Russia-Ukraine War (continuing)

I like the refinery hits, but these ones are my favourites because the Russian's on and around the front lines don't really give a f**k about the economy or politics, whereas seeing their own arms and hardware go up in spectacular fashion must be massively demoralising.

Ooops!

Guided bomb or glide bomb? If the former, you'd have to think someone on the inside had a hand in picking the target coordinates.

They'd probably want us to take in more of them.

The young of Mos/StP have long ago vamoosed far away from Putin's press gangs, they will put pressure on their parents to make them return to no avail, these decisions already made, days of Stalin not forgotten.

Ukraine appears to be having good success along the southern front and into Crimea with its drone bombardment, but Putin would probably be happy to let that part of the front remain static (if needs be) and if Crimean civilians have to leave, I'm not sure he massively cares. Or that is to say I don't think he cares about them as much as being able to claim some kind of strategic victory.

So, the question would be whether Ukraine actually has the resources to move forces forward in those areas, over territory that may be under-manned, but still have defenses like mines and ditches, and do so in a way that doesn't leave their supply lines open to Russian missile and drone attacks. If they can, then that really is a serious headache for Putin. If not, we have to still consider what is happening in Donbas as the most important axis of the war. Can Ukrainian attacks on logistics there hamper Russia's continued attrition assault on the fortress belt, or have Russia just have that many more options for supply routes with that territory bordering Russia?

Ukraine is getting some serious intel provided to them these days, despite the orange numnut.

the question would be whether Ukraine actually has the resources to move forces forward in those areas, over territory that may be under-manned, but still have defenses like mines and ditches, and do so in a way that doesn't leave their supply lines open to Russian missile and drone attacks.

I can see a situation where Ukraine would set up a chain of remote surveillance posts in recently cleared/re-taken territory, and perhaps equip them with some of their armed ground drones as part of their new defences. Most of what they're going to be able to re-take is totally devastated at this stage, so there's no reason to try and get it habitable in the short term. What they most need is to be able to push their own launch sites forward so that they can strike further and further into Russia.

The reports of the Kinburn spit being abandonned by the Russians is a good sign and will certainly give some relief to Kherson city.

Hopefully the Russian retreat from the spit is part of a continuing trend. It's not a large area of territory, the spit, looking like it's only a little over 7 km long, and the little reading I've done on it says that its main tactical value to Russia is to help choke off the gulf of Dniprovska to Ukrainian shipping.

I wonder if we'll see any Ukrainian ground offensive before the summer's out. They'll have learned a lot from their last big push to retake territory and the mistakes made. Their strangling of logistics and systematic destruction of AA systems isn't tied to a ground offensive and is paying dividends of itself, but I wonder if the Ukrainians have been surprised by their own levels of success this year and might be tempted to see how far they can pull the thread. I think their priority now is safeguarding Ukrainian military lives wherever possible, limiting Russia's ability to push, crippling the Russian economy and ratcheting up the political pressure on Putin. But after that… maybe there's room for a surprise blitzkrieg to take some specific areas?

I have this utterly mad idea of commando units taking an airfield in Crimea installng AA, and then using civillian airliners to rapidly do an air lift of troops in, bypassing a lot of minefields and defences. Not seriously suggesting it, just a fun idea.

Here we are

Another blast