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Ukraine: military situation update with maps - Mar 11, 2023
(’Orc’ is associated with the various hoards of 13th century Mongol invaders, as well as LOTR evil villains)

War in Ukraine Explained/Reporting from Ukraine:
https://www.youtube.com/@RFU

Artillery (key to success in this war), Fuller explanation of Orc military structure, Other Bonus articles - see previous postings in “Attack on Europe” (FR title search).

(Numbered printed material below - Some of the items below may be out of date, and not updated yet)

••Denotes Transcribed Dialogue. The entirety of the analysis is from a Ukrainian guy named Reporting from Ukraine’s daily video - I only transcribe it. Extras are just that - from other sites, or my comments marked (Edit: .... ) or { } or [ ].

-—> Current to date and past MAPS: <——
https://militaryland.net/

-—> The True State of Russian Army <——
posted 2 months ago, 21.13 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KiII_2qabk

-—> Combined Arms Breach, what UA will have to master to smash Orc Lines <——
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ-sCT_maAQ

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Extra:
-—> Ukraine Situation Report: Leopard 1 Tanks Will Arrive This Spring
The collection of refurbished Danish, Dutch, and German Leopard 1A5s will outfit a couple of Ukrainian tank battalions.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-leopard-1-tanks-will-arrive-this-spring

Excerpts:
... the first of its Leopard 1A5DK tanks will be delivered by spring.

Acting Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen, along with German Defense Ministry State Secretary Thomas Hitschler, visited Flensburger Fahrzeugbau Gesellschaft (FFG) to speak on the planned transfer. FFG is renovating the formerly Danish, Dutch, and German Leopard 1A5s before their delivery.

The plan calls for two tank battalions, or approximately 80 tanks, for Ukrainian forces. While the standard Leopard 1 entered service in the 1960s, the 1A5 upgrade variant began its career in the 1980s with a modern fire control system and all-weather night sights.

While the Leopard 1 and its derivatives, including the Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, remain in service in several countries, Germany retired its last Leopard 1s in 2003.

The Danish version of the Leopard 1A5 features the welded 1A3 turret in lieu of the German 1A5’s cast turret, but still features the venerable 105mm L7 Royal Ordnance main gun. Danish 1A5DK tanks saw combat in what’s now known as “Operation Bøllebank,” Danish for “hooligan bashing,” as part of the United Nations Protection Force’s Nordic Battalion 2 in Bosnia.

==
Recent drone footage shows both sides’ strikes on opposing air defense systems. Video from the Ukrainian side shows a 9K37 Buk missile system (NATO: SA-11 “Gadfly” or SA-17 “Grizzly”) transporter-erector-launcher-and-radar (TELAR) exploding after a hit by what’s believed to be an M982 Excalibur 155mm guided artillery shell.

The Buk TELAR carries four missiles of the 9M38 “Gadfly” or 9M317E “Grizzly” variety depending on the variant. What looks like the launcher’s nose is the 9S35 “Fire Dome” fire control radar for tracking and guidance not only for the missiles onboard but also for other radar-less transporter-erector-launchers (TEL) in the SAM battery.

The Russian Ministry of Defense also released footage of a ZALA Lancet loitering munition strike on one of Ukraine’s British-supplied Stormer HVM air defense vehicles.

The Stormer HVM carries up to 20 of the lauded Starstreak short-range missile used against Russian aircraft and drones since their arrival nearly a year ago. The video ends before damage to the vehicle can be fully assessed, but it’s safe to say it did not go up in nearly the same fireworks show as the Buk above.
==

Ukrainian forces were also seen testing out a portable anti-aircraft spotlight for counter-drone operations.

Spotlights have been largely replaced by radars since the Second World War when anti-aircraft artillery and flak gunners used the beams to direct fire, but they have since become a regular part of Ukrainian air defenses against Iranian-designed kamikaze drones.

==
Cockpit video from the Ukrainian Air Force shows a pair of its MiG-29 “Fulcrum” fighters in action. One of the two grayscale camouflaged fighters can be seen with both Russian-made Vympel R-73 (AA-11 “Archer”) short-range, all-aspect infrared-guided missiles and an AGM-88 HARM.

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Reporting from Ukraine:
https://www.youtube.com/@RFU
••Day 381.

Today there are a lot of updates from the Donetsk region.

Here, the Russian command realized that even if they suppressed the revolt and forced the marines to conduct another offensive operation, it would just be another catastrophe.

They decided to urgently relocate a rifle brigade in this region and separate Wagner forces detachments, when Ukrainians conducted an extensive HIMARS strike and destroyed the main transportation center that connected east and south.

[Specifics]
Last time I told you that Russian marines and some irregular formations refused the order to launch another offensive operation on Vuhledar due to extensive losses and a lack of equipment.

I also told you that the Russian command took urgent measures to suppress a mutiny and sent Rosgvardia to the region.

Recent social media footage confirmed that the Russian command decided to replace the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade with the 136th Motorized Rifle Brigade.

It looks like they understood that the demoralized soldiers that watched half of their brigade die over the course of 3 weeks would not be capable of conducting prolonged offensives.

Nonetheless, their problem did not end here because the 136th Motorized Rifle Brigade started demanding Russian military command to provide them with more artillery shells and ammunition before they replaced the marines.

However, even if they receive all the necessary supplies, armor and ammunition, this one-for-one replacement does not represent a Russian reinforcement of the offensive effort. Internal dynamics within the Russian military is likely driving the potential resumption of costly offensives in the short term.

Russian Defense Minister Shoigu reportedly ordered Eastern Military District commander Muradov to take Vuhledar at any cost to settle widespread criticism about the lack of progress and significant losses in the Vuhledar area.

It looks like Muradov managed to convince Shoigu during their recent meeting that they need significantly more manpower and equipment reserves to follow through on Shoigu’s reported instructions and that a mere substitution of one brigade with another does not represent a notable fraction of the reinforcements required because locals continue reporting about the increased movement of Russians forces in the Mariupol area.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, Russian forces would need to advance upwards of 24km from the current frontlines around Vuhledar for this offensive to support operations elsewhere in the Donetsk region.

In order to achieve it, Russians continued relocating troops to this region.

As you might have noticed, Russians are always using columns with civilian buses in order to transfer their manpower from Donetsk to Mariupol.

This is because there is no railway connection between these two points. There is one railway, but it goes right along the front line, which makes it inoperable.

In order to constrain the Russian transfer of troops, Ukrainians conducted a HIMARS strike against a Russian transport hub in Volnovakha.

Their main target became an auto transport enterprise with a lot of buses.

Geolocated imagery confirmed that Ukrainians inflicted severe damage to the building and, according to Russian sources, destroyed at least 10 buses.

This is almost half of the potential column that Russians usually use for relocating forces.

Today Ukrainians have also reportedly conducted a HIMARS strike against a Russian base in Mariupol.

Geolocated footage indicated that the target of the strike became the base located in the western part of the city, near the airfield.

Around a week ago, Ukrainians destroyed here several ammunition depots, so it is highly likely that today’s target became forces concentrations, especially given that the Ukrainian Mariupol Mayoral Advisor recently stated that Russians established a lot of camps where they stationed the newly arrived troops.

Overall, Russian attempts to resume costly offensives around Vuhledar signal that Russians continue to misallocate already degraded forces to an operation that they are unlikely to carry out.

The Institute for the Study of War pointed out that to make operationally significant gains, Russians would need to achieve a rate of advance that Russian forces have not achieved since the first months of the full-scale invasion.

But because of personal motivations of the commanders involved, Russian forces in the area may resume these operations nonetheless.

Russian failure here will likely give Ukrainians a strategic advantage because they will be able to start their counteroffensive operation not only in the direction of Melitopol but also Mariupol.

==
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPpYQuLW8T0
Denys says:
••Bakhmut:
Russian forces south of the city consist of:
217th Airborne Regiment from the 98th Airborne Division;
137th Guards Airborne Regiment from the 106th Airborne Division.

==
The bodies of hundreds or thousands of Russian soldiers still lie unclaimed in fields all around Bakhmut. Shows image of one part of one field with over 70 bodies.

Russia has the same losses every month as in their entire Afghan war.

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Russians, like Ukrainians, can refuse to go into the army and are required to pay a fine. No prison or anything like that. Yet, Russians continue to go into the military (not the mobniks) and die for nothing by the thousands every month.

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A B-52 flew up the Baltic accompanied by Polish fighters toward St. Petersburg, then turned abruptly south at Estonia, past Tallinn.

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Poland is in the process of building Europe’s largest army with 300,000 men under arms. It should be the most capable army in Eastern Europe with hundreds of US and South Korean tanks.

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Prigozhin announced he will be Ukrainian President in 2024. May show Russian thinking: perhaps to create some sort of Korean type partition.

Russian elite have understood they are out of resources to take control of all Ukraine. But they may believe they have enough to keep their current territories and declare Donetsk the capital of Ukraine and not recognize the government in Kiev. In order to do that, the Russians need to keep the war going until 2025 and the election of a new Ukrainian President.

==
Russia is selling 24 SU-35s to Iran. A significant number. [Keep in mind, Algeria turned the Russians down because of the planes’s weak and jammable radar among the reasons.]

==
People have asked how did the saboteurs get onto the Russian airfield to destroy the SU-27 yesterday. It turns out the the airfield is near an overgrown 2-lane road, surrounded by trees, small fields and low hills; there is no fence separating the air field and the plane from the surrounding countryside - anyone could step out of the woods and walk a few feet to the plane and set it on fire.