On recent news Putin blinked again and is now back in on the grain deal...for now. Provoking a NATO response even accidently isn't something he is willing to test or gamble on at this point in time, there is a small level of self-preservation sanity still left. Turkey stood up and he had to sit back down as the grain shipments were going to go on without Russia involvement. His bluff and blackmail backfired pretty significantly here.
Other notable news related to the war, Saudi Arabia is claiming that Iran is planning an attack. Internal turmoil in Iran has not made much news in recent weeks (difficult when media has been censored there) but the protests are just as large as they have been on day 1 after the murder of Mahsa Amini. Iran's regime is in a precarious position here and war tends to be one of the best ways to distract from internal problems. There has been over reported 450 deaths and 25K arrested so far. With Iran supplying drones and ballistic missiles to Russia and being an active supporter of the Ukraine invasion, wonder what type of intervention will we see here as events continue to escalate.
The US has also confirmed today that North Korea is supplying Russia with significant artillery shells.
There hasn't been much direct news about new progress outside of Bakmut's successful defense but reported Russian daily are the highest they have ever been outside of the very first day of the war, with reported Russian losses ranging from 600 to as high as 950 in recent days. They will be hitting 1000+ KIA per day soon...a total meat grinder that is only accelerating.
It's not clear those are KIA and not "eliminated from battle" to include injured. And those numbers are not believed by Western Military as they peg the number to likely be half of that.
Having said that, I think I read somewhere that estimates for injured and unable to perform are 3-4x the KIA so it's getting significant for Russia
1,000 Russian soldiers killed in 24 hours as Ukraine strikes unequipped troops
At least 1,000 Russian soldiers have been killed as Ukraine targeted unequipped Russian troops deployed on the frontlines of war. This is the largest number of casualties on the Russian side since the beginning of the war.
According to the Ukrainian ministry of defence, almost 1,000 soldiers were killed in 24 hours, days after British defence intelligence analysts said "several thousand" newly mobilised Russian soldiers (most of them reservists) deployed to the front line are "poorly equipped
The meat grinder is the only way this will sway Russians. Let them see their boys coming home in sausage casings and deal with the trauma of those events. If they are weeks from conscription to being in a body bag, people should wake up to the injustice being inflicted upon the population.
I wonder if all of these regular conscripted folk coming back home in body bags will actually do anything to sway Russian public opinion finally
How will most Russians even find out about it? Unless you happen to know one of the 1000 in question personally... even then they'll probably find a way to spin it.
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It's not clear those are KIA and not "eliminated from battle" to include injured. And those numbers are not believed by Western Military as they peg the number to likely be half of that.
Having said that, I think I read somewhere that estimates for injured and unable to perform are 3-4x the KIA so it's getting significant for Russia
It's KIA according to the Defense of Ukraine (they have clarified a few times in the past since this question has been often asked), they don't include injured, POWs in this number which would raise it significantly higher based on their assessment. Now whether those numbers are accurate cannot be independently validated, but they do an assessment based on what they target, bodies found and drone footage of which some is available and have been verified. For example they blow up a tank and most modern tanks have a 4 man crew, they count this 4 in those numbers. Can't be validated , just deduced, but most likely close to accurate.
US estimates have always been conservative when counting casualties and their numbers includes injured
Russia is seeking to increase the size of its military by 137,000 to 1.15 million. U.S. officials have said that Russia has lost between 60,000 and 80,000 troops in its misguided war on Ukraine.
Considering this is from August and injured being 3-4 times (meaning estimates would be 20-25K killed) , the amount killed is still significant even by the most conservative estimates. I couldn't find any up to date US estimates.
How will most Russians even find out about it? Unless you happen to know one of the 1000 in question personally... even then they'll probably find a way to spin it.
someone correct me if im wrong, but, didnt the endless body bags home cause enough of an issue that they gave up on Afghanistan?
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someone correct me if im wrong, but, didnt the endless body bags home cause enough of an issue that they gave up on Afghanistan?
I am not old enough to understand what the mood was around the Afghan War, but I doubt it was a popular war at home for Russians to begin with. It seems like many Russians believe that Ukraine represents an existential threat, so maybe they are more inclined to put up with losses as compared to a war in Afghanistan.
Russia/the USSR did the same thing in Afghanistan that they are doing in Ukraine. They are leaning heavily of non-Russians, and people from more remote areas to fight. In Afghanistan, 25% of the soldiers who fought were actually Ukrainian and a similar percentage were from the Central Asian SSRs. Russians from places like Moscow and St. Petersburg were largely shielded from the war, until of course the economic impacts made them notice.
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someone correct me if im wrong, but, didnt the endless body bags home cause enough of an issue that they gave up on Afghanistan?
It wasn't the casualties, Russia is happy to let it sons die, particularly the more Asian looking sons, it was the cost, the USSR was broke, it couldn't afford the war
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I am not old enough to understand what the mood was around the Afghan War, but I doubt it was a popular war at home for Russians to begin with. It seems like many Russians believe that Ukraine represents an existential threat, so maybe they are more inclined to put up with losses as compared to a war in Afghanistan.
Russia/the USSR did the same thing in Afghanistan that they are doing in Ukraine. They are leaning heavily of non-Russians, and people from more remote areas to fight. In Afghanistan, 25% of the soldiers who fought were actually Ukrainian and a similar percentage were from the Central Asian SSRs. Russians from places like Moscow and St. Petersburg were largely shielded from the war, until of course the economic impacts made them notice.
They also have no media freedom so you can just completely hide any suffering from people.
someone correct me if im wrong, but, didnt the endless body bags home cause enough of an issue that they gave up on Afghanistan?
No, three consecutive failed wheat crops is what did the Soviets in. The spending in Afghanistan coupled with no wheat exports pretty much crippled the USSR and brought about the failure of the empire.
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It's KIA according to the Defense of Ukraine (they have clarified a few times in the past since this question has been often asked), they don't include injured, POWs in this number which would raise it significantly higher based on their assessment. Now whether those numbers are accurate cannot be independently validated, but they do an assessment based on what they target, bodies found and drone footage of which some is available and have been verified. For example they blow up a tank and most modern tanks have a 4 man crew, they count this 4 in those numbers. Can't be validated , just deduced, but most likely close to accurate.
US estimates have always been conservative when counting casualties and their numbers includes injured
Considering this is from August and injured being 3-4 times (meaning estimates would be 20-25K killed) , the amount killed is still significant even by the most conservative estimates. I couldn't find any up to date US estimates.
Injured being 3-4 times killed is for armies that actually make an attempt to assist their wounded comrades instead of all just running. For the Russians it's probably a 1 to 1 ratio.
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astounding if true, because there has been no real fight, the Russians have collapsed on their own without being pushed out, it means minimal losses for Ukraine so would allow them to redeploy a crap ton of forces to the Donbas or to open up a third push towards Maripol (my personal wish)
astounding if true, because there has been no real fight, the Russians have collapsed on their own without being pushed out, it means minimal losses for Ukraine so would allow them to redeploy a crap ton of forces to the Donbas or to open up a third push towards Maripol (my personal wish)
As long as they are not withdrawing in order to nuke the place. That could just be my anxiety talking though.
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No, three consecutive failed wheat crops is what did the Soviets in. The spending in Afghanistan coupled with no wheat exports pretty much crippled the USSR and brought about the failure of the empire.
I dont think you're giving Chernobyl enough credit.
I'm not saying you're wrong here, because you're not, but the disaster at Chernobyl and the subsequent cost in cleanup was not insignificant. If anything it was the first domino to fall before the wheat crops and then Afghanistan.
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Ukraine is well aware of Russia's plans, and those plans are catastrophic if they go ahead.
One of the main reasons for taking Kherson in the first place is to secure Crimea's water supply and control the dam which had water shut off after 2014's annexation. Blowing it up would flood / destroy Kherson as well as potentially kill hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian in the area (as well as any military).
For context the reservoir is as large as Lake Mead's current active volume (Hoover Dam) at 18km3. That's a lot of water
It would also flood the banks which Russia controls as well as permanently cut off Crimea's water supply. It's very much an insane scorched earth last resort should Russia go through with it, but unlike a nuke it would be unlikely for NATO to respond.
They have already proven that they will destroy dams just to cause mass civilian deaths, if Kherson is accepted lost and may lose control of the dam, they may pull the trigger.
Last edited by Firebot; 11-03-2022 at 02:22 PM.
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