Free Republic

This is the moment Vladimir Putin's forces were left humiliated when one of his biggest recent assaults of his war on Ukraine ended in substantial losses. The Russian leader had ordered his troops to capture more territory in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, but the push near Kurakhove resulted in mass death and destruction. The failed assault led to the reported deaths of 40 invaders, and left 37 more injured. Russia is carrying out intense attacks in multiple sections of the eastern front, but in a Ukraine victory, troops managed to fend off 29 attacks in Kurakhove alone, the General...

Havrylyuk said that people were seen as expendable by Putin in his mission to conquer Ukraine, but economic issues and problems supplying its troops with ammunition and equipment could soon blunt its campaign. The ISW said that high casualties were part of Russian President Vladimir Putin's strategy to grind out a victory in Ukraine through a war of attrition. "The recent increase in reports of entire Russian units becoming combat ineffective due to losses highlights the tactics on which Russian forces are relying on to pursue Putin's theory of a slow, gradual, grinding victory in Ukraine," it said. Vladimir Putin...

Russia went to war in Ukraine two years ago with twice as many artillery pieces as Ukraine had. But it isn’t the advantage in howitzers that really matters – it’s the advantage in shells. The Czechs found, for Ukraine, nearly a million shells precisely when Ukraine needed those million shells the most: at the peak of Russia’s winter offensive. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Czech artillery initiative probably saved entire Ukrainian cities, by giving the Ukrainian army the firepower to resist a much bigger Russian army. It’s no secret how Ukraine got into an artillery bind late...