Armed Forces of Ukraine eliminated commander of 810th brigade of Russian army, Colonel Kens. PHOTO Source: https://censor.net/en/n3353525

I’ll be at mpressed when I start seeing Russian generals evacuating the Ukraine with troops rolling close behind.

Russia can promote lots of officers but has a limited amount of troops.

Not confirmed here yet - name, rank, unit, and date listed:
https://topcargo200.com

Days since the last Russian Senior Officer was killed, 0

Average time between Senior Officer deaths since Feb 24: 13.01 Hours

Average time between Senior Officer deaths this month: 21.50n Hours

Not counting the forced Ukraine conscripts

Many of the dead were the cream of crop, the best of the best in the RGF & NI, killed between Feb 24 - end of March 2022

“37,000 Russian deaths...”

Very doubtful. The US lost 58,000 troops from 1965 thru 1975 in the Vietnam War. I can’t see Ukraine killing that many in only 4+ months of fighting.

However, if that is even close to an accurate figure, then it would seem logical to estimate Ukraine has 2-3 times as many soldiers (100,000+).

Bottom line neither of the figures are believable.

Just a bunch of propoganda. Nothing will be verifiable until it ends and the dust settles.

IMHO.

Nam only had limited artillery exchanges, relatively speaking. Nam was mostly an infantry war.

This is an artillery war, like WWI and WWII where troops can go weeks or even months without firing their weapon. Where 50,000 shells are fired by Russians daily and some 5,000 by the ZSU; shelling continues around the clock along the 1500km front line, night and day 24/7.

Very doubtful. The US lost 58,000 troops from 1965 thru 1975 in the Vietnam War. I can’t see Ukraine killing that many in only 4+ months of fighting.

The Russians tried to seize Kyiv in a Blitzkrieg. It was a spectacular failure. What's not to believe?

••Initial attack on Kyiv
Initial plan of the Russian generals was to be a lightning attack. The initial group were helicopter-borne troops, mostly from the 45th sfB (special forces Brigade), along with some troops from the 31st AB (Airborne Brigade), 11th AB, 76th AD (Airborne Division).

These were considered (by Russian sources) to be the best of the best, the creme of the crop of all sfB Brigades in the RGF. All of these troops were consolidated units: all volunteers for the “special operation”. AB units in the RGF are pretty horribly equipped generally, but have lots of spirit and motivation.

(Edit: ‘consolidated’ means that the units were not the whole of the unit, but parts and pieces brought together to form a whole; this would require a long explanation I don’t have time to explain, but just know these were not the mythical Western BTGs in either structure, composition or size.)

They assembled 150 helicopters, (some attack: KA-52s - excellent machine with excellent survivability, some transport). More than 200, maybe 400 from 45th to land and capture the Hostomel airport. Next, they were to capture the airfield at Vasylkiv south of Kyiv.

Once these two airports are secured, the rest of the Airborne troops will fly in Ilyushin Il-76 transports and would land at both airports: 31st AB, 11th AB, 76th AD

The troops from the 5th TB, 76th AB, 98th AB, 106th AB, 11th, 31 AB, SOBR, 141st Reg (46th B), 249th Bt “South” (46 B) stationed in Belarus would push south by land to Kyiv. The 90th TD and 2nd mD (Mechanized Division) would attack from the East toward Kyiv - these also were cream of the crop units. Both groups, West and East numbered 45-50,000 troops each.

Then in a quick attack, without suppressing fire, go to Kyiv, capture Kyiv, Parliament, and Zelenski. All of this relayed on one assumption which did not work out: The UA will not put up any strong resistance and collapse, halting any resistance, and civilian resistance would not occur they would be apathetic, would not care, or would support Russia. That was the idea.

Two or three of the sfB helicopters where shot down at the onset. In one of those helicopters was the commander of the whole operation. His death paralyzed the whole operation, leaving the troops leaderless.

The second problem was the troops, that were to take the Hostomel transport airport, landed next to the Ukraine 1st National Guard Brigade barracks just to the south. The Russians had 200- 400 troops, the National Guard had 2,000 - it was the best trained and motivated of the National Guard units, a hybrid between a true military unit and a military police unit, with some heavy equipment. But, taken by surprise, they began to retreat. In the 2nd half of the day, the 1st NG reformed and blocked the Russians.

Later, there was a drop of 200 more sfB troops north of the Vasylkiv military airbase, where the situation was identical. The sfB pushed the unknown Ukraine unit south, taking the airbase and almost taking the town.

The two civilian air ports were previously blocked by heavy equipment and trucks so no landing could take place. Zelenski and the top politicals were expecting this sort of operation.

At the same time, other Russian forces began advancing on land quickly from Belarus. The UA 14th managed delay them by a few of hours, but they were facing maybe 2X-3X their number.

In the 2nd half of the day, the Russian units managed to break through Ivankiv where the14th was defending. They pushed on to Dimpr ether they were stopped again in the late afternoon. Then they tried going south west. The first idea was t drive to the Hostomel airport to relieve the troops trapped there. At the end of the day and during the night, they managed to reach the airport and relive the troops there.

Meanwhile, the ZSU 14th got split into two pieces with one moving west blocking an important rail hub and the other south blocking major highway connecting Kyiv with Poland. While all of this is going on, ordinary citizens were organizing themselves and doing what they could - essentially, disorganized militias.

The ZSU Command brought the 72 Brigade up from 100km south; the 72nd surrounded the Vasylkiv military airbase. Other units of the Brigade moved north to help stem the Russian advance on Kyiv where the Russian troop column was stalled for 10s of kilometers

In this critical moment, the Ukraine top politicals began to freely give weapons out, as the city was essentially defenseless. Probably 20-30,000 people volunteered. This was a very intelligent move from the politicals to save the situation.

From the night of the 25th to the 26th Feb, the Russians broke through the UA defenses and began to enter the city. From midnight to 6Am one off the sfB units driving tracks at full speed managed to cross a bridge and get to an area of the city called Sylyavka, where the ZSU 101st Brigade destroyed them. After that, the two bridges to the city where blown. Then on the 27th, the 72nd Brigade began to slowly push Russian from Irpin and launched a successful counter attack toward Bucha.

The other part of the 72nd at the Vasylkiv military airbase eliminated the Russian sfB troops that day. Once that happened, taking Kyiv in 2-4 days was essential over. Both the Russian assumptions on how the operation would unfold were proven wrong. Ukraine civilians took a heavy toll because they were unprepared, untrained, and had only light equipment.

••Russian Special Forces Brigade lost about 50% of their troops. In general, it was a great plan, but went wrong on the major assumptions, the loss of the operation command, failure to take the airports, the redirection of other troops for air transport to trucks which got backed up.

The Eastern group got bogged down and by the time it reached Kyiv, they had lost steam. The frontal attacks lead to heavy Russian losses because the area is heavily forested. East and West forces could not unite and were split by river, giving ZSU a chance to move troops where they were needed, Russian troops could never get the concentration needed to take the city - where many thousands of civilians were ready to fight and Russians who would have taken very heavy casualties.

So that’s how the Russian plan got derailed and changed into something else which was not executable, and had to withdraw at the end of March.

“What’s not to believe?”

Everything. From all sides. The propaganda, lies, and armchair quarterbacking are ridiculous.

I’ll wait until it’s all over and a proper accounting is available. I remain skeptical until then.