Maciej Zwolinski

Most new opinions from UKR seem to be heading this way.

The source was actually Muzyka, not Kofman (plus some other Polish researchers) but that is not material. The importance of this is data point is the losses going forward. If this 1:1 or similar represents the new reality after the fighting switched to urban combat in Bachmut proper with UKR and RUS shooting at each other from neighbouring buildings and basically having no cover advantage either way, then the question arises whether it is a mistake to stay in Bakhmut (and additionally, risk being cut off) vs the alternative of withdrawing to the new postition and making RUS to come over open terrain to the new trench lines. The decision to stay as announced by Zelenski has been controversial.

Also, since a few days the official reported losses by UKR ministry of defence show very significant losses of RU artillery. A solid counterbattery effort - could that signify preparations for a counteratack somewhere?

Oh good Lord no...

To clarify the above - this pertains to the Bachmut area only. In Vuhledar and Maryinka sectors the RUS are bitching about paucity of shells, tubes and worn out barrels. Seems like the artillery was exceptionally concentrated in Bachmut. Possibly Prigozyn won the battle over resources for some time

Pre-HIMARS he was justified to drum those drums. I think that everybody then was laughing at snail's pace of Russian offensive, but only because we were not getting accurate asessments of UKR losses. Russians were not getting land, but they were killing a lot of UKR - that was the moment before their getting M777 and after they started to run out of 152/122 mm ammo. UKR were trading people for artillery shells. The surprising arrival of HIMARs gave UKR some breathing space, and quick deliveries of Western guns and ammo stabilised the situation. So I would say Kofman's early predictions got HIMARSed together with RUS ammo depots. To his credit, Kofman was correct in pointing out what the Russian weakness was (lack of infantry) and that it will hurt RUS heavily. In essence, after HIMARS he correctly predicted the mechanism, if not the precise location, of the Kharkiv-Izium-Lyman counterattack.

Many Ukrainian reports discuss huge advantage in artillery on RUS side - like 10:1 advantage in tubes, plus resurgence of shell shortage on UKR side. How serious it is in proportion to RUS shell shortage, impossible to guess, but it is there on the UKR side as well. Also mortar shortage and mortar shell shortage - this is just on the UKR side. Advantage in artillery fires is how RUS achieved favourable loss ratios in Donbas in spring 2022 before the great HIMARSing- I think it is not disputed by now that UKR were losing more men at that time, despite RUS being on the offensive. Also, WW I research shows that in "bite and hold" attacks the atttackers were inflicting more casualties overall if they had more artillery. So in principle it is possible. Additionally, RUS have gained in positional terms. They are on the 3 sides of Bakhmut on the high ground so crossfire opportunities are available. Also all kinds of fire over the voie sacree from Chasiv Yar are possible - films show crashed cars around the road. Moreover, there are in the city now fighting block by block with less cover differential between the attacker and defender. While that kind of fighting is technically difficult for the attacker, the research shows that after the dust settles the overall casualty ratio tends to be closer than in open country fighting. Finally, the sacrificial zeks are not used anymore/all dead by now so those casualty rich zek/zerg rushes do not happen so often. Summing up, there are reasons why the casualty ratio reported by Muzyka may be accurate now. Depending over what period you want to calculate it. Anecdotally, on the films released recently by Bakhmut defenders the narrators seem to me like they were consciously describing the fighting in a more positive way than it is really warranted.Telling white lies to maintain the morale at home. Cannot point to anything specific, but something in the choice of words, the non verbal posture, etc. So I think Muzyka is correct

I really do not get the Kofman hate. Apart from the initial asessment which was too favourable to Russians, and which he quickly corrected, he has been consistently close to what really happened during this war. It pains me to say, that he was closer to the truth that the majority opinion on this forum, which predicted Russians to collapse in summer of 2022, then in autumn 2022. If his credibility is low, then whose credibility is high? Maybe Ukrainians - but they do not say much in comparison. Among the analysts who cover the war the most solid ones are probably Kofman, Rob Lee, Konrad Muzyka, Jack Watling, Dara Masicot. They all pretty much say the same thing, so to single out Kofman as the low credibility guy is not fair.

I hope Wikipedia suits because I have not conducted any deeper research and frankly, cannot be bothered to. I also did not assert anything, just expressed doubt in the possibility for elections held under a military dictatorship to be actually free. It seems that doubt was well founded - at least according to Wikipedia: "National Assembly elections were held in areas controlled by North Vietnam on 6 January 1946.[1] Held under the 1946 constitution, they resulted in a victory for the Communist-led Việt Minh, which won 182 of the 302 seats, although the distribution of seats between parties had been decided before the elections.[2] The ballot was not secret, and ballot papers were filled out in the presence of aides who were "to help comrades who had difficulty in making out their ballots."[3]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1946_North_Vietnamese_legislative_election Pre-distributed seats, ballot not secret, VM apparatchicks telling people what to write = not free. I rest my case.

The book is anty-Khmielnitskyi, whom Sienkiewicz described as motivated by private conflict with vicecapitaneus Czapliński and excessive ambitions, but not exactly anti-Ukrainian: there are also positive Ukrainian figures (including the main love interest) and references to brotherly love being spilled, etc. The dividing line between good guys and bad guys is, unsurprisingly. those who are in favour of PLC vs those who are against.

In Bakhmut itself there is also the issue of the city being surrounded on the three sides. If the Russians push to close the pincers and UKR from Bakhmut have to break out, the heavy equipment would be left in place. So the guns etc. have to be situated further to the West. Lack of mortars is a frequent complaint on the Ukrainian side (e.g.Mashovets). It seems like they genuinely have too few mortars and too little ammunition for them and UKR themselves are saying this results from procurement mistakes. They failed to buy enough or to ensure local production. Re. the artillery. The reports of Russian artillery being shot up by counterbattery are from other places on the front, I believe e.g. Svatove-Kreminna sector. In the Bakhmut region the Russians have ensured a big advantage in tubes (10:1 has been quoted by a Polish journalist Lachowski) so effective counterbattery fire is unlikely. It is like Donbas in the summer, except that the Russians have only managed to replicate those conditions on a small sector of the front - which is a progress, of course.

Typical work of Ork Mekboyz

Me neither. I do not recall a single instance in history of communists being voted to power without rigging the elections. On the other hand, I am sure there were also many instances of non-communists rigging elections.

A major part of that could be terrain. Kherson region is mostly the same kind of terrain one can see in the films from Vuhledar - flat fields divided by narrow and very conspicuous strips of trees. The only options seem to be a frontal dash across the fields or creep along the strips of woodland, which do not afford sigificantly more concealment or protection than the field between them.

Is that an equivalent of Russian Lancet 3M? Ukrainians seemed to lack an adequate response to those

I very much doubt if any elections under a communist regime were ever free. That would be the first time.

Ours (Polish People's Army) were supposed to attack Denmark. Safely out to the flank, which limited the opportunity to shoot Soviets in the back and cross the front in parade formation with colours flying. Conscripts would be unreliable, however the officer cadre was to some extent alienated from the population and mentally sovietised. A friend of mine observed that one could always tell where the soldiers' flats were on a Christmas Eve , because from all other places you could hear people singing christmas carols, and from soldiers' homes the sound of ballads in Russian was coming.

That is an interesting insight. In communist Poland a staunch majority of the population considered Soviet Union as the enemy and all NATO countries as hopeful allies. US was absolutely idolised. I can speak for Poland out of my own experience, but judging as how the Czechs, Balts, Slovaks etc. foreign policy looks like I am quite sure the sentiment was similar. It is interesting, that DDR was different. During the Communism Soviets considered DDR to be the most reliable ally, and everybody knew about Stasi infiltrated like half of the society, and the dissident movement was weak so maybe there was something to it

From this I assume that effectively he could have about a month of training with the rest of the time spent on transfers between depots and units. That sounds about as much as a country in a middle of full scale war can afford to spend on training an infantryman.

Those of the humanities departments - why not. But it is not wise to use those with core useful skills as cannon fodder just for the sake of demonstrating that the social contract is being kept. That is the job for sportsmen, actors, junior sons of politicians, etc. BTW I read that the first British military casualty of the war was a lawyer by profession. On the other hand, Oxfordians dealing with physics is something which I associate more with the Manahattan Project, Bletchley Park, radar, operations research during the battle of Atlantic, etc. than trenches. In Polish there is a saying about this situation "shooting at the enemy with diamonds" (originally a comment about a famous poet shot manning a barricade during the Warsaw uprising).

That's another possibility - the raid could have been real, just the attack on the civilians made up by RUS . Anyway, it is more interesting what did the Russian want to use it for. The obvious option is another round of mobilisation.

This has "RF provocation" written all over it. It looks like mini-Bieslan scenario, tailor made to make Russian public go crazy.

I am not sure why "still". You noticed that the incident in question occurred on the first day of the invasion, right? I would say "already" working, after the confusion of the initial RUS strikes

At least we can be sure he was not hanged by the neck

Yep. After watching too many advertisements for kids I call it the "My little pony princess mermaid" approach. Too much of a good thing rolled into one.