"There are two railroad connection between Crimea and Kherson oblast. One results in a dead end, and the other is connected over a bridge. This means the entire RU southern frontline is extremely venerable once Ukraine receive longer range fires."
“Canada considering sending 4 Leopard tanks to Ukraine: sources”
“Canada is considering contributing four Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, senior sources told CBC News — but no decision has been made.
The government could announce the donation of tanks as early as Thursday, the sources said.”
Ukraine: military situation update with maps, Jan 25, 2023
(’Orc’ is associated with the various hoards of 13th century Mongol invaders, as well as LOTR evil villains)
War in Ukraine Explained/Reporting from Ukraine:
https://www.youtube.com/@RFU
Artillery (key to success in this war), Fuller explanation of Orc military structure, Other Bonus articles - see previous postings in “Attack on Europe” (FR title search).
(Numbered printed material below - Some of the items below may be out of date, and not updated yet)
••Denotes Transcribed Dialogue. The entirety of the analysis is from a Ukrainian guy named Reporting from Ukraine’s daily video - I only transcribe it. Extras are just that - from other sites, or my comments marked (Edit: .... ) or { } or [ ].
-—> Current to date and past MAPS: <——
https://militaryland.net/
———————————————————————————————————————
Extras:
-—> M1 Abrams Tanks In U.S. Inventory Have Armor Too Secret To Send To Ukraine <——
M1 tanks will be heading to Ukraine, but they can’t just be pulled from U.S. stocks due to their sensitive armor.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/m1-abrams-tanks-in-u-s-inventory-have-armor-too-secret-to-send-to-ukraine
Not as simple as it seems on first look.
Summary:
[The problem is that the hull and turret armor have highly classified and are made with DU and ceramics. The only sources of available tanks would have to come from current operators of export models like Egypt and and Saudi, which for diplomatic reasons are not likely to send.
All storage models in US have classified armor. The Army is currently looking to sole-source removal work to General Dynamics Land Systems. There are no other current contractors qualified to remove DU armor, and it would take an estimated 64 months to get one up to speed. The alternative is to make new M1A1Ms for export which will take years.
M1A1s that go to Poland and other NATO countries are not the same armor-wise as US forces use, and not what the Russians would be facing even if they where to take an export model out.]
So scratch M1A1s off the list of MBTs that will be arriving in Ukraine for the foreseeable future.
—
-—> M1 Abrams And Leopard 2 Tanks Will Officially Be Headed To Ukraine <——
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/m1-abrams-and-leopard-2-tanks-will-officially-be-headed-to-ukraine
———————————————————————————————————————
••Day 336.
Today the biggest news is coming from the Zaporizhzhia region.
As expected, the Russians tried to launch yet another offensive operation, attacked Vuhledar, which turned out to be the most difficult operation that the southern Russian forces had done.
The irretrievable losses are already counted in thousands per day, which means that the Russians are burning their reserves at an extremely rapid pace.
Yesterday, I told you that because the Russian offensive operation around Orikhiv had failed, the Russians started shifting their focus to other regions of the Zaporizhzhia front line.
I also told you that judging by the actions of the Russians, I expect the Russians to launch the offensive operation around Vuhledar within one day. And this is exactly how it happened.
The reason why Russian offensive actions here were largely predictable is that the Russians simultaneously moved their forces into the outskirts of the settlements that they control.
Usually, the outskirts are kept empty to leave some buffer zone, so eliminating these buffer zones simultaneously shows that the enemy is shortening the distance along all possible axes of advance.
And today, they moved precisely along these axes. The main direction of the attack became the eastern outskirts of Vuhledar. The reason why the Russians chose to put the most effort into this vector is twofold.
First of all, as you can see, Vuhledar consists of two parts: the city and a small countryside across the road.
Secondly, if we look at the topographic map, we can see that this countryside is located on the same hill as the city, which means that if the Russians establish their positions there, at least they will be storming high-rise buildings from the same elevation.
The Russians launched their artillery preparation with the main focus of pushing the Ukrainians from the outer edges of the countryside in order to create an opportunity for the attack group to establish a toehold.
The attack group quickly moved in and immediately engaged in positional fights. The second group made a supporting attack from Pavlivka.
Under normal circumstances storming Ukrainian trenches in front of Vuhledar would be a suicide operation, but the Russians moved in their thermobaric artillery and started burning the hospitals on the corner.
Under cover of smoke and devastating fire, the Russians managed to advance by up to 400 meters.
This is insignificant in this case, and they will likely be tied to that region, but as it is a supporting attack, their main goal is not to make a breakthrough but to draw attention and fix some forces, which they are doing. By the evening, the momentum was broken, and the fights became positional.
The Ukrainians have also reinforced this region with heavy equipment.
Even though the Russians cut off all highways leading to Vuhledar, there are still several dirt roads to the north, which are short and, given the below-zero temperature, can be used with no problems.
Ukrainian attack groups did not even need the roads, as they were advancing along the tree belts on Russian positions and firing at them from multiple tanks.
So far, there are only two visible results of this offensive operation: the Ukrainians lost the countryside, and the Russians lost a lot of troops.
In fact, since the Russians launched their offensives along the whole Zaporizhzhia front, their losses skyrocketed. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Russian losses over the last day amounted to almost 4 thousand soldiers: 910 killed and 2730 wounded.
And this does not include the massacre that took place today around Vuhledar. Although it does include the Russian sabotage group that got destroyed near Kherson.
The silence of the low activity in this region was broken recently by a company of Russian soldiers that tried to cross the Dnipro River near Potiomkin Island.
As mentioned previously, the Ukrainians established tight sniper control over this area because there were a lot of houses, and the Russians could quickly appear and try to carry out a certain mission.
When it comes to the areas that are located deeper in the Russian-controlled territories, the Russians are raiding museums.
According to a recent publication, more than 30 museums in the south, unfortunately, came to their attention, in particular those in Mariupol, Melitopol, but also Kherson before its liberation.
Ukrainian investigators are still cataloging the losses of missing oil paintings and other cultural objects, but the count is already in the thousands.
The southern museums had a lot of masterpieces of which there are no more in the world, the paintings for which art collectors are bidding millions of dollars.
Check out the gun stabilization on the Leopard 2 (Hat tip to AdmSmith):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=222o2O_w3WI
German precision.
"There are two railroad connection between Crimea and Kherson oblast. One results in a dead end, and the other is connected over a bridge. This means the entire RU southern frontline is extremely venerable once Ukraine receive longer range fires."
@visegrad24 1h
BREAKING:
The U.S. has classified the Wagner Group as a transnational criminal organization.
Russians starting to loot hospital equipment in Kherson region south of Dnipro river, just like they did in Kherson north of Dnipro right before their retreat.
Interesting take on why Germany withheld Leopards:
But the underlying issue is that the Germans fear that if the various European states that have bought Leopard 2 tanks from Germany supply them to Ukraine, they may well opt to replace their own inventories with US equipment instead.
Why Germany really shied from sending Leopards to Ukraine
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4126445/posts
