>

Officially, training begins in a few weeks, which means the equipment is available but needs to be transferred between units so the military is checking its readiness. It would be years if the tanks were being built by a US manufacturer or months if it was coming out of the boneyard.
New post can be found here >


“It is obvious that Washington is purposefully trying to inflict a strategic defeat on us,” Antonov said in remarks published on the embassy’s Telegram messaging app

Well duh >

What gave it away?
“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, April 2022. >

Estimated Russian losses from 24.02.2022 to 25.01.2023 (Day 336):
It was a good day for Ukraine.  
|Category              |Change*|Total     |
|:---|:---|:---|
|Personnel             |+910      |123080    |
|Tanks                 |+9      |3161      |
|APVs                  |+23     |6307      |
|Artillery             |+6     |2154      |
|MLRS                  |+2      |450       |
|Anti-aircraft Systems |-      |220       |
|Aircraft              |+1      |290       |
|Helicopters           |-      |281       |
|UAVs                  |+5    |1902      |
|Missiles              |-      |749       |
|Warships / Boats      |-      |18        |
|Other Vehicles        |+23      |4967      |
|Special Equipment     |-      |194       |
*Change since the previous day.
Source: The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine >

910 personnel, 9 tanks, and 23 APV's. Damn! It's been a busy day in Ukraine. >

If it is the Dutch sending like 10 fighter jets then it most certainly is not an escalation because Russia has nothing to fear from the Netherlands. So good ol murica can just send  200 more >

We're replacing them with F35 anyways. >

It says a lot about Russia that these scumbags are getting released after 6 months of not being dumb enough to die, while volunteers and conscripts are having their contracts force renewed. >

They have military experience now.  I bet it’s a matter of time before mobilization. >

Spain is so based. It’s having small members that cooperate and do their part that is part of NATO’s strength. >

Nah, Spain’s contribution has been a disappointment until now. It’s not a small member of NATO by any means, it’s somewhere between the 6th and 8th strongest army of the alliance, and its contribution has been proportionally one of the smallest ones. While the ruling party and anyone to their right have been quite supportive of providing weapons, the far left and Catalan/Basque nationalist parties are keeping their idealistic ‘pacifist’ position and opposing weapons deliveries. >

Did they also talk about the quantities of Russian military equipment at the ZNPP? >

13 million per tank? Damn, Abrams is expensive! >

Ammo, parts, training, shipping & handling. >

The Fed X guy’S face when he comes to pick up an Abram! >

Just reading the article now at El Mundo. It basically says that it would be part of the older variants in storage that were discussed months ago. Apparently they have been assessed and, contradicting previous info, 20 are in good enough condition to go and 30 more could be sent afterwards after some maintenance. Spain is unlikely to send the active ones because they are needed in the land borders with Morocco though. >

Scholz now has officially confirmed that Germany will send 14 Leo 2A6
Also he has mentioned that the aim is to quickly build up two Ukrainian Leo 2 tank bataillons - that would equal about 88 Leo 2 in total (44 per German tank bataillon) >

I thought the best we in Ukraine can hope for is 2A3. And they are sending 2A6! >

Russia has been screeching so much about this because they have no real plan to win the war in Ukraine via attrition. They've lost too much gear and don't have a meaningful advantage in personnel numbers. Their only exit strategy would be that Ukraine runs out of ammo because the West loses interest. 
Long term commitments of armor and 155mm mean that's not happening. >

The war wasn't supposed to even be a war for them.
Putin expected to have a puppet government in place in Kyiv within a week then spend a few months stamping out insurgents. >

Putin remains a master strategist >


Jason Jay Smart
@officejjsmart
·
2h
Putin considering another wave of mobilizations of up to 200,000 people, CNN writes, citing US officials familiar with the intelligence.
The draft would be done “quietly” to not upset the population.
The initial invasion, almost a year ago, included less than 150k troops.

Any creative ideas on how Putin could go about conducting a quiet mobilization? >

Ivan hops onto the train for his morning commute to work. It takes him a little longer than it should to realize he got on the wrong train when he notices the view out of the window is different. He gets up to go ask what's going on when government officials in plain clothes tell him to sit back down. When the train does stop he finds himself at a military training camp. Not soon after, the doors open and the shouting starts. >

There was someone posting here recently from Moscow who did say he heard they were grabbing people in metro stations so you probably aren't far off. >

Lol if you want to know what Russia will do next, just think of what stupid idea would have severe unintended consequences. In this case it's grabbing the people headed to work. Make sure you kill off the people working the blue collar jobs that keep the country running and making the others stop going to work when they realize people are being grabbed on their way to work. >

Wonder if it was just to knock out command structure or if it was an Intel grab too" >

Both, as reported by GUR. russians thought that it was a full on assault and have sent aviation and other reinforcements, enabling Ukraine to get their counts and other info >

People throw around the word "hero" a lot, but the people doing this are actually risking their lives to save the lives of others.  Truly heroic action. >

So they kept supplying the genocidal Russian air force with jet fuel ingredients until recently, and Gazprom still stole their money. They have some kind of insurance financed through German tax money though, so I'm sure it will be alright for them… >

The dilemma must be difficult. On one hand you can broadcast a message, on the other hand you can simply broadcast swan lake on all channels. >

We will keep supporting you until Victory, and beyond. Thank you for putting your trust in us, in freedom and in democracy. We treat our friends well. Here is to a long friendship between Ukraine and its allies! >

Previous post
Day 335-336 of my updates from Kharkiv.
Yesterday it was mostly quiet, people were reporting hearing explosions pretty often, but most of the time they ended up being the sounds of demining efforts, so nothing to worry about. Today was a much less quiet day, as in the morning Russians shelled Kupiansk yet again, this time destroying a store and a private house, thankfully with no casualties.
Then in the evening Russians started sending a bunch of their Shahed drones at our cities, some were going for Dnipro, others were headed to Kyiv and its oblast. There was just one confirmed hit on some industrial facility in Dnipro and we don’t know if it was hit by a drone either, apparently they fired some missiles as well, so it might have been hit by a missile. From what we can tell most drones were intercepted, but they are still sending more of them at us even right now. There were reports of Shaheds being intercepted in Kyiv oblast just 30 minutes ago, and I bet there are more of them still coming.
They must be really upset at the fact that Leopards and Abrams were finally approved for delivery, so they decided to bomb our cities in retaliation as usual. This happens every single time some kind of new military aid gets approved, they always either do a missile strike or send a bunch of drones at us, which never amounts to anything, but I bet Russians feel good about themselves after doing it. Well, they can keep doing it, but it won’t stop western tanks from being sent. The news about tanks finally being approved are just incredible, so it’s only natural that Russians would have yet another childish tantrum. >

Thank you for the continued updates, Saber. It's always great to hear from you. >

First videos surfaced. Bakhmut looks like holidays in comparison... Good thing about the HIMARS strike on military barracks yesterday - estimated 200+ KIA readying for today advance. >

100% this was not the result of Ramstein, but has been in the works for weeks >

True. There's so much to cooridnate. Not only the tanks themselves, but training, logistic of spare parts and ammunition.. Which makes the entire drama caused by Poland look even dumber in retrospective. >

Russia can't seem to comprehend that countries formally in the USSR don't like them, in fact hate them. They dominated and forced them to fly their flag, speak Russian, built Russian jobs and industry and accept repopulation by Russian immigrants. They gave themselves this problem. >

They do understand they just don't care all the kremlin knows is violence. >

Russia has this grand design for Russia. Every leader must try and expand Russia, every leader must depopulate minorities as much as possible. It really seems like every Russian leader who wants to be remembered follows this format with few exceptions. >

Russia: We don't care if you send tanks...it means nothing to us.
Germany sends tanks
Russia:  REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE >

Why do they have their own cemetery? >

I'd guess a lot of them, being convicted criminals, are not wanted in their family or town graves >

Exactly because of this I find it strange that they are buried rather than just cremated and forgotten. >

Russia sounds like my ex. Bully, Provocative, Angry, Arrogant, Selfish, Destructive. 
Then plays the Victim when you stand up for yourself. 
Pathetic actions by Grown Adults. >

They really are a nation mirroring domestic abusers in their behaviour. >

That’s why they legalized wife-beating.  They couldn’t figure out why it might be wrong. >

Another hilarious rant regarding the tank deliveries (from Girkin):

"Peskov calls the idea to supply Abrams and Leopard tanks to Ukraine a complete failure".
Oh, what a bullshitstorm! Whoo-hoo-hoo!
"For technological reasons the idea is a failure"! How do you like that? Not much to argue!
If the Americans promised to deliver "the best in the world" T-14 Armata tanks instead to the respectable Kiev partners, there would not be any "technical failures". For one simple reason: Armata tanks do not exist. They are a product of Ministry of Defence / Rostech folklore (as in everyone has heard about them, but nobody has seen them). Accordingly, there cannot be any "technical problems" with the Armatas, due to the lack of existence of the object.
On the other hand Abrams and Leopards exist in their thousands and are widely used by many NATO countries. And of course they have technical problems. Which now the Kiev partners will have (together with the tanks).
However, there is a suspicion that numerous technical problems (that exist in all tanks without exception since their invention as an offensive weapon) will not prevent "Abrams" and "Leopards" from fighting and inflicting losses on our troops. Again, unlike the Armata, which cannot inflict damage on the enemy even theoretically, for it is a "folklore item" that only exists for the purpose of embezzlement of the Russian defence budget. >

I detest the man's politics, but at least he's an honest, straight-talking Russian who's not afraid to criticise the powers that be.  That's as rare as rocking-horse shit. >

Remember, there is no free speech in Russia. An intelligence operative cannot have a social media following on his own accord, especially if it's critical of the government. Almost every single Girkin blog post has enough pretext to put him away. People have been arrested for blank signs.
Russia is not monolithic. However Girkin clearly has a handler with direct access to Putin because that's the only way he can keep criticizing the military. Note that Girkin surgically directs his ire at the military but never the GRU. 
Just like Prigozhin, he's a mouthpiece for GRU attacking the military. They're trying to pin all blame on someone else and it's obviously working. >

Natural gas prices have now plunged down to $3.00 per MMbtu, over two thirds lower than it's peak price in the Summer, and basically at a price point that many would consider to be "normal."
Russia's energy extortion weapon has failed. Get rekt Putin. >

Turns out all you have to do is call Putin's bluff and he loses every time. >

He's like me in Texas Hold'em. And I suck at Texas Hold'em. >

Happy birthday Mr President. The worlds gift to you will be one day soon the defeat of Russian pigs >

And maybe a hundred tanks as well! >

The better thermals they were using were of French provenience. I guess this channel has dried up with the war. >

Portugal will send 4 of its 37 Leopard 2A6 according to MoD sources.
Between Germany, Norway, Portugal and the Netherlands, that will probably be enough for a full battalion of 2A6s ready in the short term. >

I believe the target amount in the short term was 88, as in 2 battalions of 44. >


personnel ‒ about 123080 (+910) persons were liquidated,
tanks ‒ 3161 (+9),
APV ‒ 6307 (+23),

Holy shit. Those are some massive loses. Anyone know if this is the result of the failed attacks in the south? >

Looking at the latest footage at r/CombatFootage, I think Russians have already started their offensive in the south several days ago. The reason why they don't announce it is probably because they cannot get past anything and are being wiped together with all the equipment. >

Girkin tried to switch the verbiage of the offensive to a "repositioning" lol.
All those tankies and pro Russians who were cackling about the "major offensive" are getting quiet. >

Russia is nothing if not predictable as fuck. Anyone who has been following this war would know that Russia would launch either a mass missile strike or a mass drone strike. It’s how they respond to every increase in Western arms being sent to Ukraine. >

Ukraine should prepare a trap, set up all their ling range missiles/drones in secret, then get America to lue about sending jet planes or something so Russia gets their planes out for missile attack... then destroy the airfields with the planes out