Summary of the daily livestream with Aleksey Arestovych, kindly brought to you by Atis: @savaadaak
English voice-over video by Privateer Station:
Original video in Russian:
Battlefield update:
Kharkiv:
🇷🇺 suddenly activated, started attacks near Korobochkyne and Stara Hnylytsia with a couple of BTGs, got repelled. Now 🇺🇦 trying to figure out meaning of this weird manoeuvre.
Sloviansk:
Local battles with small groups of infantry near Dovhenke-Mazanivka
Siversk:
Quiet, practically no attacks. 🇷🇺 wanted to breakthrough more on south, unsuccessfully.
Bakhmut:
🇷🇺 still attempting same directions north at Krasna Hora, and south at Opytne. 🇷🇺 eager to encircle Kodema, but not having any success.
Avdiivka:
🇷🇺 slowly trying to capture Vesele and Kamianka at north, no success. At south battles near Spartak, Opytne, Pisky, no success.
Marinka:
🇷🇺 doing frontal attacks, no success. At south 🇷🇺 attempts on Novamykhailivka. Pavlivka – traditional attacks
Zaporizhia:
Local level battles.
Kherson:
Local level battles, 🇺🇦 continues to destroy warehouses, bridges, supply attempts. Massive poisoning of 🇷🇺 solders, 22 dead, many being transported to hospitals in Sevastopol.
Crimea:
🇺🇦 working for several days, but 🇷🇺 air defense is also working. Multiple fires are due to intercepted means of attack. Unfortunately in last 2 days 🇺🇦 has not hit anything significant. Drone that hit Navy HQ wasn’t armed, it crashed due to getting shot. However 🇺🇦 gets lots of information about 🇷🇺 air defense, that will be used.
🇺🇦 can mark significant operational success due to 🇷🇺 relocating aviation to mainland. Reminder, that Crimea is Putin’s personal pride, his largest PR material. In a way, operation to liberate Crimea has already started.
Weapons:
It’s not anymore question of supplying some type of weapons, it’s only about quantity. The 25 MLRS launchers (M142 HIMARS and M270) allowed to stop 🇷🇺 offensive. In order to kick 🇷🇺 out completely, 🇺🇦 would need 50-60 launchers, so that 🇷🇺 couldn’t do anything about it. 🇷🇺 has 1300 artillery guns (152mm+), while 🇺🇦 has about 200 western made guns. If there is no local concentration, a ratio of 6 to 1 means parity for 🇺🇦 due to recon and accuracy.
There is problem, that western artillery is not meant for continuous bombardment, it needs careful technical servicing and usage. NATO main power is from aviation, while Soviet armies are built on artillery. Western artillery wears out and breaks more than expected, maintenance and logistics of repairs are quite significant. Even more logistical issues from using different types of artillery – M109, PzH-2000, CAESAR, etc.
On 1300km front-line, 🇺🇦 would want to double the artillery amount. There simply aren’t enough spare artillery guns, to supply 🇺🇦. 🇫🇷 France has provided 18 out of 90 CAESARs they had (20%), which is significant amount. There are some more subjective reasons, that are well known to supporters. Possibly situation will improve in October, when Lend-lease starts working.
Infantry:
Another issue is lack of trained infantry, many of reserves haven’t even held a gun. Some get trained by rotating to active battles, but hat experience is good for defense. For offensive you need much more complicated training, not every unit is up for that.
Many countries (🇬🇧🇫🇮🇪🇪🇩🇰🇸🇪) are providing instructors for very basic infantry training, which is still better than current 🇷🇺 training for 2 weeks.
Solders of both sides are partially worn out, tired, on rotation.
Doubling amount of weapons would help there, in 2-3 months situation would become decisively advantageous to 🇺🇦, ensuring psychological breakthrough.
🇺🇦 Victories:
Right now, it is close to positional war, with exception that each day 3-4 🇷🇺 warehouses and command posts are destroyed. Amount of destroyed 🇷🇺 aviation shows, that they have problems with artillery supplies.
Success in Crimea is only understood by a narrow group of people, 🇺🇦 needs much louder success – liberating several areas, surrounding, capturing solders – actions that don’t need explanation.
Key to such victory is large amount of infantry, experienced and motivated officers. Having large amount of weapons, and destroying everything in depth of 80km would decrease requirements for infantry preparedness, their task would be to walk in, plant a flag, and pat on the cheek of contused enemy. 🇺🇦 only needs doubling of existing weapons, not more, not less.
BGM-71 TOW missiles:
🇺🇸 announced new aid package: NASAMS air defense and TOW missiles. TOW missiles are much heavier than Javelin or Stugna-P, but 🇺🇸 has a lot of them, allowing to saturate 🇺🇦 defenses. If 🇺🇦 is reliably holding defense, it can concentrate for attack at some locations.
Kharkiv-Belgorod:
In general 🇺🇦 air defense is working reliably, today 4 intercepted Kalibr missiles. Kharkiv is close to 🇷🇺 border, and gets shelled by various means that are very difficult to intercept. Iskander missile from launch to hit take 30 seconds, which is very little time to react. Belgorod has strong layered air-defense, yet yesterday something did blow up there. Slowly the situation will get solved.
Zaporozhye NPP:
NATO will not tolerate radiation risk. Form of action doesn’t necessary have to be military battle, it can be ultimatum, establishing zone of control, etc.
🇺🇦 Independence day (Aug 24):
Unlikely 🇷🇺 would target civilian events, they should know consequences (more weapons to 🇺🇦). Air defense will work on high readiness. People who are worried, should stay away from large crowds.
ICEYE satellite:
🇺🇦 military assisted with specifications, it’s a valuable tool for 🇺🇦 intelligence.
