Posted on 02/25/2024 6:14:35 PM PST by dennisw
"Ukraine has not lost and there is no reason for Ukraine to lose. Russians are adapting for a long war effort in Ukraine, but they are not the Red Army hordes wrapped in the triumphant banners of World War II victories that Putin and his propagandists pretend them to be," the think tank said.
The ISW said the number of Russian fatalities likely exceeds those killed in the Soviet-Afghan war.
Russia has often used costly "human wave" tactics to achieve its military objectives in Ukraine.
More Russian soldiers are likely to have died seizing the Ukrainian town of Avdiivka than in the 10-year Soviet-Afghan war, the think tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said.
Russian forces began their brutal campaign to seize the town in eastern Ukraine in October and finally succeeded earlier this month.
However, the victory came at a high cost — Ukrainian military officials estimate that up to 47,000 Russians were killed or injured in the battle, along with scores of tanks and fighting vehicles. By comparison, up to 25,000 Soviet soldiers are believed to have been killed during the entire Soviet-Afghan war.
While Russia is known to downplay its losses, a high-profile military blogger recently said that Russia had lost 16,000 soldiers and 300 armored vehicles in the battle for Avdiivka. He was found dead a few days later, with reports suggesting he died by suicide.
War analysts and Ukrainian commanders noted that Russia's tactics to take Avdiivka often involved "human wave" assaults, in which Ukrainian positions were overwhelmed with large numbers of Russian soldiers on foot.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
143 million people live there. It's the biggest nation in the world as far in square miles. And, there are plenty of warm places like Sochi in it.
Funny how so many forget that doctrine and Russia’s psychological damage from invasions.
However improbable happening again, it is part of their national memory.
No one? One of the coldest cities on earth.
"n Yakutsk, temperatures regularly fall below -58F/-50C in January for prolonged periods of time. The coldest temperature ever recorded outside Antarctica, of -90F/-68C, was recorded in the same region of Siberia as Yakutsk.
The current metro area population of Yakutsk in 2024 is 342,000, a 0.88% increase from 2023."
Ukraine HAD a population of 48 million in its last census in 2001. The EU reported it had outward migration of 300-400K every year. it had the lowest birthrate in Europe. It lost Crimea and Donbas. When the SMO started in 2022, 6-7 million people fled West and other 1-2 million fled East. It has at least 500K dead in this war.
Ukraine is lucky to have 20 million people remaining.
No Russians were killed during the war. They are the greatest fighters on the planet. They are the world’s hero in the name of freedom. They will continue to invade in the name of goodness.
In 1979, the total population of Afghanistan was a mere 15.5 million - compared to the Soviet Union's population of about 265 million.
So if you want to make a comparison based upon historical precedents, the logical conclusion would be that Russia will lose and withdraw.
Regards,
Believing anything published about Youcrayne by ISW is like reflexively believing anything Goebbels wrote about Hitler.
“Ukraine has not lost...”
Stopped reading right there.
The 2020 report that Right_Wing_Madman references but either didn't read or is incapable of understanding, says
From 1 to 31 March 2020, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 19 conflict-related civilian casualties: two killed (one man and one woman) and 17 injured (eight women, six men, two girls and one boy), a 280 per cent increase compared with February 2020 (one killed and four injured).
Let me spell it out why that ain't genocide and that ain't a causus belli for war. Five civilians died in one month, 19 in another month, it's 280% increase on an already statistically insignificant number. And where were those civilians who were getting shelled? OH. Well blow me down... they were in the Ukrainian controlled WEST. So they were being hit by, anyone, anyone, Bueller? Yup, missiles from the EAST. In other words, it's the DNR separatists who were lobbing the shells that were killing civilians.
The majority of civilian casualties resulting from shelling and SALW fire were recorded in three areas: Horlivka and Zaitseve; the western parts of Donetsk and settlements to the west (Krasnohorivka, Marinka, Oleksandrivka, Staromykhailivka and Syhnalne); and Dokuchaievsk.
OK, the immediate reaction to facts from the Putin lobby is a bit like Dracula's reaction to garlic mayo, so immediately they get dismissed as Western sources. You'd think the West woul airbrush the numbers down with Russia's version being way way higher, to justify their SMO. Well... Funnily enough, that hasn't happened. Because Russia has its own far more detailed reports that merit far more attention than Lavrov's bitching or Putin's distant history recitals, and here's the one from the FSB office of the Putin-approved DNR Ombudsman, in Donetsk. Dec 2020 monthly report | ombudsman-dnr.ru
Within the period between 1 January and 25 December 2020, in the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic, 105 persons sustained injuries and traumas of varying severities... 70 servicemen of the Republic and 35 civilians Within the period between 1 January and 25 December 2020, in the territory of the DPR, 47 servicemen of the Republic and 5 civilians died as a result of armed aggression by Ukraine.
The 2021 equivalent report is Dec 2021 monthly report | ombudsman-dnr.ru
Within the period between 1 January and 30 December 2021, in the territory of the DPR, 129 people sustained injuries ... 97 servicemen of the Republic and 32 civilians. Within the period between 1 January and 30 December 2021, in the territory of the DPR, 7 civilians and 70 servicemen of the Republic died ...
Example 2: Jan 2022 monthly report | ombudsman-dnr.ru
CASES OF INJURIES AND TRAUMAS OF VARYING SEVERITY AS A RESULT OF ARMED AGGRESSION BY UKRAINE IN THE TERRITORY OF THE DPR FROM JANUARY 01, 2022 TO JANUARY 28, 2022 CIVILIANS: 0 SERVICEMEN OF THE REPUBLIC: 2 IN TOTAL: 2 DEATH TOLL AS A RESULT OF ARMED AGGRESSION BY UKRAINE IN THE TERRITORY OF THE DPR FROM JANUARY 01, 2022 TO JANUARY 21, 2022 CIVILIANS: 0 SERVICEMEN: 1
There's no equivalent data summarised in the Feb 2022 monthly report because the DNR didn't want to advertise the difference between the single digit deaths in that month pre-invasion and the multi-digit numbers after it. Doing so would've conclusively proved to the entire world that Denis Pushilin's "prevent a genocide" plea to Moscow was a staged false flag.
No matter how many times the pro-Putin trolls dredge up this allegation, the FSB's own monitors, and the records of Putin's conversations with Zelenskyy (which are published on the Kremlin website) actually show that Russia's "peacekeeping" argument for military intervention in Ukraine was strongest in 2014-2016, weakened between then and July 2019, and ceased to have any validity after Christmas 2019.
Prior to the invasion start, CNN was reporting on the numerous ceasefire violations.
“The violations continued on Thursday. A resident of the city of Donetsk — which is controlled by the separatists — told CNN that shelling in her district had been the heaviest in two years. There was no clarity on where that fire had originated from.
Now CNN were playing the game of “we don’t know where the shelling is coming from.” Just like the Zeepers on this Board.
Look.
You want ot cheer on Ukraine, fine. But don’t insult our intelligence by pretending to believe that the DPR and LPR were shelling their own residential districts for TEN YEARS !
And the shelling just co-incidently ended with Ukraine being pushed out of range.
it’s none of your Business, Mr Bolton.
I was waiting for someone to either make this comparison or compare this war to the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan or the U.S. in Vietnam.
The comparison falls flat because Russia is not trying to occupy a far away land that is full of resistance fighters consisting of a completely different culture.
It is taking back territory it had back when it was the "Soviet Union" with 265 million people, filled with people who, if occupied, will not try to become 'resistance fighters' mining the roads with IEDs.
Make no mistake, Russia is going to keep the Donbas region at a minimum, as well as Crimea. Their goal for the rest of Ukraine is not to occupy it but to install a government sympathetic to Russia, the same as Russia has done in former Soviet Union bloc countries such as Georgia and Chechnya.
Perhaps you don't realize that half of the population in Donblas speak Russian, do not want to be part of Ukraine, and have been fighting a civil war against Ukraine since 2014, and that Russia has been supplying the Donbas Russians in that civil war.
So unless you want to send American and European troops into Ukraine, there is no 'victory' for Ukraine other than accepting defeat in the East and hope to hold onto their government and the rest of their territory in Central and West Ukraine.
And you can blame the Obama administration for this war, since it did nothing when Russia was arming the Donbas breakaway faction, and when Russia invaded and occupied the Crimean peninsula.
And Ukraine as a whole is just as corrupt as the Russians, so there is no moral high ground to be had by supporting either side in this conflict.
If Russia lost 47,000 men, how did they take Avdeevka amd keep going.
If Ukraine lost 31,000 men why does their military chief say they need to mobilize ( impress) 20,000 ukes a month to fill losses?
ISW is Victoria Nuland’s bil and family grifting “ think tank”
The Average age of a Ukrainian soldier now is in the 40s.
—
Did you poll the UKR troops? The UKR draft starts at 27. People younger than that are volunteers.
There’s still time for a loyal Russian to kill Putin.
Bismarck said. “A soldiers life is like a penny, only good when spent.” One loses lives when one goes on the attack. Were all those American GIs who died on D-day cause to assassinate FDR? No, we call them heroes. So too the war in Ukraine. The NeoCon hope is the Preservation of the American Dollar Empire. It is based upon several assumptions; 1. The war will not go nuke. 2. China will stay out (or join USA/NATO to steal Siberia) 3. We can win within a year. 4. Force Russia to change governments to one we can control as we have England and Germany. Iran will be taken out by Israelis. It just might work. But war is an odd thing. It takes on a life of its own and can go in directions one can’t imagine. Many of our Allies and client states will back us but how good are they? Who will back Russia? Wild cards are India and South Africa, all of BRICKS. I fear we are in for a wild ride and in the end a lot of folks will be dead.
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