Posted on 03/24/2023 7:17:55 AM PDT 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. 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at oryxspioenkop.com ...
When is he going to fall out of a window?
“(War Criminal) Girkin comes to the conclusion that the Russian military are criminals and that the so-called ‘SVO’ (Special Operation as they call it) has no legal status.”
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1639174889830490112
“A Russian BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle was destroyed by a RGT-27S2 thermobaric grenade dropped into an opened hatch from a drone of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade in Mykilske, #Donetsk Oblast. A destroyed Russian KAMAZ supply truck can be seen nearby too.”
https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1638959148845989888
“Russian airborne troops are playing a greater role in the fighting around Bakhmut because of the growing losses of the Wagner private military company, the Ukrainian military says.
“It is not that [Wagner] are withdrawing, but that due to heavy losses they have to be reinforced by units of the regular army of the Russian Federation, primarily by airborne troops,” Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesman for the Eastern Grouping of the Armed Forces, told Ukrainian television Friday.“
“Indian Air Force says Russia can’t meet arms deliveries due to Ukraine war”
“Russia is unable to honor its arms delivery commitments to India because of the war in Ukraine, the Indian Air Force (IAF) said, placing a potential strain on New Delhi’s relationship with its largest defense supplier as Moscow attempts to ramp up weapons production.
An IAF representative told an Indian parliamentary committee that due to the Ukraine war a “major delivery” from Moscow “is not going to take place.”
The admission, published in a report by India’s lower house of parliament on Tuesday, is the first official confirmation by Indian authorities amid swirling rumors and reports in local media suggesting shortcomings in Russian capacity.“
Vodka Boy
“Any arrest of Vladimir Putin overseas under the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) warrant for the Russian President would mean “a declaration of war against Russia,” Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday, according to state-run news agency Tass.”
“For most of last year, thousands of Russians and Ukrainians flocked to the Indonesian island of Bali to escape the war. There they found refuge in a tropical paradise where locals rolled out the welcome mat for Ukrainians fleeing the shelling and Russians dodging the draft.
Then, a Russian influencer scaled a 700-year-old sacred tree, naked.
After that, a Russian street artist painted an antiwar mural on a private house, and a Russian teenager was caught vandalizing a school.
A string of recent motorbike collisions involving Russians and Ukrainians has raised questions about traffic safety on the island.
Now, the once-welcoming Balinese people have had enough. Confronted with a barrage of complaints, the governor of Bali, Wayan Koster, announced earlier this month that he asked the Indonesian government to revoke Russia’s and Ukraine’s access to the country’s visa-on-arrival program.”
Damn I thought we were going to be allowed to go through our day without being bothered by silly statistics about how many flat tires the Ruzzian army was having.
Thanks for reading my daily thread!
FTA: "Our military deploys a Patriot battery in 40 to 45 minutes,” he said. “Ukrainians manage it in 25. They do a great job. They are very optimistic, considering the situation at home."
OMG! We are back to using WWI tactics when pilots dropped mortar rounds out the sides of planes and had pistol duals between themselves. What a joke this whole fiasco is. If you beive this crap you surely believe SloJoe got 81 mil while camping in his basement.
Apparently you have no clue about how to conduct war. Why move when your opponent comes to you and you have an established defensive line. You thin your opponents troops and equipment more easy when you are operating from an established defensive line while your logistics train is easier to supply. Ukes are going to get their a$$ handed to themselves for being morons. I can see this from my front door.
“Our military deploys a Patriot battery in 40 to 45 minutes,” he said. “Ukrainians manage it in 25.”
Really? But do they know how to operate the system like intended? Deploying and operating is animals of different stripes.
Ukraine: military situation update with maps - Mar 23, 2023
(’Orc’ is associated with the various hoards of 13th century Mongol invaders, as well as LOTR evil villains)
War in Ukraine Explained/Reporting from Ukraine:
https://www.youtube.com/@RFU
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 Reporting from Ukraine’s daily video - I only transcribe it. Extras are just that - from other sites, or my comments marked (Edit: .... ) or { } or [ ].
-—> Current to date and past MAPS: <——
https://militaryland.net/
-—> The True State of Russian Army <——
posted 2 months ago, 21.13 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KiII_2qabk
-—> Combined Arms Breach, what UA will have to master to smash Orc Lines <——
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ-sCT_maAQ
Excerpts:
... several national security experts said they believe the Biden administration has yet to clearly state what its strategic objectives in Ukraine are. They say it’s not clear whether the United States supports Ukraine expelling all Russian forces from its territory - Ukraine’s stated objective - or if it would settle for a negotiated peace that falls short of a total Ukrainian victory.
This type of ambiguity has plagued the United States as it has tried to wage war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere
For most of the 21st century, the United States has lacked effective policies or strategies to win conflicts, giving rise to the Forever Wars ...
“We keep saying, ‘We’re going to give them everything it takes,’ - everything it takes to do what?” Breedlove [Retired Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, who led NATO and U.S. European Command from 2013 to 2016, ] told Task & Purpose. “We’re going to be there as long as it takes - as long as it takes to do what? As a military commander, if someone gave me those as directives, I would have no idea what they were asking me to do.”
Having a clear U.S. policy on Ukraine will determine how long the war will last, he said. The Ukrainians have already proven that if they are properly equipped, they can defeat the Russians, as they did outside Kyiv at the onset of the war and elsewhere in the country since.
“How this fight proceeds is 100% reliant on Western policy and whether the United States leads Western policy,” Breedlove said. “If we choose to give them what they need to win, they will win, and this will not be a protracted war. If we choose not to give them what they need to win, which is our current track, then this might turn into a protracted war.”
—
The Biden administration deserves credit for holding the alliance of countries supporting Ukraine together and earning bipartisan support in Congress to provide military assistance for Ukraine, said retired Army Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army Europe. But “they have stopped short of declaring what’s this all about in a clear, concrete way.”
“I don’t why they can’t say: ‘We want Ukraine to win; our goal is for Ukraine to win, and here’s what that means, and here’s why it’s important to the United States,’” Hodges told Task & Purpose.
Because the U.S. government has not clearly stated that it supports a Ukrainian victory over the Russians, leaders in the Kremlin still have hope that the United States and other countries will eventually lose the will to continue helping Ukraine, Hodges said.
—
Ever since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, the U.S. government has been stuck in a cycle of initially refusing to provide weapons to Ukraine, only to reverse course after months of internal debates, by which time any opportunity to make a real difference on the battlefield has passed, said George Barros, a Russia analyst with the Institute for the Study of War think tank in Washington, D.C.
“We have our standard policy objectives, which is good; however, I’ll be perfectly honest, I am not convinced that the United States clearly has a strategy to achieve said goal,” Barros told Task & Purpose. “We have an approach; and that approach has been to send Ukraine a weapons system short, a day late. And so, we’ve always been playing catchup, and it’s not indicative of there being a real sound strategy.”
—
“If we were to say, ‘We will do whatever it takes for Ukraine to win’ - boom; all of a sudden, you’re in a vulnerable spot domestically, because what’s that going to take?” said Horrell, a former naval intelligence officer.
Horrell also noted that U.S. officials often talk about defending Ukraine instead of helping the Ukrainians win. That could indicate that the Biden administration has not yet decided if U.S. policy is to help Ukraine win or achieve a negotiated peace.
Excerpts:
Wagner has lost so many fighters, that the company is launching a new recruitment drive to fill its depleted ranks. In one of his latest messages, this time an audio file shared on Friday, Prigozhin claimed that he had more fighters coming to aid the fight, to fill gaps left by heavy losses.
“Recruitment centers for PMC Wagner have opened in 42 Russian cities,” Prigozhin added in a statement on the news. According to a list of sites shared by the mercenary company, these centers will be located at gyms and martial arts studios.
U.S. intelligence estimated in January that Wagner pulled in 40,000 new fighters that way, on top of the 10,000 non-convicts in its ranks. Exact losses are unclear. The British government estimates that Russian forces have suffered as many as 30,000 casualties fighting for the city, and Prigozhin has released videos showing corpses of his company’s fighters.
Prigozhin said that he was in desperate need of ammunition, as much as 10,000 tonnes per month, in order to wage war.
It’s not clear how successful this will be. The Russian government’s own recruiting efforts have been less than smooth. Early attempts were so bad the military attempted to find fighters at homeless shelters.
Excerpts:
The grainy, black-and-white video, set to techno music and first posted on Telegram, splices together several angles of the USVs attempting to enter the largest harbor on the occupied Crimean peninsula. As the USVs approached the harbor, some appear to have encountered an obstacle.
One of the USVs hit the obstacle and exploded, while two others may have jumped over it, traveling further into the harbor. But apparently both exploded before they could hit any targets. Yesterday, a video, which is also seen at the end of this montage, looks like one explosion on the harbor may have been caused by a friendly fire ricochet.
In addition to the USVs, the Russian occupation governor claimed Sevastopol was also attacked by an aerial drones as well.
Though it used Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones in deadly attacks on Ukraine earlier this week, Russia has only about 200 left, according to the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate (GUR).
However, it is hard to gauge just how many drones Russia has left. There have been previous claims by Ukraine that Russia was running out of Iranian drones. And in January, Skibitsky [Vadym Skibitsky, General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine] said Russia contracted with Iran for 1,750 drones.
Russia receives the drones from Iran in batches of about 250 to 300 and has used about 800 of so far, Skibitsky told RBC-Ukraine Thursday.
“However, we do know that they will be trying to get their production of these drones up and running. We clearly understand where they plan to do it and how.”
“A drone is a fairly simple thing to manufacture. Here, the main thing is not even so much production, but components - optics, microcircuits, chips, power elements and others. And if we and our partners know how these components are delivered, it will be difficult for Russia to get them in large quantities. Unless to circumvent sanctions, smuggling, through third countries.”
—
On the battlefield, a Ukrainian general gave a sly hint of things to come.
“Very soon, we will take advantage of the losses of the Russian Federation at Bakhmut,” Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said on his Telegram channel Thursday.
“The aggressor does not give up hope of taking Bakhmut at any cost, despite losing manpower and equipment. The main forces of the Russian Federation in this direction are representatives of the Wagner PMC. They spare nothing; they lose significant forces. Very soon, we will take advantage of this opportunity, as we once did near Kyiv, Kharkiv, Balaklia, and Kupiansk.”
—
In a move bound to raise hackles in Moscow, four Ukrainian pilots climbed into MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter jets in Slovakia and flew them home to join their own air force, the Slovakian Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced Thursday.
—
Finnish Defense Minister Antti Kaikkonen on Thursday expressed his opposition to Ukraine’s request for a portion of his country’s F/A-18C/D Hornet fighter jet fleet.
“My view as Finland’s defense minister is that we need these Hornets to secure our own country,” Kaikkonen told a news conference in Helsinki, as reported by Reuters. “I view negatively the idea that they would be donated during the next few years. And if we look even further, my understanding is that they begin to be worn out and will have little use value left, he added.”
The transfer of Finnish Hornets to Ukraine would rely upon approval from the United States, as the original equipment supplier, with Washington so far having been resistant to Kyiv’s requests for U.S.-made fighter jets, on the grounds of potential escalation of the conflict. [See Above: What Are America’s Goals in Ukraine? It’s Not Totally Clear]
Excerpts:
“The first four MiG-29 fighter jets have been safely handed over to the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” the Slovakian MoD announced Thursday. “The transfer was carried out by Ukrainian pilots, with the help of the Slovak Air Force, Ukrainian personnel, and other components that ensured the safety of the transfer and the necessary documentation.”
Minister of Defense Jaroslav Naď said, “we are providing Ukraine with unnecessary technology,” reflecting the fact that, from next year, Slovakia is due to receive 14 new F-16 Block 70 jets to replace its retired Fulcrums.
Not all of the 13 Slovakian MiG-29s will be airworthy. Reportedly, deliveries will comprise 10 upgraded single-seat MiG-29AS and two-seat MiG-29UBS jets that will enter operational service, plus three non-upgraded examples that will be used as a source of spare parts.
Ukraine’s Air Force has lost at least 61 aircraft, including 18 Fulcrums since the all-out war began, according to the Oryxspioenkop OSINT group. The actual figure is likely higher since the group only counts visually confirmed aircraft losses.
But there appears to be a new batch of Ukrainian USVs in the works. Pictures of the USVs were posted on Twitter by Ukrainian volunteers Serhii Sternenko and Ihor Lachenkov the same day as the Sevastopol attack.
The photos show two drones named “Bakhmut” and “For Raccoon,” according to the Defense Industry of Ukraine.
Excerpts:
Only vehicle crews who qualify ‘Distinguished’ on their own platform (combat vehicle) may name their platform” under the new policy, III Corps spokesman Lt. Col. Tania Donovan told Task & Purpose in a statement.
The policy effectively turns the tradition of tank naming into a training reward. According to Donovan, the new policy was designed “to incentivize excellence, to master the fundamentals, and ensure we produce lethal crews that will win in combat.”
“Naming a fighting platform is a long-standing tradition that we value; we are adding to that tradition by requiring more of ourselves,” Donovan said. “Our nation expects nothing less.”
This clause in the policy may appear cause for concern to tankers who have embraced unorthodox but not less intimidating tank names in the past. Under the new rules, names like ASVAB Waiver, Barbie Dreamhouse, and Dropped as a Baby would almost certainly become verboten.
“With all the focus of senior leaders trying to figure out how to build esprit de corps and get people excited about the Army, it seems incredibly out of touch to take something like this away,” wrote the anonymous III Corps tanker.
“When the Army is trying to get us to ‘tell our Army story’ and use social media and word of mouth advertising to help drive recruiting/retention maybe we shouldn’t implement policies aimed at taking the fun out of the job.”
[Another reason not to join - bureaucracy.]
Via Telegram: He was wounded in the leg and was evacuated from the front.
••Day 393: March 23
[They did not expect this: Surprising use of Javelins]
Today the biggest news is coming from the east. Here, Ukrainians tried to widen the corridor to Bakhmut and push Russian Anti-Tank Guided Missile systems away from the road. Ukrainians were facing a lot of difficulties in dealing with ATGMs, but when one Ukrainian crew started detecting and destroying these systems with Javelins, the situation rapidly shifted in Ukrainian favor.
Last time I told you that Ukrainians conducted a successful counterattack in the southern part of the region and improved the security of the Ivanivske highway, which they immediately started to use. I also told you that Ukrainian reconnaissance and HIMARS crews are destroying up to 3 Russian assault units per day before they even launch their assaults.
The freshest reports suggest that Ukrainians continue to spot and destroy Russian assault units while they are walking toward their target. Today Ukrainian 3rd Assault Brigade released a video showing how they detected another assault squad [10 soldiers] north of Bakhmut, communicated the coordinates to the artillery team, and prevented the attack by killing the enemy on the approach.
The latest reports also indicate that after Ukrainians increased the territory under their control in front of the Ivanivske highway, they switched their focus to the Khromove highway. Prior to conducting a counterattack, Ukrainian forces conducted an artillery preparation on the enemy positions in the tree lines, and as it would be revealed later, this ensured that Ukrainian assault would only need to deal with half of the squad.
When the assault was launched, Ukrainians approached the trenches and started a close combat engagement. A second team of drone operators helped those on the ground to navigate the situation and informed them about the activity in the Russian trenches. As a result, the attack was successful, and the Russians lost their positions in the tree lines.
However, this was only the beginning, as Russians are holding many positions along the Khromove highway. Russian side recently released footage showing how they are using anti-tank guided missiles or ATGMs in the tree lines to target Ukrainian vehicles. Today, the Ukrainian side released footage showing how they started spotting Russian ATGM positions and then destroying them with Javelins.
In order to reduce Russian fire control over the road even more, Ukrainians also put emphasis on destroying Russian mortar crews. This task proved to be much more difficult because they do not have to be located close to the contact line. However, today Ukrainian 127th Brigade released a video of how they tracked down a Russian car and discovered that it was supplying mortar crews with ammunition. As a result, they destroyed the vehicle with a drone and communicated the enemy mortar positions to the artillery.
Ukrainian Intelligence has recently intercepted a Russian call, which revealed that Russian forces around Bakhmut are leaving their positions. It mentioned that there are 119 cases of desertion and that 70 were already found and will likely go to jail.
This is not surprising given the level of losses that Russians are incurring near Bakhmut. American Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley stated in an interview that nearly 1,200 Russian soldiers were recently killed in a single day around Bakhmut when Russians tried to overwhelm Ukrainians with attacks from all sides.
UK military advisor Ian Stubbs also recently discussed the situation around Bakhmut and told the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe that Russia has lost up to 30,000 Wagner and regular forces in its failed attempt to capture Bakhmut. Such a magnitude of losses is equal to around 3 divisions or 1 full corps.
And looks like it is true because several days ago, the Head of the Wagner Group, Prigozhin, announced that he is planning to recruit the same number of militants by May - 30,000. All of that strongly indicated that the information regarding Wagner Group’s problems is quite reliable. [See link above.]
But in order to check the reliability of this information further, I clicked on Ground News Extension to see the full coverage. Here, I could immediately note that this is not some random made-up story because it is covered by more than a dozen of reputable sources.
And what is more important, the story was equally covered by left-leaning and right-leaning outlets, so it does not have a pronounced political bias.
But the one indicator that I always make sure to check is the share of independent news.
In this case, 21% of sources are independent news, which is a very good sign because it means that the probability that this story was manufactured by special interests should be low.
Bakhmut:
Wagner Forces do not have enough forces to encircle the city. UA sends more reinforcements. PMC still whining about lack of artillery shells. More shell production has been arranged by PMC, but the problem is logistics and bureaucracy. This is the same problem as regular Russian military.
No change in front lines since yesterday. PMC says UA counterattack in April, but Denys says UA still lacks the resources for a counterattack.
PMC says it is shifting to Africa because they can dig/mine/drill without restrictions for gold, diamonds, oil.
Bakhmut and Adiviika are places where Russia wastes it troops and armor - the immediate goal of the UA, even the cost of heavy UA losses - the price of victory, Denys says. Russia using its best forces now and they are becoming exhausted.
—
Russians say that Zelensky wants his reinforces troops be be encircled in order to convince Western countries [aka, the US] to send more artillery systems, tanks, and planes. Of course, that is complete nonsense. Casualties are 1:1 in city fighting now.
—
Avdiivka:
Supply routes a many and open. Russian forces close to railroad line in the north.
—
Nova Kakhovka:
Russian forces rotated out, but was misunderstood by some as a withdrawal - which it was not.
—
UA Counterattack:
Denys continues to predict the UA counterattack will be from Orikhiv, or from Huliapole, or from Vuhledar.
[All of those options leave the attacking UA force with Russian forces before them, and to the left and right. Does not sound militarily advantageous to me. Better to come through Kherson or Nova Kakhovka, if the goal is to take Crimea and squeeze Russian forces further from supply routes and cut the water to the peninsula.]
—
Russian defense lines are mostly nonsense. They were built by private Russian company owned by relatives of someone in the Russian Command. Big money laundering operation. All the concrete cones or ‘dragon’s teeth’ were connected by a metal strip and so it’s easy to pull out a bunch of them at once. Concrete used for cones is so bad that a tank can crush them - mostly sand and gravel with little cement.
Tank trap behind the cones is a straight line. [Bridging vehicles will have no problems crossing them and follow-on vehicles will rapidly cross.] Russian mil-blogger were very mad about how poorly the line was built.
—
Denys hits the slow delivery of Western weapons because the West [aka: Joe Biden & Co] did not want to ‘escalate’ the war. This year-long dithering cost the lives of many UA troops and civilians. He thinks the UA lost between 50,000 and 70,000 soldiers so far. [See story above.]
—
Because the front lines are so far from the interior, men are relaxed and no so likely to join the UA. Most of the people likely to volunteer have done so already. New soldiers are not as motivated as earlier groups, but it is a fixed number. This up-coming counterattack may be the last opportunity, due to manpower loses and lack of new motivated troops.
Counterattack has the possibility to be the largest since WWII, and according to some, will shock the world. But if it fails, then the war will go on for years or even decades, as neither side would have enough resources to make a strategic change. Majority of Ukrainians are against any ‘peace deal’, and most of the allies understand that point.
UA will be more prepared with better equipment and armor that it was with the very successful Kherson and Kharkiv campaigns.
—
New Russian tank operator of “the best Russian tank”, a T-90M, says he was a civilian until recently, and that Russia lacks trained operators for its “best tanks”. Russian civilians are beginning to understand that the probability of dying or being wounded on the front line is very high.
—
Prigozhin Video:
A Wagner commander explains in a video [no English] what is happening on the UA side at Bakhmut with concentrations of nearly 80,000 troops, more than 300 tanks, more than 1,000 armored vehicles, and 90 heavy artillery systems; also says UA moving forces toward Lyman; a ‘strike fist’ near Dnipro City is forming for a possible attack on the south. This video shows the Russians understand what is happening.
He says there will be to vectors: one toward Melitopol and the other towards Mariupol. Lyman and Kherson directions are secondary vectors, not the main one.
He says UA troops are very hard to fight and not retreating like propaganda videos would have you believe.
Our military deploys a Patriot battery in 40 to 45 minutes,” he said. “Ukrainians manage it in 25.
—
The difference:
UA troops are hurrying because they know their lives are on the line.
US troops are slow because they are thinking about wives, girl/boy friends, and chow time.
@NOELreports 22m
Explosions are reported in Sevastopol. In the area of Omega Bay.
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