re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Today, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced additional security assistance to meet Ukraine's critical security and defense needs.

The capabilities in this announcement include:

Missiles for HAWK air defense systems;
Stinger anti-aircraft missiles;
Ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS);
155mm Howitzers;
155mm and 105mm artillery rounds;
81mm mortar systems;
M113 Armored Personnel Carriers;
Trailers to transport heavy equipment;
Coastal and riverine patrol boats;
Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles;
Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor systems;
Small arms ammunition and grenades;
Demolitions munitions;
Night vision devices; and
Spare parts, maintenance, and other ancillary equipment.

I don't think we've talked much lately about Russia's unsustainable equipment loss rates.

Andrew Perpetua is the best Twitter follow to get a general idea of daily losses. He and a couple of assistants watch hundreds of Telegram videos every day, mainly to keep up their map. Videos of vehicle losses are the best way to track where the front line actually is, and he verifies that data with satellite images showing shelling, etc.

So, for him, tracking vehicle losses is a byproduct of maintaining his map. The great thing about each daily post of his is that he provides the spreadsheet link so that you can find the original Telegram videos to judge his accuracy for yourself.

Here's today's report of the losses he tallied yesterday:





In following these on a regular basis, I would say that today's shows higher-than-normal Russian losses for artillery and lower-than-normal tank losses. There were at least three days in May when Andrew documented over 20 tank losses, and the average was probably about 12.

The last solid reports that I saw indicated that Russia is manufacturing about 20 new tanks per month, and they are refurbishing another 20. I don't have links handy, but there are other people who track the types of Russian tanks lost over time, and there are other people who follow satellite photos of storage bases to look at what tanks are being removed and sent to the front or to a factory for refurbishment. And, of course, there are also people who do this for artillery pieces and IFVs.

Altogether, we can look at all the data and conclude that Russia only has another 6-9 months before critical shortages begin to emerge, and the current Russian offensive is pushing us towards the shorter end of that time frame.

Because of the importance of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk in the history of the Donbas War in 2014, those cities have been the focus of much of Russia's aggression. The Russian offensive in Kharkiv was intended to thin out the Ukrainian front enough to enable a breakthrough at Chasiv Yar, so that Russia could use that high ground to take Kramatorsk. Likewise, Russia has been pushing hard to retake Lyman to threaten Slovyansk. All of that, though, is very clearly not happening, as Russia is only advancing very slowly with great cost.

The asymmetric nature of the losses in the conflict will likely be accentuated by the new ability of Ukraine to strike Russian units on Russian soil, as well as by the arrival of F-16s (even in the low initial numbers that we'll see).

And this will likely be the last significant offensive that Russia can attempt, unless Putin is willing to do another big mobilization -- which he isn't, because doing so would bankrupt the Russian economy faster than the 12 months or so that he has left while he can still pay the bills, before the financial reserves run out.

Yes, Ukrainian equipment losses are still significant -- this is by no means the first day that they have lost three Bradleys. But the counter to that is that the US still has hundreds of Bradleys in storage that we can send to Ukraine. In other words, Ukrainian losses are sustainable, as long as the West continues to provide weapons, and as long as Ukraine doesn't try another big offensive.

For a long time in this thread, the consensus was that a long war favored Russia. I now think that the evidence is clear that the reverse is true. If the G7 is able to agree on using Russian assets to provide Ukraine with a $50 billion advance on the interest from those investments, then I will have no doubts about an eventual Ukrainian victory in the conflict.

In the big picture a year or two down the road, what do you think a Russian financial collapse is going to look like?

That is some excellent work.

Waging an offensive war takes hundreds of thousands of different SKUs. So it's not enough to have just the talked about items. You can make enough 152 shells. But if you run out of tubes to fire them, they don't do you much good.

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For a long time in this thread, the consensus was that a long war favored Russia

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I've said this for a while. The US, UK, Canada, SK, Japan, and EU economies are 30x larger than Russia's. And far more diverse and advanced. The long war favors the deep and the diverse.

At some point, Russia has to figure out a way to win this thing. And there isn't a single Russian bot in this thread who can tell me what a Russian victory even looks like. Or when they expect it to happen.

The short is the Putin didn't have a Plan B. He started this thing. And he has no idea how to end it.

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He and a couple of assistants watch hundreds of Telegram videos every day

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Do you not think there is going to be some skew there? We get lots of footage from Ukraine, not as much from Russia.

That doesn't mean you completely throw out the research by any means, I think it tells a good story that is accurate, but maybe mislabels the conflict as "Russia banging its head against a wall" when it should be "Both sides are banging their heads against a while, with Russia doing it a bit harder than Ukraine is".

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doing so would bankrupt the Russian economy faster than the 12 months or so that he has left while he can still pay the bills, before the financial reserves run out.

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You don't think they would be going to the table now (or preparing to in the next 3-ish months) if this were true? If that is accurate their position will only get worse, and they have to know that. Unless they are counting on Trump winning and rug-pulling US support, and even then you still have Europe willing to fund this.

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What about an American one?

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You probably would cheer for that.

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Anybody got a ilnk to the quote where Putin makes that statement?[/quote
Best I can put together

[quote]*Note: Putin absurdly claimed on June 5 that Ukrainian forces suffer 50,000 casualties per month and that half of these are wounded in action (WIA) and the other half is killed in action (KIA). Putin then claimed that Ukrainian forces have a five-to-one "irretrievable loss" rate compared to Russian forces (Russian and Ukrainian sources typically use "irretrievable losses" to refer to KIA losses, although select sources do use the term to refer to limited WIA losses). Putin's statements suggest that Russian forces are roughly suffering 5,000 KIA per month (25,000 Ukrainian KIA to 5,000 Russian KIA). Putin's statements are an exaggeration and there is no indication that Ukrainian losses are as high as Putin claims. Nevertheless, Putin was willing to suggest that Russian forces suffer at least a fifth of his exaggerated Ukrainian KIA claim.

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Putin inadvertently suggested that roughly 5,000 Russian personnel are killed in action in Ukraine each month, which further suggests that roughly 15,000 Russian personnel are wounded in action, assuming a standard three-to-one wounded-to-killed casualty ratio.[14] ISW cannot confirm Putin's suggested casualty rate and his apparent inadvertent admission does not serve as a clear claim about Russian casualties in Ukraine. Putin's suggested figure does align somewhat with the lower end of Ukrainian reporting about Russian casualty rates, however. Ukrainian Ground Forces Commander Lieutenant General Oleksandr Pavlyuk stated on May 2 that Russian forces suffer about 25,000 to 30,000 killed and wounded personnel per month.[15] Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Deputy Chief Major General Vadym Skibitskyi reported on January 15, 2024, that Russia recruits around 30,000 personnel per month.[16] Ruslan Pukhov, the head of the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies and a member of a Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) civilian advisory board, similarly claimed in mid-April 2024 that current Russian crypto-mobilization efforts are generating roughly 30,000 new personnel each month.[17] Russian officials are reportedly concerned about decreasing recruitment rates ahead of the expected Russian Summer 2024 offensive effort, and it is unclear if the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) has maintained the roughly 30,000 recruitment rate it reportedly had in January and April of 2024.[18]

Russian forces have notably established a more sustainable force generation apparatus in recent months for ongoing offensive operations and have intensified efforts to establish operational- and strategic-level reserves.[19] Russian forces have leveraged their possession of the theater-wide initiative in Ukraine to dictate a tempo of fighting in recent months that would generate casualties roughly equal to or slightly less than the rate of newly generated forces.[20] This has allowed Russian forces to immediately replenish losses along the frontline and sustain their overall offensive tempo in Ukraine but has set limits on the extent to which Russian forces can intensify offensive operations in any given direction.[21] The marginal amount of additional newly generated forces not immediately committed to the front as reinforcements has allowed Russian forces to gradually establish operational reserves.[22] Pavlyuk stated in early May 2024 that Russian forces intended to generate about 100,000 more personnel for use in offensive operations this June and July and 300,000 more personnel by the end of 2024.[23] Russia will likely fall far short of this immediate and near-term goal, even at the lower limit of reported or suggested monthly Russian casualties and the upper limit of reported monthly Russian force generation. ISW continues to assess that likely poorly trained and equipped Russian operational- and strategic-level reserves are unlikely to be ready to act as a first-echelon penetration force or as a second-echelon exploitation force capable of conducting large-scale assaults in 2024 if Ukrainian forces have the wherewithal to resist them

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The short is the Putin didn't have a Plan B. He started this thing. And he has no idea how to end it.

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I think Putin believed in the power of his army on paper and was counting on a 2 week romp. A lot of people here believed that too.

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So we believe his Russia numbers but not his Ukraine ones?

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You can take the numbers provided by Putin, and look at numbers provided by Ukraine, and look at independent numbers; and draw your own conclusions.

Are Putin’s Ukrainian numbers in line with the numbers provided by other sources?

Are Putin’s Russian numbers in line with the numbers provided by other sources?