Russia/Ukraine conflict

[wdolson]

Artillery losses for the year by the month. Losses have been steadily climbing.

Jan 181
Feb 186
Mar 292
Apr 239
May 538
Jun 667
Jul 689
Aug 691
Sep 753

The numbers for September are only through September 24. There is likely going to be a significant increase in September.

 

[Surfer of Life]

Artillery losses for the year by the month. Losses have been steadily climbing.

Jan 181
Feb 186
Mar 292
Apr 239
May 538
Jun 667
Jul 689
Aug 691
Sep 753

The numbers for September are only through September 24. There is likely going to be a significant increase in September.

Whose??

 

[Dangerous Fish]

If true, significant Russian losses including the Admiral of the Fleet, Sokolov.

Special Operations Forces reveal Russian losses following destruction of Minsk landing ship and Black Sea Fleet HQ

The Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have reported that 34 Russian officers were killed in the attack on the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in occupied Sevastopol.

www.pravda.com.ua

 

[wdolson]

Whose??

Sorry, it's data from the Ukrainian reports of Russian losses.

 

[Dreadnought]

If true, significant Russian losses including the Admiral of the Fleet, Sokolov.

Special Operations Forces reveal Russian losses following destruction of Minsk landing ship and Black Sea Fleet HQ

The Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have reported that 34 Russian officers were killed in the attack on the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in occupied Sevastopol.

www.pravda.com.ua

I don't recall the source but I read that they timed the attack such that it hit exactly when a senior staff meeting was in progress. Budanov's ever so humble comment: "We just gave some intelligence assistance. We always give 24/7 intel information to the General Staff." He's doing as great a job as Zaluzhny in their respective fields. If you haven't read it yet, recommend the interview on The Drive.

 

[X Fan]

First Abrams tanks reported to be in Ukr.:

Ukraine-Russia war live: First US Abrams tanks arrive in Ukraine

The first batch of US Abrams tanks have arrived in Ukraine in a delivery that Kyiv hopes will precipitate a counteroffensive “breakthrough”.

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

Haven't seen a drone attack such as this one before... A couple of ~90 degree turns at ~head hight in a pretty dense pine(?) forrest before stopping right outside the dugout(?) for a last turn and then...

NOTE: I didn't see any visible Russian serfs in this footage, but I could of course have missed one (or more)...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1706047352061223259

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

Anecdotal about low UKR losses at squad(?)-level...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1706016536245239879

In the first(?) post in that thread he writes "...] Like shooting fish in a barrel 80% of the time." Here, if you press Show more:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1706012031998931124

 

[DanCar]

Artillery losses for the year by the month. Losses have been steadily climbing.

Jan 181
Feb 186
Mar 292
Apr 239
May 538
Jun 667
Jul 689
Aug 691
Sep 753

The numbers for September are only through September 24. There is likely going to be a significant increase in September.

What is being lost? Artillery pieces?

 

[BitJam]

Every one of Russia's goals for this war have backfired on them.

That would have taken a great deal of stupidity. Putin is not stupid. He may be evil (in our eyes) and amoral but he is not stupid as evidenced by the fact that he has managed to hold onto power for so long. This lends credence to the idea that Putin is trying to prevent a prosperous Slavic democracy from existing on his border because in this one thing he has succeeded. It also explains why Putin has been so focused on attacking Ukrainian civilians and their infrastructure which IMHO does not fit in with the "great war", buffer state or other explanations.

IMO we should judge people by their actions, and the results of those actions, not by their words. People often lie and just as often are not fully aware of their true motivations.

It may be fun to characterize Putin as a stupid buffoon (I'm not saying you did this) but it is more useful to see him as a crafty old man trying his best to hold onto power and not let go of the tiger's tail.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

Allegedly:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1706409033085620283

 

[wdolson]

Anecdotal about low UKR losses at squad(?)-level...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1706016536245239879

In the first(?) post in that thread he writes "...] Like shooting fish in a barrel 80% of the time." Here, if you press Show more:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1706012031998931124

The cowering is not a new thing. The US Army did a study in WW II and found that in a typical firefight with a squad of 12, typically 2 men would be firing. With units made up of volunteers this would go up, but draftees didn't want to be there and would find excuses not to fight if they could. Giving the men automatic weapons instead of single shot rifles increased the number firing too. It was seen in Vietnam that draftees would be more likely to fire if they had an M-16, though the ammunition for the early M-16s tended to gum up the works and they jammed easily.

German and British draftees were a bit more likely to fight because culturally they felt more like they had a dog in the fight than Americans who were a long ways from a home that was not in any danger from enemy action.

People who also felt they had something to prove fought more tenaciously than the average draftee. When African Americans were allowed into combat they fought extremely well, so did the Japanese American unit.

The average Russian mobik has little motivation to fight and there is an ever shrinking group of leaders who could push them into fighting. Their fortifications are full of men who were plugged off the village streets in remote Russia and dumped in a trench or dugout with no training and they may have seen an officer once when they were plunked there. They were often given an antique bolt action rifle and told to defend the trench.

What is being lost? Artillery pieces?

The first line says artillery. It's from the Ukrainian reports of daily Russian losses.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

It's likely smaller. The documented vehicle losses are smaller for Ukraine. Ukraine has documented better battlefield medicine, and they have not been throwing away lives in banzai charges that Russia has been using.

This is not so much about Putin's nostalgia, but Russia's paranoia. It seems nuts to those of us in the west, we know nobody in the west has any designs on occupying Russia, but Russians are paranoid about being invaded. The terrain of Eastern Europe doesn't favor defense, so Russia believes they need buffer states between them and NATO. To have Ukraine moving westward is an existential threat to Russia as far as the Russians are concerned.

Again we know that Russia is not at risk from NATO as long as they don't attack first, but the Russians have suffered two major invasions from Europe in the last 220 years and they do not want the next dictator in Europe to invade. If Ukraine is friendly to Russia, they have their buffer zone between Europe and Russia intact.

You keep writing "Russia"...

If we believe Wikipedia, Russia had a population of ~147M in 2021. Since Russia is now a Military Dictatorship, and has been a Military Dictatorship since at least ~400 CE, there is no way of knowing what these ~147M Russians really think! On top of that X million(?) of those Russians have been thoroughly brainwashed by the Russian Military Dictator...

So... No. This is not about "Russia's paranoia". Just as BitJam wrote, this is about the Russian Dictator trying to stay in power and trying to stay alive. That and pure evil coupled with the very worst forms of Fascism and Imperialism.

 

[wdolson]

You keep writing "Russia"...

If we believe Wikipedia, Russia had a population of ~147M in 2021. Since Russia is now a Military Dictatorship, and has been a Military Dictatorship since at least ~400 CE, there is no way of knowing what these ~147M Russians really think! On top of that X million(?) of those Russians have been thoroughly brainwashed by the Russian Military Dictator...

So... No. This is not about "Russia's paranoia". Just as BitJam wrote, this is about the Russian Dictator trying to stay in power and trying to stay alive. That and pure evil coupled with the very worst forms of Fascism and Imperialism.

There is a lot written out there about the culture of xenophobia in Russia. Even if some people in Russia aren't xenophobic, the leadership class of the country have been for a very long time.

A couple of articles I found in a quick search
A short history of Russia's long standing paranoia about the West | Maynooth University

Does Russia Suffer From "Paranoid Government Disorder”?

Predicting what one person might do in a given situation is difficult to do, but predicting what the majority of a mass of people will do is a lot easier if you know something about their culture and past behavior patterns. There are always outliers in any group, but cultures have memes that a lot of people within that culture follow.

I know this well because I have been an outlier my entire life. Most of my life I have been bucking the cultural currents around me. And most of the people around me have never thought about their cultural memes. They never think about it because it's like the air they breathe, it's all around them and they consume it without thinking.

People who get dropped into another culture they have never experienced before often have culture shock because a lot of things that they take for granted as "normal" are no longer normal. This happens even when the language is the same, though trying to navigate the world with an unfamiliar language can add to the culture shock.

 

[SageBrush]

On top of that X million(?) of those Russians have been thoroughly brainwashed by the Russian Military Dictator...

"Brain Washing" is best accomplished on fertile ground, using tendencies already present in the population. Right wing propaganda in the US and Europe is a good example. Anti-immigration is the veneer, but racism and white supremacy ideas bubble under the surface. So while I agree with you that the invasion of UKR is by and large Putin and his cronies and dead cronies, I would not completelely discount the fact that the Russian populace is manipulated in part because of what and who they are.

 

[DanCar]

"Brain Washing" is best accomplished on fertile ground, using tendencies already present in the population.

Perhaps true, but I'll reiterate what was kind of said above. My mother-in-law who lives in Russia, refuses to talk about the war, because she is afraid of going to jail if someone is listening in to the telephone conversation. If she does say something it will be pro putin just to stay on the "right" side of the law.

My bet is that the Russian people are just as loving as the rest of the world and given some counter "brain washing" education, will be very good earth citizens.

Russian populace is manipulated in part because of what and who they are.

Did we think worse of the Japanese during WW2?

 

[X Fan]

Good article re: ATACMS:

Step aside, Storm Shadow: Ukraine is getting an even more powerful missile

The American MGM-140 ATACMS missile is blazingly fast and easily launched

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[navguy12]

“…Ms. Berlinskaya says she hopes to eventually provide all one million enlisted Ukrainian soldiers basic training in drone operation. “In 21st-century warfare, every soldier must know how to handle drones and be technologically literate. It is far more crucial than knowing how to handle a rifle or dig a trench.”…”

(Paywalled)

For Ukraine’s drone warriors, the fight hits close to home despite the distance of the battlefield

In the skies and on the seas, robot bombers play an important part of the conflict in Ukraine – and each side’s engineers are trying to keep one step ahead of each other

www.theglobeandmail.com

 

[wdolson]

Perhaps true, but I'll reiterate what was kind of said above. My mother-in-law who lives in Russia, refuses to talk about the war, because she is afraid of going to jail if someone is listening in to the telephone conversation. If she does say something it will be pro putin just to stay on the "right" side of the law.

My bet is that the Russian people are just as loving as the rest of the world and given some counter "brain washing" education, will be very good earth citizens.

It will take a while. I know some Russians and some hate Putin, but some still idolize him. These are Russians who have been here for 20 years or more.

Did we think worse of the Japanese during WW2?

I think we did. The US incarcerated most of the Japanese on the mainland during the war, and when Admiral Halsey took over command of the Solomons operation, he put up a billboard outside his HQ that said "When we're done the only place where Japanese will be spoken is hell." Nobody today is that anti-Russian.

 

[DanCar]

It will take a while. I know some Russians and some hate Putin, but some still idolize him. These are Russians who have been here for 20 years or more.

My wife is in a russian bay area womens facebook group with 1K members. According to her, initially there was only one person that was pro putin, and the rest where pro Ukraine. After some months the dissenting voice stopped posting. So from that perspective it is hard to find someone that is pro putin, and quite the opposite, many are pro Ukrainian.