movielover said:
Cal88 said:
Not with Ukraine claiming Crimea and the Donbass, Russia will never stop as long as Ukraine is being armed by NATO with that goal in mind, with a regime driven by a right wing nationalist ideology that is fundamentally hostile to Russia, and very much capable of arming itself with WMDs.
So far around 450,000 Ukrianians have been killed, injured or missing in action, vs somewhere around 50,000-75,000 grand total for the Russian coalition. That`s the real picture that is being hidden.
The outcome is fairly obvious for those who aren`t drinking the MSM koolaid, Russia is winning this war, and they will continue to grind down Ukrainian forces until they reach Ukraine`s breaking point and impose their terms.
The question is, how many more Ukrainians are going to die before that point is reached and the carnage is stopped? 250,000 more? 500,000?
Because at this time next year, that is going to be the new body count if this war isn`t stopped. I hope we never get there.
Zelensky ran on a platform to *not* have a military conflict with Russia. After the initial Russian incursion, peace talks were scheduled. Then Boris Johnson (USA?) put an end to those plans.
There have been references to "weakening" Russia. Why? (Colonel Douglass McGregor's big question.)
Getting unbiased news is difficult. Where do you get your estimates on casualties?
While commuting yesterday I heard one possibly unbiased field report from Solidar. A Ukranian soldier was quoted as saying, "These guys are relentless (Wagner), they keep coming and coming, like orks. They don't stop."
If this statement is true, my guesses are either that it's experienced fighters vs newbies, or Wagner is effectively rotating men.
Another report claimed one Ukrainian hospital receives 100 injured men a day.
MacGregor has access to NATO intel from his former like-minded colleagues in the Pentagon and in NATO, info that is blacked out in the media. He also has real on the ground field combat experience including tank warfare, which most top US military brass don't have, them being mostly political appointees.
The 14+ Ukrainian battalions that were sent to defend Soledar and got severely depleted were mostly made out of fresh Ukrainian conscripts with little experience, going against well-trained and equipped Wagner troops. Ukraine has a severe shortage of lower-level officers with field experience, their armed forces are typically made up with freshly conscripted middle-aged men led by officers in their early 20s fresh out of a sped-up military academy cycle.
Ukraine's main military objective as set by the Zelensky government is to survive and keep the aid/arms pipeline flowing, so they emphasize PR victories that will resonate in the western MSM and keep the narrative going. They try to achieve these tactical victories regardless of the human and equipment costs. They've thrown over 20,000 bodies in a failed attempt to hold on to Solidar because it was going to be a PR loss.
This strategy has resulted in some friction between Ukrainian military leaders (Zaluzhny etc) and the Zelensky government, with Zaluzhny advocating early pullouts in situations that risk become untenable, such as in Mariupol, and now in Soledar/Bakhmut.
Russia's strategy on the other hand is rely on its massive edge in artillery as much as possible, keep the war "contactless" and pound Ukrainian positions from a distance. Every time they've found themselves in a precarious position, outnumbered in a fight, even potentially, they have ceded ground and retreated, trading ground for potential casualties. That's how Russia has managed to keep its casualty figure low.
As long as they have a ~10 to 1 edge in ammunition used, they will stay with this tactic, until the casualty level for Ukraine becomes politically and/or militarily unsustainable.
The Ukrainian war tragedy derives from the combination of these two protagonists' strategies, the Ukrainians are throwing bodies by the tens of thousands in order to achieve PR-driven victories, regardless of their tactical importance (though the reconquest of Kherson and Kharkiv regions are definitely more than PR victories), while the Russians are just happy to sit back and hammer away at Ukrainian positions.
Ukraine is a large enough country that they can sustain hundreds of thousands of casualties, as long as they maintain a tight narrative that resonates in their heartland and in the West. At some point though the losses are going to be unsustainable, though there is no telling if that point is 500,000 casualties or a million. Therein lies the tragedy of this war.
