Posted on 02/24/2024 5:59:01 AM PST by SpeedyInTexas
For those of us with NO military training, could you tell us how many are in a Russian Division, and other pertinent units of military groups. Also are they the same in US, Ukraine, and Russia. If not a breakdown would be helpful.
Interesting source
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1xwo3Xn9Ow0
From Sept 2022
**Fuller explanation of Orc military structure:
The RGF once used the Army with many Divisions. But that was during WWII and the cold war. Since there were no more major wars, the RGF downsized its unit division from Division to Battalion. However since 2012 or so they have begun to convert back to Division.
Now there is a mix of unit designations Division and Battalion.
None of the smaller divisions are even close to Western unit make up (totally forget the “BTG” terminology - a Western construct).
For instance: there are 2 kinds of Mechanized Infantry Brigades, each with a different, but similar, make up. Call them Type A and Type B.
Type A has 2 tank battalions (~60 T-72 tanks), 2 Infantry battalions, Engineer battalion, Recon battalion, 2 self propelled arty battalions (could be up to 3 battalions), MLRS (Grad) battalion, AA battalion, Comm battalion, UAV battalion (Orlon-10), Sniper battalion, and Support battalion. Self-sufficient.
Type B has 3 infantry battalions (mixed as A& B below), 1 Tank battalion.
Infantry battalions in each Brigade are of two types, call them A & B.
A has ~540 troops, 49 BTR-82s, 8 120MM Mortars, 6 AGS-17s, 15 AT missile. 3 SPG-9s. 3 companies of about 109-110 troops.
Fighting force about 300 troops.
B has ~460 troops, 42 - BMP-2s, 8 120mm mortars, 6 AGS-17s, 15 AT missiles, 3 SPG-9s. 3 companies of 91 troops.
Fighting force about 270 troops.
Troops on the frontline are never more than half, but more like 40%
This make up of troops was years ago - now its anyone’s guess - in some cases, even the Russian officers do not know.
What Russians call a Division, we call a Brigade or Regiment - somewhere between 2,000 to 5,000 people (an American Division is about 15,000 to 20,000), and around 125 Armored Vehicles.
There is the strong possibility that the reporter was unclear on the difference (common mistake, and may have been referring to the amount of gear in an American Division equivalent - roughly 500 tanks or Infantry Fighting Vehicles (abbreviated as BMP in Russian).
In either case, Russian losses attacking Pokrovsk, exceeded the pre-war population of Pokrovsk.
Thank you, that helps. Now if I was just absolutely sure of what all the 3 letter abbreviations meant. ;-)
what all the 3 letter abbreviations meant.
—
RGF = Russian Ground Forces
BTG = Battle Tactical Group
MLRS = Multiple Launch Rocket System
SPG = Self Propelled gun
UAV = Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
BTR = Armored Personel Carrier
AGS= Automatic Grenade Launcher
BMP = Infantry Fighting Vehicle
AT = Anti-Tank
where the hell is everyone?
Kyiv Independent (14 Aug):
"The twin-engine, two-seat aircraft – designed for both air superiority and ground attack –reportedly crashed for unknown reasons.
According to the Navy, Ukrainian intelligence intercepted radio communications indicating the loss of contact with the aircraft. Russian forces have launched a search and rescue operation, and debris was reportedly spotted on the sea surface. The pilots remain missing, Kyiv said."
The Kremlin is using the Alaska summit to portray Russia as a world power equal to the United States and to posture Putin as an equal to US President Donald Trump. Leading Russian negotiator and Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) CEO Kirill Dmitriev alluded on August 13 to the 1945 Yalta Conference between the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, claiming that the Yalta conference “won World War II” and that Putin and Trump will similarly “prevent World War III.”[19] Russian State Duma International Affairs Committee Deputy Head Alexei Chepa amplified comparisons between the upcoming summit and the Yalta Conference and claims that the United States and Russia should “talk to each other as friends.”[20] Crimea occupation head Sergei Aksyonov claimed that Trump should visit occupied Crimea in order to agree to a “new Yalta peace.”[21] Multiple Russian outlets similarly compared the Alaska summit to Yalta and claimed that “people who have a real influence on global processes” will be at the table in Alaska.[22]
Russian comparisons of the August 15 US-Russia summit with the 1945 Yalta Conference attempt to conceal the power disparity between the United States and Russia and are efforts to present Russia as having much stronger diplomatic, military, and economic positions than it does. Russia is already trying to present the very fact that Trump and Putin are meeting as a Russian victory in order to foster perceptions that Russia is an equal of the United States. Comparisons between the two meetings are also inaccurate because the 1945 Yalta Conference resulted in an agreement about post-war Europe, while Trump and other US officials have reiterated that the August 15 summit will not result in any US-Russia agreements about the end of the war in Ukraine.
ISW continues to assess that Russian forces do not control the territory east and northeast of Dobropillya where Russian forces recently infiltrated. ISW’s Assessed Russian Advances map layer does not differentiate between enduring Russian positions and limited infiltration missions. ISW’s definition of the Assessed Russian Advances layer is any area in which ISW assesses Russian forces have operated or launched attacks against but do not control. ISW uses the US Army doctrinal term “forward line of own troops” (FLOT) to indicate the most forward observed positions of forces in any kind of operation at a specific time. ISW largely uses its Assessed Russian Advances layer to depict areas within the Russian FLOT but over which Russian forces have not yet established control. ISW’s Assessed Russian Advances layer illustrates areas where ISW has observed evidence of a Russian presence but does not necessarily denote areas where Russian forces have established an enduring presence. ISW evaluates its Assessed Russian-Controlled Ukrainian Territory map layer using the doctrinal definition of “control” - a tactical mission task that requires the commander to maintain physical influence over a specified area to prevent its use by an enemy or to create conditions necessary for successful friendly operations. ISW deliberately distinguishes between the Russian FLOT and areas that ISW assesses that Russian forces control. ISW does not assess that Russian forces exercise control over the areas in their tactical penetration near Dobropillya as of August 13.
The Kremlin is likely using the upcoming Zapad-2025 joint Russian-Belarusian military exercises to facilitate its nuclear saber-rattling campaign ahead of the Alaska summit. Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin announced on August 13 that Belarusian and Russian forces will jointly rehearse planning for the employment of tactical nuclear weapons and Oreshnik ballistic missiles during the Zapad-2025 exercises on September 12 through 16.[46] Kremlin officials and their affiliates often use nuclear saber-rattling and demonstrative military exercises as part of their reflexive control campaign that aims to push the West to make decisions that disproportionately benefit Russia.[47] Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko recently participated in a likely staged press event with Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 1, during which both amplified the Kremlin's nuclear saber-rattling narratives.[48] Khrenin’s mention of tactical nuclear weapons and Oreshnik planning exercises are likely part of the Kremlin's broader effort to posture military strength ahead of the Alaska summit. Russian officials have also used Russia's recent withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which Russia had violated for years, to threaten the United States.[49] ISW previously assessed that the Kremlin dangles the prospect of bilateral arms control talks to extract preemptive concessions from the United States about the war in Ukraine.[50] Russia may intend the announcement that Zapad-2025 will focus on the employment of Oreshnik missiles (missiles that are banned under the INF Treaty and that Russia has publicly flaunted and employed against Ukraine) and nuclear weapons to pressure Trump to engage in arms control talks, distracting from talks about the war.
Skibitskyi recently stated that Russia and Belarus are actively preparing for Zapad-2025 but that the exercises do not pose a significant threat to Ukraine.[51] Skibitskyi noted that Lukashenko does not want to be directly involved in Russia's war against Ukraine. ISW similarly assessed that Belarusian forces will not enter the war on behalf of Russia, but Belarus nonetheless plays an important role in Russia's war effort by forcing Ukrainian forces to defend the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, pinning forces that Ukraine could deploy along the frontline.[52]
Belarus continues to deepen military cooperation with the People's Republic of China (PRC). The Belarusian Ministry of Defense (MoD) stated on August 13 that Belarusian Logistics Chief of Staff Major General Alexander Mosolov will lead a Belarusian delegation to meet with PRC representatives to discuss bilateral military logistics cooperation to support the rear and visit PRC military bases in the rear.[118]
Belarus is hosting additional joint military exercises ahead of its Belarusian-Russian Zapad-2025 military exercise. Belarusian Defense Minister Lieutenant General Viktor Khrenin stated on August 13 that military forces from some Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) states will conduct military exercises in Vitebsk Oblast (in northern Belarus bordering Lithuania, Latvia, and Russia) from August 31 to September 6 and that some Russian forces have already arrived.[119]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-13-2025
One of the workers, Jin, told the BBC that when he landed in Russia's Far East, he was chaperoned from the airport to a construction site by a North Korean security agent, who ordered him not to talk to anyone or look at anything. “The outside world is our enemy,” the agent told him. He was put straight to work building high-rise apartment blocks for more than 18 hours a day, he said.
All six workers we spoke to described the same punishing workdays – waking at 6am and being forced to build high-rise apartments until 2am the next morning, with just two days off a year. “Some people would leave their post to sleep in the day, or fall asleep standing up, but the supervisors would find them and beat them. It was truly like we were dying,” said another of the workers, Chan.
The escapees told us that the workers are confined to their construction sites day and night, where they are watched by agents from North Korea's state security department. They sleep in dirty, overcrowded shipping containers, infested with bugs, or on the floor of unfinished apartment blocks, with tarps pulled over the door frames to try to keep out the cold. One labourer, Nam, said he once fell four metres off his building site and “smashed up” his face, leaving him unable to work. Even then his supervisors would not let him leave the site to visit a hospital.
The bulk of their earnings is sent straight to the North Korean state as “loyalty fees”. The remaining fraction – usually between $100-200 (£74-£149) a month - is marked down on a ledger. The workers only receive this money when they return home – a recent tactic, experts say, to stop them running away. Once the men realise the reality of the harsh work and lack of pay, it can be shattering. Tae said he was “ashamed” when he learnt that other construction workers from central Asia were being paid five times more than him for a third of the work. “I felt like I was in a labour camp; a prison without bars,” he said.
The labourer Jin still bristles when he remembers how the other workers would call them slaves. “You are not men, just machines that can speak,” they jeered. At one point, Jin’s manager told him he might not receive any money when he returned to North Korea because the state needed it instead. It was then he decided to risk his life to escape.
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