March 8th, 2022

 Good morning, its Day 13. My apologies on this later post. Yesterday was an interesting day to say the least.

 One of the uncomfortable realities of war is civilians will die. We’ve recently seen GRAD fire hitting apartments, cluster bombs rocking residential neighborhoods, and missiles hitting schools. Ukraine has come out strongly saying these are war crimes (slightly ironic seen as the 2014/15 stage of the War in the Donbas Ukraine also conducted similar strikes). And there is good rational for that. However, Russia have very few guided bombs and are suspected to have run out 10 days ago. Coupled with poor intelligence and commanders not caring and you will get this. It’s not right, the fourth Geneva convention in tandem with the Hauge conventions outlaw it; but it should be expected in urban warfare. However, after a day of each side blaming the other for breaking a ceasefire, the International Red Cross announced that the evacuation routes had been mined. The party behind it wasn’t mentioned. Simply that after reaching the first checkpoint they realized the road ahead was mined. Why was it mined (bear in mind that most land mines are outlawed) I do not know, nor do I know who exactly was behind the mining. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. Was it Azov? or the Russians?

In combat news, Russia encircled the small town of Orikhiv (14,136 pop) today on their push to Zaporizhzhia. Other assault by Russia near the town of Sieverdonetsk took place to shorten the front. That seemed to be the extent of the Russian successes on the ground. North of Mariupol Ukrainian forces claimed they halted a Russian offensive aimed at encircling the Ukrainian troops attempting to relieve Mariupol. Ukraine today once again showed the weakness to the Russian attack with multiple convoys being raided. The most notable at Pryluky left 7 fuel trucks either destroyed or captured. Another ambush outside of Lysychansk (north of Luhansk) left multiple armored Russian vehicles destroyed, halting the advance. Ukraine also finished clearing Russian positions around Mykolaiv and the airport. Russian positions, especially those so far from the boarder are having trouble remaining supplied and are becoming more and more like a fish out of water. Meanwhile seemingly every Russian assault is running into dug in Ukrainians. And if they do bypass them well, there’s always the supply convoy. The Javelin has received lots of praise for its tank kills. But more valuable just might be the RPG-28 used in so many of the supply convoy ambushes. It’s doubtful to penetrate a T-90 but it will obliterate a GAZ-66. And a tank with no fuel or no ammo is just target practice.

 This morning Russia began fresh assaults on Kharkiv and Sumy, the most recent footage out of Sumy I saw were Ukrainians driving a Russian tank claiming the fighters captured the parade tank. From Kharkiv there seems to be a tank battle starting with Russian tanks being engaged by a Ukrainian T-80. It seems Russia’s priority today it Kharkiv and Sumy. These defences have undoubtedly been a nightmare for Russia High Command. Meanwhile Ukraine will likely continue with attacking convoys and setting ambushes for Russian advances. They are likely willing to let Russia deplete its supply in more assaults. But Ukraine cannot afford to simply defend. We’ve already seen the danger Russia can pose when they break through Ukrainian lines. Nor does Ukraine want Russia dug in around the capital. Counter attacks will likely start by the weekend. In Meltipol a Russian Armoured train was seen pulling into the station as Ukrainian rails are connected to Russia’s this is likely going to be a common way Russia moves supply as armoured trains are considerably harder to attack and destroy. We are also likely to see Russia using their engineers to lay small pipeline to pipe fuel to the front. Finally, we also saw Ukraine use a GRAD to attack and damage a Russian patrol vessel. While Ukraine’s naval days are on hold, they seem determined to still sink the VMF (Russia’s Navy).

 Small aside, Ukraine’s desire to sink Russian warships, even though they seem to lack a navy and proper shore defence (I’ve heard rumours that there’s a Neptune battery up and running but I doubt it’s more than one or two). Perfectly encapsulates the Ukrainian mindset. This is more than defence, it’s the pursuit of the destruction of the enemy. Because who the fuck uses an inaccurate MLRS system to try to hit a moving ship in the sea? This is probably also the biggest difference between the Winter War and this war. The Winter war was defence. Finland, especially on the Karelia isthmus, were focused on stopping the Soviet Army. Ukraine seems more intent to destroy the Russian invaders.