Russia-Ukraine WarWhite House Sets Russian Troop Losses at 100,000 Over Last 5 Months
The meat grinder is real...
Of the Russian soldiers no longer on the battlefield, 20,000 were killed, according to John Kirby, a White House spokesman. Half of them were Wagner mercenaries.
At least 100,000 Russian fighters have been killed or wounded in Ukraine in the past five months, the White House said on Monday, the latest measure of the vast human toll of President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion.
John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said the figure included 20,000 Russian fighters who had been killed in action. About half of those were mercenaries for the Wagner group, the paramilitary force founded by Yevgeny V. Prigozhin that recruited heavily from Russian prisons to bolster its ranks and carry out a brutal campaign around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
In November, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reported that 100,000 fighters on each side had been killed or wounded since the war began in February 2022. But American officials believe the losses have grown for Russia as it has sent waves of poorly trained recruits and convicts to the front lines.
Estimating casualties is notoriously difficult. Moscow is believed to undercount those killed or injured on the battlefield, and Mr. Kirby did not provide specific details on how the United States had calculated Russia’s losses, except to say it involved corroborated intelligence.
A trove of leaked Pentagon documents disclosed in April included an American estimate that as of February Russia had sustained between 189,500 and 223,000 casualties, including up to 43,000 killed in action. The document also estimated that Ukraine had suffered 124,500 to 131,000 casualties, with up to 17,500 killed in action.
Kyiv has also been reluctant to disclose wartime losses and Mr. Kirby did not provide any updates on Ukrainian casualties on Monday.
“They are the victims here,” he said. “Russia is the aggressor.”
White House Sets Russian Troop Losses at 100,000 Over Last 5 Months - The New York Times
Ukraine forms eight new ‘storm’ brigades for counterattack
Eight new Ukrainian brigades of soldiers have been formed to take part in a future counteroffensive amid growing speculation about its timing and whether it can succeed in inflicting a serious defeat on the Russian invaders.
The Ukrainian interior ministry said on Tuesday it had “fully formed” the initial “storm” brigades, comprising up to 40,000 troops, but added they would need further training before being ready to take part in fighting.
Ihor Klymenko, the interior minister, said in an interview the troops would be re-equipped and the instruction process would take another two to three weeks before they could be tasked with “appropriate offensive assault operations” alongside the Ukrainian army.
Questions had been raised about how successful the recruitment process had been for the storm force, amid concern that the pool of Ukrainians willing to fight was diminishing as the war reaches the 15-month mark.
Both sides remain engaged in attritional fighting across the eastern front, particularly around Bakhmut, where Ukraine retains a foothold, despite nearly a year of Russian attacks in and around the small industrial city.
On Monday, the US estimated more than 20,000 Russian soldiers had been killed and more than 80,000 injured in just five months of fighting in Ukraine, mostly around Bakhmut, where Moscow’s forces have had to fight from building to building.
Russia rejected the claim on Tuesday, saying the figure had been “plucked from thin air”, and added that Washington had no way of obtaining the correct data. Battlefield casualties are difficult for third parties to estimate, but the figure gives a broad indication of the intensity of the fighting.
The US and other western allies do not estimate Ukrainian casualties publicly, saying it is sensitive information that could undermine an ally. But leaked secret briefing documents estimated the toll in February had reached between 15,500 and 17,500 killed in the war so far.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the commander of the Wagner paramilitary group, claimed on Tuesday that a Ukrainian commander, Maj Gen Ihor Tantsyura, the head of the country’s territorial defence forces, had been killed on the way to Bakhmut by an artillery strike.
But this was swiftly rejected by Ukraine a few hours later. “We officially deny this statement. We do not comment on any spewing of enemy propaganda. Everyone is alive and well,” a spokesperson for the territorial forces said in a statement given to Ukrainian television.
Earlier, Prigozhin had said Wagner shelling had “destroyed an armoured car” in which Tantsyura “was probably located”. The car was driving from the nearby Ukrainian-held village of Chasiv Yar to Bakhmut, he added.
Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s land forces, said he had visited Bakhmut, where he said “we made a number of necessary decisions aimed at ensuring effective defence and inflicting maximum losses on the enemy”.
In a video of his visit, where he also handed out awards to soldiers, the commander said: “We give our reserves an opportunity to prepare and we are preparing for further actions ourselves.”
Ukraine’s strategy is to inflict heavy losses on Russia as it gradually advances in Bakhmut. The leaked Pentagon documents indicated it had thrown in reinforcements to prevent the city from being encircled while it gradually builds up a force capable of mounting a counterattack as the weather improves.
The same leaked documents said that a war game exercise concluded that Ukraine needs 12 fresh brigades to break through, comprising three of its own and nine trained and kitted out with western Leopard and other tanks, armoured vehicles and other Nato-standard equipment.
It is not clear if the newly formed storm force, which is tasked to assist the regular army, is part of the brigades required or additional reserves. Although formed by the interior ministry, Klymenko said, the force is under control of the defence ministry once deployed.
Force members are all volunteers, comprising a mixture of raw recruits, police, and some veterans of previous fighting with Russia, although to conduct offensive operations a higher degree of training is generally considered necessary.
Russia is also preparing for the next phase of the war, hoping it can prevent Ukraine from any meaningful breakthrough and consolidate its hold on the swathe of territory it has seized in the east and the south.
The defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said Russian arms companies had been told to rapidly increase the “pace and volume of production” and in particular double the output of high-precision missiles. The success of the invasion depends on “timely replenishment”, he said on state television.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-counterattack
As Ukraine prepares counteroffensive, Russia appears in disarray
Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine CNN —
Ukraine’s much-anticipated counteroffensive appears imminent – and the way each side is preparing speaks volumes about their readiness.
Kyiv’s front lines are abuzz with vehicle movement and artillery strikes, with regular explosions hitting vital Russian targets in occupied areas.
Its defense minister has said preparations are “coming to an end” and President Volodymyr Zelensky has assured a counteroffensive “will happen,” while demurring on any exact start date.
It may have already started; it may be weeks away. We don’t know – and that fact is a strong measure of Ukraine’s success as this begins.
Moscow, on the other hand, is in the closing-time bar brawl stage of their war. After losing Kharkiv and Kherson, they have had at least seven months to ready the next likely target of Ukrainian attack: Zaporizhzhia.
That has happened, with vast trench defense networks that can be seen from space. That recognition of their enormity is not necessarily a compliment in 2023. They are big, yes, but they are also something anyone can peruse on Google. That’s not great in an era of precise rockets and speedy armored advances.
But it’s the last 72 hours that have perhaps most betrayed Russia’s lacking readiness.
First, the apparent firing of the deputy defense minister in charge of logistics, Mikhail Mizintsev. The Russian Ministry of Defense has not spelled out his dismissal, merely issuing a decree that Aleksey Kuzmenkov now has his job.
The “Butcher of Mariupol,” as Mizintsev is known, surely had enough failings over Russia’s disastrous war to merit his firing. But this fails to satisfy the question: Why now?
By removing key ministers in the moments before its army faces Ukraine’s counter-assault, Moscow sends a message of disarray.
And then there’s Yevgeny Prigozhin’s new round of criticism. The Wagner mercenary warlord chose Sunday to give another long interview in which he laid bare the sheer extent of the issues his mercenaries face.
According to the Wagner head, his fighters are so low on ammunition that they may have to withdraw from Bakhmut – the strategically unimportant city they have squandered thousands of lives trying to take.
(A caveat: Prigozhin is not the most trustworthy source, and provides little evidence for what he says. But this sort of public spat isn’t something Moscow would encourage at this sensitive moment).
Russia’s eroding ammunition supplies were long known, but to suggest imminent failure just ahead of the counteroffensive smacks of a major bid to shift blame.
The bottom line is, the hours before Ukraine moves are shrinking. The amount we know about their emotional state, or target, is almost zero. And the extent of Moscow’s internal indecision, rivalries and disunity only grows.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/01/europ...hnk/index.html
