There is talk of a 30 months war but personally I highly doubt the war can end in 30 months. In Donbas it's full of fortifications and trenches which makes the pace very slow.
The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
From the Art of War.
Break a fortification takes lot of preparation, but doesn't mean that if the units manouvering around the walls with 3meter/day speed then the leftover of the kingdom will be taken by the same speed.
It is like a dam, during the eroison time the water move only milimeters, but if the integrity of the wall reach the critical level then it is just gone, and the water fill everything.
The current Leopard 2 debacle seems to suggest otherwise. Sending Leopard 1's a downgrade in almost every aspect except moblity.
Then there is the fact that NATO is starting to admit they don't have the capacity to replenish both Ukrainians and their own stocks so a choice is going to be made at some point, specially if NATO intends to fight China.
Russia has plenty of strategic depth to prolong this war, Ukraine doesn't. What's going to happen once there are no males left to recruit?. Unless NATO starts to send its own citizens to fight in eastern Ukraine as well as the tanks, time is agaisnt Ukraine
You say this as if it isn't a fluid situation. Russia seems to be heading back to Kupyansk and there are troops being amassed in the Kursk region, and so on.
Considering Ukranians are being told to surrender Bakhmut, you are being highly generous with the "truth". Also don't forget to include Kremina.
Even if the war were to end today and Russia pulled all the way to its 2014 borders, Ukraine is no longer a viable country by any stretch of the imagination, and that tab is going to be picked up by the European citizens which aren't going to like it.
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None because this is Russian disinformation.
@kokole or @baykalov (how did that happen?) joined SDF on 22 March 2022, clocked in over 1000 posts since then and predictably "limits who may view their full profile".
The videos all come from Twitter accounts that are used to spread propaganda narratives. All of them have the usual misleading commentary and no context. Natalia Gabriela Dominica is a Polish-speaking troll account that started in March of 2021 and was involved in spreading of fake news in Poland even before the invasion. I recognized this specific account. That's not someone taking a side in the conflict but a 100% Russian troll with 0% credibility.
Content like this should not be allowed on SDF and specifically this type of material should not be allowed in this thread under the rules. Similarly new users who post such content let alone post such content exclusively shouldn't be allowed here unless we want this thread to be locked very soon and permanently.
Here is what these clips show and don't show:
The few people being taken by force are AWOL.
Mobilized personnel has to be ID'd because mobilization means you received an assignment. Nobody is checking the papers and if you take a moment to look carefully at the videos you'll see other men in military age who walk past unmolested. That's because "forced mobilization" is a Russian lie usually backed by videos out of context, often showing something completely different than what the commentary implies.
Nobody drags people off the streets in Ukraine to put them in uniform because there are more people available for voluntary service than there are either (1) positions or (2) equipment or (3) ability to absorb them in the long term.
On that:
This is one of the unexpected factors in this war. Initially morale was a big worry but after the invasion began more people returned to fight than fled the country. There was a consistent net inflow of men despite a very clear flight taking place as well. While there was a period of chaos and panic - especially during the first days when the outcome of Russian operation was unclear - after the first few weeks Ukrainian military began turning away people who haven't served or had no military experience. They can afford to do it even with the casualties of the conflict which now are around 100k because well over a million people reported for military duty.
This is male population pyramid for Russia and Ukraine:
So far there's also been a sufficiently well funded budget for very decent pay which is secured by financial aid from NATO countries. As long as that is maintained Ukraine will not run out of personnel. People haven't been a problem and neither was the motivation - both ideological and material.
There's a reason why Russian propaganda almost stopped targeting Ukrainian networks and mostly focuses on western social media. Russians know they can't dissuade Ukrainians from fighting as long as they receive support so they target sources of that support.
One of the reasons why there are training facilities in several NATO countries handling the training is because Ukraine simply doesn't have the necessary infrastructure or personnel to handle a fully mobilized and now also expanded military. The numbers that have been put into active service completely outstrip what was being planned for. Much of the pre-war structures existed on paper to maintain officer cadres on payroll. They weren't prepared for warfare.
In 2022 Ukraine had 18 active and 8 reserve brigades in ground forces, 25 (reserve) brigades in territorial defense, 7 active brigades in air assault forces, 1 active brigade in naval infantry, 3 brigades and multiple independent regiments and battalions in national guard (all active).
Territorial Defense Brigades existed as skeleton commands with a single active battalion of infantry used for training as well as independent infantry battalions subordinate to either a motorized brigade as main battalion or to a tank, mechanized or artillery brigade as a rear/security unit. When mobilization was ordered the Territorial Defense Brigade would form two to three new battalions from scratch using the single active battalion as framework.
For example Operational Command "South" had three motorized brigades (56, 57, 59), one mechanized brigade (28) and one artillery brigade (40). The motorized brigades consisted of three independent Territorial Defense battalions as light infantry battalions and one artillery groups with with towed 152mm D-20 howitzers and 100mm MT-12 anti-tank guns. The mechanized brigade had a regular tank battalion, three regular mechanized infantry battalions and one idependent TD battalion as motorized light infantry. The artillery brigade had four artillery squadrons (towed 152mm 2A36 or 2A65) and one squdaron of MT-12 as well as one TD battalion as motorized light infantry. Altogether four regular battalions with conscripts under mandatory service and eleven TD battalions which served as reserve training units.
At the same time "South" had additional five TD brigades (120, 121, 122, 123, 124) each with one active TD battalion which was "active" in the sense that it had an active officer cadre. These brigades existed on paper apart from handful of officers. Nobody planned for what would happen if the mobilization was conducted under wartime conditions other than "people will show up and we'll give them what we have". The main problem was that there wasn't enough equipment to field the Reserve Corps of the Ground Forces - the several tank and mechanized brigades - let alone Territorial Defense units. Those units therefore operated as "irregular militia" for the first few months of the war. Currently the situation has changed somewhat with regards to structure and individual equipment, less so in terms of vehicles.
Territorial Defense has one brigade per oblast for a total of twenty five brigades with up to seventy five infantry battalions. But ~700 people per battalion is ~50 000 active personnel. That comes on top of ground forces (~87 inf. bat. total), air assault forces (~21), naval infantry (~6), national guard (~85) and border guard (?) at the beginning of invasion. That's ~200-250k altogether for all line units and another ~200-250k for rear and auxiliary units (artillery, logistics etc). Around half a million to field ~300 infantry battalions out of 9+ million of military age men. 100k casualties constitute ~1% of that population.
Here are Russian casualties by December 2022:
My calculations using the above:
This war is far from being impactful in demographic terms on either side.
The bottleneck is in training and recovery. Nobody wants to send untrained or exhausted people to fight because it's wasting resources and damaging morale. Battles like Bakhmut are not meaningful because they happen while the entire front is being held up and other areas are secured against a potential attack. Russia has equalized manpower shortage and is throwing numbers at specific points very likely hoping to force UAF to move forces to reinforce position weakening it somewhere else.
Nothing you see there is representative of the general condition of either side. We will not know anything about that until Russians begin the speculated offensive. Right now both Russians and Ukrainians are busy doing their maskirovka.
Take care guys and try not to ruin this thread too quickly. At least give it a month or two before you run it into the ground because you can't follow a few simple rules.
This table you post of Russian casualties, what are the sources?
Are there any reliable source of Russian and Ukrainian casualties at all?
I have personally seen none whatsoever. Meduza/BBC's count of Russian deaths seems more believable to me mainly due to how the figures seem more realistic to the Russian army's force structure.
Are there any reliable source of Russian and Ukrainian casualties at all?
I have personally seen none whatsoever. Meduza/BBC's count of Russian deaths seems more believable to me mainly due to how the figures seem more realistic to the Russian army's force structure.
The number of Ukrainians should be half, since many have fled the country in millions. Millions have also fled to the Russian side, or live in the Russian occupied areas, because East Ukraine happens to be the most densely populated, most industrialized part of the Ukraine. A good number of these Eastern Ukrainians are the ones fighting the Ukrainians to the West, and that's what we call the LPR and the DPR. The most notorious or legendary, depending on whose view you take, Donbass and Luhansk battalions, are known to have many ex-AFU members.
Manual firing of 23 mm guns at snipers in Ukraine. In the video, one of the barrels of the 23-mm twin anti-aircraft gun was adapted for manual firing, note that another person insures the arrow from behind. Gun fire is said to be suppressing the point with Ukrainian snipers.
A powerful blow from a kamikaze sea drone hit a bridge in Zatoka in the Odessa region on February 10. The degree of damage to the bridge and which model of the marine drone was used are not yet known. It is speculated that the Russian drone used in the strike is based on a model of a Ukrainian maritime drone that washed ashore in the bay of Sevastopol last year. Earlier, the governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhaev, proposed to create unmanned marine vehicles on the basis of the Sevmorzavod enterprise, perhaps this was the first of the created marine drones.
The crew of the Russian T-80BVM tank spoke about their combat vehicle and the tactics of using it in Ukraine. The crew uses the T-80BVM tank, released in 2022.
122-mm self-propelled howitzer 2S1 "Gvozdika" of the Ukrainian army, came under attack from the Russian kamikaze drone "Lancet". The drone attack took place near the Krasnolimansky direction, judging by the fire from the hatch, the 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled guns were destroyed.
Donetsk servicemen have developed a home-made installation for remote control of the Fagot ATGM. The installation has a Picatinny rail and a television screen and can be equipped with a thermal imager. The installation with the Fagot anti-tank system was tested at the range at a distance of 700 meters, the target was located at a height of 1 meter.
A powerful blow from a kamikaze sea drone hit a bridge in Zatoka in the Odessa region on February 10. The degree of damage to the bridge and which model of the marine drone was used are not yet known. It is speculated that the Russian drone used in the strike is based on a model of a Ukrainian maritime drone that washed ashore in the bay of Sevastopol last year. Earlier, the governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhaev, proposed to create unmanned marine vehicles on the basis of the Sevmorzavod enterprise, perhaps this was the first of the created marine drones.
The crew of the Russian T-80BVM tank spoke about their combat vehicle and the tactics of using it in Ukraine. The crew uses the T-80BVM tank, released in 2022.
122-mm self-propelled howitzer 2S1 "Gvozdika" of the Ukrainian army, came under attack from the Russian kamikaze drone "Lancet". The drone attack took place near the Krasnolimansky direction, judging by the fire from the hatch, the 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled guns were destroyed.
Donetsk servicemen have developed a home-made installation for remote control of the Fagot ATGM. The installation has a Picatinny rail and a television screen and can be equipped with a thermal imager. The installation with the Fagot anti-tank system was tested at the range at a distance of 700 meters, the target was located at a height of 1 meter.
solarz
Brigadier
100k deaths out of a million conscripts is not a small number.
You claim those videos are fake and come from "troll" accounts. Are we supposed to just take your word for it?