"Conflict is ‘demoralising’ Ukrainian forces" Topic

Ukrainian troops are suffering massive losses as they are outgunned 20 to one in artillery and 40 to one in ammunition by Russian forces, according to new intelligence painting a bleak picture of the conflict on the frontline.

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The Independent

I believe this. Tactically especially in the short term the Russians hold a lot of advantages in the Donbas they lacked in the north.

Long term they're going to be dealing with a growing insurgency. They've also suffered terrible equipment loses that severely weaken the Russian army in comparison to NATO. Not easy to replace all the gear. Also since Russian guided weapons are made with US manufactured computer chips and electronics those will be a challenge to replace.

I think the Russians will get the land bridge to Crimea they want but at such a severe cost they will be militarily crippled against any other conventional threat.

I wouldn't be surprised.

NATO, the USA, and others need to help address those ratios, in order to rebalance that significantly.

No doubt, Russians are also heavily demoralized at having: failed to take Kiev; the Ukrainians put up such a stiff, effective, and protracted defense; the West so heavily arming Ukraine; and at their own heavy losses in personnel, generals, and equipment.

I suspect they are also upset that the Russian air force seems to be doing so little to provide direct close air support to the ground forces.

With New Tactics, Ukraine Can Break Russia's Black Sea Grain Blockade

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Marines: Ukraine Tries Marine Improvisation

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Armand

And if those reports are even half true, about the morale of the Ukrainians, it makes you wonder even more about how stupid and incompetent the Russians must truly be.

It does call these reports into question doesn't it? If the Ukrainians are so bummed out, dying so fast, losing so much equipment why is it Putin's thugs still cant beat them?!

The independent newspaper was controlled by Tony O'Reilly's Irish Independent News & Media from 1997 until it was sold to the Russian oligarch and former KGB Officer Alexander Lebedev in 2010…..

Ah!… that explain much….

Armand

The "Marines: Ukraine Tries Marine Improvisation" has very little about Ukrainian Marines and a lot of 'filler'.

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

Good thing the Ukranians are demoralized and underequipped… They would be halfway to Moscow if the opposite would be true :-)

Hardly surprising given the conditions. Being on the wrong end of an intense bombardment is demonstrably not good for humans psychological health (or physical health if you're in the wrong place). Russia may be doing 'well' in that corner of Ukraine, but it seems they've had to strip their other fronts of manpower to do so.

For the record this story has been repeated in at other UK paper in slightly differing forms.

Well then the Russians shod wrap up this war by next week. Right Cuprum?

From the article linked above, "Marines: Ukraine Tries Marine Improvisation".

While HIMARS only carries six rockets, that's often enough to last for days in places like Afghanistan, even when there's a lot of combat.

It seems unlikely to be the case in this conflict, unless the supply of rockets is too low and they have no choice.

Maybe if you have a few hundred of these running around, but with only 4, I am sure they are going to be reloading multiple times per day. The limiting factor would be logistics more than lack of targets.

I thought that total number of HIMARS fire units agreed to be provided by the US was about 20, and these were the first batch.

I certainly HOPE the US would send 20--or more--of these new systems, but the last I know of is only 4, though the UK (God Bless 'Em!) is sending 3 of their own version of the same basic system.

No, not enough to pound all Ivans on all fronts at once, but enough to put Warheads on Foreheads at a critical point the Ukies care to choose.

And regarding comparative losses, just listen to the mountain of telephone intercepts by the Ukies between Ruzzians bemoaning one BTG after another with 200 men or less from the 800 or so they started with.

Attackers by their nature are more exposed to possible loss than defenders in any case, and when the attackers in this case are being driven like cattle into accurate artillery and dug in infantry who WANT to fight, their losses can only be horrific.

And one other point to remember: The estimate was some 250,000 Ruzzians entered the war in the first couple of weeks. Estimates by the Brits are they are losing between 200 and 300 dead a day. By 110 days into the war, that's 22,000 dead, and a conservative estimate of the wounded would be between 50 and 60 thousand more, which would add up to at least one quarter of the their forces lost.

Of course, the Ukies' estimates of 31,000 or so dead may be understandably optimistic, but are likely so far more accurate than the Ruzzian's admitted losses, and given the evidence of just how short of manpower the Orcs have become, they could have lost nearly half their initial numbers.

Meanwhile, with the call up of reserves, and the huge numbers of volunteers that went into 12 to 16 weeks training in the first week of the war, the Ukies will soon have some 700,000 new soldiers to begin to feed into the fight.

Though inexperienced, if they are placed with existing units--certainly well reduced in their own numbers--to learn the job among well seasoned veterans, they can rise to a level of high effectiveness within the 100 days normally thought to be required to season new troops/units.

Our old memories of the Russian Armies of yore, marching about in their millions are long gone. Without universal conscription, the current army will only get smaller. And as the bulk of the new superior weapons become deployed, the hand writing is plainly on the wall for this "Special Operation," which only the most responsible people of all in the Kremlin cannot/will not see.

Look for the first major counter-offensives from the Ukies by around mid-July. I'm laying in a deep supply of popcorn and soda in anticipation of the show.

TVAG

So… you are not a supporter of the "Special Operation" …? (smile)

Armand

Well, we know much information from many sources is "not accurate" … For a number of reasons.

Better to be a little demoralized than demolished like these "good" Russians.
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Look for the first major counter-offensives from the Ukies by around mid-July.

Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrsky checked the preparation of units for offensive operations. antiputler_news, May 17, 2022

The unit symbol in the corner has the armoured forces mace held by a gauntlet & is similar to the 5th tank brigade's badge.

"The unit is training on mostly donated equipment: ex-Polish T-72M1 tanks, ex-Dutch YPR-765 armored personnel carriers and ex-British and ex-Turkish infantry equipment.

It's rehearsing combined-arms operations mixing tanks, APCs and artillery. And it's doing it in Kryvyi Rih, just north of Russian-occupied Kherson in southern Ukraine." Forbes

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

As far as morale … I think the Ukrainians will fight until they can't do it anymore. The Russians will lose thousands of troops. And try to win by using their overwhelming FA numbers.

Hmm… Overwhelming numbers? Have you seen estimates of the number of warring Russian troops from Western experts?

Overwhelming FA numbers = Field Artillery and SPG numbers. Not troops. You posted something about a 20:1 advantage.

I have read that russia has 10:1 advantage in artillery pieces and 40 times more ammo. Dont know if is correct though.

After the massive destruction of Ukrainian weapons depots, the destruction of large shipments of foreign arms supplies en route. After the capture of the largest ammunition depot in Europe (in Balakleya) – now it is.
Quite a natural result.

And a little more about the moral character of the servicemen of Ukraine.

The drunk head of one of the departments of the General Staff of Ukraine staged a shooting in a residential area:

youtu.be/LEZHW63BoLQ

Horrible I tell you! Quite quite horrible! But at least not as bad as invading another country, shelling civilan areas committing massmurder, massrape, genocide, wide spread looting, torture, stealing thousend of tons of grain and therefore mass starvartion.

And showing the world what a third world army you have. You cannot even defeat Ukraine!!! With all due respect but Ukraine should have been easy pickings. Imagine Russia against Poland (even without NATO). Russia would have been massacred.

The Russian army have shown itself to be quite useless and inept. Backed by brain washed goons and blood thirsty rapist loving women. A truly disgusting society.

I will never respect or like "Russia" again. Russia is a lost country to me.

As much as you like is your right. But Russia has not done anything that Western countries have not done before, and not so long ago.

As for the "Russian threat" – I wrote here for several years that it does not exist and Russia is weak. But no one wanted to believe it.
You have pushed NATO to our borders – and now Russia has no choice but to rise to the challenge. And it doesn't matter if Russia is weak or not – we will have to fight. Moreover, no one is going to negotiate with Russia. So let the dispute be decided by the weapon.

Ukraine started new production of 152mm shells at the Artem factory in Kyiv in 2018.
Russia targeted the Artem factory with 3 missles on 28/4/22. (The day Secretary-General Guterres and President Zelensky met in Kyiv.)

Is the factory still producing 152mm shells?

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

NATO has not 'pushed' anywhere- as you well know.
Countries APPLY to join NATO- and the countries near Russia who have wanted to join NATO do so because they do not like russia. As russia has a centuries-long history of bullying and aggression against its neighbours- who can blame any country for wanting to join NATO to gain some collective protection from the russian aggression which sadly is still alive today?
Just remember how quickly the former members of the Warsaw Pact applied to join NATO as soon as they were free to do so- they were all sick of russian attempts to dominate them.
If countries apply to join NATO, that is their sovereign right to do so. NATO cannot refuse them because russia behaves like a brutish, spoiled child. That last point, I can promise you, is how very many people in the West regard russia- and many more so after russia's aggression against Ukraine.

We have already discussed all this many times and you know perfectly well that you are not telling the truth.
Russia itself, of its own accord, left the countries of Eastern Europe. At the same time, Russia was given promises not to expand NATO to the East (recently, confirmation of this was discovered and made public).
Russia was the first to officially secede from the USSR, effectively abolishing it.
Russia voluntarily abandoned all its foreign military bases, leaving claims to world influence.
Russia has reduced its own armed forces and their funding to a minimum. To such an extent that she lost the First Chechen War to her own rebellious province.
Is it this Russia that everyone was afraid of?
No. The interests of such a weak Russia, the West has defiantly neglected. The promises given to Russia are to be broken and reviewed unilaterally.
In Ukraine, the West went so far as to overthrow the legitimately elected president with the help of its puppets, including outright Nazis with whom your officials openly communicated.
And what did you want in return? Resigned obedience?
Not this time…

Druzhina, apparently, is no more.
The plant produced shells from 100 mm to 152 mm, and 155 mm, and also produced rockets RZSO "Alder", the plant also produces 80 mm rockets RS-80 "Oskol" and reloaded R-73 aircraft missiles.

Cuprum2 there is a saying "Two wrongs do not make a right" Your postings about some western nations having done the things Russia is doing does not make what Russia is doing in Ukraine right.

Williamb,

Is that the "What about" argument?

I feel that Cuprum2 has some interesting points. His messages about how weak Russian armed forces are, makes one wonder how delusional the decision to invade Ukraine was in the first place.

And now that Russian leadership is stuck in the mire, what possible game plan could they have for extraction?

The Soviet Union was bankrupt as it was a communist country and communism does not work. Add corruption to that and you have a useless country.

Soviet Union had to leave all its bases and reduce its military as it was way to big to be effectively funded. No one forced Soviet Union/Russia to reduce its military.

Then you ed up your chance during the -90s to become a fairly modern country. "The west" (what ever that is) or boogey man did not do that. It was your own choice. It was your own oligarchs that plundered the country.

It is not surprising though as it is the Russian trait to take what you can from the weak, even your own country men. there was no loyalty to "russia" from the Russian oligarchs, just the chance to become obscenely rich of your own country men. All this through corruption and stealing. Russians ing over Russians.

The Putin came along and promised to "make Russia great again". And that led YOU to INVADE a neighboring country.

If "The west" would have wanted to crush russia "The west" would have done so in the -90. Instead "The west" tried to integrate russia into their economy (like Germany) in the hope that mutual business and integrated economies would keep war away (as war is bad for the economies).

Putin You said "F that" and invaded Ukraine.

You thought your army was strong but you were wrong. It is, it turned out, riddled with corruption on ALL layers. The officers are old school communists who do not trust the soldiers. It is soldiers hazing conscripts. It is the Russian spirit to murder and plunder like mongols.

Even your "elite" units like the airborne or marine units are sXXt. After all they got smacked by Ukrainian home guard units.

Your ships are sunk by second rate missiles.

Your best aircraft drop like flies.

You even have to put ground based SAM systems on your ships! Good luck with that, Salt water is really a good friend to missile electronics… Ground based SAM systems are not proofed against salt water, sweet rain water yes, but not corrosive salt water.

No the whole world knows how sXXXXy the Russian army, navy and airfare is. It would now be easy for "the west" to invade and crush russia. But "the West" are not interested in that as we do not want anything from Russia. Why would we attack you? You have nothing the world cannot get from other countries.

The ONLY reason Russia is feared is because of your nukes. If it was not for them you would be a third rate country, like Somalia or Afghanistan.

One over-optimistic webpage article with way too many distracting swimsuit pop-ups is no more accurate than another over-optimistic webpage article with way too many distracting swimsuit pop-ups.

The only thing we can surmise with any certainty is that some of the swimsuit pop-ups are rather pleasant.

Well they would be demoralized too if Putin defeated them as well. So IMO they will continue to fight. Even if they have to just go Guerilla.

"The ONLY reason Russia is feared is because of your nukes. If it was not for them you would be a third rate country, like Somalia or Afghanistan".

Very true.

The Impact Of 100 Days Of War In Ukraine For An Elite Russian Paratrooper Unit

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Armand

It's funny that the background for the title photo is a captured Ukrainian armored car.

Well, the whole article is based on information received from prisoners of war under pressure and some rumors and gossip received from unknown sources. The probability of ordinary propaganda is high.

Wait you mean the Ukrainians have taken losses, lost vehicles, etc. ? From what I can tell in a war both sides generally take losses … in some cases very heavy losses.

I want to say that whoever chose the photo seems to be trolling a bit.

Today, on June 15, Russia will open a humanitarian corridor from 8:00 to 20:00 (Moscow time) for the evacuation of civilians from the Azot chemical plant. Ukrainian troops can stay at the factory under fire for as long as they wish.

Russian media report that as of 11.30 (Moscow time), the Ukrainian side has not stopped firing in the Azot plant. Probably the truce will be disrupted and civilians will not be able to leave the combat zone.

Russian definition of a "humanitarian corridor"; a location where all artillery target coordinates have already been calculated.

That seems to be the standard …

Funny, Russia opens a "humanitarian corridor" and civilians won't use it. they rather stay and risk their lives.

To me that indicates that it is a better chance of surviving if you stay rather than try to leave within the "corridor"…

They probably know what happened to the civilians who left Mariupol in the Russian "humanitarian corridor"…

Totally agree!….

Armand

By the way…

Russia's 'scorched-earth method' making mass evacuation from Sievierodonetsk impossible

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Armand

Yes, it's funny. The civilians who came out of the cellars of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol said that no one had ever told them that they had the opportunity to leave the dangerous territory. I think that the civilians at the plant in Severodonetsk also have serious communication problems. Did the Ukrainian soldiers tell them about the opportunity?
And what are your complaints about the placement of refugees in the territories controlled by Russia?

Mariupol today. Permanent videos from residents of the city:

youtu.be/UV5_pK8BjY8

YouTube link

Up to 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers are being killed or wounded each day in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, with 200 to 500 killed on average and many more wounded, a top Ukrainian official said on Wednesday.

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Axios World

Three – four years of the upcoming war? Lack of prospects for victory and the search for better conditions for bargaining? Exhaustion of Western arsenals? The actual refusal to export grain under the pretext of the threat of a Russian landing?
Very interesting signals…

The Ukraine appears to continue to effectively fight the invaders/"Nazi Hunters" that attacked them about 4 months ago. I don't think they will give up anytime soon. Both sides will lose many more lives because of a Peter the Great "Wana'be" and his retinue.

It may be a long war. The US failure[yes another failure] was not to start to "surge" lethal weapons to the Ukraine as Putin[the not so great] was massing his forces on the border. Another case of "A Day late & a dollar short" by US leadership. And more people continue to die, get maimed, etc., daily …

However, the US elected & appointed leadership at the top can/will also continue to blame Putin for almost everything and anything that has/is going wrong in the USA. E.g. Mrs. O'leary's cow starting the Chicago fire, the Jimmy Hoffa murder, and Bigfoot attacks on the rise …

Once again Cuprum2 is twisting the facts and using inuendo instead of the truth.

Ukraine is only refusing to export grain via sea due to the presence of the Russian navy and the threat it poses. It is exporting grain through Poland
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One minor point. When Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union it was usually called "The" Ukraine. As an independent nation it is simply known as Ukraine. I don't know if it is true, but I was once told that if you were in Ukraine and called it The Ukraine people would get very mad at you. By doing so you would have been implying that Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union.

Ukrainian news is quoting Axios on:
"Ukraine loses up to 1,000 soldiers killed and wounded every day – Arahamiya"

Axios describes "David Arakhamia, who leads Ukraine's negotiations with Russia and is one of Zelensky's closest advisers."

lig.net:
"This was announced during a visit to Washington by the head of the Servant of the People faction in the Verkhovna Rada, David Arahamiya, reports Axios." …
"Arahamiya heads the Ukrainian delegation in Washington to increase the supply of weapons to Ukraine and to recognize Russia as a sponsor of terrorism."

So not the same position as given by Axios.

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French speakers always use the definite article for countries e.g. l'Australie, l'Ukraine

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers