Garrisons and military bases are almost empty.
https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1803387700772225297
Garrisons and military bases are almost empty.
https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1803387700772225297
https://x.com/Azovsouth/status/1803368518651383908
Awaiting further information.
When I read the usuals talking about the size of the Russian military as if that means guaranteed success, I never see the following question addressed.
You have the largest “country” in terms of land mass, a country (federation)held together largely by intimidation, corruption, and coercion. The fact that this “large” military is more and more being located in and around Ukraine leaves vast parts of your federation largely undefended and without occupation forces to enforce control.
Question how is that working out?
I have said for some time that the Russian federation as it stood Jan 2022 will not be the same in the future.
If China does not outright take land, they are and will effectively control much of it.
Another side question I have asked and would like some feed back
It is said that Russia has 500000 troops in Ukraine? Where are they. That is a lot of folks who need quarters, infrastructure to maintain,equipment…. The occupied territories of Ukraine is not really that big, having them disbursed in smaller groups across the land would not lend well to “discipline “ and logistics. In iraq and Afghanistan we had a large presence but we also had several very large bases like bagram, kaf, balad, green zone….as well as many established FOBs….
Troop concentrations are being hit but reports I see have them in the hundreds or less.
Where are they?
Translation:
High intelligence source for Yle: Almost all land forces in Russia’s vicinity are now in Ukraine
Satellite images obtained by Yle show that Russia has built a new supply hall for the Petrozavodsk equipment depot. It is surrounded by obsolete equipment.
Russia is intimidating NATO countries through World War III, but at least near Finland it does not seem to be preparing for a war.
Russian Army garrisoners and military bases near the Finnish border are still almost empty, although Russia has announced its strengthening of troops.
“At average, 80 per cent of equipment and soldiers have been transferred to the war in Ukraine,” says a high-ranking Finnish military intelligence source to Yle.
Yle does not give the identity of the source because of his office.
According to a source of intelligence, such a hard loss has also occurred at Russian bases in other parts of Russia. Only in the Moscow region of aggression against Ukraine has not taxed crews and weaponry as much.
In this case, changes in Russian local bases are assessed based on both intelligence and recent satellite images.
They show that, as far as the Army is concerned, Russia has sent much of its war of aggression to useable weaponry.
Training of conscripts brings temporary spike to military numbers
A war of invasions of Ukraine has taxed the highest number of Russian ground forces. Air Force, air defense forces and fleet have better occupation.
“We have followed the Army Brigades. Anti-aircraft equipment around St. Petersburg is still relatively strong, a Finnish intelligence source says.
The source said there is some variation in the strength of bases. In some garrisons, more than a fifth of soldiers remain, others less than. In addition, the numbers vary from season to season.
“There are sometimes new training items, i.e. the number of employees varies according to the training situation. Equipment comes and goes.
There are only conscript trainers left, while all contract soldiers have been put into real action, the source says.
Norway is in line with Finnish military intelligence.
The country’s intelligence agency has estimated that the number of ground troops has plummeted by 80 percent. The figure, though, reported in the annual report applies only to land force forces in Russia’s northern region of the Kola Peninsula.
The intelligence service estimates that after the end of the war in Ukraine, it will take Russia three to five years to restore the combat capability of its armed forces.
In addition, the decrease in Russian troops in areas against Finland and the Baltic states has been assessed by Foreign Policy newspapers in the early stages of the war. At the time, anonymous sources estimated that Russian Army forces in the region had been reduced by 80%.
The fierce of change won’t be revealed by satellite imagery
The launch of troops on the Ukrainian warfront is only partially reflected in satellite imagery.
Yle has acquired fresh satellite images of all nearby Russian bases and garrisonings, which were mainly taken during May.
The biggest single change was found at the Petrozavodsk equipment depot, where a new fleet hall was erected in May.
Yle also had a much more accurate new satellite image, but Yle could not get permission to publish it.
Petrozavodsk hangar repairs equipment to war
Petrozavodsk’s fleet would accommodate, for example, about 50 armoured vehicles when driven tightly.
Halls are likely to be used to renovate useful material. The main task of the depot is to send as much combat equipment as possible to the front, estimates a military expert, Major Retired. Marko Eklund.
Eklund, who has long studied the Russian armed forces, has studied satellite images in his work as a background provider for Yle.
There is plenty to fix, as much of the armored vehicles and guns of the Petrozavodsk equipment deposit have been kept at the mercy of the weather for decades.
According to satellite images, there is one new area in the Petrozavodsk depot that has emptied during the past winter.
Based on images from parents, at least MT-LB transport tanks have been retained there.
According to Eklund, they are used, for example, as gun-runers and infantry combat vehicles.
The intelligence source tells Yle that all first-line equipment has already been taken to war. Old equipment has also been deployed by renovating.
“It’s a pretty bad fleet according to our standards, but according to Russian standards it can still be OK,” an intelligence source told Yle.
Even if some of the equipment are rusty, there won’t be any problem, as it’s not a sensitive top technology.
Many equipment has been lost from north of Petrozavodsk
North of Petrozavodsk, Suoju is home to another separate area that has not been presented in public in Finland.
Before the offensive war, there were still a couple of 100 armoured vehicles in the open, as well as artillery, pioneering equipment and trucks. There are also six large halls in the area, which can hold at least the same amount of equipment.
As you can see from this pair of images, most of the equipment outside the base has lost to Ukraine since the Russian invasion.
According to Eklund, this is a base in which Russia retained equipment belonging to the rapidly established reserve forces.
War efforts are also evident in other garrisons in Russia’s nearby region.
In Kakjärvi, a large garrison and training area is separated from the satellite images of Kamenka, which is used by 138. A motorized infantry brigade. It is the strongest group of Russian armed forces in the direction of Finland.
A satellite image taken at Kamenka on April 30 shows how more than a hundred tents have been erected in the garrison’s training area.
According to Eklund, during the summer season, troops often move to camp accommodation in training areas.
“However, this camp is so large and is located near the barracks that it may be a number of training and accommodation arrangements recruited for war,” Eklund said.
The war-related movement can also be seen at Pskov Airport, where large air carriers are kept.
At the beginning of last August, only three of the machines were visible, but only three were only seen in a picture taken at the beginning of May.
According to Eklund, the low number of aircraft indicates that during wartime, heavy transport aircraft have many flight tasks around the country. In addition to the armed forces’ own transport, they can be used to transport components of the arms industry, for example.
Ukraine has previously hit Pskov Airport, so it is possible that equipment is also distributed to safer areas.
The remaining Ilyushin IL-76 transport aircraft appear on taxiing roads. None of them are land-mainly protected standings.
According to Eklund, it is difficult to estimate how quickly Russia will be able to equip the re-empted ground bases near Finland.
“It is influenced by the duration and end result of the war, i.e. how much of Russia will eventually lose its modern equipment and old warehouses,” Eklund says.
According to Eklund, it also matters how Western sanctions affect Russia’s arms industry: whether it will at some point be able to produce new combat equipment or focus on the renovation of the old one, as is happening now.
In the future, Russia will not only be able to focus on improving anti-Finnish areas, Eklund points out. Russia has a large border with other countries it considers hostile, too. Russia automatically denies hosty NATO countries, despite making a major offensive itself.
It will take years to build a modern army, Eklund says. Instead, Russia, which consists of old military equipment, can get ready faster.
“If only the requirement is that equipment is moving and smoke coming from the exhaust pipe, gaps created by war can be filled more quickly by using old warehouses,” Eklund said.
You have to wonder why Russia had large troop concentrations on its border with NEUTRAL Finland, no? And it's the same across all of Russia's borders. Of course Putin has always known that NATO would not invade Russia. NATO "expansion" was never a threat to Russia. In fact, when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, the USA had just 30,000 troops in all of Europe, the lowest level since the fall of the Soviet Union. And European NATO also had the lowest number of troops since 1991. NATO wasn't growing, it was disarming. Fewer men, fewer weapons, lower manufacturing, more western money flowing to Russia. NATO was weaker than any time in over 30 years. Putin took advantage of that weakness to invade Ukraine in 2014, and when NATO did nothing about that, he launched a full scale invasion in 2022.
Finland has long known why those Russian troops were on their border, and it wasn't because they feared a Finnish invasion. They were the global poster child of "forced neutrality", in constant fear of a Soviet/Russian invasion if they dared align with any nation but Russia. Finlandization has also been applied in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Central Asia, and now Armenia. The 2022 invasion was the final straw that convinced the Finns they might be next. With Russia weakened and tied up in Ukraine, Finland finally had an opportunity to stand up and declare independence.
