Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Sarkozy also dismissed Ukraine’s EU membership bid and compared it to Turkey’s doomed attempt to join the union. “We are selling fallacious promises that will not be held,” he said. He also cast doubts on whether Ukraine should seek to reconquer Crimea.
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If true, that would explain why Russia doesn't need a second mobilization wave and it would also show that Ukraine's numbers of Russian losses, around 500-700 daily, are more or less accurate.
 
Ukraine making progress in counteroffensive, U.S. officials say

U.S. officials have told CBS News it appears the Ukrainian military has made progress in advancing on the Russian-held city of Tokmak– a vital barrier city that stands between the Ukrainian forces and the southeastern city of Melitopol.

A U.S. official told CBS News on Thursday that Ukrainian forces have made it through a Russian minefield north of Tokmak and are now engaging with the first line of Russian defenses holding the city.
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukrain...-us-f16/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&linkId=230501841
 
Russia’s objective was to disrupt a weapons pipeline through Poland that accounts for more than 80 percent of the military hardware delivered to Ukraine, a massive flow that has altered the course of the war and that Russia has seemed helpless to interdict, according to Polish and Western security officials.
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^From the NYT article.

Russia’s military casualties, the officials said, are approaching 300,000. The number includes as many as 120,000 deaths and 170,000 to 180,000 injured troops. The Russian numbers dwarf the Ukrainian figures, which the officials put at close to 70,000 killed and 100,000 to 120,000 wounded.
But Russians outnumber Ukrainians on the battlefield almost three to one, and Russia has a larger population from which to replenish its ranks.

Ukraine has around 500,000 troops, including active-duty, reserve and paramilitary troops, according to analysts. By contrast, Russia has almost triple that number, with 1,330,000 active-duty, reserve and paramilitary troops — most of the latter from the Wagner Group.
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If true, that is awful for Ukraine, Russia has 3 times the population after all, if they can't even achieve twice the kill ratio, they are in trouble in the long run.
 
Morty_ said:
If true, that is awful for Ukraine, Russia has 3 times the population after all, if they can't even achieve twice the kill ratio, they are in trouble in the long run.
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And Ukraine seems to have become casualty averse too according to that NYT article:

American officials say they fear that Ukraine has become casualty averse, one reason it has been cautious about pressing ahead with the counteroffensive. Almost any big push against dug-in Russian defenders protected by minefields would result in huge numbers of losses.

In just a year and a half, Ukraine’s military deaths have already surpassed the number of American troops who died during the nearly two decades U.S. units were in Vietnam (roughly 58,000) and about equal the number of Afghan security forces killed over the entire war in Afghanistan, from 2001 to 2021 (around 69,000).
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15,000 Soviet soldiers killed over the course of eight years in Afghanistan.
 
VorZakone said:
That 120,000 killed in action number seems roughly equal to US KIA numbers in the Pacific theater. It's just madness.
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Yep. It is just unconscionable to think one country can lose this many soldiers on the attack in 18 months of war, especially when history buffs like us know that the Pacific theater saw some of the bloodiest and harshest battles known to man. One tenth (1/10) of those total American KIA were lost in Okinawa alone.
 
RedDevilQuebecois said:
Yep. It is just unconscionable to think one country can lose this many soldiers on the attack in 18 months of war, especially when history buffs like us know that the Pacific theater saw some of the bloodiest and harshest battles known to man. One tenth (1/10) of those total American KIA were lost in Okinawa alone.
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Russia is fighting a war of attrition here, its obviously very costly for them, but in a war of attrition, it helps to have a population much larger than your opponent.

Having said that, they may never run out of men, but equipment? Thats more difficult, at some point, they have to run out of the soviet-era equipment, only question is when.
 
Morty_ said:
Russia is fighting a war of attrition here, its obviously very costly for them, but in a war of attrition, it helps to have a population much larger than your opponent.

Having said that, they may never run out of men, but equipment? Thats more difficult, at some point, they have to run out of the soviet-era equipment, only question is when.
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The US were also fighting a war of attrition during WW2, but it became glaringly too much as the conflict entered in the few chapters prior to its end. The casualties at Iwo Jima and Okinawa followed by the projections of Operation Downfall were the reasons why the usual strategy could no longer carry on in a possible invasion of Japan.

The main difference between the US then and Russia now is that the latter have stopped making progress and are even backing off in certain areas. That is even worse from any military standpoint.
 
nimic said:
I refuse to believe they're anywhere near that high.
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Because? Not that I necessarily believe them. However, this is coming from Western officials whose estimates tend to be usually more conservative than Ukraine's own reported numbers.
 
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