Attack On Europe: Documenting Russian Equipment Losses During The 2022 Russian Invasion Of Ukraine

“With more starting artillery and ease of knock out, you would think those loss numbers would be much higher.”

PIF’s postings have often highlighted the critical role of Artillery in this war.

During the second phase of the war (Russia’s crushing Artillery barrage in the Donbas), we often commiserated that an answer was needed to Russia’s Artillery supremacy. Back then, it seemed that Ukrainian counter-battery fire was no where near sufficient, and that other missions received priority of fire.

Since then, the Ukrainian forces have been equipped with better and longer range 155mm Artillery systems, and much longer range HIMARS and MLRS to disrupt ammunition supplies. They have captured some goodly part of the guns that were firing on them from Izyum, and have gotten even better counter-battery radar systems and surveillance drones for targeting. This is all in addition to the attrition of Russian guns and crews.

The relative balance of Artillery has shifted significantly toward the Ukrainian forces, with even the Ukrainians now enjoying local Artillery superiority across the Dniper River (the Western or Right Bank of the river) in Kherson.

But I have still not heard direct reports of improved counter-battery kill rates. It might well be happening, but I have not seen data.

RuZZians are dying by the thousands every month.

Celebrate. Sing and Dance.

Ukrainians are dying by the tens of thousands every month.

Celebrate. Sing. and Dance.

10:1 is more like 20:1.

US/EU/UK/NATO should definitely be rejoicing, celebrating, singing, and dancing since their cannon fodder farm is doing all the dying for their globalist asses.

Go have a glass of vodka. Its 9pm in Moscow.

Have a glass of milk. Its 2pm in the CIA/MI6 propaganda mill basement you are currently inhabiting.

Thanks for the ping.

Toward your comment that the ukes need to be extremely efficient. It appears that the Uke military saw the light in terms of agile warfare.
They are now offering to test out in real time anything coming out of the US skunkworks.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-combat-zone-tests-ukraine-195116273.html

Ukraine: military situation update with maps, Sept 21, 2022
(’Orc’ is associated with the various hoards of 13th century Mongol invaders, as well as LOTR evil villains)

War in Ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP2QApi8G2TKc8NZmeDWSUg/videos

Artillery (key to success in this war), Fuller explanation of Orc military structure, Other Bonus articles - see previous postings in “Attack on Europe” (FR title search).

(Numbered printed material below - Some of the items below may be out of date, and not updated yet)

••denotes transcribed dialogue.

———————————————————————————————————————
••Main main news was the announcement by Russian president that he starts mobilization in the country.

The key points that he made we’re starting mobilization he did not disclose how many soldiers, which as I mentioned before is in in irrelevant, because it will be as many as needed. Russian minister of defense clarified, he said that its going to be 300,000, so the initial draw will be 300,000, and then if there is need for more, there will be more.

The layers: I actually found the layers in Russian media; for men there are 3 columns with 5 layers and two layers for women. The logic is this the more desperate you are, the fewer sources you have; the highest level is mostly young males up to 35, the next is for soldiers, then for junior officers up to 50, then Majors, for Colonels up to 55, for above Colonels, its up to 60, and then for Generals up to 65.

The initial draw and the focus is going to be on those first who’s going to be drawn or as those who who served who signed the contracts in the past and served in Russian forces including Syria, Libya, elsewhere. Those are going to be the most sought after, within this first layer this are sub layers: the first are those with who have real battlefield experience, no matter where - those are going to be the most sought after because they don’t require much training - and the training is going to be poor, regardless.

Then within this first layer, they’re going to be conscripts who served one or two years in the Russian army; every male is required to serve, so that is this first layer. Then the second layer: the age goes up up to 45, then to 55. The last layer, the soldiers could be up to 50; there is a plan to draw female as well - non-officer females up to 45 & officer females up to 50.

Something similar was actually in the works in Ukraine until recently, and there was a plan starting from October 1st to conscript women into the Ukrainian Army; now its more volunteers: you’re not required to serve, even though there is 2-3% of women are serving in the Ukrainian Army out of the entire of Ukrainian Army, which I would say relatively high, given that this is free will and not conscription. There was plan to force women to to serve in the Ukrainian Army, however, it was scrapped due to public outcry. Now this plan probably will be back on the table in Ukraine, giving this whole situation.

A few more things is that the prison term for not showing up to for Russian conscription is 2-3 years, and this mobilization limits the movement of all males in Russia, not only internationally, but also domestically.

The reason there is limited movement domestically because the conscription system is outdated by a 100 years; in WWI the only way to figure out where you are is by knowing your address; it doesn’t track the movement of people. For that reason, they limited movement of people so there is no difficulty finding them. As a result of that, this morning all tickets to nearby states, where there is no requirement were sold out for next several days. That means Azerbaijan, Armenia & probably some other countries in Central Asia, and North Turkey as well.

Some portion of Russian male population is voting with their feet, and despite the fact that technically they cannot leave the country, it does look that this is not being enforced yet. There were statements from one of the airports saying that they don’t enforce this rule yet; it will probably happen sooner than later.

Some other portion of the Russian population is protesting on the street; there is definitely protest in Moscow. This is also subjective opinion, I don’t think this protest will go anywhere; Russian Society is not fed up with the war enough, in my opinion. Probably partially the reason why is the gates are still open to leave Russia, because Russian leadership also understands that those who have money, they could be potential leaders of a revolution, so why not to let them flee the country and be out of the country. Then revolution without leadership is not going to happen, but its going to be an uprising, disorganized chaos. I’m just a little bit still sick and missing some words.

This is very clever strategy by Russian top where they they want the all potential leaders to leave the country, and that’s why I think they still don’t enforce those laws. Another point that rattles Russian society is there is political talk at the top of exempting them themselves from being called into Army, and that’s very depressing. That’s probably a proper way to say, you don’t motivate people to go and die, if you decided to hide behind their backs.

Related to this is there was exchange of prisoners of war from both sides, not only prisoners of war but also agents and covert agents. Russia got what they wanted: the main person there was Victor Medvichuk, who was Russian agent and tried unsuccessfully to play a role in Ukrainian politics, but it was a money black hole for the Russian KGB & FSB. Nevertheless, that was important agent for them, so they decided to exchange him for Azov leadership at some other as of members. They are interned in turn in Turkey until the end of the war.

This move is extremely unpopular in those motivated hardcore Russians who fight on the front line, because from their perspective, its betraying them as they were one of the prime targets. They felt like this is like at least some success that they can that they can be happy about, and yet they all released and and the person who Russia got Victor Medvichuk is extremely unpopular among lower level rational those what I call motivated Russians after fighting on the battlefield. He’s a close friend, more then friend, a really close friend, extremely close friend with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Everybody feels that this is the treatment is not the same on different levels and that’s a really demotivating factor for those Russians who want to continue to fight and because initially there was quite a bit of like quite a bit of upbeat mood as a result of this announcement among those hardcore Russians. Now they they feel a little bit betrayed; the psychological effect of this announcement went nowhere.

The future of what the consequences of this action what might be. The intent of the Russian side and the consequences are the following: if Russia throws on the battlefield 300,000 soldiers, they probably will win the war, unless Ukraine gets a lot of Western heavy equipment, which doesn’t look like its going to get.

The only way to offset Ukrainian inefficiency and incompetence and, this is more related to the middle and senior levels in Ukrainian command, and actually more so on economic side of the country, that’s really where the incompetence is. Its just unimaginable.

Because Army is also a reflection of the society at a great extent and so right now its very clear that the situation is tilting in Russian favor because there was a lot of euphoria in Ukraine after success in this Kupiansk offensive and which is obviously well-rounded in terms of like yes those were clear successes, but it doesn’t mean it was just one battle, but the war is not linear in terms of like okay you won the battle and Russia will just keep the status quo, and it won’t try to change the the whole landscape and this 300,000 soldiers and then this is not just 300,000 soldiers.

There will be another 300 another 100 whatever is needed basically its needed another 500 another million. This is just the the first echelon of their reserves Ukrainian leadership, and by that I mean all of the most economic beneficiaries of Ukraine as a system as value generating society, they all super scared right now and talking about negotiations getting into negotiations with Russia, which is totally contrast with Ukrainian population which is totally opposing them.

This is again going back to this big problem in Ukraine that there’s completely incompetent and unfit leadership, not just the very top, but throughout the system in Ukraine. They simply cannot win this war, unless Ukraine has exceeding highly level of resources over the other side, and at this point, the situation is changing a little bit more into balance, and even a little bit more into Russian favor.

This is going to be difficult choice in front of Ukrainian society; what happens next for example just as simple as saying production of bullets is not being done in Ukraine. A manufacturing facility, brand new from scratch, costs somewhere around like US$30-40 million.

Its totally doable. Its not rocket science; its pretty primitive manufacturing, nothing has been done about artillery shells Ukraine, they didn’t move to start production because Ukraine has the ability to produce. Russia can attack most of Ukraine, but there’s part of Ukraine that’s separated by the mountains, the Carpathian Mountains. There is a region called the Carpati, and its impossible and nearly impossible for the Russian rocket strike to attack something that is on the reverse slope of the mountain.

Its protected, and not to mention, that you can always build under underground facility in the mines similar to what Germany did in World War II. They were pretty successful in increasing their production, despite increasing number of air raids. (Edit: the Germans build underground shelters that covered many acres with many feet of reinforced concrete on the top and then planted mature forests on top of that, such that some were not discovered until long after the war ended.)

Nothing has been done in seven months of the war to make those facilities; they don’t take forever to establish. This is just a tip of the iceberg of the problems with Ukrainian leadership, not to mention, that majority of this economic beneficiaries are all outside of Ukraine in very nice places, such as Nitza in France Monaco on the Azure Coast the same thing in Vienna. I’m not sure why Vienna attracts them as a magnet, but apparently there’s something there.

They have villas there; they live in wonderful beautiful life without knowing what the cost of the war. These people now want negotiations and peace on whatever terms Russia wants. That’s the force strongly driving for negotiations with Russia, and they control the political system in Ukraine. The society is against that; we’ll see who prevails in this situation.

That might be also the motive from the Russian leadership as well; this mobilization is a last opportunity to force Ukraine into negotiations that will lead to concession of the most of the territories, meaning Crimea goes to Russia, then Lunahsk’ region goes to Russia, and the Donets region goes to Russia. Probably will Ukraine will get back Kherson & Zaporizhzhia but that still remains a question.

This is could be also very well calculated move by Russian leadership; the problem was that that Ukrainian political leadership is not terribly respected in the country in the first place, because other people see that they’re inept corrupt and unprofessional. Its not like they have much moral authority inside of the country, so this move probably probably will fail, but also this is just a subjective opinion about the situation.

There’s also an interesting fact that tells you about the magnitude of the lies by both sides: so the Russian Minister of Defense said that Russia lost 6,000 soldiers dead, but at end of a very end of August, Ukrainian Minister of Defense said that Ukraine lost 9,000 soldiers meaning that Russian Minister of Defense claims that they killed 100,000 something like that, 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers or some insane number. Ukrainian side also claims they killed 55,000 Russian soldiers. You can see the magnitude of the lies; none of these numbers are anywhere in the ballpark to describe reality, but it just shows you the magnitude of why the numbers presented by the official sources in both countries, are just trash, just empty lies that don’t have anything behind them.

Not much is going going on. The Russian side and Russian command is expecting to get those reinforcements as soon as possible while trying to maintain the front line, and not to have a collapse in North Luhansk’ area front line. Ukrainian command is unclear why its not trying to forcibly attack out of the Lyman Bridgehead, but that attack kind of like the day not trying to develop the initial success that helped them to liberate this territory between the two rivers.

The other unintelligent thing the Ukrainian side is doing, are frontal attacks on this road highway between Mykolaiv and Kherson and villages nearby. The Russian sources show those are suicidal attacks. The officers that send those soldiers to do those attacks are absolutely criminal to those people, because those troops, most of them are not trained and don’t understand what they are getting into.

To explain what happened, there is no reconnaissance, they don’t know where the minefields are, the Russian artillery has zeroed in on those spots, so they can dial in and shoot in a quick response. If you go into that area and the chances of surviving close to not close to zero, but very low, you’re definitely gonna fail; its not even about survival, its just the attempt to attack through that area that’s controlled by Russian artillery where they know where to shoot without adjusting their fire means their response can be very quick and relatively precise; its carpet bombing but with with artillery shells in that small area.

This is absolutely improper to say it is a very, very diplomatically and politely way of doing these attacks, and this is probably why so far this whole thing has had stalled. This is why Ukraine was successful in liberating this area because there was no Russian Artillery. because Russia also doesn’t have you know artillery everywhere.

It was all for concentrated on Izyum Bridgehead and there was nothing in the rear and if Ukraine attacks and even there is no skills you simply run over Russian rear units, just psychologically you win and then you don’t have the artillery response, so that’s why on this part was successful, and why its so difficult.

I would say relatively unsuccessful, and why its stalled, since the initial successes, because Russian side managed to regroup the artillery so they are concentrated on the area that’s the most threatened. That’s how they stop Ukrainian attacks. The whole point of this is, you really need to move fast, but as soon as you stop, you’re done.

On the 21st there was close to 100 HIMARS rocket shot against the Russian ferries and pontoons across Dnipro River, we don’t have any information to say what was hit; there is no news on that, but pretty sure its such high concentration something got hit, but there is still supply going on its much, much smaller lower. Nevertheless it is still there, and that’s why its going to be as I said that by thousand cuts.

North Luhansk’:
Things here are more or less the same with only one exception, which is not a great sign Russian forces tried to attack this eastern Kupiansk which is Ukrainian bridgehead on on eastern side of Oskill river. The Oskill River splits this down into two pieces and the industrial and logistical center is on the eastern side of the old town. The original town is on the western side, but then all industry, all of the railroad lines are on the eastern side.

This really means that either Russian side is starting to starting to get some reinforcements, or recovering from the initial shock of the initial losses, and also what this also means the Russian side is probably brought in artillery and trying to employ its traditional tactic of carpet bombing with artillery shells and turning into like Moon landscape and then capturing this territory once the resistance subdued significantly; that’s not a great development.

Lyman:
Russian forces still holding on to Lyman. At this point Russian troops don’t have enough forces even though they did actually they did try to do some small scale counter attack. Then this is where the more dangerous situation is where the Russian troops started starting to attack and that probably means that artillery is behind it and hard at work.

North Donbas:
Here is an interesting development: Wagner mercenaries were were pulled in this area. Ukrainian troops managed to bridge Russian defenses, but eventually they were repelled so now Russian the Wagner mercenaries are trying to to create a threat to flank of this Ukrainian group to stop attacks that are happening in the direction of oil refinery. The biggest prize and goal is Luchansk’, creating the threat to Russian flanks and moving south and collapsing the rest of the front line.

Central Donbas:
Things here more or less the same some relatively weak Russian attacks.

Kherson Bridgehead:
The front line more or less unchanged since yesterday; the only thing where this is the place where where Ukrainian troops tried to attack and failed. Ukrainian side wanted to gain control of those places so they were felt out of though out of the you know that attack failed and on the hill so that attack Russian Force is essentially a a small scale counter-attack and they managed to capture this gray Zone nomad’s land so now those two villages formally under their control but beyond this this is the only in many ways this is uneventful situation and

Just as the whole assessment attacking straight towards Kherson is really poorly thought-out idea because its very clear this is where the Russian side is expecting attack where the artillery is a gathering and even fresh inside has less artillery shells this is probably the top priority area for artillery shells that they definitely would try not to spare shells in this area; this is the top priority because this is about 20 kilometers to to Kherson

Artillery losses - those pieces are usually many kilometers behind the front and not accessible to anyone except Russians. They can only confirm those found at positions abandoned and the pieces photographed by some one on the ground.

Right, that makes sense as to why there are fewer confirmations.
It could be that there are fewer losses of those pieces of equipment for the same reason.

They have added an unknown number of T-80Ms (probably only handful - there was a video showing the rail shipment of 6 or 8 of them from the factory), some number of T80/T90 varieties in small quantities, and T-62s - as many as they could resurrect.

Agree with your comment that now time is on the Russian’s side.
—

Not my comments - They are the words of a guy known as War In Ukraine who is an English Speaking Ukrainian - or maybe a Ukrainian speaking Russian - no one knows.

They have only one functioning Tank factory - there is a smaller one but its largely shut, perhaps open for repairs, not production.

The large factory is hampered by lack of ball bearings, western chips and other foreign parts and likely reduced to turning out a tank a month - if that; just speculation, given the situation outlined and the refurbishing of 50 year old obsolete tanks - even speculation they will try to resurrect some T-34s, and JS 1-3s

but they are all 122mm short range artillery - Russia just broke out their WWII 152mm towed pieces; they have only a relatively few 152mm SPGs long range artillery and no GPS shells for them.

In any case all of their LR artillery is out ranged and less accurate than modern Western SPGs, to say nothing of HIMARS.

Again not my comment just a transcription of War In Ukraine’s comments.

Yes mobile warfare is the game to beat the Russians currently, but they cannot stop or the Russian artillery will mass and find them, spelling curtains for the mobile assault.

yeah, I don’t think that this grinding war they have returned to works to their advantage.

I would prefer to believe that like the move into the kharkov region behind the veil of the static kherson offense —the current battles around lyman and northward are smokescreens for another lightning strike elsewhere like say a drive south to melitopol. certainly the russians there seem to believe that they’re next.

When I see pictures of uke troop dispositions along the entire front—it looks like most of the uke troops are west of the dneiper. with a high concentration around mykolaiv.

Either what I’m seeing is wrong or the Ukes have not deployed their troops properly. There is roughly zero chance of the russians now being able to mount an offensive west of the denieper river.

Certainly it appears that Ukraine currently has roughly 100% visibility on the russian lines and supply lines. so they should be planning a next move somewhere.

they need to do as much as they can now. winter is coming.

Not likely that Ukrainians are dying at a greater rate. That would be exposed. The fact that Russia is conscripting 300000 more troops seems to differ with your pinky analogy

Tell that to the claims of former deputy commander of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, ex-deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, General Sergey Krivonos.....

‘Ukrainian general estimates Kiev’s losses at hundreds of thousands since Feb’
https://tass.com/politics/1501881