Today was the Day No. 500 since Putin’s all-out invasion, and I’m at least three days ‘late’ with my next ‘regular’ update: sorry, was busy with getting a few additional books into the print (no less than two of these will be Ukraine-related, but more about this at some other opportunity). Thus, once again, I’ll ignore all of the usual political ping-pong, and get straight to what matters.
I know this sounds like an anxious and kinda dumb question to make but, in your opnion i know you dont have a crystal ball, what are your expectations for this month?
I simply have no expectations. That way I'm hard to disappoint....
The way things are, the ZSU has little other options but to keep on pushing. Granting initiative to the Russians is no solution when own methods do work, even if these are anything else than 'spectacular' for Western observers.
Foremost, if the ZSU really gets a sufficient supply of DPICMs - indeed: 'all-out supply' of them, as possible thanks to the stock of 4.6 million of such shells in US arsenals - there are some extremely nasty times for the Russians ahead.
Even if the approach to prioritize inflicting losses over capturing land is being successful, do you think that the lack of maneuver opportunities has made the ZSU to overspend artillery ammo way over planned?
I really hope opening the DPICMs pool is going to help with that plus with Russian infantry counterattack tactics that seemed to have gotten better learning from Wagner lessons in Bakhmut (ZSU infantry also seems to have learnt a lot but offense is always harder than defense).
I’m also curious what is your take on the Kakhovka reservoir becoming a new scenario in the midterm, lots of speculation from social media ‘experts’ if the new land can handle or not heavy vehicles, I wonder if Ukrainian command is even considering it or ruling it out entirely. Apologies if you already answered this or is just too obviously opsec.
The ZSU cannot 'overspend' artillery ammunition if it hasn't got enough of it.
Actually, the DPICM is likely to lessen the expenditure, simply because bomblets from the same shell can cover a larger area and thus hit multiple targets.
Re. crossing the dry riverbed of the Dnipro: perhaps I'm too tired, but really, no idea.
It shows a drone flight over the former reservoir. I can't imagine that it will be possible to get through there with heavy equipment in the foreseeable future.
Just curious, there was talk of delivering the 150 km range GLSDBs to be launched from ground-based missile systems such as the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System and M142 HIMARS in July.
Seems they would be very useful for attrition at this stage, I have not seen any mention of their use.
There were other claims they were delivered in March but I have not seen credible reports of their usage.
I have a - maybe pessimistic - take on the whole "but what if they capture one" topic, regardless of the actual weapon:
The only way you can keep a technology secret is if you lock it away and never give it out to troops. Of course then it's pretty useless, but the counter-intel guys can be happy.
The moment it goes out to troops or worse, out to a real battlefield with real enemy, it has to be considered as "leaked". 100 times more if the equipment should be used at the frontline or has to go behind enemy lines. (Like a missile should.) There will always be a greedy quartermaster sergeant, a careless secretary, a malfunctioned dud. The Storm Shadows have been used since 2003 in Iraq, Lybia, Syria and Yemen - I bet that not each and every one worked perfectly.
Ok, now an actual question on a ‘divisive’ subject if I may. I keep reading reports and estimates that Russia has spent most of their heavy artillery ammo and may only have a some 2-3 millions left, while their production cannot keep the stock up. At the same time it would appear that the daily expenditure is somewhere around 10k - so less then what os was about a year ago. Does this in rough terms reflect your information, or is it just a wishful thinking?
It is hard to assess - however there are the following facts:
1. Russia is using old (WW2 era) 152mm ammo. This ammo was made to different specs and has different ballistics when compared with later ammo. It means different ballistic tables, different training, etc.
2. Russia is using old Chinese shells reimported from Iran, using Iran supplied propellant.
It means different ballistics again.
All of that should significantly reduce the effectiveness of ruzzian artillery.
Reports from ruzzian "voienkors" indicates that this is the real problem for them.
In this recent Economist video I was surprised to see a glance of Ukrainian new drones tested by a local company (AirLogix), including what seems to be loitering ones. They don't look near as large as Lancets though, so possibly not same scope. In case you haven't seen it and find it interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4cdr4xbaqw
Most possibly target of 6 Jul attack in Lviv wasn't SBU HQ (which was targeted a week before) but one of nearby military facilities - Academy of ground forces or base of 24th OMBr. Both have a few of garages on their territories, which possibly could be used for holding some vechicles (but i have big doubts they did so). Anywhere, rockets missed both and hit nearby living building.
again, many thanks for your work and the resulting summary!
You write:”the only way to measure success right now is by how much damage is it causing to the Russians.”
Overall and in broader terms, do you assess Ukraine (from your point of view) is “successful” using the above reference point and has made/is making the correct adjustments for (more) success?
Re. is ZSU successful: gauging by past experiences, the top ranks of the ZSU are responsible and reasonable enough to know what are they doing to their own troops - and thus also what are they doing to the Russians. Therefore: they would've stopped this fracas if the losses would be too heavy.
This in turn is 'cross-confirmed' by what one gets to hear from the troops. They 'can', they 'do'. Therefore, there's no reason to stop.
Where there's still a problem are mid-ranking officers: too many of these were advanced in rank and assigned positions for which they're not, or not yet qualified. And new units got too little time to learn everything the way they should.
That all said, when creating all the new brigades and then starting this offensive, the leadership of the ZSU seems to have forgotten one of its own - me thinks: crucial - experiences: 90% of ZSU's losses are suffered by troops and units without combat experience. By the time of something like '5th combat experience', losses are next to zero.
Thus, I think it would've been better not to use the new units for this offensive, but to use them to replace combat-experienced units and let them gain combat experience at 'quieter' sectors of the frontline, first; while, meanwhile withdrawing experienced units, refreshing them and then deploying them for the offensive.
I found very insightful your thought about why equipping new units with the best western equipment instead of giving it to the most combat-tested units. It seems plain obvious that ZSU is thinking let's use the best Western equipment for offense yet these same units seem to have very little combat experience, which is quite a paradox, to say the least, they can't be your best units even if they have the best stuff.
Was this perhaps a NATO requirement that they wanted newer troops to absorb better the NATO way of war, yet they probably didn't think ZSU were going to use them as spearhead at first opportunity?
The result is that Bradleys have probably one of the worst loss rates per system of the entire war, losing 10% of them in its very first week of combat was a bit shocking and RU propaganda squeezed the most out of the images, for a few days it was a bit of worst infowar scenario come true.
Thanks for the update. This offensive is excruciating to follow. The level of incompetence is staggering. However, the worst of all is that the ZSU seem completely incapable of learning anything at a strategic, maybe even operational level. You are constantly reminding us about artillery and shells, but that is not the main problem. You send the ZSU more artillery, they will simply continue probing, just with more shells, as they are incapable of exploiting any breakthrough. A country which can't produce small arms, let alone heavy weapons, is trying to beat a country, with at least some level of production and an enormous stock of old weapons and ammunition, through a kill-death ratio. That is simply idiotic. Unless Moscow implodes, which is fortunately probable, there is currently no possibility for Ukraine to achieve success through military means. Eventually, in 3 months time, they will probably push VSRF out of the Melitopol-Mariupol corridor. All the valuable VSRF units will comfortably withdraw, again. Then what? More shells and "probing"? more "genius" infantry platoon-sized raids?
Do you not realise, that without destroying the VSRF army, which is the only purpose of war, the liberated territory does not matter? If Russia retains the valuable bulk of their forces, even if they withdraw from Ukraine, it is incredibly unlikely that there will be a peace treaty. In that case, I don't think anyone expects Russia to agree to any reparations. At the same time, it is almost impossible to imagine a scenario where the frozen assets are simply stolen by the West and transferred to Ukraine. Nobody in the West wants to spend their own money on rebuilding a destitute, corrupt, mined, destroyed barren land. The current population of Ukraine is estimated to be ~26-28M, down from ~37M. The country already had the worst demographics in Europe (Russia is 2nd) before the invasion. By incompetently fighting, the ZSU is helping prolong the war and hence achieve disastrous political outcomes. Instead of constantly complaining about the West, who are not actually at war, you should focus on the incompetent ZSU commanders who after almost 2 years of fighting, continue to operate with individual battalions. They are still incapable of coordinating a brigade-sized combat unit. Coordinating operations of multiple brigades is probably beyond even their wildest dreams.
That's actually very simple. Putin never wanted or planned to "conquer" Ukraine. He wanted a puppet regime, even more controllable than Yanukovich. It was to be exploited as a colony by Moscow-based oligarchy. Men were to be drafted into the army, like it's done all across the Russian Empire's outer provinces.
We have to distinguish between Russia losing and Ukraine winning. Ukraine has defended its sovereignty, but it has not won its future yet. At the moment, only NATO and China are genuinely winning.
Putin is now an old KGB half-wit. His power and mere existence depend on the idiocy of the Russian population. And I strongly recommend you to leave alone Ukraine and Ukrainian in your comments filled with superiority based on nothing.
I understand if you are Ukrainian you may be upset. However, I fail to see what your reply has to do with my comment. Ukraine will not become an EU member until it satisfies all entry requirements. Ukraine are unlikely to satisfy these requirements before 2040. That is if many things go well. That is why it is so vital for the ZSU to achieve military victory through the destruction of the VSRF, and do it quickly. Russia may implode, it may not, China may get involved more seriously, may not. That's a lot of hoping on others.
For nearly a year Europe sat hiding, trembling and counting money while Ukraine was fighting. A large part of Western citizens are terrified to death by the perspective of Russia at their borders. Your comments show your feeling of superiority which I consider to be simply ridiculous because you write your comments being in security. You have no right to judge Ukraine.
Europe does not want Russians at the border because nobody does. However, given how the further away from the Russian border, the lower the anti-Russian sentiment, I would be careful with statements of being terrified. I fail to see any Brits, French or Spaniards quivering. I can judge the performance of the ZSU just like I am judging the VSRF. Can people only laugh at Vuhledar but not criticise how shit the current offensive is conducted?
NATO has got rid of soviet munitions and 40 year old western ones. The only semi modern stuff Ukraine has received are a handful of AD systems, manpads, some AT infantry weapons, GMLRS, Storm Shadows and HARMs. Russia has never been weaker, no western country in NATO is planning any large increase in their army size. They will simply invest in their own defence industries and slowly produce the replacement equipment and ammunition. Have you actually read any defence plans of main NATO members? They are publically available.
China is benefitting hugely, in direct terms, from this war. More than 50% of imports to Russia now come from China. The Chinese have filled all their storage facilities to the brim with dirt cheap oil and gas. Russia has become a vassal state of China in economic terms. Indirectly, China is suffering due to slower growth in Europe not helping the Chinese economic recovery post covid. You are greatly oversimplifying what is a highly complex reality.
Well, I try to follow at least the summaries of defence plans of the main NATO countries. You must be a fabulous person that somebody being interested in something makes him a troll. All these documents are publically available. E.g. that France is increasing their defence budget 2024-2030 to a whopping... 2% of gdp. Last time I checked, the UK's grand decision was to... stop further cuts in the army.
Please focus on reading before you speak. China has imported huge amounts of heavily discounted oil and gas. Their storage facilities are now full, while the economic recovery still hasn't begun. The Chinese are exporting goods to Russia at normal, maybe even inflated prices. That I do not know. The Chinese suppliers are also increasingly demanding larger and larger prepayments.
....yup, and Kharkiv is going to fall after an inside revolution by Russians who know they're Russians, on the 3rd or 4th day, and Kyiv is going to be secured by the 10th-14th day.... And everybody in Ukraine is going to greet the master strategist as their liberator....
I never said anything like that. In fact, I've written plenty of times the exact opposite. What does this have to do with the fact that this offensive is as incompetent as the Russian winter offensive, and will be as "successful" as the Kherson one, at best? That is, 3 months of high losses, especially in equipment that is unlikely to be replaced, in order to let all the valuable VSRF units to withdraw in good order. The ZSU is now conducting its 3rd offensive and there is no noticeable improvement at the organisational level. Even WW1 on the western front ended with a hundred day offensive and a collapse of the German army. Wars are won by destroying armies, not grinding for 5-house villages. Currently, the ZSU are averaging 100m a day of forward movement, while sustaining 1:2 ratio of visually confirmed equipment losses.
The visually confirmed ratio is closer to 1:1, the fact that the only measurable metric you included in your long rant is so off and biased tells us everything about your agenda.
Well, I have and clearly, I disagree with you for the reasons I outlined. You have a much more optimistic outlook and so I hope you are correct. I'd be very happy to be proven wrong. I will gladly and with relief admit when it happens.
However, I did ask you many months ago about issues with lacking division-level command. We see this problem resurface yet again. The ZSU has even tried to create a quasi-division command but it seems this has failed in practice. There's more to war than more shells as I am 100% sure you know as well.
It seems to be working so far. Russia is rapidly running out of artillery ammunition - and guns to fire them from. Most of those the Ukrainians haven't destroyed are worn out - they may still throw a shell, but range and accuracy will be seriously compromised. They're losing trained, experienced troops at an unsustainable rate, and cannot train or equip the new mobiks.
Russia is well and truly beat, though they may hang on to an ever-diminishing portion of Ukrainian territory for a year or two, the end is inevitable - most likely through the fall of the regime.
Post-war Ukraine will rebuild very rapidly - the unity and enthusiasm the people will generate will inspire investment, many of those who have left will return (a lot have already) to be part of it. Tourism will boom, and by 2030 Ukraine will have the fastest growing economy in Europe.
I agree with the first 2 paragraphs. I will caveat them though. Despite, not being able to produce new equipment at any significant rate. Despite, not being able to train the bulk of the fresh troops properly. This is enough to stop anything that the ZSU can throw at them and force a battle of attrition that the ZSU simply cannot fight effectively and efficiently.
The 3rd paragraph I disagree with strongly. I am not a migration expert, but I am sure one can calculate the percentage of refugees of working age that are likely to come back to a destroyed country, with every passing year the war lasts. According to current trends, in 20 years time, the only people in Ukraine will be government officials, soldiers and pensioners. Why do you think Canada immediately granted hundreds of thousands of visas to Ukrainians? Do you think Canada is a make a wish foundation? There were estimated close to 2M ukrainians in Poland in 2021. Now it's probably close to 3M. Do you think that all these parents with kids have nothing better to do than to quit much better paid jobs in Poland or Germany and move to some ruined shithole in the Donbas, full of mines? Even assuming a complete victory, Kyiv will have to reintegrate what is now the land of amazons of Donetsk and Luhansk. Where are you planning on getting young males from? Are you hoping for a mass insemination programme?
This is what is at stake. Every year of war, makes the demographic catastrophy more irreversible.
OK Test Subject, now it is time to address another of your false claims.
You claim "The level of incompetence is staggering".
According to the Institute for Study of War today " In five weeks, Ukrainian forces have liberated nearly the same amount of territory that Russian forces captured in over six months."
It seems the Ukrainians are making slow and steady progress South towards Mariupol and Berdyansk. Berdyansk is just on 300km from the Kerch Bridge, the limit of ATACMS range. You'd have to think the US would spare a handful of these to achieve this one aim, that would significantly shorten the war. This would threaten both supply routes for Russian troops in Western Ukraine (land and sea bridges). At what point do you think we'll see a Russian tactical withdrawal from the West? I'm surprised those troops aren't being redeployed to reinforce lines in Eastern Zaporizhzhya because of this currently.
Lots of news from the front again, thanks for trying to keep track of things for us.
Shortly after the start of the Ukrainian offensive, about 80% of the Russian reserves were deployed in the south. If I understand you correctly, are almost all reserves still deployed?
As a layman, I think no rotation is possible, the soldiers can't keep it up for very long, can they? The ultimate physical and mental exhaustion of the Russian soldiers must only be a matter of time, or am I wrong?
On the other hand, Ukraine still has half a dozen full brigades in the background, doing nothing, waiting for a breakthrough or have these units meanwhile been transferred/deployed?
And briefly to Gerassimov. It's ridiculous, he's apparently too bad as supreme commander in Ukraine (otherwise Putin wouldn't have deposed him now after all) but still good enough to remain his chief of staff. But its still unconfirmed yet.
Do you know his successor Mikahil Teplinski and if so, can you say a few words for us laypeople what kind of person and commander he is? Thanks a lot.
I know this sounds like an anxious and kinda dumb question to make but, in your opnion i know you dont have a crystal ball, what are your expectations for this month?
I simply have no expectations. That way I'm hard to disappoint....
The way things are, the ZSU has little other options but to keep on pushing. Granting initiative to the Russians is no solution when own methods do work, even if these are anything else than 'spectacular' for Western observers.
Foremost, if the ZSU really gets a sufficient supply of DPICMs - indeed: 'all-out supply' of them, as possible thanks to the stock of 4.6 million of such shells in US arsenals - there are some extremely nasty times for the Russians ahead.
Even if the approach to prioritize inflicting losses over capturing land is being successful, do you think that the lack of maneuver opportunities has made the ZSU to overspend artillery ammo way over planned?
I really hope opening the DPICMs pool is going to help with that plus with Russian infantry counterattack tactics that seemed to have gotten better learning from Wagner lessons in Bakhmut (ZSU infantry also seems to have learnt a lot but offense is always harder than defense).
I’m also curious what is your take on the Kakhovka reservoir becoming a new scenario in the midterm, lots of speculation from social media ‘experts’ if the new land can handle or not heavy vehicles, I wonder if Ukrainian command is even considering it or ruling it out entirely. Apologies if you already answered this or is just too obviously opsec.
The ZSU cannot 'overspend' artillery ammunition if it hasn't got enough of it.
Actually, the DPICM is likely to lessen the expenditure, simply because bomblets from the same shell can cover a larger area and thus hit multiple targets.
Re. crossing the dry riverbed of the Dnipro: perhaps I'm too tired, but really, no idea.
About crossing the Kachowka reservoir, you should take a look at this:
https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1678188251146862592?s=20
It shows a drone flight over the former reservoir. I can't imagine that it will be possible to get through there with heavy equipment in the foreseeable future.
Very thorough and illustrative. Thanks, Tom.
Спасибо большое
Just curious, there was talk of delivering the 150 km range GLSDBs to be launched from ground-based missile systems such as the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System and M142 HIMARS in July.
Seems they would be very useful for attrition at this stage, I have not seen any mention of their use.
There were other claims they were delivered in March but I have not seen credible reports of their usage.
To me it appears the USA opted for delivering JDAM-ERs 'instead'.
Washington remains overconcerned about the outlooks of Ukrrainians attacking into Russia.
I have just a little technical note - the text2speech ends at ‘Battle of Donbas’.
Umph....no idea why. Didn't even know there's a text2speech function on the Substack....
There is (in the mobile app) and it activated seems to cope better than the one on Medium.
"Modern-day Russia simply has no means to reverse-engineer such stuff" what about if they send it to the Chinese?
I have a - maybe pessimistic - take on the whole "but what if they capture one" topic, regardless of the actual weapon:
The only way you can keep a technology secret is if you lock it away and never give it out to troops. Of course then it's pretty useless, but the counter-intel guys can be happy.
The moment it goes out to troops or worse, out to a real battlefield with real enemy, it has to be considered as "leaked". 100 times more if the equipment should be used at the frontline or has to go behind enemy lines. (Like a missile should.) There will always be a greedy quartermaster sergeant, a careless secretary, a malfunctioned dud. The Storm Shadows have been used since 2003 in Iraq, Lybia, Syria and Yemen - I bet that not each and every one worked perfectly.
Ok, now an actual question on a ‘divisive’ subject if I may. I keep reading reports and estimates that Russia has spent most of their heavy artillery ammo and may only have a some 2-3 millions left, while their production cannot keep the stock up. At the same time it would appear that the daily expenditure is somewhere around 10k - so less then what os was about a year ago. Does this in rough terms reflect your information, or is it just a wishful thinking?
It is hard to assess - however there are the following facts:
1. Russia is using old (WW2 era) 152mm ammo. This ammo was made to different specs and has different ballistics when compared with later ammo. It means different ballistic tables, different training, etc.
2. Russia is using old Chinese shells reimported from Iran, using Iran supplied propellant.
It means different ballistics again.
All of that should significantly reduce the effectiveness of ruzzian artillery.
Reports from ruzzian "voienkors" indicates that this is the real problem for them.
Дякую вам за інформацію. Скажіть будь ласка, як росіяни виготовляють "ланцет "? Звідки у них деталі і сам сертифікат?
My pleasure.
Sorry, I know very little about Lancets. Still trying to learn more.
In this recent Economist video I was surprised to see a glance of Ukrainian new drones tested by a local company (AirLogix), including what seems to be loitering ones. They don't look near as large as Lancets though, so possibly not same scope. In case you haven't seen it and find it interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4cdr4xbaqw
Most possibly target of 6 Jul attack in Lviv wasn't SBU HQ (which was targeted a week before) but one of nearby military facilities - Academy of ground forces or base of 24th OMBr. Both have a few of garages on their territories, which possibly could be used for holding some vechicles (but i have big doubts they did so). Anywhere, rockets missed both and hit nearby living building.
Good Morning Tom,
again, many thanks for your work and the resulting summary!
You write:”the only way to measure success right now is by how much damage is it causing to the Russians.”
Overall and in broader terms, do you assess Ukraine (from your point of view) is “successful” using the above reference point and has made/is making the correct adjustments for (more) success?
Many thanks in advance!
Ukrainosaurus
My pleasure.
Re. is ZSU successful: gauging by past experiences, the top ranks of the ZSU are responsible and reasonable enough to know what are they doing to their own troops - and thus also what are they doing to the Russians. Therefore: they would've stopped this fracas if the losses would be too heavy.
This in turn is 'cross-confirmed' by what one gets to hear from the troops. They 'can', they 'do'. Therefore, there's no reason to stop.
Where there's still a problem are mid-ranking officers: too many of these were advanced in rank and assigned positions for which they're not, or not yet qualified. And new units got too little time to learn everything the way they should.
That all said, when creating all the new brigades and then starting this offensive, the leadership of the ZSU seems to have forgotten one of its own - me thinks: crucial - experiences: 90% of ZSU's losses are suffered by troops and units without combat experience. By the time of something like '5th combat experience', losses are next to zero.
Thus, I think it would've been better not to use the new units for this offensive, but to use them to replace combat-experienced units and let them gain combat experience at 'quieter' sectors of the frontline, first; while, meanwhile withdrawing experienced units, refreshing them and then deploying them for the offensive.
Many thanks for your response to
my broad question, which includes the various important aspects you mention.
I found very insightful your thought about why equipping new units with the best western equipment instead of giving it to the most combat-tested units. It seems plain obvious that ZSU is thinking let's use the best Western equipment for offense yet these same units seem to have very little combat experience, which is quite a paradox, to say the least, they can't be your best units even if they have the best stuff.
Was this perhaps a NATO requirement that they wanted newer troops to absorb better the NATO way of war, yet they probably didn't think ZSU were going to use them as spearhead at first opportunity?
The result is that Bradleys have probably one of the worst loss rates per system of the entire war, losing 10% of them in its very first week of combat was a bit shocking and RU propaganda squeezed the most out of the images, for a few days it was a bit of worst infowar scenario come true.
Thanks for the update. This offensive is excruciating to follow. The level of incompetence is staggering. However, the worst of all is that the ZSU seem completely incapable of learning anything at a strategic, maybe even operational level. You are constantly reminding us about artillery and shells, but that is not the main problem. You send the ZSU more artillery, they will simply continue probing, just with more shells, as they are incapable of exploiting any breakthrough. A country which can't produce small arms, let alone heavy weapons, is trying to beat a country, with at least some level of production and an enormous stock of old weapons and ammunition, through a kill-death ratio. That is simply idiotic. Unless Moscow implodes, which is fortunately probable, there is currently no possibility for Ukraine to achieve success through military means. Eventually, in 3 months time, they will probably push VSRF out of the Melitopol-Mariupol corridor. All the valuable VSRF units will comfortably withdraw, again. Then what? More shells and "probing"? more "genius" infantry platoon-sized raids?
Do you not realise, that without destroying the VSRF army, which is the only purpose of war, the liberated territory does not matter? If Russia retains the valuable bulk of their forces, even if they withdraw from Ukraine, it is incredibly unlikely that there will be a peace treaty. In that case, I don't think anyone expects Russia to agree to any reparations. At the same time, it is almost impossible to imagine a scenario where the frozen assets are simply stolen by the West and transferred to Ukraine. Nobody in the West wants to spend their own money on rebuilding a destitute, corrupt, mined, destroyed barren land. The current population of Ukraine is estimated to be ~26-28M, down from ~37M. The country already had the worst demographics in Europe (Russia is 2nd) before the invasion. By incompetently fighting, the ZSU is helping prolong the war and hence achieve disastrous political outcomes. Instead of constantly complaining about the West, who are not actually at war, you should focus on the incompetent ZSU commanders who after almost 2 years of fighting, continue to operate with individual battalions. They are still incapable of coordinating a brigade-sized combat unit. Coordinating operations of multiple brigades is probably beyond even their wildest dreams.
Wow! I have read that before...
Alex Kowal - is it you?
Russian propaganda has different forms.
I wonder what is the use to conquer such a corrupt country with a spoiled territory?
That's actually very simple. Putin never wanted or planned to "conquer" Ukraine. He wanted a puppet regime, even more controllable than Yanukovich. It was to be exploited as a colony by Moscow-based oligarchy. Men were to be drafted into the army, like it's done all across the Russian Empire's outer provinces.
We have to distinguish between Russia losing and Ukraine winning. Ukraine has defended its sovereignty, but it has not won its future yet. At the moment, only NATO and China are genuinely winning.
Putin is now an old KGB half-wit. His power and mere existence depend on the idiocy of the Russian population. And I strongly recommend you to leave alone Ukraine and Ukrainian in your comments filled with superiority based on nothing.
I understand if you are Ukrainian you may be upset. However, I fail to see what your reply has to do with my comment. Ukraine will not become an EU member until it satisfies all entry requirements. Ukraine are unlikely to satisfy these requirements before 2040. That is if many things go well. That is why it is so vital for the ZSU to achieve military victory through the destruction of the VSRF, and do it quickly. Russia may implode, it may not, China may get involved more seriously, may not. That's a lot of hoping on others.
For nearly a year Europe sat hiding, trembling and counting money while Ukraine was fighting. A large part of Western citizens are terrified to death by the perspective of Russia at their borders. Your comments show your feeling of superiority which I consider to be simply ridiculous because you write your comments being in security. You have no right to judge Ukraine.
Europe does not want Russians at the border because nobody does. However, given how the further away from the Russian border, the lower the anti-Russian sentiment, I would be careful with statements of being terrified. I fail to see any Brits, French or Spaniards quivering. I can judge the performance of the ZSU just like I am judging the VSRF. Can people only laugh at Vuhledar but not criticise how shit the current offensive is conducted?
NATO's armaments are severely depleted and this is somehow "winning"?
China's annual producer prices sank for a ninth-straight month in June and is facing consumer deflation
If this is winning I would hate to see what losing looks like.
NATO has got rid of soviet munitions and 40 year old western ones. The only semi modern stuff Ukraine has received are a handful of AD systems, manpads, some AT infantry weapons, GMLRS, Storm Shadows and HARMs. Russia has never been weaker, no western country in NATO is planning any large increase in their army size. They will simply invest in their own defence industries and slowly produce the replacement equipment and ammunition. Have you actually read any defence plans of main NATO members? They are publically available.
China is benefitting hugely, in direct terms, from this war. More than 50% of imports to Russia now come from China. The Chinese have filled all their storage facilities to the brim with dirt cheap oil and gas. Russia has become a vassal state of China in economic terms. Indirectly, China is suffering due to slower growth in Europe not helping the Chinese economic recovery post covid. You are greatly oversimplifying what is a highly complex reality.
I have not read the NATO defence plans, because I have no wish to attack NATO.
I am sure neither have you but your colleagues in the troll farm can be relied to study them and to give you pointers.
So China is benefitting hugely by increasing exports to Russia at dirt cheap prices instead selling them to the West at much higher prices.
What!!
China filled their oil storage facilities years ago and, sadly for them, not at dirt cheap prices.
Well, I try to follow at least the summaries of defence plans of the main NATO countries. You must be a fabulous person that somebody being interested in something makes him a troll. All these documents are publically available. E.g. that France is increasing their defence budget 2024-2030 to a whopping... 2% of gdp. Last time I checked, the UK's grand decision was to... stop further cuts in the army.
Please focus on reading before you speak. China has imported huge amounts of heavily discounted oil and gas. Their storage facilities are now full, while the economic recovery still hasn't begun. The Chinese are exporting goods to Russia at normal, maybe even inflated prices. That I do not know. The Chinese suppliers are also increasingly demanding larger and larger prepayments.
....yup, and Kharkiv is going to fall after an inside revolution by Russians who know they're Russians, on the 3rd or 4th day, and Kyiv is going to be secured by the 10th-14th day.... And everybody in Ukraine is going to greet the master strategist as their liberator....
I never said anything like that. In fact, I've written plenty of times the exact opposite. What does this have to do with the fact that this offensive is as incompetent as the Russian winter offensive, and will be as "successful" as the Kherson one, at best? That is, 3 months of high losses, especially in equipment that is unlikely to be replaced, in order to let all the valuable VSRF units to withdraw in good order. The ZSU is now conducting its 3rd offensive and there is no noticeable improvement at the organisational level. Even WW1 on the western front ended with a hundred day offensive and a collapse of the German army. Wars are won by destroying armies, not grinding for 5-house villages. Currently, the ZSU are averaging 100m a day of forward movement, while sustaining 1:2 ratio of visually confirmed equipment losses.
LOL!
Such long posts, must be a quiet day at the troll farm :)
The visually confirmed ratio is closer to 1:1, the fact that the only measurable metric you included in your long rant is so off and biased tells us everything about your agenda.
I meant 1:2 ZSU:VSRF. You are suggesting it is even worse than I thought. Does this make your agenda clear now?
Just re-read my article. I've explained why you're, simply, wrong.
Well, I have and clearly, I disagree with you for the reasons I outlined. You have a much more optimistic outlook and so I hope you are correct. I'd be very happy to be proven wrong. I will gladly and with relief admit when it happens.
However, I did ask you many months ago about issues with lacking division-level command. We see this problem resurface yet again. The ZSU has even tried to create a quasi-division command but it seems this has failed in practice. There's more to war than more shells as I am 100% sure you know as well.
It seems to be working so far. Russia is rapidly running out of artillery ammunition - and guns to fire them from. Most of those the Ukrainians haven't destroyed are worn out - they may still throw a shell, but range and accuracy will be seriously compromised. They're losing trained, experienced troops at an unsustainable rate, and cannot train or equip the new mobiks.
Russia is well and truly beat, though they may hang on to an ever-diminishing portion of Ukrainian territory for a year or two, the end is inevitable - most likely through the fall of the regime.
Post-war Ukraine will rebuild very rapidly - the unity and enthusiasm the people will generate will inspire investment, many of those who have left will return (a lot have already) to be part of it. Tourism will boom, and by 2030 Ukraine will have the fastest growing economy in Europe.
I agree with the first 2 paragraphs. I will caveat them though. Despite, not being able to produce new equipment at any significant rate. Despite, not being able to train the bulk of the fresh troops properly. This is enough to stop anything that the ZSU can throw at them and force a battle of attrition that the ZSU simply cannot fight effectively and efficiently.
The 3rd paragraph I disagree with strongly. I am not a migration expert, but I am sure one can calculate the percentage of refugees of working age that are likely to come back to a destroyed country, with every passing year the war lasts. According to current trends, in 20 years time, the only people in Ukraine will be government officials, soldiers and pensioners. Why do you think Canada immediately granted hundreds of thousands of visas to Ukrainians? Do you think Canada is a make a wish foundation? There were estimated close to 2M ukrainians in Poland in 2021. Now it's probably close to 3M. Do you think that all these parents with kids have nothing better to do than to quit much better paid jobs in Poland or Germany and move to some ruined shithole in the Donbas, full of mines? Even assuming a complete victory, Kyiv will have to reintegrate what is now the land of amazons of Donetsk and Luhansk. Where are you planning on getting young males from? Are you hoping for a mass insemination programme?
This is what is at stake. Every year of war, makes the demographic catastrophy more irreversible.
OK Test Subject, now it is time to address another of your false claims.
You claim "The level of incompetence is staggering".
According to the Institute for Study of War today " In five weeks, Ukrainian forces have liberated nearly the same amount of territory that Russian forces captured in over six months."
This is highly competent.
Thanks Tom. Great write-up as usual.
It seems the Ukrainians are making slow and steady progress South towards Mariupol and Berdyansk. Berdyansk is just on 300km from the Kerch Bridge, the limit of ATACMS range. You'd have to think the US would spare a handful of these to achieve this one aim, that would significantly shorten the war. This would threaten both supply routes for Russian troops in Western Ukraine (land and sea bridges). At what point do you think we'll see a Russian tactical withdrawal from the West? I'm surprised those troops aren't being redeployed to reinforce lines in Eastern Zaporizhzhya because of this currently.
Lots of news from the front again, thanks for trying to keep track of things for us.
Shortly after the start of the Ukrainian offensive, about 80% of the Russian reserves were deployed in the south. If I understand you correctly, are almost all reserves still deployed?
As a layman, I think no rotation is possible, the soldiers can't keep it up for very long, can they? The ultimate physical and mental exhaustion of the Russian soldiers must only be a matter of time, or am I wrong?
On the other hand, Ukraine still has half a dozen full brigades in the background, doing nothing, waiting for a breakthrough or have these units meanwhile been transferred/deployed?
And briefly to Gerassimov. It's ridiculous, he's apparently too bad as supreme commander in Ukraine (otherwise Putin wouldn't have deposed him now after all) but still good enough to remain his chief of staff. But its still unconfirmed yet.
Do you know his successor Mikahil Teplinski and if so, can you say a few words for us laypeople what kind of person and commander he is? Thanks a lot.
Ukrainians destroy 25-40 artillery systems per day during the last 40 days. It gives you 1-1.5 k loses.
But it looks like still russian has advantage
Temporarily. Russia has no means to produce new artillery systems.
Ruzzia has a lot of old soviet stock. Soviet Union.
Outstanding reporting, gives one hope for an ultimate victory
I see the author's mood transformed from sarcastic into optimistic. Glory to ZSU!
Sometimes I'm simply too busy for sarcasm. :P
Well, you may make sarcasm your second nature.