Russian special military operation in Ukraine #39

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated an increase in enemy losses compared to January.

   “There is a significant increase in losses among the personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In February alone, they increased by more than 40% compared to January and amounted to over 11,000 servicemen,” Shoigu said during a conference call.

Having said this, the minister expressed surprise at the indifference of the Kyiv regime, which does not take into account the huge human losses in favor of curators from the West.

At the same time, Sergei Shoigu separately emphasized that for the RF Armed Forces, the priority is to preserve the life and health of both personnel and civilians. As Shoigu noted, Russian troops will continue to perform tasks as part of a special operation.

Shoigu also said that the capture of Artemovsk would allow an offensive deep into the enemy's defenses .

https://tvzvezda-ru.translate.goog/news/2023371251-9CDa3.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB&_x_tr_pto=nui

Werewolf Today at 7:58 am
Have been quite occupied. Why all that talk about shovels?

The standard Russian entrenching shovel was photoed with some of the mobilized troops so some Western media genius reported it as proof Russia was running out of weapons plus ammo.

As Forest Gumps wise old mama put it "Stupid is as stupid does"

MINSK, March 7. /TASS/. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that the Russian A-50 plane did not suffer any serious damage as a result of the sabotage.

"Fortunately, the plane has not suffered any significant damage, except, as they say, scratches and one hole in the hull, which does not prevent a military plane from performing its duties," the BelTA news agency quoted Lukashenko as saying on Tuesday during a ceremony of presenting state awards.

According to Lukashenko, Belarus asked the Russian side to take this plane for maintenance, replacing it with another one. "That’s what has happened," the president noted.

Lukashenko said on Tuesday that a small drone was used to carry out a sabotage attack against the Russian A-50 aircraft at the Machulishchy air base near Minsk. "Because if they’d used a big one, our tracking systems would have detected it, of course," the Belarusian leader said.

"There were these two drones coming from Ukraine, they were controlled by a trained man and others who assisted him. We’ll tell you all about it later," Lukashenko added.

https://tass.com/world/1585775

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday, March 7, informed about the detention of more than 20 accomplices in the attack on the Russian A-50 long-range radar detection and control aircraft (AWACS) at the Machulishchi airfield near Minsk. His words were quoted by the Belarusian news agency BelTA.

"The rest are hiding there (abroad. - Ed.), " the Belarusian leader added.

Among the detainees was a Russian recruited by the Ukrainian special services in 2014.

"A terrorist was prepared. He is a Russian, with a Russian passport, and has a Ukrainian passport. Born in Kryvyi Rih, lived in Crimea. There are some relatives in Austria, and some stayed in Kiev. <...> An IT specialist or well-versed in IT technologies. He was preparing to commit terrorist acts, " BelTA quotes Lukashenko as saying.

In addition, the president called the main task of Minsk to prevent the saboteur from entering the Russian Federation, and the Russian-Belarusian border was closed for his detention.

"Even before my business trip to China<...>, the borders of Belarus were closed. But we understood that our main problem was the Belarusian-Russian border. <...> In the vast bottomless Russia to find him (saboteur. - Ed.) would be very difficult. We understood this, and therefore hundreds or even thousands of people — military personnel of all divisions-were raised to close Belarus down, " the Belarusian leader said.

On February 26, a number of opposition Telegram channels in Belarus reported that a Russian A-50 aircraft was allegedly damaged in a drone attack. The Belarusian side denied these reports. On March 1, the Belarusian Defense Ministry published a video of the A-50 plane. The footage shows that there is no damage to the aircraft.

Later, on March 2, an A-50 aircraft, along with fighter jets, met the plane on which Lukashenka was returning from a three-day visit to China.

The A-50 is used to monitor the airspace in which aviation operates, identify targets, coordinate and direct combat aircraft. You can use it to track not only air targets, but also ground targets.

https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/ru-en.en.3d87bb33-64072ec1-aacbafaf-74722d776562/https/iz.ru/1480015/2023-03-07/minsk-zaiavil-o-zaderzhanii-bolee-20-souchastnikov-ataki-na-samolet-50?utm_source=iz&utm_campaign=vidjet&utm_medium=1&utm_content=1480015

Interesting comment from a MoA poster. Probably not far from the truth, regarding MLRS units especially.

In the mean time, here's a random thought. It's clear that the big advantage the Ukrainians have is the overwhelming overmatch in western-provided surveillance and intelligence etc. This has - for now - roughly cancelled the overwhelming advantage of Russia in raw firepower (again, for now). But what if there is another angle to this? What if it also means that barely trained Ukrainian troops now have the effectiveness of elite professionals?

In WWI you had generals distant from the front lines, it took a day or so for them get reports, and a day or so to give orders. That didn't work so well. So modern warfare puts a premium on local initiative, which requires very highly trained troops at all levels.

But: now the distant western officers probably have better situational awareness of the front lines than the local troops themselves! They look down at every detail, see every Russian unit, and with the cool calm of someone drinking coffee 1000 km away, give precise orders to all Ukrainian units. An individual Ukrainian unit need only be told something like "drive 10 km on this road, take a right hand turn, drive another 2 km, stop, enter these coordinates into your weapon system, fire, now drive over here..." Individual Ukrainians only need to follow simple instructions, but collectively they will fight and maneuver as efficiently as the best elite soldiers. Possible?

We watch and wait, as does Moscow  

   There is information that before the start of the general offensive, the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will most likely conduct a combat "test" of the combat readiness of its strike group, and develop tactical developments and technical innovations prepared for the spring campaign. Therefore, there is reason to believe that in the next two weeks the Armed Forces of Ukraine will inflict a local counterattack on one of the sectors of the front, as a rehearsal for the upcoming battle.

   And it is quite possible that such will be the operation to unblock Bakhmut, who today is in a shrinking "horseshoe" environment. The pushback of Russian assault units from the city will be a clear confirmation of the correctness of the new tactics, combat capability and organization of new formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In addition, the turning point in the battle for Bakhmut will be another excellent PR reason, both for the domestic Ukrainian agenda, which has become increasingly defeatist in the last two months, and for external curators, expecting decisiveness and success from the Armed Forces of Ukraine.


https://t.me/Slavyangrad/36232

Followed by a MoA poster comment

A month or two ago, there was an article about the Nato offensive plan in Ukraine. On a higher level, it consists of "three waves". The first wave is supposed to consist of the newly conscripted low training/low value terrodefense fodder, whose task is to occupy and overwhelm defenders. When that's going on, the next wave equipped with USSR legacy equipment is supposed to attack the line. The third wave was supposed to consist of the "best Nato trained and equipped" troops. Part of that third wave is out of the picture, for now.

It may very well be that they will try to "unblock" Bakhmut. But if they really commit the new reserves which were earmarked for the "spring offensive" to Chasov Yar or Bakhmut direction, then the Russians have a choice in which they too could commit more forces to counter and destroy Ukraine's strategic reserves, in a more-or-less head-on battle. This would accomplish in taking away UAF offensive capability for a much longer time, and later on at their own convenience they could commence an offensive elsewhere, or push on to take now weakened Chasov Yar or surround Seversk, etc. Or they could breach the line somewhere between Zaporizhe and Ugledar. Or they could press advantage on Lyman.

Well, that's the thing, there is an unlimited universe of options what could happen.

John, they do indeed have good ISR,

But Russia can breakthrough the ISR by overloading the front line and creating chaos in western C&C

Maskirovka and deception is an option as well, but maskirovka is really only a trick, not a true tightening up of the organic reaction time of Russian infantry/tank/artillery units on the front

Utilizing zoopark and other such radars are an option, but also create huge glowing targets for ARM missiles on the front - and some soldiers have already complained about using zoopark , penicillin turned out to be good as it can work effectively from distance outside the range of ARM, but it is still limited in usage

EW is an option, but it also has the effect of canceling out your own drones... that's the downside of using Chinese and Iranian drones, without own signals, that can be outside of signals targeted by Krasukha and zhitel, our own drones would go down if the whole spectrum is blinded by EW

The only real option to overload western C4ISR, is to overload the frontline with giant formations that will complicate and negate ukrainian/western reaction time - plus what good would it be knowing an attack or movement is coming if you can't do anything about it?

Russia could even use EW, and just be better, faster, and stronger than Ukro units - both sides would not have C4ISR or drones, but the better trained, and organically stronger side would emerge victorious from those battles - sort of like Bakhmut but on a grander scale

Also the implementation of Sagittarius and Andromeda-D would improve reaction time of Russian artillery so that any force could identify a target and wipe it out within 2 minutes- that means bringing training these new mobilized formations for this task and bringing response times to near instant levels, right now a malka unit takes 5 minutes to respond, it's too late

Either way Russian artillery is still devastating western backed ukro forces, even with C4ISR still up, so it speaks volumes of what would happen if ASUNO computers and PLANSHET-M-IR systems proliferate


Either way once the 500k men in 10+ divisions make their move, those C4ISR sats and AWACS will be overloaded, not to mention if the VKS rejoins the SMO at high intensity, they will have the task of monitoring the air AND the ground

This is the economies of scale concept, and Russia can overmatch the west, as long as the training occurring now takes those points to heart

We saw what happened in Gostomel, and if that occurred on a grand scale, we'd see a quick Ukro collapse

... armed with shovels, remember.

Shovels designed in the 1860s or something like that, per some MSM article.

Those shovels have a knockoff in the west and a friend bought one, but from Russia. He says he got two since his dad needed one. Eats through snow and ice like its butter. He swears by its some of the best shovels he ever used

"The guy posting this has a nazi cross next to his name... wouldn't believe him if he posted a message saying the sky is blue."

First off, there's no such thing as a "Nazi Cross" That is an Iron Cross which is a symbol that has been part of German military since 1813 long before the Nazi or Hitlar where ever a thing, learn your history before you make such silly and utterly clueless remarks like this

If one wants to believe this conscripts cannot be used stuff then Russia will never be able to take Ukraine, as it would need to rely on its current numbers and there is no way they will be able to kill enough Ukies without losing a lot of their own guys (Ukraine still has millions to pull from going by russia its self).

So what will it be, will Russia formally declare war? or will they have to stop eventually because they simply lack the manpower needed for offenses.

I think the shovels were to remove the Bandera-filth body parts.
Those things can cause nasty diseases, remember!

Re the iron cross, the point is that Germany is VERY LUCKY to still exist as a "country" after what it did in the Gr Patriotic War.

Some say "ahhhh the swastika is thousands of years old" so we should be able to use it. Likewise the Irminsul and all that other crap.And anyone who supports the German army in this (which is evidently supporting the Banderafilth) is basically a ****.

My message to the Germans. Well if you want to use symbols, don't associate them with a genocide of 50m or so people. Because the rest of the World won't listen to your pleas to "forget about the past" when you never actually even paid for the past.

And as for those Ukrainian filth, well Russia is gonna do to you what it should have done to the krauts back in 45.
If Bandera-filth are using the iron cross, its clear they are identifying as Nazis and deserve everything they get.

SeigSolovyov wrote: So what will it be, will Russia formally declare war? or will they have to stop eventually because they simply lack the manpower needed for offenses.

They have already pooled the numbers, you have to distinguish between conscripts (who are called 2x a year) and mobilized (previous military experience called up last year ~roughly 300k-500k depending on who you ask)

Those mobilized men can in fact be used in the SMO - The problem is, you cannot cobble this mass and just throw it at the front line

You need divisions, with CO, NCO, logistical supplies, armaments, garrison, and all

It has been 6 months, but those things are not ready yet - there is bureaucracy inherent to raising new formations , especially at the scale we are talking about

We talk about 10+ new divisions , with brigade complement of tanks, artillery, special weapons, own HQ, and all the other stuff that goes with

I would be surprised if we see this ready even by this year, as it is a monumental task organizing these men into cohesive fighting units

All those 300K men are currently within Russian borders not including recent gained territory.

Training, for actual effective troops and not "bodies with a gun", require training. There is a reason why conscripts run for 1 to 2 years, because that is what training requires.

I would figure someone who proclaims to be a "special forces unit in Afghanistan and Syria" should know this basic concept by now. But then again, they assist Ukraine to send men for 2 weeks training and then into the battlefield amd call them elite troops.

If one wants to believe this conscripts cannot be used stuff then Russia will never be able to take Ukraine, as it would need to rely on its current numbers and there is no way they will be able to kill enough Ukies without losing a lot of their own guys (Ukraine still has millions to pull from going by russia its self).

So what will it be, will Russia formally declare war? or will they have to stop eventually because they simply lack the manpower needed for offenses.

Russia didn't spend billions on strategic weapons to risk losing 1000's of men in a conventional war over its basic red lines. Suspending START is just the beginning. Although Putin will be too slow with this process too. He should give them a week to stop arms flows. Then pull out of all arms reduction treaties and test nuclear weapons. Then ask again.

But I guess this shows the limitations of strategic weapons. Much more of that money should have been spent on contract soldiers.

If Russia tests nukes and the US still arms and trains Ukraine full tilt, then nuclear weapons are obsolete for everyone.

The iron cross is not recognized as a "nazi" symbol as Seig rightfully stated, but that is not the thought process of the SS-Larpers.
They show through such symbols their idealism and affiliation towards nazism.
The Iron cross is just a placeholder to a Hackenkreuz for them or they find them "cool".
In the end it doesn't matter what matters is that these SS-Larpers go to the front and do their duty and catch some 152mm rounds.

"~roughly 300k-500k depending on who you ask"

This wasn't all combat troops, the actual percentage of frontline troops from this isn't really known, they did plug some gaps but that's all that's really been seen, I have not seen masses of new forces in Ukraine no one has

the swastika isn't thousand of years old, the symbol the Nazi's got it from was but these are two different symbols that mean two DIFFERENT THINGS, The nazi's took a symbol slightly changed it, you are letting your hatred blind you to historical facts

New post  sepheronx Today at 11:57 am
All those 300K men are currently within Russian borders not including recent gained territory.

Training, for actual effective troops and not "bodies with a gun", require training. There is a reason why conscripts run for 1 to 2 years, because that is what training requires.

I would figure someone who proclaims to be a "special forces unit in Afghanistan and Syria" should know this basic concept by now. But then again, they assist Ukraine to send men for 2 weeks training and then into the battlefield amd call them elite troops.

According to Putin, half of the mobilized (150K) are in the SMO and half (150K) are in Russia receiving further training.

In regards to these mobilized soldiers, they are all ex-professional military (contract, officers, sergeants or warrant officers) subject to recall, who had left to return to civilian life. They are not just anyone off the street.

No they aren't just new guys. But at same time, refresher training is required and that still isn't a 6month ordeal.

Now the 150K in the SMO has to be determined as to where they are located, what their tasks are and who they are.

For the who, I'm assuming they are men who have the most recent experience in the military and thus were sent over. As to the where, from what I have gathered and heard, they are all in the rear echelons meaning they aren't actually in the conflict but sitting on standby for use. Maybe possible of rotation for units closer to the frontline so they get experience as well while the frontline guys get some needed R&R. Which leads to What their task is and the where kinda answers some of that. But my only guess is most for some kind of future offensive or just overall defense for it Ukraine does muster up enough fools to do zerg rush on Russians in spring.