Cont: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine part 8

[Drewbot]

Just looking at the footage that comes out daily, the Russians are taking massive casualties. I can't even believe that they have been able to keep this up.

The thing about the type of casualties is that Ukraine doesn't have to expend any casualties to inflict these ratios. Drone strikes, artillery, and by now the Ukraine soldier is trained, hardened, even in close fighting the advantage must be in Ukraine's favor.

Are we talking about 20 to 1 casualties?

I can't imagine that Russia has the ability to keep taking this beating.

Sure, Russia has taken one town. But at what cost? Did Ukraine just back away and keep pounding them while they tried to move in and claim it? Ukraine seems to have the intel, and logistics to get troops out of areas, and concentrate Drone/artillery to inflict damage at zero cost.

 

[crescent]

Just looking at the footage that comes out daily, the Russians are taking massive casualties. I can't even believe that they have been able to keep this up.

The thing about the type of casualties is that Ukraine doesn't have to expend any casualties to inflict these ratios. Drone strikes, artillery, and by now the Ukraine soldier is trained, hardened, even in close fighting the advantage must be in Ukraine's favor.

Are we talking about 20 to 1 casualties?

I can't imagine that Russia has the ability to keep taking this beating.

Sure, Russia has taken one town. But at what cost? Did Ukraine just back away and keep pounding them while they tried to move in and claim it? Ukraine seems to have the intel, and logistics to get troops out of areas, and concentrate Drone/artillery to inflict damage at zero cost.

Ukraine is also getting hit hard though. It doesn't show up as much on the social media that most westerners use - Russia favors Telegram.

But if you're on Reddit look at r/Ukraine/RussiaWarReport. It's not totally pro-Russia, maybe about a 70/30 pro-Russia/pro-Ukraine mix. And the pro-Russian stuff is full of annoying triumphalism and jingoism with a healthy dose of failed predictions. But they also post their own FPV drone videos and it is clear that Ukraine is also getting hit pretty hard. For example two Leo-2 tanks were lost last week, lots of cruel vids of grenade drops from Ru drones onto Ukr troops.

Ukraine may be working tactics that are giving them a kill ratio strongly in their favor, but 20:1 seems high. And Ukraine is badly outnumbered to start with, they need a 3.5:1 ratio just to maintain per capita equality.

I am strongly pro-Ukraine, but I try to look objectively at what is actually happening. It's a hard grind and it is going to stay like that unless Ukraine can get a lot more weapons and ammo. Of the two, the ammo situation might be the hardest because the western powers are moving verrrrrrrry slowing at ramping up production of artillery shells. They need a dramatic increase in production and in the current political climate that is probably years away. And the political situation will probably only get worse until at least the general election in America this coming November.

 

[Aridas]

Ukraine may be working tactics that are giving them a kill ratio strongly in their favor, but 20:1 seems high. And Ukraine is badly outnumbered to start with, they need a 3.5:1 ratio just to maintain per capita equality.

I think the highest that I've seen in practice is claims of something like 10:1 or 12:1 in specific areas. Avdiivka, lately, in particular. Bakhmut was touted as something like 7:1, at least before the Russians finally reached the urban area, and I didn't see a ratio number after that.

 

[lobosrul5]

Looks like it was actually a Russian missile in Polish airspace last night, not Ukrainian anti missile missile.

Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski has summoned the chargé d’affaires of the Russian Federation, Andrei Ordash, on Friday, the Polish foreign ministry said in a statement.

According to the statement, Ordash was handed a note "in which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs requests an explanation of the incident of violating Poland's airspace" by what the ministry said was a "missile."

Earlier today, the Polish military said that in the early hours of Friday, "an unidentified airborne object" entered Polish airspace from Ukrainian territory. Poland’s most senior military officer, the chief of the General Staff Gen. Wiesław Kukuła, said that "all indications" point to the airborne object being a Russian missile.

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-12-29-23/index.html

 

[Andy_Ross]

Last night's big air attack is a sign of Russian desperation and last gasp punching.
They have spent months building up a stock of missiles and in a fit of rage over losing another ship have spaffed them away on a pointless revenge attack.

 

[Andy_Ross]

"Ukrainian authorities are placing air defense systems in residential areas in violation of international law," Russia's permanent representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said at a meeting of the UN Security Council.

Maybe they wouldn't need to if Russia stopped attacking civilian areas.

The placing AA systems in residential areas is not inherently a breach of international law.
[Article 49(3)]

http://casebook.icrc.org/law/air-warfare

 

[theprestige]

The placing AA systems in residential areas is not inherently a breach of international law.
[Article 49(3)]

That's one way to look at it.

Another way to look at it is that international law is only as good as whoever is willing and able to enforce it. Which is nobody, in this case. The ones who are willing aren't able, and the ones who are able aren't willing.

I prefer this view, since I think it more accurately represents how international law works in practice.

 

[The Don]

Last night's big air attack is a sign of Russian desperation and last gasp punching.
They have spent months building up a stock of missiles and in a fit of rage over losing another ship have spaffed them away on a pointless revenge attack.

Unfortunately the last gasp could last for months or years.

Russia shows little or no intention of stopping their war crimes or their meat wave attacks.

 

[ginjawarrior]

"Ukrainian authorities are placing air defense systems in residential areas in violation of international law," Russia's permanent representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said at a meeting of the UN Security Council.

Maybe they wouldn't need to if Russia stopped attacking civilian areas.

The placing AA systems in residential areas is not inherently a breach of international law.
[Article 49(3)]

http://casebook.icrc.org/law/air-warfare

Wow of all the things I've seen them say I think that one takes the cake

 

[ginjawarrior]

"Ukrainian authorities are placing air defense systems in residential areas in violation of international law," Russia's permanent representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said at a meeting of the UN Security Council.

Maybe they wouldn't need to if Russia stopped attacking civilian areas.

The placing AA systems in residential areas is not inherently a breach of international law.
[Article 49(3)]

http://casebook.icrc.org/law/air-warfare

It gets even better....

Russian defence ministry now says death of civilians in Belgorod were result of air defence working over the city

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWar..._rf_defence_ministry_admitted_that_people_in/

 

[Doubt]

Ukraine may be working tactics that are giving them a kill ratio strongly in their favor, but 20:1 seems high. And Ukraine is badly outnumbered to start with, they need a 3.5:1 ratio just to maintain per capita equality.

20:1 is just about impossible thanks to support weapons and cities not caring how skilled your troops are.

To stay ahead on casualties, they do need better than 3.5:1. A number of troops are needed to watch the line even where no fighting is happening. The line between Russians and Ukrainians is over 900 km long now. Just to keep on eye on that will end up needing thousands of troops that cannot be where the main action is for both sides. Since the Russians have more people, they can afford to watch the areas where action is low much easier than Ukraine. This is also one reason Ukraine needs to retake the west so it can shorten the line of contact with the Russians.

 

[wobs]

Unfortunately the last gasp could last for months or years.

Russia shows little or no intention of stopping their war crimes or their meat wave attacks.

Unfortunately I think Don is looking more right as time goes on.

 

[icerat]

Ukraine may be working tactics that are giving them a kill ratio strongly in their favor, but 20:1 seems high. And Ukraine is badly outnumbered to start with, they need a 3.5:1 ratio just to maintain per capita equality.

I've recently returned from a month doing volunteer work in Ukraine, where I met personally with soldiers recently on the frontline. I'm in contact with numerous others as well.

In places like Avdiivka, it's at least 10:1 in favour of Ukraine. They are massacring them, and taking out dozens of pieces of equipment every day.
On the left bank opposite Kherson though, it's more in Russia's favour, though numbers are lower that Avdiivka.

Russia just keeps throwing bodies at them though, so Ukraine will almost certainly strategically withdraw as they did with Bahkmut, but keep the kill zone going as long as they can.

Right now the biggest problem is Ukraine is seriously running out ammunition, both Soviet and NATO. They've got howitzers sitting idle with no shells. A lot of Ukrainians also haven't been rotated out in a *long* time. It's worse for the Russians of course, but they're doing much more forced mobilization.

I suspect Zaluzhny is making plans for spring and summer, whenever they've (finally) got a significant fleet of F-16s in the air. We also need to realise that *a lot* of the western equipment we've heard about all year still isn't in use. I saw a report on the Swedish Archer system finally being used on the frontline. This was mid-November. Sweden made the announcement in *January*. It took 10 months! One person I spoke to claimed fully 90% of the heavy equipment promised by the west either still hasn't arrived or hasn't actually been put to use yet.

In the meantime, it appears that the west has basically dropped the ball massively on ammunition stocks. They didn't remotely have enough for a war like this, and have depleted their own levels to the point they're now focused on replenishing their own before giving more to Ukraine. One Swedish manufacturer though said "well, by company law we have to supply whoever ordered first! So we can't even prioritise the Swedish Armed Forces!" *

Europe really should be on an industrial war footing. For a while Putin had been winding back the rhetoric and giving himself an "out" to essentially declare victory and try to freeze the lines, but since - well, the day the US Government went on holidays without approving more aid - he's been all in on a full conquest again.

So this isn't ending any time soon.

 

[Andy_Ross]

You don't deploy new equipment until everyone is trained on it, the support and logistics are in place and a whole formation is equipped.
Putting it in piecemeal would be a disaster.

 

[icerat]

You don't deploy new equipment until everyone is trained on it, the support and logistics are in place and a whole formation is equipped.
Putting it in piecemeal would be a disaster.

100% agree - though Ukraine has repeatedly proven they can adopt new equipment much faster than people think.

A potentially bigger issue I think is perception. The public, both in Ukraine and in the west, have seen all these announcements and thought "woohoo! Now things will happen!" and then saw essentially a stalemate in the summer counter-offensive (though I think the nautical gains are often neglected).

End result is people think all the Western equipment hasn't helped, so support drops, when in reality much of it isn't even there yet.

 

[lobosrul5]

100% agree - though Ukraine has repeatedly proven they can adopt new equipment much faster than people think.

A potentially bigger issue I think is perception. The public, both in Ukraine and in the west, have seen all these announcements and thought "woohoo! Now things will happen!" and then saw essentially a stalemate in the summer counter-offensive (though I think the nautical gains are often neglected).

End result is people think all the Western equipment hasn't helped, so support drops, when in reality much of it isn't even there yet.

Yes, I've yet to even see one of the Abrams in action in a credibly sourced video. Ukraine is holding back much of their best equipment. This is wise, if they attacked with it, and it was largely destroyed, it would be seen as wasting support and that could lead to a major pull back of support.

 

[Aridas]

End result is people think all the Western equipment hasn't helped, so support drops, when in reality much of it isn't even there yet.

FWIW, my perception is that a bunch of the Western equipment has helped quite a bit. The artillery, munitions, anti-air, and anti-tank weapons, especially. The more defensively useful equipment that's actually had more of an immediate role, in short. Offensively, things get much trickier, given the battlefield conditions, though, and Western equipment just hasn't been used much, probably for a number of reasons.

Also, thank you for volunteering.

 

[crescent]

FWIW, my perception is that a bunch of the Western equipment has helped quite a bit. The artillery, munitions, anti-air, and anti-tank weapons, especially. The more defensively useful equipment that's actually had more of an immediate role, in short. Offensively, things get much trickier, given the battlefield conditions, though, and Western equipment just hasn't been used much, probably for a number of reasons.

Also, thank you for volunteering.

Lots of videos coming out recently showing the Bradleys in action. The videos look good, the Bradleys are laying waste with the auto cannons.

But I can't tell from the vids how much harm they are actually causing to the Russian troops. As I understand it each round the Bradley fires is essentially a tracer round. So it looks really impressive. But it is hard to tell how much actual damage they cause vs. just moving more dirt piles around.

We apparently have thousands of Bradleys in storage. Hint, hint.....

But we really need to get shell production ramped up in a big way.

 

[icerat]

FWIW, my perception is that a bunch of the Western equipment has helped quite a bit. The artillery, munitions, anti-air, and anti-tank weapons, especially. The more defensively useful equipment that's actually had more of an immediate role, in short. Offensively, things get much trickier, given the battlefield conditions, though, and Western equipment just hasn't been used much, probably for a number of reasons.

Oh absolutely, air defence in particularly has been an obvious and helpful one that I personally experienced. Almost every day.

The Bradleys are also an obvious addition in use.

But I think if you asked almost any Swede, they would have assumed that Ukraine had the Archers for the summer counter-offensive.

 

[icerat]

Great article (and vids) on the under-estimated and under-acknowledged great maritime success of Ukraine's 2022/23 counter-offensives in the Black Sea.

In Ukrainian, translate works.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2024/01/1/7435326/