Here we go again-Ukraine once again pt2

[Skybird]

This is General Zalushnyi himself. A happy man sounds differently. No word on retaking ground and freeing Crimea.

https://www.economist.com/by-invitat...to-win-the-war

[Jimbuna]

[Exocet25fr]

Ukraine’s top general admits Russia has the advantage!

Valery Zaluzhny has told The Economist that the conflict has reached a WW1-style stalemate, but Moscow has superior numbers. Ukraine will not make any progress in its fight against Russia unless some new technology emerges to give it a decisive advantage, the country’s top military commander, General Valery Zaluzny, told The Economist this week. He conceded, without the appearance of a 'wunderwaffe,' that Moscow is in the better position, given its larger population and greater resources.

https://www.rt.com/russia/586406-zal...ate-economist/


Russia’s gold reserves hit record high!

The country has the largest bullion stockpile among emerging economies, according to data cited by the news agency. Russia’s gold bullion reserves reached an all-time high in September, RIA Novosti reported on Thursday, citing data from the world’s central banks. According to the news agency’s calculations, Russia increased its gold reserves by 2% in September, bringing the total volume of the precious metal in its coffers to 2,360 tons, the largest amount in the country’s modern history.

https://www.rt.com/business/586412-r...s-record-high/


West hurting itself with sanctions – Putin!

Russia's president said the restrictions have failed to tank the nation's economy. The Western sanctions on Russia have backfired and hurt the countries that imposed them instead, President Vladimir Putin said during a government meeting on Wednesday. “Over the past years, our so-called partners have adopted countless packages of sanctions… trying to punish us. However, in the end – it’s a completely obvious thing – the statistics show that they have hit their own economies, their own jobs,” Putin said.

https://www.rt.com/russia/586388-put...-hurting-west/

[Jimbuna]

[Dargo]

Ukrainian general Zaluzhny sees stalemate developing and rates chances of major breakthrough at front low

Without technological innovations, Ukraine is not going to succeed in getting the Russian occupiers out of the country, argues the country's top military officer, General Valeri Zaluzhny. If the war reaches an impasse, it will be to the Russians' advantage. What Ukraine's Western allies have feared for several months has now been confirmed by the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces: the counteroffensive against the Russian occupier is unlikely to lead to the breakthrough that had been hoped for.

After the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in June, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, General Valeri Zaluzhny, appealed several times to their allies and arms suppliers in the West to remain patient when quick successes on the front failed to materialize. In a candid interview with The Economist, Zaluzhny said for the first time that there is an impasse in the war. According to him, there will most likely be "no deep and beautiful breakthrough." Zaluzhny, widely respected in Ukraine, actually notes that the technological level at which the two sides are currently waging war is such that they can hardly drive each other away with the conventional weapons available. The war of movement Ukraine had hoped for has de facto bogged down in trench warfare, Zaluzhny says. It reminds him of the situation a century ago, in World War I.

Breaking the impasse in the war, according to Zaluzhny, can only be achieved by concretely improving Ukraine's fighting strength at the front in a number of ways. In an essay by Zaluzhny that The Economist also published Monday, the army commander lists his main points. Ukraine must gain air superiority, including with the help of the promised F-16s, but also with drones that can defuse Russian air defences and better protect Ukrainian troops from air attacks; an increase in electronic warfare capabilities, especially to make Russian air attacks more difficult; a significant improvement in Ukraine's strike capability against Russian artillery - if only because, according to Zaluzhny, HIMARS missiles are running out and precision-guided Excalibur shells have become much less accurate due to the Russians' electronic warfare; and new equipment and ammunition to more quickly and efficiently defuse Russia's vast minefields.

It is just a sampling of what Zaluzhny wants, on top of the existing arms aid Ukraine already receives from the West. But the course of the much-discussed counteroffensive makes it clear that the Western aid Ukraine has received so far is not enough to drive out the Russians, or comes too late to make a difference. For example, Zaluzhny waited months for Western tanks and long-range missiles, and Kyiv is still waiting for F-16s. Since the beginning of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, it recaptured chunks of territory from the Russians along the southern front lines in Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk, and after the capture of the village of Robotyne, a breakthrough seemed imminent, but deeper than about seventeen kilometres the Ukrainian advance does not yet reach. The Sea of Azov is still almost a hundred kilometres away. Ambitious plans to break through toward Crimea, or even as far as the "land bridge" the Russians have created to the south between Mariupol and the occupied peninsula, seemed overly optimistic by mid-summer.

Zalushny's troops were actually stranded in front of an indestructible wall the Russians had erected with vast minefields, an extensive network of trenches and underground tunnels, and more mines. Sustained artillery shelling and Russian air superiority made every Ukrainian manoeuvre a dangerous operation. In the counterattack around Bakhmut, the army of Ukraine faces similar obstacles. And the reverse is no different: it took the Russians almost a year to take the relatively small Bakhmut, at the cost of colossal losses.

One of the biggest problems, according to Zaluzhny, is that the use of drones allows both sides to track virtually every movement of the enemy in real time, including troop concentrations or a column of armoured vehicles. For example, during the bloody Russian attack on Avdiivka recently, he saw on a monitor how "140 Russian machines were on fire - destroyed within four hours of coming within range of our artillery." The Russians who fled were pursued by remote-controlled Ukrainian drones equipped with cameras and explosives. Conversely, when the Ukrainians go on the attack, it is no different, Zaluzhny said. Even with Western-made tanks. "The simple fact is that we see everything the enemy does, and they see everything we do. To break that, we need something new, like the gunpowder that the Chinese invented and that we still use to kill each other."

In the interview with The Economist, Zaluzhny frankly admits that he had estimated the course of the counteroffensive differently. According to him, the Ukrainian army should be able to advance at 30 kilometres per hour after taking down the Russian defences. "If you read the NATO manuals and make the calculations, as we did, four months should have been enough for us to reach Crimea, fight in Crimea, return, and move in again," Zaluzny said. When the breakthrough failed for a long time and his troops remained stuck around the Russian minefields, the general began to have doubts. "First, I that something was wrong with our commanders, so I replaced some of them. Then I thought maybe our soldiers were not ready for this operation, so I started rotating soldiers in some brigades." But even those interventions made no difference at the front; it gradually led Zaluzhny to the realization that technological development on both warring sides led to stalemate. In addition, he acknowledged that he underestimated how many losses the Russians were willing to take. Zaluzhny assumed that huge Russian losses on the battlefield would force Moscow to abandon the war. "That was my mistake. At least 150,000 people were killed on Russia's side. In any other country, such numbers of casualties would have ended the war."

What now threatens is a long war, with two sides that are actually equally strong, and can hit and exhaust each other hard, but not defeat each other. A long war, according to Zaluzhny, generally favours one of the warring parties. In this case, it benefits the Russians. "Because it gives them the opportunity to recover and rebuild its military power." https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2023/11/02...ag-in-a4179507

MODERN POSITIONAL WARFARE AND HOW TO WIN IN IT by Valerii Zaluzhnyi Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine

[Jimbuna]

[mapuc]

Some while ago someone in this thread wrote to me how many millions of Russian living in Russia.

Well this made me think and I came up with some questions to this.

1. How many percentage of the Russian population is men over 18 and under 60 years of age?
2. How many of these men in percentage is fit for the military ?
3. Is the Russian woman active in the military, like they are in the Israeli military ?

Markus

[Dargo]

Originally Posted by mapuc

Some while ago someone in this thread wrote to me how many millions of Russian living in Russia.

Well this made me think and I came up with some questions to this.

1. How many percentage of the Russian population is men over 18 and under 60 years of age?
2. How many of these men in percentage is fit for the military ?
3. Is the Russian woman active in the military, like they are in the Israeli military ?

Markus

1. From data of 2018 about 17-20 million.
2. Russia's men are not so healthy, majority live in harsh and poor conditions, so alcohol use is high do not expect those above 35 are fit or the military.
3. Russian women are active in the military but not on the fronts, more in support functions. The risk they are being raped is high in Russian army and no commander will help them either more they stand first in the line.

If you can not train, equip, lead and support those military numbers does not matter Russia has over 400K in Ukraine the state of this army is so bad it can only advance meters instead of kilometres. If you need more than 6 months to take a city, your army is ineffective.

[mapuc]

^ Thank you Dargo.

Many have said Ukraine can't win this war-well either can Russia

Someone wrote that time was on Russian side, Even I thought so and still does somehow.

Could it be so that in fact time is more on the Ukrainian side.

Right now there seems to be a stalemate at some areas of the front. I wonder if this isn't gonna change in favor for the Ukrainians, except some places where Russia will take ground with massive losses.

I say that Ukraine should start thinking about withdraw their troops from Avdiivka

Markus

[Dargo]

The battle for Avdiivka vs The battle for Bakhmut. Ukrainian military expert, veteran of Aidar Battalion Yevhen Dykyi gave his view on what is happening in Avdiivka right now and about comparing Avdiivka and Bakhmut:

Q: You compared the situation with Bakhmut, but the Russian military never managed to encircle Bakhmut, and they were taking Bakhmut precisely because there were combat encounters, and they went head-on to the Ukrainian troops. Now the situation in Avdiivka is not the same.

A: You remember absolutely correctly. This is exactly how it was. They were not able to encircle Bakhmut completely, although they were in such a situation as they are now with the Avdiivka highway. That is, they had already shelled all the routes, but they were not able to encircle them to the end, to close the pincers. And they were really pushing out our defenders literally block by block, house by house. I have many friends who fought in Bakhmut at that time. There were battles there, when sometimes one entrance of the house was ours, and the other was already enemy. That is, the positions were in neighboring basements, for example. I didn't hear about hand-to-hand combat, but hand grenades were thrown into each other's windows - it came to such fights there. These were very close, terrible street battles.
But let's take two differences into account.

The first difference between Bakhmut and Avdiivka: there was no industrial zone in Bakhmut, not even close. Bakhmut was mostly just an ordinary town. There was nothing similar to Avdiivka industrial zone there or Azovstal. And the second difference is the difference in reserves. Let me remind you that Russians pressed on Bakhmut for 10 months with these meat assaults. And in order for it to be successful, they had to mobilize 50 thousand convicts in the GULAG alone, to throw them all at Bakhmut, besides the usual army units. That is, it was in addition to the army units, not instead of them. But as far as I can tell, the Russian command is unlikely to have 50,000 convicts to throw at Avdiivka alone. Although "Storm Z" in Avdiivka has already been spotted." https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/...19845205725190

[mapuc]

Thanks for sharing this interesting read. I do not change my mind. Ukraine should start to think about retreat/withdraw from Avdiivka.

The Russians is pressing on despite huge losses in men and material.

The speed they have the Russians it may take many month before they have surrounded the town.

Will they succeed in this ? Something tells me they will, but with massive losses.

Markus

[Dargo]

Originally Posted by mapuc

^ Thank you Dargo.

Many have said Ukraine can't win this war-well either can Russia

Someone wrote that time was on Russian side, Even I thought so and still does somehow.

Could it be so that in fact time is more on the Ukrainian side.

Right now there seems to be a stalemate at some areas of the front. I wonder if this isn't gonna change in favor for the Ukrainians, except some places where Russia will take ground with massive losses.

I say that Ukraine should start thinking about withdraw their troops from Avdiivka

Markus

Russia has gains, but also Ukraine has gains think that evens it up for Avdiivka no see my post ^ like Bakmut Avdiivka can be used to waste Russian military let them send reserves to the slaughterhouse defending is easyer than attacking. Traditionally, it is accepted that a defending force has a 3:1 advantage over an attacker. In other words, a defending force can hold off three times its own number of attackers. Think it is higher with these meat waves, maybe higher than 5:1.

Originally Posted by mapuc

Thanks for sharing this interesting read. I do not change my mind. Ukraine should start to think about retreat/withdraw from Avdiivka.

The Russians is pressing on despite huge losses in men and material.

The speed they have the Russians it may take many month before they have surrounded the town.

Will they succeed in this ? Something tells me they will, but with massive losses.

Markus

Do not think they will succeed, they have only 2-3 weeks till weather will be so bad that advancing with armour will not be possible than it is waiting for colder weather in the meantime they must bring in new troops that are not good trained, under equipped, and with ineffective supply lines taking Avdiivka will take longer than Bakhmut. Ukraine can send their reserves there they need not fear Russia will attack elsewhere because defence lines are great to defend, but an offensive will not happen there do not think that they know where they dropped all their mines either so Russia has mined their own offensive on those places by +10-fold.

[Dargo]

We think the US is going to withdraw support in the future but is it not the military complex boss here they love this war they earn a lot from this so do you think they're going to miss all that money they can earn in the coming years in the Ukraine Russia war?

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Dargo

We think the US is going to withdraw support in the future but is it not the military complex boss here they love this war they earn a lot from this so do you think they're going to miss all that money they can earn in the coming years in the Ukraine Russia war?

They the military complex is putting pressure on the Politicians in both Congress and Senate, so they keep on sending weapons to Ukraine.

Markus

[Dargo]

Originally Posted by mapuc

They the military complex is putting pressure on the Politicians in both Congress and Senate, so they keep on sending weapons to Ukraine.

Markus

They got the money to lube the way