of Kiev occupied DNR territory, has said that for them to take all of Donetsk, and by extension LNR as well, will need a major war with Russia. At this point a normal rational person would think, "Ooops, not doing that, goodbye", but ukrops are not normal, so Zhebrivsky says that he welcomes war and that UA will beat "Russian terrorists" out of "occupied territories" in two weeks. He said this today on channel 5. This is not the first time he has given strong hint of imminent war this year, but he is told what to say, and ukrops media told what to broadcast.

They will do what their masters order them to do, the orcs have no choice, not that they would take a reasonable option of choice. They are falling for a tragic ending, they believe their own propaganda. The problem for us personally is no matter what happens we will get more sanctions, if for no other reason than we hurt their fists with our faces. Go figure.

PapaDragon wrote:

Khepesh wrote:Pavel Zhebrivsky, head of administration of Kiev occupied DNR territory, has said that for them to take all of Donetsk, and by extension LNR as well, will need a major war with Russia. At this point a normal rational person would think, "Ooops, not doing that, goodbye", but ukrops are not normal, so Zhebrivsky says that he welcomes war and that UA will beat "Russian terrorists" out of "occupied territories" in two weeks. He said this today on channel 5. This is not the first time he has given strong hint of imminent war this year, but he is told what to say, and ukrops media told what to broadcast.

Group photo of russiadefence.net:


Everyone else is below...

You forgot to include 378 bottles of Kagor wine and 119 cases of Hoegaarden white.

auslander wrote:

Walther von Oldenburg wrote:

auslander wrote:Krimu is an island in everything but name. A good amount of the border on the orc side is swamps and marshes so any attack by the orc wannabes will be channeled through two areas

One area - every Ukro attack must come along the E97 route, passing through Armyansk. It is small, weirdly positioned and there is a channel passing right through it but no oother place can serve as a staging area (the axis advance along the E105 route can be simply blocked by blowing up the bridge)

With all superiority in air and arty assets, you could defend entrance to Crimea with frontline strength of 1 regiment.

Yes, all true. An attack at the Peredmistni crossing is foolish, the bridges can be blown in an instant and whatever was allowed to enter Krimu will be in the POW camps shortly after dawn the first day. On the west side the orcs are reduced to attacking on a narrow front with their logistics and second echelons concentrated in a narrow neck of land. Think target rich environment.

The swamps and marshes along the water barriers are charming, I and my wife have been in them with the oozing black slime up to my chest and her neck. The land surrounding the marshland will not support a Niva with balloon tyres let alone anything military. An attack on Krimu is suicidal to a fault.

The orc navy is a bad joke. They have one aging frigate that is marginally serviceable, the rest are small patrol boats. The last of the 'ships' they abandoned in Sevastopol Harbor are being cut up for scrap in Inkerman as I write. They were nothing but rusted hulks and when the hull is cut open everything inside is nothing but rust and decaying machinery.

i was in Donetsk when kicked off and in Crimea a week after it was annexed, (had to get Russia visa) and went by train the Ukrainian border guards were a joke, rude and un-professional but the Russian border guards were friendly and professional and used hand held computers and even cracked a joke with me.
I have pics and videos of my travels there. But on the point about ships etc, i know some ships were sent back in the end the Russia saw that it was too much effort cutting some of them up and by handing them back to Ukraine was almost a token sign of peace, but the Russians knew that Ukraine would never have the money to put these ships/subs back into service and even if they did they would be outdated. I person who i stayed with was ex soviet navy, intelligence officer and mostly worked on subs he was telling me that when the Russians sank a few small Ukrainian ships to stop the rest of the Ukrainian ships from leaving harbour, the Russians had to guard the Kommuna ship as the Ukrainians wanted to capture it and use to to remove the sunk vessels. Not sure if anyone knows much about the Kommuna its the oldest ship in service in the world, and Russia gave it a re-vamp some years ago, apparently the Russians considered scrapping it but realised with upgrades the vessel still had a use and that it would cost more to design and build a ship for the same role. Now this does deserve some praise, its was Laid down: 12 November 1912, Launched: 17 November 1913 and
Commissioned: 14 July 1915 so the ship is 100yrs old. see some pics below. and some other pics i took while in Sevastopol, and Simferopol











and some pics i took while i was in Crimea including a nice welcome sign in Simferopol

auslander wrote:

Walther von Oldenburg wrote:

auslander wrote:Krimu is an island in everything but name. A good amount of the border on the orc side is swamps and marshes so any attack by the orc wannabes will be channeled through two areas

One area - every Ukro attack must come along the E97 route, passing through Armyansk. It is small, weirdly positioned and there is a channel passing right through it but no oother place can serve as a staging area (the axis advance along the E105 route can be simply blocked by blowing up the bridge)

With all superiority in air and arty assets, you could defend entrance to Crimea with frontline strength of 1 regiment.

Yes, all true. An attack at the Peredmistni crossing is foolish, the bridges can be blown in an instant and whatever was allowed to enter Krimu will be in the POW camps shortly after dawn the first day. On the west side the orcs are reduced to attacking on a narrow front with their logistics and second echelons concentrated in a narrow neck of land. Think target rich environment.

The swamps and marshes along the water barriers are charming, I and my wife have been in them with the oozing black slime up to my chest and her neck. The land surrounding the marshland will not support a Niva with balloon tyres let alone anything military. An attack on Krimu is suicidal to a fault.

The orc navy is a bad joke. They have one aging frigate that is marginally serviceable, the rest are small patrol boats. The last of the 'ships' they abandoned in Sevastopol Harbor are being cut up for scrap in Inkerman as I write. They were nothing but rusted hulks and when the hull is cut open everything inside is nothing but rust and decaying machinery.

You cannot describe a ukrop attack on Crimea as foolishness or madness or stupidity or act of desperation.
You must use terms like suicide, self-immolation, kamikaze or harakiri.

Motorola has joined in the chorus that ukrops will attack as soon as the ground is dry enough.

Khepesh wrote:Motorola has joined in the chorus that ukrops will attack as soon as the ground is dry enough.

How long will that take? Temperatures are on the rise for past week, and this week seems reasonably sunny and top temperatures are in the 20s. Earlier we said about 20 April, but spring looks warm and dry so far. One week more, perhaps?

Ispan wrote:

Khepesh wrote:Motorola has joined in the chorus that ukrops will attack as soon as the ground is dry enough.

How long will that take? Temperatures are on the rise for past week, and this week seems reasonably sunny and top temperatures are in the 20s. Earlier we said about 20 April, but spring looks warm and dry so far. One week more, perhaps?

Can't be long now. Apparently they tried to assassinate Givi again this week. And with protests going on in Kiev, a change of focus is needed.

10:00 Moscow 9 May  

I think since the war began an expectation/wild rumor/delirium of an offensive on one of the anniversary days has been forecast. Not one occured, but I'm still convinced that if it was not for intervention of Merkel and Hollande that ukrops would have launched offensive on 25 August last year, one day after ukrops independance day. It was on the late afternoon/evening of 24th that Poroshenko was with both of them, and the next day the constant bombardments of Donetsk and Gorlovka stopped, as well as all talk of offensives. I don't like the idea of calling offensives on these days, it is too obvious, very simplistic and leads to the bluff and double bluff game. It will happen or it will not, and I also do not go with an offensive not occuring because of the ground. This is not middle ages or even 1914, and modern military vehicles, particulary wheeled vehicles, are built with high axles due to the bad experiences of the past. Soft ground is a hindrance and certainly the inexperienced and unwary can get bogged, but it no longer stops war.

Two examples of major military offensives in Donbass and Western and Southwestern Soviet Union during GPW at this time of year. "Third battle of Kharkov" from February to April 1943, and the "Odessa Offensive" from 26 March - 14 April 1944. In fact the majority of the fighting that took place in early 1944 and ended with RKKA at what would be the start lines for "Bagration" in June, occured at this time of year and the weather not being a consideration.

PapaDragon wrote:

Khepesh wrote:Pavel Zhebrivsky, head of administration of Kiev occupied DNR territory, has said that for them to take all of Donetsk, and by extension LNR as well, will need a major war with Russia. At this point a normal rational person would think, "Ooops, not doing that, goodbye", but ukrops are not normal, so Zhebrivsky says that he welcomes war and that UA will beat "Russian terrorists" out of "occupied territories" in two weeks. He said this today on channel 5. This is not the first time he has given strong hint of imminent war this year, but he is told what to say, and ukrops media told what to broadcast.

Group photo of russiadefence.net:


Everyone else is below...

lol

honestly can't see the Russian Federation blowing up the bridge ... because they'll be using it after they mop up the nazi loving filth on their way to Kiev and Lvov

This new possible offensive will be a interesting one...

VladimirSahin wrote:This new possible offensive will be a interesting one...

are they going to attack the two fronts at the same time then claim that they were right when Russian Federation invades Ukraine via Crimea and collapses against the NAF in Donbass and in turn screams to Nato to intervene to help them against the Russian aggressors .... that is what Ukraine will be counting on .... now what has gone from the past two years from the Western press that will be the story they will spin and Russia will get sanctioned to the high heaven by American and her puppet states in the EU and 5 eyes network

d_taddei2 wrote:

i was in Donetsk when kicked off and in Crimea a week after it was annexed, (had to get Russia visa) and went by train the Ukrainian border guards were a joke, rude and un-professional but the Russian border guards were friendly and professional and used hand held computers and even cracked a joke with me.
I have pics and videos of my travels there. But on the point about ships etc, i know some ships were sent back in the end the Russia saw that it was too much effort cutting some of them up and by handing them back to Ukraine was almost a token sign of peace, but the Russians knew that Ukraine would never have the money to put these ships/subs back into service and even if they did they would be outdated. I person who i stayed with was ex soviet navy, intelligence officer and mostly worked on subs he was telling me that when the Russians sank a few small Ukrainian ships to stop the rest of the Ukrainian ships from leaving harbour, the Russians had to guard the Kommuna ship as the Ukrainians wanted to capture it and use to to remove the sunk vessels. Not sure if anyone knows much about the Kommuna its the oldest ship in service in the world, and Russia gave it a re-vamp some years ago, apparently the Russians considered scrapping it but realised with upgrades the vessel still had a use and that it would cost more to design and build a ship for the same role. Now this does deserve some praise, its was Laid down: 12 November 1912, Launched: 17 November 1913 and
Commissioned: 14 July 1915 so the ship is 100yrs old. see some pics below. and some other pics i took while in Sevastopol, and Simferopol

Krimea was not 'annexed', the citizens of Krimea and Sevastopol voted in two different referendums to return to Russia.

There were no ships sunk in Sevastopol Harbor. The orcs were offered all their ships and refused to take a good percentage of them. Three broke down right outside harbor mouth and were abandoned, then towed back to harbor.

Strelkov was yesterday answering questions about the situation. While it is obvious he has "lost the plot" as far as politics goes, his appreciation of the military situation is sound, IMO.

He was asked -

"How long will ukrops be able to continue the war and with what forces? There is information on the internet that says that Malyshev plant is gearing to war and working three shifts"

Strelkov answers-

"Ukrops have now almost reached the peak of readiness in terms of the quantity and quality of their heavy equipment and their training. Apparently they have nothing left in storage, maybe enough crap to maintain the size of the current equipment fleet for a few months, but then a gradual decline will set in due to losses and degredation. Therefore they have relatively little time this year to launch an offensive before their overall combat capability begins to decline. We should not forget that with nothing to do, not only the VSN degrades, so also does ATO.

The situation of "We would rather die [than surrender]" between Russia and Ukraine can last a long time, but it will still end by who is strongest in military conflict and the capitulation of one of the parties. There are no other options."

On "VSN degrades" he actually said about LDNR but meant the armed forces so that is how I translate it, and he does not mean the equipment of VSN, but the soldiers. Most are not engaged in the front line skirmishes, they sit and wait, train yes, but in the long term this is not so good. Armies exist better in one of two states, either peacetime army, which is the normal state of affairs, or at war, not somewhere in the middle, not this "phony war" as it is mentally tiring.

All the indicators, all the mood music is now saying imminent war, but it's up to Poroshenko and those around him, and the rest of us wait and guess when and where, if ever.......

I think that in general LDNR armed forces are becoming more and more a professional standing army with a like number of well trained, to a degree, reserves who can be mobilzed quickly. I agree with Strelkov that Ukropov have a relatively small window of time to attack but any real attack depends not on Kiev but on Langely and DC. On the other hand the orcs have been probing extensively since January and to a point blooding their troops in addition to the probes. Any way you look at it, the bombardments are steadily ramping up from Ukropov and will continue to do so. They can sustain bombardments for the foreseeable future with no problems and not a soul in the west will say one word.

Intense fighting near the industrial zone of Adveevka. I think we can all agree that the intensity is getting higher every day.

And this from Anna also at Avdeevka industrial area. At 1:12 it gets very intense


And this video has emerged of ukrops night movements last night on M-17 near Velikiye Kopani between Kherson and Crimea. It apparently shows some as yet unclear incident. But that ukrops are moving troops at night is the main interest, not unusual of course, but yet another sign.

Strelkov wrote:Apparently they have nothing left in storage, maybe enough crap to maintain the size of the current equipment fleet for a few months, but then a gradual decline will set in due to losses and degredation.

Ukrops can get additional equipment from NATO states like Poland.

RT reporting Yats to resign on Tuesday as PM;

https://www.rt.com/news/339119-ukraine-pm-yatsenyuk-resigns/

To be honest I was expecting him to stay until after the next round of fighting to be the sacrificial goat.