War
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DIY-HP-LED
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‘What madness looks like’: Russia intensifies Bakhmut attack
Ukrainian officials say Russian forces are escalating their onslaught against Ukrainian positions around the wrecked eastern city of Bakhmut.
apnews.com
‘What madness looks like’: Russia intensifies Bakhmut attack
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces are escalating their onslaught against Ukrainian positions around the wrecked city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian officials said, bringing new levels of death and devastation in the grinding, monthslong battle for control of eastern Ukraine that is part of Moscow’s wider war.
“Everything is completely destroyed. There is almost no life left,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Monday of the scene around Bakhmut and the nearby Donetsk province city of Soledar.
“The whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes,” Zelenskyy said. “This is what madness looks like.”
The Kremlin, whose invasion of its neighbor 10 1/2 months ago has suffered numerous reversals, is hungry for victories. Russia illegally annexed Donetsk and three other Ukrainian provinces in September, but its troops have struggled to advance.
After Ukrainian forces recaptured the southern city of Kherson in November, the battle heated up around Bakhmut.
Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Hanna Malyar, said Russia has thrown “a large number of storm groups” into the fight for the city. “The enemy is advancing literally on the bodies of their own soldiers and is massively using artillery, rocket launchers and mortars, hitting their own troops,” she said.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
The Ukrainians have made a killing ground for the Russians and they continue to pour forces into it taking massive losses while the Ukrainians are mostly fighting from defensive positions and most of the Russians are killed far from their lines by artillery. Occasionally the Ukrainians will counter attack for tactical reasons, but they are using it to use up Russian troops and equipment while waiting for the ground to freeze.
Soledar "Completely destroyed," Wagner Boss Praises Ukraine Army, EU-NATO Agreement on Russia Threat
23,019 views Jan 10, 2023 UKRAINE
Russian forces and mercenaries of the Wagner Group have reportedly made tactical advances into Soledar, Donetsk Oblast. President Zelensky stressed the grave situation in Soledar and said there were "almost no whole walls left" in the eastern Ukrainian city. The UK Defense Ministry’s intelligence update says Russian forces and Wagner Group likely control most of Soledar. The Ukrainian military claims to have hit a Russian boat with artillery near Bilorudyi Island in the Dnipro river on January 9.
Meanwhile, Russia's defence minister has said that the military will use its experience in Ukraine to improve combat training. Shoigu emphasised that priority will be given to the development of Russia’s nuclear forces.
Soledar "Completely destroyed," Wagner Boss Praises Ukraine Army, EU-NATO Agreement on Russia Threat
23,019 views Jan 10, 2023 UKRAINE
Russian forces and mercenaries of the Wagner Group have reportedly made tactical advances into Soledar, Donetsk Oblast. President Zelensky stressed the grave situation in Soledar and said there were "almost no whole walls left" in the eastern Ukrainian city. The UK Defense Ministry’s intelligence update says Russian forces and Wagner Group likely control most of Soledar. The Ukrainian military claims to have hit a Russian boat with artillery near Bilorudyi Island in the Dnipro river on January 9.
Meanwhile, Russia's defence minister has said that the military will use its experience in Ukraine to improve combat training. Shoigu emphasised that priority will be given to the development of Russia’s nuclear forces.
BudmanTX
Well-Known Member
Vatnik refers to a person who believes Russian state propaganda.
here is the list:
some very interesting names on that list btw, and some interesting titles.....
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
One can only imagine the slaughter the Russians must be enduring using the tactics they are using. It is chewing up vast numbers of Russian troops, ammo and equipment to little effect in terms of turf.
10 Jan: Ukrainians FACE THE HARDEST DECISIONS | War in Ukraine Explained
10 Jan: Ukrainians FACE THE HARDEST DECISIONS | War in Ukraine Explained
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Running out of ammo, arms and men while wasting it on sheer stupidity while the Ukrainians wait to make serious moves. The Russians might have more shells than the Ukrainians, but the Ukrainians hit what they are shooting at with a few shells at most while the Russians scatter dozens all over the landscape, more or less at random and often hitting their own troops. The Ukrainians use less shells and less logistics to supply them with less wear on the gun tubes for far greater effect.
www.cnn.com
Russian artillery fire down nearly 75%, US officials say, in latest sign of struggles for Moscow
Washington
CNN
—
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its 11th month, US and Ukrainian officials tell CNN that Russia’s artillery fire is down dramatically from its wartime high, in some places by as much as 75%.
US and Ukrainian officials don’t yet have a clear or singular explanation. Russia may be rationing artillery rounds due to low supplies, or it could be part of a broader reassessment of tactics in the face of successful Ukrainian offenses.
Either way, the striking decline in artillery fire is further evidence of Russia’s increasingly weak position on the battlefield nearly a year into its invasion, US and Ukrainian officials told CNN. It also comes as Ukraine is enjoying increased military support from its western allies, with the US and Germany announcing last week that they will be providing Ukrainian forces for the first time with armored fighting vehicles, as well as another Patriot Defense missile battery that will help protect its skies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, is apparently clambering to shore up domestic political support, US intelligence officials believe, for a war he initially would only describe as a limited “special military operation.”
US officials believe the 36-hour ceasefire Putin ordered in Ukraine last week to allow for the observance of Orthodox Christmas was an attempt to pander to Russia’s extensive Christian population, two people familiar with the intelligence told CNN, as well as an opportunity for Putin to blame Ukrainians for breaking it and paint them as heretical heathens.
‘The bucket is getting smaller’
Much of the domestic opposition Putin and his generals have faced over the handling of the war has come from one of the Russian leader’s closest allies: Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the mercenary organization Wagner Group. Prigozhin has complained that the Russian Ministry of Defense has botched the war effort, and that Wagner Group should be given more equipment, authority and autonomy to carry out operations in Ukraine.
But Wagner Group has lost thousands of fighters in Ukraine the last two months alone, a senior US official said.
Russia suffered another setback earlier this month when Ukrainian forces hit a weapons depot in Makiivka in eastern Ukraine, destroying more Russian supplies and killing scores of Russian troops housed nearby. The strike also raised questions among prominent Russian military bloggers about the basic competence of the Russian military brass, which had apparently decided to house hundreds of Russian troops next to an obvious Ukrainian target.
“Maybe this one strike is a drop in the bucket, but the bucket is getting smaller,” a US defense official said, referring to the Russians’ dwindling stockpiles.
40-year-old shells
To date, questions about Russia’s stockpile of weapons have mostly focused on their precision-guided munitions, such as cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. But US officials said their dramatically reduced rate of artillery fire may indicate that the prolonged and brutal battle has had a significant effect on Russia’s supply of conventional weapons as well.
Last month, a senior US military official said that Russia has had to resort to 40-year-old artillery shells as their supply of new ammo dwindled. To the US, the use of degraded ammunition, as well as the Kremlin’s outreach to countries like North Korea and Iran, was a sign of Russia’s diminished stocks of weaponry.
The rationing of ammunition and lower rate of fire appears to be a departure from Russian military doctrine, which traditionally calls for the heavy bombardment of a target area with massive artillery fire and rocket fire. That strategy played out in cities like Mariupol and Melitopol as Russian forces used the punishing strikes to drive slow, brutal advances in Ukraine.
Officials said the strategy shift could be the doing of the recently installed Russian theater commander, General Sergey Surovikin, who the US believes is more competent than his predecessors.
Ukraine has had little choice but to ration its ammunition since the beginning of the war. Ukrainian troops rapidly burned through their own supply of Soviet-era 152 mm ammunition when the conflict erupted, and while the US and its allies have provided hundreds of thousands of rounds of Western 155 mm ammunition, even this supply has had its limits.
As a result, Ukraine has averaged firing around 4,000-7,000 artillery rounds per day – far fewer than Russia.
‘It looks ridiculous now’
The Russians’ declining rate of fire is not linear, one US defense official noted, and there are days when Russians still fire far more artillery rounds – particularly around the eastern Ukrainian cities of Bakhmut and Kreminna, as well as some near Kherson in the south.
US and Ukrainian officials have offered widely different estimates of Russian fire, with US officials saying the rate has dropped from 20,000 rounds per day to around 5,000 per day on average. Ukraine estimates that the rate has dropped from 60,000 to 20,000 per day.
But both estimates point to a similar downward trend.
While Russia still has more artillery ammunition available than Ukraine does, early US assessments vastly overestimated the amount that Russia had its disposal, a US military official said, and underestimated how well the Ukrainians would do at hitting Russian logistics sites.
It appears now that Russia is focused more on bolstering its defense fortifications, particularly in central Zaporizhzhia, the UK Ministry of Defense reported in its regular intelligence update on Sunday. The movements suggest that Moscow is concerned about a potential Ukrainian offensive either there or in Luhansk, the ministry said.
“A major Ukrainian breakthrough in Zaporizhzhia would seriously challenge the viability of Russia’s ‘land-bridge’ linking Russia’s Rostov region and Crimea,” the ministry said, while Ukrainian success in Luhansk would “undermine Russia’s professed war aim of ‘liberating’ the Donbas.”
Ukraine’s counter-offensives last fall targeting Kherson in the south and Kharkiv in the north resulted in humiliating defeats for Russia – and were aided enormously by sophisticated western weaponry like HIMARS rocket launchers, Howitzer artillery systems and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that the US had previously been reluctant to provide.
“The fact of the matter is we have been self-deterring ourselves for over a year now,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of US Army Europe and NATO Allied Land Command and currently a senior advisor for Human Rights First.
“There’s been so much anxiety about the possibility of Russia’s escalation – I mean ten months ago, there was concern about giving Stingers…obviously that’s ridiculous, and it looks ridiculous now.”
Russia’s war with bureaucracy
Tensions between Kremlin defense officials and Wagner Group leaders have also been rising amid public complaints by the mercenaries that they are running low on equipment and reports that their leader, Prigozhin, wants to take control of the lucrative salt mines near Bakhmut.
In a video that ran on Russian state media, Wagner Group fighters complain that they are running low on combat vehicles, artillery shells and ammunition, which is limiting their ability to conquer Bakhmut – shortages Prigozhin then blames on “internal bureaucracy and corruption.”
“This year we will win! But first we will conquer our internal bureaucracy and corruption,” he says in the clip. “Once we conquer our internal bureaucracy and corruption, then we will conquer the Ukrainians and NATO, and then the whole world. The problem now is that the bureaucrats and those engaging in corruption won’t listen to us now because for New Year’s they are all drinking champagne.”
Prigozhin’s ambitions are not limited to greater political power, however, the US believes. There are also indications that he wants to take control over the lucrative salt and gypsum from mines near Bakhmut, a senior administration official tells CNN.
“This is consistent with Wagner’s modus operandi in Africa, where the group’s military activities often function hand in hand with control of mining assets,” the official said, adding that the US believes these monetary incentives are driving Prigozhin and Russia’s “obsession” with taking Bakhmut.
The official also said that Wagner Group has suffered heavy casualties in its operations near Bakhmut since late November.
“Out of its force of nearly 50,000 mercenaries (including 40,000 convicts), the company has sustained over 4,100 killed and 10,000 wounded, including over 1,000 killed between late November and early December near Bakhmut,” the official said, adding that about 90% of those killed were convicts.
The official said that Russia “cannot sustain these kinds of losses.”
“If Russia does eventually seize Bakhmut, Russia will surely characterize this, misleadingly, as a ‘major victory,” the official added. “But we know that is not the case. If the cost for each 36 square miles of Ukraine [the approximate size of Bakhmut] is thousands of Russians over seven months, this is the definition of Pyrrhic victory.”
Russian artillery fire down nearly 75%, US officials say, in latest sign of struggles for Moscow | CNN Politics
As Russia's invasion of Ukraine enters its 11th month, US and Ukrainian officials tell CNN that Russia's artillery fire is down dramatically from its wartime high, in some places by as much as 75%.
Russian artillery fire down nearly 75%, US officials say, in latest sign of struggles for Moscow
Washington
CNN
—
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its 11th month, US and Ukrainian officials tell CNN that Russia’s artillery fire is down dramatically from its wartime high, in some places by as much as 75%.
US and Ukrainian officials don’t yet have a clear or singular explanation. Russia may be rationing artillery rounds due to low supplies, or it could be part of a broader reassessment of tactics in the face of successful Ukrainian offenses.
Either way, the striking decline in artillery fire is further evidence of Russia’s increasingly weak position on the battlefield nearly a year into its invasion, US and Ukrainian officials told CNN. It also comes as Ukraine is enjoying increased military support from its western allies, with the US and Germany announcing last week that they will be providing Ukrainian forces for the first time with armored fighting vehicles, as well as another Patriot Defense missile battery that will help protect its skies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, is apparently clambering to shore up domestic political support, US intelligence officials believe, for a war he initially would only describe as a limited “special military operation.”
US officials believe the 36-hour ceasefire Putin ordered in Ukraine last week to allow for the observance of Orthodox Christmas was an attempt to pander to Russia’s extensive Christian population, two people familiar with the intelligence told CNN, as well as an opportunity for Putin to blame Ukrainians for breaking it and paint them as heretical heathens.
‘The bucket is getting smaller’
Much of the domestic opposition Putin and his generals have faced over the handling of the war has come from one of the Russian leader’s closest allies: Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the mercenary organization Wagner Group. Prigozhin has complained that the Russian Ministry of Defense has botched the war effort, and that Wagner Group should be given more equipment, authority and autonomy to carry out operations in Ukraine.
But Wagner Group has lost thousands of fighters in Ukraine the last two months alone, a senior US official said.
Russia suffered another setback earlier this month when Ukrainian forces hit a weapons depot in Makiivka in eastern Ukraine, destroying more Russian supplies and killing scores of Russian troops housed nearby. The strike also raised questions among prominent Russian military bloggers about the basic competence of the Russian military brass, which had apparently decided to house hundreds of Russian troops next to an obvious Ukrainian target.
“Maybe this one strike is a drop in the bucket, but the bucket is getting smaller,” a US defense official said, referring to the Russians’ dwindling stockpiles.
40-year-old shells
To date, questions about Russia’s stockpile of weapons have mostly focused on their precision-guided munitions, such as cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. But US officials said their dramatically reduced rate of artillery fire may indicate that the prolonged and brutal battle has had a significant effect on Russia’s supply of conventional weapons as well.
Last month, a senior US military official said that Russia has had to resort to 40-year-old artillery shells as their supply of new ammo dwindled. To the US, the use of degraded ammunition, as well as the Kremlin’s outreach to countries like North Korea and Iran, was a sign of Russia’s diminished stocks of weaponry.
The rationing of ammunition and lower rate of fire appears to be a departure from Russian military doctrine, which traditionally calls for the heavy bombardment of a target area with massive artillery fire and rocket fire. That strategy played out in cities like Mariupol and Melitopol as Russian forces used the punishing strikes to drive slow, brutal advances in Ukraine.
Officials said the strategy shift could be the doing of the recently installed Russian theater commander, General Sergey Surovikin, who the US believes is more competent than his predecessors.
Ukraine has had little choice but to ration its ammunition since the beginning of the war. Ukrainian troops rapidly burned through their own supply of Soviet-era 152 mm ammunition when the conflict erupted, and while the US and its allies have provided hundreds of thousands of rounds of Western 155 mm ammunition, even this supply has had its limits.
As a result, Ukraine has averaged firing around 4,000-7,000 artillery rounds per day – far fewer than Russia.
‘It looks ridiculous now’
The Russians’ declining rate of fire is not linear, one US defense official noted, and there are days when Russians still fire far more artillery rounds – particularly around the eastern Ukrainian cities of Bakhmut and Kreminna, as well as some near Kherson in the south.
US and Ukrainian officials have offered widely different estimates of Russian fire, with US officials saying the rate has dropped from 20,000 rounds per day to around 5,000 per day on average. Ukraine estimates that the rate has dropped from 60,000 to 20,000 per day.
But both estimates point to a similar downward trend.
While Russia still has more artillery ammunition available than Ukraine does, early US assessments vastly overestimated the amount that Russia had its disposal, a US military official said, and underestimated how well the Ukrainians would do at hitting Russian logistics sites.
It appears now that Russia is focused more on bolstering its defense fortifications, particularly in central Zaporizhzhia, the UK Ministry of Defense reported in its regular intelligence update on Sunday. The movements suggest that Moscow is concerned about a potential Ukrainian offensive either there or in Luhansk, the ministry said.
“A major Ukrainian breakthrough in Zaporizhzhia would seriously challenge the viability of Russia’s ‘land-bridge’ linking Russia’s Rostov region and Crimea,” the ministry said, while Ukrainian success in Luhansk would “undermine Russia’s professed war aim of ‘liberating’ the Donbas.”
Ukraine’s counter-offensives last fall targeting Kherson in the south and Kharkiv in the north resulted in humiliating defeats for Russia – and were aided enormously by sophisticated western weaponry like HIMARS rocket launchers, Howitzer artillery systems and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that the US had previously been reluctant to provide.
“The fact of the matter is we have been self-deterring ourselves for over a year now,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of US Army Europe and NATO Allied Land Command and currently a senior advisor for Human Rights First.
“There’s been so much anxiety about the possibility of Russia’s escalation – I mean ten months ago, there was concern about giving Stingers…obviously that’s ridiculous, and it looks ridiculous now.”
Russia’s war with bureaucracy
Tensions between Kremlin defense officials and Wagner Group leaders have also been rising amid public complaints by the mercenaries that they are running low on equipment and reports that their leader, Prigozhin, wants to take control of the lucrative salt mines near Bakhmut.
In a video that ran on Russian state media, Wagner Group fighters complain that they are running low on combat vehicles, artillery shells and ammunition, which is limiting their ability to conquer Bakhmut – shortages Prigozhin then blames on “internal bureaucracy and corruption.”
“This year we will win! But first we will conquer our internal bureaucracy and corruption,” he says in the clip. “Once we conquer our internal bureaucracy and corruption, then we will conquer the Ukrainians and NATO, and then the whole world. The problem now is that the bureaucrats and those engaging in corruption won’t listen to us now because for New Year’s they are all drinking champagne.”
Prigozhin’s ambitions are not limited to greater political power, however, the US believes. There are also indications that he wants to take control over the lucrative salt and gypsum from mines near Bakhmut, a senior administration official tells CNN.
“This is consistent with Wagner’s modus operandi in Africa, where the group’s military activities often function hand in hand with control of mining assets,” the official said, adding that the US believes these monetary incentives are driving Prigozhin and Russia’s “obsession” with taking Bakhmut.
The official also said that Wagner Group has suffered heavy casualties in its operations near Bakhmut since late November.
“Out of its force of nearly 50,000 mercenaries (including 40,000 convicts), the company has sustained over 4,100 killed and 10,000 wounded, including over 1,000 killed between late November and early December near Bakhmut,” the official said, adding that about 90% of those killed were convicts.
The official said that Russia “cannot sustain these kinds of losses.”
“If Russia does eventually seize Bakhmut, Russia will surely characterize this, misleadingly, as a ‘major victory,” the official added. “But we know that is not the case. If the cost for each 36 square miles of Ukraine [the approximate size of Bakhmut] is thousands of Russians over seven months, this is the definition of Pyrrhic victory.”
injinji
Well-Known Member
Dark Brandon his risen. All hail.Here is a disinformation tweet by someone or thing called NYcrypto. Kinda like the Beatles, is Paul dead, rumors of the past century. If Biden was replaced, shouldn't they have picked someone younger? Just saying... Maybe someone less hard on poor Russia?
injinji
Well-Known Member
Odds are they are under 12 years old. When I was in the get together business, squealing girls were the worst customers ever. I really don't miss work at all.
injinji
Well-Known Member
Keep in mind Ukraine is fighting Russia.
injinji
Well-Known Member
What are they using? APC's? (in my navy days, {the Saipan} and I worked as a grunt taxi service)
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
And Russia is fucking up epically, situation normal for them and a bit of a tradition. I think tanks are gonna be around for a while, even lighter robotanks with no soft pink things inside and not nearly as much armor.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
doublejj
Well-Known Member
And Russia is fucking up epically, situation normal for them and a bit of a tradition. I think tanks are gonna be around for a while, even lighter robotanks with no soft pink things inside and not nearly as much armor.
[/QUOT Pilotless planes area thing, why not tanks?
Roger A. Shrubber
Well-Known Member
i think it matters why their squealing.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Russia fears frozen river could hand Ukraine major opportunity—report
The Dnieper River, which can be as wide as 10 miles, constitutes a natural obstacle between the two countries' armies.
www.newsweek.com
Russia Fears Frozen River Could Hand Ukraine Major Opportunity—Report
Ukrainian troops could take advantage of a sharp dip in the Dnieper River's water levels to cross the current front line at Zaporizhzhia and "start action anywhere" on this southern line of fighting, an official in the Russian-backed administration of the Ukrainian region has said.
Russia needs "to be prepared" for Kyiv's forces to advance if the surface of the river freezes, as it has done in the past and may likely do again in the coming days, Vladimir Rogov, the head of the pro-Moscow We Stand With Russia movement, said on Monday, according Kremlin-controlled news agency Tass.
Rogov told russian state TV that Kyiv's forces had engineered the drop in water levels through the closing of hydraulic locks at various points along the Dnieper River.
He pinpointed the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station in Zaporizhzhia, the Middle Hydroelectric Station to the north of Zaporizhzhia and the Kremenchuk Hydroelectric Power Plant, between the central cities of Dnipro and Cherkasy.
The Zaporizhzhia front line has long been the target of intensive shelling, notably raising alarm bells when explosions have been reported at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Enerhodar, to the south of the city.
Russia occupies the power plant and the southern part of the Zaporizhzhia region while Ukrainian forces control the city of the same name and the northern area of the region.
The Dnieper River, which can be as wide as 10 miles, constitutes a natural obstacle between the two countries' forces. It follows key battleground cities in the south and east of Ukraine, from the Black Sea city of Kherson up through Zaporizhzhia, and ultimately to Kyiv.
Roman Kostenko, a veteran of the yearslong fight against Russian-directed forces in the Donbas and now a member of Ukraine's parliament, previously told Newsweek that it was "very hard to cross in any weather," adding in December 2022 that he "highly" doubted Ukraine would look to press immediately east across the Dnieper River around Kherson, which Ukrainian forces reclaimed in the fall of 2022.
But the Zaporizhzhia region could be a more promising prospect, he continued, and later a platform for pushing southwards down the Dnieper to Kherson.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Is it a bird or a drone flying around and perching on that tree? A soldier 10 years from now might ask that question...
Robocrow, or even something smaller and faster with autonomous AI built into it's little brain, we make a wide variety of simulated bird species....
thedebrief.org
Robocrow, or even something smaller and faster with autonomous AI built into it's little brain, we make a wide variety of simulated bird species....
A Major Breakthrough Could Mean Realistic Autonomous Bird-Like Drones Are On The Horizon - The Debrief
Engineers working on the GRIFFIN Project recently made a significant breakthrough in developing the world's first true bird-like drones.
thedebrief.org