April 24 — Day 425a — Pictures of nothing, Bounce the Dnipro, Sink der Kamzatov!

Hi FB!

I’ll start out with what isn’t happening, because that has given us some great images.

OK, now the pictures that we have because of nothing happening. What I mean is, I’m well aware Bakhmut has boiled down to a sort of Battle of Verdun, where both sides’ generals keep saying that even though the lines aren’t moving much the kill rates are very much in our favor, so eventually we’ll defeat the enemy. That’s as may be.

But on the Ukrainian side, clearly, another thing the clever guys in the UAF are doing is rotating units in and out of the lines in Bakhmut, and in some cases it’s clear that part of the point is to “blood” (i.e., place in combat where people get killed) units with new personnel fills. This is SOP in most competent armies.

And here is a list of units that have been in Bakhmut very recently, in most cases by battalion, and that now (I estimate) are now out of Bakhmut and are (not an estimate, confirmed) are in pretty intensive training — training that, surprise, very closely matches those units’ supposed roles in the upcoming offensive per the Pentagon leaks.

They include: 3rd Assault Infantry, 24th Mech Infantry, 46th Mech Infantry, 47th Mech Infantry, and 79th Air Assault infantry. How do I know this theoretically confidential information? Because, those units have started posting all manner of images and reports of the units in training, and in the 47th Brigade’s case the army central command sent its photographers too. Clearly, General Zaluzhny wants the world to know a big chunk of the UAF is practicing things like breaching obstacles, clearing trenches, infantry-tank coordination, cross-country driving, tactical concealment, unit marksmanship et al. As with many skill-related activities in the UAF, it turns out these units had some pretty competent photographers with them recently, hence the first several photographs, attached.

A soldier from 46th Mech Infantry, in training. The 46th reportedly was one of the units that lost Soledar. It was brand-new at the time, the 46th is Ukraine’s first brigade largely built out of new drafts trained in Britain. In recent weeks a battalion of the unit was part of Bakhmut’s defenses and certainly there’ve not been any reports of the 46th failing to hold there. This is an army photo from training for media, not the real deal.

UAF photograph of troopers from, I believe, 79th Air Assault Brigade, in training. Could be wrong, need to check this.

Infantry from 47th Mech Brigade, in training with flames lit in the background for a really good photograph

47th Mech Brigade, in training. See the Bradley? [and a 120mm on a Challenger as a reader pointed out]

Oleksandr Sak, commander of 47th Mech Brigade. This is one of the UAF’s high flyers. He made a name for himself fighting with 93rd Mech Brigade

Cool-looking sniper pretends to be at war during training, official photograph, 24th Mech Infantry

Fighters from 3rd Assault Infantry Brigade practice clearing trenches. Unit media photo. You can decide why they published it.

Also two munitions-related images. First an unexploded bomb the Russians accidentally dropped on their city Belgorod, probably on Saturday. Rescue workers found it following another bomb, which did blow up, that hit a residential section of the city. So yes, the Russian air force is bombing Russian civilians by accident, and no one appears to be angry (in public anyway).

The image is a unexploded bomb that Russian rescue workers found, after searching through debris left by a Russian air force bomb that a Russian bomber dropped on the city Belgorod on Saturday. The first bomb exploded.

Russian media reports that after the Russian air force bombed the city of Belgorod, rescue workers found another bomb and it was a lot of work digging it up. Several thousand people evacuated for a while.

Bakhmut

The Russians still appear to be advancing very slowly in house to house fighting and, as noted above, the point is not so much gaining ground as making the other guy bleed. Fighting is still along the rail line, Wagner took the rail station two days ago but it’s not clear to me that they’re still holding it. Usually when Wagner captures something noteworthy they make a big deal about it in social media, but not this time, so far as I’ve seen.

I’ve also not seen a lot of complaints in the last few days of the Bakhmut supply roads being under threat. It seems like among other units volunteers from the Kharkiv Territorials, 30th Mech Brigade, 92nd Mech Brigade — one of the most capable formations in the entire UAF — and possibly 93rd Mech Brigade are in Bakhmut at the moment.

Vuhledar

Interestingly, the most visible unit in terms of battle videos and from the lines reports is no longer 72nd Mech Brigade, the guys that gutted Russia’s 40th and 155th Marines last month, but 35th Marine Brigade. I have reason to believe the UAF Marines were rotated in there recently. They claimed they ran a counterattack and captured the village Verkhmy Dachi, among other things supposedly capturing 20 RF soldiers, which is a lot. I haven’t seen a rise in POW video or other possible confirmation.

The other UAF mentioned as fighting there was 56th Mech Brigade, which of course begs the question as to whether General Zaluzhny did in fact pull the 72nd , like the 92nd a heavily-armed mech unit that has become a fire brigade type formation for the Ukrainian high command, out of the line for R&R and prep for participation in, well, maybe, for the offensive.

Nevelske

The Russians claimed a new assault unit called Shtorm along with some DPR tanks captured this village to the west of Peski, taking it from defenders from 59th Motorized Brigade. If this took place it would be the first westward movement, albeit by five kilometers or less, by RF units from Peski in about nine months.

Dnipro “bridgehead”

Most of you will already have seen the reports of the UAF raid, or major river crossing, or small boat activity, or biggest amphibious operation since about Normandy, that started on Sunday.

Confirmed is this: during the day, two rubber boats carrying nine UAF infantrymen, and several large bags, landed at a concrete wharf in the village Dachny, on the left bank of the Dnipro, where they met zero resistance. The UAF dudes unloaded the boats, walked through a belt of forest, and were last seen by drones walking in an adjacent and a little larger village called Nevelske. After a while the Russians shelled both places with unclear results.

Both Nevelske and Dachny exist as down market residences for summer vacationers that are cool with lots of mosquitoes, a percentage of older people who just refuse to leave where they grew up, and fishermen. It’s now Monday, and no, the Ukrainians are not laying pontoon bridges, rushing up air defenses, or lining up tanks on the Dnipro right bank to dominate approaches to the “bridgehead”.

This is almost certainly a case of 73rd Training Detachment (Ukraine’s water-borne Spetsnaz, more or less) messing with Russian defenses and officials in the Kherson sector. You could take it as a distraction tactic designed to draw Russian attention away from the critical Zaporizhia sector, or, you could take it as a sneaky double-distraction designed to convince the Russians the Ukrainians aren’t serious about an assault crossing of the Dnipro, and boy will they be surprised when Zaluzhny pulls a couple of brigades of combat engineers and assault bridging out of his hat, and hey presto he’s right up there with Sharon’s and Adnan’s crossing of the Suez Canal.

See what kind of a speculation road nine guys in two boats can lead to? I think that was probably the point. Spiffy Russian security cam image of one of the motor boats cutting a pretty serious wake, doubt the harbor master allows that.

One map of the UAF incursion across the Dnipro

Another map highlighting the general area of the Ukrainian incursion across the Dnipro

Speaking of amphibious

The Ukrainians launched another two kamikaze motor boats at Sevastopol harbor this morning, reports are conflicting as to what happened. The Russians say one boat blew up on its own and a second got blown up by harbor defense forces. Independent Russian news platforms and Sevastopol-based social media describe a pair of beefy explosions, one of which was next to where ships

Stuff for Ukraine, plus offensive rumors, factoid format

- Ukraine Defense Minister confirms Patriot system is operational, which we knew, but adds a second one is “en route”. As noted a German origin battery is in country and Ukraine is waiting on systems from Netherlands and the US. It is hard to overstate how critical to the offensive these systems will be, because it/they will basically determine whether or not the Russian air force is able to interdict the UAF attacks seriously.

- US Chief of Staff Mark Milley at a presser said 25,000 Ukrainians are in training in Germany right now, and that 8,000 finished that training and are now forming up in nine brigades — yes, nine like mentioned in the Pentagon Leaks papers — in Ukraine.

- Images have appeared of Leopard 2A4s in training in Ukraine.

- Images have appeared of a remote-controlled machine gun in field use with 68th Brigade, in shades of Walter White. Video.

- Kyrylo Budanov, the intel guy who is rapidly becoming the unofficial spokesman for military activities because the UAF really isn’t saying anything, in a recent interview said the offensive plan is still more or less on track but the UAF is still waiting for equipment to get in country.

- In separate comments, Budanov said that talks are advancing for a major prisoner exchange which would basically hand all POWs, both sides, back to their home countries. Something like 2,200 Ukrainians are currently held by the Russians, he said. I make note of this because of the long-established pattern that when big prisoner exchanges are planning or in progress, historically, big military operations are not.

- David Petraeus (CIA, Afghanistan) speaking at the Bush School said the offensive will take place in late May or early June. Ben Hodges was on one of the majors, I forget which, he said the offensive is coming “in a few weeks”. My personal estimate remains “sometime in May”.

continued…