Honestly the least obvious thing would be an attack through Kherson. It would be insane to pull off and would require a lot of cunning and equipment, but if successful would cut off Crimea and open another front.
meh they simply don't have the equipment to pull off something like that without it becoming a shitshow. They've have to cross AND push the Russians out of artillery range of the crossings they construct. If they didn't make fast progress afterwards you'd end up with a reverse of Russia's Kherson situation.
>meh they simply don't have the equipment
Or could this all be a trick to make the Russians believe they have nothing to fear?
0a) Keep Russians entertained at Bakhmut
0b) Rumor: Ukies are almost out of stuff
1) Destroy Kerch bridge
2) Glass Kreml
3) Pay Wagner more than Putin can
Right, hence why they’re 30 trillion in debt, 130% debt to GDP, infrastructure in the US is crumbling, they cannot lead anything other than proxy / drone wars since about 2008 and that’s just the beginning.
you see, the the funny thing is that burger debt is in burger money, hence it doesn't fricking matter
'murica has the closest thing to irl infinite money cheat
>30 trillion in debt, 130% debt to GDP
When you owe the bank ten dollars, that's your problem. When you owe the bank ten million dollars, that's the bank's problem.
fr? china. they had like 1800 bln of american debts and wanted to get rid of them and still sit on like 1000 bln.
they cant get rid of them.
If dollar crashed china loses so much money, theyre in the fricking boat together.
>Uncle Sam pays people to make weapons, they pay tax on the money they make, they spend that money, pay more sales tax
Don't you understand that the economy is just a cycle of money flowing back and forth?
"The" counter-offensive is misdirection, there will be two. One will be a relief offensive in the Bakhmut direction, to overwhelm the expended mercenaries. The second will be a strategic advance to cut off Crimea.
Cutting off Crimea from southern Ukraine would also allow for GLSDB and other... asset strikes against the Kerch bridge.
If the Ukies reach the Azov sea, Crimea is cut off. Oh, theyll be connected via ships? Don't tell me you forgot about all those Harpoons Ukraine got a year ago.
>Dump more men into Bakhmut. >Throw a diversionary offensive towards Crimea to stretch Russian resources. >Push toward Melitopol to cut the Russians in half again. >try to open another northern front
Pick 2.
Or more like pick dump more men into Bakhmut and one other.
Cut off Crimea, don't want to finish the war without Ukranian boots on it. Otherwise it might get lost at the negotiating table if any, or the focus of RuA resources.
>Likely
Overwhelming assault in the Bakhmut area
Push south to Melitopol to cut the Russian territory
New northern push into Luhansk Oblast >Unlikely
Crossing the Dneiper near Kherson and gunning for Crimea
Continue holding pattern indefinitely across all fronts to try and drain Russian resources through to the summer >Extremely Dubious
Amphibious assault on Crimea after massive drone campaign
Free Russian forces start a coordinated insurgency within Belgorod
Belarussian rebels flip the government with Ukie support >Deranged
Ukraine commits to a full invasion punching into Belgorod
Dirty bombs detonated outside the Kremlin using nuclear waste scavenged from Chernobyl
Chechnya declares independence after their leadership finds a new sugar daddy with Western money >Clown World
China claims Vladivostock
Putin attempts to launch nukes only for them to fail to launch
The Dutch agitate for Article 5 bringing up the MH17 incident again
Strelkov declares himself the new Tsar, no one listens to him
Modern history has multiple examples of Crimea being invaded without amphibious equipment. It's not the English channel.
The isthmus may be narrow in geographical terms, but even at the extreme narrow point you could easily fit the the city limits of Bakhmut (which is relevant to understanding the limits of Russian fire control).
Sorry, that's true. t. Westerner with westerner reading comprehension.
I just get riled up when we have endless discussions about the hypothetical Crimean phase of the war and people act like it hasn't changed hands 5 or 6 times in the last 100 years without needing D-Day levels of amphibious logistics.
Well good thing they won't need them. The fun begins when the Crimea Bridge is destroyed. Then we can watch Putin try to feed over a million people with boats and planes. I'm sure it'll go well considering he can't keep his troops in Donbas fed and supplied
Transport barges can match the capacity of a road and rail connection, and are extremely vulnerable. Ukraine has already shown that it can hit Sevastopol, barges will be easy.
Sevastopol is bigger then a barge, and is also not moving.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Stop being a moron. If their major permanent naval base is vulnerable to attack then some shitty little barges travelling known routes will be as well.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Of course. But Sevastopol is still standing, despite being vulnerable.
World >Strelkov declares himself the new Tsar, no one listens to him
Circus pleroma:
Strelkov crowns himself Tsar and everyone swears fealty on the spot
Cutting off Crimea is probably a no-go, recall last year Russia was observed sending prefabricated concrete bunkers in that direction. Permanent fortifications are likely too much for Ukraine to overcome within the immediate future.
Prigozhen seems to think Ukraine intends to push multiple fronts. Belgorod, Donetsk/Luhansk around Kremmina and Lysychansk, A counterattack to relieve Bakhmut, and an attack south from Dnipro to Zaporizhia.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1638939229156769792
I personally doubt Belgorod, though I don't doubt Wagner or the Russian Army thinks they're considering it. A lot of Ukraine's international image and reputation is based on the idea they're fighting a defensive war, an offense into Russia proper might jeopardize that. But, it's likely a good idea to make Russia *think* they might consider that.
Everything else seems completely reasonable and has been talked to death here, though on the concept there would only be one. I'd like to remind everyone that we made that mistake last year when we assumed there would only be one counteroffensive on Kherson. Opening up multiple fronts to keep the enemy guessing is an obvious strategy.
As long as Russian forces are in Ukraine then Ukraine is perfectly justified in attacking over the Russian boarder if it weakens the Russians ability to fight in Ukraine. They have made it perfectly clear that they just wants their pre 2014 boarders back.
The problem with that is it suddenly makes the Russian people a lot more interested in the war.
Right now they see it as a proactive war against the encroaching NATO with dubious value. And that those super in favor of it are 'patriots' who should be on the front rather than posting online.
But if Ukraine (to them NATO) attacks some actual Russian cities, then there is a lot more justification for the fight.
major offensive against Bakhmut with goal of encircling and annihilating Wagner forces directly to the north of the town, probing attacks along the Southern front with the goal of finding vulnerabilities and exploiting one all of the way to the Azov sea in late spring/early summer. Doesn't matter that much where they open that corridor, Melitopol would likely be easier and more ideal but you really just need to cut off the land bridge to start forcing the southern forces to retreat into Crimea.
Ukraine isn't actually going to win this war force on force, they do not have the bodies or vehicles to throw against Russian defenses to eject them if Russian morale holds up. Russia is taking disgusting casualties because they're attempting offensives with inexperienced troops and limited armored vehicles, Ukraine will likely face the same issues attacking into the Donbass and Crimea in the long run but has only 1/3rd the bodies. If they want a full victory they need to cause a humiliation and widespread morale collapse. If they crush Bakhmut right before the next, inevitable mobilization wave the social chaos said mobilization might cause will be amplified due to the priority Russia placed on capturing it.
I wonder if Western weaponry might be a game changer, though. We haven't even seen Bradleys much less Leopards in combat in Ukraine yet, and from what I understand even a Bradley, which isn't itself a tank or heavy armor, can tear apart T-55s (and easily T-34s if the Russians get that desperate). So even with a lack of numbers maybe the Ukies can have a tech advantage.
T-55s will never make up a substantial portion of Russian armor, Russia scrapped and sold most of them. The ones you are seeing are likely for rearguard and were likely samples in relatively functional order. It's likely that T-62s (obr 2022/2023, rofl) will make up the bulk of their 'new' armor going forward.
Bradleys can also destroy T-62s with TOW missiles pretty easily but I wouldn't count on a Bradley for AT duty. This war is still largely going to be fought with Soviet equipment. Ukrainian T-64
>If they crush Bakhmut right before the next, inevitable mobilization wave the social chaos said mobilization might cause will be amplified due to the priority Russia placed on capturing it
If you haven't noticed Russians are able to eat any propaganda army gives them. Losing Melitopol has actual impact that Russia can't avoid, getting pushed out of Bakhmut wouldn't be any different humiliation than what Russia experiences on daily basis
> If they want a full victory they need to cause a humiliation and widespread morale collapse
I agree with you there, but I think it is possible, it happened on a small scale last year in Karkiv and Izyum, and things haven't exactly improved for the Russians since then.
Russia can stack the front with Mobniks, but that can be a major weakness as poorly motivated and lead troops can easily be panicked and hard to direct.
Back then the Russians had like 20k men in all of Ukraine. No one cared if they lost because it was like 100 drunk reservists getting run out of town by drones.
Now shit matters because they're fairly well committed.
>If they want a full victory they need to cause a humiliation and widespread morale collapse
Take out the Crimea Bridge, you rat frick the Russian supply chain that runs through Crimea, humiliate Putin since he's overly proud of that bridge, and any Russian south of Kherson is going to be shitting themselves since their main retreat path has been cut off.
Russia just declared Melitopol the new Zaporizhzhia oblast capital.
Losing it would be a big morable blow and they can't hide it to the ziggers in russia
Russians are apathetic and will eat up anything the government feeds them. The loss of Kherson didn't even register with them, as it was all in the plan of the great leader.
Ukraine just needs to hold out and let the economic effects set in.
>implying either of those are difficult
both are useful as bargaining chips (if russians even care about them) and aren't that hard to store when your not under blockade and food shortages
so did you arrive at that conclusion after it became clear russia lost or were you always in the "heh BOTH SIDES are equally stupid israelite controlled unlike smart people such as myself!" camp?
> the "heh BOTH SIDES are equally stupid israelite controlled unlike smart people such as myself!" camp?
That's just vatniks, it's their clever tactic to divide and conquer. They've been doing it since day 1 and it hasn't worked yet.
>russia is winning
Ok, but why is currently winning in minor city 20 minutes of drive from their starting positions, when summer last year they were winning in kherson, and few months before they were winning near kharkiv and kyiv?
Dont get me wrong, i am not denying the string of russian victories, but the fact that they keep happening closer and closer to russian borders does raise some questions
Ukraine HAS to push to melitopol and berdyansk. They need to cut off crimea from land. Maybe berdyansk later, but melitopol and freeing Kherson oblast is necessary in my opinion. This makes it not only much easier to defend from crimea (two narrow roads that you can blow up) but also cuts off crimea for land permanently since russia will never be able to retake it. It also allows Ukraine to cross/pontoon dnepr without risk of being shelled.
My bet is Melitopol-Energodar-Nova Kahovka and then long grind of berdyansk
Given the current frontline, I think it's more likely they're going to try to relieve Bakhmut. A surprise armored thrust could catch exhausted Russian forces off-guard, and potentially erase all their gains over the past couple months. That would let them rotate units out of the city for fewer, fresher units, while Chasiv Yar and the other second-line towns are fortified. Russia obviously doesn't want a Ukrainian breakthrough in the Center, and definitely doesn't want to be pushed back towards their step-off point, so they will concentrate forces there to blunt a Ukrainian push that will never actually come.
The counteroffensive towards Melitopol will come in Winter. Russia would almost certainly try to retake Bakhmut... and the Ukrainians would let them. There's nothing there left to hold, and with the second-line settlements fortified, the Russians won't be able to take any more than just Bakhmut. They'd be re-set to the same scenario they were in when they first attacked Bakhmut almost a year ago... but with vastly depleted troops and supplies. THIS is when Ukraine will push to the South, as they will need far more troops and armor to make a successful offensive in that area which takes enough ground to change the strategic situation and not just create a glorified salient.
Basically, Ukraine cannot afford to launch a Southern offensive until their success is more or less guaranteed. Their only real chance is to shorten the front and if they can't do that, they'll be in huge trouble. Ukraine doesn't have enough troops to spread their forces along both the Russian border AND both coasts.
>Ukraine doesn't have enough troops to spread their forces along both the Russian border AND both coasts.
Cutting off south will actually reduce the frontline heavily. Not only it cuts off russian supplies, it cuts of crimea. Which means that russia will only be able to attack from the east.
>russia is winning moron
Hey don't downplay them, Russia has won a lot of morons (plural) based on who's been supporting them most vocally over the last year.
>Ukraine will attack in Bakhmut area!
Not going to happen, I don't know any reason why people think they would do it, highest concentration of Russian forces in the war, absolutely serves zero strategically even if Ukraine wins overwhelmingly
>Simultaneous push towards Melitopol and Bakhmut >Probing around Svatove & Kreminna >Keep hammering logistics
I assume Russia will have to fall back to Popasna and they'll need to reinforce north of Donetsk & south of Lysychansk. I assume in doing so, they'll open up a gap elsewhere to be exploited with another thunder run. If its in the north, then we're back to Several donuts. If its in the south, then we're seeing a goodwill out of Crimea. Potentially both.
>then we're seeing a goodwill out of Crimea
Putin will give up all Donbabwe territory before he even contemplates leaving Crimea. Losing Crimea is tantamount to losing the war
If the Ukies retake the south, i.e. get a significant chunk of the southern coastline back and cut off the E105 & E97 routes into Crimea via Kherson obl, a goodwill of Crimea is all but guaranteed. Not quickly, potentially even measured in years, but guaranteed.
>no water supply, crops will fail this summer >kerch strait closed due to HIMARS >sevastapool resupply constrained due to brimstone >amphibious drones stalking the sea of Azov >civilian population will have to leave or starve >longer term occupation forces will leave or starve
Alternatively the frickwits will try to hang on with a trickle of costly air & sea resupply, their remaining materiel will be ground to dust and diarrhea plagued conscripts will fight over who has to leave the bunker to gather limpets.
Russian Army has taken over prison recruitment from Wagner, reportedly they are threatening to move prisoners into the gay rape baby bunks if they don't sign up.
I haven't really stayed tuned in in-depth. Last I heard they had a six-month wait list of volunteers, but that was probably six months ago. It seems that their big issue is equipment, not manpower, because they're more hesitant to shove a guy into the meat grinder with a rusty AK and WW2 helmet.
>because they're more hesitant to shove a guy into the meat grinder with a rusty AK and WW2 helmet
Makes sense. Ukraine has to keep in mind the possibility that the war lasts for 5+ years. In two years' time, they'd be ruing their mistakes if they had wasted manpower now.
>It sounds like infighting.
I disagree, Wagner's prisoner offensive is the closest thing the russians have had to a success in months, I reckon the army is just trying to copy a tactic that "works" now that Wagner has tested it out for them
Amphibious assault on the Kamkatcha peninsula, totally picked of defenders sent west. Cut off all access to the Pacific and threaten the lightly defended eastern front and oil fields.
They can pull off a counter offensive with what they have, but this war will not end this year. It is by all means an overy-hyped offensive that will make some gains and then back to the trenches for another 8 months
If Russian land connection with Crimea is cut then it won't be back to trenches for 8 months because Russia will have one bridge and ferries to supply 70-100k soldiers as well as Crimea population. That will be extremely interesting, Russian trenches in Kherson are all built to face Kherson city and Kakhovka, they have zero plans to defend it should Melitopol fall
>Melitopol
Shortest line to block land supply to Crimea >Mariupol
Deny port access
Halfway to either and Kerch Bridge is in the non-long-long range HIMARS and whatever else in their inventory. Faster it's done the more untenable holding Southern side of Kherson is. Once that's achieved there's a window of opportunity to trap or destroy them before they decamp to Crimea proper -- you want to take their bucci there and then, because frontally assaulting the penninsula has always been a pain in the dick, especially the marshes. Failing that, it should become logisticall untenable to sustain and Ukraine could just wait it out and spare the manpower while things become politically dicey in the Kremlin over this. Sooner it's taken or neutralized, the faster their grain shipments can carry on unobstructed.
The main thing will be taking and holding Melitopol to Mariupol. Local pressure on Lychansk, Severodonetsk and Horivka to help pin forces up north of the offensive. Routing Wagner at the point of exhaustion soon at Bakhmut would be a sensible preparation. Alternatively a coup de main across the river to take Kherson completely after very heavy precision bombardment is the kind of audacious headline that would help drum up more material aid, and be unexpected (while costly).
If the ukes take either melitopol or mariupol we can officially say russia is actually capital F Fricked and will probably lose crimea too
If they don't then the war is probably gonna become a forever war
I just hope they're smart about it, doing too many things at once and spreading themselves too thinly will probably not work. Although maybe attacking front A and drawing attention there before attacking front B and so on could. Wouldn't be the first time. But I'm reasonably confident in them after Kharkiv. It just remains to be seen whether enough mobiks occupy enough sufficiently fortified positions to outweigh the Ukrainian reserves and equipment superiority that is being assumed.
>Although maybe attacking front A and drawing attention there before attacking front B and so on could
They've done that before. Ukraine hyped up a huge summer counteroffensive in Kherson before sending thousands of troops in that direction. A couple waves got repulsed and pro-Russian homies were smug for months until Ukraine sent tens of thousands of men into the occupied regions of Kharkiv Oblast and took back the whole area in like two weeks.
Ukraine has been heavily targeting EW and Radar complexes the past few weeks. From R-330Zh and R-934UM to 1L261 and 1L219 counter battery radars. This is the textbook battlefield shaping.
Here's my personal guess.
Drones will be new major supporting weapon in this offensive. Not necessarily TB2's and recon drones (they'll be immensely important too), but FPV and Switchblades will be used against ATGM operators, tanks, and entrenched artillery. FPV's are especially sensitive to jamming, hence the EW destruction.
Remember those Switchblade 600 strikes against the Tor M2 and S300V4 a few weeks back? Those were litmus tests for their effectiveness and how vulnerable they were against said high value targets. Except AeroVironment has been ordered to produce thousands of Switchblade 600's for Ukraine.
Wherever Ukraine decides to strike, they will use conventional artillery to pound static Russian assets. FPV drones and will be used to soften up and harass targets near the front for the Mechanized forces. Switchblade 600's will target not only air defense, but Russian artillery positions. The key here is if Ukraine can keep a stranglehold on Russian artillery. If it can be silenced, Russia is in some deep fricking shit.
I'm just here to see how russian army will majestically frick up this time.
They always managed to surprise me, when you would not be able to believe that they can frick up even more, they somehow manage the impossible.
probably drive through here, i guess
Feels a bit obvious
Honestly the least obvious thing would be an attack through Kherson. It would be insane to pull off and would require a lot of cunning and equipment, but if successful would cut off Crimea and open another front.
meh they simply don't have the equipment to pull off something like that without it becoming a shitshow. They've have to cross AND push the Russians out of artillery range of the crossings they construct. If they didn't make fast progress afterwards you'd end up with a reverse of Russia's Kherson situation.
>meh they simply don't have the equipment
Or could this all be a trick to make the Russians believe they have nothing to fear?
0a) Keep Russians entertained at Bakhmut
0b) Rumor: Ukies are almost out of stuff
1) Destroy Kerch bridge
2) Glass Kreml
3) Pay Wagner more than Putin can
Lowest IQ take. Money is infinite for the west, the only thing they can run out of is political will and thats still strong
Right, hence why they’re 30 trillion in debt, 130% debt to GDP, infrastructure in the US is crumbling, they cannot lead anything other than proxy / drone wars since about 2008 and that’s just the beginning.
>pidorashka foaming at the mouth and making up numbers
*~~*~~
you see, the the funny thing is that burger debt is in burger money, hence it doesn't fricking matter
'murica has the closest thing to irl infinite money cheat
>30 trillion in debt, 130% debt to GDP
When you owe the bank ten dollars, that's your problem. When you owe the bank ten million dollars, that's the bank's problem.
Who is the bank
fr? china. they had like 1800 bln of american debts and wanted to get rid of them and still sit on like 1000 bln.
they cant get rid of them.
If dollar crashed china loses so much money, theyre in the fricking boat together.
US debt is at 31.6 trillion now, luckily the debt/GDP ratio is down to 120%
>Uncle Sam pays people to make weapons, they pay tax on the money they make, they spend that money, pay more sales tax
Don't you understand that the economy is just a cycle of money flowing back and forth?
>another moron who doesn’t understand how debt works
Many such cases
>no money to buy weapons for Ukraine
You realize so far we've just been giving them old leftovers that were going to be scrapped anyway, right?
Just wait until NATO actually raises an eyebrow, then Russia will understand. All will become clear.
NATO can't raise the eyebrow. For some reason, the political will isn't there. IDK why.
"The" counter-offensive is misdirection, there will be two. One will be a relief offensive in the Bakhmut direction, to overwhelm the expended mercenaries. The second will be a strategic advance to cut off Crimea.
Attacking into the mass at Bakhmut could be smart, but there are a lot of men holding that line.
Cutting off Crimea from southern Ukraine would also allow for GLSDB and other... asset strikes against the Kerch bridge.
If the Ukies reach the Azov sea, Crimea is cut off. Oh, theyll be connected via ships? Don't tell me you forgot about all those Harpoons Ukraine got a year ago.
you know that the gear sent to ukraine comes from storage not factories, those are not new production its mostly cold war era stuff
They're saying they have no weapons for an offensive. Another Kharkov/Kherson trick? A prank, if you will?
>Dump more men into Bakhmut.
>Throw a diversionary offensive towards Crimea to stretch Russian resources.
>Push toward Melitopol to cut the Russians in half again.
>try to open another northern front
Pick 2.
Or more like pick dump more men into Bakhmut and one other.
Is it possible to bum-rush Mariupol?
Mariupol is a ghost town.
>50,000 hohols used to live here.... Now it's a ghost town.
Cut off Crimea, don't want to finish the war without Ukranian boots on it. Otherwise it might get lost at the negotiating table if any, or the focus of RuA resources.
>Likely
Overwhelming assault in the Bakhmut area
Push south to Melitopol to cut the Russian territory
New northern push into Luhansk Oblast
>Unlikely
Crossing the Dneiper near Kherson and gunning for Crimea
Continue holding pattern indefinitely across all fronts to try and drain Russian resources through to the summer
>Extremely Dubious
Amphibious assault on Crimea after massive drone campaign
Free Russian forces start a coordinated insurgency within Belgorod
Belarussian rebels flip the government with Ukie support
>Deranged
Ukraine commits to a full invasion punching into Belgorod
Dirty bombs detonated outside the Kremlin using nuclear waste scavenged from Chernobyl
Chechnya declares independence after their leadership finds a new sugar daddy with Western money
>Clown World
China claims Vladivostock
Putin attempts to launch nukes only for them to fail to launch
The Dutch agitate for Article 5 bringing up the MH17 incident again
Strelkov declares himself the new Tsar, no one listens to him
>Amphibious assault on Crimea after massive drone campaign
They literally don't have the landing craft
Modern history has multiple examples of Crimea being invaded without amphibious equipment. It's not the English channel.
The isthmus may be narrow in geographical terms, but even at the extreme narrow point you could easily fit the the city limits of Bakhmut (which is relevant to understanding the limits of Russian fire control).
He specified amphibious assault
Sorry, that's true. t. Westerner with westerner reading comprehension.
I just get riled up when we have endless discussions about the hypothetical Crimean phase of the war and people act like it hasn't changed hands 5 or 6 times in the last 100 years without needing D-Day levels of amphibious logistics.
Well good thing they won't need them. The fun begins when the Crimea Bridge is destroyed. Then we can watch Putin try to feed over a million people with boats and planes. I'm sure it'll go well considering he can't keep his troops in Donbas fed and supplied
You do realize the crimean bridge was only built in 2018? They were using transport barges to ferry trucks across for a few years.
Transport barges can match the capacity of a road and rail connection, and are extremely vulnerable. Ukraine has already shown that it can hit Sevastopol, barges will be easy.
Cant*
Sevastopol is bigger then a barge, and is also not moving.
Stop being a moron. If their major permanent naval base is vulnerable to attack then some shitty little barges travelling known routes will be as well.
Of course. But Sevastopol is still standing, despite being vulnerable.
The US has given them a few sea-capable patrol vessels, it would just be a very silly invasion
>Strelkov declares himself the new Tsar, no one listens to him
should be in "Unlikely"
>Crossing the Dneiper near Kherson and gunning for Crimea
Ziggers think this plus Melitopol
kino
It's still fun how even the Russians don't know what borders they exactly claim to be Russian.
>clown world
seems like the most likely to me actually
World
>Strelkov declares himself the new Tsar, no one listens to him
Circus pleroma:
Strelkov crowns himself Tsar and everyone swears fealty on the spot
I want to know what they are going to do with all the tank mines along the way.
Has anyone donated de-mining equipment?
Cutting off Crimea is probably a no-go, recall last year Russia was observed sending prefabricated concrete bunkers in that direction. Permanent fortifications are likely too much for Ukraine to overcome within the immediate future.
>prefabricated concrete bunkers
you mean a septic tank?
Prigozhen seems to think Ukraine intends to push multiple fronts. Belgorod, Donetsk/Luhansk around Kremmina and Lysychansk, A counterattack to relieve Bakhmut, and an attack south from Dnipro to Zaporizhia.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1638939229156769792
I personally doubt Belgorod, though I don't doubt Wagner or the Russian Army thinks they're considering it. A lot of Ukraine's international image and reputation is based on the idea they're fighting a defensive war, an offense into Russia proper might jeopardize that. But, it's likely a good idea to make Russia *think* they might consider that.
Everything else seems completely reasonable and has been talked to death here, though on the concept there would only be one. I'd like to remind everyone that we made that mistake last year when we assumed there would only be one counteroffensive on Kherson. Opening up multiple fronts to keep the enemy guessing is an obvious strategy.
As long as Russian forces are in Ukraine then Ukraine is perfectly justified in attacking over the Russian boarder if it weakens the Russians ability to fight in Ukraine. They have made it perfectly clear that they just wants their pre 2014 boarders back.
>perfectly justified in attacking over the Russian boarder if it weakens the Russians ability to fight in Ukraine
Siege of Leningrad remaster, when?
The problem with that is it suddenly makes the Russian people a lot more interested in the war.
Right now they see it as a proactive war against the encroaching NATO with dubious value. And that those super in favor of it are 'patriots' who should be on the front rather than posting online.
But if Ukraine (to them NATO) attacks some actual Russian cities, then there is a lot more justification for the fight.
Storing weapons and equipment is expensive.
Ukraine literally gets Western leftovers that would otherwise drain the funds rotting away in warehouses.
Nice try Shoigu, I'm not doing your homework again.
major offensive against Bakhmut with goal of encircling and annihilating Wagner forces directly to the north of the town, probing attacks along the Southern front with the goal of finding vulnerabilities and exploiting one all of the way to the Azov sea in late spring/early summer. Doesn't matter that much where they open that corridor, Melitopol would likely be easier and more ideal but you really just need to cut off the land bridge to start forcing the southern forces to retreat into Crimea.
Ukraine isn't actually going to win this war force on force, they do not have the bodies or vehicles to throw against Russian defenses to eject them if Russian morale holds up. Russia is taking disgusting casualties because they're attempting offensives with inexperienced troops and limited armored vehicles, Ukraine will likely face the same issues attacking into the Donbass and Crimea in the long run but has only 1/3rd the bodies. If they want a full victory they need to cause a humiliation and widespread morale collapse. If they crush Bakhmut right before the next, inevitable mobilization wave the social chaos said mobilization might cause will be amplified due to the priority Russia placed on capturing it.
I wonder if Western weaponry might be a game changer, though. We haven't even seen Bradleys much less Leopards in combat in Ukraine yet, and from what I understand even a Bradley, which isn't itself a tank or heavy armor, can tear apart T-55s (and easily T-34s if the Russians get that desperate). So even with a lack of numbers maybe the Ukies can have a tech advantage.
T-55s will never make up a substantial portion of Russian armor, Russia scrapped and sold most of them. The ones you are seeing are likely for rearguard and were likely samples in relatively functional order. It's likely that T-62s (obr 2022/2023, rofl) will make up the bulk of their 'new' armor going forward.
Bradleys can also destroy T-62s with TOW missiles pretty easily but I wouldn't count on a Bradley for AT duty. This war is still largely going to be fought with Soviet equipment. Ukrainian T-64
>If they crush Bakhmut right before the next, inevitable mobilization wave the social chaos said mobilization might cause will be amplified due to the priority Russia placed on capturing it
If you haven't noticed Russians are able to eat any propaganda army gives them. Losing Melitopol has actual impact that Russia can't avoid, getting pushed out of Bakhmut wouldn't be any different humiliation than what Russia experiences on daily basis
> If they want a full victory they need to cause a humiliation and widespread morale collapse
I agree with you there, but I think it is possible, it happened on a small scale last year in Karkiv and Izyum, and things haven't exactly improved for the Russians since then.
Russia can stack the front with Mobniks, but that can be a major weakness as poorly motivated and lead troops can easily be panicked and hard to direct.
Russians never had morale. Every war they fight because they fear their autocrat and blocking detachments. lmao
Back then the Russians had like 20k men in all of Ukraine. No one cared if they lost because it was like 100 drunk reservists getting run out of town by drones.
Now shit matters because they're fairly well committed.
>If they want a full victory they need to cause a humiliation and widespread morale collapse
Take out the Crimea Bridge, you rat frick the Russian supply chain that runs through Crimea, humiliate Putin since he's overly proud of that bridge, and any Russian south of Kherson is going to be shitting themselves since their main retreat path has been cut off.
Russia just declared Melitopol the new Zaporizhzhia oblast capital.
Losing it would be a big morable blow and they can't hide it to the ziggers in russia
Russians are apathetic and will eat up anything the government feeds them. The loss of Kherson didn't even register with them, as it was all in the plan of the great leader.
Ukraine just needs to hold out and let the economic effects set in.
Too many mines. It would frick up all their NATO armor. Only Bakhmut is mine free because the Russians are attacking
is this real?
I'm sorry about all the katyusha sunk the moskva jokes I made back when. I never really expected this. I am deeply, truly sorry.
are those fricking zis-5s?
Oh baby we're back
Take out the bridge!
This. It's insane that that thing is still standing. Give Ukraine the shit to take it out
No, they need a way to retreat their subhumans. You blow that up after the war.
They can swim.
>they can swim
Or surrender
Or just die
Or they can frick off back to their country, so the Ukrainians don't have to deal with hundreds of thousands of dead/POW moskal savages.
>implying either of those are difficult
both are useful as bargaining chips (if russians even care about them) and aren't that hard to store when your not under blockade and food shortages
See, you need to shut the frick up. Even in your scenario they need to be exchanged.
Is the rail line working to capacity yet?
>2022. There won't be a Kherson offensive moment
Pepperridge Farms remembers
so did you arrive at that conclusion after it became clear russia lost or were you always in the "heh BOTH SIDES are equally stupid israelite controlled unlike smart people such as myself!" camp?
> the "heh BOTH SIDES are equally stupid israelite controlled unlike smart people such as myself!" camp?
That's just vatniks, it's their clever tactic to divide and conquer. They've been doing it since day 1 and it hasn't worked yet.
>russia is winning
Ok, but why is currently winning in minor city 20 minutes of drive from their starting positions, when summer last year they were winning in kherson, and few months before they were winning near kharkiv and kyiv?
Dont get me wrong, i am not denying the string of russian victories, but the fact that they keep happening closer and closer to russian borders does raise some questions
>russia is winning moron,
Winning what exactly? How do you measure success?
Number of dead Russians of course, once Russia hits 27 million dead soldiers they will be able to reach Berlin*~~
Ukraine HAS to push to melitopol and berdyansk. They need to cut off crimea from land. Maybe berdyansk later, but melitopol and freeing Kherson oblast is necessary in my opinion. This makes it not only much easier to defend from crimea (two narrow roads that you can blow up) but also cuts off crimea for land permanently since russia will never be able to retake it. It also allows Ukraine to cross/pontoon dnepr without risk of being shelled.
My bet is Melitopol-Energodar-Nova Kahovka and then long grind of berdyansk
Given the current frontline, I think it's more likely they're going to try to relieve Bakhmut. A surprise armored thrust could catch exhausted Russian forces off-guard, and potentially erase all their gains over the past couple months. That would let them rotate units out of the city for fewer, fresher units, while Chasiv Yar and the other second-line towns are fortified. Russia obviously doesn't want a Ukrainian breakthrough in the Center, and definitely doesn't want to be pushed back towards their step-off point, so they will concentrate forces there to blunt a Ukrainian push that will never actually come.
The counteroffensive towards Melitopol will come in Winter. Russia would almost certainly try to retake Bakhmut... and the Ukrainians would let them. There's nothing there left to hold, and with the second-line settlements fortified, the Russians won't be able to take any more than just Bakhmut. They'd be re-set to the same scenario they were in when they first attacked Bakhmut almost a year ago... but with vastly depleted troops and supplies. THIS is when Ukraine will push to the South, as they will need far more troops and armor to make a successful offensive in that area which takes enough ground to change the strategic situation and not just create a glorified salient.
Basically, Ukraine cannot afford to launch a Southern offensive until their success is more or less guaranteed. Their only real chance is to shorten the front and if they can't do that, they'll be in huge trouble. Ukraine doesn't have enough troops to spread their forces along both the Russian border AND both coasts.
>Ukraine doesn't have enough troops to spread their forces along both the Russian border AND both coasts.
Cutting off south will actually reduce the frontline heavily. Not only it cuts off russian supplies, it cuts of crimea. Which means that russia will only be able to attack from the east.
"Putin is denazifying Ukraine!"
"Ukraine is a israeli plot!"
Which is it snowBlack person?
>russia is winning moron
Hey don't downplay them, Russia has won a lot of morons (plural) based on who's been supporting them most vocally over the last year.
Nice try, Shoigu.
Literally, and I mean that in the literal sense, not true.
>Ukraine will attack in Bakhmut area!
Not going to happen, I don't know any reason why people think they would do it, highest concentration of Russian forces in the war, absolutely serves zero strategically even if Ukraine wins overwhelmingly
Directly into the centre of Donetsk city
>Simultaneous push towards Melitopol and Bakhmut
>Probing around Svatove & Kreminna
>Keep hammering logistics
I assume Russia will have to fall back to Popasna and they'll need to reinforce north of Donetsk & south of Lysychansk. I assume in doing so, they'll open up a gap elsewhere to be exploited with another thunder run. If its in the north, then we're back to Several donuts. If its in the south, then we're seeing a goodwill out of Crimea. Potentially both.
>then we're seeing a goodwill out of Crimea
Putin will give up all Donbabwe territory before he even contemplates leaving Crimea. Losing Crimea is tantamount to losing the war
>war?
It's a Special Military Operation.
If the Ukies retake the south, i.e. get a significant chunk of the southern coastline back and cut off the E105 & E97 routes into Crimea via Kherson obl, a goodwill of Crimea is all but guaranteed. Not quickly, potentially even measured in years, but guaranteed.
>no water supply, crops will fail this summer
>kerch strait closed due to HIMARS
>sevastapool resupply constrained due to brimstone
>amphibious drones stalking the sea of Azov
>civilian population will have to leave or starve
>longer term occupation forces will leave or starve
Alternatively the frickwits will try to hang on with a trickle of costly air & sea resupply, their remaining materiel will be ground to dust and diarrhea plagued conscripts will fight over who has to leave the bunker to gather limpets.
What's the recruitment situation on both sides like?
Russian Army has taken over prison recruitment from Wagner, reportedly they are threatening to move prisoners into the gay rape baby bunks if they don't sign up.
I heard about the new prison thing on the Russian side. It sounds like infighting.
What about on the Ukraine-side?
I haven't really stayed tuned in in-depth. Last I heard they had a six-month wait list of volunteers, but that was probably six months ago. It seems that their big issue is equipment, not manpower, because they're more hesitant to shove a guy into the meat grinder with a rusty AK and WW2 helmet.
>because they're more hesitant to shove a guy into the meat grinder with a rusty AK and WW2 helmet
Makes sense. Ukraine has to keep in mind the possibility that the war lasts for 5+ years. In two years' time, they'd be ruing their mistakes if they had wasted manpower now.
>It sounds like infighting.
I disagree, Wagner's prisoner offensive is the closest thing the russians have had to a success in months, I reckon the army is just trying to copy a tactic that "works" now that Wagner has tested it out for them
Amphibious assault on the Kamkatcha peninsula, totally picked of defenders sent west. Cut off all access to the Pacific and threaten the lightly defended eastern front and oil fields.
They can pull off a counter offensive with what they have, but this war will not end this year. It is by all means an overy-hyped offensive that will make some gains and then back to the trenches for another 8 months
If Russian land connection with Crimea is cut then it won't be back to trenches for 8 months because Russia will have one bridge and ferries to supply 70-100k soldiers as well as Crimea population. That will be extremely interesting, Russian trenches in Kherson are all built to face Kherson city and Kakhovka, they have zero plans to defend it should Melitopol fall
you do not seem to understand how any of this works, my foreign friend
What did germans do in WW2 after getting hold of Dnepr and before the Crimean campaign? We can follow from there.
>still lost the war
Thanks to the infinate power of the States which, this time, is backing the western faction.
kind of hard to lose the war when you have infinite steroids being shoved up your ass while you are just ctrl+a spamming infinite lemmings
>cope arrows circa 1941
What moron made this map?
>Vilno is being part of Lithuania
>Melitopol
Shortest line to block land supply to Crimea
>Mariupol
Deny port access
Halfway to either and Kerch Bridge is in the non-long-long range HIMARS and whatever else in their inventory. Faster it's done the more untenable holding Southern side of Kherson is. Once that's achieved there's a window of opportunity to trap or destroy them before they decamp to Crimea proper -- you want to take their bucci there and then, because frontally assaulting the penninsula has always been a pain in the dick, especially the marshes. Failing that, it should become logisticall untenable to sustain and Ukraine could just wait it out and spare the manpower while things become politically dicey in the Kremlin over this. Sooner it's taken or neutralized, the faster their grain shipments can carry on unobstructed.
The main thing will be taking and holding Melitopol to Mariupol. Local pressure on Lychansk, Severodonetsk and Horivka to help pin forces up north of the offensive. Routing Wagner at the point of exhaustion soon at Bakhmut would be a sensible preparation. Alternatively a coup de main across the river to take Kherson completely after very heavy precision bombardment is the kind of audacious headline that would help drum up more material aid, and be unexpected (while costly).
>What weapons?
Zyklon B
>Plan?
Kill the israeli invaders.
If the ukes take either melitopol or mariupol we can officially say russia is actually capital F Fricked and will probably lose crimea too
If they don't then the war is probably gonna become a forever war
>Ukie counter-offensive
in 2 weeks right?
Just like the Kherson offensive was never going to happen right?
It's called the Kherson Retreat, and it was a good-will gesture.
>The Kherson retreat, a gesture of good will
Holy copium Batman
*T-54
*T-34 monkeymodel from Laos
T26
BT-7 with single ERA brick taped to front.
I just hope they're smart about it, doing too many things at once and spreading themselves too thinly will probably not work. Although maybe attacking front A and drawing attention there before attacking front B and so on could. Wouldn't be the first time. But I'm reasonably confident in them after Kharkiv. It just remains to be seen whether enough mobiks occupy enough sufficiently fortified positions to outweigh the Ukrainian reserves and equipment superiority that is being assumed.
>Although maybe attacking front A and drawing attention there before attacking front B and so on could
They've done that before. Ukraine hyped up a huge summer counteroffensive in Kherson before sending thousands of troops in that direction. A couple waves got repulsed and pro-Russian homies were smug for months until Ukraine sent tens of thousands of men into the occupied regions of Kharkiv Oblast and took back the whole area in like two weeks.
Ukraine has been heavily targeting EW and Radar complexes the past few weeks. From R-330Zh and R-934UM to 1L261 and 1L219 counter battery radars. This is the textbook battlefield shaping.
Here's my personal guess.
Drones will be new major supporting weapon in this offensive. Not necessarily TB2's and recon drones (they'll be immensely important too), but FPV and Switchblades will be used against ATGM operators, tanks, and entrenched artillery. FPV's are especially sensitive to jamming, hence the EW destruction.
Remember those Switchblade 600 strikes against the Tor M2 and S300V4 a few weeks back? Those were litmus tests for their effectiveness and how vulnerable they were against said high value targets. Except AeroVironment has been ordered to produce thousands of Switchblade 600's for Ukraine.
Wherever Ukraine decides to strike, they will use conventional artillery to pound static Russian assets. FPV drones and will be used to soften up and harass targets near the front for the Mechanized forces. Switchblade 600's will target not only air defense, but Russian artillery positions. The key here is if Ukraine can keep a stranglehold on Russian artillery. If it can be silenced, Russia is in some deep fricking shit.
I'm just here to see how russian army will majestically frick up this time.
They always managed to surprise me, when you would not be able to believe that they can frick up even more, they somehow manage the impossible.
>oh no, not the debt