Here's Rybar's latest Bakhmut map, based on Russian sources. (Rybar doesn't just repeat Russian MOD briefings, they have their own sources in the Russian military who sometimes tell a different tale.) It shows the Ukrainians as having withdrawn from most of downtown Bakhmut as I suggested they would do in a post up above. (To prevent their being caught in a pincer between Russians advancing north from the civic buildings and south from the metal works.) This puts Wagner in control of something like 70% of Bakhmut.
![[Image: Fs5ZjF-XsAQtoa6?format=jpg&name=4096x4096]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fs5ZjF-XsAQtoa6?format=jpg&name=4096x4096)
And this Bakhmut map is from the American Institute for the Study of War, a very pro-Ukraine private think tank with good sources in the US intelligence agencies. (At least one former CIA director is at ISW, along with several retired generals.) In this map, the red shows what these sources and/or official Ukrainian briefings admit where Russia has advanced, while the amber is what Russians themselves claim to have taken (similar to Rybar's map).
![[Image: Fs1kI8zXgAEHFP4?format=jpg&name=large]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fs1kI8zXgAEHFP4?format=jpg&name=large)
Bakhmut news is that Wagner controls most of downtown Bakhmut, reportedly except for around the train station. They have taken Avengard stadium. The western residential area, including some large highrise apartment blocks, is still in Ukrainian hands.
Russian cross-fit training
https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status...0975336448
The tweet below has some drone video of the only remaining road in and out of Bakhmut, where thousands of Ukrainian soldiers remain. While the Russians haven't cut the road in the sense of standing astride it, they do have it zeroed in with their artillery. So it's become something of a 'Highway of Death' for supply convoys.
https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/stat...8126929921
Photo of "the musicians" (it's what Wagnerites call themselves) driving around Bakhmut in a captured US-made M113 armored personnel carrier. (The US and its allies have supplied 200-300 of these to Ukraine since the invasion.)
![[Image: FtUOrdqXgAE94x8?format=png&name=small]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FtUOrdqXgAE94x8?format=png&name=small)
In other news, the long-expected Ukrainian spring offensive looks like it will begin before the end of April. Everyone expects it to be a push south from Zaphorizhia city, towards Melitopol and from there to the Sea of Azov coast in an attempt to cut off Crimea by land. But since the Russians expect the offensive to be there, there's a chance it could turn out to be somewhere else. (The Ukrainians are good at feints like that.) So the Russians are strengthening their defensive positions all along the front. Of course the Russians have spy satellites and intelligence, and it's hard to imagine that they haven't been looking for preparations and military build-ups that will telegraph where the offensive will be.
Talk is that the Ukrainians have prepared a large fighting force equivalent to several NATO divisions, all NATO trained and equipped with invincible Western equipment. If that's true, the Ukrainians should prevail wherever they attack. But that might just be propaganda, since there are also reports that the Ukrainians are suffering from severe ammunition shortages for several artillery types, including HIMARS. The Ukrainians have fired off thousands of precision-guided GMLRS rockets and are said to only have a few hundred left. While supplies from the US have slowed as the US Army grows concerned that its own supply is being seriously depleted to supply Ukraine.
It's hard to know what to believe. I guess time will tell.
And if the Ukrainians commit all of their reserves to the offensive, the Russians might respond by launching an offensive of their own somewhere else along the front where the Ukrainians are weak and unlikely to receive reinforcements who have already been committed to the big offensive elsewhere.
The next few weeks will be interesting.
Eleven days since the last post, and still no sign of Ukraine's spring offensive, while fighting continues in Bakhmut. Wagner has taken the downtown central area and are attacking across the rail line that marks the west side of the central district. Ukraine still has several thousand fighters there, but they are increasingly confined to the westernmost quarter of the town. It really seems like the Ukrainians will have to start a withdrawl soon, but people have been saying that for weeks.
Here's War_Mapper's view, based on what he believes is verified information. Hence it might be a bit conservative about showing recent changes, but it's pretty reliable.
![[Image: FucDKT5WYAA2cfn?format=jpg&name=4096x4096]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FucDKT5WYAA2cfn?format=jpg&name=4096x4096)
April 28, and still no sign of Ukraine's widely anticipated Spring Offensive. (I still expect it's coming though.)
It's hard to imagine it happening without a large scale Ukrainian buildup first. The Russians have spy satellites and a military intelligence service, so if there's a buildup I expect the Russians to detect it and to target it. There's been no open-source indication of that happening, which is odd to say the least.
But there's abundant evidence that the Russians expect the attack to come in Zaphorizhia. That's where they are concentrating their fortifications. But they must not know where the Ukrainians are massing, because they would hit it if they knew.
Here's War_Mapper's animation of Wagner's slow-but-steady advance in Bakhmut since the beginning of the year (four months). The Ukrainians have been sending thousands of soldiers into this meat grinder, which must detract from the forces that they have available for the coming offensive. I don't understand the importance they see in Bakhmut.
Massive explosion in a small Ukrainian city called Pavlograd. The explosion was originally thought to be at the railway yards and was a trainload of S-300 surface to air missiles. (It's what Russian sources are claiming and it still might have been that.)
But it now appears that the explosion was at the Pavlograd chemical works. This place is known as the storage site for huge quantities of old expired solid rocket propellant that came out of 1980's Soviet ballistic missiles. As the decades have gone by, it's grown more and more unstable. And there was growing concern that if it ever caught on fire or exploded, it could create an environmental catastrophe.
https://twitter.com/Spriter99880/status/...5250422787
Video of the road in and out of Bakhmut, passing through the next small village to the west.
Lots of wrecked vehicles, so the Russians are obviously firing on it. But the Ukrainians are keeping it reasonably clear.
Watch on full-screen with the sound on. The city of Bakhmut is on the horizon.
https://twitter.com/IntelCrab/status/165...6243350533
Here's something RU will like: Volunteers in the Czech Republic raised enough money to purchase 15 Czech-made Viktor light antiaircraft guns and mount them on light Toyota pickups. The hope is that they will be effective against Russian drones.
https://global.espreso.tv/czech-voluntee...to-ukraine
![[Image: FscSsCuXsAASHC1?format=jpg&name=small]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FscSsCuXsAASHC1?format=jpg&name=small)
Two have been photographed in Ukraine so they are arriving there
![[Image: FvDhtbwXwAQeEu-?format=jpg&name=small]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FvDhtbwXwAQeEu-?format=jpg&name=small)
(Apr 29, 2023 04:30 AM)Yazata Wrote: [ -> ]Huge fire at the fuel storage site for the Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol. Presumably the result of a Ukrainian drone strike.
Planet Labs, the non-government Earth-imaging company (who have been launching their small satellites on Rocketlab Electrons) have satellite imagery of the Black Sea Fleet fuel depot struck April 28, showing four large fuel tanks destroyed.
https://twitter.com/bradyafr/status/1653485760975355904
![[Image: Fu2aCoYXsAArAEm?format=jpg&name=large]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fu2aCoYXsAArAEm?format=jpg&name=large)