This might be a little tougher than Putin thought...
- Thread starter Nole Lou
- Start date
SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — The euphoria that accompanied Ukraine’s unforeseen early victories against bumbling Russian troops is fading as Moscow adapts its tactics, recovers its stride and asserts its overwhelming firepower against heavily outgunned Ukrainian forces.
Newly promised Western weapons systems are arriving, but too slowly and in insufficient quantities to prevent incremental but inexorable Russian gains in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, which is now the focus of the fight.
The Ukrainians are still fighting back, but they are running out of ammunition and suffering casualties at a far higher rate than in the initial stages of the war. Around 200 Ukrainian soldiers are now being killed every day, up from 100 late last month, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky told the BBC on Friday — meaning that as many as 1,000 Ukrainians are being taken out of the fight every day, including those who are injured.
The Russians are still making mistakes and are also losing men and equipment, albeit at a lesser rate than in the first months of the conflict. In one sign that they are suffering equipment shortages, they have been seen on videos posted on social media hauling hundreds of mothballed, Soviet-era T-62 tanks out of storage to be sent to Ukraine.
But the overall trajectory of the war has unmistakably shifted away from one of unexpectedly dismal Russian failures and tilted in favor of Russia as the demonstrably stronger force.
Ukrainian and U.S. hopes that the new supplies of Western weaponry would enable Ukraine to regain the initiative and eventually retake the estimated 20% of Ukrainian territory captured by Russia since its Feb. 24 invasion are starting to look premature, said Oleksandr Danylyuk, an adviser to the Ukrainian government on defense and intelligence issues.
“The strategies and tactics of the Russians are completely different right now. They are being much more successful,” he said. “They have more resources than us and they are not in a rush.”
“There’s much less space for optimism right now,” he added.
Ukrainian forces remain resolute. In a cafe in the front-line town of Slovyansk, two Ukrainian soldiers on a break from the trenches nearby recounted how they were forced to retreat from the town of Dovhenke, northwest of Slovyansk, under withering Russian artillery fire. Thirty-five of their 100-strong unit were killed in the assault, typical of the tactics Russia is using. “They destroy everything and walk in,” said one of the soldiers, Vitaliy Martsyv, 41.
“There is nothing there,” Andriy Tihonenko, 52, said of Dovhenke. “It’s all burned down.”
As troop fatalities mounted, the surviving soldiers felt “more motivated to hold our position,” Tihonenko said. To retreat after their comrades were killed defending the town, he said, would have felt like treating their deaths as insignificant.
But eventually, the defensive line was no longer effective, the two men said. With more than one-third of their force killed, the remaining soldiers had no choice but to pull back.
“Sometimes you feel down,” Tihonenko said. “But then you realize war is war — and you have to finish it.”
But the odds against the Ukrainians are starting to look overwhelming, said Danylyuk, the government adviser.
“The Russians are using long-range artillery against us, often without any response, because we don’t have the means,” he said. “They can attack from dozens of kilometers away and we can’t fire back. We know all the coordinates for all their important targets, but we don’t have the means to attack.”
Ukraine has now almost completely run out of ammunition for the Soviet-era weapons systems that were the mainstay of its arsenal, and the Eastern European countries that maintained the same systems have run out of surplus supplies to donate, Danylyuk said. Ukraine urgently needs to shift to longer-range and more sophisticated Western systems, but those have only recently been committed, and in insufficient quantities to match Russia’s immense firepower, he said.
Russia is firing as many as 50,000 artillery rounds a day into Ukrainian positions, and the Ukrainians can hit back with only around 5,000 to 6,000 rounds a day, he said. The United States has committed to deliver 220,000 rounds of ammunition — enough to match Russian firepower for around four days.
The majority of the American M777 howitzer artillery guns that U.S. officials said would enable Ukraine to match Russian firepower are now in use on the battlefield, according to the Pentagon. Yet the Russians continue to advance.
Four of the more sophisticated and longer-range HIMARS multiple-rocket launcher systems that the Ukrainians had long requested from the United States are on the way, along with three similar systems pledged by Britain. But the Ukrainians will first have to be trained how to use them, and they are still weeks away from reaching the battlefield, U.S. officials say. The Pentagon has hinted that more systems will be made available once the Ukrainians have demonstrated they can be used.
But the Russians started the war with about 900 of their own similar systems, and although the Ukrainians claim they have destroyed hundreds, the Russians still have hundreds left, Danylyuk said.
The Russians have meanwhile adapted their tactics in ways that have let them take full advantage of their firepower by remaining at a distance from Ukrainian positions, pounding them relentlessly, then taking territory once the Ukrainians have been forced to retreat.
The Russians are also doing a better job of combining their arms, using close air support and deploying dismounted infantry, said Rob Lee, a former U.S. Marine now with the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Russian officials have claimed they are advancing more slowly than during the initial invasion to avoid civilian casualties. Instead, however, the tactic helps reduce Russian casualties while inflicting heavy losses on the civilians who live in the towns and villages being targeted, analysts say.
“I’m afraid of every single boom or sound,” Irina Makagon said as she sat in her kitchen in Kostiantynivka, a town near the front line that has suffered intense bombardments. She was sitting in her kitchen earlier this week when a boom and a whistle heralded an incoming shell that crashed into the house next door, killing a young man.
The Ukrainians are still fighting well and can inflict tactical pain on the Russians when the opportunity presents itself, said Dmitri Alperovitch of the Silverado Consultancy, citing Russia’s disastrous attempt late last month to cross the Siverskiy Donets river — hundreds of Russians were killed and scores of military vehicles were destroyed. The Ukrainians are also conducting successful drone strikes against Russian positions and supply columns, he said.
Russia has not released casualty figures since March. “But when you look at what’s happening, I’d be shocked if the Russians are sustaining casualties anywhere close to what the Ukrainians are right now,” Alperovitch said.
Manpower is less of a problem for the Ukrainians than the shortages of ammunition and equipment, said Danylyuk, who put the number of men who have signed up to potentially fight at 6 million. But Ukraine doesn’t have the equipment, including protective gear and guns as well as artillery systems, to field all those willing to volunteer. “We would be sending them to their deaths without equipment,” he said.
The Russians face manpower shortages, too, after the heavy losses they suffered in the earliest days of the war. Western officials put the number of Russian deaths at 15,000 to 20,000 so far, with as many as a third of the original invasion force rendered unfit for combat because of injuries, capture and equipment losses after the first two months.
But Russia has regenerated its forces to a greater extent than anticipated by many military analysts, bolstering its depleted army by as many as 40,000 to 50,000 men over the past two months, by increasing the age of the reserve force, deploying new forces and refurbishing units that had been decimated, Danylyuk said.
For now, the Donetsk River stands in the way of significant new Russian advances. Western officials say they expect that Russian troops will soon secure full control of the town of Severedonetsk and then are likely to turn their attention to the town of Lysyshansk, on the opposite bank of the river, which would put them in full control of the region of Luhansk. After that, they can be expected to target the larger region of Donetsk that Russia has partially controlled since 2014.
Lysyshansk will be a tougher challenge because the Ukrainians control the high ground and the Russians’ artillery strength is less of an advantage in close urban combat, said Konrad Muzyka, director of the Warsaw-based Rochan Consulting defense consultancy. Russia may find it difficult to sustain its recent gains for much beyond that, given the losses it has suffered so far, he said.
But if the Russians manage to breach the river, they could start to make rapid advances, he said.
“The Ukrainians are resting their defense on the Donetsk river,” Muzyka said. “If Russia successfully crosses the river, my concern is that the Russians will enter Donetsk with their full might, and then the Ukrainians might be overwhelmed.”
www.stripes.com
Newly promised Western weapons systems are arriving, but too slowly and in insufficient quantities to prevent incremental but inexorable Russian gains in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, which is now the focus of the fight.
The Ukrainians are still fighting back, but they are running out of ammunition and suffering casualties at a far higher rate than in the initial stages of the war. Around 200 Ukrainian soldiers are now being killed every day, up from 100 late last month, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky told the BBC on Friday — meaning that as many as 1,000 Ukrainians are being taken out of the fight every day, including those who are injured.
The Russians are still making mistakes and are also losing men and equipment, albeit at a lesser rate than in the first months of the conflict. In one sign that they are suffering equipment shortages, they have been seen on videos posted on social media hauling hundreds of mothballed, Soviet-era T-62 tanks out of storage to be sent to Ukraine.
But the overall trajectory of the war has unmistakably shifted away from one of unexpectedly dismal Russian failures and tilted in favor of Russia as the demonstrably stronger force.
Ukrainian and U.S. hopes that the new supplies of Western weaponry would enable Ukraine to regain the initiative and eventually retake the estimated 20% of Ukrainian territory captured by Russia since its Feb. 24 invasion are starting to look premature, said Oleksandr Danylyuk, an adviser to the Ukrainian government on defense and intelligence issues.
“The strategies and tactics of the Russians are completely different right now. They are being much more successful,” he said. “They have more resources than us and they are not in a rush.”
“There’s much less space for optimism right now,” he added.
Ukrainian forces remain resolute. In a cafe in the front-line town of Slovyansk, two Ukrainian soldiers on a break from the trenches nearby recounted how they were forced to retreat from the town of Dovhenke, northwest of Slovyansk, under withering Russian artillery fire. Thirty-five of their 100-strong unit were killed in the assault, typical of the tactics Russia is using. “They destroy everything and walk in,” said one of the soldiers, Vitaliy Martsyv, 41.
“There is nothing there,” Andriy Tihonenko, 52, said of Dovhenke. “It’s all burned down.”
As troop fatalities mounted, the surviving soldiers felt “more motivated to hold our position,” Tihonenko said. To retreat after their comrades were killed defending the town, he said, would have felt like treating their deaths as insignificant.
But eventually, the defensive line was no longer effective, the two men said. With more than one-third of their force killed, the remaining soldiers had no choice but to pull back.
“Sometimes you feel down,” Tihonenko said. “But then you realize war is war — and you have to finish it.”
But the odds against the Ukrainians are starting to look overwhelming, said Danylyuk, the government adviser.
“The Russians are using long-range artillery against us, often without any response, because we don’t have the means,” he said. “They can attack from dozens of kilometers away and we can’t fire back. We know all the coordinates for all their important targets, but we don’t have the means to attack.”
Ukraine has now almost completely run out of ammunition for the Soviet-era weapons systems that were the mainstay of its arsenal, and the Eastern European countries that maintained the same systems have run out of surplus supplies to donate, Danylyuk said. Ukraine urgently needs to shift to longer-range and more sophisticated Western systems, but those have only recently been committed, and in insufficient quantities to match Russia’s immense firepower, he said.
Russia is firing as many as 50,000 artillery rounds a day into Ukrainian positions, and the Ukrainians can hit back with only around 5,000 to 6,000 rounds a day, he said. The United States has committed to deliver 220,000 rounds of ammunition — enough to match Russian firepower for around four days.
The majority of the American M777 howitzer artillery guns that U.S. officials said would enable Ukraine to match Russian firepower are now in use on the battlefield, according to the Pentagon. Yet the Russians continue to advance.
Four of the more sophisticated and longer-range HIMARS multiple-rocket launcher systems that the Ukrainians had long requested from the United States are on the way, along with three similar systems pledged by Britain. But the Ukrainians will first have to be trained how to use them, and they are still weeks away from reaching the battlefield, U.S. officials say. The Pentagon has hinted that more systems will be made available once the Ukrainians have demonstrated they can be used.
But the Russians started the war with about 900 of their own similar systems, and although the Ukrainians claim they have destroyed hundreds, the Russians still have hundreds left, Danylyuk said.
The Russians have meanwhile adapted their tactics in ways that have let them take full advantage of their firepower by remaining at a distance from Ukrainian positions, pounding them relentlessly, then taking territory once the Ukrainians have been forced to retreat.
The Russians are also doing a better job of combining their arms, using close air support and deploying dismounted infantry, said Rob Lee, a former U.S. Marine now with the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Russian officials have claimed they are advancing more slowly than during the initial invasion to avoid civilian casualties. Instead, however, the tactic helps reduce Russian casualties while inflicting heavy losses on the civilians who live in the towns and villages being targeted, analysts say.
“I’m afraid of every single boom or sound,” Irina Makagon said as she sat in her kitchen in Kostiantynivka, a town near the front line that has suffered intense bombardments. She was sitting in her kitchen earlier this week when a boom and a whistle heralded an incoming shell that crashed into the house next door, killing a young man.
The Ukrainians are still fighting well and can inflict tactical pain on the Russians when the opportunity presents itself, said Dmitri Alperovitch of the Silverado Consultancy, citing Russia’s disastrous attempt late last month to cross the Siverskiy Donets river — hundreds of Russians were killed and scores of military vehicles were destroyed. The Ukrainians are also conducting successful drone strikes against Russian positions and supply columns, he said.
Russia has not released casualty figures since March. “But when you look at what’s happening, I’d be shocked if the Russians are sustaining casualties anywhere close to what the Ukrainians are right now,” Alperovitch said.
Manpower is less of a problem for the Ukrainians than the shortages of ammunition and equipment, said Danylyuk, who put the number of men who have signed up to potentially fight at 6 million. But Ukraine doesn’t have the equipment, including protective gear and guns as well as artillery systems, to field all those willing to volunteer. “We would be sending them to their deaths without equipment,” he said.
The Russians face manpower shortages, too, after the heavy losses they suffered in the earliest days of the war. Western officials put the number of Russian deaths at 15,000 to 20,000 so far, with as many as a third of the original invasion force rendered unfit for combat because of injuries, capture and equipment losses after the first two months.
But Russia has regenerated its forces to a greater extent than anticipated by many military analysts, bolstering its depleted army by as many as 40,000 to 50,000 men over the past two months, by increasing the age of the reserve force, deploying new forces and refurbishing units that had been decimated, Danylyuk said.
For now, the Donetsk River stands in the way of significant new Russian advances. Western officials say they expect that Russian troops will soon secure full control of the town of Severedonetsk and then are likely to turn their attention to the town of Lysyshansk, on the opposite bank of the river, which would put them in full control of the region of Luhansk. After that, they can be expected to target the larger region of Donetsk that Russia has partially controlled since 2014.
Lysyshansk will be a tougher challenge because the Ukrainians control the high ground and the Russians’ artillery strength is less of an advantage in close urban combat, said Konrad Muzyka, director of the Warsaw-based Rochan Consulting defense consultancy. Russia may find it difficult to sustain its recent gains for much beyond that, given the losses it has suffered so far, he said.
But if the Russians manage to breach the river, they could start to make rapid advances, he said.
“The Ukrainians are resting their defense on the Donetsk river,” Muzyka said. “If Russia successfully crosses the river, my concern is that the Russians will enter Donetsk with their full might, and then the Ukrainians might be overwhelmed.”
Ukraine is running out of ammunition as prospects dim on the battlefield
The euphoria that accompanied Ukraine’s unforeseen early victories against bumbling Russian troops is fading as Moscow adapts its tactics, recovers its stride and asserts its overwhelming firepower against heavily outgunned Ukrainian forces.
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Running low of some old Soviet ammo. Transition is underway. HIMARS is going to have a huge impact on Russian artillery.SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — The euphoria that accompanied Ukraine’s unforeseen early victories against bumbling Russian troops is fading as Moscow adapts its tactics, recovers its stride and asserts its overwhelming firepower against heavily outgunned Ukrainian forces.
Newly promised Western weapons systems are arriving, but too slowly and in insufficient quantities to prevent incremental but inexorable Russian gains in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, which is now the focus of the fight.
The Ukrainians are still fighting back, but they are running out of ammunition and suffering casualties at a far higher rate than in the initial stages of the war. Around 200 Ukrainian soldiers are now being killed every day, up from 100 late last month, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky told the BBC on Friday — meaning that as many as 1,000 Ukrainians are being taken out of the fight every day, including those who are injured.
The Russians are still making mistakes and are also losing men and equipment, albeit at a lesser rate than in the first months of the conflict. In one sign that they are suffering equipment shortages, they have been seen on videos posted on social media hauling hundreds of mothballed, Soviet-era T-62 tanks out of storage to be sent to Ukraine.
But the overall trajectory of the war has unmistakably shifted away from one of unexpectedly dismal Russian failures and tilted in favor of Russia as the demonstrably stronger force.
Ukrainian and U.S. hopes that the new supplies of Western weaponry would enable Ukraine to regain the initiative and eventually retake the estimated 20% of Ukrainian territory captured by Russia since its Feb. 24 invasion are starting to look premature, said Oleksandr Danylyuk, an adviser to the Ukrainian government on defense and intelligence issues.
“The strategies and tactics of the Russians are completely different right now. They are being much more successful,” he said. “They have more resources than us and they are not in a rush.”
“There’s much less space for optimism right now,” he added.
Ukrainian forces remain resolute. In a cafe in the front-line town of Slovyansk, two Ukrainian soldiers on a break from the trenches nearby recounted how they were forced to retreat from the town of Dovhenke, northwest of Slovyansk, under withering Russian artillery fire. Thirty-five of their 100-strong unit were killed in the assault, typical of the tactics Russia is using. “They destroy everything and walk in,” said one of the soldiers, Vitaliy Martsyv, 41.
“There is nothing there,” Andriy Tihonenko, 52, said of Dovhenke. “It’s all burned down.”
As troop fatalities mounted, the surviving soldiers felt “more motivated to hold our position,” Tihonenko said. To retreat after their comrades were killed defending the town, he said, would have felt like treating their deaths as insignificant.
But eventually, the defensive line was no longer effective, the two men said. With more than one-third of their force killed, the remaining soldiers had no choice but to pull back.
“Sometimes you feel down,” Tihonenko said. “But then you realize war is war — and you have to finish it.”
But the odds against the Ukrainians are starting to look overwhelming, said Danylyuk, the government adviser.
“The Russians are using long-range artillery against us, often without any response, because we don’t have the means,” he said. “They can attack from dozens of kilometers away and we can’t fire back. We know all the coordinates for all their important targets, but we don’t have the means to attack.”
Ukraine has now almost completely run out of ammunition for the Soviet-era weapons systems that were the mainstay of its arsenal, and the Eastern European countries that maintained the same systems have run out of surplus supplies to donate, Danylyuk said. Ukraine urgently needs to shift to longer-range and more sophisticated Western systems, but those have only recently been committed, and in insufficient quantities to match Russia’s immense firepower, he said.
Russia is firing as many as 50,000 artillery rounds a day into Ukrainian positions, and the Ukrainians can hit back with only around 5,000 to 6,000 rounds a day, he said. The United States has committed to deliver 220,000 rounds of ammunition — enough to match Russian firepower for around four days.
The majority of the American M777 howitzer artillery guns that U.S. officials said would enable Ukraine to match Russian firepower are now in use on the battlefield, according to the Pentagon. Yet the Russians continue to advance.
Four of the more sophisticated and longer-range HIMARS multiple-rocket launcher systems that the Ukrainians had long requested from the United States are on the way, along with three similar systems pledged by Britain. But the Ukrainians will first have to be trained how to use them, and they are still weeks away from reaching the battlefield, U.S. officials say. The Pentagon has hinted that more systems will be made available once the Ukrainians have demonstrated they can be used.
But the Russians started the war with about 900 of their own similar systems, and although the Ukrainians claim they have destroyed hundreds, the Russians still have hundreds left, Danylyuk said.
The Russians have meanwhile adapted their tactics in ways that have let them take full advantage of their firepower by remaining at a distance from Ukrainian positions, pounding them relentlessly, then taking territory once the Ukrainians have been forced to retreat.
The Russians are also doing a better job of combining their arms, using close air support and deploying dismounted infantry, said Rob Lee, a former U.S. Marine now with the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Russian officials have claimed they are advancing more slowly than during the initial invasion to avoid civilian casualties. Instead, however, the tactic helps reduce Russian casualties while inflicting heavy losses on the civilians who live in the towns and villages being targeted, analysts say.
“I’m afraid of every single boom or sound,” Irina Makagon said as she sat in her kitchen in Kostiantynivka, a town near the front line that has suffered intense bombardments. She was sitting in her kitchen earlier this week when a boom and a whistle heralded an incoming shell that crashed into the house next door, killing a young man.
The Ukrainians are still fighting well and can inflict tactical pain on the Russians when the opportunity presents itself, said Dmitri Alperovitch of the Silverado Consultancy, citing Russia’s disastrous attempt late last month to cross the Siverskiy Donets river — hundreds of Russians were killed and scores of military vehicles were destroyed. The Ukrainians are also conducting successful drone strikes against Russian positions and supply columns, he said.
Russia has not released casualty figures since March. “But when you look at what’s happening, I’d be shocked if the Russians are sustaining casualties anywhere close to what the Ukrainians are right now,” Alperovitch said.
Manpower is less of a problem for the Ukrainians than the shortages of ammunition and equipment, said Danylyuk, who put the number of men who have signed up to potentially fight at 6 million. But Ukraine doesn’t have the equipment, including protective gear and guns as well as artillery systems, to field all those willing to volunteer. “We would be sending them to their deaths without equipment,” he said.
The Russians face manpower shortages, too, after the heavy losses they suffered in the earliest days of the war. Western officials put the number of Russian deaths at 15,000 to 20,000 so far, with as many as a third of the original invasion force rendered unfit for combat because of injuries, capture and equipment losses after the first two months.
But Russia has regenerated its forces to a greater extent than anticipated by many military analysts, bolstering its depleted army by as many as 40,000 to 50,000 men over the past two months, by increasing the age of the reserve force, deploying new forces and refurbishing units that had been decimated, Danylyuk said.
For now, the Donetsk River stands in the way of significant new Russian advances. Western officials say they expect that Russian troops will soon secure full control of the town of Severedonetsk and then are likely to turn their attention to the town of Lysyshansk, on the opposite bank of the river, which would put them in full control of the region of Luhansk. After that, they can be expected to target the larger region of Donetsk that Russia has partially controlled since 2014.
Lysyshansk will be a tougher challenge because the Ukrainians control the high ground and the Russians’ artillery strength is less of an advantage in close urban combat, said Konrad Muzyka, director of the Warsaw-based Rochan Consulting defense consultancy. Russia may find it difficult to sustain its recent gains for much beyond that, given the losses it has suffered so far, he said.
But if the Russians manage to breach the river, they could start to make rapid advances, he said.
“The Ukrainians are resting their defense on the Donetsk river,” Muzyka said. “If Russia successfully crosses the river, my concern is that the Russians will enter Donetsk with their full might, and then the Ukrainians might be overwhelmed.”
Ukraine is running out of ammunition as prospects dim on the battlefield
The euphoria that accompanied Ukraine’s unforeseen early victories against bumbling Russian troops is fading as Moscow adapts its tactics, recovers its stride and asserts its overwhelming firepower against heavily outgunned Ukrainian forces.
I'm sure if all was lost we wouldn't be pumping more weapons into Ukraine.
Hard to believe Russia is "much more successful" now. If you look at a map, they are still progressing at a snail's pace in the northeast. They're actually losing some in the south.
Russian culmination in the east is coming soon. Relax.
The stark contrast between this assessment from Stars and Stripes along with the BBC ect sure as heck doesn’t jive with the Twitter feeds used as the primary sourcing in this thread.SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — The euphoria that accompanied Ukraine’s unforeseen early victories against bumbling Russian troops is fading as Moscow adapts its tactics, recovers its stride and asserts its overwhelming firepower against heavily outgunned Ukrainian forces.
Newly promised Western weapons systems are arriving, but too slowly and in insufficient quantities to prevent incremental but inexorable Russian gains in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, which is now the focus of the fight.
The Ukrainians are still fighting back, but they are running out of ammunition and suffering casualties at a far higher rate than in the initial stages of the war. Around 200 Ukrainian soldiers are now being killed every day, up from 100 late last month, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky told the BBC on Friday — meaning that as many as 1,000 Ukrainians are being taken out of the fight every day, including those who are injured.
The Russians are still making mistakes and are also losing men and equipment, albeit at a lesser rate than in the first months of the conflict. In one sign that they are suffering equipment shortages, they have been seen on videos posted on social media hauling hundreds of mothballed, Soviet-era T-62 tanks out of storage to be sent to Ukraine.
But the overall trajectory of the war has unmistakably shifted away from one of unexpectedly dismal Russian failures and tilted in favor of Russia as the demonstrably stronger force.
Ukrainian and U.S. hopes that the new supplies of Western weaponry would enable Ukraine to regain the initiative and eventually retake the estimated 20% of Ukrainian territory captured by Russia since its Feb. 24 invasion are starting to look premature, said Oleksandr Danylyuk, an adviser to the Ukrainian government on defense and intelligence issues.
“The strategies and tactics of the Russians are completely different right now. They are being much more successful,” he said. “They have more resources than us and they are not in a rush.”
“There’s much less space for optimism right now,” he added.
Ukrainian forces remain resolute. In a cafe in the front-line town of Slovyansk, two Ukrainian soldiers on a break from the trenches nearby recounted how they were forced to retreat from the town of Dovhenke, northwest of Slovyansk, under withering Russian artillery fire. Thirty-five of their 100-strong unit were killed in the assault, typical of the tactics Russia is using. “They destroy everything and walk in,” said one of the soldiers, Vitaliy Martsyv, 41.
“There is nothing there,” Andriy Tihonenko, 52, said of Dovhenke. “It’s all burned down.”
As troop fatalities mounted, the surviving soldiers felt “more motivated to hold our position,” Tihonenko said. To retreat after their comrades were killed defending the town, he said, would have felt like treating their deaths as insignificant.
But eventually, the defensive line was no longer effective, the two men said. With more than one-third of their force killed, the remaining soldiers had no choice but to pull back.
“Sometimes you feel down,” Tihonenko said. “But then you realize war is war — and you have to finish it.”
But the odds against the Ukrainians are starting to look overwhelming, said Danylyuk, the government adviser.
“The Russians are using long-range artillery against us, often without any response, because we don’t have the means,” he said. “They can attack from dozens of kilometers away and we can’t fire back. We know all the coordinates for all their important targets, but we don’t have the means to attack.”
Ukraine has now almost completely run out of ammunition for the Soviet-era weapons systems that were the mainstay of its arsenal, and the Eastern European countries that maintained the same systems have run out of surplus supplies to donate, Danylyuk said. Ukraine urgently needs to shift to longer-range and more sophisticated Western systems, but those have only recently been committed, and in insufficient quantities to match Russia’s immense firepower, he said.
Russia is firing as many as 50,000 artillery rounds a day into Ukrainian positions, and the Ukrainians can hit back with only around 5,000 to 6,000 rounds a day, he said. The United States has committed to deliver 220,000 rounds of ammunition — enough to match Russian firepower for around four days.
The majority of the American M777 howitzer artillery guns that U.S. officials said would enable Ukraine to match Russian firepower are now in use on the battlefield, according to the Pentagon. Yet the Russians continue to advance.
Four of the more sophisticated and longer-range HIMARS multiple-rocket launcher systems that the Ukrainians had long requested from the United States are on the way, along with three similar systems pledged by Britain. But the Ukrainians will first have to be trained how to use them, and they are still weeks away from reaching the battlefield, U.S. officials say. The Pentagon has hinted that more systems will be made available once the Ukrainians have demonstrated they can be used.
But the Russians started the war with about 900 of their own similar systems, and although the Ukrainians claim they have destroyed hundreds, the Russians still have hundreds left, Danylyuk said.
The Russians have meanwhile adapted their tactics in ways that have let them take full advantage of their firepower by remaining at a distance from Ukrainian positions, pounding them relentlessly, then taking territory once the Ukrainians have been forced to retreat.
The Russians are also doing a better job of combining their arms, using close air support and deploying dismounted infantry, said Rob Lee, a former U.S. Marine now with the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Russian officials have claimed they are advancing more slowly than during the initial invasion to avoid civilian casualties. Instead, however, the tactic helps reduce Russian casualties while inflicting heavy losses on the civilians who live in the towns and villages being targeted, analysts say.
“I’m afraid of every single boom or sound,” Irina Makagon said as she sat in her kitchen in Kostiantynivka, a town near the front line that has suffered intense bombardments. She was sitting in her kitchen earlier this week when a boom and a whistle heralded an incoming shell that crashed into the house next door, killing a young man.
The Ukrainians are still fighting well and can inflict tactical pain on the Russians when the opportunity presents itself, said Dmitri Alperovitch of the Silverado Consultancy, citing Russia’s disastrous attempt late last month to cross the Siverskiy Donets river — hundreds of Russians were killed and scores of military vehicles were destroyed. The Ukrainians are also conducting successful drone strikes against Russian positions and supply columns, he said.
Russia has not released casualty figures since March. “But when you look at what’s happening, I’d be shocked if the Russians are sustaining casualties anywhere close to what the Ukrainians are right now,” Alperovitch said.
Manpower is less of a problem for the Ukrainians than the shortages of ammunition and equipment, said Danylyuk, who put the number of men who have signed up to potentially fight at 6 million. But Ukraine doesn’t have the equipment, including protective gear and guns as well as artillery systems, to field all those willing to volunteer. “We would be sending them to their deaths without equipment,” he said.
The Russians face manpower shortages, too, after the heavy losses they suffered in the earliest days of the war. Western officials put the number of Russian deaths at 15,000 to 20,000 so far, with as many as a third of the original invasion force rendered unfit for combat because of injuries, capture and equipment losses after the first two months.
But Russia has regenerated its forces to a greater extent than anticipated by many military analysts, bolstering its depleted army by as many as 40,000 to 50,000 men over the past two months, by increasing the age of the reserve force, deploying new forces and refurbishing units that had been decimated, Danylyuk said.
For now, the Donetsk River stands in the way of significant new Russian advances. Western officials say they expect that Russian troops will soon secure full control of the town of Severedonetsk and then are likely to turn their attention to the town of Lysyshansk, on the opposite bank of the river, which would put them in full control of the region of Luhansk. After that, they can be expected to target the larger region of Donetsk that Russia has partially controlled since 2014.
Lysyshansk will be a tougher challenge because the Ukrainians control the high ground and the Russians’ artillery strength is less of an advantage in close urban combat, said Konrad Muzyka, director of the Warsaw-based Rochan Consulting defense consultancy. Russia may find it difficult to sustain its recent gains for much beyond that, given the losses it has suffered so far, he said.
But if the Russians manage to breach the river, they could start to make rapid advances, he said.
“The Ukrainians are resting their defense on the Donetsk river,” Muzyka said. “If Russia successfully crosses the river, my concern is that the Russians will enter Donetsk with their full might, and then the Ukrainians might be overwhelmed.”
Ukraine is running out of ammunition as prospects dim on the battlefield
The euphoria that accompanied Ukraine’s unforeseen early victories against bumbling Russian troops is fading as Moscow adapts its tactics, recovers its stride and asserts its overwhelming firepower against heavily outgunned Ukrainian forces.
Problem with that is the Ukrainians are burning through the Western munitions basically as fast as they come in. Ukraine is going to need a reprieve to basically build up stockpiles to support offensive operations.
As the Star and Stripes article illustrates….Ukraine is in a tough spot
Perhaps that's because they don't have the majority in either Senate or House?
Keep in mind the thread title as to why the posts are being made in the way they are. I don't see nor should anyone for that matter see this thread as objective.
If ‘all was lost’, how long before this admin realized or acknowledged it?
Their track record in this regard isn’t stellar.
I’m not a diplomat or a general but I could clearly see that back in March/April was the crucial window to destroy the Russian menace once and for all. For all of Russia’s faults, they have a large standing army with lots of firepower and historically they’ve shown the willingness to absorb those losses, learn as they go and eventually overwhelm the opposition. They did it in WW2.
The political leaders of the civilized western world have shown their ignorance and lack of foresight with their foot dragging and prioritizing the short term over the long term
The political leaders of the civilized western world have shown their ignorance and lack of foresight with their foot dragging and prioritizing the short term over the long term
An Iowa high school student is making medical kits and shipping them to Ukraine. Read the article and donate if you are so moved.
https://www.kcrg.com/2022/06/10/ple...udent-raises-money-send-medical-kits-ukraine/
https://www.kcrg.com/2022/06/10/ple...udent-raises-money-send-medical-kits-ukraine/
FFS...The major reason Ukraine has a chance here is because of the WH and the Pentagon.If ‘all was lost’, how long before this admin realized or acknowledged it?
Their track record in this regard isn’t stellar.
You can criticize Biden for many things, the handling of the war against Russia is not one of them.
They have had issues crossing rivers, and they haven't advanced anywhere rapidly.SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — The euphoria that accompanied Ukraine’s unforeseen early victories against bumbling Russian troops is fading as Moscow adapts its tactics, recovers its stride and asserts its overwhelming firepower against heavily outgunned Ukrainian forces.
Newly promised Western weapons systems are arriving, but too slowly and in insufficient quantities to prevent incremental but inexorable Russian gains in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, which is now the focus of the fight.
The Ukrainians are still fighting back, but they are running out of ammunition and suffering casualties at a far higher rate than in the initial stages of the war. Around 200 Ukrainian soldiers are now being killed every day, up from 100 late last month, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky told the BBC on Friday — meaning that as many as 1,000 Ukrainians are being taken out of the fight every day, including those who are injured.
The Russians are still making mistakes and are also losing men and equipment, albeit at a lesser rate than in the first months of the conflict. In one sign that they are suffering equipment shortages, they have been seen on videos posted on social media hauling hundreds of mothballed, Soviet-era T-62 tanks out of storage to be sent to Ukraine.
But the overall trajectory of the war has unmistakably shifted away from one of unexpectedly dismal Russian failures and tilted in favor of Russia as the demonstrably stronger force.
Ukrainian and U.S. hopes that the new supplies of Western weaponry would enable Ukraine to regain the initiative and eventually retake the estimated 20% of Ukrainian territory captured by Russia since its Feb. 24 invasion are starting to look premature, said Oleksandr Danylyuk, an adviser to the Ukrainian government on defense and intelligence issues.
“The strategies and tactics of the Russians are completely different right now. They are being much more successful,” he said. “They have more resources than us and they are not in a rush.”
“There’s much less space for optimism right now,” he added.
Ukrainian forces remain resolute. In a cafe in the front-line town of Slovyansk, two Ukrainian soldiers on a break from the trenches nearby recounted how they were forced to retreat from the town of Dovhenke, northwest of Slovyansk, under withering Russian artillery fire. Thirty-five of their 100-strong unit were killed in the assault, typical of the tactics Russia is using. “They destroy everything and walk in,” said one of the soldiers, Vitaliy Martsyv, 41.
“There is nothing there,” Andriy Tihonenko, 52, said of Dovhenke. “It’s all burned down.”
As troop fatalities mounted, the surviving soldiers felt “more motivated to hold our position,” Tihonenko said. To retreat after their comrades were killed defending the town, he said, would have felt like treating their deaths as insignificant.
But eventually, the defensive line was no longer effective, the two men said. With more than one-third of their force killed, the remaining soldiers had no choice but to pull back.
“Sometimes you feel down,” Tihonenko said. “But then you realize war is war — and you have to finish it.”
But the odds against the Ukrainians are starting to look overwhelming, said Danylyuk, the government adviser.
“The Russians are using long-range artillery against us, often without any response, because we don’t have the means,” he said. “They can attack from dozens of kilometers away and we can’t fire back. We know all the coordinates for all their important targets, but we don’t have the means to attack.”
Ukraine has now almost completely run out of ammunition for the Soviet-era weapons systems that were the mainstay of its arsenal, and the Eastern European countries that maintained the same systems have run out of surplus supplies to donate, Danylyuk said. Ukraine urgently needs to shift to longer-range and more sophisticated Western systems, but those have only recently been committed, and in insufficient quantities to match Russia’s immense firepower, he said.
Russia is firing as many as 50,000 artillery rounds a day into Ukrainian positions, and the Ukrainians can hit back with only around 5,000 to 6,000 rounds a day, he said. The United States has committed to deliver 220,000 rounds of ammunition — enough to match Russian firepower for around four days.
The majority of the American M777 howitzer artillery guns that U.S. officials said would enable Ukraine to match Russian firepower are now in use on the battlefield, according to the Pentagon. Yet the Russians continue to advance.
Four of the more sophisticated and longer-range HIMARS multiple-rocket launcher systems that the Ukrainians had long requested from the United States are on the way, along with three similar systems pledged by Britain. But the Ukrainians will first have to be trained how to use them, and they are still weeks away from reaching the battlefield, U.S. officials say. The Pentagon has hinted that more systems will be made available once the Ukrainians have demonstrated they can be used.
But the Russians started the war with about 900 of their own similar systems, and although the Ukrainians claim they have destroyed hundreds, the Russians still have hundreds left, Danylyuk said.
The Russians have meanwhile adapted their tactics in ways that have let them take full advantage of their firepower by remaining at a distance from Ukrainian positions, pounding them relentlessly, then taking territory once the Ukrainians have been forced to retreat.
The Russians are also doing a better job of combining their arms, using close air support and deploying dismounted infantry, said Rob Lee, a former U.S. Marine now with the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Russian officials have claimed they are advancing more slowly than during the initial invasion to avoid civilian casualties. Instead, however, the tactic helps reduce Russian casualties while inflicting heavy losses on the civilians who live in the towns and villages being targeted, analysts say.
“I’m afraid of every single boom or sound,” Irina Makagon said as she sat in her kitchen in Kostiantynivka, a town near the front line that has suffered intense bombardments. She was sitting in her kitchen earlier this week when a boom and a whistle heralded an incoming shell that crashed into the house next door, killing a young man.
The Ukrainians are still fighting well and can inflict tactical pain on the Russians when the opportunity presents itself, said Dmitri Alperovitch of the Silverado Consultancy, citing Russia’s disastrous attempt late last month to cross the Siverskiy Donets river — hundreds of Russians were killed and scores of military vehicles were destroyed. The Ukrainians are also conducting successful drone strikes against Russian positions and supply columns, he said.
Russia has not released casualty figures since March. “But when you look at what’s happening, I’d be shocked if the Russians are sustaining casualties anywhere close to what the Ukrainians are right now,” Alperovitch said.
Manpower is less of a problem for the Ukrainians than the shortages of ammunition and equipment, said Danylyuk, who put the number of men who have signed up to potentially fight at 6 million. But Ukraine doesn’t have the equipment, including protective gear and guns as well as artillery systems, to field all those willing to volunteer. “We would be sending them to their deaths without equipment,” he said.
The Russians face manpower shortages, too, after the heavy losses they suffered in the earliest days of the war. Western officials put the number of Russian deaths at 15,000 to 20,000 so far, with as many as a third of the original invasion force rendered unfit for combat because of injuries, capture and equipment losses after the first two months.
But Russia has regenerated its forces to a greater extent than anticipated by many military analysts, bolstering its depleted army by as many as 40,000 to 50,000 men over the past two months, by increasing the age of the reserve force, deploying new forces and refurbishing units that had been decimated, Danylyuk said.
For now, the Donetsk River stands in the way of significant new Russian advances. Western officials say they expect that Russian troops will soon secure full control of the town of Severedonetsk and then are likely to turn their attention to the town of Lysyshansk, on the opposite bank of the river, which would put them in full control of the region of Luhansk. After that, they can be expected to target the larger region of Donetsk that Russia has partially controlled since 2014.
Lysyshansk will be a tougher challenge because the Ukrainians control the high ground and the Russians’ artillery strength is less of an advantage in close urban combat, said Konrad Muzyka, director of the Warsaw-based Rochan Consulting defense consultancy. Russia may find it difficult to sustain its recent gains for much beyond that, given the losses it has suffered so far, he said.
But if the Russians manage to breach the river, they could start to make rapid advances, he said.
“The Ukrainians are resting their defense on the Donetsk river,” Muzyka said. “If Russia successfully crosses the river, my concern is that the Russians will enter Donetsk with their full might, and then the Ukrainians might be overwhelmed.”
Ukraine is running out of ammunition as prospects dim on the battlefield
The euphoria that accompanied Ukraine’s unforeseen early victories against bumbling Russian troops is fading as Moscow adapts its tactics, recovers its stride and asserts its overwhelming firepower against heavily outgunned Ukrainian forces.
I contend public pushing that Ukraine would be in NATO when Zelensky was told behind closed doors it wasn’t going to happen was a miscalculation.
Unless the neocons wanted this response from Russia, it doesn’t make any sense to me.
I’d say anyone reading through this would get a reasonable idea of how things are going. The many pro Ukrainian tweets have told us plenty of things(like the failed river crossings and boat sinkings) days before more mainstream media outlets reported them. For anyone following along on here, it’s also pretty clear who the posters are who “support” the Ukrainians, but are foaming at the mouth for pessimistic news to start laying at the Biden administration’s feet. They provide a nice counterbalance throughout.
I mean, it’s ****ing mid June and Russia had to throw its entire army into the fight to finally be having some small and limited gains (that they now have to hold). This thread and the bulk of the tweets about how things have been going have been very accurate
In an unusually bitter condemnation, Russia lashed out at Israel Friday following a pre-dawn strike blamed on Israel at Damascus Airport.
An Israeli satellite intelligence firm published images showing significant damage to the runways, which it said disabled the entire airport.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Friday evening condemned the “vicious practice” of Israeli strikes on civilian infrastructure, which it said were “provocative” and “in violation of the basic norms of international law.”
An Israeli satellite intelligence firm published images showing significant damage to the runways, which it said disabled the entire airport.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Friday evening condemned the “vicious practice” of Israeli strikes on civilian infrastructure, which it said were “provocative” and “in violation of the basic norms of international law.”
Ukraine thought it would be late summer before they would have the forces ready to start taking back territory. I would hold off on their demise at least until then. Whatever Ukraine's losses are as the defender have to be less than Russia's as the attacker. Time is on Ukraine's side.
Read this 🧵. In particular, post #3 addresses the "running out of ammo" stuff (they're not).
Fingers crossed.
"Ukraine advances in advance in Kherson province, attacking 4 points simultaneously."
"Ukraine advances in advance in Kherson province, attacking 4 points simultaneously."
If true I am very happy to be wrong, and very happy that the articles I posted are wrong.
I think this is true. they are running out of Soviet era ammo, which is the bulk of their equipment ,but not western ammo for their new equipment.
Artillery shells only. They have more 155MM now then they had 152MM on 23 February.
I don’t think Russia can really win this. At some point, the Baltic States, Poland and others will be forced to step in
This would seem like something someone made up and put on twitter but, yeah, I can see this being true. Putin seems that crazy
They won't need to step in.
Just because Russia temporarily takes some territory doesn't mean they'll be able to hold on to it.
hawkeyetraveler
HB Heisman
Severodonetsk seems like a meat grinder for both sides.
