Ukrainian service members are seen next to armoured vehicles near the frontline town of Bakhmut, in Donetsk region, Ukraine, February 25. REUTERS/Yan Dobronosov
* Ukraine's defense is being hindered by the loss of experienced soldiers, The Washington Post reported.
* One commander said all 500 original members of his battalion had been killed or injured.
* Soldiers with significant combat experience "are all already dead or wounded," the commander said.
The war in Ukraine is bleeding both sides, with each suffering more than 100,000 military casualties (killed and wounded) since Russia launched its full-scale invasion last year.
But with Moscow able to draft fighters from a population that dwarfs that of Ukraine, there is growing concern that Kyiv is less capable of suffering sustained losses — and that this will jeopardize its ability to strike back this spring, The Washington Post reported on Monday.
The gravity of the situation is illustrated by the experience of Ukraine's 46th Air Assault Brigade.
A commander of a battalion within the brigade told the Post that he'd lost every one of the 500 people he commanded back in February 2022, leading them to be replaced with fresh recruits far less capable on the battlefield.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: The key part of the Washington Post article is here ....
.... After a year of war, Kupol, a lieutenant colonel, said his battalion is unrecognizable. Of about 500 soldiers, roughly 100 were killed in action and another 400 wounded, leading to complete turnover. Kupol said he was the sole military professional in the battalion, and he described the struggle of leading a unit composed entirely of inexperienced troops.
The Washington Post article is here .... Ukraine short of skilled troops and munitions as losses, pessimism grow.
17 comments:
Nothing new here that was not already been posted on this blog in the last 3 months. MSM is just coming around to reality. Ukrainian intransigence and western magical thinking are not standing up to the test of time.
Hard reality is, that the Ukrainian days are numbered. This is clear in that without support from Nato, they would have already been defeated. The next Ukrainian Course of action will be another counter offensive. But without sufficient aircraft coverage, this also will be a futile effort.
If they try an offensive also without tanks, and trained crews in those tanks, it will be fruitless. I hope they and their America handlers do not try something stupid like conducting an attack with just IFVs. That would be a gratuitous waste of IFVs. Also noted they seem not to have deployed the Azov or Kraken battalions troops anywhere. Certainly have not heard of them fighting in the Bakhmut cauldron. Why? If that area is so important as the Ukrainians keep saying.
The Russians? Still waiting on them to start offensive operations. Right now they have been doing "find them , kill them" operations and do not seem in any hurry to change. I must admit that if they are playing a "long game". they are doing it right. Let your enemy attack you or if the enemy defends, either way,, hold him in place and slowly wear him down.
It will be interesting to see how the Americans plan to get all that new heavy equipment to the front, without out it being detected, using partially destroyed rail systems and not having it destroyed in transit to the combat area.
Maybe the plan is to fortify a "Ukrainian redoubt". around Lviv? And use that as a hold out state until the war ends?
We shall see.
Ukraine should have tried trading land for extremely high Russian KIA. Never get caught in sieges or attrition, use artillery, land mines and hit and run tactics to kill Russians. But they didn’t. Bafflingly as the demographics were obvious from the start.
But yet they still control most of bakumut… funny how that works🤷🏼
SVB Hired Major Biden Donor to Help its “Liquidity Crisis”
I don't know what planet you live on but that's exactly what the Ukies have been doing for the last year.
Bakhmut is a siege and an attrition battle that has lasted months and resulted in poor KIA ratios for the Ukrainians.
Trading land for KIA is the opposite of feeding men into a cauldron where they’re surrounded on 3 sides by artillery and mortar fire. If the land isn’t giving a positive k/d ratio then you trade it away.
From personnel knowledge.
US Army logistic planning manual. When units fall below 60% original personnel manning, they start to become seriously combat ineffective.
Why? Effective Leadership becomes scattered within the unit and unit cohesion breaks down
Now that is in a fully trained unit with a stable population.
You get units like this commander is talking about where they might be at 90% manning....
but the replacement population now consists of 80 percent of the units manpower , you have big problems in Being a consistent, effective fighting force.
No wonder some of these guys run away in the heat of battle.
(New York, NY) — New York Attorney General Letitia James says she will host a“Drag Story Hour” for kids in Manhattan this coming weekend. The “New York Post” is reporting that she is getting pushback from some over the use of taxpayer money for the event that will take place in the West Village
https://empyreansolutions.com
omg! an official using taxpayer money (her salary?) for an event! this has never taken place in America prior to the Fox-Post-WSJ owner disclosed this to his readers.
and the evidence?and who and how many upset? 10,000 taxpayers? or the washing room attendent at the Post
More than a quarter of Republicans approve of Capitol attack, poll shows | US Capitol attack
Some national talk show hosts said that the MSM is 1.5 to 2 years behind the so called conspiracy theorists.
2 years ago, if you said COVID was likely from a lab leak, you were deplatformed. Now the MSM is finally coming around.
They are coming around on a lot of things.
Banning transitioning of young kids under 18 and not taking them to drag shows will be something the MSM flips on also.
So you support Big Bertha James. I know you will because you are a troll.
There is a big link between homosexuals, pedophiles and the Green Party. It is not going away. You are a big Greenie aren't you!
I approve peaceful protests like the mostly peaceful J6 event and all the fiery mostly peaceful democrat protests by BLM, Antifa and of course the mostly violent DC protest by Dems when Trump as sworn in.
One guy entered the capitol building through an open door. Police asked him to leave. he did,. He was in the building for 1 minute.
But the Democrat-Biden Political Machine wants hard time.
The Bidens are a picture of uprightness. Beau Biden's widow got $25,000 from China. What did she do for that money?
Ukraine has clearly suffered high casualties. But it is not a surprise that WNU Editor always highlights articles on Ukrainian casualties while rarely posting about Russian casualties. On the other sites I go to for war coverage, they show a lot of Russian social media, phone intercepts, and war bloggers (all translated into English) complaining about the huge casualties Russia has suffered that has wiped out entire units, that artillery support has collapsed in the past weeks because of lack of ammunition, and that their armored vehicle losses skyrocketed. Why aren't some of these being posted here?
Despite some commentators here claiming Ukrainian is suffering from higher casualties than Russians, every other site I visit make it clear it is the exact opposite. While the numbers are not known, I have heard estimates that Ukraine has been inflicting 5-7 Russian losses for every one of theirs around Bakhmut. When they give reasons why Ukraine should now abandon Bakhmut it is not because this has been reversed, but because the Ukrainians are only inflicting 2-3 casualties for each of theirs, and that this is not a good enough ratio and by retreating to better positions that ratio would go back to being high. That Ukrainian unit of 500 probably killed well over 500 Russians and wounded another 2000. That does not seem like a poor KIA ratio to me.
Far from the idea that Russia hasn't begun its offensive yet, I think it is very clear that the past several weeks have been the "big" Russian offensive and it is close to culminating. A lot of those new Russian mobilized troops have been squandered.
Ukrainian seems to have made the strategic decision to keep troops around Bakhmut there in order to preserve their other forces for the upcoming attack. Military analysts are saying the Ukrainians are assembling three whole armies for the offensive. Keeping them behind the lines as a strategic reserve is putting a lot of pressure on those units who need to hold the front, like those at Bakhmut. But it does mean when the Ukrainian attack comes, it'll be with fresh troops, better trained, and with new equipment. We'll have to wait if the Ukrainian choice pays off. But the idea that Ukraine is facing disaster is clearly false.
Chris
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