Ukraine Attacks Across Entire Bakhmut and Siversk Front

Youtube - Defense Politics Asia ^ | 10/4/2022 | buwaya

[MalPearce]

Question: if Medvedev and Kadyrov did take over, aside from nukes what can they do to turn things around?

The provinces have been hollowed out by conscription, and are pushing back.

And they can’t even train and kit out the current batch of conscripts, let alone do it with a bigger wave.

Belarus and Chechnya are at the limit of the assistance they’re willing to give, although Kadyrov is threatening to send his 24 year old son into battle as some kind of example.

China and North Korea are holding out.

By contrast Ukraine stockpiled kit and allowed dimwit Russian propagandists to gloat that donated arms were being flogged off. It now looks like that was a massive rope-a-dope; the arms are there but the troops needed training and kitting out.

The untrained, ill-disciplined Potemkin army is being knocked for six by a vastly more coordinated, professional, methodical, disciplined Ukrainian response that’s learnt important stuff like not to leak operational information.

[dangus]

I suspect the point is taking advantage of a number fleet of artillery and tanks and soldiers who don’t need as much support from those, and avoiding the Russian mistake of creating easy targets. It’s almost like a macro version of what the US legendarily did in micro in the Revolutionary war when in battles we ran and fought from all angles instead of presenting an amassed phalanx. (And yes, I’m aware that the American Revolution tactics are largely legendized.)

[buwaya]

More to the appropriate cultural reference, the Ukrainians have been making great use of “light cavalry” (Cossacks, anyone? Cossacks were originally Ukrainian) on ATV’s, Hummvees, and all sorts of light vehicles, to penetrate between Russian strongpoints and cut roads, harrass rear areas, take critical positions, lay mines, ambush convoys, etc. Often they have been sufficient to spook the defenders of some town into retreat, for fear of being cut off.

As long as the Russians dont have the manpower to form contiguous lines they are vulnerable to such tactics.

[gleeaikin]

Dear Comrade, thank you for asking a serious question. Does anyone have a serious answer?

[gleeaikin]

So nice of our Comrades to bring us so much hopeful news.

[pierrem15]

There's already some mud, but I suspect the Ukrainians are aided here by knowledge of local conditions, such as which rural roads remain semi-passable. If the winter is hard, when the ground freezes its actually more passable.

I agree about crossing the Dnepr. The Ukrainians best bet would be to force the Russians out of Kherson, where the river narrows and where artillery can be brought to bear on the roads connecting to Crimea.

I doubt they have the capability, but the clockwise swing into Luhansk/Donetsk following the Kharkiv advances could present the opportunity to outflank dug in Russian forces to the west and approach the Azov from the north, encircling Donetsk.

[ckilmer]

the real key is to attack south to take melitopol. they would effectively cut the russian positions in half, bring all of crimea within range, and make the already difficult position of russian troops on the west side of the dneiper—untenable.