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[da_nang]

They've "broken" through the first line of defense near Robotyne, north of the logistically-important Tokmak in the Zaporizhia Oblast.

I use quotes because of the methodically slow pace due to the minefields. The trenches are no longer viable to hold for the Russians, and the rail and highway going through Tokmak are effectively controlled by Ukrainian artillery fire. The same goes for the nearby air base.

Fog-of-war rumors suggest the next line of defense is lightly defended due to lack Russian manpower in the area. Understandably so, when Russian logistics is restricted to the coastal highway through Mariupol, or the Crimean route that has limited throughput at pontoon bridges near Henichesk and Chonhar, the Isthmus of Perekop, and what remains of the Kerch bridge. The Russian forces in the Kherson Oblast, and the Crimean land bridge are soon going to be royally fucked.

[Great Order]

So much land's going to be absolutely useless by the end of this war because of the sheer number of minefields.

Ukraine's going to have its own Zone Rouge.

[Starver]

north of the logistically-important Tokmak in the Zaporizhia Oblast.

I just wanted to orientate myself, so I went to a tab upon which I have a mapping site already being visited, and zoomed out, scrolled across Europe and down towards the right bit of Ukraine. Only it looked odd.

...then, upon zooming in even further, I noted that the (open source) mapping data had been updated. Where the humungous and very obvious lake should be, there was a thin(ner) ribbon of river and vast amounts of "swampy/marshy" ground noted by the appropriate symbology. (Scrolling across, below the breached dam there was a lot more water than I recall, plus marshy areas. But not sure how 'normally' waterlogged that area was beforehand. It'd be interesting to dive into the source data and discover the diffs and old versions of the data, though, I'm sure. But everything technical I do with maps tends to be geared towards predownloaded 'current' versions, and I never thought to take and keep a snapshot when it was still the latest.)

I was a bit worried that (once I'd solved the above confusion) I wouldn't easily find Tokmak, because of translation/cyrillic issues (this view from this site defaults to local-language conventions, in its maptile imagery), but I should have known Tokmak is (pretty much) "Tokmak" even across alphabets. Though I was intrigued by the area marked just north of the main road, industrial buildings and an 'industry' area. As is usual, had to draw on my algabraic (i.e. Greek alphabet) knowledge, and a little interlingual assumption, to parse it as probably "Tokmak Solar Energy". The working out of this pleased me far more than it deserves to have. (Though I suspect the current state of the panels is... more fragmentary. I might later go to a different map-site, with photo-tiling option, and perhaps see if I'm right and/or when the most recent public satellite imagery for the area dates from.)

But I see what was meant about the rail-line there making things particularly vulnerable. My mental image of the region has been updated. I just need to switch to some good topogical and/or photo tiling data to flesh out my terrain and land-use assumptions, but I try to ration myself on that sort of random scrolling, as I can easily be hours casually tracing the route of a particular highway, waterway, abandoned railway or the edges of some national park/etc if I let myself.

(As it is, I already noted some random mid-marsh bits of land that were marked up special, which seemed to have previously been notable islands in the now depleted megareservoir. I did do my 'algebra trick' on the text, but I can't remember at the moment what I then thought I was reading. Could have been local geonymic names that essentially is "big tree island", or else even "property of <cityname> sailing club", for all I know, knowing Ukrainean for neither "tree" nor "sailing", etc, never mind any more archaic name-rootings like "-wald" in germanic. )


...if you'll forgive a little diversion into the way I tend to think of these things. But then it is the emotional thread, so hopefully it's still relevent to roam a bit, perhaps to entertain you with my off-beat map-appreciation 'skills', or lack of them!

[Il Palazzo]

the rail and highway going through Tokmak are effectively controlled by Ukrainian artillery fire. The same goes for the nearby air base.

I don't think this is true. The tip of the wedge is maybe 10km closer to Tokmak than before the offensive, and it's narrow too. You can't put your artillery in that area and expect it to survive.

Ukrainians seem to be committing their reserves for a push that would make a difference. But Russians have reserves too. The whole situation looks precarious.

[Strongpoint]

Spoiler: map (click to show/hide)

 

White lines = major entrenchments.  So, it is not exactly a breakthrough yet but it is a springboard for one.

[Lord Shonus]

We're also seeing a major increase in the destruction of key Russian assets - artillery, air defense, etc - in ways that we wouldn't be seeing if things weren't going well for Ukraine. The decisive factor here is the extensiveness of Russian minefields, as it is extremely difficult to demine in combat conditions without proper air cover for suppression. That slows an advance significantly even if it isn't killing very many Ukrainians (there's lots of hard evidence that the newly supplied Western vehicles are living up to their design goals of crew protection - most of the ones confirmed to be knocked out had most of the crew escape, even when the vehicle was a total loss).


The big issue is that everybody's expectations for what a breakthrough would look like were heavily colored by last year's collapses. Which not only were not guaranteed when they happened, but were preceded by a pretty good length of grinding stalemate most observers have forgotten.

[Strongpoint]

Note that mines have a side effect. Their own minefields make Russian counter-attacks in the flanks of advancing forces problematic

[Loud Whispers]

We're also seeing a major increase in the destruction of key Russian assets - artillery, air defense, etc - in ways that we wouldn't be seeing if things weren't going well for Ukraine. The decisive factor here is the extensiveness of Russian minefields, as it is extremely difficult to demine in combat conditions without proper air cover for suppression. That slows an advance significantly even if it isn't killing very many Ukrainians (there's lots of hard evidence that the newly supplied Western vehicles are living up to their design goals of crew protection - most of the ones confirmed to be knocked out had most of the crew escape, even when the vehicle was a total loss).


The big issue is that everybody's expectations for what a breakthrough would look like were heavily colored by last year's collapses. Which not only were not guaranteed when they happened, but were preceded by a pretty good length of grinding stalemate most observers have forgotten.

Exactly. There is an unfair expectation that Ukraine should be able to make large sweeping gains of territory whilst also not providing them with the air cover needed to protect their tanks in order to pull off such mobile warfare. Instead, people should take note of Ukraine's priorities.

The emphasis on counter-battery fire could well be part of a shift in tactics as the counteroffensive continues. The New York Times reported Saturday that Ukraine changed tactics after the first two weeks of combat saw “as much of 20 percent of the weaponry it sent to the battlefield was damaged or destroyed.”
Attrition rates slowed as commanders adapted in the ensuing weeks, but the story noted losses have decreased because the counteroffensive itself has not progressed rapidly.

While accurate strikes on Russian artillery do not translate immediately into territorial gains, it fits with shaping the battlefield in what has become a war of attrition in some respects. Ukrainian ground forces can better exploit weak points in the Russian lines when Moscow has degraded artillery capabilities to effectively respond and suppress them. With 155mm cluster munitions having arrived in Ukraine from U.S. stockpiles, this artillery disparity is set to only increase. In terms of counter-battery fire, these weapons can also allow for saving prized guided munitions to quickly kill enemy batteries with high certainty.

This is reflected in complaints on Russian telegram from soldiers complaining about the effectiveness of Ukrainian counter-battery fire and the lack of interest from Russian high command that this is just getting worse. One thing to remember is the Ukrainian leadership is very cognisant of how the war will end. It's entirely possible for the Ukrainians to fully liberate all of the country and still have to keep fighting. The only thing that will truly end the war in Ukraine's favour is;
1. Russian political leadership loses the will to prosecute this war effort.
2. Russian military loses the capability to prosecute this war effort.
With both feeding into one another.

One can imagine if WWI was to happen today the news would be full of stories about how SPRING OFFENSIVE SOON, WAR WILL BE OVER BY CHRISTMAS

Basically for 120 years the news has been overly obssessed with territory and dramatic map charts, whilst ignoring the consequential things like equipment losses. Things like Bakhmut were weird media obsessions, but the amount of cohesive brigades the Russians turned into disorganised remnants in it was:

In other sectors of the front, the Russian command does not need such a goading, as it voluntarily drives to slaughter the last remnants of the infantry, no longer very combat-ready due to previous losses. The Russian military has an incredible talent for turning any village with a couple of landings and a pig farm into Verdun, on which their own, not enemy, units are ground. Why? Yes, because “BUSV”, the Combat Charter of the Ground Forces, these people do not open and read almost ever. And more than any “Javelins” and “HIMARS”, more than any “NATO satellite groups” fighting against us is the Combat Charter of our own Ground Forces, on which our valiant command wanted to shit. And ukrops [Ukrainians] – they read it and creatively processed it, taking into account the available new technologies.

In the text about radio communications, I described the main problem of command and control in the Russian army, due to which the army cannot really advance, cannot maneuver, and cannot even fully repel enemy attacks. Nothing larger than the “remnants of a motorized rifle battalion” in the RF Armed Forces can be controlled as a single organism. And, of course, in this situation, the battalion commanders and company commanders of these “remnants” become well-deserved heroes, who, if possible, drag all the shit on their own backs. Although more often, alas, they don’t. And they are buried with their subordinates when, after half a dozen assaults, each organized worse than the previous one, we still capture another piece of land and collect their rotten remains.

From the fact that the Russian army can do nothing except for, bleeding, capture another village while surrendering a district center or an entire region on the other flank, the Russian army made an amazing conclusion – let’s take more villages! And arranged the maximum possible Verduns along the entire front line, including the very infamous Pavlovka in the DPR. And, of course, Bakhmut. How could it be without it? Why not kill the last remnants of combat-ready infantry at it? It’s not possible at all. These fucking bastards need to get positive motives for the news somewhere! Here, we freed another 100 meters of such and such village. And whoever is the first to report on the complete liberation of the village gets an order.

So take with a pinch of salt every time the news is all "offensive now??? Now... Offensive? 10 metres of land taken... Ukraine/Russia is over?"

*EDIT
I'm reminded of the battle for Goose Green. Where the British army wished to bypass this hill occupied by Argentinian forces in the falklands war, as capturing the hill wasn't necessary for accomplishing their aims; isolating it would suffice. But the British government wanted an early propaganda win to shore up public support so they ordered for the hill to be taken. BBC news announced that this attack was going to take place, so the Argentinians were aware the attack was coming. This resulted in the death of the British Major in charge of the operation. Afterwards a lot of investigations were done into "was capturing this hill really necessary/worth it?" and all of them can be summed up as "no but..."

[Strongpoint]

Girkin's wife says he was transported to the court in the same vehicle with Ukrainians and that this poses a great danger to her husband:

"The lawyer said that during the process of bringing Igor from Lefortovo to the court, he was in a paddy wagon with Ukrainian citizens accused of war crimes in Mariupol.

I believe that this type of practice poses a potential threat to my husband. I regard this as criminal negligence of the leaders of the convoy service."

______________


It is an original way to arrange an accident for Girkin.

[Cathar]

Do you mean the Kremlin doesn't take all the necessary precaution to insure the survivability of its opponents? Shocked, I'm shocked I tell you.
Latest Girkin troll was absolutely out of this world though. He's running for president because, in essence, Vladimir is "too smart, too kind and too athletic". Girkin is 100% going to deserve the accident in store for him, but hot damn I'm going to miss his twitter

[Strongpoint]

Do you mean the Kremlin doesn't take all the necessary precaution to insure the survivability of its opponents? Shocked, I'm shocked I tell you.
Latest Girkin troll was absolutely out of this world though. He's running for president because, in essence, Vladimir is "too smart, too kind and too athletic". Girkin is 100% going to deserve the accident in store for him, but hot damn I'm going to miss his twitter

I miss his regular whining(

It filled me with optimism better than any Ukrainian propaganda

[King Zultan]

You'd think with all the people falling out windows in Russia they'd mandate that all of them have bars put on them to prevent people falling out of them.

[EuchreJack]

In Russia, a citizen can die in a locked room...

[Strongpoint]

In Germany, in the city of Einbeck in Lower Saxony, an unknown man attacked a child from Ukraine. The prosecutor’s office is investigating the case as attempted murder.

This is reported by Censor.NET with reference to DW.

According to available data, on August 26, a 10-year-old boy was near the bridge with several other Ukrainian children, when an unknown man accused the children of speaking Ukrainian. The man demanded that they speak Russian and allegedly declared that Ukraine had started a war.

Then the man allegedly pulled the girl by the hair, grabbed the 10-year-old boy, and threw him over the railing into the canal. The boy hit the iron beams attached to the bridge and suffered injuries to his head and left leg. When the boy was lying in the canal, an unknown man allegedly threw a glass bottle at him, which hit the child in the right shoulder. After that, the man left the scene.

The perpetrator appears to be between 40 and 45 years old, and the police are looking for him. 

This is the type of people we are waging war against.

[Ganondworf]

In Germany, in the city of Einbeck in Lower Saxony, an unknown man attacked a child from Ukraine. ...

This is the type of people we are waging war against.

A German source: https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/einbeck-zehnjaehriger-ukrainer-in-niedersachsen-angegriffen-wohl-weil-er-nicht-russisch-sprach-a-7fcb0ea5-3f29-43c0-a202-9c80c15c94f5

One can only shake one's head. I hope the children will be alright. It seems so symbolic. First Russia wants Ukraine to be Russian, then it attacks its weaker victim, then it does victim-blaming, and lastly Russia doesn't take responsibility. It is really disgusting.