Posted on 02/24/2024 5:59:01 AM PST 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. Loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles 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 a vehicle is captured and then lost in service with its new owners, it is only added as a loss of the original operator to avoid double listings. When the origin of a piece of equipment can't be established, it's 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 ...
“A video appeared online showing explosions and fire in (reportedly) temporarily Rudsian-occupied Ukrainian Luhansk.
According to “Z-bloggers”, an ammunitions warehouse was hit, causing massive detonation.”
https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1851235184978305406
Participants at recent BRICS summit were told to bring US DOLLARS or EUROS.
Can’t make this stuff up.
BRICS, RICKS, DICKS
“Russia Can’t Keep Spending Like This for Long”
“Moscow is depleting its rainy-day savings to plug its war-induced fiscal deficit while preserving social stability.”
“Strange things are happening in Russia these days. In early October, the country inked a deal to sell chickpeas to Pakistan in exchange for mandarin oranges. A few weeks later, the Russian government advised international participants traveling to the southwestern city of Kazan for the BRICS summit to bring cash in U.S. dollars or euros, as major credit card companies such as Visa and Mastercard have suspended operations on Russian soil since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022.
During the BRICS summit, a Chinese official mentioned that Russia is facing “serious difficulties” with paying its membership fees to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation; the official blamed Western sanctions. As if this were not enough, the comment came on the same day that the Kremlin had to cancel bond auctions to issue nearly 600 billion Russian rubles (around $6 billion) in sovereign debt for lack of buyers.
These examples might sound trivial, but taken together, they highlight how all might not be going hunky-dory for the Russian economy—contrary to the Kremlin’s claims that Western sanctions are ineffective and Russian GDP growth is booming. Like a cash-strapped household pretending that all is well while quietly burning through emergency savings, Moscow is trying to project economic normalcy by tapping into its vast financial buffers.
This is not a sustainable strategy: Without fresh inflows of cash, even the largest of savings only last for a while. Russia could soon struggle to preserve costly social stability at home while waging its expensive war against Ukraine.”
“Russia’s bigger fiscal picture looks dire. On the expenses side, war is costly, and defense spending keeps rising to record highs: Military expenses will make up 40 percent of Russia’s public spending in 2025, for an eye-popping $142 billion. (National security and “classified” expenses will absorb another 30 percent of Russia’s federal budget.) Russia is also splurging to preserve social stability. In the next six years, the Kremlin plans to spend $431 billion on all sorts of social projects, including sending children to summer camps in occupied Crimea, building brand-new student campuses across Russia, and raising the minimum wage by no less than 10 percent per year.”
“The revenue side of the fiscal balance does not look any better. Excluding dividends, Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom used to provide around 10 percent of the Kremlin’s fiscal revenues. Such largesse is over: After losing access to the European market, Gazprom recorded a $6.8 billion loss in 2023, making it impossible for the company to transfer money to state coffers. (Gazprom sent $40 billion to the Russian Ministry of Finance in 2022.)
Things could soon get even worse. In a few weeks, a deal allowing the transit of Russian gas to Europe via Ukraine will expire, cutting down Moscow’s remaining gas exports to the European Union by half and Russian total gas sales by one-third—for an expected loss of $6.5 billion per year for Gazprom.”
“Moscow’s plan B was to tap domestic bond markets, but things are not going well on this front, either. Despite having to cancel auctions this month for lack of buyers, the Kremlin has penciled in issuing $25 billion in domestic bonds by the end of the year. So far, it is not getting anywhere.”
“With debt issuance out of the equation, Russia is now forced to turn to plan C: tapping into its savings. On paper, such a strategy could work for a while thanks to the vast holdings that Moscow accumulated in its National Wealth Fund (NWF) in the 2010s. However, these savings are now drying up: The liquid part of the fund has shrunk by more than half since the start of the war in Ukraine, to just $54 billion in September. Last year, the government stopped saving money in its NWF. Moscow is now resorting to selling the portion of its NWF reserves that it holds in gold; the fund’s gold reserves have shrunk by around half, or about 262 tons of gold, since early 2022.”
262 tons = around $8 billion my math may be off.
Despite some folks claiming these are 1960's Soviet tech, Iran has one of the newest versions of the S-300, the S-300PMU2. This system was first introduced in the late 90's (after the Patriot PAC3), and delivered to Iran in 2016, likely with further updates. Half their S-300 batteries are the older S-300P, but being acquired in 2011, have probably been modernized. The S-300P was first deployed about the same time as the Patriot PAC2.
Iran also has domestically produced air defense systems it claims are equivalent to the S-300 and S-400. Tehran's Integrated Air Defense system blindly spraying the sky with AAA would seem to indicate these too are ineffective.
I there was another delivery just recently and that included S-400s as well. Russian milbloggers were complaining loudly about deal.
“Israeli Strikes Knocked Out All Of Iran’s S-300 Air Defense Systems”
Oil and gas prices dropped sharply (about 5%) after Israel’s strike on Iran. It looks like it has been assessed to be effective deterrence to reduce the risk of escalation, with none of the feared reduction in supply.
“With debt issuance out of the equation, Russia is now forced to turn to plan C: tapping into its savings... However, these savings are now drying up”
The final resort (short of going to a full communist/fascist command economy), is simply printing even more rubles, inducing even greater inflation.
They have already been pulling that lever hard, since the 2022 invasion. Despite the lag time between excess currency printing and the resulting inflation, they are already deep into an inflationary cycle.
Even if they could stop today (which they can’t, due to war costs) they will still suffer the very significant inflationary results of the excess money supply expansion that they have already committed, for at least the next year or two, no matter whatever countermeasures they impose (like 21% interest rates).
The flip side of inflation, is that the currency drops in value. They can’t keep propping the ruble up forever, as the underlying fundamentals continue to erode.
As they have continued expanding the total supply of rubles an extraordinary 20-25% per year - during first COVID, and then continuing through their war in Ukraine - they have created snowballing pressures for increasing inflation, and to devalue the ruble.
They have used all kinds of exceptional measures to delay these somewhat inevitable results, but math will have its day.
“Moscow is now resorting to selling the portion of its NWF reserves that it holds in gold; the fund’s gold reserves have shrunk by around half”
It is unlikely that they would completely zero out the National Wealth Fund (NWF), but rather that they will throttle up other avenues of funding, while tapering off withdrawals from the NWF.
They can increase taxation, cut non-Defense spending, sell off Government assets (like land or mineral rights), Nationalize private accounts or property (straight out steal) - or they can Print, Print, Print more rubles.
Those options are economically and politically more painful than spending from the NWF, but of them, the ruble printing is the least politically painful, because it is the easiest one to mislead the public about the cause of the pain, when it manifests. Blame the Jews, blame Western spies, blame price gouging businessmen (See: Kamala Harris).
If the war continues, Russian finances cannot continue on a straight line indefinitely. There will be major inflection points as the reserves run out, and as the currency weakens. There is growing risk of hyperinflation.
By Spring next year, RuZZia’s total losses will hit 20,000.
By Summer next year, RuZZia’s tank losses will cross 4,000.
Staggering numbers.
Demilitarization, desatanization and denazification of RuZZia continues.
Russia - 18713, of which: destroyed: 13864, damaged: 813, abandoned: 1054, captured: 2982
Tanks (3514, of which destroyed: 2448, damaged: 158, abandoned: 376, captured: 532)
Another $4 billion for the good guys.
“Ukrainian Parliament has approved a crucial law on agreements with the prosecution, allowing Ukraine to receive €4 billion from the EU. According to MP Zhelezniak, 263 deputies voted in favor of the bill.”
https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1851277130648187263
Something in that Nevada Water?
“Good Morning Nevada!
For the first time since December 2007, the Democrats voter registration is under 10,000 statewide.
Current Registration: D+ 9,523
It should go under 9,000 by the end of Wednesday.”
https://x.com/jeremybhughes/status/1851272293244153908
More like near 15 & 1/2 billion.
Using 242 x 16 oz x 2000 lbs x $2000 apx gold price
I will take 4000 by spring
Russia significantly increased its advance on the ground (at high cost) over the last week (75 sq miles), and no sign yet of mud season or snow to slow them down.
Kyiv Independent reports:
“Ukraine faces a “pretty grim” situation in Donetsk Oblast in the east of the country as Russian forces make some of their swiftest advances since the summer of 2022, according to experts and OSINT analysts.
“The last week has been extremely difficult for the Ukrainians — the Russians were able to breach the Ukrainian defenses in various areas,” Emil Kastehelmi, an analyst at the Finland-based Black Bird Group, told the Kyiv Independent.
Russia’s long and grinding campaign in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region has dramatically gained pace in recent days, with Kastehelmi saying Moscow’s forces have advanced “faster than it has been any time after the summer of 2022.”
“So we’re looking at really large movements on the front lines, especially when put into the context of this whole full-scale invasion,” he added.
Russia’s Defense Ministry on Oct. 29 claimed the capture of Selydove, a town close to the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
While Kyiv has yet to comment on the situation, experts and OSINT analysts have all but confirmed the town has fallen.
The Deep State OSINT project map based on data from Oct. 28 showed most of Selydove under Russian control, with around a third depicted as a disputed gray zone.
An analysis of Deep State data by the independent Russian news outlet Agentsvo said Russia had taken 196.1 square kilometers (75.7 square miles) during the week of Oct. 20-27.
“The Russian army has not had such a rapid weekly advance since at least the beginning of this year,” it said in a post on Telegram…
…the fall of Selydove would be dire news for Pokrovsk, lying only around 18 kilometers (11 miles) northwest, towards which Russian forces have been inching for the past couple of months…
…”The city of Selydove is now most likely totally lost.”
“That’s the biggest city to fall after Avdiivka in the winter. And it fell in a couple of weeks or so. So it was a quick, quick move.”
According to Kastehelmi, one of the biggest dangers now facing Ukrainian troops is that the positions they are now being forced to fall back to are not as heavily fortified as the positions they’re withdrawing from...
…”Even though the Russians have pushed 10 kilometers in a week, we still haven’t seen something that by definition would be a breakthrough.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin still has a long way to go before achieving his stated goal of taking all of the Donbas, Ukraine’s far eastern coal mining region.
Russia currently occupies all of the Luhansk Oblast, and most of Donetsk Oblast except the last big remaining cities under Ukrainian control, including Pokrovsk, Kostyantynivka to the north, Kramatorsk and Slovyansk further north, and Chasiv Yar to the east.
Russia would have to take an additional 10,000 square kilometers (3,860 square miles) of territory to capture all of the Donbas, which, even at the current increased pace, would take just under a year.
It’s also not been without a heavy cost for Russian forces. Casualties over October may reach around 40,000, Janek Kesselmann, the deputy commander of the Estonian Military Intelligence Center, said on Oct. 25.
But with winter approaching, the uncertainty surrounding next week’s U.S. presidential election and future American weaponry supplies, and Ukraine’s army dealing with its own manpower and morale issues, it’s an especially precarious time for Kyiv.”
Metric tons. Gold is currently about 89,000/kilo x 1,000 x 262 tons = 23,318,000,000. The average price over the past 3 years is much lower than today. What they received in return for those 262 tons was probably near that $15B.
North Korea Gaining Modern Combat Experience Fighting Ukraine Is A Big Problem
If thousands of North Korean troops fight Ukraine, the Hermit Kingdom will gain the extremely valuable modern combat experience it badly lacks.
https://www.twz.com/news-features/north-korea-gaining-modern-combat-experience-fighting-ukraine-is-a-big-problem
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Ukraine Strikes Chechnya With Long-Range Drones For The First Time
The Ukrainian long-range attack on the special forces training center has incurred the wrath of Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov.
https://www.twz.com/news-features/ukraine-strikes-chechnya-with-long-range-drones-for-the-first-time
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Here’s What NORAD’s Commander Just Told Us About The Langley AFB Drone Incursions
December’s rash of mysterious drone flights over Langley Air Force Base has changed how the U.S. plans to defend against such threats domestically.
https://www.twz.com/air/heres-what-norads-commander-just-told-us-about-the-langley-afb-drone-incursions
Short answer: Nothing
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