Russia v Ukraine

[polymerpunkah]

Russian weapons wind up in Ukrainian apartment buildings, blowing to pieces the innocent civilians who live in them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SasaS]

Visually confirmed count of lost Russian equipment in Ukraine maintained by Oryx is now at over 8,000, main battle tanks count is now one short of 1,500 (it may go down as well as up as they constantly filter out the images and videos), of which some 520 are shown as captured.

 

Overall, the total for the four armoured vehicles categories including tanks (infantry fighting vehicles, APCs and AFVs) is now over 4,200 so it is safe to assume the actual number must be in the region of 4,500 to 5,000 pieces of armour lost, without even counting lighter MRAPs and various command and communication vehicles, self-propelled anti aircraft etc,

 

All types of artillery is at over 600 lost and this should probably have to be at least doubled to get to the actual number, since artillery pieces are usually  deeper behind the frontlines, plus there must be a considerable number by now rendered inoperable beyond repair through heavy usage.

 

There is almost 2,000 trucks and jeeps lost, mostly destroyed.

 

All in all, enough stuff for a pretty decently equipped army of some 100,000 soldiers.

 

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html

[SasaS]

Mediazona updated its count of media / social media confirmed deaths of Russian military personnel in Ukraine, as of today it stands at 9,001. This is 707 more than 2 weeks ago, about 50 confirmed deaths a day, which is a big jump (normally it is around 30). For the past four weeks, over 400 deaths are confirmed among the newly mobilized (259 for the pas 14 days).

(This is, as they say, just a fraction of actual number of deaths.)

 

https://zona.media/casualties

(in Russian)

[SasaS]

Tom's update.

 

https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-20-november-2022-3fd97950fa60

[neko]

[DJLJ]

On 19/11/2022 at 10:15, SasaS said:

Visually confirmed count of lost Russian equipment in Ukraine maintained by Oryx is now at over 8,000, main battle tanks count is now one short of 1,500 (it may go down as well as up as they constantly filter out the images and videos), of which some 520 are shown as captured.

 

Overall, the total for the four armoured vehicles categories including tanks (infantry fighting vehicles, APCs and AFVs) is now over 4,200 so it is safe to assume the actual number must be in the region of 4,500 to 5,000 pieces of armour lost, without even counting lighter MRAPs and various command and communication vehicles, self-propelled anti aircraft etc,

 

All types of artillery is at over 600 lost and this should probably have to be at least doubled to get to the actual number, since artillery pieces are usually  deeper behind the frontlines, plus there must be a considerable number by now rendered inoperable beyond repair through heavy usage.

 

There is almost 2,000 trucks and jeeps lost, mostly destroyed.

 

All in all, enough stuff for a pretty decently equipped army of some 100,000 soldiers.

 

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html

https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-21-november-2022-another-q-a-171a0e355756

 

Tom believes the number of Russia Kia/wia/mia etc is around 40K just these last 2 months.  He doesn’t really mention UA losses, but guess similar, that would make it 200k so far on both sides in the war. Bad. 

[Rico1304]

My mum is doing jury service this week, today she was talking to a woman from Ukraine who prefers to be thought of as Russian and thinks Putin is a good man.   The chances of my mum not being the biggest nutcase on a jury are tiny, but there you go. 

[Bjornebye]

On 18/11/2022 at 15:08, polymerpunkah said:

Russian weapons wind up in Ukrainian apartment buildings, blowing to pieces the innocent civilians who live in them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doesn't happen anywhere else on the planet. Nope. Honest. 

[Bjornebye]

3 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

My mum is doing jury service this week, today she was talking to a woman from Ukraine who prefers to be thought of as Russian and thinks Putin is a good man.   The chances of my mum not being the biggest nutcase on a jury are tiny, but there you go. 

 

Hahahaha ffs 

[SasaS]

9 hours ago, DJLJ said:

https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-21-november-2022-another-q-a-171a0e355756

 

Tom believes the number of Russia Kia/wia/mia etc is around 40K just these last 2 months.  He doesn’t really mention UA losses, but guess similar, that would make it 200k so far on both sides in the war. Bad. 

 

I think he said there are no reliable figures, and that there are reports of a rapid increase since October to 400 to 800 Russian casualties a day, which would make it 36,000 over the past 60 days (as a rapid increase), so the total would be under 200,000 in all 3 casualty categories (KIA, WIA, MIA).

 

I am still somewhat skeptical about estimates, simply because the same people (Tom included) give you different figures over time, and it all seems fairly arbitrary. What is interesting to me is that they never look at only two counts which are based on any actual work for Russian casualties, which is Mediazona's count of various forms of mentions and obituaries and DNR's official casualty figures (the only side that regularly publishes anything close to reality).

 

My estimate would be about 20K to 25K Russians (Mediazona 9K x 2-3 plus 5K separatist (DNR official 3.6K KIA + my estimate of 1.5K KIA in LNR), adding some 100,000 to 120,000 WIA. That would roughly bi in line with the "rapid rise" over the past 60 days lower figure, considering that casualties were still the highest over the first two or three weeks of war.  

 

I don't think Ukrainian casualties are much higher or lower, because higher casualties are usually suffered by an attacking side and Russian mostly did all the attacking until recently. Don't think they are considerably lower, because of the imbalance in firepower. I would say though that I think a lot of Ukrainian WIA are probably back fighting. But I fear they may have lost at least 30,000 people.

So, yes, however you look at it, it is horrible. I hope Putin pays for this.

[DJLJ]

The EU parliament has declared Russia a state that sponsors terrorism. 
 

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/european-lawmakers-declare-russia-state-sponsor-terrorism-2022-11-23/

 

and russia responds by sending another billion worth of missiles at Ukraine. 

[TheHowieLama]

 

[Bobby Hundreds]

It feels like every country sponsors terrorism when it's in their best interests.

[DJLJ]

Tom is even more sarcastic than normal and really goes after his ‘Israel fanboys’ as he calls them. 
 

https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-22-november-2022-air-war-update-part-3-5125271f923a

[DJLJ]

Bear Grylls to the rescue. 
 

 

[TheHowieLama]

At least somebody is still paying attention.

 

@SasaS and Facebook Tom have both lost interest in this boondoggle.

[SasaS]

Tom and I are waiting for the mud to freeze over.

[Bjornebye]

"So a missile hit the apartment block next to you and you're frightened for your lives? Right well if you are ever stranded in a desert and see a snake, kill it then skin it. You can cook the snake but piss into it's skin, tie the end and when you get thirsty a few hours later you'll at least have some fluids to take on" 

[Captain Turdseye]

Bit of a different slant to Grylls’ next ‘interactive’ kids special on Netflix. 

[Clem H Fandango]

2 hours ago, Captain Turdseye said:

Bit of a different slant to Grylls’ next ‘interactive’ kids special on Netflix. 

 

Cant wait to see him munching on dead Russian bodies or making his own himars with scaffold poles.

[SasaS]

FT on weapons aid to Ukraine, with some startling revelations:  “Ukraine has focused us . . . on what really matters,” William LaPlante, the Pentagon’s chief weapons’ buyer, told a recent conference at George Mason University. “What matters is production. Production really matters.”

https://www.ft.com/content/a781fb71-49bb-4052-ab05-a87386bf3d5e

(possible paywall)

Military briefing: Ukraine war exposes ‘hard reality’ of west’s weapons capacity

 

Nearly 10 months into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the allies that have backed Kyiv’s war effort are increasingly concerned by the struggle to ramp up ammunition production as the conflict chews through their stockpiles. At stake is not only the west’s ability to continue supplying Ukraine with the weapons it needs but also allies’ capacity to show adversaries such as China that they have an industrial base that can produce sufficient weaponry to mount a credible defence against possible attack. “Ukraine has focused us . . . on what really matters,” William LaPlante, the Pentagon’s chief weapons’ buyer, told a recent conference at George Mason University. “What matters is production. Production really matters.” After sending more than $40bn of military support to Ukraine, mostly from existing stocks, Nato members’ defence ministries are discovering that dormant weapons production lines cannot be switched on overnight. Increasing capacity requires investment, which in turn depends on securing long-term production contracts. The US has sent about a third of its stock of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, and a third of its stockpile of anti-aircraft Stinger missiles. But it has little prospect of being able to replace these quickly. “There’s no question that . . . [supplying Ukraine] has put pressure on our defence industrial base,” Colin Kahl, US under-secretary of defence for policy, said last month. The UK has turned to a third party, which it has declined to identify, to restock its depleted stores of NLAW anti-tank missiles. “There are some really hard realities that we have been forced to learn,” James Heappey, armed forces minister, said in October.

 

Weapons stocks in many European countries are even skimpier. When France sent six Caesar self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine in October, it could only do so by diverting a Danish order for the high-tech artillery.

There are two main reasons why western nations are struggling to source fresh military supplies, defence officials and corporate executives said. The first is structural. Since the end of the cold war, these countries have reaped a peace dividend by slashing military spending, downsizing defence industries and moving to lean, “just-in-time” production and low inventories of equipment such as munitions. That is because combating insurgents and terrorists did not require the same kind of heavy weaponry needed in high-intensity land conflicts. Ukraine has up-ended that assumption. During intense fighting in the eastern Donbas region this summer, Russia used more ammunition in two days than the British military has in stock. Under Ukrainian rates of artillery consumption, British stockpiles might last a week and the UK’s European allies are in no better position, according to a report by the Royal United Services Institute think-tank in London. “The west has a problem with constrained defence industrial capacity,” said Mick Ryan, a former major general in the Australian army. “A major industrial expansion programme will be required if the nations of the west are to rebuild the capacity to design, produce and stockpile . . . large quantities of munitions.” The second factor is bureaucratic. Governments say they are committed to bigger defence budgets. Yet, amid so much economic uncertainty, they have been slow to write the multiyear procurement contracts that defence groups need to accelerate production. “It’s a corporate finance problem,” said a senior European defence official. “No company wants to invest in a second factory line to boost production without long-term, contractual certainty. Will Russia still be a threat in five years and, if it’s not, will governments still be buying arms from the companies then?”

 

This lack of certainty holds on both sides of the Atlantic, corporate executives say. Saab, the Swedish defence and aerospace company which makes NLAWs and Gripen fighter jets, says it has been in talks with several governments about new orders but progress on signing contracts has been slow. “When it comes to order intake directly connected to Ukraine . . . very little has really emerged or happened,” said Saab chief executive Micael Johansson. “I am sure it will come . . . but the contracting procedures are still quite slow.” Britain’s BAE Systems also says it is “in talks” with the UK government about ramping up output of a number of munitions, while US defence companies have similar complaints about the lack of a clear “demand signal” from Washington. “They are in a situation of ‘show me the money’,” said Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “What they [the defence companies] are worried about is that they will expand capacity, then the war will end and the defence department will cut the contracts.”

 

Kathy Warden, chief executive of Northrop Grumman, said the Pentagon’s procurement procedures — which give a “very choppy demand signal” to build up stockpiles but only after a conflict rapidly depletes them — are not a model that is “going to make sense” if the aim is sustained investment in production. Some defence manufacturers are already producing at full capacity, with shifts running 24 hours a day. “When we have a clear understanding of what the demand signal is going to be . . . we are willing to fund expansion of capacity,” said Frank St John, chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin, which makes Himar artillery rocket systems and Javelins. Western officials say that supplying Ukraine has not jeopardised their own countries’ military readiness, while Russian military shortages are far worse. Moscow is having to source weapons such as artillery shells and drones from North Korea and Iran. Yet while there is a near-consensus across Nato, especially its European members, of the need to bulk up their militaries and defence industries, companies can only proceed once they have more contractual certainty. “Contracts matter. Money . . . matters,” said the Pentagon’s LaPlante. “Once [defence companies] see that we’re going to put money [into orders] . . . they’ll get it, that’s their job.”

[SasaS]

Latest from Tom:

 

https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-1-december-2022-31faf2bf921e

[Section_31]

It begins....

 

Vladimir Putin 'has fallen down stairs at official residence'

 

https://metro.co.uk/2022/12/02/vladimir-putin-suffers-fell-down-stairs-at-official-residence-in-moscow-17866336/

[Mudface]

5 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

It begins....

 

Vladimir Putin 'has fallen down stairs at official residence'

 

https://metro.co.uk/2022/12/02/vladimir-putin-suffers-fell-down-stairs-at-official-residence-in-moscow-17866336/

 

Quote

This is because he is suffering ‘cancer of the gastrointestinal tract, as a result of which he already experiences serious problems with digestion’ – and the fall caused an ‘involuntary’ reaction. ‘Before the examination, the doctors escorted the president to the bathroom and helped to clean up.’

 

He shat himself?

[Section_31]

1 minute ago, Mudface said:

 

[quote]This is because he is suffering ‘cancer of the gastrointestinal tract, as a result of which he already experiences serious problems with digestion’ – and the fall caused an ‘involuntary’ reaction.[/quote]

 

He shat himself?

 

‘Before the examination, the doctors escorted the president to the bathroom and helped to clean up.’

 

It would suggest so.