Russia about to lose strategically important city of Lyman in Donetsk - leaving Severodonetstk and Lysychansk and much of Luhansk oblast vulnerable for another counteroffensive - and why Russia can’t escalate - go into many details

Ukraine already has circled Lyman - and about to capture large areas of Luhansk with Lysychansk and Severodonetsk vulnerable which Russia captured at high cost in June

UPDATE (1st October) Ukraine have now captured Lyman

This is an example of the Ukrainian strategy. Russia just pushes forward using massive artillery to advance one mile at a time. Ukraine encircles its targets and hits command and control and supplies with HiMARS.

It also shows the ineffectiveness of Russia and its inability to stop Ukraine with counter offensives. This has been clear for days - all last week the Russian military bloggers were warning the Kremlin that Lyman is vulnerable. But they did almost nothing. They sent untrained conscripts to the front line in Lyman, including some that didn’t even know how to drive a tank or fire its guns and had a couple of traffic accidents driving the short distance to Lyman.

This blog post includes material from many of my earlier blog posts so if you’ve read them you’ll see some repetition. I thought it would help to have it all in one place.

I hope this will help you see why Ukraine, the US, UK and the military experts I follow on Twitter are so certain that Ukraine is going to win this war. Russia seems strong but it’s like a castle of sand. It can’t last long. We see that when Ukraine begin to win back anywhere, Russian defences soon crumble. They are also weakened from behind because of the organised resistance movement and Ukrainian citizens who get information out to the Ukrainian side for intelligence.,

Also nukes can[‘t help at all. ‘They will only make things worse. And such a weak army is no match for NATO - when they are being defeated by Ukraine who of course are far weaker than NATO and still without many of the most advanced NATO weapons or missile defences. Media stories by uninformed journalists and bloggers often talk about Russia possibly escalating against NATO. They can’t even escalate against Ukraine - and they have tried so hard to escalate for months, but no success due to endemic problems that they can’t solve until the war is over.

TITLES OF SECTIONS LIKE MINI ABSTRACTS - SUMMARIZE WHAT THEY SAY IN THE TITLE

I write titles of sections like mini abstracts - you can get a first idea of the article by reading just the titles and looking at the graphics - then drill into any section of special interest.

HOW TO FIND A DEBUNK, OUR FACEBOOK GROUP, HELP IF SUICIDAL, ABOUT ME, PERMISSION FOR REUSE ETC

See: . How to find a debunk - Facebook group - help if suicidal - permission to re-use - about me - and other details from old space description

UKRAINE PREPARED FOR THE OFFENSIVE DAYS EARLIER - BY TARGETING COMMAND POSTS AND SUPPLIES WITH HIMARS - BUT RUSSIA WASN’T ABLE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT

Ukraine prepared for the attacks on Lyman first by destroying the command post for the 144th regiment and supply areas for Lyman and Kremina

HiMARS is the key to their success because it allows such high precision. The Russians have other missiles with the same range or more, such as SMERCH (which Ukraine also has) but far less accuracy.

EVERY MAP IS OUT OF DATE IN HOURS - SOME SHOW IT COMPLETLEY ENCIRCLED, SOME SHOW LYMAN STILL CONNECTED - THERE IS A ROAD BETWEEN THE TWO NOT YET UNDER UKRAINIAN CONTROL - BUT RUSIANS CAN’T USE IT SAFELY EITHER

The Ukrainians continue to make progress every map is out of date a few horus later. This is one estimate for last night.

Note, some people show Lyman as completely isolated and some show it as connected to Kremina via the road. The difference depends on how you count what is in Russian or Ukrainian control. Technically Ukraine don’t occupy the road, there are no Ukrainians there - as of that map - but the Russians can’t use it either because it is in open fields with the Ukrainians able to fire on it from both sides.

So - Russia can’t evacuate Lyman or supply it - not with vehicles anyway.

It is possible for small numbers of Russian soldiers to run through the trees to the side of the road and so escape, as in this video, but it is of no use for supply of Lyman or indeed withdrawing heavy equipment such as tanks from Lyman -- anything they left there is now for Ukraine to have.

For some reason Russians don’t destroy their tanks, artillery systems, radar etc when they flee. It seems that they need a command from a general to destroy equipment - they only do it very rarely- they destroyed some tanks during the retreat from Kyiv on the orders of one of the generals.. It is a rather baffling policy.

I’ve not seen it explained in depth - maybe it’s because of the top down command structure that local commanders are not permitted to make decisions on their own initiative and they’d worry that they would become personally liable for the monetary value of damage to the tank, which at the time would still be in Russian control?

HOW IT RELATES TO LYSYCHANSK AND SEVERODONETSK - THEY WILL BECOME THE NEXT POCKET SOON

This larger map shows how it relates to Lysychansk and Seveodonetsk which Russia gained at such cost in June. Lysychansk is only lightly held by Russia and will probably fall quickly once they get there. Severodonetsk is more of a concentration of Russian forces but largely flattened. Kremina is lightly held and likely to fall quickly which leaves the rest of the area vulnerable.

There is video from the front line near Lyman with Russian flags replaced by Ukrainian flags

LYMAN IS AN IMPORTANT LOGISTICS HUB, IN A VALLEY, WHERE MANY ROADS AND RAILWAYS MEET - WHOEVER CONTROLS IT HAS A MAJOR ADVANTAGE IN THE DONETSK / LUHANSK REGION

This tweet shows how important it is. Not just for Russia. Once Ukraine has control it will be important for them too, to supply their front line in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Also

In more detail he explains:

The main significance of the battle for Lyman lies elsewhere. The town’s upcoming liberation matters because this will put an end to Russia’s ambitions to lay siege to the northern part of Donbas and to encircle it from the north. Once Lyman returns under Ukrainian control, Russian pressure on Slavyansk and Kramatorsk will decrease significantly.

In addition, once Ukraine manages to secure Lyman, the town’s important railway connections to the south and the west will serve its military effort. This will be even more so the case if Yampil is liberated too.

If Ukraine can repair the railway lines damaged in the fighting, Lyman as a crucial railway hub will start supporting its military efforts by bringing in supplies and reinforcements from the country’s more western regions. Kyiv’s ability to supply the Donbas front would improve significantly.

UKRAINE SUCCESS AT LYMAN SHOWS THEIR ABILITY TO WIN WHEN RUSSIA KNOWS THEY ARE COMING

The Kharkiv Oblast win was a surprise attack, the area was thinly defended, the Ukrainians successfully fooled the Russians in redeploying to Kherson and they were able to take it quickly.

But with Lyman - the Russians knew it was coming, but still couldn’t stop it. Professor Phillip P. OBrien, a professor of the history of military strategy says he finds this far more impressive in a way.

Meanwhile he sees the Russians as the opposite, their behaviour is often baffling. For instance all the way through the attack on the Kharkiv oblast - the Russians continued to prioritise Bakhmut - which they have tried to get many times with no success. There’s a determined group of soldiers there who are trying to achieve their objective - and they don’t seem to be interested in coordinating to help the other soldiers in other parts of Ukraine when they are losing.

You can see here how close they are to each other. Less than 50 kilometers apart, yet the soldiers in Bakhmut kept up with their mindless robotic battle and did nothing to help the ones trapped in Lyman.

Lyman and Bakhmut less than 50 kilometers apart yet they couldn’t coordinate and Russia lost Lyman

Map from

There have been many comments about this over the last several weeks, especially since the Ukrainians won back the Kharkiv oblast - why do Russia continue to deploy so many of their best soldiers to try to move forward and take Bakhmut when they clearly aren’t succeeding there?

They behave a bit like fictional robots - they were told that’s what they do and they plug away and do it and that’s it. Why weren’t some of them deployed to help the soldiers encircled in Lyman, say? One example of many baffling Russian command decisions.

Professor Phillips P. OBrien finds this “truly bizarre”.

There have been many examples of this apparently mindless robotic behaviour of Russian forces during this war. Most notoriously when an entire platoon was destroyed as they repeatedly tried to cross the Seversky Donets river in the same place over and over, for 3 days, while HiiMARS systematically destroyed all their equipment, their pontoon bridges and nearly all the soldiers. But they just went back again to the same identical river crossing not just once but continually for two more days until there was nobody left to try again.

RUSSIAN MILITARY BLOGGERS (MILBLOGGERS) HAVE BEEN WARNING THE KREMLIN ABOUT THE RISKS OF LOSING THE STRATEGICALLY IMPORTANT CITY OF LYMAN FOR DAYS - BUT WITH LITTLE RESPONSE

This situation has been building up for several days. Russian military bloggers have been posting about it and Twitter has been abuzz about the situation - yet Russia wasn’t able to do anything to stop it.

This is from earlier in the offensive on Sept 28 - it was already clear that Russia was in trouble there:

The Institute for the Study of War put it like this:

• Several Russian military bloggers claim that Lyman will soon be encircled
• The milbloggers also said that Ukrainian troops are threatening Russian positions and lines of communication that support Lyman
• Collapse of the Lyman pocket will be highly consequential and may allow Ukrainian troops to threaten Russian positions along the Western Luhansk Oblast border and the Severodonetsk - Lysychansk area

Russian milbloggers discussed Ukrainian gains around Lyman with increased concern on September 28, suggesting that Russian forces in this area may face imminent defeat.[1] Several Russian milbloggers and prominent military correspondents claimed that Ukrainian troops advanced west, north, and northeast of Lyman and are working to complete the envelopment of Russian troops in Lyman and along the northern bank of the Siverskyi Donets River in this area.[2] Russian mibloggers stated that Ukrainian troops are threatening Russian positions and lines of communication that support the Lyman grouping. The collapse of the Lyman pocket will likely be highly consequential to the Russian grouping in northern Donetsk and western Luhansk oblasts and may allow Ukrainian troops to threaten Russian positions along the western Luhansk Oblast border and in the Severodonetsk-Lysychansk area.

• The Kremlin is acting just as it did with the Kharkiv offensive - they are not doing anything by way of propaganda to prepare for the loss of Lyman
• The effect of losing Lyman and then these other areas will be devastating to Russian morale across the Eastern axis - i.e. the Donbas region
• This is likely to drive more wedges between the Russian nationals and military leaders
• Also to drive more wedges between the Russian forces on the ground and their superiors

Russian military leadership has failed to set information conditions for potentially imminent Russian defeat in Lyman. The Russian Ministry of Defense has not addressed current Russian losses around Lyman or prepared for the collapse of this sector of the frontline, which will likely further reduce already-low Russian morale. Russian military authorities previously failed to set sufficient information conditions for Russian losses following the first stages of the Ukrainian counteroffensives in Kharkiv Oblast, devastating morale and leading to panic among Russian forces across the Eastern axis. The subsequent ire of the Russian nationalist information space likely played a role in driving the Kremlin to order partial mobilization in the days following Ukraine’s initial sweeping counteroffensive in a haphazard attempt to reinforce Russian lines. Future Ukrainian gains around critical areas in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblast may drive additional wedges between Russian nationalists and military leadership, and between Russian forces and their superiors.

The Russian milbloggers often seem to have much better understanding of the front line than the Russian generals surprisingly.

All this has been very obvious for days. The Kremlin didn’t need spy satellites or espionage they just needed to go on Twitter and visit the Institute for Study of War website and others to find out what is happening. Yet they do nothing of any significance.

According to the Institute of the Study of War and other sources I follow, once Lyman is gone, Russia has very little by way of defences of the border with Luhansk. They likely lose much of what is left of Russian territory in Kharkiv oblast and territory in Luhansk.

Russia isn't preparing their troops for this information. So - Putin will likely soon declare that he has annexed Luhansk but shortly before or after he will lose Lyman and the hit on morale may well have similar effects to the loss of Izium near the start of the Kharkiv[v counteroffensive

SEVERODNETSK AND LYSYCHANSK WILLSOON BE AT RISK

Amongst the cities at risk are Severodonetsk and Lysychansk which they won with such great effort in June / July will then be at risk. Severodonetsk is of symbolic importance to Ukraine as it is the city they had as their capital for Luhansk when the main city of Luhansk was taken by Russia in 2014.

Update - since this map Lyman is now cut off completely and is a strategically important rail hub.

Sieverodonetsk which Russia won at great cost in June may soon be at risk

Blue shading = resistance fighting

. Interactive Map: Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

It’s also possible that it is Putin himself overriding the commands of his own generals. Putin seems to have a philosophy of holding onto everything for as long as possible until it is too late to hold it on any more and then run away only because they have to. Also if something doesn’t work to keep trying it over and over no matter how many soldiers die.

300,000 UNTRAINED RESERVISTS WON’T HELP RUSSIA TO KEEP LUHANSK OR KHERSON OR THE OTHER OBLASTS

Yes Russia can rush a million new recruits to the war. But they won’t do anything to swing the battles.

Already Ukraine is capturing as Prisoners of war soldiers who are told they were mobilised 6 days ago and had no training at all before they were sent to the front line. Others will surely be dying as a result or out of action due to serious injuries.

This will only make morale problems far worse for Russia and in addition Russia now has to supply all these useless untrained soldiers on the front line - their problems right now are mainly supply problems as well as problems of coordination, morale, chaotic situations at the front line etc. The new mobilised forces won't help at all.

Russia should have done this 6 to 7 months ago. That's what ukraine did who now have 700,000 soldiers and they were trained over that period and many even sent for training to the UK or US and learnt how to use the new missiles like HiMARS, M777, the stingers, Starstreak, drones etc that the US sent them.

In modern warfare a few soldiers with high tech weapons who know how to use them can easily win against almost any number of untrained soldiers like these who some don't even know how to use their guns yet.

. Russia can’t win this war with nukes - it’s just losing - same as when the USSR lost its war with Afghanistan - there is no way to use nukes to win a war

His new soldiers are like this. Don't know how to use guns, not seen one before probably and he is sending them straight to the front line without even 1 day of training.

300,000 raw recruits like this do nothing useful on the front line except get in the way eat the food rations, use up fuel etc. until they die or are captured

- a shitty soldier needs a month of intense training

- a mediocre soldier needs 3 months

- a fairly good fighter needs 6 months

- a comander needs at least 6 months, or up to a year or more.

Igal Levin, Ukraine based military expert.

Those are photographs from the new conscripts in Crimea.

This is the quote which I paraphrased using bullet points for the graphic:

Mind it that to prepare a shitty soldier, you need a month of intense training," said Igal Levin, a Ukraine-based military expert and Israeli army reserve officer.

"You need three months to get a mediocre soldier, and six months to get a fairly good fighter. A commander requires at least six months, or up to one year, and even more."

. Russia's chaotic mobilization unlikely to change Ukraine war's course

Those are photographs from the new conscripts in Crimea.

Ukraine says that two conscripts got in a traffic accident with their tanks which they hadn't been taught how to drive and they didn't know how to use the guns.

The conscripts are trying to learn how to use tanks on the battlefield!

Russian commander with weak knees, hernias, & half blind says he was called back to combat after 3 days vacation and he doesn't know what they will do, where they are going or even if he will go with these soldiers, says no excuse if they can't see well. Dmitri on Twitter (Dmitri on Twitter)

And other reports that they are already capturing prisoners of war only 6 days after mobilisation, from mobilisation to PoW in 6 days. There have been reports like that through the war - so it's not unusual but again gives the idea, they aren't able to train them in time to make a difference to the offensive right now which is when they are needed, so stupidly they are just throwing them into battle anyway.

It is not an army that could escalate.

UKRAINE HAS 750,000 IN ITS ARMY - STARTED MOBILIZATION SOON AFTER THE WAR STARTED AND THOROUGHLY TRAINED - SOME OF THEM WITH TRAINING FROM THE UK AND USA IN USING THEIR NEW WEAPONS AND IN ADVANCED TACTICS

Ukraine as usual has been far more sensible. They started their mobilization pretty much from day 1. They sent their soldiers to other countries such as UK for training in advanced tactics as well as learning how to use the latest weapons - US and UK trained soldiers in how to use HiMARS, and other advanced weapons like Starstreak etc.

They took their time It takes weeks to learn how to use modern weapons - but far better than to send untrained soldiers to the front line to try to learn under attack.

Ukraine has completed its own mobilization effort, having unfolded a standing military force of some 750,000 troops, vastly operating Western weaponry and advanced tactics.

RUSSIA IS WEAKENED NOT JUST IN UKRAINE BUT THROUGHOUT ITS FRONT LINES WITH NATO AND OTHER COUNTRIES - THEY HAVE LEFT ONLY A SKELETON CREW FOR KALININGRAD AND THE FINNISH BORDER OF ONLY 6,000 SOLDIERS - PREVIOUSLY 30,000 SOLDIERS - AND SENT EVEN THE ELITE TANK UNIT WHICH IS MEANT TO DEFEND MOSCOW TO THE FRONT LINE WHERE THEY LOST HALF THEIR TANKS

Russia now has only 6,000 soldiers, a skeleton crew, for the entire region of Kaliningrad and the Finnish border / Baltic states where they used to have 30,000 soldiers. They still have their missiles, their subs but they have hardly any soldiers on the ground.

Russia sent their elite 1st tank brigade to Kharkiv oblast, which is supposed to defend Moscow and the 11th Army Corp which is supposed to defend Kaliningrad and the tank brigade lost half its tanks, about 100 tanks, in a few days in the big Kharkiv counteroffensive. Just left them behind undamaged (Russians don’t damage their tanks when they flee) and Ukraine collected them to use for themselves.

Also

QUOTE In particular, the Ukrainian successes around Kharkiv revealed the weakness of Russia’s 11th Army Corps, based in Kaliningrad, and its vaunted 1st Guards Tank Division, based outside Moscow.

“Previously, we were not sure that the problems known to us, that we gleaned from intercepts, saying there was a lack of working equipment or negligence of commanders [in individual units], have been this systemic,” the CIT expert, Ruslan Leviev, said in a Monday briefing. “But now it turned out that the 11th Army Corps was completely incapable of defending the front line.”

The CIT said the 11th Army Corps was the main force responding to the Ukrainian counteroffensive but is unlikely to operate independently anytime soon, as it has been depleted following the Ukrainian advance.

The Ukrainian offensive “also revealed that the organizational structure of the 1st Tank Army was completely broken due to a large number of casualties and prolonged participation in hostilities,” Leviev said, adding that losing these two formations is “a serious loss for the Russian army.”

. putin-russia-military-spent-ukraine

RUSSIA HAS NEVER HAD AIR CONTROL OVER UKRAINE AIR SPACE - NATO EXPECTED THEM TO ACHIEVE THAT IN A FEW DAYS

This is one of the most remarkable things about this war. With their numerically far superior airforce, on paper Russia should have had complete air control over Ukraine in a few days.

But

1. they did a hasty prepratory bombing - the Ukrainians had already dispersed their fighter jets and Russia didn’t try to find them all before they started the invasion
2. Russian pilots - like the commanders of infantry - are trained to follow orders and not to take iniitiative n the way that would be needed to patrol the Ukrainian air space
3. They also haven’t trained in air operations and especially combined air and ground operations so that groups of figher jets can work effectively together.

See

So you see things like this. The Ukrainians had only just liberated these villages in Kharkiv Oblast. The Russian front line isn’t that many miles away and the Russians have hundreds of fighter jets they could fly over the area. But the Ukrainians drive their tanks in broad daylight, with the liberated villagers waving to them as they drive by, or they get out of their tanks and talk to the locals. Not a Russian soldier or fighter jet in sight.

Here is another video of civilians waving to the tanks that came to liberate them. from the earlier Kharkiv counteroffensive

See my:

. Kids waving to tanks as they come to liberate their village - human side to Ukraine’s big advance today in Karkhiv Oblast

We should see many more such scenes in the near future.

MANY OF PUTIN’S OFFICERS, GENERALS, PILOTS, PARATROOPERS AND OTHER ELITE SPECIALISTS DYING OR OUT OF ACTION - THESE ARE FAR MORE IMPORTANT FOR MOBILIZATION THAN THE FRONT LINE TROOPS

Their pilots can't escalate either. They have lost many of their best pilots and their planes get shot down if they fly over Ukrainian held territory.

This is part of a much larger problem. They are losing many of their bests specialists that need many years of training. Elite paratroopers, operators of their S-300 and S-400 anti-aircraft systems, drone operators, officers at all levels and even generals and admirals. It will take Russia many years to fully recover from the losses sustained in this war.

This is a twitter thread I follow that keeps track of how many officers have died - only using public records. This apparently is a truly astonishing rate of attrition.

This is far more important to Russia than the loss of the frontline soldiers. The soldiers can be trained in months. It’s possible that mobilization could replace some of their losses by spring 2023.

But good officers, and especially generals and experts such as pilots represent years of training. Russia can’t replace those until well after the war is over.

Also - the older pilots were probably better trained than the more recent ones. Recently Russia has prioritised the ability to impress high ranking officers and quashed initiative and skills.

So the young pilots they have today aren’t as good as the older ones that they had when their military was more efficient.

Elite specialists: Russia’s costly losses in Ukraine

The BBC has been able to establish that Russia has lost hundreds of elite military specialists, whose training took years of effort, and millions of dollars.

At least five of the dead pilots are over the age of 50. It is well known that some of them should have retired a few years ago. Their participation in operational flights may be evidence of a shortage of qualified and motivated pilots among the younger generation.

At the same time, dozens of experienced pilots were shot down in the first weeks of the war. For example, the commander of an aviation regiment from the far eastern Transbaikal region of Russia died on the very first day of hostilities. An aviation commander with experience in the wars in Georgia and Syria failed to return from a flight on March 8th.

According to British intelligence, for many years the military pilot training program in Russia has followed a strict and pre-approved plan, the goal of which was impressing high-ranking officials.

Such an approach may have quashed initiative and prevented the skills development needed to make independent decisions quickly. This in turn could hinder the development of combat skills among younger Russian military air crews.

“In many ways it is difficult to know what Russian pilots are doing on most sorties because of the lack of detailed information in public sources. What is clear is that Russian aircraft seldom cross far into Ukrainian held territory due to the continued effectiveness of Ukrainian surface-to-air missile defences,” Bronk said.

“So while their aircraft are multirole and can carry a wide range of weapons in theory, in practice the number of pilots with the skills and recent practice to make use of that inherent flexibility is very limited,” he concluded.

Unless they fix this, Russia is never going to get pilots that are any match for NATO pilots even years in the future.

Then - right now there’s a shortage of junior officers too, to command the conscripts at the front line. The UK ministry of defence focuses on this as an immediate issue for Putin.

RUSSIA DISMANTLING TRAINING CAPABILITIES IT INHERITED FROM THE SOVIET UNION BECAUSE THEY COST TOO MUCH FOR IT TO KEEP THEM GOING - SO IT CAN’T TRAIN NEW SOLDIERS NEARLY AS FAST AS THE SOVIET UNION WHICH WAS GEARED UP FOR FAST TRAINING OF NEW SOLDIERS IN AN EMERGENCY - AND PUTIN HAS MADE THAT WORSE BY SENDING MANY OF HIS TRAINERS INTO THE BATTLE IN UKRAINE WITH MANY DYING

It takes 3 months to train a soldier to the point where they are useful fighting at the front line. Sending them with only a few days of training makes them a liability and likely to be killed quickly. But even for 3 months from now, in December - Putin can't do it because he has shortsightedly sent many trainers to battle from the training facilities he already has and this is at the end of a long process of gradually dismantling nearly all the training capabilities that the Soviet Union maintained. Tweet thread about it here:

This is his summary of how the Soviet Union prepared for mobilization

The Soviet Union had many skeleton groups that were non functional in peace time but were the framework for new units that could be expanded in war-time.

At the end of the thread he says that for Russia to try to do general mobilization without the training facilities would end up with thousands of darfted soldiers gathered in Moscow, nowhere for them to go yet as there is nowhere to train them, told that they will have to fight to the death in Ukraine if they are surrounded by Ukrainians - and right next to the center of power of Russia.

That would be perfect conditions for a revolution.

He concludes that if Putin declares mobilization he will need to be very cautious about using it. It is a potentially revolutionary situation for him

This may explain why Russia is sending the new recruits to the front lines so quickly - the last thing Putin wants is for them to hang around Moscow equipped with weapons and being trained in low morale conditions

A TACTICAL NUKE WON’T HELP PUTIN WIN BUT JUST LOSE FASTER

A tactical nuke will not help him at all.

It will just make him lose faster. It is like trying to use a cannon ball to stop midges - small biting insects that are so small you can only see them individually when they are a meter or so away unless you have very good eyesight - you can’t see them in the distance except as a cloud.

Here midges are an analogy for HiMARS, the Ukrainian fast moving wheeled vehicles, tanks indeed, and soldiers doing attacks at night with night vision (Russian soldiers aren’t issued with night vision equipment and are especially vulnerable during night attacks as they can’t see their attackers while the Ukrainians can see them).

To try to stop that with nukes is like trying to hit a midge with a cannon ball when it is already biting you. Most likely you still miss most of the midges and you harm yourself seriously.

Where is that midge? Using a tactical nuke to try to stop HiMARS, fast moving infantry, tanks and surprise night attacks by soldiers with night vision is like using a cannon ball to try to stop midges that are already biting you. Photo from: Medieval Cannon being fired

If he uses a nuke against Ukraine - even a small tactical nuke - what do you think that will do to soldier morale? Would you as a Russian citizen think

"Great, Putin used a nuke in Ukraine I must go and sign up and join this fight?"

It would obviously make his recruiting situation FAR worse. And there would be a direct risk to his own soldiers if the fallout blew their way.

What's more his main targets would be the Ukrainian counteroffensive - but he only knows about them AFTER they are behind his own front lines due to the Russian very poor intelligence.

So he'd have to use the nukes against his own soldiers to have a chance of getting at the Ukrainians when they are already behind his front line. Again what does that do to soldier morale to know they could be nuked if Putin sets his mind to it.

And - try an example. How, using a tactical nuke, could Putin improve the military situation in Lyman where his soldiers are encircled, or in Kherson?

The answer is he can’t. A tactical nuke to try to hit Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russians at the front line around Lyman would harm his own soldiers as much as it harms the Ukrainians fighting them.

That's why I say it's like trying to use a cannon ball to hit a midge that is already biting you.

You are not likely to hit the midge since you can’t even see them at a distance individually, more as a kind of misty cloud , they are so small.

If you wait until the midges are already biting you and fire the cannon ball at yourself you will definitely harm yourself.

There is no way to win against small biting creatures like midges using cannon balls.

In the same way there is no way for Putin to win against Ukrainian soldiers with HiMARS, night vision, fast moving wheeled vehicles, fighter jets, tanks, drones, loitering munitions etc using a tactical nuke or even many tactical nukes.

. Russia can’t win this war with nukes - it’s just losing - same as when the USSR lost its war with Afghanistan - there is no way to use nukes to win a war

OTHER DOWNSIDES FROM A TACTICAL NUKE - LOSES SUPPORT OF CHINA, INDIA AND SOUTHERN AMERICA

It doesn’t seem they have any indication that he is planning to use them.

However it’s not impossible he is considering using a tactical nuke in Ukraine mainly because he has made so many dumb decisions in the past during this war.

But that would be exceptionally dim even for Putin.

He would lose China and India's even commercial luke warm support, there is no way they can approve a violation of the nuclear test ban treaty (which doesn’t actually have an exception for peaceful use, or wartime use, often missummarized).

Incidentally, it’s a violation of the non proliferation treaty too. Ukraine hasn’t developed nukes and that should make it immune from nukes.

The US is asking China and India to pressurise Russia not to use nukes.

They likely won't say anything publicly but they have probably already urged him not to do it. Also South America - some countries there still support Putin and he'd lose their support also if he uses nukes, even a small tactical nuke in Ukraine.

. Calls grow for China and India to talk sense into Putin

LIMITED TEST BAN TREATY DOESN’T HAVE ANY EXEMPTION FOR PEACEFUL USE OF NUKES OR FOR USE OF NUKES IN WAR

To use a tactical nuke would be a breach of the partial test ban treaty. The partial test ban treaty doesn't have an exemption for nukes used in a war, even though missummarized by some as if it does.

If you read the text of the treaty it is clear there is no exemption for peaceful or for war time use of nukes. It totally prohibits all uses of nukes except underground, and for underground nukes there has to be no release of radioactivity outside the territory of the state that does the tests. Here is the text of the treaty:

QUOTE 1. Each of the Parties to this Treaty undertakes to prohibit, to prevent, and not to carry out any nuclear weapon test explosion, or any other nuclear explosion, at any place under its jurisdiction or control:

(a) in the atmosphere; beyond its limits, including outer space; or under water, including territorial waters or high seas; or …

COMMENT: so, the “any nuclear weapon test explosion, or any other nuclear explosion” applies to the whole of (a) So they can’t carry out ANY nuclear explosion, test, war, peaceful explosion in the atmosphere ,outer space or underwater or territorial waters or high seas.]

It then goes on to say

QUOTE (b) in any other environment [i.e. an environment not in the atmosphere, outer space or underwater or territorial waters or high seas] if such explosion causes radioactive debris to be present outside the territorial limits of the State under whose jurisdiction or control such explosion is conducted.

COMMENT: So they can’t carry out a test or any other explosion underground if the radioactive debris from the explosion goes outside the territorial limits of the state

There is nothing in the text to say that “nuclear weapon test” only applies to (a) and that “any other nuclear explosion,” only applies to (b).

Also this is how the US government summarizes it:

QUOTE The Test Ban Treaty of 1963 prohibits nuclear weapons tests "or any other nuclear explosion" in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water. While not banning tests underground, the Treaty does prohibit nuclear explosions in this environment if they cause "radioactive debris to be present outside the territorial limits of the State under whose jurisdiction or control" the explosions were conducted. In accepting limitations on testing, the nuclear powers accepted as a common goal "an end to the contamination of man's environment by radioactive substances."

(Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT))

I go into that in detail here

. Exceptionally unlikely that Russia uses a very small tactical nuke against Ukraine and no risk of them attacking NATO - CIA director Burns said the CIA do NOT see practical evidence for concern about nukes, just Russian rhetoric (bluffs)

Also Putin didn’t actually threaten to use nukes in his annexation speech. See my

. Putin speech misleadingly clipped - said nukes against civilians are BAD - did NOT say bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a precedent for Russia to follow - said US / UK used carpet bombing in Germany as a precedent - for nuclear bombs in Japan

WHAT CAN RUSSIA DO ABOUT THIS - NOT MUCH - IF SENSIBLE THEY WOULD RETREAT TO A DEFENSIBLE POSITION AROUND WHATEVER THEY CONSIDER MOST IMPORTANT - SUCH AS THE WATER SUPPLY FOR CRIMEA - AND THE AZOV SEA COAST - BUT RUSSIA HAVEN'T SHOWN STRATEGIC SENSE FOR 7 MONTHS OF FIGHTING AND LIKELY TO CONTINUE WITH THEIR FAILED APPROACH OF OVER EXTENDING THEMSELVES

They can't do much, they are losing. That's it basically.

If they were sensible they would retreat to a much smaller region and try to defend it. Whatever is their priority - such as the water supply for Crimea - and the south coast joining Crimea to Donbas and however much of Donbas they think they can keep a hold of.

This is Phillip P. OBrien’s sketch of what they could retreat to - everywhere south of the thick black lines, to protect their water supply for Crimea to the left and their corridor along the Azov sea coast:

They would likely still lose all that too and Crimea but it would take longer.

But as the professor commentsh, they have never shown much sense.

As he says, they are unlikely to do anything as sensible as his map. They are likely to continue as they have done for 7 months - to hold onto as much as they can as long as they can until they are forced to retreat, and meanwhile attempt pointless advances for a few kilometers anywhere they can. That makes them very weak and they lose much faster that way.

RUSSIA WILL RUN OUT OF SHELLS - LOSING THEM IN SPECTACULAR EXPLOSIONS - USING OVER A MILLION A MONTH - AND CAN ONLY MAKE A BIT OVER A MILLION A YEAR - THE SOVIET STOCKPILES ARE UNKNOWN - ESTIMATES VARY BETWEEN THAT THEY SHOULD HAVE RUN OUT ALREADY TO A YEAR OF SUPPLIES LEFT - CAN’T HOLD OUT FOR YEARS FOR SURE

Originally Russia was advancing mainly because they had so many munitions left over from the Soviet Union they could fire ten shells for every one shell of the Ukrianinas. But they lost this advantage because of HiMARS

And they can't win with munitions, shells because the Ukrainians keep blowing up their munitions dumps.

. Yes Russia will lose this war - let’s hope they go for a peace treaty soon - running into massive problems of logistics at present similarly to just before they lost the battle for Kyiv

Pavel Luzin, a Russian defense sector analyst from the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), has compared Moscow’s declining production in the defense industrial sector and sinking manpower levels with the rate of consumption of munitions and personnel losses in the war in Ukraine. He came to the inescapable conclusion that the Russian war machine will soon be unable to function due to a lack of both.

“For Russia, six months of war have led not only to colossal irreplaceable losses in manpower, but also to a huge waste of weapons and military equipment: guided missiles are already very scarce, shells for artillery and armored vehicles will be exhausted by the end of the year, and the state of military aviation precludes a full-scale air campaign,” Luzin wrote in an Aug. 30 analysis. “Because of the sanctions, Russia cannot continue full industrial production of weapons and replenish its arms stockpiles, which are rapidly running out.”

Here is his estimate in more detail of how long the Russian shells will last out. The main points are:

• Russians are able to recycle about 570,000 shells a year from Soviet era stockpiles (that were no longer in usable condition) into 1.14 million new ones per year
• Total replenishment 1.6 to .1.7 million shells a year
• In 6 months Russia has likely used 7million shells, or about a milion a month.

He doesn’t give an estimate of their current stockpiles but thinks they may run out before the end of 2022.

They also face problems with supply of long distance cruise missiles and tanks, and the gun barrels for the shells run out.

They have issues with their planes too - their engines have a limited lifetime. They will have enough plane for the war but as planes and helicopters get shot down or just wear out this reduces their capabilities for large scale air offensives - not that they have been able to do those during the war.

They have major issues making the tanks and the cruise missiles and precision missiles because they depend on components that they import from western countries and are now blocked by the sanctions. They can’t make these components themselves and China won’t supply them to Russia.

You can read the article here with Google Translate.

There are various estimates as to how many shells they have left from enough for another year to that they should have run out already (which they obviously haven’t).

But it seems pretty clear that they will run out some time in 2023 - and the Ukrainians blowing up their munitions stockpiles won’t help. The Ukrainians have also captured several of their munitions stockpiles including a large one in Kharkiv, adding Russian shells to their own stockpiles (as they continue to use Russian artillery themselves).

Also

They also captured over 200 fighting vehicles. The Ukrainians joke that Russia is the main supplier of tanks to Ukraine. NNATO countries have been reluctant to supply many tanks to Ukraine - but Russia is supplying them with dozens of them when they leave them undamaged as the soldiers flee.

Also

It’s really baffling that this far into the war Russian soldiers continue to flee from the front line leaving behind such vast stocks of munitions and fighting vehicles. The Ukrainains when they flee will throw in a grenade or do something to destroy their guns or tanks as best they can if they can’t take them with them.

There was some intelligence that Russia may be looking to North Korea for more shells to supply them. But these probably aren’t very good shells.

UKRAINE DON’T HAVE THE SAME PROBLEMS - AS RUSSIA CAN’T HIT THEIR SHELLS - FAR FEWER AND MORE PRECISE

Meanwhile HiMRAS has far fewer shells but more precise. Same for the M777. They don’t have those big munitions dumps - and Russia hasn’t been able to do anything about the supply of munitions to the Ukrainian offensive.

Ukraine presumably have munitions dumps of some sort for their soviet era artillery - and also their HiMARS But Russia can’t seem to find them. It may be partly an issue of intelligence - there are many Ukrainians in the occupied territories to pass on information and then the US spy satellites likely help and cyber spying.

ENDEMIC ISSUES IN THE RUSSIAN MILITARY SYSTEM - OF LOW MORALE,

This is a long thread by one of the experts I follow that goes into detail

Definition of Blyatskrieg

The Russian military strategy (popularized by Vladimir Putin) of sending in a first wave of soldiers without telling them where they are going or what they are doing, leading to a lack of organization and embarrassing failures.

A play on the word "Blitzkrieg" (from Blitz 'lightning' + Krieg 'war')—a military doctrine of conducting fast, concentrated assaults; and "Blyat" (cyrillic: блять)—a Russian expletive used in a similar manner to "fuck" or "shit".

WHY RUSSIA KEEPS MAKING SUCH SPECTACULAR MISTAKES AND LOSING SO BADLY - POTEMKIN SYNDROME - THAT THE GENERALS, COMMANDERS, PUTIN HIMSELF ARE AT THE HEAD OF AN ARMY WHERE OFFICERS ARE REWARDED FOR LYING ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING ON THE FRONT LINE

This is an interesting thread on why Russia behaves as it does.

It’s the idea of a Potemkin Village - supposedly Potemkin would set up fake villages in Crimea - just brightly painted facades to fool the Empress Catherine the Great - when Crimea was recently annexed in 1787.

The concept of the “Potemkin Village” can be traced back to Prince Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin, a Russian field marshal and favorite of Empress Catherine the Great. Anxious to spare her the grim face of the recently annexed Crimea when she toured it in 1787, he allegedly ordered to create entire “villages” consisting of nothing more than gaily painted façades to be erected all along her route. The curious architectural phenomena in the haunting images shown here, Gregor Sailer’s latest project after Closed Cities, are focused on political, military, and economic features: field exercise centers in the USA and Europe, the allure of European city replicas in China, and urban vehicle testing tracks in Sweden. Not surprisingly, the country of the term’s origin, Russia, still fakes whole streets in disguise when high-ranking political celebrities are visiting from abroad. Sailer’s images provide access to the world of fakes, copies, and artificial fronts. By exposing them to the eye of the beholder, he puts the value of these often absurd aberrations of today’s society to an acid test.

This is an example of a village like that set up for testing crash dummies with car accidents:

Anyway - seems the same is happening in Russia today - that the soldiers and commanders are presenting impressive facades and displays - but even a lot of their military training is faked, the aim is to present an impressive display to visiting generals rather than to really do proper combat training. And then in battle, they lie about successes, for instance if they are asked to send 8 helicopters to bomb a target, 6 are out of fuel, 2 take off and 1 succeeds they will pass the message up the chain of command that it was a great success and all 8 succeeded.

The generals probably have very poor intelligence about the front line, and then the soldiers and local commanders are not empowered to make decisions for themselves, they have to do what the generals tell them.

This of course leads to the generals at the top having a false idea of what is happening on the front line and giving commands to send soldiers into danger not knowing that the helicopter attack failed.

To make it worse, they also have institutionalised strict adherence to orders - with NATO the soldiers on the ground, commanders of battalions at the lowest levels can make on the spot second by second decisions to modify what they are doing depending on the realities on the ground. The Russian commanders have to follow orders - and they aren’t trained to make command decisions. It takes a lot of training to make quick on the spot command decisions - often they have incomplete information, there is no way to know for sure which is the best thing to do, and so a Russian soldier would ask his general what to do, the general has incomplete information, can’t see what he sees, and may advise incorrectly.

A NATO and Ukrainian commander in the field will make an on the spot decision. It may go wrong but they are trained to do that, to take personal responsibility and wouldn’t be disciplined for making an understandable wrong decision.

So it’s a very different philosophy and is the key to Ukraine’s success.

It isn’t something Russia can turn around quickly. Ukraine used to be like that through to 2014 and it’s taken 8 years of intensive training to turn it around so they are now bottom up rather than top down and flexible and that’ show they can so quickly out manoeuvre Russian soldiers in the battlefield.

E.g in the battle for Lyman local commanders couldn’t make decisions about withdrawing tanks or other equipment The general told them to stay there so they stay. Eventually it’s impossible to stay so the Russian soldiers have to run away or surrender leaving their tanks behind.

That’s how Russia loses.

This also is why the generals often have to visit the front line to see what is really going on - and many then get killed doing so.

SO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? RUSSIA IS LOSING - AND THE PARTIAL MOBILIZATION MAKES LITTLE DIFFERENCE IN THE SHORT TERM

It’s a complex situation but basically

1. Russia is losing
2. Mobilization won’t help him turn it around to a win
3. But mobilization may lead to it continuing a bit longer sadly
4. It is clear Putin isn’t ready to negotiate for peace right now.
5. This will make Ukraine more determined to win.

So Ukraine now will surely do their next counteroffensive, Putin hasn’t offered any off-ramp.

There are many weaknesses in Russia’s position in Ukraine - stretched very thin from Kherson to Luuhansk - they could do a counteroffensive at either end of the line or somewhere in the middle like Meltipol.

These graphics summarise the situation a week or two ago, before the battle of Izium and before Russia lost the Kharkiv oblast. It was already clear that the Russian situation in Kharkiv was very weak..

Many Russian soldiers surrendered. Russia was weak here and Ukraine advanced very fast and surprised them. The attack puts supply lines for Izium at risk. Russia is now very weak in Donbas because they sent thousands of their best soldiers to Kherson

Soon after I did that map we got the Karkhiv counteroffensive.

See my

. Russia have decided to withdraw from the whole of the Karkhiv oblast according to @wartranslated who follows Russian sources - and the Ukrainian Luhansk governor says parts of Luhansk are also liberated, some even back to before 2014 lines

It is a similar situation in Kherson - but the Ukrainians maintain operational secrecy there.

They are weakening Russia’s situation. There are many suggestions by experts on Twitter about how Ukraine could retake the Kheson oblast.

But Khesron is a big city of a quarter of a million. It’s not going to be easy to take, so Ukraine are instead using a similar approach to Lyman but on a larger scale. They have stopped almost all supply over the Dnipro river into Kherson using HiMARS to tackle the bridges, barges, pontoon ferries and pontoon bridges. They are slowly advancing in the more rural areas around the city.

Clearly their aim is to encircle the city just as they did for Lyman. But here there are tens of thousands of Russian soldiers and advanced tanks and anti-aircraft missiles and many of their best equipment is there because Kherson is so important for them.

So Kherson will take a lot longer but it’s the same principle..

Russian soldiers on the Kherson side of the Dnipro river can’t be supplied with fuel, rations, ammunition and are losing many soldiers a day 20,000 Russian soldiers trapped here Lots of equipment trapped here too. All the bridges over the Dnipro river are now impassible.

A thread here about possible follow up options

Russia can try to reinforce either ends of the vast contact line but to do that exposes weaknesses in the middle for instance Melitopol.

On theMolochna River which is another wide river with few bridges across it similar to the Dnipro river and flows into the salt water Molochne Lake and the Azov sea.

Map from Encyclopedia of Ukraine Molochna River -

They continue to push back and liberate small villages here and there but are clearly going to do another big counteroffensive.

The first one liberating the Kharkiv Oblast must have succeeded well beyond expectation. But they will want to learn from that to prepare for the next one. The Ukrainians are much more careful than the Russians.

. Ukraine continues their astonishing advance, 1000 square kilometers liberated since 1st Sept and not stopping yet - not the end of the war but a big blow for Russia - and must increase chance of early end to the war

Ukraine have now won many smaller and larger battles against Russia. And Russia hasn’t won any comparable battle against Ukraine except their very slow advance where they took Severodonetsk and Lysychansk at a rate of about a mile a week taking a month to do it.

1. the battle of Kyiv where Russia lost an area the size of Bulgarian in 6 days

2, The Battle of Karkhiv oblast which just happened. the first major counteroffensive of Ukraine which succeeded far more than even they expected

. Russia have decided to withdraw from the whole of the Karkhiv oblast according to @wartranslated who follows Russian sources - and the Ukrainian Luhansk governor says parts of Luhansk are also liberated, some even back to before 2014 lines

3. The battle of Snake island which is what opened up the port of Odessa to grain shipments as it was Russia's "unskinkable battle ship" right next to the route any ships would take to export grain from Odessa.

Russia have withdrawn from Sanke island after 2 days of bombardment Strategically important Sanke island - outside range of M777 Howitzers, within range of HiMARS Russia say this is to help UN organize humanitarian corridor Don’t know if Ukraine used HiMARS Russia say they withdrew as a guesture of goodwill

See my:

. Yes Russia will lose this war - let’s hope they go for a peace treaty soon - running into massive problems of logistics at present similarly to just before they lost the battle for Kyiv

4. The sinking of the Moskva which was remarkable as a no-navy country defeating one of the top navy's of the world as it was thought to be, with two low cost missiles.

A “no navy” country, Ukraine, sunk the flagship of the Russian fleet, the Moskva with two sea skimming Neptune drones, and since then Russia’s Black Sea fleet is pretty much out of the war - they never venture close to shore

See my:

. Yes Russia will lose this war - let’s hope they go for a peace treaty soon - running into massive problems of logistics at present similarly to just before they lost the battle for Kyiv

5. The strikes on Saky airfield which destroyed half the fighter jets of the Russian black sea fleet in four explosions.

THIS WAR IS THOROUGHLY ILLEGAL - BUT NOTHING ANY OF THE REST OF US CAN DO TO STOP IT -WE DON’T HAVE THE POWER AS INDIVIDUALS TO STOP ILLEGAL WARS

Meanwhile there is nothing the rest of us can do. It is a very clear case of an illegal war .

It is especially illegal since by the Budapest Memorandum, Russia in 1994 guaranteed to Ukrarine that it wouldn’t invade and that it wouldhelp protect Ukraine from invsion in return for Ukraine giving its nukes back to Russia.

. Russia’s invasion into Ukraine is an illegal war - very clear case - to counter infodemic

But we don’t have the power as individuals to stop illegal wars.

YES WE CAN REBUILD AFTER THIS WAR

. Yes we can rebuild after a war - one day all Ukraine's cities damaged by the war will be restored - and the economies of Ukraine - and Russia too - rebuilt and renewed

TRY NOT TO GET TOO CAUGHT UP IN THS WAR AND GROUND YOURSELF IN KINDNESS

Try not to get too caught up in this war.

Try grounding yourself in kindness, including kindness, if you can, for the Russian soldiers.

So sad - these conscrips and the mobilisation - many people who will be forced to the front line - who are just ordinary folk unlucky enough to be living in Putin’s Russia.

There are many Russians also who want the war over. And remember many of the newly mobilised conscripts are from rural areas of Russia with only TV, almost no internet connection, and wouldn’t know about things like using a Virtual Private Network to get onto the wider internet . They have no idea what is happening or what they let themselves in for by joining the mobilisation.

I can’t find them now but there were many videos shared of happy recruits turning up for mobilisation in rural areas of Russia - they get a good salary for the region - have no idea what they are getting into.

From those interviews it seems to be possible to live in occupied Ukraine for 6 months and yet have no idea what the Russians are doing to other Ukrainians as a result of only having access to Russian propaganda and being originally pro Russian.

.Some Russians use a white / blue / white flag to show their vision of the wonderful law abiding peaceful Russia of the future.

Other Russians don’t think they need to change the flag, or perhaps change to the slightly different shade of blue used during the more law abiding and optimistic Yeltsin era.

. Kamil Galeev on Twitter

. Ukraine Russia Peace Support - most Russians as anywhere else are kind and most of those who know what is going on have been against the war since it started - and kindness is the way forward

We can all ground ourselves in kindness. Try relating to all the good things happening around you.

Most of us are not in a war. And we can wish for the future where Ukraine and Russia aren’t at war too.

Prayer, meditation, good vibes, small acts of kindness, however you do it then even if you can’t do much the smallest things still are not nothing, and they also greatly help your own peace of mind.

It doesnt help Ukraine to be panicking oor scared or depressed yourself. Sympathy, compassion and kindness though are very appropriate in this situation.

. Most people are kind - war crimes were conducted by specific Russian soldiers at specific times - others refused orders - and stories hit the news precisely because it is normal for humans to be kindP

HOW TO FIND A DEBUNK, OUR FACEBOOK GROUP, HELP IF SUICIDAL, ABOUT ME, PERMISSION FOR REUSE ETC

See: . How to find a debunk - Facebook group - help if suicidal - permission to re-use - about me - and other details from old space descriptionb