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. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers 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 the origin of a piece of equipment can't be established, it is 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.
Ukraine: military situation update with maps, Nov 28, 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(Numbered printed material below - Some of the items below may be out of date, and not updated yet)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. The entirety of the analysis is from a Ukrainian guy named War in Ukraine’s daily video - I only transcribe it. Extras are just that - from other sites, or my comments marked (Edit: .... )
-—> Current to date and past MAPS: <——
https://militaryland.net/
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Extras:
-—> Ukraine Situation Report: The Bloody Battle For Bakhmut <——
The long fight over Bakhmut has resulted in many casualties, little ground gained, and transformed the area into a WWI-like hellscape.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-the-bloody-battle-for-bakhmut
Excerpts:
Waves of Wagner Group mercenaries, backed by mobilized reservists, are getting cut down as they rush toward Ukrainian positions. Ukrainian defenders and the remaining civilians, pinched on two sides by advancing Russian forces and under constant bombardment, are suffering heavy losses as well.
Gains on both sides are minuscule, measured in meters. Ukrainian troops are holding on after months of attacks, though Russian forces appear to be closing in.
“The Russian military is still dealing with unrealistic political demands to show progress,” Michael Kofman, the director of Russian studies at CNA, a research institute in Arlington, Virginia ... “But given [the] poor quality of available forces and decreasing stocks of artillery ammunition, they are unlikely to be successful, because once again the Russian military appears to be feeding units piecemeal without adequate support.”
“Battles like Bakhmut consume forces that could be used elsewhere,” Kofman told The Times, adding that Russian forces are using people they deem ‘expendable,’ but even so, they cannot afford to waste that much artillery.”
There may be another reason for the fixation with Bakhmut.
(Edit: The article does not mention Yevgeny Prigozhin, the nominal head and owner of the Wagner Group, who stated that the goal is not actually capture Bakhmut, but to take as many Ukrainian soldiers lives as possible, and the idea is, ‘we exchange our low quality human material for Ukrainian better quality human material, and so we exhaust Ukraine, and eventually, in this war of attrition, we will win’.
—
-—> Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb Would Double Ukraine’s Precision Strike Range <——
Ukraine needs more long-range strike weapons and delivery of the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb could be poised for approval.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ground-launched-small-diameter-bomb-would-double-ukraines-precision-strike-range
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Extra’s Extra:
-—> Andor Is The Best Star Wars Ever Made <——
Tony Gilroy’s Andor finally puts the war in Star Wars and brilliantly taps the franchise’s full potential.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/andor-is-the-best-star-wars-ever-made
Excerpts:
... I am a Star Wars fan, but one that has been let down by the last two series and the rinse-repeat formula that is beginning to really dominate the TV side of the franchise.
Not only did Andor shatter this cycle, but it also changed the game entirely. It elevated the franchise in every conceivable way.
Star Wars has the luxury of being able to evolve into many things, and that includes telling very serious war stories that take their time and don’t pack in the nostalgia, super kid sidekicks, laser swords, or sorcerers.
Maybe the biggest opportunity lies in Andor being a great show for Star Wars super-fans as well as for those who outright dislike Star Wars. The show’s high quality and unique tone could bring a lot of new folks into the franchise that had long rejected it.
Bottom-line, for me, Andor isn’t just the best Star Wars in years, it is the best Star Wars ever made. And it would have been nowhere near as rich or enjoyable if it had not made the leap it did by jumping off the shoulders of all that came before it.
———————————————————————————————————————
Summary:
no major changes.
Key areas:
- Oskil river area: no changes.
- North Donbass area: no changes.
- Central Donbass (Donetsk West): no changes.
- Zaporizhya: no changes.
Wagner mercenaries tactics on the battlefield:
Two key pillars of success:
a) excellent coordination between assault groups and artillery/mortar support
b) use of UAVs to the fullest extent to achieve coordination and early detection/destruction of Ukrainian heavy infantry weapons that could stop advancing assault groups.
———————————————————————————————————————
••China:
You can see now on mainstream media, there’s a lot of social unrest there going on so the this implosion of the Chinese economy becoming much more clear, much more visible, and its getting into the next stage of social unrest, and when Xi Jinping was re-elected, this new group is economically bankrupt, and by that I mean, they have no strategic plan on how to fix the broken system.
The two pillars of the Chinese economy are real estate that is broken, and the second one is export, that model is also broken; I’m not saying that’s completely not working, but it cannot continue, the way it used to go was 6-8% per year GDP.
Now that growth is gone, not possible, and the problem is since at least 2008, China as a country, decided to go into deb to increase consumption, and to blow real estate bubbles; now that ability is not there as well. All of these dead bubbles, they need an ever increasing amount of debt to continue existence, like a pyramid scheme starts to crumble and fall apart, and this is what we’re seeing right now, the early stages of that.
The start of the process was actually summer of last year, early fall where there was EverGrande, the Chinese developer that started falling apart that was just the first bird that flew the coup, but now things are like a domino effect starting to fall apart. For example, Volkswagen and FAW which is joint venture with Volkswagen in Chengdu stopped production - this is another point showing the economy is going into a heart attack moment: they are closer and closer.
That’s putting a lot of pressure on Xi Jinping on how to address this, and since they are have no strategy, no vision how to change economy, and how to move forward in a non-extensive way that’s how China was developing, but in intensive way because its simply impossible under Communist regime, because even though things are cheap from China, any Communist regime is super inefficient.
The only way they can grow and develop through extensive way, they cannot grow through intense way, and as a result he has no vision, no strategy what to do next, and the only way to release all of this negative energy that’s being accumulated is some external aggression. I said that China captured Taiwan without shooting a bullet, and that’s probably going to happen in as I said in 2024. (Edit: based an erroneous reading of the recent Taiwan elections which appeared to favor the party that wants to join China, however, the election was not over China, but a sports stadium.)
The Chinese Prime Minister was negotiating today with Kazakhstan president. Kazakhstan is a major link between China and Russia, and China has made quite a bit of inroads into Kazakhstan, because its also large supplier of natural resources which Chinese economy needs.
••US:
There is expectation very strong expectation that Federal Reserve is done increasing rates, and today the Federal Reserve said, ‘they are not done by any means, they’re not done normalizing economic climate in the US’, and interest rates are going to go to a minimum 5% and higher to 7% and stay there for at least all of 2023.
There is a tightening policy from Federal Reserve to regain control of the economy, because its disintegrating in the US. When the interest rates were at zero, this means communism its you cannot call it technically, but the indirect result of it is you have communism in the US, and whenever you have 0% interest rates, so the entire capitalist system or market system stops working, and its turning into into communism.
Because of that the society starts to disintegrate, because there is no incentive for anyone to continue putting out an effort. They understand that pretty well, and they try to change this situation before it gets totally out of control - where no matter what they do, they will not be able to regain control, and this is the whole another reason why there is this push to increase rates by Federal Reserve, even though you can see that the inflation is definitely moderating, and probably will be moderating even more, but its still not enough to fully take control of the economy.
(Edit: Federal Reserve disaster - fixing the economy by destroying it, lowering inflation by increasing it. The whole of the inflation problem and the need to raise interest rates, stems directly from Biden’s push to eliminate the fossil fuel industry with cheap, plentiful, reliable energy in favor of the expensive, unreliable ‘green’ energy.)
••Long Discussion on Treasury Notes - Skipped.
••Long Discussion on Russia & Ukraine Dead Economies - Skipped.
Russia:
Russian government decided to use prisoners for work in military factories. Russia is more and more going to this Stalin economy or World War II, and even the way its rationalized which is for those who actually support the view that Russian leadership is humane, having family values and all that stuff. Just so you understand how the people are really viewed there in Russia as expendable material, the idea is, ‘we have planned to reduce to reduce number of population in the prisons’.
Then the logic is the following, ‘we need to get to 300,000 imprisoned people by 2030, what we can do is we’re gonna send them to all to these military factories where many of them will die, or send them to Wagner group where they all die, and so this way we’re gonna achieve our plan’.
I hope you realize that you probably don’t want to live in a country like that, because all of those so-called family values that they mentioned are just empty because the family in Russia itself is under extreme pressure, and in extremely bad shape, because there is extremely high level of alcoholism because of the difficult life conditions, and I’m not talking about the Moscow or St. Petersburg people or a handful of large cities, but the rest of Russia is dying off - that’s just not consistent with the declared family values.
••Ukraine:
At this point, Ukraine is almost on the verge of large flow of of refugees back to Europe which, even though the statistical numbers from Ukrainian border guards are not supporting the idea of large flow of the refugees from Ukraine, there is more coming than leaving the country, but the numbers are not large - its just slight increase, but things are just starting. Ukrainian electricity distribution network is in agony at this point like dying on its own from the wounds that are being inflicted by Russian attacks.
For example in there is power generation facility in this southeastern part of Venezia region. Something happened probably a transformer blew up from intense use: its not capable of sustaining that intensity, and an entire city is without heat, without electricity, and there’s a state of emergency for the 18,000 people there.The system is starting to disintegrate as I said on its own, even without further Russian attacks.
For example, in Kiev many living in high-rise apartment buildings are like a death traps where people have electricity for 1-2 hours per day, totally random. Sometimes no heat, the sewage doesn’t work, so you cannot use go to the toilet. All the heat comes for 3-4 hours in 24 hour period. The only reason its on is so water which is the main agent to to carry heat through the building, and to heat the building, doesn’t freeze and the pipes don’t blow up.
They don’t get any heat. It’s its cold, its winter, there’s snow on the streets, so living in an apartment is nearly impossible: you cannot even cook. I would say these are horrific conditions to live in right now, and the system has not stabilized: its slowly dying, and if there is one more Russian attack like the previous one on 23rd, it probably will put it to rest - the whole system will disintegrate into islands, and I’m sure Russia will continue attacking those islands to completely put the all of Ukraine into darkness.
On a relative scale things are better in the western part of the country; I’m not saying they they’re perfect, but its definitely in better situation - the more to the West the better it is, and the worst is obviously Kiev region - its a total disaster, pretty much complete disaster there.
••Military Situation:
••North Luhansk’:
Things here are the same: no Russian attacks or counter attacks, only two Ukrainian attacks in the same location - both are not successful, and didn’t lead to anything.
••Northern Donbus:
Russian troops or Wagner mercenaries to be more precise, started fighting in this village Spirna which is a stronghold; they made progress here, and the fighting is somewhere in the village. There is some progress here, then there are other typical attacks without much success, but Bakhmut was that much success.
Two images one showing bare brown muddy ground with tree stumps of varying height sticking up into a gray sky. The other showing a 4-5 foot deep trench with steep mounded embankments on either side. The trench is flooded several inches deep, a soldier leans against the embankment talking to someone inside a covered shelter entrance.
This near Bakhmut and a little bit south of Bakhmut - as you see it looks like World War I, and this was earlier when the there was a lot of rain, now its turning into colder weather, which is better & is misunderstood in the West - the the cold weather is better environment to survive & provides better conditions for for soldiers, because this is as you can see you living in total mud here.
••Wagner mercenaries - A Discussion About Wagner Group Tactics.
This image was from Ukrainian media, and what this says is screenshot from the a dead leader of the one of the Wagner assault groups.
It was on his tablet, this is a plan of attack, he was this is one of the groups. so as you can see different colors are for different assault groups. (Edit:Picture two fields bordered and separated by forested strips, on one side is a small forest, each position in forested strips is designated with a numbered colored dot and colored strips representing grouped unit type.)
In this attack and each dot indicates an individual soldier; its all super detailed planned; one of the advantages of the Wagner mercenaries is its excellent planning, and that’s one of the strong strengths of them, that’s not typical for regular Russian, not typical for Ukrainian Army.
Another important point is excellent coordination between groups, artillery support, and UAV support. They do operate like a one living thing, and that really makes their attacks extremely dangerous and extremely lethal to Ukrainian defenders.
••About assault groups:
Each assault group is typically about 8-12 soldiers - they vary in in sizes, but usually its 8-12 soldiers or 30-50 soldiers, and then the attacking force comprises of several assault groups, they are narrowly focused on the front line.
They accumulate against very narrow section of the Ukrainian front line, and each group has its own leader with a detailed plan of the attack who then directs soldiers under him in very detailed fashion, and each assault group has its own UAV; typically its a Mavic 3 by DJI which is Chinese company, and a the Russians who live in China and Russia are perfectly allies.
You have a lot of support from that perspective, and that’s another advantage of the Wagner group: technologically its very advanced and very extremely well equipped. It’s not just regular Russian army or regular Ukrainian army where everybody relies on volunteers donating equipment where the government doesn’t buy anything. Wagner mercenaries are extremely well equipped with UAVs and with technology.
This group starts to move under the commander and UAV tracks movement of members of the group, and translates everything to the command post behind them. Commanders are tracking everything and directing everything in real time.
You have a streaming service to the commanders of the whole entire assault force, and first what happens is this UAVs, they go first, they hover over Ukrainian defensive lines & try to see any potential threat, any heavy infantry weapons, or anything that can create problems for the group.
In real time, they translate it to the command post, then command post coordinates mortar fire - usually its 82mm mortar or 120mm mortars, and they also use automatic grenade launchers - typically is 30mm, but Russia also has more and more 40mm grenade launchers.
They coordinate fire against whatever identified backbone of Ukrainian defense - if its machine gun nest or anything that can create a problem for advancing Russians on the assault group, they try to eliminate it, not always successful, then even if they’re not successful, their soldiers, regular soldiers are directed, ‘attack no matter what’, and the idea is speed is your survival. You rely on speed to get as quickly as possible to Ukrainian trenches, just get into trenches, and start fight there.
Its also typical tactic; a lot of this tactic comes from the Soviet infantry in World War II, with the exception of the coordination, UAVs and all of that stuff, but supported by mortar fire, and then jump through the field of fire, no matter what, and get to the trenches, and then initiate fight there.
Its typical, it was the typical of Soviet battalions, and you cannot retreat - if you try to retreat, you’re gonna get shot on the spot by the leader of the group; the only people who are allowed to retreat are the wounded, and in many cases, even if you are wounded, you do it on your own.
There’s not as much dedicated resources to it, you have to get to the rear on your own - sometimes you get help, but in many cases, you don’t get help, and this is exactly how the Soviet Army operated in World War II.
Then there’s a quick jump into Ukrainian trenches, and they overrun the trenches, and in many instances, Ukrainian infantry just retreats, and that’s how they, from time to time, they capture Ukrainian defensive positions or strongholds.
Another important part is the bigger picture - higher level tactics, how it is planned. First, the command post of the whole assault force will send UAVs to hover over Ukrainian defensive stronghold. They narrowly select some stronghold in a very narrow section of Ukrainian front line, and they just hammer, hammer non-stop for days in the same area.
The way its done is very harassing, its not just sending waves and waves of soldiers to die, its done very differently: they send UAVs, they spot potential problems for the Russian attacking infantry which are destroyed by Russian artillery mortar fire - sometimes by automatic grenade launchers.
Once they believe they’re soft enough, then the assault force, which is comprised of several assault groups, attack the narrow section the front line, and try to get over the open area as soon as possible - without regard to the casualties to the group, and that’s one of the reasons why they sustain very heavy casualties, but this is disregarded by the the top of the Wagner group, because that’s their operating model.
If its not successful, the attacks are repeated day after day, day after day, to the exhaust defenders, and because Ukrainian command is not flexible, the same people would stay in the same area & eventually, they get exhausted, because you’re getting attack after attack, after attack, and eventually the defenders crumble.
Even from that perspective the whole operating model is extremely carefully thought out: fatigue of the defenders - first trying to destroy the most dangerous heavy infantry weapons, and then fatiguing the defenders using coordination of the UAVs, mortar support, automatic grenade launchers, and just plain infantry - they never use any armor to support the attacks.
It’s all pretty much done by just infantry, and you can even say this is a light infantry attack, they purely assault groups & probably how they were in a World War I.
These groups sustain heavy losses, but the reason they’re not losing fighting capabilities after a while, because that’s what you would expect, is you have a skeleton crew in the assault force, where you have commanders, top commanders, and specialists, who really do go and attack, but they’re not in the most dangerous positions - in most cases they survive.
The skeleton crew survives, but all of the prisoners they used as a shock wave, they all die, and they’ve washed out, and then you get new group of prisoners, who are tightly controlled by the commanders, and they are send in again to attack, and this is human wave power, like the Soviet Army operated in World War II.
This was all borrowed from the World War II experience of the Soviet Army, and its all creatively updated, using modern technological equipment, such as UAVs and improving coordination, but at the core, its the Soviet World War II infantry approach.
The whole point in all of these attacks by Wagner mercenaries, the point is even clearly stated by the head Yevgeny Prigozhin, is not even so much of capturing territory as wearing out and killing as many as possible Ukrainian defenders.
This is a very calculated strategy: you’re exchanging all of these prisoners - that is used as low quality human material or a burden for the Russian society - to use your burden to destroy better quality human material on the opposite side; that’s how the strategy is playing out in all of these fights, and its not even so much about capturing Bakhmut: its that’s not the main goal, the main goal is to kill as many capable and motivated Ukrainian soldiers as possible.
Hopefully, you understand that its a very flexible system, very agile and adoptable system, and extremely capable because it can concentrate the forces where its needed very quickly, and coordinate mortar fire, artillery and infantry attack using UAV. This multiplies the penetration effect by this whole assault force, and the regular Ukraine army is like a small Soviet army & cannot put up effective defense against such an approach, and so that’s why even if Ukrainian soldiers are motivated, eventually they either get killed or fatigued and the defenses are breached.
This again goes to the idea that Ukrainian side has a strategic dead end, and and they will not be able to withstand to this strategy, unless the Ukrainian Army changes and turns into something similar, where its more entrepreneurial - because Wagner mercenaries have a core that is very entrepreneurial and not disempowered as it is right now in Ukrainian Army, and the problem is the Ukrainian military command Top is scared, and Ukraine political Top is scared to empower lower level soldiers, because they understand that they themselves are incompetent, and could be kicked out.
They’re more afraid of the grassroots Ukrainian soldiers than the Wagner mercenaries because they believe that this is all contained to this Bakhmut area, and eventually it will fizzle out and somehow it all will die off
Looking at Prigozhin, I don’t think its gonna die off; he’s an excellent entrepreneur - we have to give him a credit for that. Yes, he is extremely inhumane, so from a moral perspective, he’s completely wrong. At the same time, he created a machine, a deadly machine that really works, and very superior to the organizational system of Ukrainian and Russian armies as well.
To be fair probably would be superior to most Western armies as well - the only difference is they don’t have as much firepower, and technologically they would still be inferior to them, so they probably wouldn’t have as much success, but this is what’s going on, and this situation will continue to deteriorate here.
There’s some information that the number of Wagner mercenaries in this area is at least 23,000 soldiers. This is almost two Soviet divisions at this point like pocket Russian World War II divisions. Not true Russian divisions, they are not really like true divisions, as they were in World War II or World War I.
This is a pretty significant system here and Wagner mercenaries don’t have a shortage of new fresh cannon fodder; they have plenty of it & try to increase the number so things will continue.
Today there are Russian reports, and they mean they might be wrong, but I would say they’re probably more correct than not, that Wagner mercenaries is penetrated Ukrainian front line, captured some tiny villages & a hamlet. As you can see Ukrainian front line, south of Bakhmut, defensive positions are in complete disarray, and due for straightening up and a larger retreat which, unfortunately, will open to outflanking from the south and from the north.
It’s gonna create more difficult situation around Bakhmut and will bring the moment closer to when Russian troops will be able to capture Bahamut and force the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops under threat of encirclement.
There is no answer within Ukrainian system to this approach, and to just reiterate, to create an answer, Ukraine needs to change, and those changes are extremely painful, requiring changing Ukrainian Top, and that’s what the nature of the war - it forces you to change in significant ways or die - this is exactly that situation around Bakhmut.
••Zaporizhya:
Here are super stable super quiet, no changes. Russian side reporting that Ukrainian command is accumulating forces north of Orkhiv - I would be very skeptical, because right now, I think Ukrainian military has a burning hole around Bakhmut, where probably some of those reserves will be sent, and probably what’s going to happen there, is that Ukrainian command will try to do suicidal, useless, and futile - I would say criminally insane counter-attacks in the typical way which will lead not to nowhere against the Wagner mercenaries, but will create a lot of losses and deaths on Ukrainian side.
