The War in the Ukraine

gelgoog said:

Like BS they destroyed the 1st Guards Tank Army. I do not know how these people can lie like that and keep a straight face.
They see a couple of broken down T-80U and T-80BV tanks which have probably been there since the initial assault on Izyum and call that destroying a whole army.

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gelgoog said:

Like BS they destroyed the 1st Guards Tank Army. I do not know how these people can lie like that and keep a straight face.
They see a couple of broken down T-80U and T-80BV tanks which have probably been there since the initial assault on Izyum and call that destroying a whole army.

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In the counter-offensive in Kharkiv both sides lost a lot of weapons, but it is worth understanding that for the Russian Federation this is less than 0.5% of their reserves, while for Ukraine it is at least 40% of the transferred Western aid that was accumulated in the late spring and summer.

The trophy equipment received from the remnants of the Russian Federation is almost 70% unserviceable and unfit, unable to cover the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We also overlook the losses in Kharkiv of trained and professional personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. After all, all summer Zelensky was training reserves and holding back the Russian offensive with the strength and numbers of the territorial defense.

Few now write that the Russians have begun bombing the Kharkov region with aircraft and using FAB-500s. Despite the successes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Kharkiv, the situation there is very difficult.

That is why Zelensky is now so vehemently pushing again for new weapons and increased NATO supplies, because there is now a great need to close the "holes", and if the Russians launch an offensive, we still do not have enough reserves.

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Sinnavuuty said:

They are confirming that the 1st Guard Tank was destroyed in the Kharkov offensive.

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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1570074645449117699

It appears to be the return of the Chechens on the front lines. I see that regular Russian troops at the front appear to be in rather reduced numbers than in previous months. LDNR troops are fully mobilised, somewhere around 40,000-50,000, PMC Wagner and Chechens somewhere around 20,000-30,000, Russian regular soldiers seem to be on the order of 60,000-70,000, about half of the troops at the start of the war. That's the impression I have. Russian regular soldiers appear to offer support in artillery, air defence, logistics, communications, EW+ reconnaissance and special forces (including some VDV units), whereas mechanized and armored formations appear to be outnumbered.

Airborne early warning (A-50) and modern fighters (Su-30/35) did not prevent the AFU from taking airmobile assaults and anti-radar attacks. Reconnaissance aircraft, drones and high-resolution satellite imagery do not appear to have anticipated the Ukrainian advance on Kharkiv. Vast air power with precision missiles and anti-radiation did not serve to wipe the Ukrainian anti-air defense and artillery of western origin from the map. The air support of fixed wings (Su-25 and Su-34) and rotary (Mi-24/28/35, Ka-50/52) was also not enough to guarantee a very large imbalance in favor of Russian troops, even in offensive and defensive moves. On the contrary, it stopped advancing on the Donbas and retreated into Kharkiv.

In short, it was expected that all these means, force multipliers that Russia has at its disposal, would give it an astonishing qualitative advantage over the Ukrainians. Nothing resembling even the remotest terms of an operation like Desert Storm. I don't know about you, but the Russian advantage, at least in theory, would be such that it would allow for a glimpse of something of this proportion.

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siegecrossbow said:

Yikes... That's how you cause a spike in war crimes...

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Shadow_Whomel said:

The Wagner Cluster has used prisoner manpower from across Russia as correctional battalion units since July 1.

Their debut was the attack on the Vreda thermal power plant, which performed very well. The Correctional Battalion fighters themselves served as the main attackers and charged into the thermal power plant.

Part of it comes from what he said in his speech, the real situation is unknown. But a Wagner Channel host is indeed a former bank robber who is still active in the field.

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Abominable said:

I'm confused by this. Why are they joining Wagner and not the Russian military? Does Wagner have the legal authority to pardon prisoners? If so then I'm not sure how they are a PMC because that isn't something a company like Blackwater could do.

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SampanViking said:

The Russian attack on the Karachun Dam at Krivoy Rog has significantly raised the level of the Ingulets river and made it impassable in the area of the still ongoing first Ukrainian Counter Offensive. Pontoon Bridges have been swept away and fords flooded. Likewise lowland adjacent to the banks will also be flooded making the land soft and very muddy.

This means that for about the next week, Ukrainian forces on the Western Bank of the Ingulets will not be able to cross into the bridgehead and those already trapped in the kill zone of the East Bank Bridgeheads now have no chance of getting back to the West Bank.
This effectively kills or at least puts on hold the Kherson counter offensive and makes it difficult to start it back up, even after the water subsides, because of the softness of the land adjacent to the river.

This means that the Kherson Counter Offensive is no longer going to lock in place very large numbers of Russian forces and many of them will now be free to react to any new offensive on the Southern Front, East of the Dnieper.

I will also say this about Kharkov. The Ukrainians sent in over six brigades to advance into empty territory, but territory that was still under the coverage of Russian aviation and Artillery. No Russian army was fought and no Russian army was defeated. The thinned out Russian forces that had been there moved largely intact and were reinforced along their new defensive line. The Ukrainians still suffered heavy losses as they advanced, from Artillery and Arial attacks

The Ukrainians have now given themselves a problem. The East Kharkov region was empty of forces because ultimately most of it is an empty wilderness. The Ukrainians have made a big thing of reclaiming this large but empty territory. This however makes them hostage to fortune, because if they do like the Russians did and leave it with very little guarding it, the Russians can do the same thing back and inflict a massive propaganda defeat on the Ukrainians with massive loss of face.
To avoid this, they will need to leave a substantial garrison to guard it, locking in troops that really will be badly needed on more active parts of the front.
Quite a dilemma for Zelensky!

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