How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Kinophile]

A little humour:

 

[Kinophile]

Hope they get out, if true. 

 

[cesmonkey]

3 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Michael Clarke is a popular military expert who is often interviewed on TV.

If he squinted a bit, he might read the small letters on the image of the press conference, which was held in January 2023. The news he is commenting on is a year old.

To be fair, to Prof. Clarke, he commented on a tweet about a news article that was reported yesterday on a statement the Danish prime minister made this past week at the Munich Security Conference:

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/02/17/7442336/

So it seems Denmark's strong commitment to Ukraine had not been widely noted or well remembered by the press, either. It was the first I had heard of it.

[cesmonkey]

 

[LongLeftFlank]

lnteresting attempt, even if likely ineffectual.

 

 

[Grigb]

5 hours ago, Rokko said:

As a ballpark estimate this seems not totally unreasonable. But its been 19 weeks, which would mean they suffered an average of ~2500 casualties per week. Thinking back to the estimates I made a couple days back this seems a little too low, when compared to previous timeframes of comparable intensity. Particularly, at least for 10/23, their losses were probably a good 1/3 higher than that.

This should be considered as the conservative estimate. Most likely, the data is from a local report given to the chain of command. Such reports, however, feature distorted figures. A considerable number of KIA/Dead MIA will remain on the balance of units and be reported gradually over days, weeks, and months to smooth out the peak on the unit loss graph.

[Grigb]

5 hours ago, panzermartin said:

OK just saw these numbers. Yes RU are losing a lot but still seems within the 1:3 defender /attacker ratio, is this correct? 

Simple assertions like "1:3 losses are acceptable for attacker" are BS. We must first examine other aspects. However, the figures are sufficient to demonstrate that assertions regarding massive UKR losses are the delusions of naive people deceived by RU propaganda. 

[Kinophile]

51 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

lnteresting attempt, even if likely ineffectual.

 

 

I noted this one a few pages back. Apparently they're effective but obviously only at close range, ie about 1-2 hundred metres.

In urban environment they are more effective. 

I'm curious why with FPV drones we have not yet seen a gun/rocket armed drone hunting down enemy observation drones.

Now that would be an interesting gun cam. 

Surely there's a utility in having a CAP available...? On the ground, the ready to go. If not yet I assume there's several simple reasons. 

Edited February 18 by Kinophile

[Grigb]

5 hours ago, JonS said:

Given the vastly different population sizes, UKR has to *average* better than 5:1 loss ratios to avoid falling behind.

This is a gross miscalculation since other crucial aspects, such as RU political and economic issues, are excluded.

The so-called "partial mobilization" had severe political and economic implications. Russian government managed to temporally stabilize the situation by pledging that there would be no more mobilization. Any more mobilization efforts would be equivalent to playing Russian roulette. It could work for a while, but eventually it will inevitably blow your face off. Or it might blow your face right away.  

Simply put, the Russian government has a considerably smaller pool of people it can mobilize than Western experts believe. 

[sburke]

7 hours ago, panzermartin said:

Can we find accurate reliable numbers anymore? I doubt. This could be true in earlier stages but since the summer offensive Ukrainians are losing a lot too. 

Gliding bombs, drones etc have inflicted big damage to their forces, which repeatedly are being cut off in big cauldrons and get hammered until very last minute withdrawal. 

Another hint is that we don't see any mass mobilization from Russia this time yet Ukraine seems rather eager to gather personnel even asking/forcing people to return from abroad. 

Lastly, they keep losing ground every day. Even the little gains of summer offensive in Zaporizhia front. There are also no signs of any new Ukrainian offensive plan, unless it's being prepared in complete darkness for maximum surprise. But it's very unlikely. 

Do you think Russia is not calling for a mass mobilization because they needn't bother or because they are concerned about the political implications?

And what are you suggesting?  Surrender?  Cause that is what this sounds like.  An extremely pessimistic representation as if Russia hasn't suffered anything in this war and has no concern for any ramifications at its losses either in personnel, societal infrastructure, economic health etc.

War as @The_Capt keeps trying to batter into our heads is a process of negotiation.  There are a lot of layers to that and the question of where the war stands now is a complicated nuanced thing.  Russia is getting hit on multiple levels that are long term.  Everything from population demographics, global social standing, industrial capability, financial stability etc.  Ukraine is as well, but the differences between the two generally weigh heavily in Ukraine's favor.  This war clearly is going to last a lot longer than any of us would wish however when all is said and done the basic fact I think we will see is Ukraine will remain standing as a democratic western oriented nation with strong standing and support from the western bloc.

Russia on the other hand is just digging itself deeper into a hole from which it will have difficulty extricating itself.  It has no partners willing to give much to help.  China does what is best for China and isn't really in a position nor desire to try and restore Russia.  It works much better for China to have a weak dependent Russia that it can exploit.

[Twisk]

            Comparing immediate loss rates seems to matter in the sense of force generation rather than national will. Ukrainian loss rates are favorable but that could be devastating if they aren't generating new combat power. And vice versa. High Russian loss rates are obviously sustainable from a "total population" metric. But might not be in a force generation sense. It might also have negative impacts on future operations as they continue to chew through "experienced" troops and especially leaders. Overall I feel like we've lost track of force generation rates. So its hard to determine just how bad losses are for either force.


           When it comes to long term national sustainment I've been using 1% pre-war population as the marker for when manpower exhausting might become a reality. Just doing a quick look at major wars through the 20th century 1% isn't unusual.

Russia: 1,471,821

Total KIA estimates I can find are roughly 120 to 150k.

 

Ukraine: 414,426

Total KIA estimates I can find are roughly 70k to 100k

 

So roughly 2:1 KIA rates but again if 1% KIA is the "break point" for a major war both forces could sustain their current loss rates up into 2026 or possibly 2027. So I don't think the war is going to end because either force has been "killed out" in the sense that they've run out of manpower.

           I would also say it may be worthwhile to not circle round a single poster and beat them with opposing viewpoints. If 5 good posts aren't convincing 15 likely won't be either and it tends to clog up the discussion based on person's posts.
 

Edited February 18 by Twisk

[Battlefront.com]

8 hours ago, panzermartin said:

And yet how realistic that civil war scenario still is?

You are not doing a very good job with your analysis of the situation because you insist on looking only at what is happening today without context.  I will demonstrate...

Take yourself back to the end of the Bakhmut battle.  You could look at that and conclude that Russia was winning and Ukraine was losing.  In fact, knowing your postings, you probably did exactly that   And yet here we are, a year later, and the war is still going on.

This is a complicated war with a lot of moving parts to it.  If you don't examine all the parts before drawing conclusions, it is highly unlikely your analysis will be any better than someone uniformed randomly selecting from a multiple choice answer.

I'm not saying that people who do look at all the facts are going to be correct, because that's not how analysis works.  But their likelihood of being correct is (probably) better than random chance.  Of course that also comes down to the quality of the person doing the analysis because we see hacks like Macgregor and Ritter being wrong pretty much 100% of the time despite claiming to be capable of analysis.  We also saw very experienced and solid expert analysts making a lot of huge mistakes at the beginning of this war.  Kofman being the one we focus on here, but there were many others.

My point is that if you look at things in isolation you're unlikely to really understand where the war is now and where it's headed.  The more you look deeper and broader, the more likely you'll have a sense of where this is headed.  Crunching some numbers and comparing it (incorrectly) to abstract ratios is not heading you in the right direction.

Steve

[Aragorn2002]

8 hours ago, cesmonkey said:

 

Well done, Denmark!

[Battlefront.com]

9 minutes ago, Twisk said:

I would also say it may be worthwhile to not circle round a single poster and beat them with opposing viewpoints. If 5 good posts aren't convincing 15 likely won't be either and it tends to clog up the discussion based on person's posts.

Hah.  Well, we cross posted so I'm excused

Your numbers look good to me and they underscore the real issue is not counting available manpower and comparing it to losses.  It's very clear that theoretically Ukraine and Russia could sustain their respective losses (simply from a birth/death rate situation) for a very long time.  Much longer than other factors, therefore it is highly unlikely the war will end because theoretical manpower is exhausted.

It is pretty clear that Russia has figured out how to sustain these enormous losses for the time being.  Here's a short list of the things Russia has, at least for now, managed to stabilize into something sustainable:

• The shortages of personal equipment we saw in 2022 and into 2023 appears to be solved
• Adjusting to a minimally trained combat force seems to have been achieved
• Shortages of vehicles of all types, including logistical, has also been solved
• They've managed to keep their aircraft and artillery functional
• Terror bombing of Ukrainian territory is also going on without signs of running out of munitions
• Air defenses, EW, and other limited equipment still seems to still be sufficient for immediate needs
• Funding for the war has so far not caused a catastrophic economic collapse, neither have sanctions
• Supplying frontline units without everything being blown up is solved
• Critical transport infrastructure, including the Kerch bridge, seem adequate for their operations
• And most importantly, the ability to recruit more men than they're losing appears to be fairly steady/reliable

On the one hand one can look at this list and think "wow, Russia has this all figured out. Ukraine is screwed".  However, ask the question... how many of these things have really been fixed for the long term?  Some, for sure, but which things are either "robbing Peter to pay Paul" or have some sort of hard limitation at some point in the future?  Most of these things do.  Then ask how many of these would need to "run out of options" before the rest falls apart?  There's a couple (manpower regeneration and economic stability) that all on their own can swing things dramatically in another direction.  Others would be problematic at first and then lead to major consequences.

The way to think of this is a juggler who keeps throwing another thing up into the air to juggle at once.  The more diverse the objects are in terms of size, grip, weight, etc. the more difficult it is to juggle.  Dropping a ball here or there might not matter, but if a chainsaw is thrown poorly and it comes down on the juggler's head, the show is over.

Steve

 

[_Morpheus_]

3rd assault brigade in Avdiivka

 

[Lille Fiskerby]

Well, examiming some parts:

Attrition: Russia is winning that part, those of us that has read about the Great Patriatic War, this comes as no surprise.
War production: Russia is winning that part, 30 % of the Russian economy is now war economy, western sanctions has not destroyed the russian economy.
Morale: Ukranian morale is not as good as it was at the start of the war. Fatique is a problem, 6 of 7 russian drones now hit their targets, that used to be 1 out of 7 drones.
Ammunition: Russia is winning that part with their war production, western applause in Munich does not making any 155 mm shells, if Trump wins the election US contribution will almost dissapear, the EU countries really has to step up but how long will that take ? one danish ammunition factory will be ready in .......... two years, that is way to slow.
Combat: the russian army is learning from their mistakes, just as they did in 1941-42-43-44.

I dont like it but there it is.

[dan/california]

 

3 hours ago, Kinophile said:

A little humour:

 

This is really funny!

[dan/california]

 

[Grigb]

RU propagandists - we are using old tanks as artillery. RU army:

From here

I am inviting experts to discuss how RU war production of tanks successfully replace RU tank losses. 

[Aragorn2002]

1 hour ago, Lille Fiskerby said:

Well, examiming some parts:

Attrition: Russia is winning that part, those of us that has read about the Great Patriatic War, this comes as no surprise.
War production: Russia is winning that part, 30 % of the Russian economy is now war economy, western sanctions has not destroyed the russian economy.
Morale: Ukranian morale is not as good as it was at the start of the war. Fatique is a problem, 6 of 7 russian drones now hit their targets, that used to be 1 out of 7 drones.
Ammunition: Russia is winning that part with their war production, western applause in Munich does not making any 155 mm shells, if Trump wins the election US contribution will almost dissapear, the EU countries really has to step up but how long will that take ? one danish ammunition factory will be ready in .......... two years, that is way to slow.
Combat: the russian army is learning from their mistakes, just as they did in 1941-42-43-44.

I dont like it but there it is.

The Russians prepared far better than we thought, that's for sure. But they can't and they won't win. Denmark gave a good example by announcing all Danish artillery will be send to Ukraine. I hope other countries will following that grand gesture. Ukraine MUST prevail and it will. The Russians didn't learn much from their mistakes, don't believe their propaganda. They want us to believe that they are winning. They are not. They are bleeding. Badly.

The West is awake and will crush Putin and his thugs. It will take years, but we'll make them pay.  Patience and perseverance! If it takes another world war, so be it.

Edited February 18 by Aragorn2002

[MikeyD]

To bring up that much-overused phrase, war is politics by other means. Russia 'wins' this war only if you define the word 'win' to fit parameters favorable to Russia. Russia 'loses' if you define the word 'lose' in ways that are unfavorable. Did Russia overthrow the Kiev government and divide Ukraine and Romania into multiple Russian provinces? No, they did not. Did they make Ukraine a client state? No. Did they seal off Ukraine from the Black Sea? No. Did they neuter NATO? Nope. Did they spend much blood and treasure trying to straighten out their front line north of long-held city of Donetsk? Yes, they did that. 

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.threads.net/@24hoursukrainenew/post/C3fQO5vNXh_

Russians executed 6 soldiers captured on Zenith position south of Avdiivka.That's one of them calling just before russians come in. Later russians published video with dead bodies.3 executed fighters have been recognized by family members already.

 

Mike Johnson needs to watch this.

[Kraft]

6 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Mike Johnson needs to watch this.

I couldnt edit my post anymore to include this also, but today another 2 surrendering unarmed soldiers were killed by russians near Bakhmut and caught on drone.

[Grigb]

1 hour ago, Lille Fiskerby said:

Well, examiming some parts:

Attrition: Russia is winning that part, those of us that has read about the Great Patriatic War, this comes as no surprise.

RU is not winning this part. You read BS about Great Patriotic War.

 

1 hour ago, Lille Fiskerby said:

War production: Russia is winning that part, 30 % of the Russian economy is now war economy, western sanctions has not destroyed the russian economy.

RU has no war economy. Western sanctions inflicted critical damage on RU economy ensuring slow death of RU state as we know it.

 

1 hour ago, Lille Fiskerby said:

Morale: Ukranian morale is not as good as it was at the start of the war. Fatique is a problem,

You do know that RU morale is so low that Putin is afraid to call mobilization, don't you? 

 

1 hour ago, Lille Fiskerby said:

6 of 7 russian drones now hit their targets, that used to be 1 out of 7 drones.

What drones are you talking about? RU Nat fighter from Avdiivka reported on February 9

Quote

 

At the moment, there is not a single available UAV repair unit in Donetsk, and there is not a single centralized supply source for FPV drones.

The keys to Avdiivka, and to Victory in principle, are in the air, dear friends. Let's think about how to solve the problem. Our enemy [UKR] has no such problems.

The phrase of the season is [RU] "Drone famine". And yes, do you think this is an accident or [somebody] stupidity?...

 

 

Do you talk about Shaheds? Last time I checked, 40 out of 45 were taken down.

 

1 hour ago, Lille Fiskerby said:

Ammunition: Russia is winning that part with their war production,

RU military production reached it's peak at the end of December. It cannot increase anymore due to lack of western heavy machinery.

 

1 hour ago, Lille Fiskerby said:

western applause in Munich does not making any 155 mm shells

UKR NATO 155mm arty needs less shells as it is more effective than RU arty

Quote

The qualitative superiority of NATO weaponry is evident...the former chief of the [RU] General Staff summarizes: CMO revealed a considerable laging behind of our artillery and missile systems, which require prioritized fundamental rearmament in the coming years.

 

1 hour ago, Lille Fiskerby said:

if Trump wins the election US contribution will almost disappear

Last time Trump was president he b*tcslapped RU so hard that I laughed whole week reading RU Nat hysterics. 

 

1 hour ago, Lille Fiskerby said:

the EU countries really has to step up but how long will that take ?

Interesting question. Given that it took RU several months of relentless meat assaults to move front just couple km west and given that there are 560 km to Kiev, RU can be expected to threaten Kiev in 233 years. EU shells will arrive long before that. 

 

1 hour ago, Lille Fiskerby said:

Combat: the russian army is learning from their mistakes

Nope, Agent Murz reports how RU learns lessons IRL

Quote

However, dear Eugene, this is far from the worst of it. It would not be so bad if, as a result of the [Avdiivka battle] and Maryinka [battle], a major criminal case [against current RU commanders] would be opened. The most ****ed-up thing in this story, the most ****ed-up sign of future new ****-ups, is that a solder (from the almost completely destroyed regiment 1487), was denied acceptance of his prosecution application (when he brough the application to the St. Petersburg military prosecutor's office) and was clearly explained that those he wishes to prosecute [for incompetence] have already been designated as heroes [heroes could not be prosecuted becasue bosses who designated them heroes cannot make mistakes].

 

1 hour ago, Lille Fiskerby said:

just as they did in 1941-42-43-44.

Except from infamous Tolkonuk letter to Stalin about how Red Army generals learned lessons of war by the winter 43-44 

Quote

I am addressing you [comrade Stalin] solely because I was convinced [both] directly on the battlefield and working long time in the army apparatus that some of our leading generals of the Western Front and the 33rd army (on whom literally everything depends in the preparation and conduct of operation) cannot or do not want to understand that You cannot expect success from an unprepared operation, that the operation should be taken quite seriously, That a reasonable assessment of the necessary forces and weapons is required here, which can be spent without any benefit and might not be restored for a long time, A lost battle greatly reduces the army's strength for a long time, that just a wish to beat the enemy, cannot defeat Germans. They [RU generals] cannot understand that we are not rich enough to waste our troops and material resources on small things and not to think about the possible grave consequences.

Finally, some of our commanding comrades cannot understand that the training of troops, that is, the real fighters of the battle, is one of the main and basic prerequisites for success and that the ability to prepare subordinate troops for the upcoming battle is one of the most important qualities of a commander.

In addition, it should be noted that behind the back of our big artillery chiefs, there are many blatant disgraces in the combat use of artillery. They are covered by the unfounded authority of these chiefs and the rightly deserved glory of our artillery as a whole.

Remove reference to Germans and it reads like description of Avdiivka battle.

 

1 hour ago, Lille Fiskerby said:

I dont like it but there it is.

I dont like RU propagand but there it is.

 

[Holien]

3 hours ago, Lille Fiskerby said:

the russian army is learning from their mistakes, just as they did in 1941-42-43-44.

Really? Would you like to expound on this nugget a tad further.

I am genuinely interested in how in 2022, 2023 to 2024 the Russians are learning from their mistakes.