Peter wrote:
And they are losing 200-300 men a day (dead) to go 10km in 30 days.
Where are you getting this information, Peter?
Precise casualities data are sometimes missing even for conflicts long over. It can be 1000/day or 10/day.
I’d add to the topic that one of the main reasons of this Russian “advance” was Ukrainan reallocation of troops and artillery to the south, to prepare for the counterattack towards Kherson. Ukrainan troops around the Donetsk maginot line are practially left without artillery support. And the Russians have used this opportunity to progress through this heavily fortified area.
Question is now if the counterattack will ever happen or will happen somewhere else. In my opinion it will be around Kharkov instead – if it happens. Unfortunately Ukranian forces seem to be unable to concentrate enough fire/manpower to make a successful counterattack attempt.
I not an expert here but what I think they could do more efficiently – instead of fixating on the counterattack thing – continuing hardening those fortifications, slowing down further Russian advance with flexible defense, and continue sabotage actions.
Russia has poured in another 25000 men recently and it makes a Ukrainian counter-attack in the south a lot harder. They aren’t getting the hardware at anywhere near the required rate.
That “lack of artillery support” looks like a cock-up which was fixed. But yes Ukraine is just short of everything. From the West, lots of promises, not much delivered (well, a lot of obsolete hardware being sent) apart from the US but even they are unable to produce the required volume.
There is a lot of lessons being learnt. For example the US Switchblade suicide drones have turned out to be very easy for Russia to jam. The Toshka missiles nearly all got shot down, and most Russian “cruise” missiles are getting shot down by Ukraine (not surprising since they both know the internals very well). Nearly all HIMARS are getting through, which is crucial.
This is a good diagram. The front line position now, and 1 month ago
Peter wrote:
This is a good diagram. The front line position now, and 1 month ago
Media report that Russia has almost WWI-like losses for very minor advances.
I think we have to be careful about what the media says. If everything that the media said were try, Russia would have collapsed by now.
The media like to tell us all the “good news” from Ukraine’s side and the “bad news” from Russia’s side. Because that’s what we want to happen. But the truth is probably more nuanced.
Sure. Russia has unrestricted “basic” weapons production i.e. artillery, shells (ww1 stuff which Russia likes to smash everything up with, and when it is all smashed up, the enemy withdraws from there because it is just rubble), and while Putin is resisting full scale conscription (not a “war” yet) he has plenty of men who are willing to go and fight, in return for increased payments.
Russia can’t build missiles and stuff like that at the previous rate. They used a lot of Western components in the accurate ones. But also Ukraine is shooting down most of the Russian missiles (where they have air defences).
But Russia is not going to collapse anytime soon. They are selling lots of oil and stuff to the 3rd World; their economy is seeing only a 5-10% dip. And the population (most of it) has always loved strong men no matter how crazy they are, Russia has always defined itself in terms of war, violence, rape, pillage, death, more rape and more violence (get some books on Russian history) so this all pretty normal everyday stuff. Even if they have to queue for 3 hours for a piece of bread they will still love Putin. And the Russian women over here, hanging out at £1400/year tennis clubs and driving £50k+ cars, will (mostly) still love Putin too.
Russia seems to be having 200-300/day killed plus as many injured who will never fight again. Ukrainian numbers vary a lot. At one point they were (according to Zelensky; almost nobody else is publishing their losses) 100/day killed but more recently they were down to 30/day. Right now Russia is doing very badly because they are up against fortifications which were constructed since 2014 in the knowledge that Russia will have another go post-Crimea. And Ukraine has the HIMARS which are working 24/7 (and on the move 24/7) smashing up Russian ammo storage depots.
How will it end?
Nobody knows. Russia will get tired at some point because they know they will never get all of Ukraine. Ukraine wants all of their land back, which is a good objective but I suspect some deal will be done whereby Russia keeps the East and Crimea (which is either rubble or Putin-lovers, often both, anyway) and Russia pulls out of the south. But the West (well, the relevant players; much of the heavy stuff being sent was obsolete 30 years ago) will rightly insist that Russia pays the highest possible price for that. Ukraine in NATO, for sure, and sanctions on Russia for ever.
The top Russian general said they have lost 9k soldiers.
Which means that 40k published by western analysts is probably very close to the true number.
I think Zelensky did state 10k some months ago.
Peter wrote:
The top Russian general said they have lost 9k soldiers.
I’m not sure if the linked story has changed/updated, but that lined story is about Ukrainian soldiers’ deaths, not Russian.
Valery Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, said on Aug. 22 that those sent to the front lines of Russia’s war against Ukraine “may be among the 9,000 heroes who have died.”
