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Россия invades Україна | UPDATE (30 May 2024) - Biden gives Ukraine permission to strike some targets inside Russia with American weapons

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MarSolo

MarSolo

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4 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

Just how conspicuous are these Russian senior level officers making themselves that their presence is obvious to Ukrainian snipers?

 

Are they demanding to be saluted in the field by their subordinates or are they hated so very much by their subordinates that they're being pointed out to any Ukrainian snipers in the area?

 

I'm imagining a lower-ranking Russian solider feverishly gesturing/pointing in the direction of his senior commanding officers when their backs are turned:

 

"LOOK!  HE'S RIGHT OVER THERE!  THAT'S THE ONE YOU WANT!"

 

or being extremely lax with communications discipline:

 

"Am I to understand your order correctly, Colonel who is currently located in the 3rd BTR-90 from the front of this column?"


“Comrade, what are you doing with that mirror?”

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Commissar SFLUFAN

Commissar SFLUFAN

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ISW analysis for 25 March 2022:

 

 

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 25 | Institute for the Study of War

WWW.UNDERSTANDINGWAR.ORG
The Russian General Staff issued a fictitious report on the first month of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on March 25 claiming Russia’s primary objective is to capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Sergei Rudskoi, first deputy chief of t

 

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The Russian General Staff issued a fictitious report on the first month of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on March 25 claiming Russia’s primary objective is to capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Sergei Rudskoi, first deputy chief of the Russian General Staff, gave a briefing to Russian press summing up the first month of the Russian invasion on March 25.[1] Rudskoi inaccurately claimed Russian forces have completed “the main tasks of the first stage of the operation,” falsely asserting that Russia has heavily degraded the Ukrainian military, enabling Russia to focus on the “main goal” of capturing Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

 

Rudskoi’s comments were likely aimed mainly at a domestic Russian audience and do not accurately or completely capture current Russian war aims and planned operations. Russia’s justification for the invasion of Ukraine from the outset was the fictitious threat Moscow claimed Ukrainian forces posed to the people in Russian-occupied Donbas. The Kremlin has reiterated this justification for the war frequently as part of efforts to explain the invasion to its people and build or sustain public support for Putin and the war. Rudskoi’s framing of the capture of the rest of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts as the “main goal” of the operation is in line with this ongoing information operation.

 

Rudskoi’s assertion that securing the unoccupied portions of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts was always the main objective of Russia’s invasion is false. The Kremlin’s initial campaign aimed to conduct airborne and mechanized operations to seize Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and other major Ukrainian cities to force a change of government in Ukraine.[2] Rudskoi’s comments could indicate that Russia has scaled back its aims and would now be satisfied with controlling the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, but that reading is likely inaccurate. Russian forces elsewhere in Ukraine have not stopped fighting and have not entirely stopped attempting to advance and seize more territory. They are also attacking and destroying Ukrainian towns and cities, conducting operations and committing war crimes that do not accord with the objectives Rudskoi claims Russia is pursuing.

 

Russia continues efforts to rebuild combat power and commit it to the fight to encircle and/or assault Kyiv and take Mariupol and other targets, despite repeated failures and setbacks and continuing Ukrainian counter-attacks. The Ukrainian General Staff reports that the Russian military is building “consolidated units,” likely comprised of individuals or small units drawn from a number of different battalions, brigades, and regiments, to replace combat losses and deploying them on the west bank of the Dnipro near the Chernobyl exclusion zone, among other locations. Russian forces continue their grinding and likely costly advance in Mariupol as well.

 

The absence of significant Russian offensive operations throughout most of Ukraine likely reflects the inability of the Russian military to generate sufficient combat power to attack rather than any decision in Moscow to change Russia’s war aims or concentrate on the east. Rudskoi’s comments are likely an attempt to gloss the Russian military’s failures for a domestic audience and focus attention on the only part of the theater in which Russian troops are making any progress at this point. The West should not over-read this obvious messaging embedded in a piece of propaganda that continued very few true statements.

 

Key Takeaways

  • The Russian General Staff is attempting to adjust the war’s narrative so make it appear that Russia is achieving its aims and choosing to restrict operations when in fact it is not achieving its objectives and is being forced to abandon large-scale offensive operations because of its own failures and losses as well as continuing skillful Ukrainian resistance.
  • Ukrainian forces claimed to kill the commander of Russia’s 49th Combined Arms Army, operating around Kherson.
  • Ukrainian counterattacks northwest of Kyiv made further minor progress in the past 24 hours.
  • Ukrainian forces additionally conducted a successful counterattack east of Kyiv in the past 24 hours, pushing Russian forces east from Brovary.
  • Russian attempts to encircle Chernihiv remain unsuccessful.
  • The military situation in northeastern Ukraine did not change in the past 24 hours.
  • Russian forces continue to take Mariupol street-by-street and have entered the city center.
  • Russian forces did not conduct any offensive operations around Kherson in the past 24 hours.

The Russian General Staff continued to downplay Russian casualties and issued likely false claims of damage inflicted on the Ukrainian military. Rudskoi claimed 1,351 Russian servicemen have been killed and 3,825 wounded since February 24. NATO estimates 7,000-15,000 Russian servicemen have been killed, and Kremlin-affiliated outlet Komsomolskaya Pravda posted and quickly deleted an article on March 22 citing the Russian Defense Ministry that 9,861 Russian soldiers have been killed and 16,153 have been wounded.[3]

 

Rudskoi falsely claimed Ukraine’s air force and air defenses "are almost completely destroyed” and its navy “ceased to exist.” Russian forces have failed to secure air superiority, with the Ukrainian General Staff reporting on March 25 that Ukrainian air defenses destroyed one plane, one unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), and four cruise missiles in the past 24 hours; the Ukrainian air force remains active.[4] Rudskoi additionally claimed that all Ukrainian units have suffered significant losses, including 65.7% of tanks and armored vehicles, 42.8% of field artillery guns and mortars, 30.5% of multiple launch rocket systems, and 82% of S-300 and Buk-M1 anti-aircraft missile systems, as well as three-quarters of Ukrainian aircraft, half their helicopters, and 35 of Ukraine‘s 36 TB2 drones. These figures are likely falsified and inaccurate.

 

Rudskoi claimed that Western states are only supplying Ukraine with weapons to prolong the conflict with Russia, not to support Kyiv. Rudskoi additionally claimed the number of “foreign mercenaries” in Ukraine peaked at 6,600 but has fallen due to desertion. Rudskoi falsely and preposterously claimed Russian forces do not strike civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and blamed all destruction on Ukrainian “nationalists.” He also falsely claimed that Russia opens daily humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians and falsely claimed Ukraine has not opened a single corridor.

 

Russia continues to rush forces to Ukraine to replace high combat losses, including the commander of the 49th Combined Arms Army. The Ukrainian General Staff reported at noon local time on March 25 that Ukrainian forces killed Lieutenant General Yakov Rezantsev, commander of the 49th Combined Arms Army (operating around Kherson), though ISW cannot independently confirm this claim.[5] The Ukrainian General Staff stated on March 25 that Russia is deploying “consolidated units”—likely referring to BTGs formed from larger units that suffered combat losses earlier in the war—from the 37th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (36th CAA, EMD), 5th Separate Tank Brigade (36th CAA, EMD), 38th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (35th CAA EMD), and 40th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet) to Belarus.[6] The Ukrainian General Staff additionally reported on March 24 that Russia is withdrawing unspecified units from Ukraine after sustaining personnel losses over 50 percent.[7]

 

 

DraftUkraineCoTMarch25,2022.png

 

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brucoe

brucoe

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9 hours ago, 69los said:

 

utJMX9O.png

During the Gulf War, we used to camp out near enemy positions and wait to see which tents were visited most often. Then we'd follow the communication cords they laid out and then in the middle of the night hit the tents that were centrally located. Took out the command and control structure constantly throughout the conflict. Without secure communication equipment, targeting the command structure is easy as long as the opforce is quick and maneuverable. From what I understand, Russian infrastructure is very similar with crappy communication. Fortunately, for the Ukrainians, they don't even need good commo equipment like the US had in that war; they just have to know how to find the lines being used by the Russians.

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Commissar SFLUFAN

Commissar SFLUFAN

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10 hours ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

 what the hell is a flag officer?

 

A "flag officer" is an officer who is senior enough to be entitled to fly a flag to mark the position from which they exercise command authority. 

 

The term is typically associated with the Navy/Coast Guard, but it's used in the other service branches as well.

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Commissar SFLUFAN

Commissar SFLUFAN

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For those keeping score:

 

Maj Gen Andrey Mordvich: killed in action
Maj Gen Oleg Mityaev: killed in action
Lt Gen Yakov Rezanstev: killed in action
Maj Gen Vitaliy Gerasimov: killed in action
Maj Gen Andrei Sukhovetsky: killed in action
Maj Gen Andrey Kolesnikov: killed in action
Gen Magomed Tushaev: killed in action
Gen Vlaislav Yershov: sacked

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Comet

Comet

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2 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

For those keeping score:

 

Maj Gen Andrey Mordvich: killed in action
Maj Gen Oleg Mityaev: killed in action
Lt Gen Yakov Rezanstev: killed in action
Maj Gen Vitaliy Gerasimov: killed in action
Maj Gen Andrei Sukhovetsky: killed in action
Maj Gen Andrey Kolesnikov: killed in action
Gen Magomed Tushaev: killed in action
Gen Vlaislav Yershov: sacked

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu: “heart attack”

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