Ukraine Conflict (20240514): Full Frontline Update, Kharkiv Offensive Update

Here is a run through the frontlines for the Ukraine conflict.
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[@derrekvanee4567]

John talks like the kids! *mad bussin'!* 😊

[@clockwork-Chris]

Me? First? Usually fashionably late 😉 Thank you JP, greetings all. Slava Ukraini🇺🇦

[@paraandy3821]

Nearly, missed out by a matter of seconds 🥈👏👏👏👏👍😊

[@clockwork-Chris]

@@paraandy3821 haha… doesn’t happen often Andy! All the best mate 👍🇺🇦

[@paraandy3821]

@@clockwork-Chris have a nice day

[@sherrillwhately7586]

No worries. Your first video still appeared an hour before I woke up at 5 AM 💛💙

[@surpriseitsus9622]

🏜 ❤🤗

[@quasar6959]

Thank you, Jonathan for front line update👍👍👍

[@johncromwell2529]

Thanks JP and JR🙌

[@neilfox3208]

I work at the American Sweedish Institute and we had a fundraiser with Ukrainian folk dancing and singing. Was a couple of hundred people there. It was cool to have our event space full of fellow Ukraine supporters.

[@surpriseitsus9622]

That sounds like fun! 🌻

[@KingDog-787]

JR please do the maps lol !!!

[@paraandy3821]

🥉👏👏👏👏👍😊

[@taniaryndenko2381]

💙💛Thanks for the updates 🌻Great job gentlemen ⭐️

[@mike4480]

..Yea, Thanks Johnathan and the Team for the update … 💙💛💙

[@surpriseitsus9622]

Hi Tania 💐 🤗

[@taniaryndenko2381]

@@surpriseitsus9622 👋🌺 have a lovely day 🌻

[@johnhare595]

Cheers JP, 👍😊

[@tommarney1561]

I like having the gray zone in the same blue as AP's Russian line. I also recall him saying that it was easier to deduce Ukraine's frontline than Russia's.

[@niar6]

JR the absolute Chad!

[@johncromwell2529]

How do you find the time? 👏🙏🇺🇦👍🤞

[@Nick-pq4ri]

Speaking of the Ukrainian flag 🇺🇦 Worcester Cathedral has been flying said flag for I don’t know how long but noticed it about a month ago I often sit outside a coffee shop overlooking the Cathedral while catching up with your first update of the day 😂 another story which happened with my much better other recently came across a lady who looked a bit lost or confused and enquired if she was okay turns out she was lost and looking to catch up with her son at a sports day at one of the local schools so my good lady offered to walk the short distance back to our home and give the lady a lift to the school, turns out she was a Ukrainian Doctor who couldn’t practice here at that time because of the qualifications required so she was cleaning for a living and explained that her husband was on the front lines and didn’t know of his whereabouts at that time I was moved by this and really chuffed with my good lady’s actions

[@ATPGeo]

Amazing. Would have been great to stay in touch. Goodness, I could have interviewed her!

[@surpriseitsus9622]

Wow, ❤ to your lady 💐

[@tommarney1561]

Hello! 🫡

[@paraandy3821]

🥇👏👏👏👏👍😊

[@surpriseitsus9622]

Hi Tom 🥇 ❤ well done

[@user-rv4ob4tg9x]

Sup bois

[@blagoyan8933]

Hey Jonathan, did you missed that in Kyiv Independent from 19/12/23 Zelensky:Kharkiv Oblast fortifications strongest, other regions should follow suit.

[@keeganvogl6293]

Hey JP, when you're knighted for your diligent work after this war is over, what knight order would you join?

[@ATPGeo]

Boogie nights

[@surpriseitsus9622]

​@@ATPGeo😂 💃

[@markaguilera493]

👋

[@brianivey5682]

So my faith in the new commander in chief is shaken. He was involved in the first Kharkiv defence. He had to know the best places to place the defensive works. Now he dismissed the commander for digging defensive lines in the wrong places. I'm sorry, the new commander in chief knew a Kharkiv campaign was to open weeks ago. Yet he clearly did not review the defensive plan for the city. If he did, he displayed poor oversight and tactical acumen. Either way it's dismaying. I've expressed my doubts about him in the past. He's got a reputation for timid exploitation of tactical success, and having above average casualties.

[@user-tk8cu3bj5h]

👋🏼🫶🏼🇺🇦🇬🇧

[@patrickkarlsson183]

I would not call it significant gains, most places it's a copple of fields or a copple of hundred meters, if you zoom out so you can see the whole of Ukraine you would proberbly not see any different at all.

[@malekmasud2293]

What a logic!

[@alandoherty5237]

I am still of the opinion that this is a faint from Russia

[@Paul-wo3qh]

AHA 5th LSA

[@surpriseitsus9622]

Nice! ❤

[@Paul-wo3qh]

@@surpriseitsus9622 😁😁😁😁

[@iondarwish895]

President Zelensky has sacked the First Deputy Chief of Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service, one Andrii Alieksieenko.

[@wildsurfer12]

The Russians won’t be short of army boots now they have the shoe factory!

[@FunnyQuailMan]

The situation in Kharkiv, while no doubt difficult, doesn't suggest Ukraine's in any real trouble there; in fact, it very much reminds me of Vuhledar. What's more, Ukraine, being spread relatively thinly & with relatively fewer reserves, is not going to shift and immediately commit large formations of troops & resources to a particular axis until the Russians have shown their hand and committed large formations, vehicles & resources of their own to any particular axis. The Ukrainian defensive disposition, a relative dearth of defensive preparations like mines & trenches immediately along the border, doesn't appear to be a mistake at all. Aside from the fact that only limited defenses along the border could have been constructed in any depth while inside the range of Russian weapons, even the rhetoric from some Ukrainian military personnel who've said loudly that there "are no defenses" where there clearly are suggests to me that the Ukrainians intend to use their defensive disposition to their advantage. By funneling the Russians into prepared kill boxes, similar to what they'd done in Vuhledar but on a larger scale and with strategies including communications & intelligence operations like having Ukrainian brigade & battalion commanders feign complaints about lacking defenses along particular axes, the Ukrainians can canalize the Russians along particular axes of advance and more readily choose their fights where they'll have the greatest advantages on prepared ground. It's unlikely that Ukraine would use much more than FPV drones & light indirect fire until a certain concentration of certain, relatively high-value Russian assets that will be difficult to replace have been committed. Once they have channeled larger & more heavily armored formations performing movement to contact operations inside these kill boxes, drawing significant forces into fights on prepared ground of Ukraine's choosing, and there's more than just light Russian infantry on foot conducting recon by fire, I suspect the Ukrainians will then begin committing more resources & springing their traps with artillery-dispersed mines to close the kill box & isolate significant Russian formations to eliminate them with heavy indirect fire, etc. In fact, I suspect such preparations have been made all along the border, and even all along the rest of Ukraine's interior lines to draw Russians in as they choose, both to buy time for sufficient Western aid to arrive and to have the Russians committed & bottlenecked like fish in a barrel once the Ukrainians are ready to start springing traps.

[@ConradAinger]

😆🤣😆🤣

[@FunnyQuailMan]

@@ConradAinger Great point. Well argued. /s

[@ConradAinger]

@FunnyQuailMan Today, in the New York Times, Budanov (I take you know who he is) has said this: 'The situation grows more critical every hour... We have no more reserves...' Is this compatible with what you argue? But I suppose you will say that he is Cleverly misleading the Russians, and his own side too. What you say, I think, is perfect example of Ukrainian Idealism. You necessarily put a favourable interpretation- one favourable to Ukraine - upon whatever happens.

[@FunnyQuailMan]

@@ConradAinger I'd stated that it is no doubt difficult for Ukraine, but there is nothing suggesting that the situation is critical or that the Russians will be taking Kharkiv imminently. I'd said the Ukrainians are short on reserves, but there is nothing suggesting that the Ukrainian lines are about to break completely due to the current series of Russian assaults in any new or existing direction. Hence, I said, in so many words, that the Ukrainians are likely taking what advantages they can considering their difficult but not imminently critical situation. They'll prepare the ground where they can as best they can, do what they can, like they did in Vuhledar, to draw the Russians into prepared areas, wait for Russia to commit their resources, and then strike back with greater firepower (which the Ukrainians have been wise to use sparing while there is little to none to spare) where the Russians have substantially committed their forces so as to utilize their own resources as effectively & economically as possible, committing resources only as dictated by necessity & biding their time while western aid arrives, while avoiding having to repeatedly pull their own troops from one part of the line to redeploy elsewhere again & again. It does no good engaging in wild goose chases with the Russians by constantly following around light infantry that are on foot conducting recon by fire all along the line within only a few kilometers of the border before the Russians have even fully committed to the fight in any direction. If Ukraine were to do so, they'd likely find themselves in an even more difficult situation should Russia be merely feinting toward Kharkiv to distract from the main attack toward Sumy or elsewhere, which Budanov had also talked about in that same article you mentioned. Best as I can tell, you're just, for whatever reason, upset that a pro-Ukrainian opinion would be giving the Ukrainians a pro-Ukrainian benefit of the doubt. I gave my opinion on what appeared to be the Ukrainian's approach to the variously difficult tactical & strategic situations along the front, and did not claim that the situation was not difficult, or that the Ukrainian approach was surefire, easy, risk-free, would be without costs, or even that it would ultimately be successful in achieving all its hopeful aims. You have not actually or honestly provided any refutation to anything I've said, but only made a round-about statement of your displeasure with a pro-Ukrainian viewpoint in the comments of a pro-Ukrainian video on a pro-Ukrainian YT channel for being pro-Ukrainian. Now, do you have any actual, honest arguments to suggest an alternate approach(es) by Ukraine, or are you simply being a troll?

[@ConradAinger]

@FunnyQuailMan There are many things to suggest that the situation is critical for Ukraine. There is what Budanov has said. Do you believe that he said it to deceive the Russians ( though they wouldn't be), and his own people, and the Americans too? The general commanding the Ukrainians in the Kharkov area has been dismissed by Syrysky. This action was to deceive the Russians? Videos are emerging that show increasing numbers of Ukrainians surrendering, including men from elite units like the Kraken Regiment, rushed from Chasiv Yar to the Kharkov area. This would be an attempt to mislead the Russians, would it? Suppose the Ukrainians were to counterattack and drove the Russians back, would that be the Russians luring the Ukrainians into a trap? No, because of course you apply a different standard to each side. The main problem for Ukraine is manpower, they are evidently desperately short of men, and that is because the Russians have successfully been applying 'active attrition '. I do not in the least mind people expressing pro-Ukrainian views. But I as entitled to dispute them as you are to do the opposite.

[@krisverrico0910]

Youre crazy

[@Liondust]

Maybe. Or maybe you watched too much Russian propaganda? (honest question)

[@surpriseitsus9622]

How so? Making a statement like that is... weird

[@krisverrico0910]

59 covid boosters, he already has problems, yet hes taking more boosters, complicating the situation. 59 boosters, i understand 1, 2. Or even 5. But 59????????????? Thats way over the top,

[@Liondust]

@@krisverrico0910 Not sure if he meant that literally. I don't know how it works with MS.

[@albertvanlingen7590]

It's suspicious that Ukraine's decision makers aren't pushing for the idea of Latvia and France sending boots on the ground. If it was me I would scream for more troops to come 😮