I saw something that Transnistria wants to join Russia and some concerns that it would open a new front in the war. There is a warehouse with a lot of old Soviet equipment there, and a Russian military group of about 1500 men that has been stranded there since the war began. These 1500 men guard the warehouse and run the Transmistria army, which is really pretty small. The population of Transnistria is only about 470,000.
On average countries have about 0.2 to 0.25% of the population in the military. A few countries break 1%. North Korea has 5% of its population on active duty. Israel has 2%. Just before the war Russia was 0.9%, Ukraine was 0.48%, and the US was/is 0.4%.
Transnistria today has a force of 4500 with a reserve force of 15,000. Right around 5% of the population in total.
List of countries by number of military and paramilitary personnel - Wikipedia
Because of the large warehouse of ex-Soviet equipment they might be better equipped than some Russian forces today, but they would be using equipment that has been stored, probably in poor conditions, for 30 years.
And once a Transnistrian force started taking casualties, there would be no replacements. The population is too small to sustain the army in the field for very long. Then Transnistria has to take into account that once their forces are depleted fighting Ukraine, Moldova can then move in and take back the breakaway province.
Transnistria is not much of a threat to Ukraine. The Russian attempts to destabilize Moldova need to be countered and it looks like the government there is taking the threat seriously.
RUMINT from a Swedish blog that has been posting daily about the Russian Dictator's Illegal Terrorist full scale Invasion of Ukraine:
UKR has allegedly received 'new and substantial' deliveries of Artillery ammo, and UKR Artillery seems to again be able to operate at ~previous levels of 'UKR artillery fire'...
Source in Swedish:
Gårdagen innebar några av de hårdaste och blodigaste ryska förlusterna på en dag, med extrema siffror över hela brädet, samtidigt som det finns RUMINT om att Ukraina återigen har full tillgång till artilleriammunition. En stort ryskt terrorbombningsvåg med iranska Shahed-robotar nedkämpades i natt,
cornucopia.se
EDIT/UPDATE:
A post on X on the same topic:
Russians at the front complaining that Ukraine's begun receiving ammo.
twitter.com/JayinKyiv/status/1765308813383475392?s=20
I've also heard that Russian artillery fire has been down the last week or two. The NK artillery ammunition is probably running out and they are back to what they can natively produce, which isn't trivial, but is less than what they need for their style of operations.
I'm glad allies are keeping Ukraine in the fight. They won't be able to go on the offensive at their current supply level, but they can continue to attrit the Russian forces. Adviika was a loss for Ukraine, but they inflicted unsustainable losses on the Russians for what amounts to a hollow victory. Russia can throw away lives like they are, but they are going to reach a point where they will run low on able bodied men to throw into the meat grinder.
During WW II, the Russians had a large population to draw on, so tactics that resulted in high casualties were unpopular with the poor sots who were on the front, but were OK with the Kremlin. As long as the army didn't revolt, they could survive losing 3:1 men to the Germans and take ground all the way to Berlin.
But Russia today is not the USSR. Half the population of the 1990 USSR left when the Soviet Republics left. Then they have had 30 years of low birthrates and almost no immigration. They are now an extremely large empire with a shrinking population. Getting a lot of their men in the already shrinking cadres killed is just going to accelerate their decline. They are sending the non-Russian ethnics to the war and getting them killed, but while that's just fine for the ethnic Russians, they are depopulating the provinces of Russia who were having children. The birthrate among ethnic Russians is among the lowest in the world.
Wartime economies usually manage to muddle through somehow, but once the fighting stops, all the things that were set aside for the war emergency come back into the forefront. Russia is going to face a severe labor shortage when they try to get the civilian economy going again after the war.
twitter.com/SanderRegter/status/1765325531564700150?s=20
Several people did analysis of the video and found places where it had been edited. It appears to be more than one video spliced together. It might be a HIMARS being hit, or it could be something else.
Yeah, it's bound to happen. Also I read elsewhere the 1st M1 Abrams loss have happened already in Ukraine.
When something is a high priority target, they are going to get hit eventually.
Is there a military ship map where we can see that this is reality?
