Posted on 10/05/2022 9:48:59 AM PDT by Timber Rattler
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has appeared to concede the severity of the Kremlin’s recent military reversals in Ukraine, insisting Russia would “stabilise” the situation in four Ukrainian regions it illegally claimed as its own territory last week.
Russia has suffered significant losses in two of the four regions since Friday, when Putin signed treaties to incorporate them into Russia by force, with Russian officials saying their forces were “regrouping”.
“We are working on the assumption that the situation in the new territories will stabilise,” Putin told Russian teachers during a televised video call.
With Ukraine pushing its advance in the east and south, Russian troops have been retreating under pressure on both fronts, confronted by fast moving and agile Ukrainian forces supplied with advanced western-supplied artillery systems.
As Russian troops have retreated, they have left behind smashed towns once under occupation and, in places, mass burial sites and evidence of torture chambers.
Putin’s comments comes amid increasingly gloomy commentary from Russian war correspondents and military bloggers over the severity of the situation that has seen a large-scale withdrawal from the Kharkiv region, the loss of the strategic town of Lyman on Friday and Ukrainian advances in the Kherson region.
The scale of the recent defeats was underlined by a report by the BBC’s Russian service that said an elite Russian military intelligence unit may have lost up to three-quarters of its reconnaissance manpower in Ukraine.
On Wednesday, Ukraine’s southern command said it had extended its area of control by six to 12 miles in the Kherson region and the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, confirmed the recapture of a series of villages.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
“....appears....”
*shakeshead*
The P-mills and printing presses working overtime to grasp at straws.
All part of Putin’s piss-poor planning.
“When Steiner attacks, all will be well.”
“Uhhh, Mein Failure.....”
@ 10 minutes. https://youtu.be/RrNt0lioLwA
These threads always devolve into ugliness and nasty. It is a shame.
This war is a tragic waste and there is blame on all sides from where I sit. That does not make me a fan of Putin so save your keyboard clicks.
Absent the tragedy I am beginning to rethink my objective assessment about the inevitable victory of Russia given their size and resources vs the Ukraine.
IF your soldiers refuse to fight it does not matter if you have a million men under arms. The will to fight is the foundation of any military action.
I don’t know that this is true and its difficult to decipher what is propaganda and what is real. I don’t think many people understand the apathy of the Russian people towards their leaders. The leaders are the oligarchs and they have become extremely wealthy. The people are dirt poor with few prospects and I don’t think they have much loyalty to the leaders.
If Putin can not sell his people on the idea that the Ukraine is a hill to die on AND that he and his administration are capable of prosecuting the war successfully then he has lost. What comes next might be far more dangerous because it will be hard for him to survive anything viewed as a “defeat”.
I don’t know if this is happening or maybe I am just flat out wrong, but that now seems to be the biggest question that will be answered in the coming weeks.
All part of Putin’s piss-poor planning.
Putin chose the wrong corruptocrats to be in charge of his military and he spent many billions in the past decades to “modernize” their armed forces.
I think his “allies” spent the money elsewhere. Atlas shrugged.
Makes you wonder how the Soviet Army would have performed in the 80’s in a Western European war against NATO.
Thank God it never came to that but one has to wonder if Russia was always a paper tiger.
One thing that came out after the Soviet Union fell, was that the Soviets pretty much knew the Poles would not fight for them.
Calling up 300,000 conscripts/reserves might also be a clue.
Clueless is what clueless does.
Circle logic to the hilt.
I grew up as a military brat during the cold war. Lived in Germany and remember being 10 years old worrying about thousands of Russian tanks pouring through the Fulda Gap. I followed current events about the Cold War and probable conflict with the USSR and NATO religiously. I even read the CIA publication every year about the Russian military and their capabilities.
After the Cold War ended I was in ROTC and eventually became an officer in the Army. It was an interesting time. We learned from former high ranking officers in the Russian military that the systemic problems within their military were legion, their maintenance and equipment were nothing like the quality that the CIA and Tom Clancy believed, and that the Russian soldier was not the soldier who defeated the Wehrmacht.
Big military budgets and big intel budgets need a big boogieman. The USSR was that boogieman for 40 years. They were replaced by “terrorists”. It appears many want to make Russia the new boogieman when China is the obvious choice, but we do too much business with them.
Strange times, but it is interesting to see how the “new Russian military” looks a lot like the old one that was described after the USSR dissolved.
But has Biden admitted wasting $100,000,000,000, money we do not have and therefore the national got bigger by same amoun
We would have torn them to pieces, but Russia would have been capable of mass mobilization of millions of people. Today's Russia is incapable of this.
“an elite Russian military intelligence unit may have lost up to three-quarters of its reconnaissance manpower in Ukraine.”
The Russian version of my old unit, this is cheering news.
“We are working on the assumption that the situation in the new territories will stabilise.”
I’m no expert but that doesn’t sound like a wise assumption during a war.
Steiner's counter attack will stop them.... 
Ukraine ping
Interesting video re a pre-arranged surrender of a BMP-3 posted by Igor Girkin:
https://nitter.net/GirkinGirkin/status/1577709040246947842
Not a huge gain, but the fact this vehicle is fueled, in running condition and presumably not booby-trapped is a plus for the sappers and mechanics charged with checking out abandoned Russian equipment.
Note: The nitter.net link basically vacuums up twitter content without the slow twitter load time and requirement for a twitter account for certain content.
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