The War in the Ukraine

Botnet said:

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the average life expectancy of a Ukrainian soldier on Bakhmut frontlines is only four hours according to former US marine with Ukraine's foreign legions. This suggest a high rate of mortality for Ukrainian soldiers in contrast to what the media is reporting.

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That's kinda why i never really take reportings regarding casualties or territorial gain-loss seriously. I think everyone already understand that realistic reports on situation are hard and near impossible in "grass root" level.

Even ISW does not have their own means of verification which rather disturbing to me, especially when they quotes Rybar. It's probably people like Elon Musk actually have the means and resources to do actual verification, maybe launching his own ELINT Satellite or rig Starlink to act as one.

I would love tho if he do the thing and give us a real Electronic Orbat map in Ukraine, depicting positions of both participant's assets. That's what i call balanced reports.

Stealthflanker said:

That's kinda why i never really take reportings regarding casualties or territorial gain-loss seriously. I think everyone already understand that realistic reports on situation are hard and near impossible in "grass root" level.

Even ISW does not have their own means of verification which rather disturbing to me, especially when they quotes Rybar. It's probably people like Elon Musk actually have the means and resources to do actual verification, maybe launching his own ELINT Satellite or rig Starlink to act as one.

I would love tho if he do the thing and give us a real Electronic Orbat map in Ukraine, depicting positions of both participant's assets. That's what i call balanced reports.

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I hope you know ISW is funded by Kimberley Kagan, sister of Robert Kagan (husband of Victoria "F EU" Nuland), and has a board of well known neocons such as, , etc. Whatever craps it produces can't be trusted.

a lot of rumors going around on twitter about yahidne falling to the russians. if that is indeed the case then i think this week and the next we will see the opening of the endgame in bakhmut. it seems that wagner is controls quite a bit of high ground north of bakhmut, which means the fall of berkhivka is also just a matter of time. if the russians are able to consolidate around yahidne, then the flank of bakhmut's defense will cave, because the russians in that area will be in a elevated position looking down on all of bakhmut from the north (refer to topographic map of the area).

i think wagner is still a long way from cutting off the last egress route for the ukrainians. but even without doing so, simply by pressing on the flanks and directing fire from an elevated position, it can dislodge and disorientate the ukrainian defense, and potentially cause a rout along only one MSR, which will become easy targets for mass indirect fire.

drowingfish said:

a lot of rumors going around on twitter about yahidne falling to the russians. if that is indeed the case then i think this week and the next we will see the opening of the endgame in bakhmut. it seems that wagner is controls quite a bit of high ground north of bakhmut, which means the fall of berkhivka is also just a matter of time. if the russians are able to consolidate around yahidne, then the flank of bakhmut's defense will cave, because the russians in that area will be in a elevated position looking down on all of bakhmut from the north (refer to topographic map of the area).

i think wagner is still a long way from cutting off the last egress route for the ukrainians. but even without doing so, simply by pressing on the flanks and directing fire from an elevated position, it can dislodge and disorientate the ukrainian defense, and potentially cause a rout along only one MSR, which will become easy targets for mass indirect fire.

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I don't think Yahidne is confirmed yet but certainly going.
That said I suspect things won't progress that quickly. Prigozhin said yesterday that they're looking to close the encirclement of Bakhmut around March or April, before then they would still like to continue to grind up AFU formations there.

Temstar said:

I don't think Yahidne is confirmed yet but certainly going.
That said I suspect things won't progress that quickly. Prigozhin said yesterday that they're looking to close the encirclement of Bakhmut around March or April, before then they would still like to continue to grind up AFU formations there.

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Things are occurring fast, almost too fast. Yahidne almost captured according to this. I personally don't like to do map data because the situation is too fluid and it is best to let things settle for a more definitive picture. My hunch is that Wagner might be attempting to bypass Bakhmut like water around a rock, and Prigozhin's talk about capturing Bakhmut might be an attempt to mislead. Once again, note that Wagner does not reveal the positions they are fighting or where they are; all positional data are taken from Ukrainian maps or the Ukrainian defense ministry, which is also known to have some lag admitting events.

Tam said:

Things are occurring fast, almost too fast. Yahidne almost captured according to this. I personally don't like to do map data because the situation is too fluid and it is best to let things settle for a more definitive picture. My hunch is that Wagner might be attempting to bypass Bakhmut like water around a rock, and Prigozhin's talk about capturing Bakhmut might be an attempt to mislead. Once again, note that Wagner does not reveal the positions they are fighting or where they are; all positional data are taken from Ukrainian maps or the Ukrainian defense ministry, which is also known to have some lag admitting events.

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wagner can bypass bakhmut in the sense that it can surround bakhmut in a pincer move. but it cannot bypass bakhmut and strike deep in the traditional deep operations sense because from what i can see it does not have a second echelon sitting behind the front line waiting for the penetration. nor has the practice of deep operations taken place at all in this war since the initial strike towards kiev, given that the element of surprise is simply impossible to achieve.

from prigozhin's perspective, if he is unable to cutoff bakhmut, he will simply take the city, declare victory, and transition to defense. if he gets to cut it off, he has the option to simply lay siege on it through the spring thaw, given that it is unlikely Ukraine will have the offensive power to break the siege, and the defenders in the city will likely run out of supplies long before the summer.

#1258 We publish a request from journalist Ekaterina Lushnikova and the answer: Hello,
According to the
US government, about 30 thousand fighters have died in the ranks of the Wagner PMC since the beginning of the SVO.
How would you comment on this information, is it true?
If not, how many dead and wounded are there in the ranks of the Wagner PMC in reality?
How many have been shot or beaten with sledgehammers for treason and desertion?

We publish a comment by E.V. Prigozhin:
"Ekaterina, thank you for the question. Indeed, since the beginning of the SVO, there have been a large number of deaths. There are significantly more than 30 thousand. I think it's about 100,110-110, but you have the wrong wording.

They did not die in the ranks of the Wagner PMC, but died, falling on the combat formations of the Wagner PMC. And all these are servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other structures that are trying to fight with the Wagner PMC.

Therefore, the total number of dead Ukrainian soldiers is about 110 thousand, destroyed by the hands of the WAGNER PMC. I hope you like my answer.

We do not shoot prisoners of war and do not hammer them with a sledgehammer. However, dear Catherine, if you, as part of a friendly company from the US government, come to us, then perhaps we will think about how to use a sledgehammer. Thank you."

Flippant answer from Pzigozhin. Overall I think the accusation from the Pentagon that Wagner is 80% convicts (40,000 convicts, 10000 contractors) is bizarre, as how can so many convicts give the ukrainian army so many problems?


"
Units of the Wagner PMC are getting closer to the industrial zone in the north of

Bakhmut There is the Artyomovsk metal processing plant - AZOM (after the renaming of the city: Bakhmut non-ferrous metals processing plant), which in terms of the complexity of the assault can be compared with Azovstal:

a large area of the object;
underground communications and mines tens of meters deep, which can become a shelter for personnel and equipment;
dense industrial development.

According to the experience of the assault on the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut and the mines of Soledar, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are unlikely to surrender AZOM without a fight. The enemy always tries to hold on to such objects, using them as fortresses."

Combat correspondent of Wagner reports on their situation, including a map. It appears that the Ukrainians are counterattacking the Southern pincer while the Northern pincer is the one that has momentum.

It looks like Wagner will attempt a close encirclement of Bakhmut from the north, and assault over a succession of fields until they reach highway 00506.

Interesting math.

Last year the Russian trade sufficit was 170 billion USD.

If the monthly sallary of a Wagner guy is 1500 USD, then a million mercanary army wage cost 1.5 billion/month.

Means the best way to invest the trade suficit for Russia is to invest into mercanaries.

Cost a peanuts, and easy to assemble shock troops, whom killing is not an issue for the society.

Wagner is offering them a monthly salary of $1,500 and shelter for their families in exchange for defending Russia's interests on the battlefield. Iran, which with its shipments of Sahed drones and Islamic Revolutionary Guard trainers to the Russian army has become the Kremlin's biggest military partner during the invasion, threatens the ex-servicemen with deportation - for them and their families - and return to Afghanistan if they do not accept. They know they will be persecuted by the Taliban back home. Just three months after the fall of Kabul, more than 100 former Afghan intelligence and police officers were killed or disappeared, according to Human Rights Watch.

Fear is not the only motive driving them into Wagner's arms. The PMC offers them exorbitant salaries by regional standards, plus visas in Iran or Russia. This is more than the US and its allies, who left them on the ground after their chaotic withdrawal. No one came back to rescue them. Hundreds of thousands of collaborators were left behind in hostile Afghanistan in the hands of the Taliban. A former Afghan officer quoted in Foreign Policy magazine says that most are "waiting for work for $3 or $4 a day in Pakistan or Iran, or $10 a day in Turkey, and if Wagner or any other intelligence service approaches a guy and offers him $1,000 to go back to being a fighter, he won't turn it down".

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Anlsvrthng said:

Interesting math.

Last year the Russian trade sufficit was 170 billion USD.

If the monthly sallary of a Wagner guy is 1500 USD, then a million mercanary army wage cost 1.5 billion/month.

Means the best way to invest the trade suficit for Russia is to invest into mercanaries.

Cost a peanuts, and easy to assemble shock troops, whom killing is not an issue for the society.

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The problem with mercenaries is what you do with them when the war stop. If there's big lay off, a large mass of soldiers are let loose without works. We have seen elsewhere in the world that big soldier layoffs could bring a surge of gangs, crimes and violences like in Guatemala for example.

Cult Icon said:

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Combat correspondent of Wagner reports on their situation, including a map. It appears that the Ukrainians are counterattacking the Southern pincer while the Northern pincer is the one that has momentum.

It looks like Wagner will attempt a close encirclement of Bakhmut from the north, and assault over a succession of fields until they reach highway 00506.

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It look like Wagner are not in a hurry to close Bakhmut, they are glueing Ukrainian forces there more or less securing the rest of the front at the same time.

I found quite strange that regular forces are not mounting a real offensive elsewhere. Maybe they are just waiting for the Ukrainian spring offensive to unfold? That offensive without the material promised look to be a quarter of the strengh envisioned because of delayed or cancelled help. Bakhmut is sucking troops in too.

News about Russian massing equipment are credible or not ??? Maybe just bogey tale...

T-14 alegedly spotted in Belgorod


Krasnopol demolishing houses, though I would think it must be something larger


Story about a couple of Ukranian volunteers who didn't make it back at the start of the war.


Seems some joining thinking they wouldn't be sent to the frontlines

Taras thought he would be working on the sidelines with his computer skills. One of his friends who signed up with him, Vitalii Bilous, a bus driver, said: “We never thought we’d go to the front."

They didn’t, at first. Taras ran a checkpoint in town — unnecessary, because the Russians never came close to Kropyvnytskyi, which is tucked into an agricultural area far from major strategic targets. Olha worked in a giant kitchen churning out stuffed cabbage rolls.

In late May, Taras received new orders. His unit was deploying to Donbas, the eastern region where, just as they are now, the Russians and Ukrainians were slaughtering each other in World War I-style trench warfare.

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Seems the couple got redeployed to Severodonetsk but were supposed to man the third line of defense but were pushed to the front due to the high levels of attrition with what seems just firearms training

They got some firearms training — for one and a half days, Mr. Bilous said. Then they deployed to a pine forest near the city of Sievierodonetsk where they were supposed to be the second or even third line of defense, the unit’s commander, Capt. Volodymyr Kanchuk, said. With so many professional soldiers killed, they were pushed all the way forward to what is called the “zero line.”

Olha was the only woman in the unit. Their mission was to hold a trench and keep the Russians from advancing. But the Russians were shelling the area so hard that by mid-June, the 80-person combat unit had — because of desertions, casualties and other problems — been cut down to 25.

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They died when an artillery barrage struck their trench directly in June. The article mentions that around 40 to 50% of Ukraines army doesn't have any military experience the war has taken out a lot of professionals.


Ukraine has received 1 UH-60A. Seems to lack flare dispensers and other self-defense systems so it will probably serve as a taxi around Kiev, Lviv and Kharkov