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Ukraine: military situation update with maps - Mar 8, 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(Numbered printed material below - Some of the items below may be out of date, and not updated yet)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/

-—> The True State of Russian Army <——
posted 2 months ago, 21.13 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KiII_2qabk

-—> Combined Arms Breach, what UA will have to master to smash Orc Lines <——
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ-sCT_maAQ

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Extras:
-—> Ukraine Situation Report: Major Russian Territorial Gains Unlikely This Year, U.S. Claims <——
An assessment from the U.S. intelligence community suggests that Putin will increasingly be forced to fight a long game in Ukraine.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-major-russian-territorial-gains-unlikely-this-year-u-s-claims

Excerpts:
The U.S. Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, has told a U.S. Senate hearing that Russia is unlikely to take significantly more territory in Ukraine this year, painting a bleak picture for Moscow as its forces appear potentially poised to take the eastern city of Bakhmut. In her assessment, the Russian military will unlikely be able to sustain its current level of fighting, regardless of what happens in Bakhmut ...

Indeed, Putin’s game plan may be to prolong the war, helped by intermittent pauses in the fighting. This, Haines said, “may be his best remaining pathway to eventually securing Russian strategic interests in Ukraine, even if it takes years.”

The analysis presented by Haines is a broad summation of the views of the U.S. intelligence community, after a little more than a year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

While the Russian campaign has fallen short almost across the board, in terms of territorial gains, Haines now expects that Putin, too, has a much better sense of the capabilities of the forces at his disposal and the prospects for future successes on the battlefield. Playing into this are factors such as heavier-than-anticipated casualties and equipment losses, with the latter now compounded by much tighter sanctions placed on Russia by much of the international community.

Overall, Putin “appears to be focused on more modest military objectives now,” Haines told the Senate Intelligence Committee.

==
The mystery around the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea in September last year shows no sign of resolution yet. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: “What we do know is that there was an attack against the Nord Stream pipelines, but we have not been able to determine who was behind it.”

==
British politicians have again brought up the possibility of supplying Ukraine with Western fighter jets, this time suggesting that stocks of older Eurofighter Typhoon jets be transferred from the U.K. Royal Air Force to other NATO allies, who would then be able to deliver their own jets to Ukraine. The specific other NATO aircraft types that might find their way to Ukraine under such a proposal were not mentioned.

The idea of using RAF Typhoons to “backfill” the air forces of other friendly countries came from members of the House of Commons defense select committee.

According to a report in the Mirror newspaper, Conservative party MP Robert Courts said a batch of early-model Typhoons being retired from their air defense role could be used to replace other countries’ aircraft.

“Would it not be possible to supply those [Typhoons], if not directly to Ukraine, to one of those of partner nations which could release MiG-19 [sic] or Sukhoi-24 or one of the other platforms available around the world?” he said.

The Conservative former defense minister, Mark Francois, said that a squadron of Typhoons is currently mothballed at RAF Shawbury “gathering dust.”

While the Pentagon blocked that previous offer, the MiGs again appear to be on the table, and it’s even possible that the British Typhoons could be offered to Poland as a means of expediting this transfer.

==
-—> Arming Ukrainian Fighters With AIM-120 Missiles Is A Complex Proposition <——
Arming Ukraine’s MiG-29s with AIM-120 missiles could be beneficial, but doing so would be a complex affair with potentially limited returns.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/arming-ukrainian-fighters-with-aim-120-missiles-is-a-complex-proposition

Excerpts:
The U.S. military is reportedly exploring the possibility of integrating AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles, or AMRAAMs, onto at least some of the Soviet-designed MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter jets in Ukraine’s inventory.

There are serious caveats to this proposition, but it would, if feasible, give the Ukrainian Air Force a new beyond-visual-range air-to-air capability in the form of a highly-capable missile posing a major threat to Russian airpower venturing within its range.

In addition, Ukraine’s military has already been receiving AIM-120s for use as surface-to-air missiles and would able to leverage the existing supply chains for those weapons ...

Integrating a radar-guided air-to-air missile like AMRAAM onto those aircraft presents new challenges. For one, at least some amount of work would need to be done to ensure that Ukrainian Air Force MiG-29s - and potentially other suitable aircraft in the country’s inventory, like its Su-27s - can just fire the weapon.

This includes making sure the weapon can safely separate from the aircraft under various aerodynamic scenarios.

Far more problematic is the fact that the AIM-120, as designed, needs to be able to receive information from the launching aircraft’s radar before it even leaves the rail.

To be highly effective over longer distances, it requires further communication with the launching aircraft throughout its flight.

“How do you mount this thing? Can you get all the electronics in the aircraft to talk to this thing that wasn’t meant to be launched?” are the problems to be solved, according to one Politico’s Defense Department sources.

Unfortunately, the other problem is the Soviet-designed radars in Ukraine’s combat jets simply don’t have the range to make the most of the AIM-120’s reach in the first place. A Ukrainian MiG-29 pilot known by his callsign Juice.

“Actually, the lack of fire and forget missiles is the greatest problem for us,” he told The War Zone in a previous interview. “Even if we had them our radars couldn’t provide the same distances as the Russian fighters.”

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Reporting from Ukraine:
https://www.youtube.com/@RFU

••Day 378.

The biggest news is coming from the east.

Here, Russians started focusing on destroying everything that moved in and out of Bakhmut: they increased drone reconnaissance to spot movements, they corrected artillery fire, and they moved in mortars closer to the contact line.

Nonetheless, Ukrainian losses in vehicles suddenly dropped over the last two days, and Russian commanders started raising the alarm that Ukrainians are staying because they prepared a massive counterattack.

Last time I told you that Ukrainians managed to impose beneficial for them urban fighting by partially withdrawing and creating a vacuum that Russians tried to fill in and capitalize on.

I also told you that Ukrainians put a lot of effort into preserving the corridor for withdrawal by launching a series of limited counterattacks but by extensive airstrikes with assault helicopters.

The freshest reports suggest that these efforts are not enough because Russians have improved their fire control over the retreat routes.

After the Russians had just advanced into the area, they were still using only artillery to hit the roads in the fields.

Russians started to use drones to correct their fire to make sure that they accurately targeted these small roads, and Russians also brought mortars closer contact line.

That is why 5-6 days ago, the number of vehicles hit during the process of withdrawal noticeably increased.

Russian sources reported that Ukrainians shifted to only using the roads at night in order to constrain the spotting of the convoys.

Ukrainians are also using very small groups of 5 to 8 vehicles that they launch at random times.

The such tactic not only decreases the probability of being spotted but also requires the Russians to expend significantly more shells to be effective.

Unfortunately, Russians manage to catch some vehicles every day, even in the most unconventional places, such as forest areas.

Over the last two days, based on Russian reports, Ukrainian losses of cars and armor have suddenly decreased by more than 50%.

Military analysts are offering three plausible explanations. Firstly, as discussed in the previous report, Ukrainians have reinforced their flanks and assumed an active defense position, meaning that they started conducting limited counterattacks whenever possible instead of just staying in their position, waiting to defend against the next attack.

These limited counterattacks have reportedly pushed Russians a little bit back, which reduced their possibilities of using drones, but even more importantly, mortars.

Secondly, after Ukrainians started slowly withdrawing from the eastern bank of the river and southern parts of the city, Russians may have concentrated their efforts on developing their success here.

Such actions required constant artillery support, which was granted at the expense of fire control over the roads leading out of Bakhmut.

In fact, today, geolocated footage confirmed that Russians gained one more street north of their positions and one street west of their positions.

Lastly, after seeing a huge spike in vehicle losses, Ukrainians may have put some limitations on the use of the roads for some time while they are preparing to take greater measures for widening the corridor and reducing Russian fire control.

In fact, after the Head of the Wagner Group, Prigozhin, drew the attention of Russian military analysts to the offensive groups that Ukrainians were forming in the Donetsk region, many started to evaluate a Ukrainian counterattack in this region as a possibility.

The main reason why Ukrainians suddenly obtained an opportunity for a counteroffensive here is simple - Wagner forces have stretched the front line to the verge of their ability to hold it, which is the same thing that happened prior to the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region.

The fact of the matter is over the last 2 months, the area of responsibility of Wagner forces increased from 30 km to more than 60 km, while their forces have shrunk because the Russian Ministry of Defense forbade them to recruit prisoners.

That is why Wagners had to, firstly, put on hold their offensive towards Siversk and later even put on hold their offensive to the south of Bakhmut to be able to achieve anything to the north of Bakhmut.

It is true that we have been successfully advancing in this region so far, but the fundamental reason for that lies in the topography of the region.

After establishing control of the hills around Soledar, Russians were facing Ukrainian positions in the lowlands.

But after taking control over the lowlands, Wagners once again have to fight uphill, and with a lower concentration of troops due to the stretched front line, the further they go, the harder it gets, and right now, we are at the point where Wagner forces are concentrated in the lowlands around Bakhmut, which opens a possibility for the Ukrainians to attack and recapture the hills of Yakovlivka and Kurdiumivka, and engulf Wagner forces that are trying to engulf Bakhmut.

==
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPpYQuLW8T0
Denys says:
••Bakhmut:
Russians still cannot cross river on the north side.

==
Denys still thinks a UA counter attack probability here is low because of a lack of weapons.

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PMC head went to Bakhmut to talk with artillery who told him they are in a bad situation. Life is hell for Wagner troops around Bakhmut. They did receive some ammo, but need 3X more. They are using brand new 2022-2023 shells. Russian production not enough to cover all of the needs of regular troops. New shells are more precise compared to the old Soviet ones.

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UA struggles even more with adequate amounts of 155mm shells than PMC.

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80% of UA casualties are from artillery shelling. Denys puts overall UA troop losses at 1/3rd of Russian losses; civilian losses at 200,000 people.

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Iran secretly transferred lots of artillery, mortar and rocket shells using the Caspian Sea. Ships were tracked - Musa Jalil & Begey.

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German Foreign Minister confirms the 18 Leopard tanks will arrive at the end of this month.

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Aviation:
They are working on how to mount & use western missiles on MiGs.

Ukraine has lost 1/2 its airforce sine the start off the war.

Picture of SU-24 bomber pilot, Victor Volanetz, shot down last week. He used to fly with the same airline, Ukraine International, as Denys & like Denys, he was a captain flying 737s.

==
Georgian protest over media control continue and demand protestors arrested yesterday be freed. President side with the people, but the ruling party sides wit the Russian over Ukraine war. People hope to get rid of them.

==
Hannity radio interview:
DJT thinks Russia will continue until they take all of Ukraine. Give Russia the some areas that are Russian speaking.

Trump’s idea of letting Russia take part of Ukraine went over like a lead balloon. A very terrible idea to Russian speaking Denys, which he does not support. He did not have anything against DJT before, but anyone against the sovereignty of his country, he does not support. A very rude attitude for DJT to speak that way about a sovereign country, placing the pleasing of Putin above the people of Ukraine.

[Either DJT was taken out of context (debated) or he has no idea about the war and his give away would start a wider war, according to both Ukrainians and official Russian statements.]

Denys wanted to say outside of politics, but those comments drove him mad. He will not mention DJT in any further videos.

==
Matslevsky, Oleksandr Ihorevich has been confirmed as the fallen [executed] soldier. He was shot on Feb 7, and his mom got his body on the 14th. His last words to her were, “Mom, I will never surrender”.

==
Image from last Fall of a T-62 tank captured with the name “Armata” [T-14] painted of the gun barrel.