No he’s not; declaring victory and taking his sickly little army home is an option he’s always had and still has. (It happens to be my personal favorite.)
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
How bizarre; Dutch people use brooms to put out grass fires, but it sounds like Russians are using hammers to put this one out.
I love these random but large, impactful events throughout Russia because they give me some of my greatest optimism for Ukraine’s success. Edit- great for boosting the good guy’s morale in both countries.
I envision small drones dumping blue and yellow paint in very hard to clean but very prominent places (Red Square, Kremlin, large visible onion domes, etc.) in Russia just to make a statement and embarrass Putin.
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Belarus is sending helicopters to mess with the Polish border as well as some Wagner troops in the same area. Does Belarus want war with NATO?
Tiger
Active Member
I wonder if he can afford paying them back home so bringing them back alive might not be an option.
BitJam
Active Member
Unfortunately for Russians ... they still gather in groups on a predictable schedule. Spotted by drones. Eliminated by HIMARS. Attrition.
Russia is showing a lot of signs of running out of money. There are a lot of complaints from troops that they aren't getting paid.
At this point Russia essentially has a slave army.
and running out of troops. First signs I've seen of front lines getting hollow (like Kharkiv last summer/fall).
but wait, there is more
petit_bateau
Active Member
Those Russians may have been engaged in air and sea surveillance, as well as coast defence.
Since 2014 the Ukraine navy/marines were taught by folk who have a very long history of operations from the sea, including raiding, so as to make a difference on land.
Russia has a lot of littoral to defend continuously. It is interesting quite how observant Ukraine surveillance can be, very deep in supposedly Russian controlled territory. That looked like a fixed wing drone, something like a ScanEagle or similar (Boeing Insitu ScanEagle - Wikipedia) so the comms system has an approx 100km range. That fits neatly with MLRS ranges.
We know that Ukraine is across at the Antonivsky bridge area, and making progress across the Oleshky bridge.
This spit by Lazurne is in a very interesting position.
If Ukraine can get sufficiently far forwards to have artillery control between (say) Tokmak and the Sea of Azov then at the moment everyone thinks Russian forces have a choice about which of two ways backwards. But routes to Crimea might not be available forever.
If nothing else this stuff makes Russian logistics more and more painful.
You have to wonder what Russia needs those Sevastpol ferries for, that were taken out of civilian service yesterday ? Servicing the Azov ports is my guess (Berdiansk, etc).
Fingers crossed for good progress on those Ukraine thrusts. Time does matter.
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This makes interesting reading re Russian oligarchs - link should auto translate
Пссы войны
Какую роль российские олигархи играют в войне против Украины? Исследование «Проекта» показало, что они получили миллиарды долларов на оборонных контрактах, производя в том числе те виды оружия, которыми убивают мирных граждан в украинских городах.
www-proekt-media.translate.goog
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This is also a fair read
Ukrainian counteroffensive’s slow going offers reality check but could yet pay off
Hopes of a rapid breakthrough proved over-optimistic in the face of entrenched defences but Russian forces are suffering major damage
www.theguardian.com
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Of course in this conflict nothing unusual happens without it being tracked and counted. Someone recording attacks on russian mil recruitment centers
It's where the mobilization officers work..so I am sure someone hopes it is effective.
quite good on marine drones
They are doing both, but I believe the same offices are also used for both.
Before the Kerch Bridge was finished the Russians had a ferry that ran between Crimea and the mainland. Most of the ships used on that route were scrapped when the bridge was completed. The remaining ferries were pressed into service when the bridge was disabled the first time.
I would expect the Sevasapol ferries are being pressed into service somewhere in the Azoz, either on the old ferry route between the mainland and Crimea or to service other ports on the Azoz.
In any case, the Russian supply situation in the south is probably close to critical. I've noted a big uptick in truck losses for the Russians the last few days. The most recent loss number has 25 trucks and 27 artillery. Russia has been averaging about 20 artillery losses a day for the last two months. That's around 600 a month. A few months of losses like that on top of other artillery losses earlier in the war and Russia must be digging pretty deep to find guns in working order. They are probably repairing some, but artillery production in Russia was zero at the start of the war and as far as I can tell they haven't restarted production of guns.
In a war of attrition there are a few ways to win. One is to destroy the enemy's ability to make new weapons. That's what the Allies did in WW II. This is mostly out in this war because each sides manufacturing is out of the other's reach except for a few military factories either near Ukraine in Russia or inside Ukraine.
Another is to get the enemy to lose the will to fight. The Russian troops are probably ready to pack it in, but the leadership isn't. The third is to destroy the enemy's equipment faster than they can make it.
In this both sides have made some gains, but in reality the west has lots of uncommitted equipment. It just needs to be brought out of storage and rehabbed. Satellite OSINT analysis shows the Russian reserve vehicle fleet has been thinned out in a lot of places and from what can be seen from space a number of the remaining vehicles are not going to be rehabbed. For example it can be seen that there are a lot of tank chassis with no turrets. They have a big open hole that has been collecting rain and snow for decades. Probably nothing is left usable in those chassis.
The west has struggled to supply some ammunition types such as 155mm artillery, but production is ramping at many facilities and the South Koreans are selling spare ammunition to NATO countries as back fill so they can send their remaining stocks of 155mm. South Korea is probably one of the biggest producers of 155mm ammunition in the world, they have been reluctant to give military aid to Ukraine though.
Russia is all in at this point. Anything that can be repaired and sent to Ukraine is either in repair or already sent. The west has a lot of untapped reserve and is holding back for force retention reasons. The US especially is very reluctant to draw down active military equipment because of the global commitments the US faces. If the US were to visibly weaken it's active forces that might embolden China to make a move on Taiwan.
The US reserve equipment pool is not as large as Russia's, but it's in better shape. The US stores its spare equipment in hot, dry environments and takes the time to seal up the vehicles and otherwise prep them before putting them in storage. The vehicles will need some prep when coming out of storage, rubber parts especially are going to decay, but the percentage of the fleet that could be put back into operation is much larger than Russia's.
The US also holds their equipment functionality to a higher standard than Russia. There are stories of Russian equipment going into combat missing gun sights, electronics, and other equipment because it was pilfered while in storage and they didn't bother to ensure replacement before sending it to the front while the American standard is that used equipment be virtually factory new condition before being shipped out. So it take the Americans about the same amount of time to rehab equipment, but it's in better shape when they are done.
Apparently all the war crimes up until now haven't done much to dissuade Russians from being press ganged into the mobic army for cannon fodder but perhaps not being paid to rape and murder civilians and steal washing machines is enough to get them to stop the troop transports from the farms to the trenches.
lolachampcar
Well-Known Member
It is a sign of very active descent which is encouraging. The fires at the registration offices...
NY Times has a piece on Ukraine and drones. I think many would find the link I posted on Marine drones very useful, quite a good overview of Ukraines progress on the sea.
I wonder why they don’t use a hybrid style propulsion, the existing Rotax engine/ jet drive while in open waters for good range, then switch to a silent electric drive when in enemy waters .
Some of the same reason EVs aren't as widely adopted; battery weight and range. Batteries weigh a lot and would offset how much explosives they could carry. This would also impact speed and agility. These are both important offensively and defensively.
