Thread: Russia launches Ukraine invasion

Originally Posted by malmomike77

all anecdotal as we know but nobody, not even you knows what is next.

I know that Russia has never once conducted a successful combined arms operation in this war. They will not be starting with this so-called "offensive" of reconstituted units filled with untrained conscripts. It is just more meat for the grinder. Yesterday, Russia attempted a large scale maneuver operation in Vuhledar and was completely smashed and lost hundreds of men and vehicles.

Smashed By Ukrainian Mines And Artillery, Russia’s Winter Offensive Just Ground To A Halt Outside Vuhledar

Russia’s widely-anticipated winter offensive has begun. Aiming to extend its control over eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, Russian troops are attacking north and south of Donetsk city.

In the northern sector, around the city of Bakhmut, the Russians slowly are advancing—albeit at staggering cost.

In the south, around Vuhledar, the Russians’ losses are just as steep—but they’ve made no clear gains that could justify the casualties. Vuhledar is turning into a meatgrinder for the Russian army, with enormous implications for the wider offensive.

The latest Russian attack on Vuhledar—a town with a pre-war population of just 14,000 that lies a mile north of Russian-held Pavlivka, 25 miles southwest of Donetsk—kicked off on Monday.

Seemingly a couple of battalions of Russian mechanized troops, together riding in a few dozen T-80 tanks and BMP-1 and BMP-2 fighting vehicles, advanced north.

The Ukrainian army’s elite 72nd Mechanized Brigade is entrenched around Vuhledar. It has laid minefields along the main approaches from Pavlivka. Its drones surveil the front. Its artillery is dialed in.

The Russians know this. And the assault force took rudimentary precautions. Tank crews injected fuel into their exhausts to produce smokescreens. At least one T-80 carried a mine-plow.

But leadership and intelligence failures—and Ukraine’s superior artillery fire-control—neutralized these measures. The Russian formation rolled into dense minefields. Destroyed tanks and BMPs blocked the advance. Vehicles attempting to skirt the ruined hulks themselves ran into mines.

Panicky vehicle commanders crowded so tightly behind the smoke-generating tanks that Ukrainian artillery, cued by drones, could score hits by firing at the head of the smoke. The Russians’ daylong attack ended in heavy losses and retreat. The survivors left behind around 30 wrecked tanks and BMPs.

Vuhledar is further evidence of the downward spiral in Russian military effectiveness. Armies that lack robust recruitment, training and industrial bases tend to become steadily less effective as losses deepen.

Desperate to maintain the pace of operations, the army replaces any well-trained, well-equipped troops who’ve been hurt or killed with an equal number of new recruits—but without taking the time, or expending the resources, to train and equip those new troops to the previous standard.

So the army gets less and less competent even as it inducts more and more new personnel. Incompetence leads to even greater losses, which prompts the army to double down: draft more green troops, train them even less and hurry them to the front even faster than it did the previous recruits.

Apply this tragic model to Vuhledar and the Russian army’s failures make more sense. For months, the Russian marine corps’s 155th and 40th Naval Infantry Brigades were responsible for the sector around Pavlivka. But the marines suffered devastating losses in repeated failed assaults starting last fall.

It’s possible both marine brigades now are combat-ineffective. Their replacement appears to be the 72nd Motor Rifle Brigade, a new and inexperienced formation that belongs to the ill-fated 3rd Army Corps. The 72nd MRB formed in Russian Tatarstan and, as such, includes a high proportion of ethnic minorities. Cannon fodder to the Kremlin.

Outside Vuhledar, the Russian 72nd Brigade met the Ukrainian 72nd Brigade—and got beaten at least as badly as the marine brigades did. If this is the best Russia can do after a year of wider fighting in Ukraine, its ballyhooed winter offensive could be costly ... and brief.

Outside Vuhledar, the Russian 72nd Brigade met the Ukrainian 72nd Brigade—and got beaten at least as badly as the marine brigades did. If this is the best Russia can do after a year of wider fighting in Ukraine, its ballyhooed winter offensive could be costly ... and brief.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidax...h=fe525c5558cd

Got news for you nick allen in washington - the US and UK have had eyes on the ground from the start

Pentagon wants to restart top secret ‘irregular warfare’ mission in Ukraine

Some Republicans oppose the move fearing it will escalate tensions and deepen American involvement in the conflict with Russia

By
Nick Allen
IN WASHINGTON
10 February 2023 • 9:04pm

The US is reportedly considering restarting secret reconnaissance operations inside Ukraine in which local operatives would gather intelligence on Russian troop movements and pass it to American handlers.

Pentagon officials want to resume the programme, a form of "irregular warfare", which was suspended when Russia invaded last year, the Washington Post reported.

It could see US Special Operations troops deployed, either inside Ukraine or in a neighbouring country, to receive reports from Ukrainians.

Meanwhile, it emerged that the US and allies have supplied or confirmed coordinates in most cases when Ukraine has used donated Himars and other advanced rocket launchers.

That suggested more in-depth operational involvement by the US military than previously known.

In Washington the Pentagon was reportedly seeking support in Congress to restart the top-secret reconnaissance missions.

However, some Republicans are opposed to any further deepening of US involvement.

Not involved in combat

Proponents are said to be arguing that it would not risk escalation because the Ukrainian operatives, and their US Special Operations handlers, would not be involved in combat.

If the measure was approved it would be unlikely to start until 2024.

The Pentagon was said to be trying to have the £12.5 million project included in a funding bill set to be formulated in Congress in the autumn.

The original US programme to use "surrogates" for intelligence gathering in Ukraine began in 2018.

Similar programmes using local military and paramilitary groups have been run against terrorist organisations in the Middle East and Africa.

US gave target coordinates

Retired general Mark Schwartz, former head of US Special Operations in Europe, said: "When you suspend these things because the scale of the conflict changes you lose access, and it means you lose information and intelligence about what’s actually going on in the conflict."

Ukrainian officials said that virtually all firings of advanced rocket launchers were being done after the US had given target coordinates.

The coordinates came from US personnel at a base in another European country, the Washington Post reported.

Ukrainian officials suggested that level of oversight should allow the US to donate rocket launchers with a longer range, which Kyiv has repeatedly asked for.

Pentagon wants to restart top secret ‘irregular warfare’ mission in Ukraine

The one thing I have learned from this war is invading a country and taking control of it is much harder than most expected.

You think Putin would have known this also and based upon the results experienced by America over the last 70 odd years.

The next 6 months will tell whether he will overturn history.

Originally Posted by Little Chuchok

Otherwise, right now, as you say, it is unknown.

Is but will end when the side with the stronger means and will prevails. Right now both sides have strong will and means so we are looking at a very long war.

Originally Posted by Little Chuchok

We do know what the Russians will do. They have done this for centuries. History is repeating. They will throw hundreds and hundreds of thousands of bodies at the war. Presumably, a large percentage of these will die. What happens if they keep sending more and more troops?

A bit like the Russian version of WORLD WAR Z

Russia hits Ukraine power grid and gains ground in east; Biden to visit Poland

KYIV, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Russian missiles hit power facilities on Friday across Ukraine, where President Volodymyr Zelenskiy returned from a tour of Western capitals and Ukrainian officials said a long-awaited Russian offensive was underway in the east.


Ukraine's armed forces said in an evening update that Russian forces fired more than 100 missiles throughout the country and staged 12 air and 20 shelling attacks. The Facebook post said 61 cruise missiles were destroyed.


Energy Minister German Galushchenko said Russia had hit power facilities in six regions with missiles and drones, causing blackouts across most of Ukraine.


In Washington, the White House said President Joe Biden would travel to Poland from Feb. 20-22 to show support for Kyiv ahead of the first anniversary of Russia's invasion on Feb. 24 and make clear additional security assistance and aid will be coming from the United States.


"The president will make it very clear that the United States will continue to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes," said John Kirby, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council.


International Monetary Fund staff


will meet with Ukrainian officials in Warsaw next week, a source familiar with the plans said on Friday, as Ukraine presses for a multi-billion dollar borrowing program to cover its funding needs given Russia's war.


Global ratings agency Moody's on Friday downgraded Ukraine's sovereign rating to Ca as it expects the war with Russia to create long-lasting challenges for the country. Moody's website said the rating means debt obligations are "likely in, or very near, default."


The latest Russian attacks came as Zelenskiy ended a tour of European allies where he was enthusiastically received but secured no public promises of the fighter jets he sought.


"London, Paris, Brussels - everywhere I spoke these past few days about how to strengthen our soldiers. There are very important understandings and we received good signals," he said in his nightly video address.


"This concerns long-range missiles and tanks and the next level of our cooperation - fighter aircraft."


Russia has repeatedly attacked civilian infrastructure far from the front lines, leaving millions of Ukrainians without power, heat or water for days at a time in the middle of winter.


The barrages have often followed Ukrainian diplomatic or battlefield advances.


Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 10 Russian missiles had been shot down over the capital after sirens blared during the morning rush hour and weary civilians took shelter.


Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Ukraine was without 44% of nuclear generation and 75% of thermal power capacity.


"This is a deliberate targeting of infrastructure that keeps Ukrainians alive in winter," U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said. Russia denies targeting civilians and says it targets Kyiv's war effort.


Ukraine has been bracing for a new Russian offensive, believing that after months of reverses President Vladimir Putin wants to tout a battlefield success before the anniversary of his Feb. 24 invasion. Ukrainian governors in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk said that thrust had begun.


Putin will give his delayed annual showcase address to parliament on Feb. 21, the date last year when he recognised as independent the parts of Donetsk and Luhansk that were controlled by Russian-backed separatists, a prelude to invading.


The complete capture of those provinces, among four Russia subsequently claimed to have annexed, would let Putin assert that one of his main priorities had been achieved.


RUSSIAN ADVANCES


Moscow's main recent focus has been Bakhmut, a small city from which most of the pre-war population of around 70,000 has fled, and the Ukranian military said it and surrounding areas had come under fresh tank, mortar and artillery fire.


After months of static artillery battles both sides call the "meat grinder", Russian forces have begun to encircle the city. Their troops include the Wagner private army that has recruited tens of thousands of convicts with a promise of pardons.


Russia's regular army is now also able to deploy many of the 300,000 or more men enlisted in a forced mobilisation late last year.


Britain's Defence Ministry said Wagner forces appeared to have advanced 2 to 3 kilometres (1 to 2 miles) around the north of Bakhmut since Tuesday - a rapid push in a battle where front lines have barely moved for months.


It said they were now threatening the main western access road to Bakhmut although a Ukrainian military analyst said supplies were still getting through.


Britain also said Russian forces had made some advances near Vuhledar, a Ukrainian-held bastion that has been a linchpin between the southern and eastern fronts, but the limited Russian gains there had likely come at a high cost, including at least 30 armoured vehicles abandoned in one failed assault.


Ukrainian positions in Vuhledar have held since the war started and this week's assault has been branded as a costly fiasco by some pro-war Russian military bloggers. Grey Zone, a semi-official Wagner channel on Telegram, said "a disaster is unfolding around Vuhledar, and it is unfolding again and again".


Reuters could not verify the battlefield reports.


Ukraine plans its own major military counteroffensive in the coming months to reclaim more of the nearly one fifth of Ukrainian territory that Russia occupies.


But it appears likely to wait until it has received at least some of the new weapons, including hundreds of battle tanks and armoured vehicles, promised lately by the West.


WRAPUP 11-Russia hits Ukraine power grid and gains ground in east; Biden to visit Poland

Mercenary group Wagner chief says Moscow could take two years to capture eastern Ukrainian regions

In an interview on Friday (February 10), the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, spoke about how Russian forces must capture the strategic Ukrainian city of Bakhmut to proceed with their “special military operation” in the country. However, he added, they were facing fierce resistance from Ukrainian troops in the region. The interview was taken by a Russian military blogger, Semyon Pegov, and later made public. As per media reports, Prigozhin also said that Moscow needs to establish clear goals as the conflict approaches the one-year mark.


During the interview, Prigozhin said that Russia could take at least two years to control Ukraine's eastern region, whose capture Moscow has stated as a key goal of the conflict. The Wagner founder group also spoke about how, as per his understanding of Moscow's plan, it needed to fully control the Donetsk and Luhansk regions which it previously claimed as "republics" of Russia, a move which drew widespread condemnation.

"As far as I understand, we need to close off the Donetsk and Luhansk republics and in principle that will suit everyone for now," said Prigozhin, as per Reuters, citing the video of the interview posted by Pegov, on Friday. The Wagner chief also said it could take one and a half to two years and if Russia wants to capture the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro then it would take about three years.


Additionally, the Wagner chief said that one of those goals could be to firmly establish its presence in eastern Ukraine or push forward to capture more of the country and that Bakhmut was the key to those plans. “Bakhmut is needed so our troops can operate comfortably”, said Prigozhin. He added, “Why is it called the meat grinder? Because the Ukrainian army is sending more and more and more units.”


The Wagner group has recently garnered significant attention and has reportedly been playing an increasingly prominent role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine as it captured the town of Soledar.

“First we have to quietly take Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) and then we can say loud and clear that we have taken it,” he said, referring to Bakhmut by its Soviet-era name which is still used in Russia.


According to Prigozhin, it is too early to say if they are close to capturing Bakhmut which he has attributed to many roads out of the city but fewer roads in. He added, “Ukrainian troops are well trained...and like any large city it is impossible to capture it from head-on. We are managing very well,” as per Reuters.


He also compared the fight to capture Soledar, undertaken after failures in taking Bakhmut, to the six-month battles that the Soviet Army needed to secure Stalingrad (the present-day Russian city of Volgograd) during World War II. This comes after Prigozhin repeatedly criticised the Russian army and Kremlin commanders for their failures in the offensive against Ukraine and maintained that the battle for Soledar was exclusively waged by his Wagner forces.


However, during the recent interview, he reportedly refrained from further attacks on Russia's military leadership but said that it is important that the top command understands the situation of the men on the front lines. "So if a general goes into a trench and talks to the soldiers, then the soldiers frankly in the current situation will be just fucking amazed and very pleased. That will be enough for them to understand they’re not sitting alone there with their problems," he said.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom’s ministry of defence has speculated that the Wagner forces have advanced at least 2-3 km around northern Bakhmut since Tuesday after months of deadlock on the front lines. The ministry also spoke about how this could threaten the main western access road to Bakhmut, however, the Ukrainian military analyst has previously said that the supplies were still getting through.


In a separate interview, military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said that the situation around Bakhmut remains one of the most difficult sectors for the Ukrainian forces as Russia continues to deploy its conscripts. “The area south of Bakhmut is a very difficult sector…And the city itself remains the hottest spot on the front at this time,” said Zhdanov.

Mercenary group Wagner chief says Moscow could take two years to capture eastern Ukrainian regions - World News

Pregnant Russian women flying to Argentina for citizenship, officials say

More than 5,000 pregnant Russian women have entered Argentina in recent months, including 33 on a single flight on Thursday, officials say.


The latest arrivals were all in the final weeks of pregnancy, according to the national migration agency.


It is believed the women want to make sure their babies are born in Argentina to obtain Argentinian citizenship.


The number of arrivals has increased recently, which local media suggests is a result of the war in Ukraine.


Of the 33 women who arrived in the Argentinian capital on one flight on Thursday, three were detained because of "problems with their documentation", joining three more who arrived the previous day, migration agency head Florencia Carignano told La Nacion.


The Russian women had initially claimed they were visiting Argentina as tourists, she said.


"In these cases it was detected that they did not come here to engage in tourism activities. They acknowledged it themselves."


She said the Russian women wanted their children to have Argentinian citizenship because it gave more freedom than a Russian passport.


"The problem is that they come to Argentina, sign up their children as Argentinean and leave. Our passport is very secure across the world. It allows [passport-holders] to enter 171 countries visa-free," Ms Carignano said.


Having an Argentine child also speeds up the citizenship process for parents. As it stands, Russians can travel visa-free to only 87 countries.


Travel to many Western countries has become more difficult for Russians since their country invaded Ukraine last February.


Last September, the visa facilitation agreement between the EU and Russia was suspended, resulting in the need for additional documentation, increased processing times and more restrictive rules for the issuing of visas.


A number of countries have also suspended tourist visas for Russians, including all EU member states that border Russia.


A lawyer for the three women who were detained on Thursday said that they are being "falsely imprisoned", as they are being held on suspicion of being "false tourists". This is a term "which does not exist in our legislation," Christian Rubilar said.


"These women who didn't commit a crime, who didn't break any migratory law, are being illegally deprived of their freedom," he added.


The women have since been released.


La Nacion attributed the dramatic uptick in arrivals of Russian citizens to the war in Ukraine, saying that "besides fleeing war and their country's health service, [Russian women] are attracted by their [right of] visa-free entry to Argentina, as well as by the high-quality medicine and variety of hospitals".


"Birth tourism" by Russian citizens to Argentina appears to be a lucrative and well-established practice.


A Russian-language website seen by the BBC offers various packages for expecting mothers who wish to give birth in Argentina. The website advertises services such as personalised birth plans, airport pick-ups, Spanish lessons and discounts on the cost of stays in "the best hospitals in the Argentinian capital".


The packages range from "economy class", starting at $5,000 (£4,144), to "first class", starting at $15,000 (£12,433).


The website says its founder has been facilitating birth tourism and offering migration support since 2015, and the company says it is "100% Argentinian".


On Saturday, La Nacion reported that Argentinian police has been carrying out raids as part of an investigation into a "million-dollar business and illicit network" that allegedly provided pregnant Russian women and their partners with fake documents issued in record time to allow them to settle in Argentina.


Police said the gang charged up to $35,000 (£29,011) for the service.


No arrests were made, but police were said to have seized laptops and tablets as well as immigration papers and significant quantities of cash.

Pregnant Russian women flying to Argentina for citizenship, officials say - BBC News

I think that the Argies will soon drop the Russians from visa free travel.

They still give the Brits Visa free travel.

As Russia probes Ukraine’s defensive lines ahead of an expected offensive, it might have lost the entire elite 155th naval infantry brigade while storming Vuhledar, a coal-mining town in the Donetsk region. “A large number of enemy forces, including the command staff, were destroyed near Vuhledar and Mariinka in Donetsk Oblast,” Oleksiy Dmytrashkivskyi, head of the united press center of the Tavriskiy District of Ukrainian defense forces, told POLITICO. “In addition, over the past week, the enemy lost about 130 units of equipment, including 36 units of tanks.”

Russian forces also were losing 150-300 marines a day near Vuhledar, Dmytrashkivskyi said.

Russian tactical failures around Vuhledar have likely further weakened the Russian ultranationalist community’s belief that Moscow’s forces are able to launch a decisive offensive operation, the Institute for the Study of War reported in its latest update. Pro-Kremlin military bloggers have been mourning huge losses and criticizing the Russian command for sending the elite troops in frontal attacks.

The Ukrainian marines also published a video of Russian troops panicking and piling up on a battlefield near Vuhledar. “Go make a cemetery! Gosh, the first column went there and blew up, and then the second one went exactly the same route,” Ukrainian artillerymen can be heard saying while watching Russians approaching Vuhledar.

“The 155th brigade already had to be restaffed three times. The first time after Irpin and Bucha; the second time they were defeated near Donetsk — they recovered again. And now almost the entire brigade has already been destroyed near Vuhledar,” Dmytrashkivskyi said.

Russian military and nationalist community met the defeat near Vuhledar painfully. The Institute for the Study of War reported that recent footage of failed Russian assaults near Vuhledar has pushed some Russian military bloggers to call for public trials against the high-ranking officers as they continue to repeat the same mistakes.

The defeat happened only a few days after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported about a “successful offensive near Vuhledar.” The Ukrainian Defense Ministry trolled the Russians by posting a video of a Russian military column being destroyed in the area.

Russian former paramilitary commander Igor Girkin, sentenced to life in prison in absentia for the downing of MH17 passenger flight in 2014, has called Russian generals “complete morons, who don’t learn from their own mistakes.”

In his Telegram military blog, Girkin, who uses the pseudonym Igor Strelkov, echoed the ongoing criticism of the Russian military community toward the commanders. He confirmed that Russian forces near Vuhledar had to advance in motorized and tank columns along narrow roads and ended up piling up.

“Ukrainian artillery shoots exceptionally accurately. More than 30 units of armored vehicles were lost. Dozens of tankmen were killed. Even more marines, special forces, and motorized riflemen died,” Girkin said. “All these losses turned out to be ‘one-sided’ — the Ukrainians shot the attackers like in a shooting gallery.”

Girkin pessimistically described the defeat near Vuhledar as the end of the offensive of the Russian army on the entire Donetsk front.

Ukrainians are not rushing to celebrate victory, though, as Russian forces continue to storm Ukrainian positions near Vuhledar, Avdiivka and Bakhmut, where Ukrainians are preparing for street fighting.

“I wish weapons from our partners would come more quickly, as that would give us the opportunity not only to protect ourselves and hold the attacks but also finally push them out of our territory,” Dmytrashkivskyi said.

Russia may have lost an entire elite brigade near a Donetsk coal-mining town – POLITICO

LVIV, Ukraine — Creeping forward along a tree line late at night toward an entrenched Ukrainian position, the Russian soldier watched in horror as his comrades were mowed down by enemy fire.
His squad of 10 ex-convicts advanced only a few dozen yards before being decimated. “We were hit by machine-gun fire,” said the soldier, a private named Sergei.

One soldier was wounded and screamed, “Help me! Help me, please!” the private said, though no help arrived. Eight soldiers were killed, one escaped back to Russian lines and Sergei was captured by Ukrainians.

The soldiers were sitting ducks, sent forth by Russian commanders to act essentially as human cannon fodder in an assault.

And they have become an integral component of Russia’s military strategy as it presses a new offensive in Ukraine’s east: relying on overwhelming manpower, much of it comprising inexperienced, poorly trained conscripts, regardless of the high rate of casualties.

There are two main uses of the conscripts in these assaults: as “storm troops” who move in waves, followed by more experienced Russian fighters; and as intentional targets, to draw fire and thus identify Ukrainian positions to hit with artillery.

In interviews last week, half a dozen prisoners of war provided rare firsthand accounts of what it is like to be part of a sacrificial Russian assault.

“These orders were common, so our losses were gigantic,” Sergei said. “The next group would follow after a pause of 15 or 20 minutes, then another, then another.”

Of his combat experience, he said, “It was the first and last wave for me.”

By luck, the bullets missed him, he said. He lay in the dark until he was captured by Ukrainians who slipped into the buffer area between the two trench lines.

The New York Times interviewed the Russians at a detention center near Lviv in Ukraine’s west, where many captured enemy soldiers are sent. From there, some are returned to Russia in prisoner exchanges. The Times also viewed videos of interrogations by the Ukrainian authorities. The prisoners are identified only by first name and rank for security reasons, because of the possibility of retribution once they are returned.

Though they are prisoners of war overseen by Ukrainians, the Russians said they spoke freely. Their accounts could not be independently corroborated but conformed with assessments of the fighting around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut by Western governments and military analysts.

The soldiers in Sergei’s squad were recruited from penal colonies by the private military company known as Wagner, whose forces have mostly been deployed in the Bakhmut area. There, they have enabled Russian lines to move forward slowly, cutting key resupply roads for the Ukrainian Army.

Russia’s deployment of former convicts is a dark chapter in a vicious war. Russia Behind Bars, a prison rights group, has estimated that as many as 50,000 Russian prisoners have been recruited since last summer, with most sent to the battle for Bakhmut.

In the early phases of the war, the Russian Army had copious armored vehicles, artillery and other heavy weaponry but relatively few soldiers on the battlefield. Now, the tables have turned: Russia has deployed about 320,000 soldiers in Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s military intelligence agency. An additional 150,000 are in training camps, officials said, meaning there is the potential for half a million soldiers to join the offensive.

But using infantry to storm trenches, redolent of World War I, brings high casualties. So far, the tactic has been used primarily by Wagner in the push for Bakhmut. Last week, the head of Wagner, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, said he would end the practice of recruiting convicts. But Russia’s regular army this month began recruiting convicts in exchange for pardons, shifting the practice on the Russian side in the war from the Wagner private army to the military.

Some military analysts and Western governments have questioned Russia’s strategy, citing rates of wounded and killed at around 70 percent in battalions featuring former convicts. On Sunday, the British defense intelligence agency said that over the past two weeks, Russia had probably suffered its highest rate of casualties since the first week of the invasion.

Interviews with former Wagner soldiers at the Ukrainian detention center aligned with these descriptions of the fighting — and shed light on a violent, harrowing experience for Russian soldiers.
“Nobody could ever believe such a thing could exist,” Sergei said of Wagner tactics.

Sergei, sat, shoulders slumped, on the sofa in the warden’s office of the Ukrainian detention center. He was balding and wore shoes without laces.

The soldiers arrived at the front straight from Russia’s penal colony system, which is rife with abuse and where obedience to harsh codes of conduct in a violent setting is enforced by prison gangs and guards alike. The same sense of beaten subjugation persists at the front, Sergei said, enabling commanders to send soldiers forward on hopeless, human wave attacks.

“We are prisoners, even if former prisoners,” he said. “We are nobody and have no rights.”

Sergei said he had worked as a cellphone tower technician in a far-northern Siberian city, living with his wife and three children. In the interview, he admitted to dealing marijuana and meth, for which he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2020.

In October, he accepted an offer to fight in exchange for a pardon. The arrangement, he said, was not offered to rapists and drug addicts, but murderers, burglars and other prisoners were welcome.
“Of course, any normal person fears death,” he said. “But a pardon for eight years is valuable.”

The fighting would turn out to be far more dangerous than he had imagined.

In three days at the front south of Bakhmut, Private Sergei first served as a stretcher bearer, carrying out mangled, bloody former prisoners who had been killed or wounded in an omen of what awaited him when ordered to join an assault.

On the night of Jan. 1, they were commanded to advance 500 yards along the tree line, then dig in and wait for a subsequent wave to arrive. One soldier carried a light machine gun. The others were armed with only assault rifles and hand grenades.

The sequential assaults on Ukrainian lines by small units of former Russian prisoners have become a signature Russian tactic in the effort to capture Bakhmut.

“We see them crawl for a kilometer or more,” toward Ukrainian trenches, then open fire at close range and try to capture positions, Col. Roman Kostenko, the chairman of the defense and intelligence committee in Ukraine’s Parliament, said in an interview. “It’s effective. Yes, they have heavy losses. But with these heavy losses, they sometimes advance.”

It could be, Colonel Kostenko said, that such infantry assaults on entrenched defenses will remain mostly confined to the fight for Bakhmut and that they are being used to conserve tanks and armored personnel carriers for the expected offensive. But they could also serve as a template for wider fighting.

The former convicts, Colonel Kostenko said, are herded into the battlefield by harsh discipline: “They have orders, and they cannot disobey orders, especially in Wagner.”

A private named Aleksandr, 44, who shaved three years off a sentence for illegal logging by enlisting with Wagner, said that before deploying to the front he was told he would be shot if he disobeyed orders to advance.

“They brought us to a basement, divided us into five-person groups and, though we hadn’t been trained, told us to run ahead, as far as we could go,” he said of his commanders.

His dash toward Ukrainian lines in a group of five soldiers ended with three dead and two captured.

Another captured Russian, Eduard, 22, enlisted to get four years cut from a sentence for car theft. He spent three months at the front as a stretcher bearer before being ordered forward. He was captured on his first human wave assault. From his time as a stretcher bearer, he said, he estimated that half of the men in each assault were wounded or killed, with shrapnel and bullet wounds the most common injuries.

Private Sergei said he had initially been pleased with the offer of a pardon in exchange for service in Wagner. “When I came to this war, I thought it was worth it,” he said.
But after his one experience in an assault, he changed his mind. “I started to think things over in a big way,’’ he said. “Of course it wasn’t worth it.”

nytimes.com

Ukraine war: Migrants in Russia forced to fight in Putin's war

Russia's Wagner mercenary group has reportedly recruited tens of thousands of prisoners to fight in Ukraine. But the growing number of casualties and extrajudicial executions make it much harder to find volunteers, even in prisons.


Many convicts are now worried that they can be simply forced to go to war - and migrant workers from Central Asian countries find themselves particularly vulnerable.


Anuar came to Russia in search of work in 2018. He was later imprisoned for drug trafficking and sent to serve his term at Penal Colony Number Six in Vladimir region. The BBC is not disclosing his real name and citizenship for safety reasons.


At the end of January, he told his father that a group of Central Asians had been sent to fight in Ukraine without their consent. "There are lots of Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kyrgyz there in that prison. Now they are planning to send another group and my son is worried that they will force him to go too," Anuar's father told the BBC.


The BBC has seen court documents and Anuar's letters which confirm he is indeed serving his sentence in that prison. And his story about the group that was forced to go to Ukraine in January is also corroborated by Olga Romanova, director of the civil rights organisation Russia Behind Bars. Parents of those prisoners approached her for help.


"They were not given a choice. They were told to sign the contract and were sent to the front line like a bag of potatoes," Ms Romanova said.


Parents of prisoners have approached Olga Romanova for help

Initially, the parents were willing to go to court so that their children wouldn't end up in Ukraine, she says. But then they refused to, out of fear of the punishment their children could face if they stayed in prison.


Penal Colony Number Six is notorious for its ill-treatment and frequent beatings of convicts. Olga Romanova described it as "a torture prison". It's where Alexei Navalny, the prominent Russian opposition figure, is being held.


The colony's administration has not replied to the BBC's request to respond to the allegations that they forced prisoners to sign military contracts.


Recruitment in prisons appears to have been very successful, but things are changing as the Wagner group is suffering heavy losses on the battlefield.


BBC Uzbek has spoken to Farukh (not his real name), a citizen of Uzbekistan who is in prison in Russia's Rostov region. Several of his fellow inmates joined Wagner. First it was voluntary, Farukh said, but now he's worried that prisoners may be forced to go to war.


"In the beginning, I also considered going because everyone thought that Russia was more powerful, that Russia would win - maybe in one month, three months or in one year. But now we see how many people are dying there and if they are short of soldiers - it's not good. If they tell me to go and I refuse, then they can declare that I am against Russia."


Central Asian citizens are recruited to fight for Russia in other ways too, not just in prisons. Overall, there are about 10.5 million migrants from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan working in Russia, according to the latest statistics from the Russian Interior Ministry. And that's a massive resource for military headhunters to tap.


more, its a bit longish Ukraine war: Migrants in Russia forced to fight in Putin'''s war - BBC News

The NATO chief says the war is depleting the alliance's stockpiles

by Dave DeCamp Posted onFebruary 13, 2023CategoriesNewsTagsNATO, Ukraine

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday that Ukrainian forces are using significantly more ammunition than the alliance’s members can produce, putting a strain on Western stockpiles.

“The war in Ukraine is consuming an enormous amount of munitions, and depleting allied stockpiles,” Stoltenberg told reporters ahead of a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels.

“The current rate of Ukraine’s ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production, and this puts our defense industries under strain,” he added.

Stoltenberg said that NATO needs to “ramp up production” and that the defense ministers meeting will focus on “ways to increase our defense industrial capacity and replenish stockpiles.”

The US has sent an enormous number of artillery shells to Ukraine since the Russian invasion. The US has provided Ukraine with over one million 155mm shells and is working to increase its production of ammunition by 500% over the next two years to meet Ukraine’s demand and also maintain Pentagon stockpiles.


But even with the US and NATO’s plans to increase production, it’s not clear if the policy of flooding Ukraine with weapons is sustainable. To offset the strain on NATO stockpiles and to make more money from the war, British and other Western arms makers want to start manufacturing weapons inside Ukraine. But a production line could take years to establish, and the factories could be targeted by Russia.

Stoltenberg said NATO is in a “race of logistics” to deliver equipment to Ukraine as Russia is making more gains in the Donbas. “Key capabilities like ammunition, fuel, and spare parts must reach Ukraine before Russia can seize the initiative on the battlefield,” he said.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov will join the NATO defense ministers in Brussels on Tuesday, where he will likely push for fighter jets. Stoltenberg said providing Ukraine with aircraft would be discussed at the meeting but that he preferred to focus on weapons Ukraine could use immediately as training on fighter jets would take time.

While there have been no pledges of Western jets to Ukraine, the UK said it will start training Ukrainians on how to fly NATO aircraft this spring. The discussion of jets comes after a series of escalations in Western military support for Ukraine, including the provision of heavy tanks and armored fighting vehicles.

Each new weapon brings NATO and Russia closer to a direct clash, something Stoltenberg has previously warned could happen. In December, Stoltenberg warned that a full-blown war with Russia was a “real possibility.”

https://news.antiwar.com/2023/02/13/...o-can-produce/

Quite simple: Make some more.

“The current rate of Ukraine’s ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production"

^^ Quite some more.

Originally Posted by sabang

Quite some more.

As usual, you are pushing nonsense. The Arsenal of Democracy will provide.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is racing to boost its production of artillery shells by 500 percent within two years, pushing conventional ammunition production to levels not seen since the Korean War as it invests billions of dollars to make up for shortfalls caused by the war in Ukraine and to build up stockpiles for future conflicts.

The effort, which will involve expanding factories and bringing in new producers, is part of “the most aggressive modernization effort in nearly 40 years” for the U.S. defense industrial base, according to an Army report.

The new investment in artillery production is in part a concession to reality: While the Pentagon has focused on fighting wars with small numbers of more expensive precision-guided weapons, Ukraine is largely relying on howitzers firing unguided shells.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the U.S. Army’s production of 14,400 unguided shells a month had been sufficient for the American military’s way of war. But the need to supply Kyiv’s armed forces prompted Pentagon leaders to triple production goals in September, and then double them again in January so that they could eventually make 90,000 or more shells a month.

Unguided artillery shells have become the cornerstone of the 11-month-old conflict, with both Ukrainian and Russian troops firing thousands of howitzer rounds at each other every day, along a front line more than 600 miles long. These weapons are most likely responsible for the greatest percentage of war casualties, which U.S. officials have estimated at more than 100,000 on each side.
The Army’s decision to expand its artillery production is the clearest sign yet that the United States plans to back Ukraine no matter how long the war continues.

The ammunition the United States has sent to Ukraine includes not just the 155-millimeter shells for howitzers, but also guided rockets for HIMARS launchers, thousands of antiaircraft and anti-tank missiles and more than 100 million rounds for small arms.

The howitzer shells currently in production — essentially large steel bullets filled with explosives — cannot be made as quickly as many consumer goods. Although the way they are built is slowly changing with increasing automation and newer technologies, the heart of the process — cutting, heating, forging and bending steel into shape — remains largely unchanged.

The Defense Department will fund new facilities to make artillery ammunition and is spending roughly $1 billion a year over the next 15 years to modernize government-owned ordnance production facilities in an effort to increase automation, improve worker safety and ultimately make munitions more quickly. Just since August, Congress has allocated $1.9 billion to the Army for the effort.

“We are really working closely with industry to both increase their capacity and also the speed at which they’re able to produce,” Christine Wormuth, the secretary of the Army, said last month, adding that this includes identifying “particular components that are sort of choke points” and “sourcing those to try to be able to move things more quickly.”

Douglas R. Bush, an assistant secretary of the Army who is the service’s top acquisition official, said the United States is one of just a handful of countries that maintains significant reserves of such weapons in times of war and peace alike.

“In previous conflicts, we had stockpiles that were sufficient for the conflict,” Mr. Bush said in an interview. “In this case, we’re seeking to increase production to both maintain our stockpile for some other contingency but also supply an ally.”

“So it’s a bit of a new situation,” he added.

The unguided shells currently in production are just under three feet long, weigh roughly 100 pounds and are filled with 24 pounds of explosives — enough to kill people within 150 feet of impact and injure exposed soldiers more than 400 feet away.

So far the United States has sent more than one million of the explosive projectiles to Ukraine, while other NATO countries and major non-NATO allies of the United States have also contributed shells, largely without disclosing how many.

The Pentagon has declined to comment on the size of its reserves of 155-millimeter shells, but Mr. Bush said the planned increases in production would support Ukraine’s needs in real time and replenish the amount drawn down from existing stocks.

“We’re going to start seeing this summer our first significant step up in terms of rounds per month,” he said of the shell production goals. “The ramp really hits its stride in fiscal year 2024.”

While the new investment in the nation’s ammunition plants will offer a significant boost in production, it is still just a fraction of the manufacturing capacity that the military mustered in the 1940s.

By the end of World War II, the United States had about 85 ammunition plants, according to a congressional report from late last year. Today, the Pentagon relies on six government-owned, contractor-operated Army ammunition plants to do most of this work.

The military’s ammunition infrastructure “is comprised of installations with an average age of more than 80 years,” and much of it still operates in “World War II-era buildings, and in some cases, with equipment from the same period,” according to the Army’s report on modernizing those facilities, which was drafted in 2021.

Representative Rob Wittman, Republican of Virginia and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said the invasion of Ukraine was a “Sputnik” moment — referring to the 1957 Soviet launch of the first satellite into space — that made clear the need for this rapid expansion in ammunition manufacturing capacity in the United States.

“The Russian invasion of Ukraine has really exposed how brittle and fragile our supply chain is, particularly as it relates to munitions, which is now clearly kind of an emergency in terms of trying to replenish,” Mr. Wittman said this month, during remarks before a group of top Pentagon officials.

The production of artillery ammunition in the United States is a complicated process that primarily takes place in four government-owned facilities run by private defense contractors. The empty steel bodies are forged in factories in Pennsylvania run by General Dynamics, the explosives for those shells are mixed together by BAE Systems workers in Tennessee and then poured into the shells at a plant run by American Ordnance in rural Iowa, while the propellant charges to shoot them out of howitzer barrels are made by BAE in southwest Virginia.

The fuzes screwed into the nose of these shells, which are required to make the projectiles explode, are produced by contractors in other locations.

In November, the Army announced a $391 million contract with the Ontario-based company IMT Defense to make shell bodies and issued an order to General Dynamics to build a new production line for 155-millimeter shells at a factory in Garland, Texas.

A fourth domestic producer of 155-millimeter shell bodies will probably be announced soon, Mr. Bush said.

All of this increased production is likely to be used as quickly as it can be shipped to Ukraine’s border by U.S. Transportation Command.

The Ukrainians have been firing so many artillery barrages that about a third of the 155-millimeter howitzers provided by the United States and other Western nations are out of commission for repairs.

The Pentagon has also bought ammunition for the Soviet-era weapons that Ukraine had before the invasion and that still make up a large part of its arsenal: 100,000 rounds of ammunition for Russian-made tanks, 65,000 rounds of artillery ammunition and 50,000 Grad artillery rockets.

Those munitions are still being produced in limited numbers in some of the former satellite nations of the Soviet Union in Central and Eastern Europe.

“We’re not talking numbers that would dramatically move the dial,” Mr. Bush said. “Those kinds of options have been and are being evaluated.”

“The priority has been on providing NATO’s standard ammunition,” he said. “A lot of it, though, depends on what Ukraine wants.”

As the war dragged on, Russian forces found that they could not sustain the high levels of artillery fire they used to overmatch Ukrainian gun crews over the summer. By September, according to U.S. intelligence services, Russia was seeking to purchase artillery shells from North Korea, which still uses Soviet-caliber weapons. The next month, Ukrainian troops near the city of Kherson said Russia’s rate of fire had fallen to roughly the same as theirs.

In December, a U.S. defense intelligence analyst who was not authorized to speak publicly said reports from Russia indicated that the government in Moscow had ordered employees at munition plants to work additional hours in an effort to produce more ordnance for Russian forces to use in Ukraine, including artillery ammunition.

The experience in Ukraine has broadly reminded the Pentagon and military contractors that the United States needs to focus more on both basic artillery and missiles — not just the expensive equipment needed to fire these weapons.

Most militaries are focused on buying just enough weapons for short-term conflicts, Gregory Hayes, the chief executive of Raytheon Technologies, said last month at a conference in California with Pentagon leaders, referring to the stealthy F-35 fighters that his company helps build and that have been sold to the United States and many of its allies. “I think, if anything, what the Ukraine situation has taught us is that we need depth in our supply chain, depth in our war reserves, much more than we had ever expected.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/24/u...mmunition.html

As usual, you are pushing nonsense.

As usual, you are being a petulant child. The article quotes Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO. Are you accusing him of 'pushing nonsense'?

Losses in Ukraine 'out of proportion' to what NATO has been planning for, the alliance's top general says

• NATO was created in 1949 to stop a massive Soviet invasion of Western Europe
• Leaders have been worried by the heavy casualties and massive ammunition usage in Ukraine.
• "The scale of this war is out of proportion with all of our recent thinking," NATO's top general said in January.
• For more stories, go to www.BusinessInsider.co.za.

The heavy casualties and massive ammunition consumption seen during the war in Ukraine has top NATO commanders worried.

NATO was created in 1949 to stop a massive Soviet invasion of Western Europe, and it has added new members since the end of the Cold War, but many of its militaries shrank in the decades after the Soviet threat disappeared. Now the scale and intensity of the fighting in Ukraine has raised questions about the alliance's ability to fight a big-unit war against Russia.

"Scale, scale, scale," US Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told a


in January. "The magnitude of this war is incredible. The Ukrainians have 37 frontline brigades, plus dozens more territorial brigades. The Russians have lost almost 2,000 tanks. If we average out since the beginning of the war, the slow days and fast days, the Russians have expended on average well over 20,000 artillery rounds per day."

"The scale of this war is out of proportion with all of our recent thinking," said Cavoli, who is also head of US European Command. "But it is real and we must contend with it."

One lesson is the importance of an adequate defense industrial base capable of providing the necessary equipment and supplies to satisfy the voracious appetite of large-scale, high-intensity warfare. The US, Russia, and Europe are already scrambling to ramp up production of artillery shells after letting their munitions stockpiles and factories run down after the Cold War.

"Production capacity remains vital, absolutely vital," Cavoli said. "A healthy and elastic defense industrial base is just as important" as the number of troops.
Cavoli also took aim at the belief — until recently touted by Germany and other countries — that soft power has become a substitute for military power.

"Hard power is a reality," Cavoli said, adding that diplomacy, cyber-warfare, and economic strength are important, "but the great irreducible feature of warfare is hard power, and we have to be good at it."

"If the other guy shows up with a tank, you better have a tank," Cavoli said.

Interestingly, Cavoli pointed to Ukraine's surprising battlefield successes as evidence that "precision can beat mass." But there's a catch: It takes time for quality to beat quantity, and "that time is usually bought with space. To use this method, we need space to trade for time. Not all of us have that, and we have to compensate for this in our thinking, our planning."

For Russia's smaller neighbors that lack strategic depth — such as the Baltic States — that's an admission that NATO may not have time to come to their rescue should Russia invade.

As for NATO, the alliance never did fight the war it dreaded against the Soviet Union. But after the Cold War ended, the NATO did engage in several military operations.
NATO aircraft conducted bombing operations in Serbia in 1999 and Libya in 2011. The alliance also sent troops on peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo and to fought alongside US forces in Afghanistan.

But these were small operations involving limited numbers of troops, aircraft, and munitions. Even then, it became clear that NATO — which has expanded from 12 founding members to 30 members today — was dependent on US support. In Libya, for example, NATO air forces ran short of precision-guided bombs after the first month.

That Moscow is buying artillery shells from North Korea suggests that Russia's military is no shape to fight NATO and Ukraine. However, NATO's frantic attempts to scrounge up weapons and ammunition for Ukraine shows the alliance doesn't have much depth to its arsenals.

The US is probably the best prepared for a long war, and even then, America's defense industry will need years to ramp up production of artillery shells. Big war is something that no one wants, but Ukraine is a reminder that it is a possibility that cannot be ignored.

https://www.businessinsider.co.za/uk...-cavoli-2023-2

Russia has lost "strategically, operationally" one year after its invasion of Ukraine, top US general says

A little less than a year since Moscow began its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has “lost strategically, operationally, and tactically,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley said from Brussels on Tuesday.


“Putin thought he could defeat Ukraine quickly, fracture the NATO alliance, and act with impunity. He was wrong,” the top US general said. “Ukraine remains free, they remain independent. NATO and this coalition has never been stronger, and Russia is now a global pariah. And the world remains inspired by Ukrainian bravery and resilience. In short, Russia has lost — they’ve lost strategically, operationally, and tactically, and they are paying an enormous price on the battlefield.”
Milley and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are in Brussels for the ninth meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, to discuss ongoing support for Ukraine as it fights against Russia.


Milley said on Tuesday that until Putin “ends his war of choice,” the international community “will continue to support Ukraine with the equipment and the capabilities it needs to defend itself.”



Ukraine expected to conduct offensive against Russia in the spring, US defense secretary says

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he expects to see Ukraine conduct an offensive in the spring.


“What Ukraine wants to do at the first possible moment is to establish or create momentum and establish conditions on the battlefield that continue to be in its favor,” he said in a news conference in Brussels on Tuesday.


“And so we expect to see them conduct an offensive sometime in the spring and because of that we are, we all of the partners in in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, have been working hard to ensure that they have the armored capability, the fires, the sustainment to be able to be effective in creating the effects on the battlefield that they want to create,” he said.
Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley are in Brussels for the ninth meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which focuses on providing support to Ukraine in its war against Russia. Austin is also participating in a meeting with NATO's defense ministers. The one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion is just over a week away.


Russia has lost "strategically, operationally" one year after its invasion of Ukraine, top US general says

Yes, I think everyone, including the high-heeled war criminal, expected Russia to have a new puppet in charge of Ukraine within a few weeks of its "mighty" military rolling in.