The War in the Ukraine

200-500 Ukrainian soldiers are dying each day in Donbas and total daily casualties can reach 1,000, Davyd Arakhamia, who leads Ukraine's negotiations with Russia, said today in DC. Zelensky put the daily death toll at 60-100 just two weeks ago.

Click to expand...

If that is the case then I doubt total casualties is just 1000 if 200-500 are dying daily. The amount wounded must be significantly higher. How much longer can Ukraine hold this war of attrition? Western stockpiles can’t continue forever and production won’t start ramping until next year.

Richard Santos said:

350,000 casualty of all kind a year, or an annual casualty rate of ballpark 1% of population, is not even close to a demographically prohibitive loss rate. If ukraine is determined to resist, can mobilize effectively, and can replace its material loses, it can easily sustain this casualty rate indefinitely.

Click to expand...

Ukraine's population of those who are willing and able to fight on the Ukrainian side is a lot smaller than that and they're not going to continue fighting if they lose a large percentage of those men.

Not to mention wat the morale must be like. We have already seen videos of ukr soldiers desperate and angry at the situation. If they are losing men at that rate it can't be good for troop morale.

The Russian Navy will abandon an additional series of six Project 22160 patrol ships. The series of Project 22160 corvettes will not be continued and will end with the delivery of the last ship of the series to the Black Sea Fleet. The official version, inconsistencies in their tactical and technical qualities of combat operating conditions. In particular, the military is not satisfied with the seaworthiness and armoring of ships, as well as the vulnerability of their power plants and weak anti-aircraft weapons.


The Russian Defense Ministry has published footage of a combat sortie of a pair of Su-25 attack aircraft in Ukraine. The pilots attacked strongholds of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The video shows mainly the view of the flight from the cockpit


The work of the Mi-8MTPR-1 electronic warfare helicopter equipped with the Rychag-AV active jamming station in Ukraine was shown by the Russian Ministry of Defense. The Rychag-AV jamming station completely “blinds” the enemy within a radius of several hundred kilometers.

getready said:

Not to mention wat the morale must be like. We have already seen videos of ukr soldiers desperate and angry at the situation. If they are losing men at that rate it can't be good for troop morale.

Click to expand...

In terms of motivation, is it really such a bad deal for Ukrainians under a Russian Donbass?

After Euromaidan and a free trade agreement between Ukraine/EU, and with no free trade agreement between Ukraine/Russia, what happens to Donbass? Donbass is heavily industrialized and they'd now need to compete with EU imports. They can't really sell anything to EU, as their products are based on old Soviet standards and specifications. Russia was the only one buying.

That means they lose their jobs, their plants close, and all the accumulated knowledge of the past is lost.

In return they get the opportunity to emigrate to EU to scrub toilets or work at a German invested assembly company. No wonder Donbass declared independence rather than that.

People will fight HARD for their livelihood. Note how angry some country got about Toyota and Honda making Detroit uncompetitive, or about Chinese "stealing their jobs".

⚡️Briefing by Russian Defence Ministry

The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation in Ukraine.

High-precision air-based missiles have destroyed 2 AFU command posts, 1 electronic warfare station near Pyatikhatka in Kharkov region, 1 Tochka-U missile launcher and 1 Uragan multiple rocket launcher near Barvenkovo in Kharkov region.

Operational-tactical, army and unmanned aviation have hit 57 areas of AFU manpower and military equipment concentration. 3 command posts, 1 Buk-M1 anti-aircraft missile system near Rechka, Sumy region, as well as 1 repair and recovery point of AFU armoured vehicles near Kharkov have been destroyed.

The attacks have resulted in the elimination of more than 280 nationalists, 2 ammunition depots near Razdolovka in Donetsk People's Republic, 5 tanks and other armoured combat vehicles, 6 field artillery mounts and 11 special vehicles.

Russian air defence means have shot down 1 Su-25 aircraft of Ukrainian Air Force near Mazanovka, Kharkov region.

Also, 7 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles have been shot down near Tomina Balka, Sukhoi Stavok in Kherson region, Bolshiye Prokhody, Chistovodovka, Malaya Kamyshevakha, Kamenka in Kharkov region, and Zolotoe in Lugansk People's Republic.

Additionally, 1 Tochka-U ballistic missile has been intercepted near Stakhanov in Lugansk People's Republic, as well as 21 Uragan multiple-launch rockets near Chernobaevka, Sukhoi Stavok in Kherson region, Kamenka, Dolgen'koe, Malye Prokhody in Kharkov region, Donetsk, Dokuchaevsk, Sukhaya Kamenka, Yasynuvataya in Donetsk People's Republic, Kopanki, Novozvanovka in Lugansk People's Republic.

Missile troops and artillery have hit 195 areas of manpower and military equipment concentration, 34 command posts and 42 firing positions of AFU artillery units.

Missile troops and artillery have destroyed more than 200 nationalists, 1 electronic warfare station, 3 ammunition depots, 6 tanks and other armoured combat vehicles, 1 Grad multiple rocket launcher, 4 field artillery guns, 18 special vehicles and 2 UAV control points near Zhovtnevoe and Kul'bakino in Nikolayev region.

In total, 204 Ukrainian airplanes and 131 helicopters, 1,218 unmanned aerial vehicles, 340 anti-aircraft missile systems, 3,569 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 526 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,968 field artillery and mortars, as well as 3,647 units of special military vehicles were destroyed during the operation.

#MoD #Russia #Ukraine #Briefing
@mod_russia_en

Abominable said:

This is dumb. A week ago they could have withdrawn. Is delaying the Russians for a week really worth surrendering however many soldiers?

Ukraine reminds me of the red army during Operation Barbarossa.

Agree with most of what he says, but the conclusion he's drawn about TB-2s is wrong. It didn't fail because it was too small, it failed because it was too big.

Click to expand...

Please don’t insult the memory of the red army so!

The red army was far more sensible than the current Ukraine regime (the Ukrainian generals seem competent, but keep getting overruled by politicians), and was more than willing to give up territory for time.

Ukraine is also trading lives for time, but their trade is worthless because that time serves no purpose.

Unlike the Soviets who were relocating their industrial base and pumping out literally new armies with the time bought with all that blood, what is Ukraine using the precious time paid for with the lives of their soldiers? So Karenlensky can give a few more speeches?

They are throwing the diminishing flow of NATO arms into the thick of the fighting piecemeal and often to soldiers with inadequate training. There is no new model army being created in the west because all their best men are stuck in the east. Trying to train up civilians to form a new NATO modelled and equipped army is literally going to take years. Might as well start building a Death Star since it’s about as likely to be completed.

If there is one appropriately accurate historical precedent for how the Karenlenksy regime is behaving, it’s 1944-45 Hitler, with their needless political meddling in military decisions and non-sensical ‘not one step back’ kindergarten war strategy.

People laughed when Karenlensky’s wife bragged about their 5 year old son suggesting war strategies, but with the way the Ukrainian high command have been running strategy so far, having a 5 year old calling the shots might actually be an improvement.

Abominable said:

If they were captured you would think the Russians would have announced it by now. They're ether dead or MIA.

Click to expand...

The most obvious reason why the Russians might want to keep quiet about their capture while the Americans are screaming about it is that they were not real civilians.

I have always suspected that entire active duty NATO special forces teams are going into Ukraine to fight the Russians directly while under the cover of being civilian volunteers.

If the Russians captured members of such teams, they will have ways to make them talk. Ways that will undoubtedly not look pretty but which might yield vastly valuable intel; so it makes sense why the Russians might like to keep their capture quiet while the Americans would want them the centre of the world’s media attention in the hopes that all that media spotlight would make the Russians hesitant from totally going totally to town on breaking them.

The Ukrainian military is nothing like the Red Army in WW2. They are more like the Russian imperial army in WW1. They have a larger manpower pool but lack firepower and adequate equipment to fight an enemy who has less manpower but superior firepower and training on the battlefield. And they buckled and collapsed in the eastern front in WW1.
The Red Army in WW2 had their industrial base intact and was able to mass produce tanks and other vehicles in a massive scale to overwhelm the Germans. Ukraine’s military industrial base is non existent and depends on military aid from the west. Ukraine’s military is like the Russian imperial army with the leadership of Germany in 1944-1945. That’s not a winning nation.

FairAndUnbiased said:

In terms of motivation, is it really such a bad deal for Ukrainians under a Russian Donbass?

After Euromaidan and a free trade agreement between Ukraine/EU, and with no free trade agreement between Ukraine/Russia, what happens to Donbass? Donbass is heavily industrialized and they'd now need to compete with EU imports. They can't really sell anything to EU, as their products are based on old Soviet standards and specifications. Russia was the only one buying.

That means they lose their jobs, their plants close, and all the accumulated knowledge of the past is lost.

In return they get the opportunity to emigrate to EU to scrub toilets or work at a German invested assembly company. No wonder Donbass declared independence rather than that.

People will fight HARD for their livelihood. Note how angry some country got about Toyota and Honda making Detroit uncompetitive, or about Chinese "stealing their jobs".

Click to expand...

That's reasonable. I can't speak for the Ukrainians I guess. I suspect it won't be a worse deal.

before the coup in maidan there was a distinct split in the country already as to wat they prefer in terms of integration with EU or with Russian sphere. in that map John mearsheimer presented in his famous talk, most of Russian speaking Ukrainians in Eastern part of the country prefer being linked to Russian economic zone. And the western part of Ukraine to EU integration. Hence a civil war ensued in most corrupted country in Europe, fanned by US meddling, and ignited by hard-line far right nazi elements being more influential than their numbers suggest. The country leadership isn't rational anymore imo.