Apparently Putin has taken full command of day to day operations (basically what Hitler did in the later years to disastrous effect). Gerasimov is already commanding the troops in Izyum and on the grounds there.
Hopefully, Putin will follow his Generals' lead and command it from the front lines.
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Is this partially due to the landscape of Ukraine? Why is Russia still just constantly leaving soldiers and important equipment out in the open, with no cover where the drones can see them so easily? Is there no ability to adapt?
There's only so much you can do to protect getting spotted by drones and not being in range of artillery or missiles, particularly if you're on the offensive and extending your lines (which compromises your defenses if not done properly). Ukraine is also getting US (and likely UK) intelligence in basically real time, so it's possible that this stuff was spotted by them as well.
At the same time, it's also important to remember that most of what we're seeing is from one side of the conflict and is being released to boost morale and garner support. Ukrainian forces are also getting hit pretty hard from artillery and from the air as well, but videos of that aren't going to get as much traction outside Russia, for obvious reasons.
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MOD and map updates for the day. Heavy shelling and fighting on the Donetsk front again with Ukrainians admitting to "heavy casualties" in the area but generally holding the line against Russians, who have taken "heavier" casualties. This may be part of the Ukrainian strategy of wearing the Russians down slowly by attacking Russian supply lines when they advance too far until more Ukrainian units are spun up, or the Russians being cautious. Russia has taken Yampil today NE of Slovyansk.
Russians have added another 10 BTGs (~1000 soldiers) back to the fight after refitting broken units from the Kyiv attack, these will likely be thrown into the fight in their push to Slovyansk/Kramatorsk. Mariupol continues to hold out longer than anyone expected with Russians pulling out 12 BTGs slowly from the area, nothing happening in Kherson.
Ukrainians have received 60% of the M777 artillery pieces promised to them so far. Hopefully the new arms shipments will make an impact on this front soon.
Rumors persist about Putin taking a more personal role in commanding forces in the area, and may use May 9th as a formal declaration of war against Ukraine with general mobilization, but these have not been confirmed by anyone yet.
There's only so much you can do to protect getting spotted by drones and not being in range of artillery or missiles, particularly if you're on the offensive and extending your lines (which compromises your defenses if not done properly). Ukraine is also getting US (and likely UK) intelligence in basically real time, so it's possible that this stuff was spotted by them as well.
At the same time, it's also important to remember that most of what we're seeing is from one side of the conflict and is being released to boost morale and garner support. Ukrainian forces are also getting hit pretty hard from artillery and from the air as well, but videos of that aren't going to get as much traction outside Russia, for obvious reasons.
Ukraine's losses have been minimal at best with the newest offensive. You don't hear of it because it's not happening. Most of Ukraine's main losses occurred during the initial onslaught with fresh Russian troops with the element of surprise and first strike. Zelensky was in real danger of being killed, which was revealed today just how close it really was.
Ukraine is dug in in heavily defended positions on the Donestk line. Russians are making ill prepared offensives that are certain to fail.
Russian video sources is visible for anyone with Telegram (I linked one of the Russian propaganda accounts prior), and the Russian videos are mostly fabrications or acted videos. That's pretty obvious when Russia has been caught faking new drones being shot down using old wreckage, or using multiple angles of the same vehicle and counting as multiples that were abandoned in Mariupol.
Ukraine's losses have been minimal at best with the newest offensive. You don't hear of it because it's not happening. Most of Ukraine's main losses occurred during the initial onslaught with fresh Russian troops with the element of surprise and first strike. Zelensky was in real danger of being killed, which was revealed today just how close it really was.
Ukraine is dug in in heavily defended positions on the Donestk line. Russians are making ill prepared offensives that are certain to fail.
Russian video sources is visible for anyone with Telegram (I linked one of the Russian propaganda accounts prior), and the Russian videos are mostly fabrications or acted videos. That's pretty obvious when Russia has been caught faking new drones being shot down using old wreckage, or using multiple angles of the same vehicle and counting as multiples that were abandoned in Mariupol.
If anything, based on intercepted phone and radio calls and leaked reported, the war is going far worse for Russia then even Ukraine estimates.
There are plenty of videos of air strikes and cruise missile strikes on Ukrainian positions in the East, and they've been experiencing pretty heavy shelling (and until today they were losing ground). The Russians are obviously taking heavier casualties because they're on the offensive and they're inept. But if you don't realize that basically everything coming out of this war is crafted for what are essentially propaganda purposes, then I don't know what to say; that's just how wars work. When the combatants control what the rest of the world sees, you're always going to get a very colored picture.
The good news for Ukraine is that Russia seems to be taking heavy losses but not really gaining a ton of ground. And I suspect when the better US drones get really put into service, Russia will lose even more vehicles. The Switchblade 600 is basically a Javelin that you can control from up to 40km away and that can hang out in the sky for 30-40 min waiting to find a high-value target to hit. Beyond the physical damage they'll cause, they're going to be very hard on morale when anyone in a vehicle can get blown up by something they basically can't defend against.
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The good news for Ukraine is that Russia seems to be taking heavy losses but not really gaining a ton of ground. And I suspect when the better US drones get really put into service, Russia will lose even more vehicles. The Switchblade 600 is basically a Javelin that you can control from up to 40km away and that can hang out in the sky for 30-40 min waiting to find a high-value target to hit. Beyond the physical damage they'll cause, they're going to be very hard on morale when anyone in a vehicle can get blown up by something they basically can't defend against.
Someone forgot to tell Putin conventional war tactics have changed, tanks and personal carriers are just armored coffins now.
Ukrainians have been targetting convo and supply trucks, mostly not tanks. Tanks are giant paper weights without fuel and ammo. It's been a devastating strategy so far.
Or the crazies online maintaining Russia is doing great and winning the war. I mean, even if in the end Russia takes those Eastern regions, that would be a pyrrhic victory at best. They've lost thousands of people and weaponry, have basically cut themselves off from most of Europe and North America, sullied the view people have of Russia in general, and also shown their military to be so much more incompetent, disorganized, and frankly weaker than anyone would have ever imagined 2 months ago...how anyone could see this as "mission accomplished" and a good idea is simply mind-bottling.
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There are plenty of videos of air strikes and cruise missile strikes on Ukrainian positions in the East, and they've been experiencing pretty heavy shelling (and until today they were losing ground). The Russians are obviously taking heavier casualties because they're on the offensive and they're inept. But if you don't realize that basically everything coming out of this war is crafted for what are essentially propaganda purposes, then I don't know what to say; that's just how wars work. When the combatants control what the rest of the world sees, you're always going to get a very colored picture.
Ukraine has been using what is called defence in depth. It's a very effective defence strategy when facing a numerically superior enemy and have the ability to fall back. Don't read too much into russians gaining limited ground, it's costing Russia heavy ressource to move an inch of land right now, and whenever they do start overwhelming Ukraine forces at certain points, those forces fall back and create a new line of defense.
The battle of Cannae (one of the most famous battles in world history) is a perfect example of a smaller force beating an overwhelming enemy. Because Russia is being lead by a date objective versus a tactical objective, they are attacking without proper support or planning. They are simply being told 'take this by May 9 at all costs'. This it makes perfect sense for Ukraine to yield some ground where Russia is pushing at its strongest, to spread their forces and being vulnerable to counter attacks. They are doing the exact same mistakes they did trying to take Kyiv.
Russian shelling has also been extremely ineffective against Ukrainian forces, mainly because Russia has used up all of its airborne explosion artillery shells and using dumb ground explosion artillery shells.
It cannot be understated just how lopsided the fighting is right now in terms of effectiveness. Mainstream media has been a rather poor source of information on how the war is going, and tends to focus on the humanitarian crisis side, but militarily, even the Pentagon has stated that Ukraine can and will win the war, and they have been extremely conservative on any statement.
There's still a lot of belief that the story is one sided and we aren't hearing of how divested the Ukrainian military is getting. It's one side because one is fighting a modern 2022 war while one side is fighting stuck in 1970 doctrine. I am not kidding. They are literally using maps from the 70s and are dumfounded when towns don't exist or things are not as expected.
