Free Republic

LONDON, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Russia will draft 300,000 reservists to support its military campaign in Ukraine, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday in televised remarks.In Moscow's first update on casualty numbers in almost six months, Shoigu said 5,937 Russian soldiers had been killed since the start of the conflict.President Vladimir Putin had ordered Russia's first mobilisation since World War Two in an early-morning television address, saying the additional manpower was needed to win a war against not only Ukraine but also its Western backers. read more

Meanwhile, a much simpler model may be able to answer some of the questions about the Russia-Ukraine war, such as why the Russians were so ineffective and what will likely happen as the war continues. This simple combat model is based on the Lanchester equations, which were developed in 1916. The Lanchester equations consist of a series of differential equations that approximate the rate of combat losses for two opposing armies. Although somewhat basic, these equations have been successfully used over the last century to model attrition warfare, similar to the conflict in Ukraine. ... When the differential equations are...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his forces have reclaimed 6,000 square kilometers of occupied territory from Russia since starting a major counteroffensive last month. Western media is presenting events near Kharkiv as an absolute rout of Russian forces, with other sources cautioning there’s little that can be verified, also amid the question of whether regained territory can actually be held and permanently controlled by Ukraine. Ukraine’s defense minister Oleksii Reznikov himself admitted in a Monday Financial Times report that a prime worry remains the ability to hold on to the territory amid superior Russian munitions and supplies. “A counter-offensive...