Russian Ukraine Invasion

[Yazata]

Here's one of the better articles that I've read about the logistics problems of the current Ukraine and Gaza wars.

Excerpts:

The artillery shell shortage of late 1914 sounds like obscure logistical history but there's a reason great generals master logistics...

In Britain the munition shortage lead to an internal political clash historians call The Shell Crisis of 1915. As historian Hew Strachan writes: "In 1914, quick-firing field artillery could fire more shells than domestic industries, geared to peacetime consumption levels, could supply. Armies, although recognizing the dangers, had underestimated them. By late autumn (1914) they were having to limit the number of shells each gun was permitted to fire each day. Industry's conversion to wartime production would not be complete until 1916, and in 1915 the shells crisis had political consequences for most belligerents."...

The NATO Shell Crisis of 2022-2024 began with necessary action followed by good intentions. Ukraine needed support of all types, but the first month of combat told Kiev it needed 155-millimeter artillery pieces and rounds. 155 mm is the NATO standard tube artillery piece. NATO and EU defense officials began "cascading" weapons and rounds from allied reserves and stockpiles — robbing Peter to supply Paul...

As for good intentions, in March the European Defense Agency promised to supply Ukraine with one million rounds of artillery ammunition by March 2024. As of mid-November, only 300,000 rounds have been delivered...

Why are stockpiles running out? In 1914 none of the belligerents got the war they expected. Ammunition expenditure greatly exceeded estimates. In 2022 Russia's blitz invasion failed; 20 months later the war continues. Russia didn't get the war it expected. Nor did the U.S. ...

In a Nov. 16 press conference Zelenskyy told reporters "warehouses are empty" in nations that supply Ukraine with munitions. And since the Israel-Hamas War ignited supplies have "really slowed down."

https://www.creators.com/read/austin-bay...ar-efforts

[Zinjanthropos]

In a Nov. 16 press conference Zelenskyy told reporters "warehouses are empty" in nations that supply Ukraine with munitions. And since the Israel-Hamas War ignited supplies have "really slowed down.".

Ruse? Trying to draw over confident Russians within range? Strange comment to make when enemy listening.

[Yazata]

In a Nov. 16 press conference Zelenskyy told reporters "warehouses are empty" in nations that supply Ukraine with munitions. And since the Israel-Hamas War ignited supplies have "really slowed down.".

Ruse? Trying to draw over confident Russians within range? Strange comment to make when enemy listening.

Russia probably already knows, since I'm sure that their intelligence tracks those things.

And Russia is experiencing similar problems. They might be in a somewhat better situation since it's Russian practice to never scrap military equipment. They just put older obsolescent gear into storage. When the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union broke up, they placed huge amounts of 1980's vintage military arms and ammunition into storage. I expect that includes millions of rounds of artillery ammunition. Word is that they have been breaking lots of it out of forgotten warehouses and sending it to the Ukraine front.

My guess is that Zelensky was trying to exert some pressure on the West: "Hey guys! We need some help here!"

[RainbowUnicorn]

Russias original invasion force of some 300,000 has been completely wiped out
current dead russians is around 320,000(with 1 million wounded)

current rate of russian loses

Russia is losing 22,000 dead per month
3 times that to get wounded = 66,000 wounded per month

that's 88,000 casualty's per month

[Yazata]

Today the Russians appear to have achieved a small victory.

Markinka, like nearby Avdiivka, is a suburb of the large city of Donetsk. While Donetsk has been occupied by pro-Russian separatists since 2014, and was annexed into Russia in 2022, Marinka has been occupied by deeply dug-in Ukrainian army the whole time. Since 2022 the Russians have tried to take it, at great cost and without success. Well, today they appear to have finally pushed the Ukrainians out and occupy the whole town.

A short way to the north, the Ukrainians continue to maintain their grip on Avdiivka, where the Russians have suffered heavy casualties in a back and forth battle to capture it. (The Ukrainians keep their own losses secret but it's believed that they have suffered heavily too.)

It should probably be said that small victories and losses like those in Bakhmut and Marinka don't really change the larger war map much at all. They do consume men and weaponry though, so they play their role in what has become a war of attrition, testing each side's ability to keep fighting despite the losses.

I guess that the idea is that the losses will eventually become too much for one side to sustain, that side will soften and the other side will start making larger advances.

Rybar's version of Marinka.

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[Yazata]

The Ukrainians have answered by striking the Crimean port of Feodosia with either drones or missiles.

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[Yazata]

Over the last month there haven't really been any changes on the map. One side advances 100 meters here, the other side 100 meters there. It isn't much in a country the size of France. It's why the whole Ukraine war has seemingly devolved into something like World War I trench warfare, with both sides fighting like crazy for no gain.

Well today, the Russians achieved another of their tiny victories. They captured an important Ukrainian fortification called Tsarska Ohota at the southern limits of Avdiivka. This was the strongpoint for a whole section of Ukrainian defenses at the southern end on this Donetsk suburb, defenses that appear in danger of being surrounded and apparently are being evacuated, with their defenders pulling back into the streets of the more built up part of Avdiivka.

Of course nobody should read too much into this. The Ukrainians still hold most of Avdiivka and show no sign of withdrawing anytime soon, preferring instead to turn it into another Bakhmut.

Rybar's version:

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This definitely isn't the kind of war that either Russia or NATO expected. Both east and west, generals expected big arrows quickly extending across the entire map at relatively low cost in men or equipment, but what they got was small scale street by street advances at great cost.

[Syne]

While I'm not generally for the US waging a proxy war using the non-NATO Ukraine, you gotta hand it to them. At least they're fighting for their own country, unlike all the Muslim or South American "refugees." I'd bet the ~800,000 illegal border crossings into the US in 2023, made of largely military-aged men, could have made a formidable army.

[stryder]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68046347

About 11pm GMT on Saturday the 20th of January 2024, Ukraine managed to scorch (drone attack) a gas terminal in St Petersberg, Russia.

This of course is a tit-for-tat response in a war of attrition. Knocking out gas/oil reduces how much Russia has to power their war engine both directly as fuel or indirectly as a money maker.

this however would likely have been seen (although marginally) through Russian media and would of likely further insensed people over there in regards to how pointless their special operation war is.

I can only assume what happened next was to move the gas terminals destruction away from the top stories.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68047144

Sunday 21st January 2024, A market in Donetsk is targeted via a strike. Russia is quick to call it a "Barbarastic Terrorist attack" due to the number of civilian dead and wounded. There however is a high likelihood that the attack was perpetrated by Russia itself, as the loss of life, the word of "Terrorist" would and is likely used to gain the media attention (drowning out the loss of their gas terminal)

(Consider the front line is over 50kms away, and if the strike was a mortar attack, it would require those firing to be within 10kms. The timing was also after Ukraine had successfully bloodied the nose of their enemy with their Terminal attack, so they would have had little to achieve attacking civillians as it would of been un-necessary.)

[Yazata]

At this point in the war there is very little change on the Ukraine map. The Ukrainians appear to have given up pretty much all of their offensive operations since the failure of their Spring-Summer offensive, and have gone over to defense. They seem to have given up the fantasy that the arrival of NATO wonder-weapons and training would give their army an invincible advantage that would allow them to slice through the Russians. The reality was that while many Western weapons were superior, the technological advantage wasn't as great as imagined. And however good Western weaponry was, Ukraine never received enough of it to give them the kind of decisive battlefield advantage they longed for. Meanwhile the old-style Russian defensive tactics proved effective at rendering attacks bloody and ineffective.

Talk now is that Kyiv expects a Russian Spring-Summer offensive aimed at taking the portions of Donetsk oblast that Moscow doesn't already control. The Russians are said to be building up forces for that purpose. So the Ukrainians have turned their backs on NATO maneuver warfare doctrines in favor of copying the Russian defensive tactics that gave Kyiv so much grief last year. The Ukrainians are busily digging trenches, putting in tank-traps and planting mine-fields.

In the Avdiivka battle, which is probably the biggest battle happening at the moment, this morning the Russians were advancing past the recently captured Tsarska ohota fortification up Soborna street. The Ukrainians were said to be counterattacking fiercely. But by sunset this evening, the Russians had continued their advance up nearby Sportyvna street and Chernyshevskogo street. East of Tsarska ohota, the Ukrainians had pretty much pulled back out of the pocket that was forming and are working to establish a new defensive line deeper inside Avdiivka.

There's lots of talk on the internet about what's going wrong for Ukraine in Avdiivka. There are supply problems clearly. Apparently the Ukrainian army unit in charge of this sector is the 110th Mechanized Brigade. This unit has been fighting bravely and effectively for a long time without replacement, and is starting to fail. They just can't keep it up forever. It's said to have suffered something like 50% killed and wounded, and the exhausted survivors are becoming less combat effective. The Ukrainian army command is faced with the choice of rotating them out and replacing them with strengthened reinforcements, or else cutting Kyiv's losses and pulling out of Avdiivka entirely, which is politically unacceptable to Zelensky and his people. It's the last bit of the inner Donetsk metropolitan area that Ukraine still controls and it has great emotional value for that reason.

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