Last year there were more VDV and Spetsnaz and even regular troops that were better trained as individual soldiers. The Russians had a lot more equipment and a lot more artillery ammo then, as well.
Now, the individually trained soldiers have little to no training. Crewed weapon personnel, drone operators and other 'specialty' troops have better living conditions and are more likely to be rescued if injured. The rest is just meat waiting for their time to die.
Given their remaining resources, the Russian army as a whole has evolved to use the resources it has on hand. You don't hear much of Ka-52 attacks these days because there aren't as many of them anymore and Ukraine uses their vehicles sparingly. What Russia has developed are the UMPK glide bombs. They are producing more of them, there are signs they are becoming more accurate, they are working at increasing the range at which they can be dropped, and the largest warhead has been increased to 1500 kg. Right now, this is Ukraine's biggest threat.
Tom wrote a few weeks ago that Russians are in fact improving the training of conscripts, with new personnel actually learning useful stuff instead of being thrown into the grinder straight away. Is it still not so widespread a practice then, yet?
That comes and goes with the rate of loss. Just this week they found documents on dead Russians that indicated they joined the army two weeks earlier. Given the heavy losses at Avdiivka, that tracks.
Training now means you can fire and clean your rifle and an RPG. Specialists are trained on machine guns, automatic grenade launchers, drones, radios, ATGMs, etc., all of which makes units more effective. I haven't seen effective unit movement from Russian infantry.
This kind of losses - 3 helicopters - well behind the front line shouldn’t be tolerated. And yet happen with such a frequency. I wonder why they land them so close to each other!?
I can't say why, and all armies make mistakes, but you do need to minimize the mistakes. Dispersion is a basic principal that I don't always see used by the infantry, either. And it's ok to have the helicopters that far apart in some circumstances, but not to remain there for any length of time. It used to be that when a Russian long ranged drone saw something it might take 40-60 minutes for a missile to be launched. They've reduced that time to 15-30 minutes. Any Ukrainian assets within 100 km of the front has to act as if they are under observation. That is a leadership responsibility to teach and enforce.
„no one wants to be inside when it’s hit, and it’s almost guaranteed to be hit by a drone. When it is, they don’t want to be trapped if the vehicle starts to burn. If you’re on the outside, you might even be able to roll off the moving vehicle if you see a drone approaching.“
This continues to leave me puzzled. It is not, that the Russian soldiers are stupid, they obviously know their fate (nevertheless try to improve chances). I am just wondering, what motivates them to mobilize (money, „defending motherland“, etc.) and if/when this layer will be „cuddled“ away. I mean, the death/wounded rate of those going to Ukraine is impossible to cover, so I think (over and over again, but eventually I am wrong and do not get it), when there will be only „somewhat sane“ men, „fit for mobilization“ left, who will rather choose resistance at home than willing to be shot to pieces by Bradleys and alike 🤷🏻♂️
I can read the words and the explanations. I play hockey with Russians (who have renounced their citizenship) that talk to me. And while I can describe their behaviors, I still I do not understand the mindset.
I don't publish all the videos I see of Russian soldiers committing suicide on the battlefield. There's a lot of them, I just see the ones captured on video, and I don't understand it. I understand the suicides of Japanese personnel during WW2 that are based on a version of 'honor' and societal expectations, but no one has explained to me what belief system would rationalize such widespread behavior among the Russians.
It's still just a portion of Russians that commit suicide, but I'm sure it's related to all those voluntarily (punishment aside) attacking in a manner that has a 90+% chance to kill you. It's as if they just accept their fate and march towards the inevitable.
Thanks, seems I am not the only one, who has a hard time to process this. Hope mobilisation starts to reach more people with some form of “sanity” so feeding the frontlines may start to dry out in a certain fashion…
Hitler also faced sporadic resistance only. His leadership remained pretty much undisputed until April 1945, people would go to work, keep churning out materiel, endure the bombing, old men would deploy to hopeless battles with the Volkssturm etc. I think we in the free world underestimate the power of internalized moral obligation to your betters coupled with the conviction that the state / führer / czar will have their way no matter what you do. In this case, you might as well just follow the order, hope to survive, and if not, well, at least you have carried it out to the end.
By the way, the Nazis had only a decade to brainwash their subjects into submission. In Russia, this mental pattern is centuries old.
I see your point, but would argue that 80 years ago, the cruelty of war was rather intransparent, as opposed to todays, where “the taste of it” is just a view clicks away
Today's wars are almost real-time, that is true. But the people of 80 years ago should have been equally familiar with its destructiveness - if nothing else, WWI was just 25 years past then, with tens of millions having had served and millions crippled. Everyone could see them, most families had someone involved, and they had all heard the stories as well. Civilian populations caught in strategic bombing campaigns could feel it themselves - my relatives who were there told me they could remember the wail of air-raid sirens, the time spent in the basement and skipping corpses in the street very clearly, and kept dreaming about bombed-out courtyards for the rest of their lives.
As I said a couple weeks ago, this is the worst it's going to be for Ukraine regarding ammo supplies, and they will get through it intact. The long term trends are favorable to Ukraine. The biggest threat to them now are the airstrikes. A lot of the Russian trends are on borrowed time.
Thank you Tom and Don! Question, why do the Free Russian Force attack in Belgorod border? What do they want to achieve ? They are losing a lot of equipment and soldiers in such raids. Is it a diversion for something else? Or just to show that we can do it and are not afraid?
All excellent questions. Russia doesn't have a lot of forces on its borders because it knows the Ukrainian army as a whole won't cross it. Russia is too big for the Ukrainian army, its size has protected it from a lot of armies. There's also the politics of actual Ukrainians crossing the border.
Offensive actions have a greater chance for equipment losses than defensive actions. The pro-Ukrainian forces have already lost three engineering vehicles, and armored recovery vehicle and other tanks and IFVs. This is a token offensive force fighting a token defensive force with little chance of substantial destruction of Russian infrastructure needed to continue the war, so I can only view it as a political statement.
Any info about RU looses? Attacking is dangerous, but if it is good planned you can create traps for RU units. Send some partizans forward if you know what other side will do. But there is a big if
Ukraine said Russia lost 800 troops last week. The pattern between Russian and Ukraine is pretty standard right now. It's just a question of how effective Ukrainian artillery, drones and vehicles are at killing the attacking Russians and how effective Russian airstrikes, artillery and drones are at destroying Ukrainian defenses.
Thanks. It looks that both sides has big looses there. Important is ratio. That's the information which we don't have now, and that's why we cannot say if it is a good or bad attack.
Thank you so very much. All in all, can it be said that the Russian soldiers are better prepared for fighting than they were a year ago ?
Last year there were more VDV and Spetsnaz and even regular troops that were better trained as individual soldiers. The Russians had a lot more equipment and a lot more artillery ammo then, as well.
Now, the individually trained soldiers have little to no training. Crewed weapon personnel, drone operators and other 'specialty' troops have better living conditions and are more likely to be rescued if injured. The rest is just meat waiting for their time to die.
Given their remaining resources, the Russian army as a whole has evolved to use the resources it has on hand. You don't hear much of Ka-52 attacks these days because there aren't as many of them anymore and Ukraine uses their vehicles sparingly. What Russia has developed are the UMPK glide bombs. They are producing more of them, there are signs they are becoming more accurate, they are working at increasing the range at which they can be dropped, and the largest warhead has been increased to 1500 kg. Right now, this is Ukraine's biggest threat.
Thank you very much.
Tom wrote a few weeks ago that Russians are in fact improving the training of conscripts, with new personnel actually learning useful stuff instead of being thrown into the grinder straight away. Is it still not so widespread a practice then, yet?
That comes and goes with the rate of loss. Just this week they found documents on dead Russians that indicated they joined the army two weeks earlier. Given the heavy losses at Avdiivka, that tracks.
Training now means you can fire and clean your rifle and an RPG. Specialists are trained on machine guns, automatic grenade launchers, drones, radios, ATGMs, etc., all of which makes units more effective. I haven't seen effective unit movement from Russian infantry.
This kind of losses - 3 helicopters - well behind the front line shouldn’t be tolerated. And yet happen with such a frequency. I wonder why they land them so close to each other!?
I can't say why, and all armies make mistakes, but you do need to minimize the mistakes. Dispersion is a basic principal that I don't always see used by the infantry, either. And it's ok to have the helicopters that far apart in some circumstances, but not to remain there for any length of time. It used to be that when a Russian long ranged drone saw something it might take 40-60 minutes for a missile to be launched. They've reduced that time to 15-30 minutes. Any Ukrainian assets within 100 km of the front has to act as if they are under observation. That is a leadership responsibility to teach and enforce.
„no one wants to be inside when it’s hit, and it’s almost guaranteed to be hit by a drone. When it is, they don’t want to be trapped if the vehicle starts to burn. If you’re on the outside, you might even be able to roll off the moving vehicle if you see a drone approaching.“
This continues to leave me puzzled. It is not, that the Russian soldiers are stupid, they obviously know their fate (nevertheless try to improve chances). I am just wondering, what motivates them to mobilize (money, „defending motherland“, etc.) and if/when this layer will be „cuddled“ away. I mean, the death/wounded rate of those going to Ukraine is impossible to cover, so I think (over and over again, but eventually I am wrong and do not get it), when there will be only „somewhat sane“ men, „fit for mobilization“ left, who will rather choose resistance at home than willing to be shot to pieces by Bradleys and alike 🤷🏻♂️
As the Ukrainian soldiers mentioned in a video, if the mobilized Russians say "No", they are punished.
I am sure they are, but I would say, that is less of a worse option than been shot to pieces in a senseless meat assault…
I can read the words and the explanations. I play hockey with Russians (who have renounced their citizenship) that talk to me. And while I can describe their behaviors, I still I do not understand the mindset.
I don't publish all the videos I see of Russian soldiers committing suicide on the battlefield. There's a lot of them, I just see the ones captured on video, and I don't understand it. I understand the suicides of Japanese personnel during WW2 that are based on a version of 'honor' and societal expectations, but no one has explained to me what belief system would rationalize such widespread behavior among the Russians.
It's still just a portion of Russians that commit suicide, but I'm sure it's related to all those voluntarily (punishment aside) attacking in a manner that has a 90+% chance to kill you. It's as if they just accept their fate and march towards the inevitable.
They are told the Ukrainians torture and mutilate captives, thus they prefer to die quickly.
Thanks, seems I am not the only one, who has a hard time to process this. Hope mobilisation starts to reach more people with some form of “sanity” so feeding the frontlines may start to dry out in a certain fashion…
I don't think that's something we can count on anytime soon.
Hitler also faced sporadic resistance only. His leadership remained pretty much undisputed until April 1945, people would go to work, keep churning out materiel, endure the bombing, old men would deploy to hopeless battles with the Volkssturm etc. I think we in the free world underestimate the power of internalized moral obligation to your betters coupled with the conviction that the state / führer / czar will have their way no matter what you do. In this case, you might as well just follow the order, hope to survive, and if not, well, at least you have carried it out to the end.
By the way, the Nazis had only a decade to brainwash their subjects into submission. In Russia, this mental pattern is centuries old.
I see your point, but would argue that 80 years ago, the cruelty of war was rather intransparent, as opposed to todays, where “the taste of it” is just a view clicks away
Today's wars are almost real-time, that is true. But the people of 80 years ago should have been equally familiar with its destructiveness - if nothing else, WWI was just 25 years past then, with tens of millions having had served and millions crippled. Everyone could see them, most families had someone involved, and they had all heard the stories as well. Civilian populations caught in strategic bombing campaigns could feel it themselves - my relatives who were there told me they could remember the wail of air-raid sirens, the time spent in the basement and skipping corpses in the street very clearly, and kept dreaming about bombed-out courtyards for the rest of their lives.
Thanks for #2 report, lots going on looks to me more good than bad for the UAF
As I said a couple weeks ago, this is the worst it's going to be for Ukraine regarding ammo supplies, and they will get through it intact. The long term trends are favorable to Ukraine. The biggest threat to them now are the airstrikes. A lot of the Russian trends are on borrowed time.
Thank you Tom and Don! Question, why do the Free Russian Force attack in Belgorod border? What do they want to achieve ? They are losing a lot of equipment and soldiers in such raids. Is it a diversion for something else? Or just to show that we can do it and are not afraid?
All excellent questions. Russia doesn't have a lot of forces on its borders because it knows the Ukrainian army as a whole won't cross it. Russia is too big for the Ukrainian army, its size has protected it from a lot of armies. There's also the politics of actual Ukrainians crossing the border.
Offensive actions have a greater chance for equipment losses than defensive actions. The pro-Ukrainian forces have already lost three engineering vehicles, and armored recovery vehicle and other tanks and IFVs. This is a token offensive force fighting a token defensive force with little chance of substantial destruction of Russian infrastructure needed to continue the war, so I can only view it as a political statement.
Any info about RU looses? Attacking is dangerous, but if it is good planned you can create traps for RU units. Send some partizans forward if you know what other side will do. But there is a big if
Ukraine said Russia lost 800 troops last week. The pattern between Russian and Ukraine is pretty standard right now. It's just a question of how effective Ukrainian artillery, drones and vehicles are at killing the attacking Russians and how effective Russian airstrikes, artillery and drones are at destroying Ukrainian defenses.
Thanks. It looks that both sides has big looses there. Important is ratio. That's the information which we don't have now, and that's why we cannot say if it is a good or bad attack.
If I were to guess, and it's just a guess, I'd say it was 4+:1 in favor of Ukraine.
If yes then it is a good attack and we need to count also that now is RU towns destroyed by bombs and not UA, some people stop working + PR.