Cost of Bakhmut ‘meat grinder’ battle on Russian army revealed

The Telegraph ^ | 7 March 2023 | Roland Oliphant

[MalPearce]

(Sigh)

There’s truth on both sides, exaggeration on both sides, propaganda on both sides, and bare faced lies on both sides.

So what? It’s war!

What kind of blithering imbecile thinks the Russians COULD count every dead body on both sides, even the bodies they never saw? Or the Ukrainians? Or the LDPR? They can’t quantify it if they don’t see it.

Even if they were omniscient enough to have accurate counts and could break the body count out to pro Russian combatants, pro Ukraine combatants, unwilling combatants, home defenders, collateral damage, and illegally targeted noncombatants, what morons really think they’d post the numbers up in a totally neutral way?

Only idiots think it matters which side is telling the highest proportion of the truth. They tie themselves up in knots over a totally irrelevant thing.

And, only idiots think that the right side of history cares about who told which truth.

What matters is, verifiable, objective evidence without prejudice. Also known as FACTS.

Fact: Russia attempted to assassinate Yuschenko nearly 20 years ago, to ensure Yanukovych got elected. Also fact: Ukraine wasn’t anti Russian at the time and Yanukovych won without Russia’s help.

More fact: the UN Charter, Belovezha accords and the Budapest Memorandum were willingly signed by Russia and Ukraine and both parties benefited immensely from signing those agreements. Putin is tearing those agreements up. The “why” is tangential. The result - Eastern Europe is drifting towards EU NATO because it no longer trusts Russia - is a matter of fact.

Even more fact: despite Russia’s own rejection of the post USSR settled agreements on self determination, territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence being the primary driving force behind the westward drift of ex Soviet satellite states, Russia pretends it can’t understand why Eastern Europe is drifting westward. And so it’s peddling the idea that the USA is responsible.

Final fact: yes, Nuland and the neocons are exploiting the collapse of trust between Eastern Europe and Russia which is making a dangerous situation worse. But they didn’t create the problem. Russia created it.

As I’ve said elsewhere here, my belief is that if Russia had modernised, invested, brought its infrastructure into the 21st century, and schmoozed its neighbors instead of threatening or invading them, of course Ukraine would happily have stayed close to Russia.

Instead Russia’s 11 time zone footprint is largely undeveloped and it has surrendered itself to an unimaginative regime that’s stuck in a paranoid timewarp.

Why would even Russian Ukrainian families with cars, mobile phones, flat screen TVs and decent roads between village, town and city want to be subservient to a regime that can’t even connect its towns together with modern roads, and that has invested in nothing but corruption and war in twenty years?

Occam’s Razor applies. The sheer number of convoluted, obfuscated, tenuous circumstantial arguments you have to jump through to put even half of the blame for this conflict on America, compared to the far simpler FACTS about how Russia keeps treating even its friendly neighbors like enemies or expendable assets, that suggests far more of the blame lies in Moscow.

[yuleeyahoo]

I heard that all of the Russians are bare foot and armed on with nesting dolls.

[gloryblaze]

Thank you for your post!

[higgmeister]

And your point is?

[Jumper]

Not on the slow moving front lines. Today Russia has utilized spotter drones/sat’s to identify targets that are stationary and they pound them into the ground. Then they send essentially infliration teams and if they draw fire, depending on the target’s hardness, they pound again and then repeat until they send in infantry.

[bert]

Projection

The Russian trench bound troops are being picked off a few at a time by the drones they seriously fear.

After being observed taking a piss, you die in your hole

[familyop]

"Canada is part of our nuclear readiness? Thats very scary to think about."

It's been that way for well over 60 years. Not scary at all for me. Both here and there, training weeds some people out and changes the rest.

[familyop]

Given two equally trained and equipped forces, an assaulting force will more often lose more soldiers to a force using cover, especially in areas with many buildings. Better training and equipment can give an assaulting force an advantage, especially in areas that are not built up.

[Chode]

comraden...

https://twitter.com/Seveerity/status/1634598241281908737

[familyop]

Russia doesn’t have much of a tactical nuclear force remaining. Most of the old delivery systems are nonoperational. The warheads are old (which matters), and storage was poor.

Tactical nukes are not as powerful in reality as in imaginations. Many of us were trained to fight in such conditions. Our conventional weapons of today are better—more accurate, for one.

Russian use of small battlefield nukes would be a green light for NATO to decidedly take down Russian forces, at least in Ukraine and probably more extensively than that.

Preparations for ICBM launches would precede the end of the enemy’s nuclear forces by about 5 minutes.

[BroJoeK]

griffin: "No pictures, no proof."

So, absent any "proof" from Ukraine, you're just going to believe whatever lies the Russians tell?

Strong evidence is the fact that Russians have attacked Bakhmut since August and not yet taken it.
Does that break your heart, comrade?

[familyop]

"Protecting Ukrainian borders while ours are being overrun by 3rd world criminals and mentally ill people is bullshit."

NATO could easily continue to supply weapons to Ukraine, while we protect our southern border. Our domestic problems need to be dealt with here. The best first step would be showing more credibility and sanity in our campaigns.

The Russians won't save us from Democrats. We can only do that for ourselves. Russian tyrants have been using radical leftists in the U.S. against us for several generations.

[BroJoeK]

griffin: "However, in some cases (not sure that is the case here), the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Between the status of the western world nowadays, the reported corruption of Ukraine and Putin being a liar but some things in Russia being far less accepting of ridiculous principles (LBGTFOADQ!, whacko environmentalism, Agenda 21+, WEF, +++) than here in the west....I just am totally in the “I don’t believe a single f’n thing coming out of anywhere” camp."

So this is your first big problem -- you've allowed trivial matters like LGBTPolitics to override existential matters like Vlad invaded Ukraine.
Politics are matters of who cares enough to vote, invasions are matters of who lives and dies, individually and as a nation.
Do you see the difference?
You cannot compare a feather landing on the palm of your hand with a ton of bricks landing on your head and say, "oh, they're both bad."

If Vlad's invasion of Ukraine succeeds, then the world as we know it will begin to end, to be replaced by one where ruthless dictators have their way with weaker neighbors, and we soon enough return to the empires of January 1914.
That world will not be friendly to us or our ideals, regardless of how you feel about LGBTPolitics.

griffin: "But, from what I’ve seen and the results of this war being in an evident state of stalemate for quite some time....I am NOT believing 30,000 dead russians in past few months, any 5:1 ration BS and tales of equipment losses."

There's no need to believe what Ukraine says about Russian casualties.
There are several other estimates, from the US, EU and UN sources.
In round numbers they put casualties as:

1. Civilians, around 10,000 killed, 15,000 wounded, though one Norwegian estimates 30,000 civilians killed.

2. Ukrainian forces, 120,000 total killed & wounded.
   The Ukrainian government puts their own killed as around 13,000.

3. Russian forces, in the range of 50,000 killed plus 150,000 wounded though the high end is 70,000 killed and 180,000 wounded.
   Ukraine's government estimates Russian killed plus wounded at circa 145,000.

So, if you compare low estimates for Russians with high estimates for Ukraine, they are roughly equal, which is not good for Ukraine, since Russia's population is three times Ukraine's.

But the rule of three-to-one advantage for defenders should still apply and therefore we should not be surprised to see claims along those lines at Bakhmut.

griffin: "BTW, read thru your bio. Nice to make your acquaintance! :)
I think Patrick Henry and the anti-federalists had it right, and (not that you mentioned it) I’m a 5-point Calvinist. :) Thanks for your service!"

The 1787 Federalists included Washington (VA), Adams (MA), Madison (VA), Franklin (PA), Hamilton (NY), Mifflin and the Morrises (PA), Jay (NY), the Pinkneys (SC) and Marshall (VA).
Had they been defeated in ratifying the Constitution, the US would have remained a weak confederation of semi-independent states, organized regionally by mutual interests such as promoting trade in the Northeast, Westward settlement in the Midwest, and expanding slavery in the South.
Whether these regional associations could win another war against Britain (i.e., 1812), or would inevitably come to war on each other, is a matter of conjecture.

As for Calvinism, I'm not enough of a theologian to know (or much care) about our differences with other denominations, am not sure if I can defend the L in LIP.
So, I don't fret much about the exact tenets of our faith because am sure such matters will be sorted out correctly when the time comes.
But I know this much for certain -- when conservative Calvin Coolidge was President, the US enjoyed a decade of peace and prosperity the likes of which we've not seen since.
So, I am strongly in favor of that form of Calvinism! 😁

[Jumper]

https://youtu.be/vLzR8UECZXM

Uke 257K KIA

[wardaddy]

About 20% of posters here lap it up

[GranTorino]

If you say so.👌🏾

[griffin]

Oh, Bro.
Dont you see the ‘trivial matters’, as you refer to them, are one of many prongs of attack at the root of our society and undermine our security and moral leadership position of the world? Is it trivial that this movement infects our upcoming generations via drag sgows and forced hormone ‘theraphy’ even to the extent that govermwnt imprisions parents that dont go along? I am very surpeised at your shoposition here. It is not unrelated. Trannies at the highest level of our government. Common Man.

Im sorry, but I dont put much stock or faith in what information the Biden regime, UN, EU or any other NWO/WEF parrot organizations put out. Its all a bunch of population reduction, power consolidation, petrodollar preservation BS. I would avise you to be a bit more discerning in that regard. You vill own nosing und be happy. Dont hitch your wagon to that clown show.

And you cannot say the American State would have languised under a week confederation. You have absoutely no idea what other better initiatives that may have formed upon the death of the Federalist plan. We can clearly see now that the anti-federalist were very correct in fearing a powerful central government.

I thank you for your detailed reply to my last post to you. I regret I cant write more. But this is moving week here on the montana ranch and I started breaking up and transporting my machine shop today. Sad time.

[mdmathis6]

LOL! The images coming to mind make me laugh at your post!

Next up The Lassie of Kyiv...”saves “Tim”itryev and his Squad from buried Russian mines as well as some baby squirrels!”

[MalPearce]

Great insights there. The cognitive dissonance between the (not trivial, but short term) catastrophe of Globohomo pervading Western politics being the worst thing in history, versus Putin’s irreversible “multipolar” world.

The former, Globohomo, IS reversible. Twenty years ago people thought the abortion ‘freedom’ was settled. Was it? Is it? Of course not. Globohomo can be defeated without burning the concept of a “free world”.

If despotic / totalitarian regimes in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran can redraw the world map through invasion and blackmail, you can’t vote THAT out of office in any election. Only if you don’t value Liberty and Security would you be so mad as to side with Putin after he’s signposted what the world would look like with a victorious Russia acting as the case study for China, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Bye bye goes the concept of any kind of internationally agreed red lines for relationships between nations. If any country wants to invade any another, and can win, the multipolar world will encourage them to do it. Might means right. Forever wars. Multiple.

That’s what Franklin meant with “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

People who side with Putin because of Globohomo should read Franklin, and understand he’s warning THEM.

[BroJoeK]

griffin: "Dont you see the ‘trivial matters’, as you refer to them, are one of many prongs of attack at the root of our society and undermine our security and moral leadership position of the world?"

Sure, but those are matters of domestic politics -- the answer is in convincing more people to vote for their own moral values.
But no domestic moral issue will be improved by letting Vlad the Invader have his way in Ukraine.
Nor is Vlad's invasion preventing us from correcting any of our domestic political issues.

The basic issue in Ukraine is whether military conquest and empire building are now suddenly acceptable again?
A Russian victory over Ukraine will increase Russia's population and economy by roughly 1/3, meaning the next weak neighbor Russia attacks will face even greater odds defending itself, and so the Russian Empire will continue growing at its neighbors' expense.
And what's good for the Russians will be doubly good for China and any other two-bit tin-horn Hitler wannabe dictator eyeing their weaker neighbors.

griffin: "Its all a bunch of population reduction, power consolidation, petrodollar preservation BS.
I would avise you to be a bit more discerning in that regard."

Naw... the basics are very simple: Vlad Invaded Ukraine and therefore Vlad must be defeated. There's no objective reason to make it any more complicated than that.

griffin: "And you cannot say the American State would have languised under a week confederation.
You have absoutely no idea what other better initiatives that may have formed upon the death of the Federalist plan.
We can clearly see now that the anti-federalist were very correct in fearing a powerful central government."

The Federalist plan was George Washington's plan and there was no other American leader who could have inspired ratification of a different plan.
Had the US Constitution failed in ratification, we would have simply remained under the old Articles of Confederation and continued to suffer from conditions as they existed in 1787, with rebellions at home, British encroachments in the Northwest Territories and growing disputes among different states over economic and social issues.
Without the Constitution, there is no way a Pres. Jefferson could make the Louisiana Purchase, take on the Barbary Pirates or Madison fight the Brits to a standstill in the War of 1812.

And who were those anti-Federalists?
Well, Jefferson for one, and after ratification joined by other anti-Federalists into a faction Jefferson himself called republicans but his Federalist opponents mocked as "Democratic-Republicans", referring to the "Democratic" French Revolution, which Jefferson favored.
And Jeffersonians liked that word, "Democratic", in time dropping "Republicans" all together and touting their intentions to expand voting to every man "free white and 21", regardless of property.

And it worked, electing Jefferson President in 1801, and what did he do as president? Pretty much everything he'd opposed and criticized Federalists for, plus things they never thought of, including the Louisiana Purchase.

During those days Pres. Jefferson was opposed by a small group in Congress which called themselves "Tertium Quids" or "Old Republicans", strict construction constitutionalists, who did not agree that the Constitution authorized such things as the Louisiana Purchase.
But most former anti-Federalists were happy support "Democratic" Jefferson and then Madison & Monroe in whichever directions they wanted to take our new Republic.

Anti-Federalists of 1788 eventually became today's Democrats.