Russian / Ukranian Combat Tactics

[ks_sachin]

In the current fighting, its divisions have taken high casualties. More disturbing, for an elite formation, it has a high number of abandoned tanks, pointing to either poor maintenance, or scared crews abandoning them. Their withdrawal from Kiev seems to be a shambles. I don't think they planned on giving up as much (hard fought) ground as they had.

Deans could it be tanks abandoned because POL is not getting through.
Also is the formation fighting as a whole or is it distributed across I thing the Russians call them BTGs.
To be honest after WW2 what combat have these guys seen. With CI being our bread and butter these days I would be keen to see how our Armd Corps performs in large scale arms manuevers.

[ShivS]

The one event which has changed my opinion of Russia's performance, is the record of its 1st Guards Tank Army, operating to the East of Kiev (Sumy-Cherniv region). This is supposedly Russia's most elite formation - in its old Avatar in WW2, it fought constantly from Stalingrad to Berlin, without being defeated and under legendary commanders. Its units are normally stationed near Moscow and are believed to get the first choice of equipment and officers.

In the current fighting, its divisions have taken high casualties. More disturbing, for an elite formation, it has a high number of abandoned tanks, pointing to either poor maintenance, or scared crews abandoning them. Their withdrawal from Kiev seems to be a shambles. I don't think they planned on giving up as much (hard fought) ground as they had.

Good points, please consider the following

1. The first phase of the campaign to take Kiev, which was the helicopter assault by the VDV (crack troops) on the airport failed - the Russians could not create conditions for a air bridge that would allow a mass of troops and heavy equipment to land. The troops that were to come via air disembarked in Belarus and fought their way to the airport - and took it too, but at horrific cost. Even after taking the airport, Ukrainian artillery and SAM systems made sure that an airbridge was too risky to move large amounts of material.

Belarus to Kiev is 125-150 km inside hostile territory that has few high quality roads and is marshy for large portions of the journey. This is more than twice the distance from Lahore to Amritsar

2. The First Tank Army fought its way to the suburbs of Kiev too - but this unit has nearly 2000 tanks, IFVs and artillery/SAM units - how do you supply this mass over poor roads that are surrounded by marshy land and that pass through built up areas?

It is probably 500 km + from a major Russian city to the Belarus border and another 150 km to Kiev in poor, narrow roads surrounded by mud and marshes. Too far, too hard, too little build up pre war.

3. What do the troops do once they reach Kiev - whats your strategic objective? The Ukrainians have shown that they will not give up the fight -- what do you do? The city is 5 million people - what can 50,000 soldiers achieve?

4. In my view - the strategic assumption that taking out Zelensky would end the war with Ukraine failed in concept and execution. The assault on Kiev became fairly meaningless and extremely hard to prosecute after that - in no small part due to the bravery and determination of the Ukrainians allied to very poor Russian planning.

5. Someone professional has taken over now - lines of supply are determining the engagement. In my view the Russians will maintain enough force around Kiev to ensure that the Ukrainian forces cant move to the east easily but will seek easily supplied and defended lines - which is the smart thing to do. Meanwhile in the East the Russians will play to their traditional strengths with far better supply conditions.

[ks_sachin]

The one event which has changed my opinion of Russia's performance, is the record of its 1st Guards Tank Army, operating to the East of Kiev (Sumy-Cherniv region). This is supposedly Russia's most elite formation - in its old Avatar in WW2, it fought constantly from Stalingrad to Berlin, without being defeated and under legendary commanders. Its units are normally stationed near Moscow and are believed to get the first choice of equipment and officers.

In the current fighting, its divisions have taken high casualties. More disturbing, for an elite formation, it has a high number of abandoned tanks, pointing to either poor maintenance, or scared crews abandoning them. Their withdrawal from Kiev seems to be a shambles. I don't think they planned on giving up as much (hard fought) ground as they had.

Good points, please consider the following

1. The first phase of the campaign to take Kiev, which was the helicopter assault by the VDV (crack troops) on the airport failed - the Russians could not create conditions for a air bridge that would allow a mass of troops and heavy equipment to land. The troops that were to come via air disembarked in Belarus and fought their way to the airport - and took it too, but at horrific cost. Even after taking the airport, Ukrainian artillery and SAM systems made sure that an airbridge was too risky to move large amounts of material.

Belarus to Kiev is 125-150 km inside hostile territory that has few high quality roads and is marshy for large portions of the journey. This is more than twice the distance from Lahore to Amritsar

2. The First Tank Army fought its way to the suburbs of Kiev too - but this unit has nearly 2000 tanks, IFVs and artillery/SAM units - how do you supply this mass over poor roads that are surrounded by marshy land and that pass through built up areas?

It is probably 500 km + from a major Russian city to the Belarus border and another 150 km to Kiev in poor, narrow roads surrounded by mud and marshes. Too far, too hard, too little build up pre war.

3. What do the troops do once they reach Kiev - whats your strategic objective? The Ukrainians have shown that they will not give up the fight -- what do you do? The city is 5 million people - what can 50,000 soldiers achieve?

4. In my view - the strategic assumption that taking out Zelensky would end the war with Ukraine failed in concept and execution. The assault on Kiev became fairly meaningless and extremely hard to prosecute after that - in no small part due to the bravery and determination of the Ukrainians allied to very poor Russian planning.

5. Someone professional has taken over now - lines of supply are determining the engagement. In my view the Russians will maintain enough force around Kiev to ensure that the Ukrainian forces cant move to the east easily but will seek easily supplied and defended lines - which is the smart thing to do. Meanwhile in the East the Russians will play to their traditional strengths with far better supply conditions.

So all in all a cluster**** of a high magnitude by the Russian high command!!!

[Cyrano]

One big lesson is whatever be the military tactics, extremely savvy and proactive media and public opinion management is a very critical component for any future conflict. I wish there are none of course.

[John]

Someone professional has taken over now - lines of supply are determining the engagement. In my view the Russians will maintain enough force around Kiev to ensure that the Ukrainian forces cant move to the east easily but will seek easily supplied and defended lines - which is the smart thing to do. Meanwhile in the East the Russians will play to their traditional strengths with far better supply conditions.

All of Kyiv oblast (region) has been secured by Ukr forces, apparently and some of the forces are already moving to the east. Looks like miscommunication or poor coordination lead to Russian defensive line collapsing quickly or it could be that they just had everyone retreat.

First documented use of ATGM on a hovering helo, Stugna shoots down a Ka-52.

https://twitter.com/osinttechnical/stat ... f3U1BPrLXw

[brar_w]

One big lesson is whatever be the military tactics, extremely savvy and proactive media and public opinion management is a very critical component for any future conflict. I wish there are none of course.

The biggest mil lesson is that you must have enough troops, logistics, reserves, and supply lines and adequate C2 to support lofty goals. The US/coalition didn't intend on capturing Baghdad or overthrowing Saddam in the Gulf War (just routing his troops out of Kuwait and breaking the back of his military) yet still assembled 600,000 troops there - the US alone having 400K troops for the GW. In OIF, they amassed just 160K troops (due to a considerable weakening of the Iraqi military post GW and sanctions) but had to surge post SH overthrow and for CI. They ended up rotating more than a million troops through there over this time before finally transitioning authority to the Iraqi government. The multi pronged approach, and the march to Kyiv only made sense if the perception was that the government (probably more importantly the military) there would capitulate once faced with 150+K Russian troops. I don't think that we have seen much in the way of troop buildiup, or supply and logistical considerations for large scale military occupation which would need to happen in case there was regime change and military defeat of Ukraine so the objectives were possibly not that well thought out or communicated down from the political leadership to the military leadership. No matter what your intel suggests, you kind of have to plan for the worst case scenario when invading a country with > 40 Million people and the size and geography of Ukraine. Marshy roads, a 150-200 km border run are all "known" entities and not something alien to a war planner trying to plan an invasion in its backyard.

They've now apparently pulled back 2/3 of the BTG's that had been part of the thrust and surge to Kyiv. I agree that keeping them there would have served some merit in that it would have checked the Ukrainian re-deployment of troops and SF to the east. But then we are not aware of what the status of those battalions was from an attrition, and morale stand point so pulling them all (or most) back may have been the prudent thing to do from that stand point. The biggest problem they are facing is that continued threat posed by MANPADS, and SAMs to their air-power. This on day 40+ which is quite remarkable and would suggest that the fairly modest Ukrainian capability has been used quite effectively and still continues to shoot down Su-35 and KA-52's more than a month into the beginning of the invasion. Much like ATGM's, MANPADS, and now loitering munitions flowing in through (and possibly even avoiding major weapon depots and going straight to the front lines) from Poland and elsewhere, I don't see this constant threat to aircraft going away, possibly through the entire duration of the conflict. Had they had a SEAD surge at the very beginning of the conflict, they may have gotten these AD systems before the Ukrainians could learn and improvise.

We've also not seen the sort of sorties being put up that we had seen in GW or OIF which you'd need to suppress defenses, and strike targets to begin to dominate from the air. The coalition in Gulf war put up nearly 110,000 sorties in the first 42 days of the air campaign averaging >2,500 a day. You kind of need persistent sorties to deal with supression and other missions. There are limits to what types of targets you can strike with stand-off weapons given the time delay in mission planning, and their inability to hit moving targets. Even UAV's and UCAV's (the types that Russians have) have limits given they tend to have a very soda-straw view of the battlefield and aren't as capable as a dedicated SEAD orbit.

[ShivS]

The Russians took between 5,000 to 10,000 casualties in 20-25 days of fighting to reach Kiev. The last time a western army took casualties at this scale in this short a period of time would have been the Korean War.

Media management is fine - but killing or hurting the enemy is paramount.

Another way to look at these numbers is that the Russians committed around 50,000 troops to the Kiev operation. That seems to yield a 10 to 20% casualty rate - at the higher end that’s a horrific number.

These airborne assault master strokes don’t have a good success rate - IPKF and Jaffna comes to mind. Too many things can and do go wrong.

[enaiel]

Besides casualties, in barely a month they have lost 425 Tanks out of 2,685 or 15% of their active inventory! Very concerning due to IA over-reliance on T-90s

Sources:
1. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/a ... pment.html
2. https://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/node/45383

[John]

Besides casualties, in barely a month they have lost 425 Tanks out of 2,685 or 15% of their active inventory! Very concerning due to IA over-reliance on T-90s

Sources:
1. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/a ... pment.html
2. https://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/node/45383

What is concerning is the T-series (both sides) Jack in box effect (essentially the turret popping off after violent explosion) when there is penetration.

[Deans]

In the current fighting, its divisions have taken high casualties. More disturbing, for an elite formation, it has a high number of abandoned tanks, pointing to either poor maintenance, or scared crews abandoning them. Their withdrawal from Kiev seems to be a shambles. I don't think they planned on giving up as much (hard fought) ground as they had.

Deans could it be tanks abandoned because POL is not getting through.
Also is the formation fighting as a whole or is it distributed across I thing the Russians call them BTGs.
To be honest after WW2 what combat have these guys seen. With CI being our bread and butter these days I would be keen to see how our Armd Corps performs in large scale arms manuevers.

I don't think its POL. The Russians have set up pipelines to transport fuel from depots inside Russia, to forward depots close to the front. Apart from the first week, there are no reports of fuel convoys being hit. Also, since the front is not moving much, fuel consumption is less. it increases during the current spring thaw, which I'm sure Russians have factored in.

I think the problem specifically with 1st Guards, is that for several years now, they were supposed to be equipped with the T-14 Armata tanks. Deadlines have come and gone, the latest was that by 1st Jan 2020, a min of 100 tanks would be supplied, so at least 2 regiments (1 in each tank division) would be equipped with the T-14. When that did not happen, they had to use their Soviet era T-72s (no other explanation why an elite unit has to use 30 year old tanks).

My amateur view on the BTG is that it will work well if an army's operations are based around Brigades - as the US army is. The Russian army has traditionally done all its decision making at division (or higher level). A Russian Battalion commander has had no exposure to combined arms. If he needs even light arty support, he has to ask his Divisional commander. If he needs heavy artillery /MLRS, air support, or even decent intel, he has to ask his army commander (equal to Corps commander in IA). If his instructions are to advance from Point A to B, he is not expected to figure out what to do after that, or what to do if he does not reach his objective.

In the Ukraine the situation was probably exacerbated by a shortage of infantry, heavier than expected enemy resistance (especially AGTMs) and poor maintenance. I don't know if exercises with BTGs simulated combat conditions, I suspect not. For e.g. In the Ukraine, does the BTG commander halt to let disabled tanks catch up, or abandon them assuming that division will pick them up later. Quite often Russians break through a Ukrainian position (as seen on a map) and then a BTG is too weak to exploit, or its commander does not seize the initiative.

[Deans]

Besides casualties, in barely a month they have lost 425 Tanks out of 2,685 or 15% of their active inventory! Very concerning due to IA over-reliance on T-90s

Sources:
1. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/a ... pment.html
2. https://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/node/45383

Russia has around 12,000 tanks in service (most in storage). Their losses are 18 T-90s of a total of around 1000 in their inventory. The formations inside Ukraine have probably lost 15% of their tank strength, but that is being replenished.

[John]

I don't think its POL. The Russians have set up pipelines to transport fuel from depots inside Russia, to forward depots close to the front. Apart from the first week, there are no reports of fuel convoys being hit. Also, since the front is not moving much, fuel consumption is less.

These are routinely hit by both partisans and ambushes on the road. Part of problem is fuel trucks seem to travel alone thru areas that are not controlled by Russian forces or have them parked unguarded. I suspect this will go down as Russia shifts focus to east and less convoy travel thru Ukranian controlled areas.


Released today
https://twitter.com/arslon_xudosi/statu ... tzeDIhXqYQ

Supposed partisan attack

https://twitter.com/uaweapons/status/15 ... tzeDIhXqYQ

Couple days ago
https://twitter.com/arslon_xudosi/statu ... tzeDIhXqYQ
https://twitter.com/danspiun/status/151 ... tzeDIhXqYQ

[Cyrano]

brar_w ji,
US troop deployments abroad that I observed since GW1 always seemed like an army of rich spoiled brats to me, needing a huge fat logistics tail bringing along everything from cola to entire gyms. Ditto for the profuse personal gear, comms gadgetry, and all sorts of equipment and support infra. I doubt if any other army can afford to fight at that level. Most armies, even Indian Army I'd think, get by with what they absolutely need when deployed than what all they can bring along.* I suspect similar difference in approach for air sorties, for SEAD+DEAD, or for lasing targets and calling CAS will not be so available or affordable to other forces.

So any comparisons with US deployments in terms of total troops, teeth to tail, sorties, tonnes of logistics moved, etc. will never be really comparable.

*Where IA will spare no effort or expense is casevac and med support, the rest depends on various factors.

[brar_w]

brar_w ji,
US troop deployments abroad that I observed since GW1 always seemed like an army of rich spoiled brats to me,

I think you are totally missing the point that I was making in that the invading force with maximalist objectives need a sizable numerical advantage (often 3:1) and/or a very effective and dense asymmetric capability that provides them an edge. We saw none of this here with the thrust from Belarus or overall. I speak nothing of long term occupation and CI strategy in a country the size of Ukraine. It’s not about cola or gyms but a basic force they can take another force that’s dug in and fighting from home and achieve the tactical results that you need to deliver on the objectives . GW war eye opening on that front because it was a troop mobilization of over 300k us troops having ground troops achieving all objectives with less than 300 casualties with about half being on the battlefield.

[Cyrano]

Agree, the scale of RA deployment defies conventional wisdom. Even if it was based on faulty intelligence or planning, they had enough time to correct that. Puzzling...

I was speculating in another thread that Putin has constrained his generals to deliver with what they estimated they would need initially. An autocrat's gamble...

[ldev]

^^^
Reported estimates are that Russia deployed about 75% of it's army into Ukraine i.e. 120 of the available 160 Battalion Tactical Groups (BTGs). So there was not much left in reserve. Also the ratio of conscripts to volunteers in the Russian army is about 1:2 with all the downsides that a large conscript army entails. While Russia may have ~10,000 vintage Soviet era T-72 like tanks in storage, their ability to perform on the battlefield and more important, additional crew to man these mothballed tanks is a huge question mark.

[enaiel]

What is concerning is the T-series (both sides) Jack in box effect (essentially the turret popping off after violent explosion) when there is penetration.

I was just reading about this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambl ... 8a712a9fc4

With the Russian design there are no blow-out panels, because the ammunition is in the same space as the crew. Any penetrating hit in the turret or hull can set off the ammunition, with a result sometimes describes as Jack-in-the-box effect: the force of the blast from the ammo tears the tank apart from inside, often detaching the turret with such force that it is thrown clear. Such events are instantly fatal to the crew.

The location of the T-72s ammunition storage is well known, and it may even be deliberately targeted, as in this video where a Ukrainian BTR-4 gunner pulled off the David-v-Goliath feat of destroying a Russian T-72 by aiming at the thin side armor over the ammunition storage at close range.

This is scary: Tank turret blown into 2nd story of home in rural Chernihiv, Ukraine

I can see now why Russian tank crews are so eager to abandon their tanks!

[Karan M]

Thats a Ukrainian T-64, but the lack of crew seperation from ammo is an issue with all Soviet era derivative designs.

[John]

This is very good video of Jack in the box effect

https://twitter.com/chriso_wiki/status/ ... BtSvIepd0g

Actual combat video of one

https://twitter.com/uaweapons/status/15 ... BtSvIepd0g

[Anoop]

https://youtu.be/TCBigWixkgc

A lively discussion on the war, with points of disagreement between Lt. Gen. Ravi Shankar and Lt. Gen. Satish Dua.

[Deans]

I had posted on Russia's ORBAT earlier. I have refined that info. X posting from the main Ukraine thread:

Organisation: Russia has 5 military districts. 1 of these (North) has a negligible ground force. The Central district has just 2 divisions worth of
army. The other 3 Military districts have 2 to 3 Combined Arms Armies. Each CAA usually has 2-3 divisions and 2 brigades of Artillery.

Southern Military district: 58th, 8th and 49th Army + 1 airborne division and 1 Naval infantry brigade.
They have been fully deployed in the Crimea and Donbass. They also have peacekeepers in Armenia.

Crimea: 58th Army: 2 Motorised Rifle divisions and parts of the airborne division.
Donetsk: 8th Army: 2 Motorised Rifle divisions (one of them attacking Mariupol along with some Naval infantry).
+ 3 Brigades equivalent of DPR Militia.
Luhansk: 49th Army: 3 Motorised Rifle brigades + 3 brigades equivalent of LPR Militia.

Western Military district: 1st Guards Tank Army, 6th Army, 20th Guards Army
East of Kiev (Sumy/Cherniv): 1st Guards Tank Army: 2 Tank and 1 Motor rifle division
West of Kiev: 20th Guards Army: 2 Motor Rifle divisions and 1 tank brigade.
Reserve: 6th CAA: 1 Airborne division and 2 Rifle brigades.

Central Military district: 41st Army & 2nd Guards Army
Deployed in the Kharkiv/ Izyum region
41st Army: 3 Motor rifle brigades.

Central district is a weak reserve command, based in Siberia. Its only other formation, 2nd Guards was not deployed, but there are reports
that 1 of its 3 brigades has either reinforced, or has replaced 1 brigade of 41st Army.
Russia's most experienced command is the Southern Military district. All its formations have been rotated through the Donbass since 2015, apart from combat experience in the Georgia war, Syria and Crimea.

From the above, 49th Army, 6th Army and 41st Army are barely 1 division (3 brigades) strong. They are expected to be filled out by conscripts and reservists if there's a full scale war.

[Deans]

^^^
Reported estimates are that Russia deployed about 75% of it's army into Ukraine i.e. 120 of the available 160 Battalion Tactical Groups (BTGs). So there was not much left in reserve. Also the ratio of conscripts to volunteers in the Russian army is about 1:2 with all the downsides that a large conscript army entails. While Russia may have ~10,000 vintage Soviet era T-72 like tanks in storage, their ability to perform on the battlefield and more important, additional crew to man these mothballed tanks is a huge question mark.

There is a huge problem with the condition of Russia's tanks that were in storage.
At the best of times, tanks are difficult to maintain. Its easier to identify problems when a tank is used, rather than stored away for months. In IA, crew have years of familiarity with their vehicle. In Russia, its a few months experience in active tanks and none with stored tanks. When a tank is stored at temperatures below zero for several months, its a struggle to get it to start.

Typically stored tanks are intended used by conscripts/ reservists. They are pulled out once every 6 months for an exercise. Due to rampant corruption, few of the tanks are actually battle worthy, so figures on operational readiness are fudged. It is routine for fuel to be sold on the black market, parts of the tanks get stolen (electronics with high value raw materials, or optics), or cannibalised, because there's no visibility on spares.
One source estimated that in the 4th Tank division (1 of the 2 tank divisions of the elite 1st Guards tank army) only 10% of their reserve tanks were battle worthy. When the defense minister states that the readiness of his 180+ BTG's is 92% on average (which the best NATO units will probably struggle to achieve) no one wants to contradict him and the attitude gets reflected down the line.

[enaiel]

Not sure how accurate this is (probably heavily one-sided), but it's an interesting read, if even parts of it are true:

The Battle of Kiev Twitter Thread

[ShivS]

^

There is a huge problem with the condition of Russia's tanks that were in storage.
At the best of times, tanks are difficult to maintain. Its easier to identify problems when a tank is used, rather than stored away for months. In IA, crew have years of familiarity with their vehicle. In Russia, its a few months experience in active tanks and none with stored tanks. When a tank is stored at temperatures below zero for several months, its a struggle to get it to start. .

Absolutely- took us 2 years to learn how to operate T72s in Ladakh. Cold plays havoc with tanks.

The T72s made in Russia often have another problem - spare parts designed and made in one factory won’t fit properly a T72 made in a different factory or even made 10 years later in the same factory. Maintaining these is a nightmare

[ks_sachin]

Absolutely- took us 2 years to learn how to operate T72s in Ladakh. Cold plays havoc with tanks.

The T72s made in Russia often have another problem - spare parts designed and made in one factory won’t fit properly a T72 made in a different factory or even made 10 years later in the same factory. Maintaining these is a nightmare

Any Armd background ShivS with IA?

[Deans]

Absolutely- took us 2 years to learn how to operate T72s in Ladakh. Cold plays havoc with tanks.

The T72s made in Russia often have another problem - spare parts designed and made in one factory won’t fit properly a T72 made in a different factory or even made 10 years later in the same factory. Maintaining these is a nightmare

Any Armd background ShivS with IA?

No personal background. I used to run a company and my VP of Ops, was Lt Col in an armored regiment (T-90s). Worked in Russia before that and my sales manager was a Major in the 1st Guards Army that I mentioned earlier.

[John]

Russian FOB was hit taking out good chunk of vehicles goes to show the importance of anti missile/artillery systems like iron dome in conflicts such as this.

https://twitter.com/uaweapons/status/15 ... JihdEo3NtA

Geo locators have already found it: https://twitter.com/docent_deptula/stat ... JihdEo3NtA

[Zynda]

Deans, thanks for some of the posts which are enlightening...didn't realize the level of corruption that exists in Russian Army. Whatever the reasons for corruption and ensuring lack of training leading to ill prep, it is the Russian soldiers who are paying heavy price on the frontlines...

[Cyrano]

Not sure how accurate this is (probably heavily one-sided), but it's an interesting read, if even parts of it are true:
The Battle of Kiev Twitter Thread

Quite an interesting take, seems plausible, given the info we have now that NATO has trained, armed UkrA battalions (at least 4 per year for many years), and were not only giving live intelligence but were very involved in directing operations.

Hard to know if it happened exactly as described... but a good recounting nevertheless.

A critic would say, how possible is this that despite months of planning, RA did not anticipate this very obvious vulnerable logistics bottleneck, were clueless or totally disregarded any UkrA counter attacks on the tail, and did such a massive face plant?

[Karan M]

I would request everyone to watch this interview with Scott Ritter. His contrarian take had his account banned from Twitter.
Ex USMC Major and one of the ones who openly called out the WMD fraud in the second Iraq conflict. Shady personal life, but impeccable professional credentials and his analysis of how the battle is going on is echoed by several other contrarians (mostly veterans who don't toe their establishment lines).

After seeing this, your view of Russian Army performance and strategy may change substantially. Worth a watch.

TLDR version - the Russian Army feinted towards Kiev and launched heavy probing attacks to panic the Ukrainians to deploy their best and brightest to protect the capital. Meanwhile they devastated Ukrainian infra, prevented the reserves from heading towards Donbass by multiple feints and by focusing on Kiev with a lot of theatrics (40 mile convoy), sieged Mariupol, their primary target and once that was done, they started a withdrawal from Kiev to head towards the Donbass, where the fight will be truly decided, having achieved their aims of wrecking most of Ukrainian heavy armor and maneuver capability and also their fuel stocks. Now the Russians are poised to go all out on the Donbass, which was their aim all along.

[enaiel]

TLDR version - the Russian Army feinted towards Kiev and launched heavy probing attacks to panic the Ukrainians to deploy their best and brightest to protect the capital. Meanwhile they devastated Ukrainian infra, prevented the reserves from heading towards Donbass by multiple feints and by focusing on Kiev with a lot of theatrics (40 mile convoy), sieged Mariupol, their primary target and once that was done, they started a withdrawal from Kiev to head towards the Donbass, where the fight will be truly decided, having achieved their aims of wrecking most of Ukrainian heavy armor and maneuver capability and also their fuel stocks. Now the Russians are poised to go all out on the Donbass, which was their aim all along.

Interesting, sorry I haven't watched the full thing, but I have one question: why would you launch 50,000 soldiers and 2,000 tanks on a feint and leave them to suffer major losses?

[Vayutuvan]

FYI.

“In war, truth is the first casualty.” ― Aeschylus

[John]

TLDR version - the Russian Army feinted towards Kiev and launched heavy probing attacks to panic the Ukrainians to deploy their best and brightest to protect the capital. Meanwhile they devastated Ukrainian infra, prevented the reserves from heading towards Donbass by multiple feints and by focusing on Kiev with a lot of theatrics (40 mile convoy), sieged Mariupol, their primary target and once that was done, they started a withdrawal from Kiev to head towards the Donbass, where the fight will be truly decided, having achieved their aims of wrecking most of Ukrainian heavy armor and maneuver capability and also their fuel stocks. Now the Russians are poised to go all out on the Donbass, which was their aim all along.

Interesting, sorry I haven't watched the full thing, but I have one question: why would you launch 50,000 soldiers and 2,000 tanks on a feint and leave them to suffer major losses?

I would take the whole report with grain of salt I find it funny
People try to justify this as rational move, you could prevented Ukrainians from heading over to Donbass just by holding small # of forces in north and south and attacking the east to start out with on Feb when ground was frozen. The best and brightest have always been in the east & south (inc Odessa) and when Russians attacked Kyiv none of forces dug out to reinforce it.

Like it or not Putin was hoping for quick win by capturing Kyiv in 3 days or 14 days whoever you want to believe, with that plan went awry he switched over to second plan.

Now you are attacking the east with less forces (demoralized) in spring where traversing the area is next to impossible.

Plus Ukr is now reinforcing their forces in east by moving them from Kyiv and they all have battlefield experience. Why? because north collapsed so fast Ukrainians can now clear the north and get to the east before Russians can get there traveling via Belarus.

If they wanted to hold down the Ukrainians you would have dug in halve your forces and forced them to clear out and inflict some heavy casualties (this might have been the plan but it feel apart?). Instead a rush retreat allowed Ukr forces to ambush the Russians left and right.

As for Ukrainian losses casualties aside which can be subjective, if you look at oryx data they ended up with more tanks, APC and artillery now thanks to all the Russian equipment they capture. There is also speculation a lot more equipment were captured that Ukrainians are hiding we are seeing Pantsir in Ukranian marking and those weren’t even reported captured before.

As I said earlier the best strategy was attacking the east to start out with all your forces they could have probably captured a good chunk of Donbas in a week (which is much faster than the current eastern offensive which has gone on for a week).

[dnivas]

Not sure why Russia to this day does not
1. level every bridge in western Ukraine
2. Knock out communication in all of western ukraine [any signals after is going to be military and can focus on them effectively]. I understand fellow slavs and what not, but western ukr hate the russians and are not gonna be in their corner anyways, might as well cut down cimmunications for a month than allow unnecessary propaganda and intel

3. I hope during the next freedom and democracy devastation by the west, the Russians hundred percent fully support the belligerents. The whole world had to listen to the nonsense about $30K bounties on US soldiers but are now quiet when the freedom lovers send billions in weapon aid.

what a joke.

[bala]

<poof>

Admin note: keep your partisan views on US politics off this forum. You already have a recent ban and this is a first warning after that.

[Jay]

<poof>

Admin note: keep your partisan views on US politics off the forum. You already have a live warning and this is the second one.

[yogeshkumar]

<poof>

Admin note: keep your partisan views on US politics off the forum. Warning issued

[ManuJ]

Not sure why Russia to this day does not
1. level every bridge in western Ukraine
2. Knock out communication in all of western ukraine

Rest assured, it's not benevolence. It's because:
1. They're still trying to pretend it's a 'special military operation' to save the Ukrainians.
2. They don't have the fire-power. Ukraine is a huge country and Russians have a limited supplies of PGMs and cruise missiles. They are using them sparingly and attacking military objectives.
3. They don't have air supremacy even after a month, and are thus not free to drop dumb bombs deep inside Ukraine using air power.

[dnivas]

Not sure why Russia to this day does not
1. level every bridge in western Ukraine
2. Knock out communication in all of western ukraine

Rest assured, it's not benevolence. It's because:
1. They're still trying to pretend it's a 'special military operation' to save the Ukrainians.
2. They don't have the fire-power. Ukraine is a huge country and Russians have a limited supplies of PGMs and cruise missiles. They are using them sparingly and attacking military objectives.
3. They don't have air supremacy even after a month, and are thus not free to drop dumb bombs deep inside Ukraine using air power.

I do not agree that they do not have the firepower
1. They prepared for 8 years to dedollarise their economy but forgot to stock up. That's very unlikely
2. They are one of the few armies that understands the importance of logistics [40 miles of trucks]. infact they have a university dedicated to military logistics and it is highly unlikely they did not stock on weapons essential to knock out a midsize country
3. Pgm's or not, they have complete superiority above 10-15K feet, they can literally drop dumb bombs and take out transport, communication and signal nodes.

Somehow they have been very coddling the ukr's and hopefully after phase 2 is over, they show the ukr's what true denazification is. sickenig to hear the whole world lecturing India on what we need for our national interest. screw them.

[ks_sachin]

Any Armd background ShivS with IA?

No personal background. I used to run a company and my VP of Ops, was Lt Col in an armored regiment (T-90s). Worked in Russia before that and my sales manager was a Major in the 1st Guards Army that I mentioned earlier.

Thanks your and ShivS’ posts are nice to read. Thanks for your contributions.
Incidentally I will be sitting down with an ex CO of an all India / all Classes Armd regt. Any specific questions you or others may have which obviously don’t breach the OSA are welcome.