This is a condensation of an analysis of forces in the war in southeastern Ukraina. The tabular data was compiled by a Russian military blogger who self identifies as Alex Leshy.
For a map, click here. You can enlarge the map, if you open it separately.
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
As the shaky ceasefire in southeastern Ukraina enters its second week, it appears the Ukrainian military is planning a second assault into the region.
Ukrainian military leaders have reinforced some key areas and have withdrawn from others. Every indication from Russian social media is that a Ukrainian counteroffensive is inevitable.
When the attack will come is unknown, but it rests somewhere between sooner and later. This writes thinks Ukraina will attack around the October 26th parliamentary elections called by Ukrainian president Piotr Poroshenko last month.
But since the fall rains and the time of rasputitsa (mud roads) are just days away, Ukraina could wait until winter, about late November.
Ukrainian Force deployments
Area A (About 15 k north of Lugansk): 3,100 personnel, 50 tanks, 180 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, 100 mortars, 100 artillery tubes, towed and self propelled, 80 multiple rocket launchers (MRLS). Forces include three territorial defense battalions at full strength: "Chernigov", "Kharkiv" and "Nikolayev", and one territorial defense company from "Aydar". Two battalion tactical groups (one from the 80th Independent Airmobile brigade) and two National Guard artillery battalions from the 55th Artillery Brigade. Defensive frontage is 100 kilometers and between 60 and 70 kilometers in depth, from Schastye to Starobelska.
Area B (Kemennaya): 2,200 personnel, between 62 and 90 tanks, 120 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, about 100 mortars, 80 artillery tubes, towed and self propelled, 30 MLRS. Units deployed include elements of "Sich" Territorial Defense Battalion and "Nikolaev" Territorial Defense Battalion, one battalion from the Ukrainian National Guard, and some units from unidentified mechanized brigades. Defensive frontage of between 50 and 60 kilometers. Area of responsibility includes Borovskoe, Sirotino, Syeverodonets'k, Lisicansk, Vrubovka and Popasnaya.
Area C (Debalcevo-Artemovsk-Popasnaya): 3,600 personnel, 150 tanks, 250 armored personnel carrier/infantry fighting vehicles, 200 mortars, 130 artillery tubes, towed and self-propelled guns, 120 MLRS. Forces include "Kiev-2" Territorial Defense Battalion, "Kiev-11" Territorial Defense Battalion, 25th Territorial Defense Battalion, "Donbass" Territorial Defense Battalion, "Kievan Rus" Territorial Defense Battalion, the 42nd Territorial Defense Battalion, one company from "Aydar" Territorial Defense Battalion and two new battalion tactical groups, one mechanized, and one from the 2nd National Guard Brigade. Defensive Frontage of 50 kilometers. Area of responsibility includes Popasnaya, Trinity, Debalcevo, Uglegorsk, Svetlodarsk and the eastern outskirts of Dzerzhinsk.
Area D (Immediately north of Donetsk city): 3,000 personnel, 100 tanks, 300 armored personnel carrier/infantry fighting vehicles, 80 mortars, 200 artillery tubes, towed and self propelled, 200 MLRS. Three battalion tactical groups from elements of which are from unidentified units, "Artemivs'k" Territorial Defense Battalion, "Shahtersk" Territorial Defense Battalion, one company from "Aydar" National Guard Battalion and one "Right Sector" Battalion. Defensive frontage of 70 kilometers. Area of responsibility includes Dzerzhinsk, Yenakievo and Avdiyivka.
Area E (Immediately west of Donetsk city): 1,600 personnel, 20 tanks, 100 armored personnel carrier/infantry fighting vehicles, 30 mortars, 100 artillery tubes, towed and self propelled, 20 MLRS. Forces include one battalion tactical group from the Ukrainian 93rd Motorized Rifle brigade, one unidentified battalion tactical group, one unidentified Ukrainian National Guard battalion and "SS" Territorial Defense Battalion. Defensive frontage is 40 kilometers. Area of responsibility includes from Avdeyevka to Alenovki.
Area F (Vladimirovka, northwest of Mariupol and southwest of Donetsk city): 3,000 personnel, 100 tanks, 200 armored personnel carriers/infantry fighting vehicles, 150 mortars, 140 artillery tubes, towed and self propelled, 100 MLRS. Forces include two companies from "Shahtersk" Territorial Defense Battalion, one unidentified artillery group including guns from a "Right Sector" unit, two battalion tactical groups, including motorized rifle units said to be possibly from the Ukrainian National Guard and three tank company tactical groups. Defensive frontage of 15 kilometers. Area of responsibility is between Volnovaha and Novotroitskie.
Area G (Mariupol): 3,200 personnel, 50 tanks, 150 armored personnel carriers/infantry fighting vehicles, 120 mortars, 140 artillery tubes, towed and self propelled, 70 MLRS. Forces include "Khortytsya" Territorial Defense Battalion, "Vinnitsa" Territorial Defense Battalion , "Azov" Territorial Defense Battalion, "Kharkiv-1" Territorial Defense Battalion, two companies from "Donbass" Territorial Defense Battalion, one battalion task force of the Ukrainian 79th Airmobile Brigade, one company of marines, one company of "Right Sector" militiamen. Area of responsibility is Mariupol.
Area H (southwest of Lugansk city): 200 personnel, 12 tanks. Forces include elements of the Ukrainian 25th Airborne Brigade and the Ukrainian 30 Mechanized Brigade. Editor's note; Chances are very good these forces have already been withdrawn to Schastye behind the North Donetsk River.
Area J (Izium) 2,000 personnel, 30 tanks, 100 armored personnel carriers/infantry fighting vehicles, 60 mortars, 50 artillery tubes, towed and self propelled, 40 MLRS. Forces include one battalion tactical group of the 1st Tank Brigade, one battalion tactical group of the 80th Airmobile Brigade, "PS" Battalion of the National Guard. This force is part of Kiev's operational reserve totaling 30,000 personnel.
Pro Russian Rebel forces deployments
Area 1 (Lugansk) 5,000 personnel, 30 tanks, 90 armored personnel carriers/infantry fighting vehicles, 100 mortars, 50 artillery tubes, towed and self propelled, 16 MLRS. No indications of length of the defensive frontage, but its current tasks including eliminating remnants of Ukrainian forces in pockets west of Lugansk and assisting forces committed to operations near Schastye (Area 2) on the left bank of the North Donetsk River. Note: Schastye is on the right bank of the river, while militia forces hold the left bank.
Area 2 (Around the left bank of the North Donetsk River, north of Lugansk city): 2,000 personnel, 10 tanks, 50 armored personnel carriers/infantry fighting vehicles, 30 mortars, 30 artillery tubes, towed and self propelled, 10 MLRS. Forces include the militia "Ghost" Brigade under the command of Alexei Brain. Defensive frontage is 90 kilometers.
Area 3 (Forms the western "wall" of the Ukrainian Zone H pocket, west of Lugansk): 800 personnel, three tanks, 15 armored personnel carriers/infantry fighting vehicles, and 20 mortars. Forces include the Don Cossack Army under the command of Ataman Kozitsyna. This area has been battered since the start of the war by repeated assaults from Ukrainian mechanized forces.
Area 4 (Gorlovka): Up to 2,000 personnel, zero tanks, 25 armored personnel carriers/infantry fighting vehicles, 40 mortars, 10 artillery tubes, towed and self propelled. Forces in the area include Brigade Igor Bezlera. Defensive frontage is 90 kilometers. Area of responsibility includes Gorlovka and Yenakievo.
Area 5 (Donetsk city): 14,000 personnel, 15 tanks, 100 armored personnel carriers/infantry fighting vehicles, 80 mortars, 16 artillery tubes, towed and self propelled and 10 MLRS. Defensive frontage is unspecified, but is small inasmuch as the general area of operation is very large. Forces deployed are unidentified. Area of responsibility includes Yenakievo, Krasnii Luch, Deakovo, Amvrosievka, Starobeshevo and Yelenovka.
Area 6 (Mariupol): 6,000 personnel, 28 tanks, 90 armored personnel carriers/infantry fighting vehicles, 60 mortars, 60 artillery tubes, towed and self propelled and 20 MLRS. Defensive frontage is unspecified but these forces are known to be deployed to block the western approaches to Mariupol, as well as conducting patrol operations against Ukrainian units in regions north of the city.
According to the author, Ukrainian forces currently deployed in Ukrainian Anti Terrorist Operation (ATO) enjoy a two to one advantage in personnel, but that ratio is declining. A total of 60,000 are currently deployed in southeastern Ukraina, but 29,000 are on the front line.
For the pro Russian militia, a total of 30,000 are available, not all of which are on the front line.
The most precarious position for the militias throughout the region is in and around Mariupol. Despite being the largest grouping, their operations depend on a slender supply line from Donetsk city, or about 40 kilometers defended by whatever forces in Area 6 (Mariupol) are not committed to the encirclement of Mariupol.
That area, immediately north of Mariupol has been where Ukrainian forces have marched in their effort to split the two republics in two, and where most of the vicious fighting has taken place, namely in Ilovaisk.
Pro Russian militias including one of its leaders, Igor Strelkov swear up and down the Russians are not helping with troops, a charge long ago leveled by the Ukrainians, albeit the issue of equipment is unaddressed. The only Russians in Donetsk or Lugansk are those soldiers who volunteered.
Pro Russian militia sympathizers have claimed in the past that the combat correlations are terrible for even a blitzkrieg type of assault since the militias appear to use a soft flexible defense that permits the heaviest attack to pass, but which then seals off the forces from supply and communications and slowly strangles it.
Chris Covert writes about foreign military issues for Rantburg.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com
Being a Democrat not only means never having to say you're sorry, but also means getting to pretend that history never happened. The Democrats' official party website is proof of that, as its section on "Our History" declares, with all the chutzpah of the proverbial defendant who murders his parents and begs the court's mercy on grounds of being an orphan, that:
It would be hard to offer a more tendentious reading of American history than this.
Look: if you read American history, and the history of the major political parties, you will find much that is both good and bad in their histories on the issues of race and civil rights. No serious, honest adult would claim that either party has had a historic monopoly on virtue or vice on race. I would argue that, if the Republican Party's history since its founding in the 1850s is compared to that of the Democratic Party over the same period, the GOP's history on issues of equal rights before the law stands up favorably against that of the opposing party -- and that the GOP is at worst roughly equivalent with the Democrats over any period of a decade or more that you might choose to examine. But I do not deny that Republicans have not always been in the right on every related issue over the years.
If today's Democrats had a shred of integrity and intellectual honesty, they would have some humility about their own history, rather than offering up the egregiously false claim that they have been on the side of the angels continuously for 200 years. 200 years ago, in 1814, our president was James Madison -- a Democrat, a great man in other ways, but a slaveowner. At least four other Democratic presidents between then and the Civil War owned slaves, and the Democrats were the locus of national political support for slavery throughout that period. The Civil War was launched by Democrats who refused to accept the election in 1860 of an anti-slavery Republican president, for a variety of reasons but mainly due to slavery. Democrats reasserted control of Southern politics at the end of Reconstruction through a heavy application of terrorism by the Klu Klux Klan (in Mississippi in the 1870s, they basically murdered anyone suspected of voting Republican). For nearly a century after that, the supporters of Jim Crow were uniformly lockstep Democrats, many of them progressives -- Woodrow Wilson, the only former citizen of the Confederacy to serve as President and the first progressive Democrat, introduced segregation throughout the federal government, and Franklin Roosevelt regularly received as high as 95% of the vote in Southern states. The 1924 Democratic Convention, in the race against the arch-conservative, pro-civil-rights reform Calvin Coolidge, was popularly known as the "Klanbake" for the heavy and vocal KKK presence; their nominee that year would go on to argue the losing, pro-segregation side in Brown v. Board of Education. And that's before we discuss the federal role in housing discrimination, instituted by a New Deal agency in the 1930s and finally undone by Republican Richard Nixon and his HUD secretary George Romney in the late 60s. Or the Davis-Bacon Act... The politicians who fought for segregation in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s were uniformly Democrats like George Wallace (who won his last election in 1982, as a Democrat), Orval Faubus and Strom Thurmond (who left the Democrats when he gave up supporting segregation). Former KKK members in national life included Democratic Senator and Supreme Court Justice (appointed by FDR) Hugo Black, who sat on the Court until the 1970s, and Senator Robert Byrd, who was still in the Senate until his death in Barack Obama's second year in office.
If you want to put these facts in some historical context, of course, we can talk about history and context. But the Democrats' official campaign website doesn't do that -- it never apologizes to African-Americans for the party's history of supporting slavery and segregation, and actively celebrates the last 200 years of the Party's history as an unbroken record of virtue in which "our party has led the fight for civil rights." The only possible justification for this is the Democrats' confidence that their own voters are completely ignorant of history.
Which is a sad comment on their good faith in dealing with these issues. If this history is leadership on civil rights, what would resistance look like? If they won't tell the truth about their own past, why should we trust them to tell the truth about any issue regarding the past and present of race in America?
Luminaries of the Democratic Party such as Ted Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Hillary Clinton, and William Clinton were not mentioned.
#4
I agree with most of the list and most could be done today.
North America should of joined an energy coalition and started pumping and piping energy. Instead of sending any energy money to Venezuela, Saudi Arabia....
We should of supported Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East. I do not recall any other country in ME that generally has our best interest, values and support when asked.
#5
Islam is NOT your friend. You got any Moslem neighbors? A Mosque in your town. See any hijabs at the Mall?
They all want to come to America and suck up the gravy. But WHY are they leaving their own Moslem crapholes in the first place.? Moslem Values. But YOU are a KUffir and they want you to foot the bill and they want YOU to bend over and give them a prayer room at the local whatever and they don't want to eat your food.
They brought the craphole with them. Moslem craphole Moslem Values. Moslems.
Posted by: Big Thromoth3646 ||
09/14/2014 7:47 Comments ||
Top||
h/t Gates of Vienna
There is just one historically relevant meaning of jihad despite the surfeit of contemporary apologetics. Dr. Tina Magaard -- a Sorbonne-trained linguist specializing in textual analysis -- published detailed research findings in 2005 (summarized in 2007) comparing the foundational texts of ten major religions. Magaard concluded from her hard data-driven analyses:
The texts in Islam distinguish themselves from the texts of other religions by encouraging violence and aggression against people with other religious beliefs to a larger degree [emphasis added]. There are also straightforward calls for terror. This has long been a taboo in the research into Islam, but it is a fact that we need to deal with.
To understand the magnitude of the problem on a global level, and not just on the Syrian and regional fronts, we must be aware of just how significant the CIA's estimation was on the number of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters. Less than two years ago, the CIA estimated their number at just a few hundreds, and a few months ago it estimated their number at 10,000. However, this week it admitted that ISIS forces have in a short period of time tripled to 30,000. Many governments across the world have also confirmed that many of their Muslim citizens have joined the group.
ISIS is now larger than the largest terrorist organization in the world. Its number is double the number of Kuwait's army, and its money, arms and hiding places make it one of the richest states in the region. ISIS fighters also surpass the strength of the world's armies as they possess the will to die. One ISIS fighter is equal to ten soldiers from a regular army. ISIS also includes hundreds of fighters who are willing to perform suicide attacks. ISIS can be a rival of the American army, which is the most trained and equipped in the world. The CIA's estimation of the number of ISIS fighters is most likely based on information from the field, aerial surveillance, interrogating prisoners and gathering information from friendly security apparatuses.
To think that the battle can be completed with aerial intervention or a military campaign in Iraq is a delusion or a simplification of a difficult situation which has grown with time and with negligence. We are confronting a fierce war in Syria and its surrounding countries and it will take us at least two years and probably even double this time to finalize it. All current preparation indicators show that the duration of fighting ISIS will be long especially in Syria. Iraq, as a state and army and considering its capabilities and local alliances, is capable of expelling and defeating ISIS as long as the central government in Baghdad is seriously dealing with the threat of the terrorist organization. However the war on ISIS in Syria is the most difficult on political, social and military levels.
As silence continues over the Syrian regime forces' targeting of 70% of the country's population - who are Sunnis - and as Lebanese Hezbollah militias and Iranian militias continue to fight alongside Bashar al-Assad's forces, ISIS will alter its stance and seek to be embraced by the Sunnis for protection. It will thus gain the sympathy of Sunnis across the world, just like the Taliban which sought refuge in its tribal regions in Afghanistan.
U.S. President Barack Obama's positive step of approving $500 million to train Free Syrian Army fighters to fight ISIS will lay the foundation of relations between the U.S. and the Syrian people. It may be the first step towards a long-awaited decision to support change in Syria. However, we are not counting on the $500 million allocated for training opposition fighters and we are not counting even on the $5 billion to fight ISIS. The $500 million will go to less than 3,000 opposition fighters, which is half the number of Hezbollah fighters fighting in Syria. The opposition army is even smaller when compared to the frightening army of ISIS.
What further complicates the situation is that training 3,000 Syrian opposition fighters is a very slow process that will require two years. Fighting ISIS cannot wait. This will might require drawing more manpower from the lists of thousands of Syrian army defectors who currently reside in refugee camps either inside or outside Syria to join the fight against ISIS as professional soldiers who will help fill the gap. It will also call for reviving efforts to a political solution as perhaps parties in support of Assad now realize its ally has sunk in a swamp and that it is time for a reconciliation government which Assad is not part of.
Posted by: Pappy ||
09/14/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11130 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#7
So much of this is pure bullsh$$. ISIS has an "army", but how well are they trained? Yeah, they may be able to defeat an army with no leadership willing to fight, but let the 1st Marine Division land at Basra and move north, and watch them either run or die. They're just a bunch of murdering thugs. As for the "leadership" of the US, I'll believe in it the first time I see a napalm strike on a line of vehicles, or a squadron of A-10s deployed to Israel.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2014 14:06 Comments ||
Top||
#8
....but let the 1st Marine Division land at Basra and move north, and watch them either run or die.
Exactly what is needed. We'll use the same ROE and detainee processing regime as the Iraqi Army if you don't mind.
#9
This assumes our intelligence services are capable of accurately determining the size of the Kuwaiti army.
ISIS has an "army", but how well are they trained?
Somebody made the point that these guys are not some pickup-team off the street but have been fighting some of the best - Marines, IDF, and such. No doubt they would die in large numbers in a head-to-head fight against 1st Marines. Urban combat is another story. Both Fallujah 1 and the recent scuffle in Gaza come to mind.
Magic Eight Ball says: "kill them now, in the open"
#12
our fatalities are 2 orders of magnitude lower.
Very true. Unfortunately, our country's sensitivity to combat deaths, thanks to MSM spin and general lib wussiness, is 4 orders of magnitude higher than theirs. At least.
[Breitbart] Andy Tobin, current Republican Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, and candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Arizona's District 1, argued that Arizona "is under attack from the federal government" during the weekly Republican address.
"I'm running for Congress for a simple reason: Our state is under attack from the federal government. Day after day, the powers-that-be in Washington try to bury us in more regulations and more havoc. This has to stop. Not just here, but everywhere people are working harder only to have Washington take more of their money and more of their freedom," he said.
Tobin argued that ending "overregulation," repealing ObamaCare, and reducing the federal deficit were crucial to stopping this assault on his state and others. He further pointed to the successes of the state of Arizona during his tenure as speaker.
"That's why the gridlock in Washington is so disappointing. You have Republicans making a good-faith effort, bringing real ideas to the table to help our economy, but Senate Democrats won't give them a vote. They didn't even pass their own bill to help us deal with the crisis at our border. They're more worried about losing their Senate majority than the concerns of the American people," he concluded.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
