Interesting. Tom, would you agree that Russian factories can deliver 400-500 tanks per year? The number seems quite exaggerated to me but maybe this is my wishful thinking.
As for the need to out-innovate, I’ve been hoping that the Ukrainians would have already dusted out their old Soviet missile schemes, update them and produce something that can reach and destroy major industrial plants in at least the European part of Russia but ...
before i read that RU is able to produce 200 new and upgrade 600 tanks per year + can take many hundreds from storage just with repair. It is quite possible that there are not enough good tanks for upgrade or repair in storages and is easier to produce new ones, so capacity is used to build new tanks instead of repair/upgrade. But maybe the capacity was increased but we will see it next months because building new tanks is complex thing and with russia lying and corrupcy we need to see result first.
I agree. With open source intelligence it's easier to determine broad trends than precise numbers. Knowing the sources and methods would also help determine the level of confidence in a figure.
Agreed; at war start AP ran a piece describing how Uralvagonzavod was able to produce 20-24 tanks per year, and that expectations were at best to treble that to 75ish. Now I'm hearing 400 to 500 and that just seems out of whack. Regardless of how many tank assembly lines Russia has, the bottleneck is barrels currently, and none of the factories mentioned are able to produce sufficient numbers of vehicles.
I'm a believer that we can't just 'wish away' unpleasant facts; but I've seen little to date that supports a claim of 500+250 refurbs.
Whether the production numbers for Russia are correct or incorrect in order of multiples, it just strengthens my conviction that Russia will first run out of troops rather than armor/machinery/ammo...
From everything I've read over the last couple of years, the number of personnel isn't the issue, even with their high rate of loss. They do have logistical constraints on how many they can mobilize at one time, as well as how many they can maintain. The other reported cap on Russian manpower is the political concern of how the public would react to a WW2-style national effort that would disrupt the complacency and lifestyle of the populace in general.
There are a lot of other things that happened that I didn't include, either. Some complain that my posts are too long. Others say I don't write enough. I will do my best to please you all.
I appreciate your work, just feeling too much attention to every small Ukrainian propaganda piece.
I think the strikes on Odessa or on the Kerch shipyard are much more important than a drone attack on a squad.
But let's talk about small achievements. This I have found interesting, unusually high number of PoWs in a single action, Volga in action? https://t.me/The_Wrong_Side/12925
The attack on the Kerch shipyard is pretty good propaganda for Ukraine. I think it comes down to what interests someone and what doesn't. I post less than 5%, maybe 1% of the attacks I view during the week. Sometimes I write for my own interests and as a former infantryman I really like to know the terrain, how people fight and the various evolving trends in weapons and their effects.
I hear small anecdotes about prisoners now and then. One, in which the survivors in a unit killed their commander and surrendered together. Another, maybe the same one, in which a soldier asked if he could surrender. When they granted his request, he asked if his friends could surrender and about 60 came across without any of their leaders.
I don't have any information on how many prisioners were taken throughout the war, on either side, but I know Ukraine has 50 sites to house their POWs.
"Sometimes I write for my own interests and as a former infantryman I really like to know the terrain, how people fight and the various evolving trends in weapons and their effects."
Same here, still in reserve by law for five more years. The only thing I ever imagined for case for reactivation was Ukraine falling apart on our eastern border.
Guys in goverment are interesting in winning because crazy dictator kills his political opponents ( 10-20 people from Prigozhyn to poisoned in the UK in 2018 ).
So its a fight for their lives. I dont think they would not prioritize the win
Since 1996, the US produced 50k rockets and 12k command launch units. They're in the process of nearly doubling their production of 2100 rockets in May '22 to 3960 in 2026. They're also in talks with Poland about producing Javelins there.
In general, western current production and rate of increase is insufficient for Ukraine, even without taking the middle east and their own national security into consideration.
Russia might produces 4000 armoured vehacles already in 2025 while West will produce 4000 javelin rockets a year.
And I guess it takes about 100 produced rockets per destroyed tank ( I dont know just guess) . So Ukraine can simply has less rockets then russia tanks
Of course, and they can be made jam resistant and it takes, on average, five drones to destroy a vehicle, all of which together still costs about $75k less than a Javelin missile. Everything has its place.
Russia has placed a lot more emphasis on EW than a lot of countries. Improving Ukraine's EW strength is one of Zaluzhnyi's goals. For their own national security, the West just be producing a lot more equipment, including EW gear.
I am just trying to think on how to get Crimea back. Also I am very disapointed in amount of western help. They obviously has strategy to make war a draw and a static. They dont want Ukraine to win by amount of weapons they send
C'mon!! 1.) Finland itself quit Finlandization. 2.) Putin already declared Ukraine a fake country created by Lenin. Ukraine making any deal with Russia right now is akin to making a deal with an incessant rapist that is openly declaring they want to rape Ukraine no matter what. Its naive and foolish. The only solution is to kick the Russian military out of Ukraine like the Afghans kicked the Soviets out.
The wild card is how well the Russian military is doing internally. Can their morale, leadership, unit cohesiveness endure the high rate of losses they have been suffering? If they can, then Ukraine is in trouble. If not, things could change suddenly. Also who is better equipped to survive the winter months may play a big part as well. We will see if the Russians are better prepared for winter this year than last.
I spoke to russian "average joe", mostly men 25-45 years with high education and income 1-5k usd a month.
They usually support war.
They say economy is not comfortable. "But what can we do? I wish we did not attack Ukraine, it was a mistake. But we did attack, so now we dont have way out, we must go to the end to win.
Mobilization? Not afraid, they usually mobilize low educated people who sign for 2k usd salary. No effect on big city population.
Why russia might win? Because even with loses 1-2 Ukrainian population will end faster then Russia. So Ukraine will disapear faster and no chance Russia can loose in a long run. We hope and wish war end quick. But with our victory".
So, they dont like the war started, they want it to finish quixk, they feel inconvenience with economy. But they believe they should end up war by winning. Its important for them.
Great update Don, thank you so much. Very interesting things can be done with drones indeed and Zaluzhnyi is spot on. From an informatics perspective this is the way to go, you could create cheap $5k to $10k drones that could take out Ka-52s operating on the frontlines for example, instead of waiting on Sullivan to greenlight ATACMS that can hit Russian air bases. I think its smart of Zaluzhnyi and Ukrainians in general to start thinking this way and to look at ways of mass producing local inventions, be it locally in Ukraine or finding partners in Eastern Europe and beyond to produce what they innovate. This would be better than waiting on some politicians in the West. If it wasn't for their $500 fpv drone innovations, they would be waiting on $30,000 kamikaze drones from the US which dont perform any better but cost 60 times more, and would only be allowed to operate in post 2014 Ukrainian held territories. But how to produce in large numbers and overwhelm the Russian military enough to take back large amounts of land is the problem. Sanctions are not going to work considering how close Russia is to China(which produces a lot of equipment) and how much more integrated the global economy is.
Thank you so very much for the second part. Facts, figures soberly written. It is such a light to have the honor to read your weekly pieces.
Thanks, I'm very glad it's useful.
Interesting. Tom, would you agree that Russian factories can deliver 400-500 tanks per year? The number seems quite exaggerated to me but maybe this is my wishful thinking.
As for the need to out-innovate, I’ve been hoping that the Ukrainians would have already dusted out their old Soviet missile schemes, update them and produce something that can reach and destroy major industrial plants in at least the European part of Russia but ...
before i read that RU is able to produce 200 new and upgrade 600 tanks per year + can take many hundreds from storage just with repair. It is quite possible that there are not enough good tanks for upgrade or repair in storages and is easier to produce new ones, so capacity is used to build new tanks instead of repair/upgrade. But maybe the capacity was increased but we will see it next months because building new tanks is complex thing and with russia lying and corrupcy we need to see result first.
I agree. With open source intelligence it's easier to determine broad trends than precise numbers. Knowing the sources and methods would also help determine the level of confidence in a figure.
About a quarter of that - yes, sure. Anything more: don't see how. They were importing even high-quality steel for armour before the war.
Agreed; at war start AP ran a piece describing how Uralvagonzavod was able to produce 20-24 tanks per year, and that expectations were at best to treble that to 75ish. Now I'm hearing 400 to 500 and that just seems out of whack. Regardless of how many tank assembly lines Russia has, the bottleneck is barrels currently, and none of the factories mentioned are able to produce sufficient numbers of vehicles.
I'm a believer that we can't just 'wish away' unpleasant facts; but I've seen little to date that supports a claim of 500+250 refurbs.
Whether the production numbers for Russia are correct or incorrect in order of multiples, it just strengthens my conviction that Russia will first run out of troops rather than armor/machinery/ammo...
From everything I've read over the last couple of years, the number of personnel isn't the issue, even with their high rate of loss. They do have logistical constraints on how many they can mobilize at one time, as well as how many they can maintain. The other reported cap on Russian manpower is the political concern of how the public would react to a WW2-style national effort that would disrupt the complacency and lifestyle of the populace in general.
What happened in Odessa on 5th?
This report says that two missiles and ten drones attacked the city.
https://twitter.com/ivan_8848/status/1721284668895494351
This report has slightly different details.
https://ukrainetoday.org/2023/11/06/the-russians-struck-odessa-infrastructure-and-residential-buildings-were-damaged-in-the-city-there-were-wounded/
Also:
https://bnn.network/breaking-news/crime/russian-aggression-escalates-in-southern-ukraine-five-critically-injured-in-odessa/
It was a rhetoric question. I have not found Odessa mentioned in the weekly newsletter, despite that it was a quite big and long attack.
A Ka-52 killer Western SAM: https://t.me/romanov_92/42217 https://t.me/romanov_92/42213 https://t.me/romanov_92/42212
So I miss the deep analysis, looks like it happened contrary to the SAMP/T / inept Russians tropes.
There are a lot of other things that happened that I didn't include, either. Some complain that my posts are too long. Others say I don't write enough. I will do my best to please you all.
I appreciate your work, just feeling too much attention to every small Ukrainian propaganda piece.
I think the strikes on Odessa or on the Kerch shipyard are much more important than a drone attack on a squad.
But let's talk about small achievements. This I have found interesting, unusually high number of PoWs in a single action, Volga in action? https://t.me/The_Wrong_Side/12925
The attack on the Kerch shipyard is pretty good propaganda for Ukraine. I think it comes down to what interests someone and what doesn't. I post less than 5%, maybe 1% of the attacks I view during the week. Sometimes I write for my own interests and as a former infantryman I really like to know the terrain, how people fight and the various evolving trends in weapons and their effects.
I hear small anecdotes about prisoners now and then. One, in which the survivors in a unit killed their commander and surrendered together. Another, maybe the same one, in which a soldier asked if he could surrender. When they granted his request, he asked if his friends could surrender and about 60 came across without any of their leaders.
I don't have any information on how many prisioners were taken throughout the war, on either side, but I know Ukraine has 50 sites to house their POWs.
"Sometimes I write for my own interests and as a former infantryman I really like to know the terrain, how people fight and the various evolving trends in weapons and their effects."
Same here, still in reserve by law for five more years. The only thing I ever imagined for case for reactivation was Ukraine falling apart on our eastern border.
Mentioned you in an article this morning - thanks for the continuing analysis!
https://barry-gander.medium.com/the-stalemate-in-ukraine-isnt-really-stale-dff297c8dcc1
Ah, you mean Tom, who owns this Substack and is kind enough to host my posts. I'm happy to do my part to boost the signal.
You might also be aware of another Kyiv Post journalist, Stefan Korshak, who reminds us that WW1 was a stalemate until it wasn't.
https://stefankorshak.substack.com/p/nov-5-day-620-behind-the-eight-ball?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=849275&post_id=138626786&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=6z72m&utm_medium=email
The head of Ukraine’s special operations was fired and most of the public is not sure why…
—————-
Pure bureaucracy and under-carpet games of Andrii Iermak, head of President office. Nothing personal, no scandals: just to play with managers a bit
Maybe. You would hope that all actions taken would be based on the consideration on whether it helps or hurts the war effort.
Guys in goverment are interesting in winning because crazy dictator kills his political opponents ( 10-20 people from Prigozhyn to poisoned in the UK in 2018 ).
So its a fight for their lives. I dont think they would not prioritize the win
SSO UA needs its chief from SSO stuff: not external managers, too sensitive structure, too specific guys to accept somebody “alien”
Main point: russia produces 2000 armoured vehacles in 2023, and might increase production to 3000 in 2024.
West produces probably less javelin rockets then this.
France produces 2-3 k 155 mm ammo a year, Poland is "happy" they gave 300 tanks.
All of those western staff looks like nothing.
Since 1996, the US produced 50k rockets and 12k command launch units. They're in the process of nearly doubling their production of 2100 rockets in May '22 to 3960 in 2026. They're also in talks with Poland about producing Javelins there.
In general, western current production and rate of increase is insufficient for Ukraine, even without taking the middle east and their own national security into consideration.
Russia might produces 4000 armoured vehacles already in 2025 while West will produce 4000 javelin rockets a year.
And I guess it takes about 100 produced rockets per destroyed tank ( I dont know just guess) . So Ukraine can simply has less rockets then russia tanks
There's never enough of anything. Drones kill a LOT of vehicles. Russian drones and artillery are a much bigger threat than their tanks.
Drones can be jammed. I am surprice West cannot provide or Ukraine cannot produce eniugh jammers
Of course, and they can be made jam resistant and it takes, on average, five drones to destroy a vehicle, all of which together still costs about $75k less than a Javelin missile. Everything has its place.
Russia has placed a lot more emphasis on EW than a lot of countries. Improving Ukraine's EW strength is one of Zaluzhnyi's goals. For their own national security, the West just be producing a lot more equipment, including EW gear.
Totally crazy idea but in ww2 Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Slovakia, Norway switched sides to its own benefits.
Maybe,Ukraine can also switch side and get Crimea back in exchange of joining Russia-China-Iran alliance?
Europe and US will be happy that problem is resolved, they can now start to trade with Russia and try to get it on their side against China.
So Ukraine might end up with Europe again, but in much better position, as a partner, not as a bagger for weapon and critisized
That statement does not take the Ukrainian national sentiment or Russian objectives into account.
Yes. It requires a full support of the political leadership.
Just like Mannerheim had in Finnland and could switch sides 2 times during the war or sign a peace when he wanted.
I think it benefited Finnland.
Are you a russian bot or just a 'useful idiot'? Maybe you can join the orcs yourself, personally and stop spreading nonsense?
I am just trying to think on how to get Crimea back. Also I am very disapointed in amount of western help. They obviously has strategy to make war a draw and a static. They dont want Ukraine to win by amount of weapons they send
C'mon!! 1.) Finland itself quit Finlandization. 2.) Putin already declared Ukraine a fake country created by Lenin. Ukraine making any deal with Russia right now is akin to making a deal with an incessant rapist that is openly declaring they want to rape Ukraine no matter what. Its naive and foolish. The only solution is to kick the Russian military out of Ukraine like the Afghans kicked the Soviets out.
Yes, thank you - sorry for the error! I will check out the article...
The wild card is how well the Russian military is doing internally. Can their morale, leadership, unit cohesiveness endure the high rate of losses they have been suffering? If they can, then Ukraine is in trouble. If not, things could change suddenly. Also who is better equipped to survive the winter months may play a big part as well. We will see if the Russians are better prepared for winter this year than last.
I spoke to russian "average joe", mostly men 25-45 years with high education and income 1-5k usd a month.
They usually support war.
They say economy is not comfortable. "But what can we do? I wish we did not attack Ukraine, it was a mistake. But we did attack, so now we dont have way out, we must go to the end to win.
Mobilization? Not afraid, they usually mobilize low educated people who sign for 2k usd salary. No effect on big city population.
Why russia might win? Because even with loses 1-2 Ukrainian population will end faster then Russia. So Ukraine will disapear faster and no chance Russia can loose in a long run. We hope and wish war end quick. But with our victory".
So, they dont like the war started, they want it to finish quixk, they feel inconvenience with economy. But they believe they should end up war by winning. Its important for them.
Thank you Don very informative reads , and right on the mark, I never thought about how the west had let war resources fall to the lows they have
Great update Don, thank you so much. Very interesting things can be done with drones indeed and Zaluzhnyi is spot on. From an informatics perspective this is the way to go, you could create cheap $5k to $10k drones that could take out Ka-52s operating on the frontlines for example, instead of waiting on Sullivan to greenlight ATACMS that can hit Russian air bases. I think its smart of Zaluzhnyi and Ukrainians in general to start thinking this way and to look at ways of mass producing local inventions, be it locally in Ukraine or finding partners in Eastern Europe and beyond to produce what they innovate. This would be better than waiting on some politicians in the West. If it wasn't for their $500 fpv drone innovations, they would be waiting on $30,000 kamikaze drones from the US which dont perform any better but cost 60 times more, and would only be allowed to operate in post 2014 Ukrainian held territories. But how to produce in large numbers and overwhelm the Russian military enough to take back large amounts of land is the problem. Sanctions are not going to work considering how close Russia is to China(which produces a lot of equipment) and how much more integrated the global economy is.