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Ukrainian Tank losses Running Total: 728

Ukrainian Artillery losses Running Total: 450

RuZZian Tank losses Running Total: 2606
January 2024 – 26
December 2023 – 74
November 2023 – 67
October 2023 – 108
September 2023 – 57
August 2023 – 86
July 2023 – 113
June 2023 – 73
May 2023 – 90
April 2023 – 5
March 2023 - 127
February 2023 – 118
January 2023 – 61
December 2022 – 76
November 2022 – 105
October 2022 – 212
September 2022 - 217
August 2022 – 74
July 2022 – 108
June 2022 – 67
May 2022 – 148
April 2022 – 243
Feb 24 - March 2022 – 350

RuZZian Artillery losses Running Total: 990
January 2024 - 19
December 2023 - 33
November 2023 - 25
October 2023 - 77
September 2023 - 48
August 2023 - 67
July 2023 - 56
June 2023 - 47
May 2023 - 43
April 2023 - 24
March 2023 - 37
February 2023 – 41
January 2023 – 31
December 2022 – 19
November 2022 – 55
October 2022 – 64
September 2022 - 73
August 2022 – 21
July 2022 – 21
June 2022 – 18
May 2022 – 20
April 2022 – 52
Feb 24 - March 2022 – 110

Previous day’s thread: https://freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/4209447/posts

Summarizing this war:

A tragedy for Ukraine.
A disaster for RuZZia.
A strategic win for the USA.

“Why Internet Trolls Do What They Do and How to Spot Russian Fakes”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLtBzvw0—0

“Here is the best-kept secret about U.S. military aid to Ukraine: Most of the money is being spent here in the United States. That’s right: Funds that lawmakers approve to arm Ukraine are not going directly to Ukraine but being used stateside to build new weapons or to replace weapons sent to replace weapons sent to Kyiv from U.S. stockpiles. Of the $68 billion in military and related assistance Congress has approved since Russia invaded Ukraine, almost 90 percent is going to Americans, one analysis found.”

https://twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1730119780873441750

🇷🇺 Russia strongly condemns the United States and its allies for irresponsible strikes on Yemen - Maria Zakharova.

She noted that Moscow’s fears were confirmed - the Anglo-Saxons used UN Security Council Resolution 2722 on safe navigation in the Red Sea as a pretext for a missile attack.

Also, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry emphasized that strikes by the United States and its allies threaten to destabilize the situation throughout the Middle East. - FRWL reports

https://twitter.com/djuric_zlatko/status/1745725828967596330

Stupidity Is Rampant At Foreign Affairs When It Comes To Ukraine

Let me repeat for the learning disabled in the U.S. National Security community — Putin has two objectives. First, demilitarize Ukraine. That is taking place through attrition and, as an unexpected benefit, he also is demilitarizing NATO, who is unable to produce air defense missiles and artillery shells that Ukraine would need to mount a credible defense. Second, de-nazify Ukraine. Putin and his Generals are not going to stop until the filth of Nazi scum prevalent in Ukrainian ranks are wiped away. Real clear. Real simple. Don’t make this more complicated than it is.

This is the problem. The so-called foreign policy experts that populate think tanks and Congressional committees in Washington, DC do not know a damn thing about Russia. They are obsessed with a 1980s vision of Russia and are refusing to take a fresh look at Russia as a nation, as an industrial power and as a legitimate military force. These dummies do not realize that if Putin suddenly disappears that Russia is not going to crumple into a fetal position and beg for the West to love it. Ain’t going to happen. Russia understands one thing that the United States does not — it will defend the motherland at any cost. Russians are proud of their country and its history. It has rejected the legacy of the Soviet era and embraced Orthodox Christianity. The United States? Its borders are being flooded with a tsunami of migrants, its major cities are filled with homeless drug addicts and crime, its politicians are busy enriching themselves at the expense of their countrymen and the government is promoting and protecting sexual deviance.

Russians, unlike Americans, understand science and know that men cannot have babies and that women cannot grow a penis. It is this grasp on reality that gives Russia the confidence that it will prevail in preventing the West from turning Ukraine into Jeffrey Epstein land.

Russian terrorist forces showed their own defensive fortifications

📹 The following IFS elements are present in the video:

- an extensive trench system with a length of hundreds of meters, a depth of up to 2 meters, and a width of up to 1.5 meters, which allows two fighters in equipment to move freely and easily pass each other;
- completely blocked passages of connections, which allows you to move covertly, including and from thermal imaging devices (which means protection from resets and FPV), as well as maintain a stable air temperature and own microclimate;
- a drainage system that prevents flooding and the formation of an impassable swamp during the rainy season;
- prepared for firing and camouflaged positions for shooters;
- electrified covered dugouts equipped for staff accommodation;
- individual shelters of the "fox hole" type along the entire length of trench connections, which allows a soldier to hide if he is caught by artillery fire while moving;
- wooden structures of high quality.

🪚 We need to pay a lot of attention to the IFS and move towards overcoming the enemy, because defense, today, is an important part of our Defense Forces. If the person who is supposed to control this sphere from positions is not brought to justice, then we will continue to only discuss the defense of various settlements, adding the label "fortress" to their name until the moment of their complete destruction.

👤 The fighters themselves share observations about the enemy:

When the Muscovites occupy some positions, they immediately start digging, chopping, working with saws and construction equipment. They pay a lot of attention to the construction of defensive fortifications and devote a lot of resources there. Moreover, they have people who are engaged purely in digging trenches, arranging them, etc., and not like our fighter who storms and builds and takes care of all other issues.

https://twitter.com/DevanaUkraine/status/1745782668342497642

This appears to be a recruiting video to show the mobniks how they will be living for the next couple of years.

Russia says it carried out 23 strikes on Kiev’s defense industry sites, troops this week

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces have destroyed a total of 567 Ukrainian warplanes, 265 helicopters, 10,620 unmanned aerial vehicles, 447 surface-to-air missile systems, 14,578 tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, 1,202 multiple launch rocket systems, 7,694 field artillery guns and mortars and 17,345 special military motor vehicles.

“No Big Russia Offensive in Ukraine in 2024, Igor Girkin Predicts”

Newsweek reports:

“The Russian invasion of Ukraine is developing in “a very bad way,” but a “broad offensive” is no longer planned in the spring or summer, former Russian military commander Igor Girkin has predicted.

Writing in a letter from his prison cell, which was published on his personal Telegram account on Thursday, the Russian nationalist—who has been highly critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s handling of the war—suggested his nation’s forces would be short of men needed to mount any large-scale attacks until mobilizations restarted.

“There will be no mobilization yet—until the ‘elections’ for sure,” he wrote in Russian. “They will try to patch up ‘holes in the ranks’ and new units at the expense of prisoners and contract soldiers.”

Girkin, who also goes by Igor Ivanovich Strelkov, added: “In turn, means that in the spring we will have no one and nothing with which to attack (and if mobilization is not carried out in the spring, then there will be no one in the summer).””

...until Ukraine joins NATO...

ISW reports (12 Jan):

“Ukraine and the United Kingdom (UK) signed an agreement on bilateral security guarantees pursuant to the G7’s July 2023 joint declaration of support for Ukraine. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on January 12 and signed the UK-Ukraine Agreement on Security Cooperation.

The agreement covers joint efforts supporting Ukraine’s future accession to NATO, including comprehensive assistance to Ukraine to protect and restore its territorial integrity, preventing new Russian aggression against Ukraine, and supporting Ukraine’s integration into certain Western institutions.

The agreement also states that the UK government will work with its domestic defense industrial base (DIB) to help develop Ukraine’s own DIB.

The UK is the first country to sign a final agreement with Ukraine on the basis of the G7’s July 2023 joint declaration of support for Ukraine, and at least 24 non-G7 countries have joined the declaration.” (The USA has been engaged in talks with Ukraine on a similar agreement)

Wish list for when the new US funding is approved?

Reuters reports:

“Ukraine’s ground forces commander said on Friday (12 Jan) that Kyiv needed more military aircraft for its war effort, such as U.S. A-10 attack jets to support infantry and planes that could fire long-range cruise missiles...

...”It is for destroying land-based targets: tanks, artillery ... everything that counters the infantry,” he said.

Sirskyi added that attack helicopters such as the AH-64 Apache and AH-1 Super Cobra, as well as the UH-60 Black Hawk, could also play an important role...

...Despite near-stalemate along a frontline some 1,000 km (620 miles) long, Syrskyi, who oversaw the defence of Kyiv in early 2022 and Ukraine’s lightning counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region later that year, said future breakthroughs were still possible.”

“In Sign of Solidarity, New French Foreign Minister Heads to Ukraine”

Reuters reports:

“France’s newly-appointed Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne is on his way to Ukraine, his first official trip, three diplomatic sources said on Friday, as Paris looks to reassure Kyiv of its support as the war with Russia nears its second anniversary...

...”It’s a positive signal that he has made Kyiv his priority so soon in taking his position,” said one diplomat...

...France is working to complete a bilateral security guarantee accord with Ukraine at the start of this year to help boost its finances and defences against Russia with a view to deterring Moscow from future aggression.”