Ukrajina

[sumirprimus]

Pa ovo je bolje od 13te plate

[sumirprimus]

Jos 3 pukovnika oko bahmuta , plodi se ona lista oficira dana opasno

[Čitalac]

Komentari na ruskim portalima u prvih sat-dva bili su gori nego nakon potapanja Moskve no čini se da su moderatori sada preuzeli stvar u svoje ruke pa su uklonili većinu kletvi i uvreda na račun državnog vrha. Dozvoljene su kritike poput ove: „Ovo nije država, ovo je kupleraj“.

[Maliodmene]

https://youtu.be/GHBkNJJgMwI

Pregrst akcije

[Crvene_brigade]

Nešto se opet dimi... Slava herojima Ukrajine!

[zigzag]

Komentari na ruskim portalima u prvih sat-dva bili su gori nego nakon potapanja Moskve no čini se da su moderatori sada preuzeli stvar u svoje ruke pa su uklonili većinu kletvi i uvreda na račun državnog vrha. Dozvoljene su kritike poput ove: „Ovo nije država, ovo je kupleraj“.

Dobro ste skontali, mora vas više od 500.000 što mrtvih što ranjenih zaplatit da skontate da vam je kupleraj skupa sa putinom.

[karanana]

Komentari na ruskim portalima u prvih sat-dva bili su gori nego nakon potapanja Moskve no čini se da su moderatori sada preuzeli stvar u svoje ruke pa su uklonili većinu kletvi i uvreda na račun državnog vrha. Dozvoljene su kritike poput ove: „Ovo nije država, ovo je kupleraj“.

Dobro ste skontali, mora vas više od 500.000 što mrtvih što ranjenih zaplatit da skontate da vam je kupleraj skupa sa putinom.

Da, ali ovi komentari ne pozivaju na mir i povlacenje nego prozivaju putina i drzavu zbog mehkoce i loseg vodjenja rata.

[mishic]

Gore šume i ugrožavaju barutna skladišta u Rusiji, eksplozije diljem Rusije čak i u kafićima, brojne akcije i fenomenalni rezultati ukrajinskih boraca iz sata u sat. You tube zatrpan snimcima.

[sumirprimus]

Dobro ste skontali, mora vas više od 500.000 što mrtvih što ranjenih zaplatit da skontate da vam je kupleraj skupa sa putinom.

Da, ali ovi komentari ne pozivaju na mir i povlacenje nego prozivaju putina i drzavu zbog mehkoce i loseg vodjenja rata.

Da, ovo su ko anam ono litijasi obraz i slicni. Jos radikalniji

[mishic]

Ruski Komersant...

Kako saznaje Komersant, iako su vlasti potvrdile pad samo jednog helikoptera, u regiji Brjansk gotovo istovremeno oboreni su lovac-bombarder Su-34, lovac Su-35, kao i dva helikoptera Mi-8 Vazdušno-kosmičkih snaga Rusije. Posade su poginule.
Prema preliminarnim podacima, svi su bili dio iste avio-grupe koja je trebalo da izvede napad na ciljeve na teritoriji Černihivske oblasti u Ukrajini.
Stručnjaci smatraju da je napad najvjerovatnije izveden oružjem vazduh-vazduh, odnosno neprijateljskim avionima ili helikopterima. Tako je zračna grupa Vazdušno-kosmičkih snaga, najvjerovatnije, upala u zasjedu.

U zasjedu upada i pješaštvo, oklopnjaci, zarobljenika je sve više...

[Čitalac]

Dobro ste skontali, mora vas više od 500.000 što mrtvih što ranjenih zaplatit da skontate da vam je kupleraj skupa sa putinom.

Da, ali ovi komentari ne pozivaju na mir i povlacenje nego prozivaju putina i drzavu zbog mehkoce i loseg vodjenja rata.

Ima više struja. Šaljivdžije pišu: „Bez brige, sve ide po planu“, ratoborni traže totalni obračun i „svođenje Ukrajine na Lavov sa okolinom“, a zabrinuti poručuju da je nečiji pakleni plan „da mi (Rusi) izginemo u Ukrajini a da naše poslove, žene i kuće preuzmu Azijati“.

[sumirprimus]

Lijepo je biti saljivdzija dok ti vojska i ljudstvo cini ratne zlocine i rusi susjednu zemlju. Tako su i sa nama se salili, evo sale se i dan danas dodju ovde serendat kako treba gledat ekonomiju i zivit ne gledat unazad. Puu

[sumirprimus]

St aje onda isprsvno? Pa ako ne radis aktivno na rusenju takvig rezima , red je da se zavuces u misju rupu i sutnjom bar ne dolijevas ulje na vatru i na ranu, a ne sapjivdziju glumit.

[DahZmaja]

Ne mora znacit da je letio na max visini ako nije ocekivo opasnost. Vise puta snimljeni kako lete nisko u ukr uoravo radi gadjanja meta na zemlji u nedostatku oametne municije.
Plus ja kazem za vrtolet da je sumnjiv ko da je rucni lanser.

Bio je negdje usporeni zoom snimak pogotka helikoptera.

Raketa je oko 3m duga.

Upravo tako, pregledao sam taj klip sa usporenim snimkom.
Ako može kamera sa mobitela na snimku "uhvatiti" raketu, onda ista mora biti barem 3m ili više što već daje naznake da je nešto drugo, veće i konkretnije od ručnog lansera.

Nego samo da Ukrajinci imaju toga još više, možda su ljudi htjeli da se oprobaju sa novitetom da su spremni za nadolazeću ofanzivu.

[splinter]

Dobro dere ruski PVO

[zigzag]

Dobro ste skontali, mora vas više od 500.000 što mrtvih što ranjenih zaplatit da skontate da vam je kupleraj skupa sa putinom.

Da, ali ovi komentari ne pozivaju na mir i povlacenje nego prozivaju putina i drzavu zbog mehkoce i loseg vodjenja rata.

U pravu su

Dosta je bilo ovih mehkiša!!!

Dajte one elitne što ih svi čekaju.

[sumirprimus]

Isto sve ko orci za sirotinju

[mishic]

Onako kako smo i predpostavljali i pisali, ova dva dana doslovno Rusi ne mogu skontati šta ih je snašlo. Krenulo je Bahmućenje za koje sam ja davno rekao da će ući u mnoge jezike sa značenjem opšteg rasula i kataklizme. Događaju se čuda!

[janje_]

Pricali smo da ofanziva ima puno manje sansi bez kontrole neba. Sudeci po danasnjim dogadjaJima, to vise ne bi trebo biti problem.

[Čitalac]

Zelenski sutra stiže u Berlin, očekuje se i dodatno ozvaničenje najvećeg paketa pomoći do sada u iznosu od 2,7 milijardi eura.

[SanskiBiser]

Frisak Stefan Korshak-..May 13 - Day 444 - Shadow of the Storm Shadow, Bakhmut Roundup, Russian aircraft fall on Bryansk Oblast'

May 13 - Day 444 - Shadow of the Storm Shadow, Bakhmut Roundup, Russian aircraft fall on Bryansk Oblast'

Spoiler

Show

Hi FB!
Luhansk and Storm Shadow
Although normally the transfer of a major weapons system would fall into this review’s traditional “stuff for Ukraine” category, Friday’s announcement in London that Britain is in the process of tranferring given Ukraine Storm Shadow missiles I think is better discussed in a separate section.
The reason is that on Friday and Saturday that Ukrainians hit Luhansk, which is out of HIMARS range, with something(s), and the internet has just gone nutso deciding it was British long-range Storm Shadow missiles.
The political side of this is that on Friday London confirmed it was handing over these cruise missiles, which have a range of 250-550 km. and carry nearly a half ton warhead, to Ukraine. This is exactly the kind of long-range precision-guided strike system Ukraine has been begging for, for more than a year. Graphic attached of an optimistic Ukrainian media depiction of a Storm Shadow missile and some of the places the Ukrainian want to blast using it, and another piece of content slavering about a strike on the Kherson bridge
Luhansk is about 90-100 km. away from and so outside the range of probable HIMARS launch sites. In the opinion of many, the fact that Luhansk got hit proves that not only does Ukraine have these Storm Shadows, it is already using them. Optimistic image attached “proving” Storm Shadows could have bene launched from Kramatorsk.
Saturday strike first. This morning, something hit a command and control center used by the Russian occupation authority in Luhansk’s Yuveleyny region. This is a former KGB/police academy and its use by Russia’s local command as a headquarters, communications center and troop base has been well-known since 2015. Some readers of this blog have undoubtedly driven by there and maybe even been inside for fruitless discussions involving pretend Luhansk “independence”. Before and after strike images attached. The grid of the strike, supposedly is: 48.5587, 39.18604.
Russian media was extremely quick to publish images of alleged missile debris (image) confirming it was Storm Shadow, but as of this writing that is seriously unconfirmed. There are before and after images of the academy, so you can decide for yourself whether you think that looks like the work of a 450kg HE warhead with embedded penetrator tech aboard.
As to the Friday strike, a lot of the internet declared that the work of Storm Shadow as well, but the evidence isn’t there. The “LPR” authorities over the years have become relatively diligent and efficient in recording damage from every possible Ukrainian strike, not least because there were, relatively speaking, since 2014, so few of them.
The Friday “Storm Shadow” strike got the same treatement, the police showed up, the crater experts made their measurements and took their photographs, and by evening they had published their findings: It was two Ukrainian Grom missiles, that hit allegedly empty industrial buildings in Luhansk. Image of their findings attached. To me, that’s enough to conclude it wasn’t a Storm Shadow.
A little peculiarly, it turned out that A Russian parliament member named Viktor Vodolatsky appears to have been in the vicinity when the building was hit (Image). RF propaganda channels were quick to report he was in the blast radius and potentially a target and that’s how he got wounded.
RF government critical channels were just as quick to report that the first TV interview following the strike showed him without a scratch, and some of the nasty ones reported what happened was Vodolatsky was unharmed in the attack but while walking around afterwards he fell down and hit his head. Other unkind people wondered what a Russian deputy known for his anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, was doing wandering around “empty” industrial real estate in Luhansk.
Debris from the Friday strike published in Russian media (attached) seemed to clearly show that that the Ukrainians had accompanied that attack with decoy winged bombs called ADM-160B (stock image attached), a British-French system designed to distract air defenses away from an incoming weapon. I don’t know what the Ukrainians were shooting at, but based on the evidence, it does seem like they really wanted to hit it.
Bakhmut
Well, it’s 72-96 hours after the Ukrainians put in their counterattacks at Bakhmut, and one thing is absolutely for sure: If the number of battle maps that relatively small action generated are any indicator, I fear that when the real Ukrainian offensive hits the mass Google maps generated with arrows drawn all over them will break the internet. There are too many to post here.
You want to be scared? The recent round of fighting in Bakhmut, scale-wise, probably involved about 3-4,000 men both sides. The offensive will probably be 20-50 times bigger.
Maps and arrows aside, the bottom line on Bakhmut it seems to me is that the Ukrainians overall put in two days of attacks and depending on the locality gained between a few hundred meters and three kilometers of ground, against active Russian resistance that the Ukrainians outclassed in tactics and firepower.
In terms of units involved, the major formations appear to have been 2nd Battalion 3rd Assault Infantry (formerly Kyiv Azov) and 24th Battalion 10th Mountain Bde (formerly Aidar). There appears to have been an attack by elements of 57th Mech Brigade, possibly with support of Kharkiv territorials, within built-up areas inside Bakhmut. Image attached of some Aidar guys, this is from Bakhmut but before the latest attacks.
Video of individual tanks supporting the attacks is all over the internet and Russian sources are complaining about Russian troops lacking anti-tank weapons. All in all, this was Russians in defensive positions in woodlines, and the Ukrainians assaulting and clearing the positions using APCs, tanks and infantry.
The bigger attack was by the 3rd to the south of Bakhmut against elements of 72nd Motor Rifle Bde on Wednesday. The secondary attack, apparently run on Thursday, was against elements of Russia’s 4th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade and 374th Separate Rifle Battalion. It appears the 57th and associated units attacked to take back buildings in Bakhmut itself, fighting against Wagner infantry. It appears artillery units from all these Ukrainian formations, plus the 60th Motorized Brigade, fired in support of the attacks.
Depending on where the woodline was, this turned into UAF ground gains of between 1-3 km. Inside Bakhmut, reports were of 100-200 meters advance. The city’s industrial college was reportedly recaptured in the attacks.
Clearly, in some cases the Ukrainians kicked off their attacks at night. Images published by 127th Territorial Defense Brigade showed Russian infantry moving through a built-up area under observation of a Ukrainian night-vision equipped drone, and being pounded by howitzer strikes fired by 60th Mechanized Brigade artillery. The Territorial unit’s media section in a Facebook statement said the engagement took place in the Bakhmut sector.
https://www.facebook.com/127tro
In all cases, Ukrainian units reported killed and wounded. References were to several men hit but not dozens or hundreds. The Ukrainians clearly took prisoners in these attacks but not dozens. It seems likely the POWs captured the Ukrainian infantry dug out of their holes.
Kirill Sazonov, an operator in the Bakhmut-based drone reconnaissance unit Green, in a Thursday evening web post said AFU units were advancing on both sides of the city and an envelopment of Russian troops was in progress. He said Russian forces had ample artillery and were fighting to hold their positions.

In spite of Sazonov’s promises, on Saturday it seemed like the Ukrainians were consolidating on gained ground rather than attempting more attacks.
On the Russian side, official Russian sources confirmed a shift to the defense, with the Defense Ministry on Friday issuing a statement that “Military forces of the Russian Federation with the goal of advantageous conditions has taken positions on the Berkhovsky water reservoir”. The announcement tacitly confirmed Kremlin abandonment of attacks from the north towards Bakhmut and Ukrainian supply routes leading into the city.

So all in all, my opinion, a new chapter in the Bakhmut saga has now opened. The Kremlin has formally given up on capturing the city, for the medium-term anyway, and the Russian goal here is to prevent the propaganda disaster of being shown to have lost a city it arguably threw away about one-quarter to one-third of the Russian army’s entire available manpower, over six months, to try and take. The key strategic importance of Bakhmut now is how disastrous from a morale and public relations point of view it would be for the Kremlin, were the Russian army to abandon it. This makes Bakhmut a textbook military black hole for the Russians: if the front starts moving elsewhere Russian troops there will be told to stay and fight to their deaths.
The offensive
Zelensky is in Italy and his latest statements are along the lines of “we need to wait for some more stuff” so short term I very much doubt we’ll see the major ground offensive in the next week or two.
NSC secretary Danylov was on television last night: he said that Ukraine want to end the war “before winter” and that Ukraine will probably launch “several” counteroffensives before then. Ukraine’s objective is to liberate occupied territory and the question is how much time and how many offensives that will take, he said.
The Left bank
Remember those small boat teams the Ukrainians sent across the Dnipro River a couple of weeks ago? Well, according to the Russian internet, they’re still there, apparently making themselves comfortable in abandoned summer cottages in the village Dachny (map), seemingly without any interference from the Russian military. Video attached of, purportedly, a UAF soldier not paying attention that the village he is walking around in, is supposedly under Russian control.
Irate Russian civilian internet screen grab attached expressing anger and offense the second most powerful army in the world seemingly can’t clear out a squad or two of Ukrainain special operators - or whoever they are - from the left bank of the Dnipro.
I point this out not as much for the humor, as to register - not for the first time - that if the Russians fail to secure the Dnipro River properly , then it’s not just via Zaporizhia that the Ukrainians can head towards Crimea.
Other UAF strikes
On Friday there was a really big explosion in Mariupol, and according to Ukrainian official sources, a pair of missiles overflew Volnovakha heading south prior to the blasts. Map.
According to the mayor-in-exile of Melitpol, there were explosions there on Friday evening (in this case near a factor called Refma used by the Russians and a command and control center and military garrison point) and according to the Russian internet in those regions - again, judging on the present, once the big offensive kicks off the panic and hysteria in the Russian internet will be absolutely epic - after which the lights shut off in the city, mobile phone coverage went from OK to often not there, and rumors flew about Russian troops abandoning the city.
Speaking of panic, the Crimea internet, vicinity Dzhankoe, heard an explosion, someone else took a picture of something that blew up in the sky, and by the time it was finished had conflated it into the shoot-down, or crash, of an Mi-28 helicopter. Screenie and pic attached.
Air ambush or some serious stupidity in Russia
According to Saturday afternoon reports, and the Russian internet, two combat jets - according to early reports and Su-24 and an Su-35, and two helicopters - according to reports a pair of Mi-8 were shot down, I say again shot down, in air space over Bryansk Oblast Russia.
There is video out there showing a helicopter getting hit by what looks like a missile, multiple videos of falling aircraft, and official confirmation from both the Russian and the Ukrainian sides that it happened.
Some Russian official sources have said yes the helicopter went down but it was an engine problem.
The Russian internet weighed in on that with lightning speed and offered images of a what very much looks like a Russian military aircraft fuselage holed from an explosion, and not very obviously ever on fire anywhere. Image attached.
The Russian military blogosphere, for its part, attacked the Russian military high command for being asleep at the switch and not taking the enemy seriously.
As to what happened, with four aircraft down it seems like blue-on-blue accident is unlikely, as that would be military operations so slovenly and unprofessional it's hard that even the Russians would be capable of it.
If it was shootdowns, then there are several theories out there. For further discussion remember the air space we are talking about is about 50 km. from Ukraine's northern border:
-The Ukrainians now are operating a long-range air-to-air missile like Meteor or AIM-120, which they haven't before, they flew a fighter close enough, and that's how the Russian aircraft got shot down
- At least one battery of the Patriot missiles the Ukrainians just got from the Germans/Americans is parked relatively northwards inside Ukraine, for instance Chernihiv region, and the Americans didn't send average missiles but the best they have, and those could easily reach to where the stuff got shot down
- At least one of the helicopters was a jammer/electronic warfare aircraft and first the Ukrainians home in on that with a HARM, shot it down, and THEN ambushed the other aircraft that were sent to check out what happened
- NATO has AWACS over Poland, AWACS can see into west Russian air space (really), and that ability plus data link enabled the Ukrainians to throw a ground or air-launched missile into the path of one of these aircraft, without the Ukrainians themselves turning on their targeting radars.
This is improbable because it assumes a distinctly higher level of technical cooperation between NATO and Ukraine (specifically a functional air targeting data link)- than we have seen before.
In the past the Ukrainians have complained they don't get NATO-collected data fast enough, which means it has to go through the NATO bureaucracy before the Ukrainians get access and by then it's too late. Maybe NATO listened and now the data link exists.
Of course, arguably NATO/US giving Ukraine targeting data enabling Ukraine to shoot down Russian aircraft in Russian air space would be an act of war against Russia, and plenty of NATO nations would veto that. Of course, the US Air Force doesn't consider itself subordinate to NATO. (Sometimes it seems like they don't consider themselves subordinate to the USJSC, but that's another tangent.)
But on the other hand this sort of data transfer is protected by all manner of secrecy and deniability, and NATO/US is pretty mad at Russia, and the US Air Force is probably equally mad and they've got all this great tech. Just a hypothesis.
Russian long-range attacks
It looks like the Russians haven’t given up on attacking Kyiv with drones so I assume this is an attempt to get the Ukrainians to shoot off very expensive anti-aircaft missiles, which now include the US Patriot. The latest round was last night-early this morning, as before pretty much everything got shot down.
However, clearly something got through in Kmelnitsky - in the past fuel and energy infrastrcture have been the preferred Russian targets here - and touched off a massive explosion, video attached when I can, FB does not make it easy.
UAF officials said “critical infrastructure” was hit. Five people injured, rail traffic diverted, some trains running with delays.
By the numbers for the rest, the latest wave was the sixth air attack on the capital since the beginning of May, all drones sent towards Kyiv were destroyed, power and communications functioned normally, and most (but not all) people just slept through it. In Mykolaiv a five-story residential building was damaged and a two-story office building was destroyed, fires at both sites, three people hurt.out at both sites. Three people were hurt. In Lviv explosions reported, most likely air defenses taking out drones. Nightly score sheet attached.
Stuff for Ukraine
Germany - It is I think indicative of the poor state of the Bundeswehr, that more than a year into this war and we are still finding out about German government national security policy decisions from the media and not the German state.
But it’s still good news for Ukraine. According to Der Spiegel, Berlin is planning a €2.7bn military aid package for Kyiv including 20 Marder infantry fighting vehicles, 30 Leopard 1 tanks, 18 wheeled howitzers, 4 air defense systems IRIS-T-SLM, 2 IRIS-T-SLS launchers and “hundreds” of guided missiles, 200 reconnaissance drones, 100 protected combat vehicles, 100 logistics support vehicles
It should be noted that declaration is not the same as commitment to a timeline. However, at this point, German will to help Ukraine seems to be firm, it’s their capacity to do it efficiently that’s still questionable.
And speaking of military efficiency, the Americans announced that those spify M1 Abrams tanks Ukraine can’t get until the end of the year because of manufacturing and security issues, well, actually delivery will be faster than that, now it’s the beginning of the Fall. Image.
If you read this far, two bonus links:
General Zaluzhny speaks on victory and squeezing the Soviet mindset out of the AFU:

Russian soldier surrenders to drone operated by 92nd Mech Brigade:

ima 20ak slika i ilustracija uz objavu na FB...

https://www.facebook.com/stefan.korshak

[sumirprimus]

Eto kmecanja

[sumirprimus]

Frisak Stefan Korshak-..May 13 - Day 444 - Shadow of the Storm Shadow, Bakhmut Roundup, Russian aircraft fall on Bryansk Oblast'

May 13 - Day 444 - Shadow of the Storm Shadow, Bakhmut Roundup, Russian aircraft fall on Bryansk Oblast'

Spoiler

Show

Hi FB!
Luhansk and Storm Shadow
Although normally the transfer of a major weapons system would fall into this review’s traditional “stuff for Ukraine” category, Friday’s announcement in London that Britain is in the process of tranferring given Ukraine Storm Shadow missiles I think is better discussed in a separate section.
The reason is that on Friday and Saturday that Ukrainians hit Luhansk, which is out of HIMARS range, with something(s), and the internet has just gone nutso deciding it was British long-range Storm Shadow missiles.
The political side of this is that on Friday London confirmed it was handing over these cruise missiles, which have a range of 250-550 km. and carry nearly a half ton warhead, to Ukraine. This is exactly the kind of long-range precision-guided strike system Ukraine has been begging for, for more than a year. Graphic attached of an optimistic Ukrainian media depiction of a Storm Shadow missile and some of the places the Ukrainian want to blast using it, and another piece of content slavering about a strike on the Kherson bridge
Luhansk is about 90-100 km. away from and so outside the range of probable HIMARS launch sites. In the opinion of many, the fact that Luhansk got hit proves that not only does Ukraine have these Storm Shadows, it is already using them. Optimistic image attached “proving” Storm Shadows could have bene launched from Kramatorsk.
Saturday strike first. This morning, something hit a command and control center used by the Russian occupation authority in Luhansk’s Yuveleyny region. This is a former KGB/police academy and its use by Russia’s local command as a headquarters, communications center and troop base has been well-known since 2015. Some readers of this blog have undoubtedly driven by there and maybe even been inside for fruitless discussions involving pretend Luhansk “independence”. Before and after strike images attached. The grid of the strike, supposedly is: 48.5587, 39.18604.
Russian media was extremely quick to publish images of alleged missile debris (image) confirming it was Storm Shadow, but as of this writing that is seriously unconfirmed. There are before and after images of the academy, so you can decide for yourself whether you think that looks like the work of a 450kg HE warhead with embedded penetrator tech aboard.
As to the Friday strike, a lot of the internet declared that the work of Storm Shadow as well, but the evidence isn’t there. The “LPR” authorities over the years have become relatively diligent and efficient in recording damage from every possible Ukrainian strike, not least because there were, relatively speaking, since 2014, so few of them.
The Friday “Storm Shadow” strike got the same treatement, the police showed up, the crater experts made their measurements and took their photographs, and by evening they had published their findings: It was two Ukrainian Grom missiles, that hit allegedly empty industrial buildings in Luhansk. Image of their findings attached. To me, that’s enough to conclude it wasn’t a Storm Shadow.
A little peculiarly, it turned out that A Russian parliament member named Viktor Vodolatsky appears to have been in the vicinity when the building was hit (Image). RF propaganda channels were quick to report he was in the blast radius and potentially a target and that’s how he got wounded.
RF government critical channels were just as quick to report that the first TV interview following the strike showed him without a scratch, and some of the nasty ones reported what happened was Vodolatsky was unharmed in the attack but while walking around afterwards he fell down and hit his head. Other unkind people wondered what a Russian deputy known for his anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, was doing wandering around “empty” industrial real estate in Luhansk.
Debris from the Friday strike published in Russian media (attached) seemed to clearly show that that the Ukrainians had accompanied that attack with decoy winged bombs called ADM-160B (stock image attached), a British-French system designed to distract air defenses away from an incoming weapon. I don’t know what the Ukrainians were shooting at, but based on the evidence, it does seem like they really wanted to hit it.
Bakhmut
Well, it’s 72-96 hours after the Ukrainians put in their counterattacks at Bakhmut, and one thing is absolutely for sure: If the number of battle maps that relatively small action generated are any indicator, I fear that when the real Ukrainian offensive hits the mass Google maps generated with arrows drawn all over them will break the internet. There are too many to post here.
You want to be scared? The recent round of fighting in Bakhmut, scale-wise, probably involved about 3-4,000 men both sides. The offensive will probably be 20-50 times bigger.
Maps and arrows aside, the bottom line on Bakhmut it seems to me is that the Ukrainians overall put in two days of attacks and depending on the locality gained between a few hundred meters and three kilometers of ground, against active Russian resistance that the Ukrainians outclassed in tactics and firepower.
In terms of units involved, the major formations appear to have been 2nd Battalion 3rd Assault Infantry (formerly Kyiv Azov) and 24th Battalion 10th Mountain Bde (formerly Aidar). There appears to have been an attack by elements of 57th Mech Brigade, possibly with support of Kharkiv territorials, within built-up areas inside Bakhmut. Image attached of some Aidar guys, this is from Bakhmut but before the latest attacks.
Video of individual tanks supporting the attacks is all over the internet and Russian sources are complaining about Russian troops lacking anti-tank weapons. All in all, this was Russians in defensive positions in woodlines, and the Ukrainians assaulting and clearing the positions using APCs, tanks and infantry.
The bigger attack was by the 3rd to the south of Bakhmut against elements of 72nd Motor Rifle Bde on Wednesday. The secondary attack, apparently run on Thursday, was against elements of Russia’s 4th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade and 374th Separate Rifle Battalion. It appears the 57th and associated units attacked to take back buildings in Bakhmut itself, fighting against Wagner infantry. It appears artillery units from all these Ukrainian formations, plus the 60th Motorized Brigade, fired in support of the attacks.
Depending on where the woodline was, this turned into UAF ground gains of between 1-3 km. Inside Bakhmut, reports were of 100-200 meters advance. The city’s industrial college was reportedly recaptured in the attacks.
Clearly, in some cases the Ukrainians kicked off their attacks at night. Images published by 127th Territorial Defense Brigade showed Russian infantry moving through a built-up area under observation of a Ukrainian night-vision equipped drone, and being pounded by howitzer strikes fired by 60th Mechanized Brigade artillery. The Territorial unit’s media section in a Facebook statement said the engagement took place in the Bakhmut sector.
https://www.facebook.com/127tro
In all cases, Ukrainian units reported killed and wounded. References were to several men hit but not dozens or hundreds. The Ukrainians clearly took prisoners in these attacks but not dozens. It seems likely the POWs captured the Ukrainian infantry dug out of their holes.
Kirill Sazonov, an operator in the Bakhmut-based drone reconnaissance unit Green, in a Thursday evening web post said AFU units were advancing on both sides of the city and an envelopment of Russian troops was in progress. He said Russian forces had ample artillery and were fighting to hold their positions.

In spite of Sazonov’s promises, on Saturday it seemed like the Ukrainians were consolidating on gained ground rather than attempting more attacks.
On the Russian side, official Russian sources confirmed a shift to the defense, with the Defense Ministry on Friday issuing a statement that “Military forces of the Russian Federation with the goal of advantageous conditions has taken positions on the Berkhovsky water reservoir”. The announcement tacitly confirmed Kremlin abandonment of attacks from the north towards Bakhmut and Ukrainian supply routes leading into the city.

So all in all, my opinion, a new chapter in the Bakhmut saga has now opened. The Kremlin has formally given up on capturing the city, for the medium-term anyway, and the Russian goal here is to prevent the propaganda disaster of being shown to have lost a city it arguably threw away about one-quarter to one-third of the Russian army’s entire available manpower, over six months, to try and take. The key strategic importance of Bakhmut now is how disastrous from a morale and public relations point of view it would be for the Kremlin, were the Russian army to abandon it. This makes Bakhmut a textbook military black hole for the Russians: if the front starts moving elsewhere Russian troops there will be told to stay and fight to their deaths.
The offensive
Zelensky is in Italy and his latest statements are along the lines of “we need to wait for some more stuff” so short term I very much doubt we’ll see the major ground offensive in the next week or two.
NSC secretary Danylov was on television last night: he said that Ukraine want to end the war “before winter” and that Ukraine will probably launch “several” counteroffensives before then. Ukraine’s objective is to liberate occupied territory and the question is how much time and how many offensives that will take, he said.
The Left bank
Remember those small boat teams the Ukrainians sent across the Dnipro River a couple of weeks ago? Well, according to the Russian internet, they’re still there, apparently making themselves comfortable in abandoned summer cottages in the village Dachny (map), seemingly without any interference from the Russian military. Video attached of, purportedly, a UAF soldier not paying attention that the village he is walking around in, is supposedly under Russian control.
Irate Russian civilian internet screen grab attached expressing anger and offense the second most powerful army in the world seemingly can’t clear out a squad or two of Ukrainain special operators - or whoever they are - from the left bank of the Dnipro.
I point this out not as much for the humor, as to register - not for the first time - that if the Russians fail to secure the Dnipro River properly , then it’s not just via Zaporizhia that the Ukrainians can head towards Crimea.
Other UAF strikes
On Friday there was a really big explosion in Mariupol, and according to Ukrainian official sources, a pair of missiles overflew Volnovakha heading south prior to the blasts. Map.
According to the mayor-in-exile of Melitpol, there were explosions there on Friday evening (in this case near a factor called Refma used by the Russians and a command and control center and military garrison point) and according to the Russian internet in those regions - again, judging on the present, once the big offensive kicks off the panic and hysteria in the Russian internet will be absolutely epic - after which the lights shut off in the city, mobile phone coverage went from OK to often not there, and rumors flew about Russian troops abandoning the city.
Speaking of panic, the Crimea internet, vicinity Dzhankoe, heard an explosion, someone else took a picture of something that blew up in the sky, and by the time it was finished had conflated it into the shoot-down, or crash, of an Mi-28 helicopter. Screenie and pic attached.
Air ambush or some serious stupidity in Russia
According to Saturday afternoon reports, and the Russian internet, two combat jets - according to early reports and Su-24 and an Su-35, and two helicopters - according to reports a pair of Mi-8 were shot down, I say again shot down, in air space over Bryansk Oblast Russia.
There is video out there showing a helicopter getting hit by what looks like a missile, multiple videos of falling aircraft, and official confirmation from both the Russian and the Ukrainian sides that it happened.
Some Russian official sources have said yes the helicopter went down but it was an engine problem.
The Russian internet weighed in on that with lightning speed and offered images of a what very much looks like a Russian military aircraft fuselage holed from an explosion, and not very obviously ever on fire anywhere. Image attached.
The Russian military blogosphere, for its part, attacked the Russian military high command for being asleep at the switch and not taking the enemy seriously.
As to what happened, with four aircraft down it seems like blue-on-blue accident is unlikely, as that would be military operations so slovenly and unprofessional it's hard that even the Russians would be capable of it.
If it was shootdowns, then there are several theories out there. For further discussion remember the air space we are talking about is about 50 km. from Ukraine's northern border:
-The Ukrainians now are operating a long-range air-to-air missile like Meteor or AIM-120, which they haven't before, they flew a fighter close enough, and that's how the Russian aircraft got shot down
- At least one battery of the Patriot missiles the Ukrainians just got from the Germans/Americans is parked relatively northwards inside Ukraine, for instance Chernihiv region, and the Americans didn't send average missiles but the best they have, and those could easily reach to where the stuff got shot down
- At least one of the helicopters was a jammer/electronic warfare aircraft and first the Ukrainians home in on that with a HARM, shot it down, and THEN ambushed the other aircraft that were sent to check out what happened
- NATO has AWACS over Poland, AWACS can see into west Russian air space (really), and that ability plus data link enabled the Ukrainians to throw a ground or air-launched missile into the path of one of these aircraft, without the Ukrainians themselves turning on their targeting radars.
This is improbable because it assumes a distinctly higher level of technical cooperation between NATO and Ukraine (specifically a functional air targeting data link)- than we have seen before.
In the past the Ukrainians have complained they don't get NATO-collected data fast enough, which means it has to go through the NATO bureaucracy before the Ukrainians get access and by then it's too late. Maybe NATO listened and now the data link exists.
Of course, arguably NATO/US giving Ukraine targeting data enabling Ukraine to shoot down Russian aircraft in Russian air space would be an act of war against Russia, and plenty of NATO nations would veto that. Of course, the US Air Force doesn't consider itself subordinate to NATO. (Sometimes it seems like they don't consider themselves subordinate to the USJSC, but that's another tangent.)
But on the other hand this sort of data transfer is protected by all manner of secrecy and deniability, and NATO/US is pretty mad at Russia, and the US Air Force is probably equally mad and they've got all this great tech. Just a hypothesis.
Russian long-range attacks
It looks like the Russians haven’t given up on attacking Kyiv with drones so I assume this is an attempt to get the Ukrainians to shoot off very expensive anti-aircaft missiles, which now include the US Patriot. The latest round was last night-early this morning, as before pretty much everything got shot down.
However, clearly something got through in Kmelnitsky - in the past fuel and energy infrastrcture have been the preferred Russian targets here - and touched off a massive explosion, video attached when I can, FB does not make it easy.
UAF officials said “critical infrastructure” was hit. Five people injured, rail traffic diverted, some trains running with delays.
By the numbers for the rest, the latest wave was the sixth air attack on the capital since the beginning of May, all drones sent towards Kyiv were destroyed, power and communications functioned normally, and most (but not all) people just slept through it. In Mykolaiv a five-story residential building was damaged and a two-story office building was destroyed, fires at both sites, three people hurt.out at both sites. Three people were hurt. In Lviv explosions reported, most likely air defenses taking out drones. Nightly score sheet attached.
Stuff for Ukraine
Germany - It is I think indicative of the poor state of the Bundeswehr, that more than a year into this war and we are still finding out about German government national security policy decisions from the media and not the German state.
But it’s still good news for Ukraine. According to Der Spiegel, Berlin is planning a €2.7bn military aid package for Kyiv including 20 Marder infantry fighting vehicles, 30 Leopard 1 tanks, 18 wheeled howitzers, 4 air defense systems IRIS-T-SLM, 2 IRIS-T-SLS launchers and “hundreds” of guided missiles, 200 reconnaissance drones, 100 protected combat vehicles, 100 logistics support vehicles
It should be noted that declaration is not the same as commitment to a timeline. However, at this point, German will to help Ukraine seems to be firm, it’s their capacity to do it efficiently that’s still questionable.
And speaking of military efficiency, the Americans announced that those spify M1 Abrams tanks Ukraine can’t get until the end of the year because of manufacturing and security issues, well, actually delivery will be faster than that, now it’s the beginning of the Fall. Image.
If you read this far, two bonus links:
General Zaluzhny speaks on victory and squeezing the Soviet mindset out of the AFU:

Russian soldier surrenders to drone operated by 92nd Mech Brigade:

ima 20ak slika i ilustracija uz objavu na FB...

https://www.facebook.com/stefan.korshak

Znqci ipak je neki komandni centar, dok je izletio i onaj zamjenik dume rastresen, koga li su sve tu zveknuli

[Bossona]

Raspadaju se okupatorski rašiSSti, voda ušla u uši.
Putlerov kuhar je dobio napad šizofrenije

[jednonogi_Jack]

Frisak Stefan Korshak-..May 13 - Day 444 - Shadow of the Storm Shadow, Bakhmut Roundup, Russian aircraft fall on Bryansk Oblast'




ima 20ak slika i ilustracija uz objavu na FB...

https://www.facebook.com/stefan.korshak

Znqci ipak je neki komandni centar, dok je izletio i onaj zamjenik dume rastresen, koga li su sve tu zveknuli

Zamjenik Dume došao da napravi selfi pred zgradom, pa ga je cigla koja je pala sa ruševine zveknula u vušugla.