Posted on 03/21/2023 7:39:21 AM PDT by SpeedyInTexas
This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the origin of a piece of equipment can't be established, it is not included in the list. The Soviet flag is used when the equipment in question was produced prior to 1991. This list is constantly updated as additional footage becomes available.
(Excerpt) Read more at oryxspioenkop.com ...
Rob Lee, recently spent 2 weeks in Ukraine.
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1637880591898095618
“Thread on Bakhmut. Before talking about the tactical situation, it is important to put it in the strategic context. Ukraine conducted successful offensives in Kharkiv and Kherson after heavy Russian military attrition during the Battle of the Donbas left its lines vulnerable.
Russia’s successful withdrawal from the right bank of Kherson and mobilization helped stabilize the lines and stopped Ukraine’s advance to Kreminna. In order to make further serious gains, Ukraine went on the defense to buy time to form new units/train on NATO equipment.
The battle in Bakhmut began more than 6 months ago, but became a focus over the winter as both sides redeployed forces to Bakhmut from Kherson. Bakhmut thereby acquired a degree of political significance on both sides.
Russia began its winter offensive in late January. Russian forces have attempted to advance in several parts of the front while making minimal gains. In some areas like Vuhledar, Russian forces have suffered far heavier losses than Ukrainian forces.
Russia has also sustained heavy losses in Bakhmut, but the ratio of losses shifted as Russia took the flanks (which sit on high ground), beginning with the southern flank in January and the northern flank in mid/late-February including Yahidne on the 25th.
Although the center of Bakhmut has strong buildings and factories, the flanks are composed of houses without basements. Once they’re targeted, they’re no longer useful as fighting positions. Russian advances on the flanks put the main resupply routes within direct-fire range.
Newly mobilized soldiers are being sent to Bakhmut as combat replacements and the units don’t have enough time to train them properly. There is a trade-off between sending mobilized soldiers to the front or to new units preparing for the spring offensive.
Although there was a 3-week period in which Russian artillery fire was reduced, it increased at the end of February as the 106th Airborne Division played a greater role, which coincided with greater Wagner-VDV cooperation. Russia has a substantial artillery advantage in Bakhmut.
Wagner commanders are given greater discretion and flexibility to fight as they see fit and to find/exploit weak points (TDF units are often deliberately targeted). Some Wagner units operate at night while others only during the day. Wagner convicts are not allowed to retreat.
Bakhmut matters to Russia because its stated goal is to seize all of the Donbas, but Russian forces are struggling to advance towards Kramatorsk-Slovyansk from the other directions. It has also been key to Ukraine’s defense of the rest of the Donbas.
Ukraine is prioritizing forming and training new units in three army corps for its spring offensive while trying to hold the entirety of the front line. But those are competing priorities, and Ukraine is deliberately holding back reserves.
This may give the impression that Ukraine is losing, but, in reality, Ukraine is not committing all of its resources to the front. Ukraine has a better chance of achieving another significant breakthrough this spring than Russia does during its current offensive.
Russia is dependent on a small number of elite units for their assaults (e.g. naval infantry, VDV, Wagner professionals), but they can grind their way to slow, costly victories by employing greater forces and artillery. An attritional fight is not in Ukraine’s interests.
Until its offensive, Ukraine’s best strategy is to pick battles where it can achieve a favorable ratio of attrition and expend fewer munitions, which could weaken Russian forces’ ability to defend without significantly sapping Ukraine’s offensive potential in the coming months.
Although the attrition ratio in Bakhmut has been advantageous for the duration of the battle, the ratio is much less favorable now with Ru forces holding high ground on the city’s flanks. Much of Russia’s losses are prisoners of less military value than Ukrainian soldiers.
In contrast, in Vuhledar, the share of Russian casualties from elite units is higher than in Bakhmut, and it isn’t clear if Wagner’s use of convicts would be as effective in a less urban setting.
The upcoming Ukrainian offensive will be strategically critical and potentially decisive. Western aid, including ammunition, will likely peak this spring and summer, and it will take years before increases in artillery production capacity can be achieved.
Ukraine will not have air superiority, will face stronger Russian defenses than it did in Kharkiv, and will likely only be able to achieve localized superiority in artillery fire and forces. To gives its offensive the best chance for success, Kyiv needs to husband its resources.
There is no risk-free option for Ukraine. Retrograde operations are dangerous, withdrawing from Bakhmut could lead to more pressure on Siversk or elsewhere, and there is no guarantee Ukraine would be able to retake the city later if it withdraws.
But there is a risk that, by committing the necessary forces to continue holding Bakhmut (where its attrition ratio isn’t favorable), Ukraine will sap some of the forces available for its strategically more important spring offensive.
Another risk is that Russian forces will continue to press to the west to try to seize high ground north of Chasiv Yar, which is defensible terrain for holding Kramatorsk and Slovyansk. Encirclement is also a risk.
Encircling Bakhmut is Russia’s best opportunity to inflict a serious defeat on Ukraine. The VDV’s 106th Airborne Division has taken on a greater role, and the Russian MoD will likely prioritize cutting off the remaining MRSs by committing more resources.
The mud season has now begun, which could complicate a withdrawal or reinforcement, particularly if Russian forces advance closer to the O0506 hardball road. This could limit the use of wheeled vehicles.
As in Mariupol and countless other battles, Ukrainian forces have defended bravely and inflicted heavy losses on Russian forces in Bakhmut, which will likely aid Ukraine’s spring offensive. But the conditions have worsened over the past month.
What should Ukraine do? I don’t know. It isn’t a black and white issue and there is uncertainty. Russia may overextend itself trying to take the city and leave itself vulnerable to counterattack. It is ultimately a question of where Ukraine chooses to assume risk.
Just as the strategic consequences of Russia’s offensive in the Donbas in the spring and summer wasn’t fully clear until after Ukraine’s offensives in the fall, it probably won’t be clear whether the continued defense of Bakhmut was the right move until after Ukraine’s offensive.”
“Drone strikes, sabotage, shelling: Russia’s war on Ukraine comes to Russia”
“Three drones buzzed through the night sky on Feb. 27 over Belgorod, a Russian city just a couple dozen miles from the Ukrainian border. One drone smashed through the window of a sixth-floor apartment, startling a couple who were watching television. The other two crashed on nearby streets, denting parked cars and rattling the residents’ nerves.
Ten days later, workers at an oil-pumping station in Novozybkov, a small town in Russia’s Bryansk region, found a small bomb that officials said was probably dropped from a drone. Later that day, in Rostov-on-Don, a building of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, exploded in flames — the latest in a string of mysterious fires across western Russia.
More than a year after President Vladimir Putin unleashed his invasion, Russia’s war in Ukraine is also being fought on Russian soil, and Moscow is scrambling to protect its borders. The war Putin expected to win quickly now encroaches daily on the lives of Russian citizens, with frequent reports of fires, drone attacks and shelling.“
Make no mistake, China and RuZZia are our enemies.
“As War in Ukraine Grinds on, China Helps Refill Russian Drone Supplies”
“China has shipped more than $12 million in drones to Russia since it invaded Ukraine, in an indication of quiet collaboration between the two.”
“The Biden administration vowed last month to crack down on companies that sell critical technologies to Russia as part of its efforts to curtail the country’s war against Ukraine. But the continued flow of Chinese drones to the country explains why that will be hard.
While drone sales have slowed, American policies put in place after Russia’s invasion have failed to stanch exports of the unmanned aerial vehicles that work as eyes in the sky for frontline fighters. In the year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China has sold more than $12 million in drones and drone parts to the country, according to official Russian customs data from a third-party data provider.
It is hard to determine whether the Chinese drones contain American technologies that would violate the U.S. rules or whether they are legal. The shipments, a mix of products from DJI, the world’s best-known drone maker, and an array of smaller companies, often came through small-time middlemen and exporters.”
“The first footage of a French Crotale NG short-range air-defense system in service with the Ukrainian army. We can see two missiles fired in an attempt to take down a Russian cruise missile- the second one hits the target.”
https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1637917991944830983
“A Russian 2S4 Tyulpan 240mm self-propelled heavy mortar was destroyed by the artillery of the Ukrainian 55th Brigade in #Donetsk City.”
https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1638150631092367360
“This is what Ukrainians put on the drones that attacked Dzhankoi last night hahaha”
https://twitter.com/saintjavelin/status/1638092634810994691
“Wreckage (the tail part) of what is believed to be a Chinese Mugin-5 UAV that attacked military targets in Dzhankoy last night.”
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1638083960445063168
Energy markets being remade.
“Kazakhstan sent the first oil shipment bypassing Russia - across the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, from where it will go west.”
https://twitter.com/ruslantrad/status/1638109635793104897
“The Ukrainian Army destroyed a Russian 2S3 Akatsiya 152mm self-propelled howitzer with a M982 Excalibur precision artillery strike near #Donetsk City.”
https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1638103539347070976
“Russian Ural crude oil down to 48 USD/Barrel. Throw in the discount of up to 35 USD/Barrel for China and India and you can guess the real price. Sanctions are working.”
https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1638139654070317056
“The natural gas price in Europe (Amsterdam) reached another psychological milestone. Today since almost 2 years the price is under 40 EUR/MWh. The market closed with 39.325 EUR/MWh.”
https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1637951662500478976
“German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on the sidelines of an EU Foreign and Defense Ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday that the first batch of Marder IFV is on the way to Ukraine.”
https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1637954370712260609
But it ain’t a movie.
Or as Elliott said, “This is reality, Greg.”
“Trenches full of dead Russians. Almost cinematic scenes”
“This is reportedly in Vodyane south of Avdiivka, inflicted by the 35th Marine Brigade. Yes, some are still moving but these Russians took quite a big hit it seems.”
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1638158855640174594
“The Pentagon may soon announce measures for the possible delivery of Abrams tanks to Ukraine earlier than expected, White House spokesman John Kirby said.”
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1638161087332769792
“The UK will send Ukraine armour piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium. Defence minister Goldie made the admission yesterday in response to a written question from crossbench peer Hylton. “Such rounds are highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armoured vehicles,” she said”
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1638160407012540419
Igor Girkin: “Vladimir Putin, shut up so that we are not ashamed of having such a president”.
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1638087948292747265
“The results of a US assessment show Ukrainian pilots can fly F16s in less than six months, Ukraine’s aviation chief told me in his first interview since the invasion. And the manufacturer found that the country’s existing runways could be used.”
https://twitter.com/MaxRTucker/status/1637518914627289093
Little Pukin: A more evil man.
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