Malazan Empire: Mentalist - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

DeepState updates the map on the Lyman axis with "Part 3 of Operation Vivaldi"- which includes Ridkodub, Katerynivka, Nove and Lypove, as well as a few SQKM E of Novomykhailivka towards Makiyivka (no, not that one).

Biletsky claims the 3rd Army Corps took about 250 prisoners during this phase, where the orcs were expecting an assault from Shandryholove towards Zelena Dolyna, but the hit came on the flank instead.

Although this clearly shows some gains, the narrowest part of the remaining enemy salient is still 9 x 9, with another 7 x 12 wider segment all the way to the Zherebets; this could be declared as "cleared" territory in phase 4; But even this would still leave a roughly 30 x 25 area from the Zherebets to the Krasna, which is my shorthand for "pushed past the maximum gains of autumn 2022" for the UAF.

Basically, while this infinitely complicates the orcs' task of "capturing all of Donbas", it doesn't add that much to UAF's goal of 'deoccupying the northern part of Luhans'k Oblast to the pre-2022 situation". Stabilizing the frontline along the Krasna (including liberating Kreminna) would be the absolutely best case scenario in this sector. And that's being extremely optimistic, imho.

Yeah, until prominent Z-heads start whining about a "massive regrouping", I'm not buying this hopium.

The UAF could, potentially, get within reach of the Krasna somewhere along the Svatove- Kreminna road, especially if the orcs have significant manpower shortages; but given the ongoing pressure on Kup'yans'k and Borova further N, it's unlikely they'll be able to clear that entirely.
If they regroup to Kreminna, we'll likely see a repeat of the Kherson scenario, where UAF will start to target the crossings on the Krasna to force a retreat. I don't think Belousov or Gerasimov would survive authoring that sort of an order.

Cause, on 21 September 2026 - 04:09 PM, said:

Considering the stupid that's currently in charge of NATO's top contributor, it gets hard to blame Moscow for trying.

edit: oh, incidentally, the "elections" are done. United Russia was assigned about 56% of the popular vote (out of the 225 PR seats), but combined with the individual district FPTP seats, they net 355 out of the 450, meaning they have constitutional majority and then some.

Cause, on 20 September 2026 - 10:32 PM, said:

We are unsure what their impression of NATO's readiness for a colelctive response is at this point.

If they believe that NATO will try to avoid escalation, prevaricate, and some NATO members might straight-up refuse to contribute to collective defense, then they will continue to gradually escalate their hybrid intrusions, hoping to prompt the crisis response that will demonstrate that NATO's collective security promise is insubstantial.

If they believe that the NATO states will be willing to reply with force, then that would serve as the best deterrence.

Nothing is gonna happen until people in Moscow get the tally from the so-called "elections" and figure out how much they have to cook the numbers to give United Russia 73% of the Duma seats.

If they need to be adding above 25%, they're going to hesitate before doing anything too crazy.