re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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Poroshenko explained in a speech that they would prevent the people of the Donbas from having normal lives. We’ll make them hide in their basements. They’ve kept it up for eight years now.

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The Russian 35th army, transferred from Far East and stationed in Izyum, is successfully destroyed by its own army command as evidenced from this full of irony and snark report received and shared by a Russian livejournal blogger. It tells us about an acute lack of manpower, communications, trench tools and other equipment, in the ill-fated army.

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In the video, Mironyuk shoves a knife in the eye of the POW, swirling it around while the POW screams in agony, then he finishes it of by banging the knife through the eye socket and into the brain.

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Two BM-21 Grad 122mm multiple rocket launchers, captured from the Russian army by Ukrainian forces, are firing now at the Russian positions in the vicinity of Izium, #Kharkiv Oblast.

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A Ukrainian convoy was filmed passing by somewhere in #Kyiv Oblast - at least 4 recently donated M109A3GN 155mm self-propelled howitzers can be seen.

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Interestingly, a Ukrainian 1V13 battery fire control vehicle is also present in this convoy, meaning M109A3GN howitzers may have been adapted to work together.

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These were flown in. Express delivery from Norway with love

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Polish ???? T-72M1R tanks operated by the Ukrainian army driving through Bakhmut, #Donetsk Oblast - notice one had its smoke launchers
removed before installing Kontakt-1 ERA blocks. These are decent tanks with good thermal scopes, communications and other new systems.

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Starving Russian commander says Vladimir Putin has thrown troops to slaughter in Ukraine
In a video shared on Telegram, a commander leading the Donetsk Republic's 113th regiment fighting for Russia complains about being sent to Ukraine without proper guns, medicine or food

A Russian commander was filmed complaining about being thrown to the slaughter fighting against Ukrainian forces with no food, equipment or medicine.

The shocking video captures the Russian military commander of the Donetsk Republic's 113th regiment reading off a notepad of some kind as he makes the speech.

His revelations paint a grim picture about the state of some of Vladimir Putin's troops fighting in the east of Ukraine.

In the video, released by a pro-Russian telegram channel, he stands in front of his battle weary soldiers, who are armed.

He reveals how they have been fighting on the front in the Kherson region “in hunger and cold” with no medicine or proper weapons.

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people in Russia start to figure out they’ve been lied to and confidence in the Kremlin starts to collapse

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In the Popasna- Bakhmut. RU forces area doing daily attempts to make progress. It seems like RU forces have lost their momentum, this could be because of the Siverodonetsk offensive and diversion of air assets to that area,

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a deeply flawed military operation, from Moscow’s assumptions about an easy victory, to a lack of preparation, poor planning, and force employment. Less attention has been paid, however, to Russian force structure and manpower issues as a critical element now shaping outcomes in this war. Plans rarely survive first contact with an opponent and militaries invariably must adapt, but strategic force structure choices can prove decisive. Force structure reveals a great deal about a military and its assumptions of what wars it plans to fight and how it plans to fight them.

Some of the most significant problems being experienced by the Russian armed forces are the result of conscious choices and tradeoffs. These decisions help explain many of the observed struggles the Russian armed forces have had in combined arms operations, fighting in urban environments, and attempts to hold terrain. The full extent of Russia’s personnel weaknesses has become clear during this war. As it stands, the Russian military has a shortage of manpower — especially infantry. The Russian military also compromised by establishing a partial mobilization force. Consequently, the Russian army was optimized for a short and sharp war while lacking the capacity to sustain a major conventional conflict at “peace time” manning levels. The Russian armed forces are now pressed to sustain operations in Ukraine and attempting what amounts to a partial mobilization to stem the prospect of significant reversals on the battlefield.

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After Russia’s initial invasion with offensives against Ukraine in 2014 and 2015, the Russian military prioritized having more permanent readiness battalion tactical groups exclusively manned by contract soldiers and officers. Since 2016, each regiment or brigade was supposed to be able to form two battalion tactical groups with only officers and contract soldiers, while conscripts would comprise the third battalion. In practice, the situation varied across units, depending on their overall level of readiness. According to Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, Russia had 66 battalion tactical groups in 2016 with plans to rapidly increase the figure to 96 by the end of the year, 115 in 2017, and 126 in 2018. Shoigu said Russia had 136 battalion tactical groups in 2019 and 168 in August 2021. These are supposed to have between 700 to 900 servicemembers, but as the official number of battalion tactical groups was rapidly increasing, the number of soldiers serving under contract plateaued, and the annual draft figure has remained largely unchanged over the past four years. Consequently, contemporary depictions of the Russian battalion tactical group’s typical size and composition were inaccurate.

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