Ukraine Is Lying About Casualty Ratios To Justify Holding Of Bakhmut
I follow and like Adam Tooze. His Chartbooks have always good materials. This recent one on the Silicon Valley Bank crash is also fine.
But I was somewhat disturbed by a recent tweet of his:
Adam Tooze @adam_tooze - 20:11 UTC · Mar 9, 2023"Some experts worry Ukraine may be expending high-quality troops and equipment to kill mere Russian prison recruits as “cannon fodder”." Wow the language around the attritional battle at Bakhmut is getting grotesque! 7:1 ratio not good enough for you?
Link: ft.com Military briefing: Ukraine’s battle of diminishing returns for Bakhmut
Was that satire?
Moon of Alabama @MoonofA - 20:14 UTC Mar 9, 2023
Replying to @adam_tooze7:1 to whose advantage?
He did not respond. But no, it was not satire. The linked Financial Times piece, reprinted in the Irish Times, actually quotes the Ukrainian national security chief Oleksiy Danilov as saying that the kill ratio was one to seven in Ukraine's favor.
The whole passage is nuts:
US and European officials estimate 200,000 Russian troops have been killed or seriously injured since February last year, and Ukraine about half that.One western official said Russia had suffered “between 20,000 and 30,000 casualties over the past six months”, adding that most of them were mercenaries fighting for the Wagner private military company. Wagner’s operations have been largely focused on Bakhmut.
Nato officials estimate one Ukrainian had been killed or injured for every five Russians. Ukrainian national security chief Oleksiy Danilov last week estimated the ratio was “one to seven in our favour”.
This makes no sense. Had 200,000 Russian's be killed or seriously wounded in the war while 20,000 to 30,000 of those were killed or wounded in the past six month then the first six month of the war would have cost the Russian side 175,000 losses. That's more than the total numbers that were, until the recent mobilization, involved in the whole campaign. Those numbers must have been pulled from hot air.
Danilov casualty ratio is likewise obvious nonsense.
The Medical Department of the U.S. Army has a book about CAUSATIVE AGENTS OF BATTLE CASUALTIES IN WORLD WAR II. It is quoted here:
A report on the causative agents of battle casualties in World War II showed the comparative incidence of casualties from different types of weapons for several theaters. Compilers of the report believed that, while the more detailed subdivisions within their three major classes were open to question, their findings on the percent of total casualties due to small arms, artillery and mortars, and “miscellaneous” were reasonably accurate. From these they drew the following conclusions:1. Small arms fire accounted for between 14 and 31 percent of the total casualties, depending upon the theater of action: The Mediterranean theater, 14.0 percent; the European theater, 23.4 percent; and the Pacific theaters, 30.7 percent.
2. Artillery and mortar fire together accounted for 65 percent of the total casualties in the European and Mediterranean theaters, 64.0 and 69.1, respectively. In the Pacific, they accounted for 47.0 percent.
The Encyclopedia Britannica likewise notes for World War I:
The greatest number of casualties and wounds were inflicted by artillery, followed by small arms, and then by poison gas.
When I was in officer school the number estimated for a big war in Europe was 75% of casualties due to artillery and aerial bombing.
Data from the European Commission, quoted by El Pais, says that Russia has a 10:1 advantage in artillery:
According to data from the European Commission to which EL PAÍS has had access, Russia fires between 40,000 and 50,000 artillery shells per day, compared to 5,000-6,000 Ukrainian forces expend. The Estonian government, which has been one of largest contributors to Kyiv’s war effort, puts the average use of artillery at between 20,000 and 60,000 Russian shells per day, and 2,000 to 7,000 Ukrainian rounds, according to a document sent to EU Member States by Tallinn, to which this newspaper has had access.
The Russian forces fire ten times the number of shells the Ukrainians can fire. In a modern war artillery fire causes 65+% of all casualties. It is thus impossible that Ukraine is losing less soldiers than the Russians.
The total ratio may well be 7 to 1 but it will certainly be to the advantage of the Russian forces side.
But minimizing the losses Ukraine has in Bakhmut seems to be a current propaganda scheme. A recent Newsweek piece quotes similar nonsense.
This propaganda seems to be designed to justify the Ukrainian decision to hang on to the city as long as possible:
Moscow's troops are on the cusp of taking the city in the eastern Donetsk region fought over for months, of which they reportedly control half. Amid rumors of a Ukrainian retreat Western officials suggested would do Kyiv no harm, President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted his troops would stay to prevent Russian forces from moving on "to other towns."
Already in January the U.S. was pressing the Ukraine to forget about Bakhmut and to move to a more mobile campaign:
In a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, deputy national security adviser Jon Finer, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl, said the US wants to help Ukraine shift away from the sort of pitched battle of attrition playing out in Bakhmut and focus instead on a style of mechanized maneuver warfare that uses rapid, unanticipated movements against Russia, sources familiar with their discussion said.The hundreds of armored vehicles the US and European countries have provided to Ukraine in recent weeks, including 14 British tanks, are meant to help Ukraine make that shift, officials said.
In his latest summary Dima of the Military Summary Channel reported that the Ukrainian side will soon try a counterattack to cut the Russian ring around Bakhmut and to draw the Russian side into a decisive general battle.
I see, like Dima, little chance that such an attempt could be successful. The force ratio to achieve something like that is simply not there.
But if the Ukraine wants to do that, against 'western' advice, it needs some justifications. The lies about casualty ratios in favor of Ukraine seem designed to give those.
Posted by b on March 11, 2023 at 18:11 UTC | Permalink
next page »A couple of days ago, I saw a mention of the Ukrainians winning a decisive tank battle, and destroying 130 Russian tanks. I can't find it now (it wasn't here).
Did anyone else see that? It sounds like BS to me; why would the Russians amass their armour into one easy target? But in the fog of disinformation, it helps to have other perspectives. Did anyone else remember hearing about this 'massacre'?
Posted by: FrankDrakman | Mar 11 2023 18:19 utc | 2
Bashar Al-Assad taking the West to task for their hegemonic actions.
https://t.me/DonbassDevushka/47680
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 11 2023 18:19 utc | 3
Most of the time war propaganda becomes irrational as the fighting faces setbacks.
The standard kill ratio in the Vietnam War was 10:1 in favor of alliance led by Westmoreland. The body count did not discriminate between Viet Cong fighters and rural South Vietnamese families caught in the crossfire. Many My Lai’s and victims Agent Orange … bringing democracy.
Prighozin announces that he is going to run for President.
https://t.me/NovichokRossiya/26541
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 11 2023 18:24 utc | 5
Nonsensical numbers are a Western Specialty.
Economics/Math is what will end the Ukraine war.
Only the money printing founded on the USD Reserve Currency Platform has allowed the profligate absurdity of financing the U.S. Banking/Financial System, in turn, financing the U.S. Military. Slowly, slowly, then all at once.
Current example. Silicon Vally Bank. $200 billion Assets, $175 billion liabilities. Yet effectively insolvent. Why? Because Bonds on the books are not marked to Market. And the ENTIRE US FINACIAL SYSTEM, INCLUDING EVERY BANK, EVERY HEDGE FUND, EVEN THE US FEDERAL RESERVE, does not have to mark their "assets to market". Silicon Valley Bank, with $25 Billion of New Worth is Insolvent. And so is the United States.
Posted by: kupkee | Mar 11 2023 18:25 utc | 6
I think when they quote 30000 figure for Russian losses, they meant 30000 per month over 5-6 months which would then make it consistent with a total of 200K loss.
Nonetheless, there is indeed no reason to believe that.
I think the BBC research on the newspapers, obituaries, etc. should provide the most accurate number because local papers would certainly cover fallen from their regions. So, I expect Russian losses be around 15-20K, still a lot but significantly less than western estimates.
But, I can't imagine the western governments believe in Ukrainian figures as many months ago, German foreign minister blurped out 100K dead.
Posted by: kemerd | Mar 11 2023 18:25 utc | 7
Translated: Unrealistic incomplete low-ball 400+ KIA ...
Summary of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the progress of a special military operation (11.03.2023)◽️ On the Kupyansk direction, air strikes and artillery fire of the "Western" grouping of troops hit AFU units in the areas of Hryanikivka, Kharkiv Region, and Rozovka, Luhansk People's Republic.
💥 The enemy losses amounted to up to 50 Ukrainian soldiers, five armored combat vehicles, three vehicles and a self-propelled howitzer "Gvozdika".
◽️ In the Krasno-Limanskoe direction, active actions of units and artillery fire of the Center Group of Forces defeated enemy manpower and equipment in the areas of Nevske and Chervona Dibrova settlements of the Luhansk People's Republic.
💥 During the day, up to 90 Ukrainian servicemen, two armored combat vehicles, two pickup trucks, a D-30 howitzer and an Acacia self-propelled artillery unit were destroyed in this direction.
◽️ In the Donetsk direction, as a result of active actions of units and artillery fire of the "Southern" group of troops in the areas of Zaliznyanske, Krasnoye and Tonenkoe settlements of the Donetsk People's Republic, over 140 Ukrainian servicemen, two armored combat vehicles, four pickup trucks, three vehicles and two D-30 howitzers were destroyed during the day.
◽️ On the South Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia directions, air strikes and artillery fire of the Vostok Group of Forces defeated AFU units in the areas of Prechistovka and Ugledar of the Donetsk People's Republic.
💥 Total enemy losses in these areas during the day amounted to up to 70 Ukrainian servicemen, three armored combat vehicles, one vehicle and a D-20 howitzer.
◽️ In the Kherson direction, more than 50 Ukrainian servicemen, three armored combat vehicles, fourteen vehicles, as well as an ammunition depot of the 124th Brigade of Territorial Defense of the AFU were destroyed in the course of the day.
💥 Operational and army aviation, missile troops and artillery of groups of troops (forces) of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation hit 75 artillery units of the AFU at firing positions, manpower and equipment in 114 areas
💥 US-made AN/TPQ-36 and AN/TPQ-50 counter-battery radar stations were destroyed in the areas of Konstantinovka and Privolie settlements of the Donetsk People's Republic.
◽️ Over the past 24 hours, air defense forces shot down four HIMARS and Uragan MBRLS rockets and intercepted four HARM anti-radar missiles.
💥 In addition, eleven Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed during the day in the areas of Pershotravneve (Kharkiv region), Raygorodka, Oborotnovka, Ploshchanka (Luhansk region), Staromayorske, Shevchenko (Donetsk region), Kamianske and Balochki (Zaporizhia region).
📊 In total, since the beginning of the special military operation destroyed (losses over previous 24hrs(+?)):
400 aircraft, (Daily avg 1.1)
218 helicopters, (Daily avg 0.6)
3,384(+11) unmanned aerial vehicles, (Daily avg 8.9)
411 surface-to-air missile systems, (Daily avg 1.1)
8,264(+15) tanks and other armored combat vehicles, (Daily avg 21.8)
1,055 multiple rocket launchers, (Daily avg 2.8)
4,321(+6) field artillery and mortars, (Daily avg 11.4) and
8,857(+27) special military vehicles. (Daily avg 23.3)
Despite wanting the globalists to suffer a humiliating and terminal defeat in Ukraine, I still haven’t the heart to cheer the senseless sending of Ukraine’s male population that are not Nazis to the slaughter.
Posted by: Micro Digger | Mar 11 2023 18:28 utc | 9
Ukraine has to do whatever is necessary to maintain the flow of Western weapons and money. Without that, it has to ask Russia for terms (which will be harsh after a year of this). Russia, of course, is under no such pressure since it is paying for the war itself.
Everything is done with that necessity in mind. So lying about casualties, holding territory long after it is militarily useful, promising a "Spring Offensive" that will likely fail, sending poorly trained conscripts to fight; all are part of convincing the West that the money and weapons should keep flowing. This is short-term thinking at its worst.
Posted by: Tom E Weiss | Mar 11 2023 18:29 utc | 10
Adam Tooze is a Keynesian of the same kind: a center-"left"ist liberal.
This position is precisely the most pro-war position at the moment.
Thus he whitewashes the role of the Allied bombing of Germany and downplays the Soviet Union too much (even though according to his analysis the Soviet Union was the best)
Of course, the proposal to require fdic to cover all deposits of Andrew Yang and Larry Summers is actually very bad for the banks' retail customers since thus increased premiums translate into lower interest rates and they would look for some alternative solutions like money market funds or short-term Treasury.
Posted by: Colin | Mar 11 2023 18:29 utc | 11
The lies about casualty ratios in favor of Ukraine seem designed to give those.
Posted by b on March 11, 2023 at 18:11 UTC | Permalink
Is it too early to suggest that taking forcefully people off the streets and sending them to Bakhmut right away without any training, is intended willful genocide by the Kiev regime? It really shows how much the West cares about human rights.
Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 11 2023 18:29 utc | 12
Only the TET offensive of February 1968 changed the war narrative of the Pentagon and Johnson administration … enter Henry Kissinger, young and ambitious.
How many more wars need Democrats to lose they initiated. ⁉️
Peace ☮️ too is a science … diplomacy works.
Great report. Regardless of body count on either side, the blood sacrifice people are very happy.
Meanwhile the Biden regime, like the old man, is disintegrating into a Wile E. Coyote freefall with examples too numerous to mention. But the people behind the old man seethe as Empire is lost on their watch. The Pyramidic House of Cards won't collapse without a fight.
Posted by: gottlieb | Mar 11 2023 18:33 utc | 14
Innumeracy is one of the outcomes of a Western education that prioritizes feelings over facts.
Posted by: too scents | Mar 11 2023 18:33 utc | 15
Adam Tooze's book Wages of Destruction was a landmark study of the economics of Nazi Germany and WW2. His politics were clearly in social democracy. His analysis laid the foundation for critical thinking about the economic compulsions of all imperial states and wars. But Tooze has not lived up to his potential. In fact, he has become a servant of empire.
Since his first book, he has been recruited into the centrist liberal camp of the US. This has happened alongside his employment as a tenured prof at Colombia. All too typical. He probably took US citizenship too.
Tooze has a bunch of grad students churning out his empirical trend charts and figures. They are ok but he lacks any grounding in theories of political economy. He is an empiricist historian first and foremost. He doesn't understand his own data presentations.
His work has become analytically weaker and weaker over time, to the point that he is now squarely in the camp of American imperialist liberalism.
For example, his book on the economic crisis has absolutely no theory of why it occured. He just gives a day by day account of what happened...but without an explanation. This is typical of American mainstream economics, which has yet to offer an explanation of the crisis. Like the books of Krugman and Stiglitz, there is no analysis.
In all recent foreign policy conflicts, he has explicitly taken the ideological dogmas and talking points of US imperialism.
He actually seems to know very little about these matters, yet is given a platform because of his acquiescence to US empire. His work on Ukraine has been garbage in its entirety.
He is another sad case of sellout social democracy.
Perhaps not unexpected for a German social democrat.
Posted by: Ringo | Mar 11 2023 18:37 utc | 16
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 11 2023 18:24 utc | 5
Beautiful.
Posted by: anon2020 | Mar 11 2023 18:40 utc | 17
I still haven’t the heart to cheer the senseless sending of Ukraine’s male population that are not Nazis to the slaughter.
Posted by: Micro Digger | Mar 11 2023 18:28 utc | 9
Agreement with that is so sadly given. Russia couldn't reasonably anticipate this wholesale, suicidal 'strategy.' No one in their right mind could conceivably call this slaughter sane.
Posted by: Elmagnostic | Mar 11 2023 18:42 utc | 18
So western advisors and observers are unable to meaningfully impact Ukraine’s strategy and shift it into a new paradigm, that is, how they imagine the US marines would fight the Russians, and are now tailoring narratives to fit the chosen Ukrainian strategy in the short term.
Now that the tail is firmly wagging the dog, we can say that the expertly run pr machine of last year is breaking down and falling back on the reactive. They’re out of ideas because Ukraine is out of options, and soon, ammo.
Posted by: Cesare | Mar 11 2023 18:53 utc | 19
I suppose the info released by the Ukrainian armed forces on casualties along with the West is aimed at folk who don't pay attention (the majority of people) to what's going on in Ukraine with regards to the conflict, its the same folk who get and believe the news on this conflict from their respective countries main stream medias, which is mainly propaganda.
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Mar 11 2023 18:53 utc | 20
Maybe the Ukrainians are using fancy math, e.g. 2+2=22.
Posted by: Robby | Mar 11 2023 18:54 utc | 21
Translated: Unrealistic incomplete low-ball 400+ KIA ...
"up to 50 Ukrainian soldiers"
"up to 90 Ukrainian servicemen"
"over 140 Ukrainian servicemen"
"up to 70 Ukrainian servicemen"
"more than 50 Ukrainian servicemen"
Posted by: Outraged | Mar 11 2023 18:26 utc | 8
The ones with 'up to' mean the very maximum of a guess. Conservatively you can't count the full number of those - counting only 1/3 or 1/4 for those would likely be more correct. The ones with 'over' or 'more than' can be counted with their full numbers.
Posted by: MiniMo | Mar 11 2023 18:56 utc | 22
'Cause US/NATO/EU commitment & support has been collapsing since Jan20'23 failed NATO Ramstein meeting. There is no & will not be an AFU Armored Corp to launch an Operational Counter-Offensive to retake Crimea. MSM articles increasing question Ukraine ability to survive let alone 'win'. Zelensky increasingly being attacked ...
About to be abandoned Ukraine ... committed NordStream ?
Not enough & never will be enough shells(will reach zero(0)), nor anything else, continual problems re even small arms ammo supply ...
The AFU Reserves have been & are being fed piecemeal into Bahkmut. AFU trapped inside call it the 2nd Stalingrad, despair at no AFU artillery support.
Mobilized & re-assigned survivors thrown into scratch assault brigades for The Reserve, are made up from conscripts & disparate remnants of shattered brigades, hastily amalgamated re-organized, with a total of three days training allotment, then allocated to Bahkmut ...
Western trained AFU infantry get 3 weeks ineffectual/useless largely COIN training irrelevant to the conflict and get to fire total 50-60 small arms rounds. Graduated. Western AFV crews get 4 weeks training, & two weeks on formation/combined arms. Laughable.
AFU held in contact all along FEBA, continuosly diminishing ability to reinforce or plug gaps, not just Bahkmut ...
AFU inability due mass accumulated losses and continual disadvantageous attrition now unable to equip/train/field replacements faster than losses occur.
Death spiral.
Leopard Is (Light Tanks) will start being delivered in penny-packets, beginning in early May ? And the drip-feed multi-stage delivery of the AMX-10-RC Armored Cars starting when ?
Intense non-delivery backsliding across the few remaining NATO arms suppliers ... 'starting' in May, may very well be way too late for Ukraine AFU ... deliberate abandonment ?
Ukraine to Receive Leopard 1 Tanks From Denmark, Germany, Netherlands starting in May: Danish MinisterMOSCOW (Sputnik) - The first batch of Leopard I tanks from Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands will be handed over to Ukraine in early May, acting Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said on Saturday.
"We can expect to be able to deliver 80 to 90 (88) tanks during 2023. They will be delivered continuously, because they need to be included in training activities with Ukrainian soldiers... Therefore, we believe that they will be delivered in large quantities from about the beginning of May until the end of the year," Poulsen was quoted as saying by Danish broadcaster.
Western countries have been supplying Ukraine with various types of weapons systems, including air defense missiles, multiple launch rocket systems, tanks, self-propelled artillery and anti-aircraft guns since Russia launched its special military operation in February 2022.
In late January, Germany committed to sending 14 Leopard 2A6 tanks to Kiev, with other states announcing similar steps or promising to join the initiative. Moscow has continuously warned that sending more lethal aid to Kiev risks escalating the conflict and involving NATO in direct confrontation with Russia.
The Leopard IIs are where ? The 14 UK Challenger IIs, NOT to be deployed to the FEBA ? Hm ? Poland withholds its 90 T-91s. The 90 Czech T-72s ? 20, soon, the other 70 when ? All the other promised NATO/EU/US MBTs promised ... withdrawn ... or someday over the rainbow ...
In reply to FrankDrakman 130 Russian tanks:
Probably NYT March, 1st, copied many times...
version Yahoo
Posted by: Jx | Mar 11 2023 19:02 utc | 24
Zelensky recently said that the US would have to send their sons and daughters to the frontline. Why should that be if Ukraine is recording lower number of casualties than Russia? It's all utter nonsense. Unfortunately most people in the collective West have been inured to falsehood and lousy propaganda, otherwise this kind of BS should not be dignified with a reponse.
Posted by: Steve | Mar 11 2023 19:06 utc | 25
I've noticed a trend in Ukraine's communication strategy during this war: they tend to turn the actual statistics upside down, attributing their own casualty figures to the Russians and viceversa.
So, if they say that the casualty ratio in Bakhmut is 1:5 to 1:7 in their favour, it's likely 1:5 to 1:7 in the Russians' favour.
Posted by: Leonardo | Mar 11 2023 19:07 utc | 26
@ MiniMo | Mar 11 2023 18:56 utc | 21
Utter BS. Have not been paying attention. A fool or deliberately ignorant ?
The casualty 'figures' may well form part of the justification, but I too can't see anything but an upcoming Ukrainian "Alamo".
Posted by: Kaiama | Mar 11 2023 19:09 utc | 28
Re: Posted by: FrankDrakman | Mar 11 2023 18:19 utc | 2
I believe you are referring to the battle at Vuhledar, January 24 - 31 of this year.
"Ukrainian officials have called the battle of Vuhledar "the biggest tank battle of the war", with over 130 Russian tanks and APCs being damaged or destroyed in the course of the battle." (source: Wikipedia, 'Battle of Vuhledar')
But b's analysis here is that the number of Russian tanks lost was a few dozen and that the battle was more of a diversion to draw off Ukrainian troops from the Bakhmut front:
Posted by b on February 16, 2023 at 16:45 UTC | Permalink | Comments (233)
Media Bullshit About Ugledar
Posted by: Clever Dog | Mar 11 2023 19:12 utc | 29
I can personally talk about the lack of 2 obituaries of mentally challenged individual that were emergency forced out (no people to staff - $5 less an hour than factory 0.8 km away) who died less than 24 hours after transition. I can not say more, I will be terminated. So I do know that not all people who die will have an obituary.
No metric is perfect, but the data mining of obituaries in the Russian Federation for KIA showed something like 17,000 iirc.
200,000 KIA for RF is more than a Gobbelian lie. It does not strain credulity, it atomizes it.
As others point out previous elsewhere, KIA to WIA for Ukraine is probably (much?) higher as influenced by evac times and field hospital conditions. I am sure that RF has better conditions, there are vids about conditions in UKR field hospitals.
(Note the book "They Were Soldiers" by Ann Jones does a fantastic job of following (as she personally did) wounded us soldiers from Afghanistan to field hospital, theatre hospital not often, Ramstein, and usOfa. I very highly recommend the first 60% of that book)
One can not forget to mention that all pay to UKR MIA is suspended, widows and children have no support. It pays UKR to leave those KIA to rot and be eaten as carrion.
But what I would most like to see good data mining of is the excess mortality rates for EU and UK for this winter. Time will tell. It is not only soldiers that die on the field. Starvation and deprivation far from the battlefields is called indirect deaths, I disagree, these are direct casualties.
And finally, that cemetery in Poland that is being expanded. I can see it both ways, a dumping ground for Polish casualties in UKR or also for the late 80's and 90 year olds who were Polish soldiers in WWII that have died. If it is indeed true that 20,000 Poles have already died in UKR, wow.
Posted by: paxmark1 | Mar 11 2023 19:13 utc | 30
Upthread Ringo is absolutely right about Tooze. His work was of high quality, but then petered out after Crash. His more recent work is
atheoretical, often reads like he's just transcribing from the NYT and the FT.
On this war, early on he posted a sadly juvenile bit, full of excitement about the effectiveness of Javelins. Silly fanboy stuff. And then more recently about the brilliance of the AUk small unit tactics. I'm sure he could tap into critical perspectives if he wanted to, at least arguing with them, but my guess is that he's too tied in to Atlanticist circles to dare to. Those ties are part and parcel of his stated belief that existing international financial structures are essential to keeping capitalism going.
Posted by: dadooronron | Mar 11 2023 19:14 utc | 31
Is it too early to suggest that taking forcefully people off the streets and sending them to Bakhmut right away without any training, is intended willful genocide by the Kiev regime? It really shows how much the West cares about human rights.
Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 11 2023 18:29 utc | 12
I don't think it is too early. I've heard rumors of this for months, ie. that conscripts from "undesirable" ethnics are given at most two weeks of training and sent to the front in the hottest sections of the contact line, with little equipment and less support. I've not posted on it for lack of solid confirmation, but with this much smoke there is likely some fire. There are also disturbing rumors as to what happens to the surviving wounded extracted from some of these fronts.
Posted by: Snowleopard | Mar 11 2023 19:22 utc | 32
@Leonardo | Mar 11 2023 19:07 utc | 25
I suspect even that is likely a lowball number. More like 5:1 to 7:1 casualties in Russia's favour is a massaged number that is being fed to senior Western allies, then inverted for public consumption.
Reality is that mostly raw conscripts, surrounded on 3 sides, being pounded by 10 times the artillery, being whacked by frontal aviation, drones, and missiles pretty much at will, with only extremely muddy back roads to for supply and escape, are going to have a really bad time. Anybody saying otherwise should be ignored, ridiculed, or held to account.
Posted by: Another James | Mar 11 2023 19:22 utc | 33
Never forget that by now there are tens of thousands of NATO troops (volunteers) fighting in The Ukraine.
Also never forget that up until around November ‘22 the vast majority of fighting against the Kiev regime was done by the ‘Ukrainian’ militias of the DPR and LPR.
Posted by: Exile | Mar 11 2023 19:24 utc | 34
Posted by: Micro Digger | Mar 11 2023 18:28 utc | 9
Posted by: Elmagnostic | Mar 11 2023 18:42 utc | 18
The slaughter is a feature, not a bug. Depopulation, decolonisation call it what you will. If they were herding Ukrainians onto trains and shipping them off to painstakingly accurate recreations of Nazi death camps, the western media-political class would still find a way to rationalise it but having a war allows the butchery to be conveniently rebranded as a just cause.
I don’t believe western claims that holding Bakhmut is Zelensky’s stubborn decision against their own advice or that he could pull out and they’d still back him. Not only is US intelligence looking over the shoulders of the whole Ukrainian political and military class, it also has a gun pressed into their back. Zelensky this and Zelensky that is narrative theatre.
Bakhmut is what Ukraine’s “allies” want right now, because right now it’s the easiest way to string out the conflict, play for time, impose costs on Russia, and at least kill some Ukrainians. They’d prefer to kill more Russians because that would impact RF domestic politics, but they’ll take what they can get.
It’d help if the US Axis could somehow exclude Wagner from the conflict because that’d make it a lot easier to inflict politically damaging casualties on Russia.
Fortunately the US can’t do that themselves and no one in Russia’s stupid or craven enough to exclude Wagner for their own reasons.
Posted by: anon2020 | Mar 11 2023 19:25 utc | 35
As always, I don't really know what's going on. The Ukrainians are bleeding the Russians dry, or vice-versa? I have zero objective way of determining the truth of this. But, some thoughts:
1. Yes, the Russian have a lot more artillery tubes than the Ukrainians. But: the Ukrainians have the untouchable western surveillance, and can know pretty much exactly where to target. An artillery shell that lands on your head is devastating. Massed poorly-targeted artillery fire on dug in troops - or on troops that are somewhere else - is much less effective than you might think. My father fought in Normandy in WWII, and I recall him telling me that there was a massive artillery barrage on some German defenses, he couldn't believe that anyone would survive, but when they moved forward, most of the German soldiers were alive and fought very hard.
2. Again I plead to not being a professional and to likely being wrong, but here's one thought. Maybe Russia isn't planning a big offensive at all. A "big arrow" attack could backfire and cause devastating casualties, it would make the Russian units easy targets for precise Ukrainian strikes, and in the end would be mostly pointless. The perfidy of the west in the Minsk agreements means that Russia can't make big gains and then sue for peace on favorable terms, because the Ukrainians will just be re-armed and then attack again in a few years. So maybe just hold the line, attack just enough to tie down the Ukrainian forces and at least limit their ability to build a reserve army, and hope that eventually the west gets tired of this or distracted by something else (like a war with China?)
3. I would not dismiss the possibility of a Ukrainian offensive out of hand. Surely the western elites are lying scum, but the Ukrainian forces have been inventive and aggressive and very, very clever. And the west does not play 'fair.' Suppose that the Ukrainians have been secretly supplied with a lot of heavy long-range strike missiles. They take out the Kerch bridge, they take out all major bridges and supply dumps in Crimea and up through the south of Ukraine - they do what they did in Kherson. Maybe western jets pretending to be Ukrainians launch massive strikes. The Ukrainians have hundreds of modern tanks - maybe run by Nato personnel - and hit the Russian when they are off balance and they don't expect it. Maybe a lot of night battles, the Russians are supposed to be weaker at that than the western powers. And maybe some nice juicy false flags to draw NATO more directly into the conflict: how about a chemical weapons attack on Polish supply depots? That would be fun. It is possible that the Russians are just going to hang back, anticipate being surprised and taken off guard, and wait for a Ukrainian offensive. If the Russians can manage to avoid being put off balance and really hammer-blow crush a Ukrainian offensive, now that might finally reduce western enthusiasm for funding this conflict.
Posted by: TG | Mar 11 2023 19:25 utc | 36
'Cause US/NATO/EU commitment & support has been collapsing since Jan20'23 failed NATO Ramstein meeting. There is no & will not be an AFU Armored Corp to launch an Operational Counter-Offensive to retake Crimea. MSM articles increasing question Ukraine ability to survive let alone 'win'. Zelensky increasingly being attacked ...
Posted by: Outraged | Mar 11 2023 19:01 utc | 22
I saw recently one piece of Ukraine on MSM.
The main worry according to that piece was that the "Russian army may end up getting to roam freely on Ukrainian territory". That to me means that the hegemony is expecting UAF to more or less shatter, and probably soon.
There haven't really been the reports on what new aid packages to Ukraine consist of, that most likely means that the aid packages are so pitiful that they won't even bother publishing them. While of course, they spin it as the need for secrecy.
Posted by: unimperator | Mar 11 2023 19:26 utc | 37
'Cause US/NATO/EU commitment & support has been collapsing since Jan20'23 failed NATO Ramstein meeting. There is no & will not be an AFU Armored Corp to launch an Operational Counter-Offensive to retake Crimea. MSM articles increasing question Ukraine ability to survive let alone 'win'. Zelensky increasingly being attacked ...
Posted by: Outraged | Mar 11 2023 19:01 utc | 22
I saw recently one piece of Ukraine on MSM.
The main worry according to that piece was that the "Russian army may end up getting to roam freely on Ukrainian territory". That to me means that the hegemony is expecting UAF to more or less shatter, and probably soon.
There haven't really been the reports on what new aid packages to Ukraine consist of, that most likely means that the aid packages are so pitiful that they won't even bother publishing them. While of course, they spin it as the need for secrecy.
Posted by: unimperator | Mar 11 2023 19:26 utc | 38
A couple of days ago, I saw a mention of the Ukrainians winning a decisive tank battle, and destroying 130 Russian tanks. I can't find it now (it wasn't here).Did anyone else see that? It sounds like BS to me; why would the Russians amass their armour into one easy target? But in the fog of disinformation, it helps to have other perspectives. Did anyone else remember hearing about this 'massacre'?
Posted by: FrankDrakman | Mar 11 2023 18:19 utc | 2
Yeah, I saw headlines to that effect. AFAIK it's not actually referring to a tank battle in the sense of tank vs tank (at least not exclusively). I think it's a claim of the losses the Russians took during some of their less than successful advances on Ugledar. Without getting into whether or not the count is correct, I'm sure anything with armour is counted as a tank for the headlines. My understanding is that on more than one occasion Russian columns were ambushed and/or got bogged down in minefields and were then worked over by Ukrainian fire. I think in the video clips I saw it was artillery fire, not tank or ATGM.
Posted by: Mike314159 | Mar 11 2023 19:28 utc | 39
too scents @
Glad I read before posting. You got there before me. Please do assume that innumeracy goes all the way up the ladder. Does anyone believe Joe Biden could count to ten? His aides can't either.
Politicians and journalists are wholly verbal. And oral. They drink and suck way too much to ever get past one...two...three...many.
Posted by: oldhippie | Mar 11 2023 19:28 utc | 40
@ unimperator | Mar 11 2023 19:26 utc | 36
Correct. Total $ allocated cost re various 'commitments', generic description of arms/materiel/ordnance, yet NO numbers re quantity going back more than two months now.
You should stop trusting Tooze, he sold his arse to the Seppoes and can't be taken seriously any more.
Posted by: Squeeth | Mar 11 2023 19:31 utc | 42
Kupkee@#6 says as follows:
“Silicon Valley Bank, with $25 Billion of New Worth is Insolvent. And so is the United States.”
And it’s been morally bankrupt for the entirety of its existence.
Posted by: Vragtes | Mar 11 2023 19:33 utc | 44
It's estimated that 65% of battlefield deaths are from artillery. They have repeatedly admitted the Russians dominate overwhelmingly with shells - and for some time now. Therefore, Ukraine MUST suffer huge disproportionate casualties. It can't be otherwise.
Posted by: Eighthman | Mar 11 2023 19:34 utc | 45
In a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, deputy national security adviser Jon Finer, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl, said the US wants to help Ukraine shift away from the sort of pitched battle of attrition playing out in Bakhmut and focus instead on a style of mechanized maneuver warfare that uses rapid, unanticipated movements against Russia, sources familiar with their discussion said.
With a massive disadvantage in artillery tubes, virtually no air or aviation assets, and little in the way of air defense it is a suicide operation promulgated by the West. The Pentagram knows better than this as it is not their style of operations.
Posted by: circumspect | Mar 11 2023 19:42 utc | 46
~28.500 Slain Ukrainian soldiers according to Danilov? Even Ursula VdL had put it at 100.000 a couple of months ago and she was talking about Ukrainian officers not soldiers. She was German minister of defense for years so either the number of slain Ukrainian soldiers must have been around 500.000 or she meant military personnel, made a mistake and she's the embodiment of incompetence (which is more likely). What I can believe about that ~28.500 Ukrainian slain soldiers is that its the current number who have relatives that as a result are entitled to some benefits.
Posted by: xor | Mar 11 2023 19:49 utc | 47
@ Ringo | Mar 11 2023 18:37 utc | 16 with some background about Adam Tooze....thanks
Michael Hudson says he can't relate to economists because they are zombies about financial structure (public/private finance) and Adam Tooze sounds like he has drank that koolaid.....and he likes his tenure at Columbia.
It doesn't say much for us as a species that we are so easily bought off our social ideals/values.
I believe b's take on the SMO loss numbers and that is supported by the political shrieking and gnashing of teeth....talk is cheap and becoming increasingly worthless....actions are speaking volumes these days.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 11 2023 19:57 utc | 48
Posted by: xor | Mar 11 2023 19:49 utc | 47
General Krivonos, ex-deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine during early last September already talked about "hundreds of thousands losses".
https://twitter.com/VeraVanHorne/status/1565751388482707457
There was also the leaked UAF general staff document a bit earlier also confirming "hundreds of thousands".
The recent CNN / Ukraine GS leak had numbers for KIA/WIA/MIA at 250k/250k/80k.
Posted by: unimperator | Mar 11 2023 19:59 utc | 49
Ukraine says 7-1
Nato says 5-1 in their favor.
So what's real? Hard to say, probably still in ukraines favor, but they've been vocal about sending in elite units so I'd say they've been hit where it hurts.
Meanwhile western media has been going on about prisoners and conscripts in Wagner so I think they've lost the thread a bit.
Seems like Wagner is being withdrawn and replaced with paratroopers(in the trenches naturally not air dropped behind lines)
Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | Mar 11 2023 20:01 utc | 50
@ TG | Mar 11 2023 19:25 utc | 35
Yeah, always be posting you ... do not know ... yet, very, very concerned ... with these assertions ?
1. BS. RF fires targeted 20,000 - 60,000 shells a day. Mortars & rockets ? Periodic massed thermobarics &/or incendiary/explosive mix. Free-ranging RuAF & Army CAS at & beyond FEBA. Minimum 50+ sorties per day. AFU effectively zero tactical ADS.
2. MEAT GRINDER. Daily ongoing AFU mass casualties due disadvantageous attrition due RF overwhelming direct & indirect Fires. Average lifespan AFU conscript is 4 hrs in the trench-line. Companies down to less than Platoon strength within a week. Brigades brought down to 40-60% strength, some less than 30% within weeks. Brigades kept in the line for up to 5 months plus until bled white, 70-80%+ casualties ...
3. No military knowledge, self-declared, yet this BS ?
@ Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 11 2023 19:38 utc | 45
I think we need to keep in mind RF does not count/report AFU casualties(Only KIA) below formed units or Platoon strength(Excluding DRGs) & only when visually/ISR verified & not beyond FEBA.
The loss of the following assets/crew-served systems(100% destruction), average per day, results in how many likely additional unclaimed KIA/WIA/MIA/POW, including passengers ?
400 aircraft, (Daily avg 1.1)
218 helicopters, (Daily avg 0.6)
3,384(+11) unmanned aerial vehicles, (Daily avg 8.9)
411 surface-to-air missile systems, (Daily avg 1.1)
8,264(+15) tanks and other armored combat vehicles, (Daily avg 21.8)
1,055 multiple rocket launchers, (Daily avg 2.8)
4,321(+6) field artillery and mortars, (Daily avg 11.4) and
8,857(+27) special military vehicles. (Daily avg 23.3)
AFU casualties daily, beyond FEBA, throughout Ukraine ?
RF is NOT conducting defensive-oriented Operations !
@LoveDonbass | Mar 11 2023 18:24 utc | 5
Yep, on the Ukrainian side its the Jew Zelensky sending tons of Goyim to their deaths, while on the Russian side its only Prighozin of Wagner sending Goyim to their deaths. The normal Russian forces retreat if the going gets tough, just shelling the opposition until they stop their advance and then the opposition has no choice but to start its inevitable slow retreat under relentless shelling yet again. Wagner's has been sending in infantry to clear out opposition lines, at times without artillery or armour support. This achieves objectives but leads to high casualties, but thats ok, its only Goyim. No Jews are dying in this conflict, yet on the Ukrainian and Russian sides its Jews who are leading the most Goyim to their deaths. Both Zelensky and Prighozin are doing what is good for the Jews, they both don't have a problem dying for their current respective causes because the Goyim deaths are good for Israel, if only they could achieve more Goyim deaths in Ukraine. Getting yet another Jewish president in charge of yet another Goyim Christian country is good for the Jews.
Posted by: gT | Mar 11 2023 20:10 utc | 52
more of the world believes russia is desperate, the easier false flag ops are.
Posted by: polarbear4 | Mar 11 2023 20:20 utc | 53
finance types tend to be autistic savants; gifted in their chosen field (for all that it matters given it's bullshit smoke and mirrors) but dumb about other stuff. ironic that in this case it was about something number-based.
Posted by: the pair | Mar 11 2023 20:20 utc | 54
Our source reports that in the Bakhmutovskaya meat grinder, the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are growing daily. Everyone already knows this. The authorities are doing something stupid that denies this fact. People know it, families know it, but the lie of the Office of the President that everything is fine, controlled, only causes aggression in society.Many of the soldiers have already begun to suspect that someone in power is deliberately throwing entire units into a meat grinder, where in a couple of days only a few of them remain. Such a "hidden agent" who deliberately massively "utilizes" manpower in order to weaken the Ukrainian army.
The problem of contradictions between soldiers and officers is only growing, as is the “quiet war” between Zaluzhny and Ze / Yermak.
Back in the summer of 2022, we insided out that this “disease” (a contradiction between officers and soldiers) in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine could become a huge problem if Bankovaya did not solve it.
https://t.me/legitimniy/14929
Posted by: Down South | Mar 11 2023 20:22 utc | 55
The scum running the West (WEF dems) project everything they do, every crime they commit to their political enemies, no matter how heinous the crime. If the Ukes say they have lost 28,500 soldiers, that is probably a good estimate of Russias losses. 100% projection, and they can do it without any media scrutiny, as they own the media. Its why they keep saying the Russians shell their own towns and other happy horseshit.
Projection writ large on a worldwide scale taught to anyone the West controls, and used for spreading hate and chaos.
Posted by: Fudup | Mar 11 2023 20:33 utc | 56
[email protected] balance? The Scale is broken. Russians understand when it comes to the 'non agreement capable' west, see; Merkle, what did that head Euro moron say, "Russia must loose".....you like many are tightly focused on the micro, dead here, dead there, you all miss the basic essence of what Cancel Russia means. 20k dead Russian....200k dead Russian... guaranteed Russia will commit, if required, 20 million Russians to protect the Fatherland......Mother is watching.
Cheers M
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Mar 11 2023 20:34 utc | 57
@Snowleopard | Mar 11 2023 19:22 utc | 31
There are also disturbing rumors as to what happens to the surviving wounded extracted from some of these fronts.
I had read about 500 corpses with vital organs removed being discovered in a mine shaft near Lublin. I have not seen any more references to this so wondered if this was hearsay.
Posted by: cirsium | Mar 11 2023 20:36 utc | 58
I still haven’t the heart to cheer the senseless sending of Ukraine’s male population that are not Nazis to the slaughter.
Posted by: Micro Digger | Mar 11 2023 18:28 utc | 9
The problem is they are all Nazis and they all deserve a slow and painful death.
Posted by: armalyte | Mar 11 2023 20:36 utc | 59
The Ukrainians elites disregard for the lives of their men is beyond normal compression at this point.
Posted by: jpc | Mar 11 2023 20:53 utc | 61
Latest from Larry Johnson - about the pollicisation of western intelligence
Key Quotes
"Larry Johnson, an ex-CIA analyst, writes “I no longer hold clearances and have not had access to the classified intelligence assessments. However, I have heard that the finished intelligence being supplied to U.S. policymakers continues to declare that Russia is on the ropes – and their economy is crumbling. Also, analysts insist that the Ukrainians are beating the Russians”.
Johnson responds that – lacking valid human sources – “western agencies are almost wholly dependent today on ‘liaison reporting’” (i.e., from ‘friendly’ foreign intelligence services), without doing ‘due diligence’ by cross-checking discrepancies with other reporting.
In practice, this largely means western reporting simply replicates Kiev’s PR line. But there does occur a huge problem when marrying Kiev’s output (as Johnson says) to UK reports – for ‘corroboration’.
The reality is UK reporting itself is also based on what Ukraine is saying. This is known as false collateral – i.e., when that which is used for corroboration and validation actually derives from the same single source. It becomes – deliberately – a propaganda multiplier."
"Bluntly, so-called western ‘Intelligence’ is no longer the sincere attempt to understand a complex reality, but rather, it has become the tool to falsify a nuanced reality in order to attempt to manipulate the Russian psyche towards a collective defeatism"
"So, it’s ‘goodbye’ to traditional Intelligence! And ‘welcome’ to western Intelligence 101: Geo-Politics no longer revolves around a grasp on Reality. It is about the installation of ideological pseudo-realism – which is the universal installation of a singular groupthink, such that everyone lives passively by it, until it is far too late to change course"
Posted by: Aslangeo | Mar 11 2023 20:53 utc | 62
Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | Mar 11 2023 20:01 utc | 50
Ukraine says 7-1
Nato says 5-1 in their favor.So what's real? Hard to say, probably still in ukraines favor...
10:1 in Russia’s favour. Possibly more.
Posted by: Jax | Mar 11 2023 20:57 utc | 63
Zelensky recently said that the US would have to send their sons and daughters to the frontline.
Posted by: Steve | Mar 11 2023 19:06 utc | 24
Is WWZ-elenski wrong? no, but the frontline changes. For US sons and daughters, the frontline is now the Rio Grande.
the American motto has always been, "We don't do body counts" but those kill ratios and such might make more sense some day. Maybe they are predictive, of what US weapons will do against poor people on the Mexican border. Some can hope.
and don't say a for profit war industry has incentives to spread war! the market decides what is and isn't commie bullshit! if the market decides Taiwan needs liberation, who are we to question the wisdom of the market? we must obey the iron law of the invisible, unaccountable all-knowing, fairly-dispensing, hand. Look out China! Oh and thanks for releasing that virus when you did.
Posted by: rjb1.5 | Mar 11 2023 21:09 utc | 64
As the Russians rarely report their combat losses (nor do the Ukes), the best estimates stem from BBC Russia and Mediazona. Those are around or below 20k KIA so far.
The figures are to a wide extent credible as they stem from browsing fallen soldiers' funerals and obituaries in internet, media, social media, and most prolly digging/spying mail accounts. BBC and Mediazona are just proxies and mouthpieces for diligent intelligence agencies' work. So far weekly KIA never exceeded 500 afaik, or at least not much. AFU losses in KIA regularly exceed 400 per day, sometimes peaking above 600.
Posted by: aquadraht | Mar 11 2023 21:12 utc | 65
@ Neofeudalfuture | Mar 11 2023 20:01 utc | 50
Just making BS up out of whole cloth, heh ?
b @ Feb5'23. As reported via Mossad, published & discussed over five weeks ago: :
Russia:
18,480 KIA
44,500 WIA
323 POW
MIA ?
UKRAINE:
157,000 KIA
234,000 WIA
17,230 POW
MIA ?
234 KIA – NATO military trainers (US and UK)
2,458 KIA – NATO soldiers (Germany, Poland, Lithuania, ...)
5,360 KIA – Mercenaries
&
b @ Feb3'23 (Effective Dec24'23):
Ten days ago the well informed Col.(ret.) Doug Macgregor put the numbers (video) of dead on the Ukrainian side at 122,000 killed (& WIA/MIA ?) plus 35,000 missed in action (presumed dead). The number of dead Russians (including Wagner forces and Donbas militia) is at 16,000 to 25,000 with 20 to 40,000 additionally wounded. The numbers have since increased with the Ukrainian ones several times those of the Russians.
&
As @ Feb3'23:
Scott Ritter stated today on Judge Napolitano's YouTube channel that Ukraine dead exceed 300,000 (& WIA/MIA ?).
&
As @ Feb17'23:
Ukraine: 257,000 KIA, source Zaluzhnyi leaked report. (Hence WIA 257,000+ (x 2.5 to 3 ?) + MIA)
And on & on & on ... since Bahkmut dramatically elevated casualty & wider FEBA rate past few weeks ?
"I think when they quote 30000 figure for Russian losses, they meant 30000 per month over 5-6 months which would then make it consistent with a total of 200K loss."
Posted by: kemerd | Mar 11 2023 18:25 utc
I don't think so. The quote is,"One western official said Russia had suffered “between 20,000 and 30,000 casualties over the past six months”.
I think it is pretty clear "over the past six months" not per month,every month,or each month. If they meant per month or each month they would of stated it. You have to go with what they print is what they mean.
Posted by: joe | Mar 11 2023 21:19 utc | 67
LoL why are people still considering Ukranian official casualty figures even remotely close to reality???
Waste of time to even talk about them.
And yes Western media parrots those figures directly from Ukranian officials mouths.
But we know this.its all BS
Posted by: Comandante | Mar 11 2023 21:19 utc | 68
You cannot wage a war with 'territorial defense brigades', poorly trained conscripts, and artillery disadvantage against an army of trained up reservists, professional soldiers, and Wagner types plus LPR/DPR experienced militia and claim advantage in kill ratio. Simply not believeable. The UAF does (still) have some well trained troops and more with OTJ experience, and the Russians and Wagners have respect for their fighting ability, but with the disparity of training and arms it's not really a 'fair fight'.
If you want an idea of what it's like to face Russian artillery fire and the psychological effects it has then listen to this interview with this US (ex military) kid who went over to fight last year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ-iVzR_Yyc
(it's 3 1/2 hours long - Mariupol and Bakhmut)
No wonder the stories about drug use, amphetamines, etc.
Posted by: the pessimist | Mar 11 2023 21:25 utc | 69
Compilation from the latest on Telegram
> Paratroopers, with the support of tanks and artillery, today rushed in the direction of Svatovo-Kremennaya.
Several more oporniks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were taken. The density of fire from our side forced the crests to simply run.
About how it was a small report from the spot.
> Another Azerbaijani mercenary (Ilkin Hajiyev) is killed in Bakhmut
> A man and his 8-year-old son killed in Kuibyshevsky district of Donetsk when their car was hit by Ukrainian shelling.
> Thursday night & Friday's air attack were the most powerful since December 2022 because of the arrival of Kinzhal (hypersonic)
missiles, which destroyed fortified control and planning centers as well as air defense and radar systems.
There is information that the AFU lost almost all Western IRIS-T and NASAMS air defense systems, and there are losses among the
trained officer personnel.
Posted by: MiniMo | Mar 11 2023 21:25 utc | 70
500 corpses with vital organs removed being
cirsium | Mar 11 2023 20:36 utc | 58
who's doing logistics? cuz if it's a dick cheney group, KBR or Halliburton or the many like, it could be chow. harvesting food, yes. "put it in the SPAM. they won't know." Medical? doubtful. doesn't that like require some like skill and stuff?
i don't know. organs out of a warzone? under fire? how does that work? they don't seem to have enough bullets. can they keep a kidney on ice? not putting anything past this trash, but this...Urban legend?
Posted by: rjb1.5 | Mar 11 2023 21:26 utc | 71
"doesn't that like require some like skill and stuff?"
It takes far more skill to transplant them in than take them out. If the organs are taken out with a lot of tissue/guts around them (so the organ itself isn't damaged) then there isn't too much skill needed - only knowing where and what the organs are and keeping them clean and preserved - an ice cooler, though if the weather is cold/freezing then even that wouldn't be so vital, and getting them quickly to those who know what to do with them.
Posted by: MiniMo | Mar 11 2023 21:30 utc | 72
Thursday night & Friday's air attack were the most powerful since December 2022 because
Posted by: MiniMo | Mar 11 2023 21:25 utc | 70
---
Russia has been rolling out JDAMs.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fq36tRzWwAQnP_h?format=jpg
Posted by: too scents | Mar 11 2023 21:39 utc | 73
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 11 2023 19:38 utc | 45
If there were 200,000 dead Russians Ukrainian social media would be nothing but pictures of dead Russians. Ukraine has been running a propaganda / media war from the jump and trumpets every good thing that happens to it, sometimes (often) even making things up. Western media laps up Ukrainian stories without a second thought. Kiev would be floating and putting as many pictures of piles of dead Russians on the internet as it could for the infowar value.
If there were anywhere near 200,000 dead Russians there’d be lots and lots of proof. Besides that, doomer Russian social media would be beside itself. 200,000 dead can’t be hidden. Just like Ukraine can’t really hide its dead fully. The massive new cemeteries full of war dead attest to it.
Posted by: Lex | Mar 11 2023 21:45 utc | 74
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 11 2023 19:38 utc | 45
LOL that wasn't me. Please match email/handle/IP in order to weed out these body snatchers.
Of course my opinion is the exact opposite of what this troll said.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 11 2023 21:48 utc | 75
Absolute propaganda. We can file that with "Russia is running out of weapons" and "Putin is about to die from 10 different illnesses."
Posted by: GioCon | Mar 11 2023 21:49 utc | 76
Posted by: Lex | Mar 11 2023 21:45 utc | 74
Yeah, it wasn't me. Someone from the NAFO Bro crowd - or "Intelligence" Community has been impersonating regular MoA user handles to throw a wrench into threads. It had died down for a while, but it looks like they're back! From now on I'll be incorporating a few hidden keys into my comments so that I can later point back to the imposter not doing so.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 11 2023 21:54 utc | 77
The world is getting weary of Uqrane, its nasty little leader, it's death count,
At this stage its pointless.
The game has moved on.
Posted by: Mark2 | Mar 11 2023 21:54 utc | 78
Posted by: MiniMo | Mar 11 2023 21:30 utc | 72
uh oh. yeah, i'm an american...my mind went straight to the fridge.
but i guess that makes sense. but after it is removed from the body, doesn't it have to be removed from the field?
we've probably figured it out. Amazon probably has drones to go pick up organs. USA: Get a free Happy Meal with your Chainsaw Massacre. all this talk about organ meat is making me hungry.
Posted by: rjb1.5 | Mar 11 2023 21:57 utc | 79
Posted by: Outraged | Mar 11 2023 20:02 utc | 51
As mentioned above, this was a troll/body snatcher post using my handle. It's quite telling how much effort they're putting into it, attempting to come off as balanced and thorough while inserting a narrative that politely pushes concern troll NAFO Bro style narratives. Pay close attention to the formatting of my comments over the next couple of days until they give up; there will be some subtle keys.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 11 2023 21:57 utc | 80
Posted by: Outraged | Mar 11 2023 20:02 utc | 51
"The loss of the following assets/crew-served systems(100% destruction), average per day, results in how many likely additional unclaimed KIA/WIA/MIA/POW, including passengers ?"
Exactly. I've been assuming since last March that when the Russians report stuff like "215 attacks on concentrations of personnel and materiel" that at least one Ukrainian was standing there at the site of the attack and got killed or wounded (unless the Russians were bombing a tank park with no one around, which seems unlikely.)
So I've always added those "215" or whatever the number was to the official number of reported killed, then doubled it for wounded. This has always given a minimum of 500 losses a day up to 1,000 or even more, every single day since the war started. This inevitably means 15-30,000 Ukrainian dead and wounded PER MONTH for the last twelve months. That's 180,000 to 360,000 dead and wounded so far - at a minimum.
The Russians at one point reported Ukrainian losses with the number of wounded less than the number of killed. This has rarely happened in war. At worst the figure has been 1:1, and usually varies from 1:2 to 1:4. Someone suggested it's because the Ukrainian wounded don't get retrieved or given adequate care on the battlefield so most of them die there. That's possible, but it's not proven.
Martyanov believes the Russians massively under count the dead and wounded, and I tend to agree. In any event, no one knows the real numbers and possibly never will except in ballpark terms. The Russian side or Russian historians may eventually release an actual count of their own losses, but I suspect we will never know the extent of Ukrainians losses, again except in ballpark terms.
But we don't need to. All we need to know is that they are massive and Ukraine cannot sustain them. Assertions that Ukraine still has X hundred thousand poorly trained conscripts are irrelevant to the outcome of the war, although it may have an impact on how long it takes - you can only kill so many people so fast short of using nukes. And as many people have pointed out, the Russians are in no hurry as they are fully capable of industrially sustaining this war for another couple years at least, if not indefinitely.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Mar 11 2023 21:59 utc | 81
@ Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 11 2023 21:57 utc | 80
All good. Cannot be helped, given the likely mindset of the obsessive serial impostor.
TG | Mar 11 2023 19:25 utc | 35
I see both sides claiming 7:1 or 8:1 ratios, we don't know the truth, although Ukraine seem to be on mobilisation 8 or 9 vs Russia on mobilisation 1 or 2.
It's a tragedy for the Slavs as a whole, it's not as if they have high birthrates as it is. The Polish leadership must be crazy, basically volunteering themselves for slaughter.
Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | Mar 11 2023 22:05 utc | 83
Need Russell's Paradox reloaded to figure out casualties according to MSM
[Russian casualties are very high]; [but they aren't]
[Ukrainian casualties are very low]; [but they aren't]
Most notable is that when some clearly ludicrous stat is printed in one MSM outlet one notes that the same ludicrous stat or example is almost simultaneously produced across all MSM outlets ... with emotionality in gobbelsian form liberally sprinkled in for maximum effect ...
[Russian casualties are much lower than Ukrainian[; [predicate is true]
[Ukrainian casualties are much lower than Russian]; [predicate is false]
Who owns the MSM? Better: who owns the Western MSM? No paradox! Sorted.
Who owns the heterodox media - we do; we have to figure it out ourselves at the bar with other reasonably informed imbibers - more please.
Posted by: Don Firineach | Mar 11 2023 22:08 utc | 84
@ Richard Steven Hack | Mar 11 2023 21:59 utc | 81
Exactly. They are, given Bahkmut non-strategy, shades of AH re Stalingrad, now entered a casualty rate death spiral. Collective West can only train ~40,000/year. That's only two months casualties, at best. Empire is gradually shifting the narrative towards abandoning it's 'current' proxy.
Rogue russo-phobic Poland, sacrificial proxy Number 2, is likely the next batter up at the crease, just prior to or immediately after AFU collapse 'twould seem:
Poland is building the largest land army in Europe — The Telegraph▪️"Warsaw embarks on the largest rearmament campaign in 50 years in response to the growing threat from Russia"/
▪️Poland has placed defense orders for 1,000 K2 tanks from South Korea and 250 new M1A2 SEPv3 tanks from the US. This will turn Poland into the owner of the largest tank force in Europe, eclipsing Britain's force of 227 units.
▪️Artillery will also be reinforced with the arrival of 600 K9, 18 HIMARS MLRS with 9000 missiles and 288 MRL K239 Chunmoo systems from South Korea.
▪️"More than 1,000 Polish-made Borsuk infantry fighting vehicles, and from the air will cover 96 AH-64E Apache helicopters (from the USA), and 48 FA-50 combat aircraft from South Korea."
Very good Q&A from Simplicius on Ukraine.
Explaons much of what's asked and discussed here, aside from the obvious NAFU trolls.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/saturday-readers-mailbag-extravaganza
Posted by: Surferket | Mar 11 2023 22:26 utc | 87
Simplicius has a very long Substack post up in which he does a Q&A with his pledgers. The post is available to free subscribers like me. This is a long and very informative post and a must-read for everyone here in my less-than-humble opinion.
Saturday Reader's Mailbag Extravaganza - (3/11/23) - Answers
Paid subscribers' questions are answered in long form.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/saturday-readers-mailbag-extravaganza
He starts by describing his journey from ignorance to knowledge about the Western government lies starting with 9/11.
Then he discusses whether and how the US elections will affect the war. This contains the following prediction about the progress of the war:
Firstly, let me say that I do believe the war will continue for at least roughly that time span. I wrote in the last report how thus far two months is the average time it takes to capture a medium-sized city, and that doesn’t include the several months of lead time usually in between, that constitutes the shaping of the battlefield and the ‘approach’ toward said city. So if you do the simple math of that, there is a long way to go.I believe that the remainder of 2023 can revolve simply around capturing the Slavyansk/Kramatorsk agglomerate, and I’m not even sure that can be achieved by the end of 2023, much less capturing the remainder of the regions east of the Dnieper. And yes, I still am expecting a much larger Russian military incursion which we thought might happen weeks ago. However, even with that it doesn’t mean things will go fast because Ukraine has by now mobilized many new reserve brigades they can call up to defend a potential new Russian offensive. Not that they’ll succeed, but it means the offensive won’t be a blitzkrieg that tears through the country unstoppably.
I'm not sure I agree with that - or at least, that it's necessarily true. I suspect that once Donbass is cleared things will move much faster regardless of how many alleged "new brigades" the Ukrainians can realistically come up with, in the absence of weapons, vehicles, air defense and everything else the Russians have demolished over the past 12 months and which the West has been unable to keep up with.
He then discusses the Eurasian unification progress and the US antipathy to it.
He then answers the question, "Where are the Chechens?" Basically he thinks they're still there (and gives examples), but lower profile since the main fight is Bahkmut and Wagner is in control of that.
He then discusses the question of what kind of end of the war will be acceptable to either side. He concludes that by saying:
My own personal views is the only ‘reasonable’ solution is for Russia to complete the full mandate of the SMO—total unconditional surrender of the AFU by way of complete demilitarization/destruction of their armed forces, followed by total occupation of the country and regime change to a non-NATO-installed puppet. This is because at this point, now that NATO/West’s designs are clear, Russia cannot risk the existential threat of having such a rabid, racist, armed Nazi state right on its borders any longer.It may sound harsh, but that’s realpolitik.
With which I agree completely.
He then discusses how the Russian reconstruction in the liberated areas is progressing.
He then discusses this favorite information sources in social media, then mentions the Nordstream bombing and then the Russian deployment of glide bombs.
He then further discusses Russian "end goals", stating:
Apart from this, and although this infuriates even many pro-Russian supporters because they so badly want things to be clear cut and easy to understand, Russia is playing its cards ‘close to its chest’ for the reasons I mentioned earlier. It wants to remain flexible in order to respond to NATO’s moves. If Russia telegraphed all of its exact plans and objectives, it would give the West opportunities to try to countervail them. This way, Russia can keep them guessing.But ideally, of course, certainly Russia wants the total surrender of the AFU and regime change in Kiev to a non-Western puppet leader who will oversee years of demilitarization of the AFU and have strong links to Moscow to make sure Ukraine stays demilitarized. A sort of ‘occupation’ can also be in the cards, where a certain contingent of Russian peacekeeping forces stay in country to make sure there are no covert attempts at militarization. After all, this is no different to how US does it—it continues to have military bases in almost all of its formerly conquered countries, from Germany, to Japan, etc. The purpose of these is really to keep a boot on the neck of these countries, making sure they never militarize too much.
In short, Russia’s chief goal and worry is to keep from being thrown off-balance by the variety of tricks and trump-cards that NATO has in store for the region; like the various destabilizing provocations they can ignite at any time—i.e. Transnistria, etc.
He then discusses Russian artillery technology, followed by a brief mention of the SA-Iran rapprochement.
He then discusses the possibility of a "Korean" ending to the war. He considers it "possible" but he hopes it won't happen and believes it probably won't.
He then discusses the Prigozhin-Putin relationship. He points out what I've also said:
With that said, it must be understood that Prigozhin is not a ‘commander’ and does not make the battle plans for his soldiers, other than ostensibly. He has no real military experience or knowledge. That means Wagner is in fact commanded by Russian military and falls under their command structure and purview. They aren’t some independent ‘lone wolf’ group that just does what they want laissez-faire style.
He also points out something I've said repeatedly here:
However, at the end of the day it’s a simple undeniable fact that Wagner to a large extent is also there for 1. plausible deniability 2. to keep excess losses off the nominal Russian ‘books’ and stat sheets.This is the harsh reality, but is standard operations. Yes, it’s greatly in Russia’s interest to have lower official casualties for obvious reasons. Wagner provides the opportunity for Russia to utilize a trained shock force in city battles which typically produce a lot of casualties, and basically have all those casualties ‘off the books’.
Finally he discusses what are the US objectives in this war, closing with this aphorism:
The famous Anglo-Saxon axiom goes:Keep Russians out, Germans down, and Americans in. - Nato’s first Secretary General, Lord Ismay, when explaining the aims behind the new military alliance
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Mar 11 2023 22:26 utc | 88
Neither the British nor the Americans are strangers to the falsification of casualty figures. It goes back a long way. For many years after the 1914-18 War, the official British war history gave utterly false figures in an attempt to show that German losses in the Somme campaign exceeded those of the British Army. Likewise, for many years after the same war it was the official US position that American fatalities totalled 55,000 whereas in fact they were well over double that number. Who knows why they do it - fragile national egos, I suppose.
Posted by: Bernard Davis | Mar 11 2023 22:28 utc | 89
I'll leave it to smarter men than myself to pontificate on the true casualties, but I have a bit of insight I might add. The Ukies are spending a whole lot of time and effort blanketing twitter and reddit with videos of attacks on Russians and dead and captured Russians (call them Powiki) and since most Americans aren't really as familiar with Telegram, they are only seeing the Ukie side of things. So naturally, when folks are seeing a lot of one side and not as much of the other, well, that's how narratives are made and reinforced. Now I do see some of the Russian side thanks to here and Telegram, but most Americans just see what they see on their MSM and their Twitter. Might I suggest that the Russians post more of their promotional attack/casualty videos on Twitter? That might help folks here to get a clearer picture of things. Now, you might say the opinion of Americans don't matter, and I might agree, but this is the stuff they are seeing and they think they are getting a lotta bang for their buck with the weapons to the Ukies. See what I'm saying?
Posted by: LGB! | Mar 11 2023 22:30 utc | 90
Posted by: Surferket | Mar 11 2023 22:26 utc | 87
You beat me by minutes! LOL
Posted by: Outraged | Mar 11 2023 22:21 utc | 86
They didn't mention that Poland ran a war game pitting Poland against Russia with all the new weapons Poland intends to buy - and the Russians obliterated the Polish army in seven days.
Oops, sorry, make that FIVE days!
Wargame Study Shows Polish Armed Forces Obliterated in Just 5 Days
https://www.overtdefense.com/2021/03/31/wargame-study-shows-polish-armed-forces-obliterated-just-5-days/
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Mar 11 2023 22:31 utc | 91
Here's another article on the Polish defeat:
How Poland Just Lost to Russia in a Massive Wargame (And What It Means)
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-poland-just-lost-russia-massive-wargame-and-what-it-means-178578
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Mar 11 2023 22:33 utc | 92
both sides claiming 7:1 and higher ratios. well only one side has serial form for bs , "ghost of kiev kill ratios". how is this even discussed as plausible for RF to be suffering this rate
Posted by: hankster | Mar 11 2023 22:33 utc | 93
Deliberate preposterously false casualty numbers b/c the US is probably planning a massive false flag event when Ukraine finally collapses. The US needs to maintain the narrative of a "desperate and failing RF" to plausibly frame Russia.
Posted by: MG | Mar 11 2023 22:35 utc | 94
Posted by: Outraged | Mar 11 2023 22:21 utc | 86
###################
I would guess at expected delivery in 2025.
Will there still be a Poland in 2025?
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 11 2023 22:41 utc | 95
Boss of Wagner did explained that the casualty ratio is more like 20：1 in favour of Wagner. Look at Telegram photos of Bakhmut, Marinka, Ugledar and see the Russia tactics of essentially flattening all the buildings into rubble which the Wagners then walk in and clean up the survivors. Every building is made into defensive firepoints by the Nazis so it's pointless storming them with infantry.
Posted by: Surferket | Mar 11 2023 22:45 utc | 96
Here's a vid from the Ugledar front of the killing of a Nazi tank by ATGM.
https://t.me/ZandVchannel/55641
Posted by: Surferket | Mar 11 2023 22:49 utc | 97
Every death has a story -- here's one, from various news sources.
Who was ‘Da Vinci,’ legendary young commander killed near Bakhmut?
KYIV, March 10 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy led tributes on Friday to Dmytro Kotsiubailo, a renowned commander known as "Da Vinci" who won public affection for committing his entire adult life to fighting Russia and its proxies.
The 27-year-old, whose unit is called Da Vinci's Wolves, was killed this week in Bakhmut, the eastern Ukrainian city that has since August experienced the deadliest fighting of the war and remains fiercely contested. “Dmytro showed, through his example, how to love and defend your country,” the priest went on.
Kotsiubailo was the commander of the First Mechanized Battalion “Da Vinci Wolves.”
“He died with a weapon in his hands… going into the battle first” his battalion wrote on their official Telegram channel. “He lived and died like a hero,” the post said.
In December of 2021, President Volodymyr Zelensky presented Kotsiubailo with the nation’s highest award – the Golden Star order, as well as the Hero of Ukraine title. Kotsiubailo became the youngest commander to receive the title, as well as the first volunteer fighter in the history of Ukraine to be awarded while still alive.
The young soldier was a part of the First Assault Company within the 5th battalion of the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps (DUK), a military wing of the Right Sector – a Ukrainian nationalist movement. For years, DUK were autonomous volunteer formations independent from the Ukrainian military, taking part in some of the toughest battles in the east of Ukraine. A leading figure in the Right Sector, Andriy Tarasenko, says it aims not for closer ties with Europe but rather to "build a nationalist Ukrainian state and stage a nationalist revolution". Dmytro Yarosh calls himself a follower of Stepan Bandera, a nationalist leader who fought Polish and Soviet rule in the 1930s and 1940s but is seen in Russia and eastern Ukraine as a Nazi collaborator.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Mar 11 2023 22:49 utc | 98
@ Bernard Davis | Mar 11 2023 22:28 utc | 89
Recall(IIRC) the Brits didn't officially declare WWI over 'til late '22 early '23. Generals officially recorded as dying on 'active combat service' during the war, yet post 11/11'18 whilst sitting in their rocking chair on the back-porch of the estates mansion. Convenient re rigging/manipulating figures/records 'cause the Irish Civil War concurrent with same time period, '16/'22.
@ Richard Steven Hack | Mar 11 2023 22:31 utc | 91
@ Richard Steven Hack | Mar 11 2023 22:33 utc | 92
Yup. All looks good on paper, yet amounts to ~15%+ of what AFU started out with on Feb24'22 ... and suspect RF wouldn't be using kid gloves from the start re the Poles ... Nuland,"To the last Pole!"
@ LoveDonbass | Mar 11 2023 22:41 utc | 95
Without Empire conceding to 'acceptable' indivisible security treaties in place post Ukraine/AFU ? With that agenda ? Likely not, further prompt demilitarization required, perhaps ?
@66, yes I have those data points as well, but I think this is about bahkmut.
Russia is attacking prepared defensive positions so it's natural they'd have an unfavorable death ratio.
And russian casualties are spread out across a lot of organizations including donbass militias. It's not easy to know everything is being counted properly.
So russia does better when it's just shelling the same points repeatedly as ukraine keeps sending replacements. Attacking uphill into a city? Different story.
Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | Mar 11 2023 22:56 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
Remember, there's always under the mattress for better safety.
Silicon Vally Bank, 16th largest in the US, was shut down and put under the control of California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation yesterday.
87% of the bank’s $173 billion in deposits were uninsured.
Posted by: Elmagnostic | Mar 11 2023 18:12 utc | 1