panzermartin

Yes I don't doubt they have been fighting in a more coherent compared to Russians in a situation of overwhelming enemy firepower that could otherwise lead to chaos and panic. And let's accept that last stands like Mariupol were probably not in vain. Bakhmut probably will be a case study in this depending on the outcome and the strategy Ukraine will follow till the end. But in general I doubt the losses estimates and the ratio with Russians is right. @MikeyDs 1 to 6,5 seems extreme. 1/2 to 1/3 as @The_Captnoted could be closer to the truth. But even in this ratio and if we take the most pessimistic numbers and the UKR losses are over 100.000, Russians will have lost more than the whole original invasion force at best and at worse close to half a million troops. Anyway, the main point of my post was, there is a chance Russia could finally exhaust Ukraines effective manpower and maybe we will see less WW1 defenses from the high command as the war goes on. Ukraine will be more mobile with the new hardware anyway, we will see.

Yes its true that in some cases they had no other options. Also in the beginning of the war they had no APCs to safely escape the battle zone. But there are voices from the front lines that indicate that sometimes they are left to their fate under fierce TOS, arty and airforce bombardment.

Wiki is also providing various estimates from different sources that can help, but it's hard to fully trust anything especially as the war goes on. Vehicles losses are more reliable, as there is usually visual evidence. On the crew losses you refer its a good point but even if the Russians have lost 3000 tanks for example with all their 3 man crews that would be only 9000 casualties. Painful casualties of specialized troops but still in cold numbers not a difference. And we know many of these tanks were just abandoned, stuck in the mud, damaged and even in the destroyed ones crews could get away. So I don't think vehicle crew add that much to the total casualties. Destroyed BMPs with squads inside could be multiplying losses but how common were those we don't know.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64455123.amp

I assume they could be equal, at least in human losses. Especially because of the great volume of enemy artillery and the stubborn UKR static defenses in a a year of fights. Plus RU had the ability to strike bases, barracks and concentrations of troops relentlessly in a daily base with a variety of long range rockets and air force, an ability UKR didn't have for a long time and somewhat the HIMARS covered that gap later. As for the numbers on ORYX and other sites, I don't really trust them especially in human losses. I think they are probably accurate in vehicle losses for RU, those were enormous.

My intention is not to equalize, but to question the decisions of an otherwise troop preserving top command. And we don't really know the actual casualties of UKR.

Probably this war won't be won on western equipment alone but how many personnel Ukraine will have left in the end. We are bashing Russia for sending ill prepared troops in human wave style assaults but I haven't seen mentioning that a lot of UKR troops were lost in encircled traps like in Mariupol, Severodonetsk, Soledar, Bakhmut etc while they could have withdrawn to fight another day with better chances. On the contrary RU has shown much more preservance reflexes(at least in defense) , pulling out of unfavorable situations instead of fighting to the last man. I understand the different mentality of someone defending his homeland but it seems these "no step back" decisions are coming from above. A lot men have left Ukraine as well. And a lot have deserted to the east or joined the DPRs and LPRs and some videos of enforced recruitment have been circulating lately. How many can Ukraine sacrifice and how many losses can the foreign volunteers replace as the war widens.

I remember one basic argument of Russian military collapse a few months ago was that Russia was running out of micro chips essential for manufacturing precision weapons. And China would be too afraid to provide these because of West's reaction. Well neither happened, there is a surge of chip imports and China was more than willing to provide these. I have started to think It's a global war already that probably can't be won only in Ukraine.

You mean it could be deep fake AI?

Don't know him. I meant Zelensky

Sad to see war taking such a toll on him. And this speech is... Sad.

The problem is, I don't think the barrel of debt this war will create for economies has any bottom. It will keep growing and escalating and the final bill will be that big that the Abrams maintenance difference cost will be a drop in the ocean. Personally I think the M1A2, despite the headaches, is a more battle proven and a nearly indestructible platform that could prove an Uber weapon like HIMARS. We've seen the issues with Pz2000, who knows what more troubles LEO2 will reveal along the way.

So when US invaded and occupied Iraq, Afghanistan etc (even further away from Europe) with hundreds of M1 tanks it had problem to maintain them because the factories were in US? Doesn't make sense. Or maybe Iraq and Talibans were more important than a world shaping conflict in Europe.

The chart is somewhat misleading. I think there are numerous gigantic US military bases in Europe that provide most basic Abrams maintenance as we speak.

I don't get the LEO2 German bashing. They have almost a smaller army than my country, the excuses from the US side about M1s being expensive and tough to maintain is equally bs.

Apparently Greece has been asked to provide all, or part of their older Leo2A4 s fleet ~170 tanks I think. But these are older with no sophisticated defenses. Turkish ones suffered much in Afrin from Russian made ATGMs.

It's rather strange that Russians having invested and held so long in Kherson area, decided to leave now just before winter frozing the front lines. But this could signal entering a new phase in their campaign. Intensifying the long range terror strikes against UKR infrastructure, during harsh winter, while pausing operationaly and holding just the bare necessary, guarding the access to the South and Crimea (they will comfortably hold on the left bank in Kherson for infinite time I think ) and fortifying whatever the gained in eastern Ukraine. Seems they are only hoping for negotiations at this point.

Star wars over Kiev 46-1.mp4

Last night I dreamt that Putin was assassinated and in the next hour nuclear bombs started to fall all over Europe and I could see the distant flashes in a stormy beach and we were rushing for cover in buildings. And while dreaming, I thought I wanted to post on this forum that someone who argued that we have not that much to fear because of bad russian maintenance of WMD, was deadly wrong. I need to stop reading this forum everyday and stop drinking beers late at night

I can't fully trust random pro russian accounts but they claim that so far artillery with krasnopol and UAVs are dealing blows to a new Ukrainian blitz today in Kherson. (Footage looks from 19th)

The ghosts of Zaporizhzhia.

Yes it's true that they are very hard to track and obviously UA are taking extreme measures to ensure their most valuable assets is protected both by AD and by moving all the time away from the lines. Russians do have some more accurate tracking drones I think, like lancet but still I think saheds are used in a rather dumb way, hitting big static targets and terrorizing civilians, while they could do more damage targeting military units. They still have an impressive range of over 2000kms. They could have been used to slow down the Kharkiv offensive, attack artillery etc but their presence there was minimal if I'm not mistaken.

What I dont really get is why Russia, facing the major threat of himars and other artillery pieces, didnt conduct a massive drone campaign against these. They did fire more at night and RU ISR is lacking but still I would at least try with a swarm of Shaheds and a surv drone towards suspected areas. I think Ukraine hasnt lost a single HiMARS so far...

Is there a way for Ukraine to counter this? What if Russia goes all the way and the whole country is left with no electricity, no internet, transportation etc

I get some harkonen vibes from the new Russian commander