The Situation in the Ukraine. #28

JohninMK wrote:The mappers think war is coming. Still making claims re position of Russian units. If they were where they say there would be no chance of attack.

par far wrote:

JohninMK wrote:The mappers think war is coming. Still making claims re position of Russian units. If they were where they say there would be no chance of attack.

Does anyone know if there is a pro-Russian map website?

VARGR198 wrote:

par far wrote:

JohninMK wrote:The mappers think war is coming. Still making claims re position of Russian units. If they were where they say there would be no chance of attack.

Does anyone know if there is a pro-Russian map website?

Yea Southfront makes pro-Russian maps.
https://southfront.org/military-situation-in-eastern-ukraine-on-march-11-2021-map-update/

Google shut down 63rd ANNA NEWS YouToub channel.they definitely need to change the platform

https://twitter.com/200_zoka/status/1369369529533534212

kvs wrote:

LMFS wrote:

The OSCE is claiming there are Russian units inside the Donbass.   This is pure pro-Kiev propaganda designed to enable ethnic cleansing.
The OSCE is denying the existence of local resistance and pretends the conflict is due to Russian occupation.    I suppose Russians
have been "occupying" the Donbass ever since the Bolsheviks grafted it it onto their concocted Ukrainian SSR.   Those dastardly
Russians and holy Bolsheviks!

kvs wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:Russia's politics are fucking garbage. They should have left OSCE.

We may yet see this after the recent diss by Lavrov of the EU.    Russia's policy is shifting.

Phase two: the attack

Over the past years, the Ukrainian military has received a great deal of assistance from the West, both in terms of equipment/money and in terms of training. Furthermore, in numerical terms, the Ukrainian military is much bigger than the combined forces of the LDNR. However, it would be a mistake to assume that the LDNR forces were just sitting on their laurels and not working really hard to achieve a qualitative jump in their capabilities.

The Ukrainian government is working on yet another mobilization (there were many such waves of mobilization in the past, none of them really successful), and considering the chaos in the country, it is unlikely to go better than the previous ones. If we want to do some “bean counting”, we can say that Kiev could theoretically mobilize about 300’000 soldiers while the standing LDNR forces number approximately 30’000 soliders (these are standing forces before mobilization). However, we must take into account that the Ukrainian forces are mostly conscripts whereas the LDNR forces are 100% professional volunteers fighting for their own land and in defense of their own families and friends. This makes a huge difference!

Besides, like all “bean counting”, this purely numerical comparison completely misses the point. That point is that the LDNR forces are much better trained, equipped, commanded and motivated. Furthermore, the LDNR forces have had years to prepare for an Ukronazi attack, In fact, both sides of the line of contact are now heavily fortified. Yet, and in spite of all this, the LDNR suffers from a huge weakness: no strategic (or even operational) depth. Worse, the city of Donetsk is quite literally on the front line.

Could the Ukrainian forces “punch through” the LDNR defenses? I would say that this is not impossible, and “not impossible” is serious enough to warrant a lot of preparations by the Russian armed forces to quickly intervene and stop any such breakthrough by the Ukrainian forces. Does the Russian military have the means to stop such an attack?

Yes, absolutely. First, all of the LDNR is literally right across the Russian border, which means that pretty much any Russian weapons system can “reach” not only into the LDNR, but even throughout the Ukrainian tactical, operational and even strategic depth. Russia can also deploy a classical Anti Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) “cupola” over the LDNR using a mix of air defense and electronic warfare systems. Russian rockets and artillery systems can be used not only as counter-battery fire, but also to destroy attacking Ukrainian subunits. Finally, the Russian forces in Crimea and the Black Sea Fleet can also be engaged if needed. As for Russian coastal defense systems (Bal and Bastion), they can “lock” the entire Black Sea.

The biggest problem for Russia is that she cannot do any of that without triggering a huge political crisis in Europe; just visualize what the likes of Antony Blinken, Ned Price or Jane Psaki would have to say about such a Russian intervention! Remember, these are the folks who immediately accused Russia of attacking Georgia, not the other way around. We are now all living in the “post-truth” era of “highly likely”, not of facts.

I have said that for years now the real point of a Ukrainian attack on the Donbass would not be to reconquer the region, but to force Russia to openly and, therefore, undeniably intervene. This has been a Neocon wet dream since 2014 and it is still their ultimate objective in the Ukraine. So what would a Russian counter-attack look like?

medo wrote:I'm not quite shure, but I think the numbers for LDNR army is intentially too low, qould be from both sides. Even if Ukraine mobilize 300.000 soldiers, they will not be all in Donbass ans Ukraine need them also on the border with Russia, Crimea, Hungary,... I would say 150 to 200.000 would be on Donbass front. Quite a lot, no doubt. But against them will not be only 30.000 LDNR soldiers. LDNR will immidiately mobilize reserves, so there will be around 100.000 LDNR soldiers. In 2014, 2015 they couldn't bring that many soldiers as they didn't have enough weapons, now they have. There will also come voluntiers from Russia and other places. They could expect at least 10.000 voluntiers from Russia. So the ratio between LDNR and Ukraine army is not that good for Ukrainen now. They will not have such advantage as they have in 2014. LDNR army is also well armed and their armament is mostly equal if not even in better shape than Ukrainian one.

I read an ukrainian article, where they said, that LDNR have some Strela-10 SAMs, which could not reach Bayraktars, so Ukraine will destroy LDNR army mostly with Bayraktars. LDNR air defense already defeat Ukrainian air force in 2014 and after that, they don't fly over Donbas. Now LDNR air defense is way stronger than in 2014. They are integrating it and we could already see, that they have radars, ELINT/ECM complexes, AA guns and MANPADs and Strela-10 and Osa-AKM batteries. LDNR modernize their Osas and increase their range of missiles to 15 km and 7 km in altitude. Radars as Kasta 2-1 would effectively detect them, so Osa would be able to shot down Bayraktar before they come close enough to drop their bombs and missiles. Pushilin already said, that they precisely analyze war in Artsakh and bring conclusions and plans, how to deal with Bayraktars and other dangers.

Why people think LDNR have no depth in defense? They just keep important things in secret.

LDNR army is strong enough and ready to deal with Ukrainian army. I don't think, Russia will need to send their own army in Donbass. Logistical support will be enough.

franco wrote:Latest Ukrainian military numbers from the IISS:

Army 145,000 - 20 maneuver brigades; 850 tanks; 1,800 artillery
Airborne & Special Forces 8,000 - 9 brigades / regiments
Air Force 45,000 - 125 combat aircraft; 75 armed helicopters; 70 Buk-M1 SAM; 250 S-300P/PS/PT SAM
Navy 11,000 - includes 2,000 marines
Border Guard 42,000 - mostly static, a few deploy-able reaction battalions
National Guard 60,000 - probably a third heavily armed like Army units

Total 209,000 Armed Forces and 102,000 paramilitary security forces. Not sure what percentage are conscripts or how many reserves can be mobilized (900,000 claimed)  

Donetsk 20,000 - 6 maneuver brigades
Luhansk 14,000 -4 maneuver brigades

Total 34,000 organized in 2 Army Corps with claimed reserves of 70,000. All are volunteers although conscription is being considered.  

kvs wrote:

flamming_python wrote:Ukro propagandist Gordon spilled the beans about the upcoming offensive. 15th March it's going down

https://twitter.com/MilitaryBlog/status/1369398731594989573?s=20

Classic Ukraine

The ides of March?