Will Putin Invade Ukraine?

[Hydra009]

There was a lot of news today and I'm not even sure if I caught all the big news items:

* Zelenskyy made his way to Brussels, addressed the European Parliament in person

* Rheinmetall (German arms manufacturer) in talks with Ukraine regarding potentially sending Panther tanks to Ukraine

* Rheinmetall is also in talks about possibly building a tank factory in Ukraine (obviously, this wouldn't even be considered if a Russian victory was in the cards)

* Portugal to send 3 Leopard 2A6 tanks to Ukraine in March

* the UK is considering sending Harpoon anti-ship missiles or surface-to-air Storm Shadows to Ukraine, Kyiv vows that it would use long-range missiles to strike deep into occupied territory, including Crimea

* Wagner allegedly stops recruiting prisoners from Russian prisons because most refuse, thinking it suicide (statistically, this is nearly always the truth)

* Ukrainians reveal Russian plot to carve up Moldova

* In the Kharkiv region, the Ukrainians destroyed a Russian helicopter with artillery (it was landed)

* first visual confirmation of a destroyed Terminator BMP:

That music *chef's kiss*

[Cassia]

Drones are a big game changer even though they can't be that hard to jam. I see drone vs drone dog fights in the near future.

[Hydra009]

There already was one.  A Ukrainian drone slammed into a Russian drone, knocking it out of the air.

[Hydra009]

Kremlin orders bomb shelters to be upgraded across Russia

They wouldn't need to fear bombing if they weren't bombing others.

[Hydra009]

Russia's cope with the Vuhledar disaster is that the Ukrainians staged a fake battle with captured Russian gear, LOL

Quite an expensive and convincing fake, and it sure was nice of the Russians to let them drive from known Russian positions.

I suppose there won't be any funerals or death announcements in Russia since no Russian troops were lost, huh?

[Hydra009]

[Hydra009]

Russian offensives experience slight difficulties

According to the source, Russia's generals are ready to turn tens of thousands of their own servicemen into "mincemeat" at the behest of their superiors. At the same time, he said, the generals aren't taking into account any of the obvious risks this kind of maneuver carries.

"The Ukrainians get absolutely accurate information about all of our movements from Western intelligence agencies," he said. "Amassing enough forces in a particular area without exposing them to strikes from [Ukrainian] HIMARS and long-range artillery is impossible."

As a result of the attacks, we end up getting a lunar landscape [i.e. the area is potmarked with artillery strikes, making it resemble the surface of the moon] with the remnants of a population that hates us, rather than inhabited settlements. Enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups operate in the occupied territories. They stab you in the back, plot the land for the artillery, mine the roads, take prisoners. In circumstances like these, holding the front can only be done at the cost of enormous losses," he said.

[Hydra009]

1140 invaders eliminated yesterday (new record!)

[Hydra009]

Cheapskate Dictator: Widows of cruelly-sacrificed Russian mobniks receive fur coats in exchange for their loved ones' lives - only for them to be snatched back

[Hydra009]

Institute of War Assessment for 2/11:

Russian forces' reported culmination and tactical failures around Vuhledar, Donetsk Oblast, have likely further weakened the Russian ultranationalist community's belief that Russian forces are able to launch a decisive offensive operation. A prominent Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Russian forces failed to quickly advance in the first days of their offensive to capture Vuhledar and that Russian forces had lost the initiative by the end of January due to Ukrainian forces' rapid transfer of reserves to the area. The milblogger made his assessment that the Russian offensive to capture Vuhledar has likely culminated in response to viral footage showing Ukrainian forces destroying a disorderly column of Russian mechanized forces in the Vuhledar area. Russian milbloggers seized on the footage to criticize the Russian military command for repeating the same failures that have plagued the Russian military throughout the war in Ukraine, with one prominent milblogger arguing that such incidents illustrate that the Russian army is unable to conduct an offensive along the entire Donetsk front.

The disparity between the limited but significant Russian advances in the Bakhmut area and the lack of meaningful advances elsewhere in Ukraine may support milblogger and Ukrainian observations that Russian forces are unable to secure rapid advances through traditional mechanized maneuver warfare.

ISW has observed limited footage of Russian tactics in areas separate from the Bakhmut effort that suggests that Russian forces are engaging in more traditional mechanized maneuver warfare tactics with regular, not elite, motorized rifle, naval infantry, and tank elements. All the formations so far observed were rendered combat-ineffective in earlier phases of the war and have very likely been reconstituted with mobilized personnel. The Russian military appears to have been unable to prepare its mobilized personnel to conduct effective mechanized offensive operations in the short period of time since their call-ups, as ISW forecasted.

FNGs reinforcing previously shattered units, not enough time to meaningfully train for combat.  What could go wrong?

[Hydra009]

900 invader kia today (13 tanks!)

[Hydra009]

Frogfoot croaked: Advanced Russian plane shot down over Bahkmut

And with a manpad, no less.  I wonder what'll happen when Ukraine gets Western jets...

[Hydra009]

Perun raises an interesting point in that drone videos are usually heavily edited and show only victories.  On the other hand, a particular technique might be so successful that they intentionally don't release footage because that would run the risk of the enemy learning how to counter it.  That said, it's awfully interesting that there are no videos of the US-donated phoenix ghost drones (kamikaze drones intended to strike armored targets).  Of course, we don't know for sure why such videos are not forthcoming and it could be for a variety of unexciting reasons, but it is interesting in itself that this addition to the battlefield had a lot of fanfare and then just flew under the radar (pun intended?)

[Hydra009]

All in:  Denmark sends all 19 of its Caesar artillery to Ukraine

This slightly more than doubles the amount of Caesars in Ukraine, raising the total to 37.  12 more are expected from France.

[Hydra009]

Three explosions reported in Mariupol, at least one Russian base hit