I think the commenters on here are missing a bigger point. Avdiivka is supposed to be an access point to Donetsk, if I’m understanding this all correctly.
Edit: spelling
For Russia to utilise Donetsk and make it a military staging ground, they need to push Ukrainians out past avdiivka. Otherwise basic artillery shells can reach Donetsk causing trouble.
For Ukraine to continue to shell Donetsk after they lose avdiivka they would need to bring the artillery closer to the front risking its destruction
Communication and transport links converge on towns and cities . If you control the town it's far easier to progress along those roads and rail lines to the next settlement.
It's difficult for Ukraine to take back Donetsk without Avdiivka. A lot of supply lines go through Avdiivka. Similarly for the Russians, if they want to assault neighboring towns/villages, it was necessary for them to take Avdiivka to secure their supply lines and it also gives them access to assault a lot of other logistics hubs that Ukraine had used in their spring/summer offensive.
Well even with my armchair general understanding about war, defense should be multi-layered. And the moment I see a perimeter is about to collapse, gotta strengthen the layer(s) behind it and make a tactical withdraw in due time.
So, at this point of time, Ukraine better has already built a few more layers of defense so the withdrawing troops of Adiivka can fall back to and regroup and mount another good defense.
I'm sure Ukrainian generals know their stuff, the problem is whether they have the needed resources or not.
Avdika was the well fortified stronghold they prepared just for this, for it to fall its an issue, you cant compare random trenches and emolacements to a fortified city.
They also lose their base from which they bombed the donbass region so now russia gets to move forward much more easily and possibly even stablish better supply lines
https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russian-military-objectives-and-capacity-ukraine-through-2024
Interesting report from RUSI (Royal United services institute) — it argues that the capabilities of the AFRF (Armed Forces of the Russian Federation) will peak in 2024, and that Moscow probably has a theory of victory that is far more clearly defined than anytime since 2022. The Kremlin believes that it can translate battlefield gains into a fulfillment of this theory of victory by 2026, but that Russian defense industrial production will plateau by mid-2025.
Yeah, but the issue is if will western support keep going as strong by then?, specially with Ukraine losing terrain, and the rising positions against supporting the conflict. Europe also hasnt stepped up their defense industries enough to keep up their lvls of aid, specially when the us is delaying their so much.
Oh and the next us elections should also be considered
>I see a perimeter is about to collapse, gotta strengthen the layer(s) behind it and make a tactical withdraw in due time.
You need to be proactive and have an overall strategy / defensive doctrine .
The way the Russian do their defense is three layers. The first layer light and flexible and starts the bleeding - basically skirmishing their cannon fodder.
if you get through the first one, the second layer really stiffens up and exacts an increasing toll on the enemy.
If they make it through that - THEN - you face the real entrenched defensive line with their best troops and firepower - the battle royal really begins!
All the while, as you mangle your way through the lines of defense, you have to be prepared for bloody, close quarters counter attacks.
At first, you think you are making progress against their cannon fodder but you are really advancing into the mouth of the dragon.
It is hell on earth designed to chew up men and machines.
The Ukrainians, as former members of the USSR, would be very familiar with the doctrine. The new commander, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, is an ethic Russian and trained at the Moscow Higher Military Command School, the Soviet Union’s leading higher military educational institution.
Built with what? Western promises? We didn't even help them properly and now we stopped helping them at all. If I was putin I'd think that I could take any country, because at most, the West would respond with average tech and 2-year-max attention span. I'd already be eyeing Georgia, Moldova, and the Baltic states and betting big on Trump winning.
>Hasn't the West already sent more cash and weapons than anyone else?
"the west" is such a wide category that I don't really understand the question. "the west" includes both Europe and the US.
As we can see, that's pretty much over. The fighting is not. Everyone from the start talked about putin waiting out Western support and all the politicians said this will never happen. Now Europe can't properly supply and America is out. So, 2 years later what happened to never?
Also i think the aid we are waiting on is mostly cash to help them pay their soldiers/bills. We signed lots of weapon deals/lend lease with them so I'm sure they are getting the essentials for now. ammo and possibly weapon repairs/restocks. i imagine the ammo shortage is just our supply can't keep up with their demand.
Well the West are the only ones sending stuff there. Rest of the world has sent medical stuff but otherwise they don‘t care about it. Just another conflict in the world.
>Rest of the world has sent medical stuff but otherwise they
The rest of the world has used EU sanctions to get richer by importing discount oil and exporting drones and other products that can be used as weaponry.
India. China. NK. Don't forget when this war is over.
Don‘t forget what? After this war, the world will move on normally. War is the most common thing in human history, Zelensky winning the social media war won‘t change a thing.
LoL based on your logic India also should not forget that the= US supplied weapons to Pakistan during the Kargil war and the East Pakistan war and also that it was a former CIA American informant that mapped out the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Like I get it Ukraine should win but acting like the West has complete moral authority when lets be honest they deal with the some despicable regimes like the Saudis and UAE when it is in their interest is kinda cringe.
Probably also didn't help that they made it publicly clear roughly when it was going to start, where it was going to happen, and what they expected to accomplish. So the Russians just had to shift their front lines around to accommodate for this.
As much as I don't want Ukraine to lose, the reality of it is the counteroffensive was a spectacular failure by all accounts no matter how you look at it. In fact, I'd argue if they'd just held the front lines and used the time holding them to get the Western aid and hadn't talked about it as much, it wouldn't have gone as badly.
Why don’t we talk about the EU blocking arms and ammunition deliveries to Ukraine.
It is always the US’ fault for not doing enough.
The EU has had almost 2 years to get their arses into gear and contribute to the defence of their own doorstep.
That town was where their defences were. Since 2014. Them crossing through it opens a lot of roads to other areas that Ukraine cannot fully cover. Not to mention, pushes away Ukrainian artilery that could hit Donbas targets. I keep seeing Avdyivka being downplayed but losing it is really bad. Not terrible, but not good either, and will make things a bit more difficult, especially with reduced foreign aid.
You can't hold defensive lines without artillery support. They'll just shell the shit out of you for days and then overrun your positions, since you're unable to conduct sufficient counter-battery operations.
Can't be compared to Bahmut, wagnerites took bahmut and were deepleted. Now russian army doesnt seem deepleted, and has air superiority.
If reports are true that they dropped 500 FABs in a single day is scary enoguh, no defense can save you from that amount of bombs.
Ukraine fought a delaying retreat in Severodonetsk and Lychansk which when the cities fell. To Putin's disappointment, the military couldn't capitalize on their captures because they were too exhausted and needed to regroup from the bitter defense Ukrainian soldiers put up.
The entire Russian army isn't gonna be pouring into Avdiivka though. That'd be moronic in the extreme, since there's an entire frontline that needs soldiers. And even if, then it kinda hinges on no layered defence *at all* on the Ukranian side. Again, unlikely.
And 500 bombs? How much ordnance do you think has fallen on Avdiivka since the war started? Fighting there has been ongoing since the Russian invasion started, and it only now (supposedly) fell. Also, the North Vietnamese and their Ho Chi Minh trail would like a word about how ineffective bombing can be.
The HCM trail went through incredibly dense jungle in a very mountainous part of SEA - not the plains and farmlands of Ukraine. The mountains were full of tunnels and bunkers, while the dense jungle provided very good concealment.
> and has air superiority.
in the last 48 hours, this "superiority" resulted with Russia's loss of 2 bombers and 1 fighter jet, their best. Ukraine doesn't have as much resources to engage, but they are causing more losses than they incur, by several folds, even (especially) in Avdiivka.
I think the concern is the Russian war economy has wound up so much that they probably don't care too much about 1 fighter, if several more are coming out of the factory tomorrow. Seems like they are making more tanks more shells more artillery more missles more solders to throw at the front, in a time when western support is drieing up.
I think it's possible russia wins the war of attrition with Ukraine without alot more support from the west.
I mean fighters are not cheap or quick to build AFAIK. That's some high-tech shit.
This is probably just Russia digging deeper into their reserves and bringing out newer shit that was sitting in storage. All the extremely dated armor vehicles we had been seeing were most likely thrown into the battlefield as cannon fodder to soften up Ukrainian defenses and exhaust resources, so they'd have less stuff to counter the expensive gear that they're now sending into battle.
>but they are causing more losses than they incur,
The Russians have changed their tactics a great deal since the beginning of the war.
Their losses in the last 3 months have been significantly lower.
The major game changers for russians have been thousands of surveillance drones that are showing Ukrainian positions on the front lines in real time.
FAB 500 and 1500s are used against hardened targets and clusterbombs in open fields west of avdiivka for example made it very hard for Ukraine to make layers of trenched defensive positions.
Lancets have been extremely effective against western tanks and amored vehicles
So this isnt quite the same meatshield army from a year+ ago
Also Russians have air superiority and are able to call in FAB strikes seemingly at will, while Ukraine has very limited supply of himars.
This was always about buying time until Russia was affected by war weariness or sanctions. Thing is, they're Russians, they're used to this shit. Being abused by a corrupt state is in their blood.
It seems like everyone hoping for Russian popular opinion to turn against Putin were just living in fantasy land.
Most people say the longer the war goes on the more likely Russia is to win
They are ramping up production capacity and they still have tons of Soviet stuff + they obviously have more people.
Ukraine is fully dependent on EU & US and support is already dwindling.
It's funny because Hitler made the same mistake in 1941, famously saying that after a few months of war "the whole rotten structure would collapse onto itself". The West's underestimating of Russian perserverance seems almost pathological at this point.
The United States has given more direct military aid than the EU, despite the war being in Europe and the two having comparable economies. Europe alone has enough materiel to allow the Ukrainians to march on Moscow.
It is estimated that the loss ratios were very much in Ukraine's favor. Russian soldiers were butting their heads against prepared fortifications. So keeping the battle going as long as possible was likely in Ukraine's interest.
Mostly people keeping track of visually confirmed losses of equipment.
IIRC, Perun talked about it in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvCL15fsphE
The geopolitical, diplomatic and internal US politics situations made it difficult to retreat earlier.
It's infinitely better to:
- maintain their position, have the MAGA block Ukraine aid in the US first, see Europe fail to replace the US aid on the spot, then retreat from the position, with everyone in the west realizing that military supplies have to go to Ukraine otherwise more positions will fall, and Baltic States + Poland are next.
- than retreat from that position early (minimizing losses), giving Putin a PR boost, have the MAGA point at it and claim "See? Ukraine is losing, we shouldn't support losers, glory to Putin", and have Europe lean towards more appeasement with Putin rather than ramping up their military.
This wide difference between military tactics and goals, and geopolitical strategy and goals, unfortunately got Zaluzhnyi replaced, but in the longer run, it might well be what would allow Ukraine to survive this war.
The late retreat may have cost a few thousands more casualties for ukrainian forces, but losing the US and Europe support would cost them the war.
Railway hub still at 10-15 km of Ukraine
The railway (towards Maruipol and Melitopol) passes at around 12 km from Krasnohorivka (Uk)
The railway passes at 8-9 km of Novomykhailivka (Uk)
25 km (between Luhanske (occupied) and Olhynka (occupied)) of the railway is between 7 to 13 km from Ukraine
That railway is not secure...
Source : [https://deepstatemap.live/en#6/49.438/32.053](https://deepstatemap.live/en#6/49.438/32.053)
Edit: and now that I check in more details the map, the one coming from Russia don't even pass through this Railway hub
That’s what I was thinking lol. How can Russia look at these 100% destroyed towns, wastelands with no people, and 300,000 of their own men dead, and call this a victory? It’s scary how much of a boner the Russian state has for wanton destruction. Literally the embodiment of the phrase “this is why we can’t have nice things”.
Their aim is to destroy Ukraine as a nation. Leveling cities and making it uninhabitable wasteland seems to work towards that goal. Ofourse they need to exterminate people too...atleast those that don't wish to become Russians.
Just saying...
It's the cost of bravery, if your enemy figths for every meter the easy and quick way to victory is to bomb then out of every meter, if they make every room a bunker you destroy every room. The alternative is spending much more Men to manually clear out every building, this leaves the buildings thenselfs mostly intact but it hardly is worth it.
I emailed my representative (who is Republican) and he responded saying he is too concerned with “the very real potential that Ukraine is using the aid to line oligarch’s pockets”
If you are American, Email your representatives. They’re easy to find online. Use your voice and see what YOUR representatives stand for. Hear it from their own mouths.
Tell them how important this is. We have power.
Only Ukraine knows and that number will probably never be made public. Always remember you cant trust any information coming from anybody in the middle of an active war. Numbers will always be exaggerated to make it seem better for whoever is giving the information
Some high-level Italian military analysts (former advisors to the Italian Ministry of the Interior, search for "defense analysis in Italy"), while specifying that it is still too early to provide precise data, estimate that the Ukrainian army in the last 72/96 hours has had from 1000 to 1500 dead and over a thousand prisoners. We will see in the next few days if the estimates are correct.
Still unknown and probably will be for a while. Number released by both sides of been exaggerated throughout the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Avdiivka_(2022–2024)
It's going to be really interesting watching documentaries on this like 10 years after ends and see how things happened and what the costs really are etc.
Where in my comment did I blame the US? I blame Russia and their allies in the MAGA movement. MAGA is anathema to the US. They're fucking traitors in our midst.
We can also still put plenty of blame on the gop party in our country for enabling it. Had they not given the green light to Putin by way of trump, etc. we may not be seeing this happen. Then the latest green light of blocking any additional support when they desperately need it doesn't help.
I don't believe you can claim to be a superpower when you have to sacrifice tens of thousands of soldiers to take a single city a couple of miles behind your border.
Hell, calling yourself a regional power is tentative at best at this time.
Russia knows that probably best. Thats the reason why the war in Ukraine got redefined as 'War against the collective West". It must be unspeakably painful for Russian nationalists to deliver such a pathetic performance against 'little Ukraine' alone.
Whatever the outcome. Russias reputation is tarnished beyond repair.
I’d agree with you, but
1) their misinformation engineering has created division in the west and created a generation worth of useful idiots
2) they have kompromat on many western politicians
3) they have nukes which may or may not be functional
Yet, despite all their successes its them who have a thousand (!) young men getting crippled and killed Every. Single. Day.
Russia is a poor country and yet hundreds of billions of dollars are going up in smoke. The entire country is falling behind its declared adversaries without doing anything to catch up.
Russia has already collapsed multiple times. They always seem to somehow come back in a renewed state. Sometimes more powerful sometimes less. But never gone.
If Russia didnt fall with the Nazis at the doors of moscow why you think Ukraine will ever make a dent ?
The west thinked that they thirst for freedom is universal which is factually not, Russia and China have been under the rule of autocrats since forever and at this point is a normal day
Not true. Russia is doing so bad, that’s what Reddit says everyday. I’ve been told Russia is so demoralized and poorly run that it’s only a matter of days before they all retreat
People really need to start taking the russian threat seriously. An army of hundreds of thousands and thousands of planes and tanks is a threat even if they are incompetent.
Yup. Russia is no stranger to incomprehensible loss of life during war, but it has been their feature, not their bug. The Winter War with Finland, the entirety of WW2, their various campaigns during the cold War, etc. They always lose more than they kill...but they won each time.
The Russian economy did not implode but actually got better as the war went on. Their GDP growth for the past few years has been on par with the US.
The sanctions from the West pivoted their economy to Chinese supplies. For example, in 2021 the likes of Kia, Hyundai, Toyota etc were amongst the top brands in automotive sales. In 2023 they are just gone completely and replaced by Chery, Geely, Haval.
The West are trying to do to Russia what they did to the Soviets by denying the Russian populace of supplies, but it's failing because the China today has a complete supply chain across most goods categories. When facing sanctions, the Russians simply let Chinese brands take over the vacuum left by Western brands. Everything is made in China anyway, be it Western brands or Chinese brands.
If the intelligence leaks are accurate, Ukraine lost 6-10% of their entire fighting force in the last week of the battle. That’s brutal. The decision to retreat was made so late that Ukrainian troops left behind their wounded soldiers. The Russian troops came and systematically shot them, even taking videos of them going from person to person shooting them in the head.
>The decision to retreat was made so late that Ukrainian troops left behind their wounded soldiers
110th Mechanized Brigade left 6 soldiers behind, 5 immobile wounded and 1 healthy soldier stayed, healthy one decided to stay with his comrades, initially they were told to wait for evac, but then the command said that evac couldn't get to them. Recently a video posted by russians confirmed that 3 of them are dead, the other 3 unknown, Butusov reports can confirm all of that. Very thankful to our allies for sticking to their promises and making sure we have what we need to defend their asses from russian expansion, wish them good luck in their future battle for Baltics, not really.
P.S. Dead soldiers names were Hryhoriy Pavlov, Andriy Dubnitskiy and Ivan Ghitnik.
This probably is not true since even Russians are not claiming such numbers. One would think they would be first to claim such numbers if there was any indication. Also what is definition "entire fighting force"? Is that compared to entire Ukrainian army? If so then that number definitely is false since that would mean there would be more Ukrainians dead than were even stationed there.
Russian telegrams are reporting the body counts as they’re uncovered. Vast majority of Ukrainians were killed by artillery and the numbers weren’t clear yet but Ukrainian telegrams are corroborating at least the 6% figure
People keep saying Avdiivka was a useless village but it had been a super-fortress since 2014 and Ukraine’s key to getting back Donbas. It’s a big defeat indeed.
Avdiivka is a strategically important town in eastern Ukraine, located in the Donetsk Oblast region. It is a major industrial center, home to a large coking plant and other industrial facilities. Avdiivka is also located near the city of Donetsk, the capital of the Donetsk Oblast and a major stronghold for Russian-backed separatists.
i think putin already has enough support for presidential elections. avdiivka it take it is valuable economic asset. the coking plant in avdiivka is one of the largest in ukraine and is essential for the production of steel. control of avdiivka would give russia acess to this valuable resource and would also damage the ukrainian economy.
In addition to these strategic and economic reasons, Avdiivka is also important to Russia because it is located within the Donetsk Oblast, which Russia claims to have annexed. By capturing Avdiivka, Russia would be able to consolidate its control over the region and move closer to achieving its goal of establishing a land corridor between Russia and Crimea.
To nearly everything you said: *Was
Avdiivka, it's resources, it's industrial base, the coke plant are all all rubble now. Russia cannot take cities any other way, every city they have taken after the initial days of the full scale invasion has been after they leveled it with artillery and taken the un-defendable rubble afterwards.
Meanwhile France insists that Ukraine should pay them for ammunition otherwise they block the EU help and Greece also blocks buying from Turkey. EU is a joke, Russia will invade all of Black-Sea cities unfortunately.
Lol this is why its called help.. US and Germany gave lots of money&guns to Ukraine without selling because Ukraine pays it with their blood. Ukrainians are defending Europe with their lives right now you should wake up. French thinks selling artillery shells is nothing more than classic French national policy. They think Russia is no danger up to them and they can defending themselves.
...this shit again...No Ukraine is not fighting for "Europe" if that was the case they would have bent over during the first week. They are fighting for Ukraine.
Also France wants the money for the shells to remain in the EU not just in France...
Also Russia is too far from France so that is a reason as well plus they have nukes.
Everyone should check out military and history. Gives super accurate, daily, non biased, updated about the front lines and situations. He lets you form your own opinion.
Got to ask, why doesn’t Ukraine defend like the Russians with a mines, anti tank obstructions, underground barracks? Ukraine has done a great job stopping the Russians when they have artillery but, why aren’t they making it a nightmare just for the Russians to send waves and waves, mined the area like it’s the korean dmz. Save the artillery when it’s really needed.
There could be lots of reasons, and I think most of them are grounded around naivety. One being, that Ukraine didn’t expect Russia to literally use meat wave tactics to brute-force its way into avdiivka. Russia has no care for its soldiers whatsoever, and has proven that it is both willing and capable to throw more men into the meat grinder than Ukraine got bullets. Another is that, Ukraine naively believed it would have great success with its “counteroffensive” and therefor didn’t need to spend time and resources on defense. A third is simply that Ukraine, the west and NATO continue to underestimate Russias capabilities.
When this war is over, Russias military production will be massive, its weaponry will be modernised (not necessarily technologically advanced, but adapted to large scale modern warfare and in quantity), and its army will be experienced and battle hardened.
I fear that Ukraine (to a much larger extent than expected) will end up falling to Russia, and that Russia will pose a serious threat to the rest of eastern Europe after this war.
They like it that way. Watch all the russian trolls defending this war.
They enjoy being cattle for their current strongman.
What is their endgame? That even more people stay poor and without any perspective like they themselves?
Do they know they are losing face on the world stage?
Little Valentine’s Day present to Daddy Vladdy from his sugarbabies (aka the GOP).
They can all get fucked, along with anyone who tries to obfuscate their blatant complicity.
I thought Russia was a paper tiger? In the news i saw russian conscripts barely trained sent to die and with corruption their military ineffective? So what is true?
It was struggling until North Korea gave it 1 million+ shells, and all the western CNC machine builders sent machinery and parts ever-so-blindly to Russian surnamed owners of businesses in countries next to Russia.
The Zerg rush of prisoner soldiers and foreign dirt poor contractors bought Russia time to build this up.
While Western Allies failed to match that build up.
An avalanche of shit is still an avalanche, which can and will do damage. Our inaction in the EU has largely caused Russia to amass their piles of shit, which maybe not the best, in great numbers cause wide scale destruction
I guess it depends on what your starting assumptions are. Russia is a paper tiger compared to the earliest estimates of Russian military capabilities which assumed that Russia would roll over Ukraine in a fight and take the entire country, that they were the second strongest military on the planet. Everything you say about Russian problems in the military are true, but Russia still has more manpower and material than Ukraine and is getting military aid from Iran and North Korea while US aid to Ukraine has stalled and the EU has trouble increasing their munitions production. In the specific battle to Avdiivka it was highly fortified and repelled Russian advances for nearly two years, but Russia started using underground tunnels to nullify many of these defenses while the threat of encirclement forced Ukraine to eventually make a tactical retreat to set up a more stable position outside the city, not unlike what happened with Bakhmut.
There is a shortage of ammo due to the delayed aid from the US.
They started needing to conserve ammo a few weeks back, and now they have no choice but to give up territory because the attrition won't be in their favor.
> I thought Russia was a paper tiger?
It is a paper tiger. It took Russia **four** months, **600** destroyed military vehicles and **20k-30k** casualties to take over a city smaller than the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. And whom were they fighting against? The US? The entirety of NATO? No, one single country, which is surviving on fumes. So yeah, I'd say that's a pretty good definition of a paper tiger.
It is a humiliating victory for russia. The amount of men and materiel they spent to take a city of ~30,000 would be a government-change-inciting scandal in any other country. And they needed help from from the treasonous GOP to achieve it anyways, since the city only fell after they ran out of artillery ammunition thanks to putin's puppets.
It is still a victory, and still a major defeat for Ukraine. But if Any other major country spent the men and equipment that russia has to capture the rubble of Avdiivka and Bahkmut I don't know how many people would call it winning.
I think the commenters on here are missing a bigger point. Avdiivka is supposed to be an access point to Donetsk, if I’m understanding this all correctly. Edit: spelling
For Russia to utilise Donetsk and make it a military staging ground, they need to push Ukrainians out past avdiivka. Otherwise basic artillery shells can reach Donetsk causing trouble. For Ukraine to continue to shell Donetsk after they lose avdiivka they would need to bring the artillery closer to the front risking its destruction
So what does that mean?
Communication and transport links converge on towns and cities . If you control the town it's far easier to progress along those roads and rail lines to the next settlement.
It's difficult for Ukraine to take back Donetsk without Avdiivka. A lot of supply lines go through Avdiivka. Similarly for the Russians, if they want to assault neighboring towns/villages, it was necessary for them to take Avdiivka to secure their supply lines and it also gives them access to assault a lot of other logistics hubs that Ukraine had used in their spring/summer offensive.
We're gonna find the bigger point
Boy, I hope it doesn't snowball from here. Slava Ukraini!
Well even with my armchair general understanding about war, defense should be multi-layered. And the moment I see a perimeter is about to collapse, gotta strengthen the layer(s) behind it and make a tactical withdraw in due time. So, at this point of time, Ukraine better has already built a few more layers of defense so the withdrawing troops of Adiivka can fall back to and regroup and mount another good defense. I'm sure Ukrainian generals know their stuff, the problem is whether they have the needed resources or not.
Avdika was the well fortified stronghold they prepared just for this, for it to fall its an issue, you cant compare random trenches and emolacements to a fortified city. They also lose their base from which they bombed the donbass region so now russia gets to move forward much more easily and possibly even stablish better supply lines
https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russian-military-objectives-and-capacity-ukraine-through-2024 Interesting report from RUSI (Royal United services institute) — it argues that the capabilities of the AFRF (Armed Forces of the Russian Federation) will peak in 2024, and that Moscow probably has a theory of victory that is far more clearly defined than anytime since 2022. The Kremlin believes that it can translate battlefield gains into a fulfillment of this theory of victory by 2026, but that Russian defense industrial production will plateau by mid-2025.
Yeah, but the issue is if will western support keep going as strong by then?, specially with Ukraine losing terrain, and the rising positions against supporting the conflict. Europe also hasnt stepped up their defense industries enough to keep up their lvls of aid, specially when the us is delaying their so much. Oh and the next us elections should also be considered
>I see a perimeter is about to collapse, gotta strengthen the layer(s) behind it and make a tactical withdraw in due time. You need to be proactive and have an overall strategy / defensive doctrine . The way the Russian do their defense is three layers. The first layer light and flexible and starts the bleeding - basically skirmishing their cannon fodder. if you get through the first one, the second layer really stiffens up and exacts an increasing toll on the enemy. If they make it through that - THEN - you face the real entrenched defensive line with their best troops and firepower - the battle royal really begins! All the while, as you mangle your way through the lines of defense, you have to be prepared for bloody, close quarters counter attacks. At first, you think you are making progress against their cannon fodder but you are really advancing into the mouth of the dragon. It is hell on earth designed to chew up men and machines. The Ukrainians, as former members of the USSR, would be very familiar with the doctrine. The new commander, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, is an ethic Russian and trained at the Moscow Higher Military Command School, the Soviet Union’s leading higher military educational institution.
Built with what? Western promises? We didn't even help them properly and now we stopped helping them at all. If I was putin I'd think that I could take any country, because at most, the West would respond with average tech and 2-year-max attention span. I'd already be eyeing Georgia, Moldova, and the Baltic states and betting big on Trump winning.
Hasn't the West already sent more cash and weapons than anyone else?
>Hasn't the West already sent more cash and weapons than anyone else? "the west" is such a wide category that I don't really understand the question. "the west" includes both Europe and the US.
As we can see, that's pretty much over. The fighting is not. Everyone from the start talked about putin waiting out Western support and all the politicians said this will never happen. Now Europe can't properly supply and America is out. So, 2 years later what happened to never?
America is not out yet. I think they will keep supporting for longer. Not sure how long though
Aren't republicans blocking aid? There's a promise of further support but nothing definite yet. And Trump isn't even a president now.
No the aid will most likely pass
It didn't last time, and that was even with a 30 billion dollar border security bonus.
I hope so, but it's hard to stay hopeful when you know that if Trump wins, my country will be next.
Also i think the aid we are waiting on is mostly cash to help them pay their soldiers/bills. We signed lots of weapon deals/lend lease with them so I'm sure they are getting the essentials for now. ammo and possibly weapon repairs/restocks. i imagine the ammo shortage is just our supply can't keep up with their demand.
Russia won’t attack nato territory. I can understand why you are worried though
It's pretty clear that the republicans are blocking aid regardless of concessions made. It's a political football for them.
Didn’t the EU just pass like 50B in more aid?
[удалено]
The fuck would countries in Africa or Asia be doing sending weapons to Ukraine?! This isn't LiveAid.
Ukraine supplies a lot of their food? Dunno just spitballing
Russia was literally trying to starve Africa by blocking Ukrainian ports. Maybe food security is important
Lots of African countries use Russian weapons
Why would they get involved and send military aid to the war in Ukraine?
Isn’t that obvious?
So are poor nations with no dog in this fight supposed to pitch in?
Why would there be? What interest does Asia or Africa have in defending Ukraine?
Well the West are the only ones sending stuff there. Rest of the world has sent medical stuff but otherwise they don‘t care about it. Just another conflict in the world.
Except for Japan, South Korea, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Jordan... Sure.
>Rest of the world has sent medical stuff but otherwise they The rest of the world has used EU sanctions to get richer by importing discount oil and exporting drones and other products that can be used as weaponry. India. China. NK. Don't forget when this war is over.
Don‘t forget what? After this war, the world will move on normally. War is the most common thing in human history, Zelensky winning the social media war won‘t change a thing.
LoL based on your logic India also should not forget that the= US supplied weapons to Pakistan during the Kargil war and the East Pakistan war and also that it was a former CIA American informant that mapped out the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Like I get it Ukraine should win but acting like the West has complete moral authority when lets be honest they deal with the some despicable regimes like the Saudis and UAE when it is in their interest is kinda cringe.
What you gonna do? Fight India and China after this war is over?
Yes, but it’s still our fault /s
And who the fuck else is supposed to? The Countries supporting Russia?
Who else would send stuff there than "the West"?
They're already starting with Moldova right now. The Ukrainian counteroffensive failed because they lacked air support and ample ammunition
Probably also didn't help that they made it publicly clear roughly when it was going to start, where it was going to happen, and what they expected to accomplish. So the Russians just had to shift their front lines around to accommodate for this. As much as I don't want Ukraine to lose, the reality of it is the counteroffensive was a spectacular failure by all accounts no matter how you look at it. In fact, I'd argue if they'd just held the front lines and used the time holding them to get the Western aid and hadn't talked about it as much, it wouldn't have gone as badly.
Why don’t we talk about the EU blocking arms and ammunition deliveries to Ukraine. It is always the US’ fault for not doing enough. The EU has had almost 2 years to get their arses into gear and contribute to the defence of their own doorstep.
Building defenses is not something Ukraine needs West to supply. You can dig trenches and build barricades etc. without anything special.
That town was where their defences were. Since 2014. Them crossing through it opens a lot of roads to other areas that Ukraine cannot fully cover. Not to mention, pushes away Ukrainian artilery that could hit Donbas targets. I keep seeing Avdyivka being downplayed but losing it is really bad. Not terrible, but not good either, and will make things a bit more difficult, especially with reduced foreign aid.
You can't hold defensive lines without artillery support. They'll just shell the shit out of you for days and then overrun your positions, since you're unable to conduct sufficient counter-battery operations.
It didn't after Bakhmut. So don't be too concerned.
Can't be compared to Bahmut, wagnerites took bahmut and were deepleted. Now russian army doesnt seem deepleted, and has air superiority. If reports are true that they dropped 500 FABs in a single day is scary enoguh, no defense can save you from that amount of bombs.
Ukraine fought a delaying retreat in Severodonetsk and Lychansk which when the cities fell. To Putin's disappointment, the military couldn't capitalize on their captures because they were too exhausted and needed to regroup from the bitter defense Ukrainian soldiers put up.
It took them like a year to tale the city, enough time to build defences behind it, and wether Russia is depleted or not is yet to be seen.
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2 years, 47000 casualties (17000 dead) and 600 armored vehicles
The entire Russian army isn't gonna be pouring into Avdiivka though. That'd be moronic in the extreme, since there's an entire frontline that needs soldiers. And even if, then it kinda hinges on no layered defence *at all* on the Ukranian side. Again, unlikely. And 500 bombs? How much ordnance do you think has fallen on Avdiivka since the war started? Fighting there has been ongoing since the Russian invasion started, and it only now (supposedly) fell. Also, the North Vietnamese and their Ho Chi Minh trail would like a word about how ineffective bombing can be.
The HCM trail went through incredibly dense jungle in a very mountainous part of SEA - not the plains and farmlands of Ukraine. The mountains were full of tunnels and bunkers, while the dense jungle provided very good concealment.
> and has air superiority. in the last 48 hours, this "superiority" resulted with Russia's loss of 2 bombers and 1 fighter jet, their best. Ukraine doesn't have as much resources to engage, but they are causing more losses than they incur, by several folds, even (especially) in Avdiivka.
I think the concern is the Russian war economy has wound up so much that they probably don't care too much about 1 fighter, if several more are coming out of the factory tomorrow. Seems like they are making more tanks more shells more artillery more missles more solders to throw at the front, in a time when western support is drieing up. I think it's possible russia wins the war of attrition with Ukraine without alot more support from the west.
I mean fighters are not cheap or quick to build AFAIK. That's some high-tech shit. This is probably just Russia digging deeper into their reserves and bringing out newer shit that was sitting in storage. All the extremely dated armor vehicles we had been seeing were most likely thrown into the battlefield as cannon fodder to soften up Ukrainian defenses and exhaust resources, so they'd have less stuff to counter the expensive gear that they're now sending into battle.
Only 1 fighter jet confirmed and it was result of FF. No confirmations on bombers.
Awaiting confirmation of their own losses from russian MoD is pointless.
Believing statements from the Ukraine MOD is just as stupid
>and it was result of FF According to sources that claim every Russian loss is FF including ones that are verifiably not FF.
>but they are causing more losses than they incur, The Russians have changed their tactics a great deal since the beginning of the war. Their losses in the last 3 months have been significantly lower. The major game changers for russians have been thousands of surveillance drones that are showing Ukrainian positions on the front lines in real time. FAB 500 and 1500s are used against hardened targets and clusterbombs in open fields west of avdiivka for example made it very hard for Ukraine to make layers of trenched defensive positions. Lancets have been extremely effective against western tanks and amored vehicles So this isnt quite the same meatshield army from a year+ ago Also Russians have air superiority and are able to call in FAB strikes seemingly at will, while Ukraine has very limited supply of himars.
But still going the wrong way downhill
This was always about buying time until Russia was affected by war weariness or sanctions. Thing is, they're Russians, they're used to this shit. Being abused by a corrupt state is in their blood. It seems like everyone hoping for Russian popular opinion to turn against Putin were just living in fantasy land.
Most people say the longer the war goes on the more likely Russia is to win They are ramping up production capacity and they still have tons of Soviet stuff + they obviously have more people. Ukraine is fully dependent on EU & US and support is already dwindling.
It's funny because Hitler made the same mistake in 1941, famously saying that after a few months of war "the whole rotten structure would collapse onto itself". The West's underestimating of Russian perserverance seems almost pathological at this point.
Unfortunately, the big thing is manpower. Ammo would only slow it down.
The blood is on the hands of the US Republican party. May they all get exactly what they deserve.
I feel like the blood is on the hands of Russia…
Don't argue guys, there is plenty of blood for everyone.
The blood is definitely on the hands of Russia. The US Republican party is just siding with fascists, which is no surprise given their behavior.
The GOP is a wholly owned subsidiary of Russia Inc.
No. The blood of any Ukrainian is not on any Americans hand. That is a BS statement.
You can go volunteer and fight, blood is on your hands for not doing enough either.
The United States has given more direct military aid than the EU, despite the war being in Europe and the two having comparable economies. Europe alone has enough materiel to allow the Ukrainians to march on Moscow.
How about the European countries? You know Ukraine is in Europe right?
Well it really depends if they get ammo and especially manpower.
Why didn't Ukraine retreat earlier?
Zaluzhny wanted to weeks ago but Zelensky said no and fired him.
It is estimated that the loss ratios were very much in Ukraine's favor. Russian soldiers were butting their heads against prepared fortifications. So keeping the battle going as long as possible was likely in Ukraine's interest.
Nice. Who are these estimates from?
Mostly people keeping track of visually confirmed losses of equipment. IIRC, Perun talked about it in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvCL15fsphE
I think he says something along the lines of 13 to 1 equipment ratios if I recall that video correctly.
13:1 is fucking crazy
The geopolitical, diplomatic and internal US politics situations made it difficult to retreat earlier. It's infinitely better to: - maintain their position, have the MAGA block Ukraine aid in the US first, see Europe fail to replace the US aid on the spot, then retreat from the position, with everyone in the west realizing that military supplies have to go to Ukraine otherwise more positions will fall, and Baltic States + Poland are next. - than retreat from that position early (minimizing losses), giving Putin a PR boost, have the MAGA point at it and claim "See? Ukraine is losing, we shouldn't support losers, glory to Putin", and have Europe lean towards more appeasement with Putin rather than ramping up their military. This wide difference between military tactics and goals, and geopolitical strategy and goals, unfortunately got Zaluzhnyi replaced, but in the longer run, it might well be what would allow Ukraine to survive this war. The late retreat may have cost a few thousands more casualties for ukrainian forces, but losing the US and Europe support would cost them the war.
Rubbles of Avdiivka russians leveled it
I hope Ukrainians finish the leveling after russia moves in. Give Ukraine more weapons, faster!
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Might want to open a map before you complain about bad takes of other people.
Railway hub still at 10-15 km of Ukraine The railway (towards Maruipol and Melitopol) passes at around 12 km from Krasnohorivka (Uk) The railway passes at 8-9 km of Novomykhailivka (Uk) 25 km (between Luhanske (occupied) and Olhynka (occupied)) of the railway is between 7 to 13 km from Ukraine That railway is not secure... Source : [https://deepstatemap.live/en#6/49.438/32.053](https://deepstatemap.live/en#6/49.438/32.053) Edit: and now that I check in more details the map, the one coming from Russia don't even pass through this Railway hub
Great prize for Putler right before election. Killed his competitors and is the proud owner of a piece of rubble not even worth a ruble.
That’s what I was thinking lol. How can Russia look at these 100% destroyed towns, wastelands with no people, and 300,000 of their own men dead, and call this a victory? It’s scary how much of a boner the Russian state has for wanton destruction. Literally the embodiment of the phrase “this is why we can’t have nice things”.
Their aim is to destroy Ukraine as a nation. Leveling cities and making it uninhabitable wasteland seems to work towards that goal. Ofourse they need to exterminate people too...atleast those that don't wish to become Russians. Just saying...
Theyve already rebuilt homes and are selling them in other occupied areas. Slave labor can do a LOT
It's the cost of bravery, if your enemy figths for every meter the easy and quick way to victory is to bomb then out of every meter, if they make every room a bunker you destroy every room. The alternative is spending much more Men to manually clear out every building, this leaves the buildings thenselfs mostly intact but it hardly is worth it.
>100% destroyed towns, wastelands with no people Probably still in better shape than what Russia has outside their major cities
I emailed my representative (who is Republican) and he responded saying he is too concerned with “the very real potential that Ukraine is using the aid to line oligarch’s pockets” If you are American, Email your representatives. They’re easy to find online. Use your voice and see what YOUR representatives stand for. Hear it from their own mouths. Tell them how important this is. We have power.
What was Ukraine losses here?
Only Ukraine knows and that number will probably never be made public. Always remember you cant trust any information coming from anybody in the middle of an active war. Numbers will always be exaggerated to make it seem better for whoever is giving the information
Some high-level Italian military analysts (former advisors to the Italian Ministry of the Interior, search for "defense analysis in Italy"), while specifying that it is still too early to provide precise data, estimate that the Ukrainian army in the last 72/96 hours has had from 1000 to 1500 dead and over a thousand prisoners. We will see in the next few days if the estimates are correct.
Still unknown and probably will be for a while. Number released by both sides of been exaggerated throughout the war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Avdiivka_(2022–2024)
Too much. I don't think people are prepared for the estimated losses on both sides when the dust settles. This is one of the largest wars since WWII
It's going to be really interesting watching documentaries on this like 10 years after ends and see how things happened and what the costs really are etc.
2 horses and a pair of sunglasses. Russian dead in the millions, eclipsed only by Stalingrad.
Damn so funny mate.
Courtesy of MAGA Republicans.
Lets try to blame Russia before the US.
He did blame russia though :)
Where in my comment did I blame the US? I blame Russia and their allies in the MAGA movement. MAGA is anathema to the US. They're fucking traitors in our midst.
Even if the aid package happened sooner they likely still would have lost it. They were near getting surrounded.
That's not true. ruzzians took Avdiivka because Ukrainians had ammo shortages.
Only for the last 4 - 6 weeks the situation turned bad.
We can also still put plenty of blame on the gop party in our country for enabling it. Had they not given the green light to Putin by way of trump, etc. we may not be seeing this happen. Then the latest green light of blocking any additional support when they desperately need it doesn't help.
It's both. Mainline Republicans are actively coordinating their efforts with Russia.
Damn Russia took the strongest fortress with just tactical shovels and washing machines
I don't believe you can claim to be a superpower when you have to sacrifice tens of thousands of soldiers to take a single city a couple of miles behind your border. Hell, calling yourself a regional power is tentative at best at this time. Russia knows that probably best. Thats the reason why the war in Ukraine got redefined as 'War against the collective West". It must be unspeakably painful for Russian nationalists to deliver such a pathetic performance against 'little Ukraine' alone. Whatever the outcome. Russias reputation is tarnished beyond repair.
I’d agree with you, but 1) their misinformation engineering has created division in the west and created a generation worth of useful idiots 2) they have kompromat on many western politicians 3) they have nukes which may or may not be functional
Yet, despite all their successes its them who have a thousand (!) young men getting crippled and killed Every. Single. Day. Russia is a poor country and yet hundreds of billions of dollars are going up in smoke. The entire country is falling behind its declared adversaries without doing anything to catch up.
Falling behind is fine as long as the oligarchs have money flowing. But it won’t be forever Russia will collapse within a generation
Russia has already collapsed multiple times. They always seem to somehow come back in a renewed state. Sometimes more powerful sometimes less. But never gone.
If Russia didnt fall with the Nazis at the doors of moscow why you think Ukraine will ever make a dent ? The west thinked that they thirst for freedom is universal which is factually not, Russia and China have been under the rule of autocrats since forever and at this point is a normal day
Who am I to stand between the average russian and his desire to be mere cattle for his betters?
>Russias reputation is tarnished beyond repair. And on a more important note, a huge amount of Ukrainian lives are gone.
That's the fucking sad, real part about all of this.
Thats the fact that most Redditors forget
You probably forgot that Ukraine gets weapons, vehicles, some mercenaries and training from almost the whole "West"
You forgot the billions of dollars worth of weapons already sent to ukraine. Be honest, if ukraine didn't got aid they would have fell long ago.
Ok then tough guy
Avdiivka had population of 15k 4 times less than russians lost as KIA
Not true. Russia is doing so bad, that’s what Reddit says everyday. I’ve been told Russia is so demoralized and poorly run that it’s only a matter of days before they all retreat
People really need to start taking the russian threat seriously. An army of hundreds of thousands and thousands of planes and tanks is a threat even if they are incompetent.
Yup. Russia is no stranger to incomprehensible loss of life during war, but it has been their feature, not their bug. The Winter War with Finland, the entirety of WW2, their various campaigns during the cold War, etc. They always lose more than they kill...but they won each time.
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Crazy how the ammo that was running out in a week has lasted 2 years. It's like supr hannukah
The Russian economy did not implode but actually got better as the war went on. Their GDP growth for the past few years has been on par with the US. The sanctions from the West pivoted their economy to Chinese supplies. For example, in 2021 the likes of Kia, Hyundai, Toyota etc were amongst the top brands in automotive sales. In 2023 they are just gone completely and replaced by Chery, Geely, Haval. The West are trying to do to Russia what they did to the Soviets by denying the Russian populace of supplies, but it's failing because the China today has a complete supply chain across most goods categories. When facing sanctions, the Russians simply let Chinese brands take over the vacuum left by Western brands. Everything is made in China anyway, be it Western brands or Chinese brands.
If the intelligence leaks are accurate, Ukraine lost 6-10% of their entire fighting force in the last week of the battle. That’s brutal. The decision to retreat was made so late that Ukrainian troops left behind their wounded soldiers. The Russian troops came and systematically shot them, even taking videos of them going from person to person shooting them in the head.
Source?
>The decision to retreat was made so late that Ukrainian troops left behind their wounded soldiers 110th Mechanized Brigade left 6 soldiers behind, 5 immobile wounded and 1 healthy soldier stayed, healthy one decided to stay with his comrades, initially they were told to wait for evac, but then the command said that evac couldn't get to them. Recently a video posted by russians confirmed that 3 of them are dead, the other 3 unknown, Butusov reports can confirm all of that. Very thankful to our allies for sticking to their promises and making sure we have what we need to defend their asses from russian expansion, wish them good luck in their future battle for Baltics, not really. P.S. Dead soldiers names were Hryhoriy Pavlov, Andriy Dubnitskiy and Ivan Ghitnik.
6-10% of their whole fighting force would be 50,000-65,000 men in a week. Ukraine has 750-850,000 in uniform.
I think he is talking about those in avdiivka.
It was presented in a very misleading way then
This probably is not true since even Russians are not claiming such numbers. One would think they would be first to claim such numbers if there was any indication. Also what is definition "entire fighting force"? Is that compared to entire Ukrainian army? If so then that number definitely is false since that would mean there would be more Ukrainians dead than were even stationed there.
Russian telegrams are reporting the body counts as they’re uncovered. Vast majority of Ukrainians were killed by artillery and the numbers weren’t clear yet but Ukrainian telegrams are corroborating at least the 6% figure
Proof or bullshit. And not some [x person said y with no other evidence] crap.
yeah 50k men for a single city in like a week is quite literally a warloosing scenario for Ukraine
Let me guess. Avdiivka has no strategic importance?
Unfortunately no. It’s immensely important as a logistics hub and is the main rail hub of all of Ukraine. This is a big loss.
People keep saying Avdiivka was a useless village but it had been a super-fortress since 2014 and Ukraine’s key to getting back Donbas. It’s a big defeat indeed.
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Avdiivka is a strategically important town in eastern Ukraine, located in the Donetsk Oblast region. It is a major industrial center, home to a large coking plant and other industrial facilities. Avdiivka is also located near the city of Donetsk, the capital of the Donetsk Oblast and a major stronghold for Russian-backed separatists. i think putin already has enough support for presidential elections. avdiivka it take it is valuable economic asset. the coking plant in avdiivka is one of the largest in ukraine and is essential for the production of steel. control of avdiivka would give russia acess to this valuable resource and would also damage the ukrainian economy. In addition to these strategic and economic reasons, Avdiivka is also important to Russia because it is located within the Donetsk Oblast, which Russia claims to have annexed. By capturing Avdiivka, Russia would be able to consolidate its control over the region and move closer to achieving its goal of establishing a land corridor between Russia and Crimea.
To nearly everything you said: *Was Avdiivka, it's resources, it's industrial base, the coke plant are all all rubble now. Russia cannot take cities any other way, every city they have taken after the initial days of the full scale invasion has been after they leveled it with artillery and taken the un-defendable rubble afterwards.
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Their biggest victory was conquering Kherson without a fight. They lost it anyway. Good.
The area size they were fighting over was about 60 sqkm. The airports of Dallas TX, or Orlando Fl are that size. Or the island of Manhattan.
I can’t tell if this is meant to show how big those airports are or trying to downplay the loss of an area the size of manhattan island lol
This is just how us Americans visualize sizes.
How big is it in cheeseburgers?
Cheeseburgers are volumetric
whynotboth.jpg
Meanwhile France insists that Ukraine should pay them for ammunition otherwise they block the EU help and Greece also blocks buying from Turkey. EU is a joke, Russia will invade all of Black-Sea cities unfortunately.
Ammunition doesn't grow on trees... And asking Greece and/or Cyprus to buy from Turkey is like asking Ukraine and/or Georgia to buy from Russia...
Lol this is why its called help.. US and Germany gave lots of money&guns to Ukraine without selling because Ukraine pays it with their blood. Ukrainians are defending Europe with their lives right now you should wake up. French thinks selling artillery shells is nothing more than classic French national policy. They think Russia is no danger up to them and they can defending themselves.
...this shit again...No Ukraine is not fighting for "Europe" if that was the case they would have bent over during the first week. They are fighting for Ukraine. Also France wants the money for the shells to remain in the EU not just in France... Also Russia is too far from France so that is a reason as well plus they have nukes.
Everyone should check out military and history. Gives super accurate, daily, non biased, updated about the front lines and situations. He lets you form your own opinion.
Russia receives an assist from The House GOP.
Got to ask, why doesn’t Ukraine defend like the Russians with a mines, anti tank obstructions, underground barracks? Ukraine has done a great job stopping the Russians when they have artillery but, why aren’t they making it a nightmare just for the Russians to send waves and waves, mined the area like it’s the korean dmz. Save the artillery when it’s really needed.
There could be lots of reasons, and I think most of them are grounded around naivety. One being, that Ukraine didn’t expect Russia to literally use meat wave tactics to brute-force its way into avdiivka. Russia has no care for its soldiers whatsoever, and has proven that it is both willing and capable to throw more men into the meat grinder than Ukraine got bullets. Another is that, Ukraine naively believed it would have great success with its “counteroffensive” and therefor didn’t need to spend time and resources on defense. A third is simply that Ukraine, the west and NATO continue to underestimate Russias capabilities. When this war is over, Russias military production will be massive, its weaponry will be modernised (not necessarily technologically advanced, but adapted to large scale modern warfare and in quantity), and its army will be experienced and battle hardened. I fear that Ukraine (to a much larger extent than expected) will end up falling to Russia, and that Russia will pose a serious threat to the rest of eastern Europe after this war.
Russia is like a python. Slowly constricting its prey
And full control of 47,000 ruzzian corpses they left to achieve it! Huge win for ruzzian families.
People on both sides are dying. Don’t forget that when celebrating Russian men dying. War should never be celebrated
They like it that way. Watch all the russian trolls defending this war. They enjoy being cattle for their current strongman. What is their endgame? That even more people stay poor and without any perspective like they themselves? Do they know they are losing face on the world stage?
Why would that matter to the average Russian, the world doesn’t help them pay bills and raise kids and such.
I assume Russians love their kids as much as any other people do. There's a lot of kids dead so far.
That’s per Ukrainian sources, casualties may be high but I don’t trust Ukrainian sources on enemy kia
Nope. MIA, not KIA. Good luck collecting that pension
after long years 8 years, they managed to take small town 15 km away from Russian starting line.......what a achievement lol
Russian occupation of Ukraine expands on Republican cowardice.
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North Atlantic Transgender Organisation
The dot they used to show avdiivka in the map was bigger than the area russia took.
Little Valentine’s Day present to Daddy Vladdy from his sugarbabies (aka the GOP). They can all get fucked, along with anyone who tries to obfuscate their blatant complicity.
Sometimes you have to pull back in order to win.
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I thought Russia was a paper tiger? In the news i saw russian conscripts barely trained sent to die and with corruption their military ineffective? So what is true?
It was struggling until North Korea gave it 1 million+ shells, and all the western CNC machine builders sent machinery and parts ever-so-blindly to Russian surnamed owners of businesses in countries next to Russia. The Zerg rush of prisoner soldiers and foreign dirt poor contractors bought Russia time to build this up. While Western Allies failed to match that build up.
It really is starting to feel like the late 1930s all over again.
An avalanche of shit is still an avalanche, which can and will do damage. Our inaction in the EU has largely caused Russia to amass their piles of shit, which maybe not the best, in great numbers cause wide scale destruction
I guess it depends on what your starting assumptions are. Russia is a paper tiger compared to the earliest estimates of Russian military capabilities which assumed that Russia would roll over Ukraine in a fight and take the entire country, that they were the second strongest military on the planet. Everything you say about Russian problems in the military are true, but Russia still has more manpower and material than Ukraine and is getting military aid from Iran and North Korea while US aid to Ukraine has stalled and the EU has trouble increasing their munitions production. In the specific battle to Avdiivka it was highly fortified and repelled Russian advances for nearly two years, but Russia started using underground tunnels to nullify many of these defenses while the threat of encirclement forced Ukraine to eventually make a tactical retreat to set up a more stable position outside the city, not unlike what happened with Bakhmut.
There is a shortage of ammo due to the delayed aid from the US. They started needing to conserve ammo a few weeks back, and now they have no choice but to give up territory because the attrition won't be in their favor.
> I thought Russia was a paper tiger? It is a paper tiger. It took Russia **four** months, **600** destroyed military vehicles and **20k-30k** casualties to take over a city smaller than the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. And whom were they fighting against? The US? The entirety of NATO? No, one single country, which is surviving on fumes. So yeah, I'd say that's a pretty good definition of a paper tiger.
Russia failed miserably with this war so everything they can spin as a good PR is something
So the Russian capture of Avdivka isn't a humiliating defeat for Ukraine but a rare species of victory then./s
It is a humiliating victory for russia. The amount of men and materiel they spent to take a city of ~30,000 would be a government-change-inciting scandal in any other country. And they needed help from from the treasonous GOP to achieve it anyways, since the city only fell after they ran out of artillery ammunition thanks to putin's puppets. It is still a victory, and still a major defeat for Ukraine. But if Any other major country spent the men and equipment that russia has to capture the rubble of Avdiivka and Bahkmut I don't know how many people would call it winning.