UKRAINE WAR - 1 YEAR AND GOING.

[LaCroix]

"Citation please" is a well known trolling tacting to derail a thread - now there's a citation for you.

I don't have to cite my opinion, and all the things I said in there have already been said in the thread or are well known facts.
But since you are obviously not up to date to this conflict you are trying to debate, I'll be happy to do your homework for you.

What part of this is unclear to you?

The GDP data is readily available for you to look up. Common knowledge.
Heating outages, power outages - current news, already discussed in this thread.
Tech history of the T90(Project 188) is old news, the fact that the T14 has been nowhere seen on the battlefield and broke down on the red square during a parade is old news, too.

The Su-57 - russia claimed that they have used them, just as they claim to have used the T14 - but with no evidence. We are "almost certain" they use it for potshots at ukrainian aircraft, but no hard evidence for that, either. The closest airfield someone has reliably seen them was 5 at their home/testing base in Akhtubinsk, 500km away from the front line, where they would have been stationed, anyway. And that news is a year old.
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia- ... ace-2023-1

The fact that all virtually all close air support has ceased since Ukraine has a patriot patrolling the southern front, costing multiple SU-34 and an A50, among others, is also old news, discussed in the thread.

If you want to see the nice fireballs the TOS-1 makes, go and see some of the videos of them - even youtube has them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDQWsry52Gg
They are very easy to identify as Tos launchers, by the T72 chassis, and by the spectacular fireball when they are hit.

That Russia was extremely short on ammo in 2023 and had started getting supplies from china,Iran and North Korea is also known to anyone not living under a rock.

The fact that russian meat waves are easily defeated should be obvious, as there are 50+ attacks done by Russia every day, since october, and other than Russian casualty numbers, they have barely an effect. There are enough videos and articles in the news, pick a random day.

Russias demographic, alcoholic and other issues are also well known, and have been discussed in this thread, as well.
The fact that they prefer to recruit from non-russian minorities and immigrants, and are shadow-conscripting people from everywhere is also old news.
same as the fact that they are already struggling with huge labor shortages:
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia- ... ge-2023-12

So, now, what exactly did you need citation on, the color of the sky? Wetness of water?
Or were you just doing one of your usual mini-vendetta troll visits because I dared to voice an opinion in the Gaza thread that you did not approve of?

[Gandalf]

"Citation please" is a well known trolling tacting to derail a thread - now there's a citation for you.

Asking for evidence is a troll thing?

[Elfdart]

After hitting the links to LaCroix's "sources" it appears he would have been better served by not citing them at all.

I'll be generous and simply ignore all the assertions based on "common knowledge" , "old news" and so on. That which is presented without evidence...

The three sources are a real laugh:

1) Business Insider cites "UK intel", the same people who were cheerleading the Great Summer Offensive. You know, the one that flopped harder than every Steven Seagal movie since 1996?

2) Something blew up. OK. I guess.

3) Russia is in trouble because their unemployment rate is 3%, so they have to import workers? OH NOES!

He's right. This means Ukraine is winning big and they'll be hoisting a Sonnenrad over Sevastopol by Valentine's Day.

[LaCroix]

"Citation please" is a well known trolling tacting to derail a thread - now there's a citation for you.

Asking for evidence is a troll thing?

Nope, but doing it the way he did is.
This text was clearly an opinion piece. I made no claim that would not have been known to anybody following the news on the topic.

If he had pointed out which part of my opinion he disagreed, I would have had no problem.
But simply quoting a whole text with multiple points and saying "citation needed" is not debating, but just trolling.

[LaCroix]

3) Russia is in trouble because their unemployment rate is 3%, so they have to import workers? OH NOES!

Try reading comprehension - job VACANCIES are 6.8% which means roughly 5 million jobs are open, at the same time unemployment is down to 3%. Which means that they have a lack of qualified workers that can't be filled by the people still availabe.

Oh - and nice quote about the nazi stuff. Always refreshing when people start doing godwin's law.

[LaCroix]

On the Ukraine is losing badly front:

Russian S400 'shot down' a drone, which then continued flying for half an hour, and crashed (funny coincident) into an oil refinery...
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/01/ ... ery-a83920

Russia's enlistment office attacks have doubled in the last 6 months, as probablility of new conscription drive after elections heightens
https://news.yahoo.com/doubling-arson-a ... 00204.html

[PainRack]

I was more thinking of the economic effects if Ukraine manages to disrupt Russia's ability to sell the oil to other countries.

[

Russia ability to sell oil just got a major shock.


Essentially, India who has been exploiting the shit out of Russia is digging in further. So, one note is that India has been trying to push rupee as the note for international trade.

https://m.thewire.in/article/economy/ex ... onal-trade

They met limited success, but Russian sale in oil has been met with rupees. Which needs to be sold for Russia purposes, and thanks to sanctions, was a problem. Russia can use said rupees to buy Indian goods but again, there's a limit thanks to sanctions and etcetcetc.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ent-issues
As Russia demands otherwise, India has reduced imports from Russia, switching to the Middle East. There's currently several tankers left high and dry in the open seas due to this.

There's also some speech by India ministers about following the tightened sanctions and price cap but essentially, Russia got fucked. Hard by India exploitation. They don't want to keep getting fuck, and India played hardball.


Since India at one point formed 50% of Russian oil sales (heh at US media focus on China oil purchases), you can see how this is bad for their energy sector.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023 ... to-succeed

A different look at the same sanctions. Basically, they aren't meant to be too successful, so as not to trigger a worldwide oil shortage and price spike. They're just supposed to keep Russian oil sale prices pressured down to just about meeting costs. As solar rollout on EU and china builds, that pressure down can grow without triggering a price spike. We might be seeing that now, especially with northern winter nearly over.

An example in the article of dodgy German car manufacturers selling to Russia via middle men.

I've always been thinking of the oil sanctions as splitting the market, with the G7 paying slightly more for non-russian oil and India/china ect paying slightly less for Russian oil. In effect, it's a net cash transfer to large developing countries.

India economy grew during this period, likely as a result of cheap Russian oil helping to fuel other booms and slowing inflation. Buying in rupees also helped kept the rupee strong,


The problem is Russia find it too difficult to spend rupees and now want sales in yuan instead.

[PainRack]

.

[3-Body Problem]

The T14 was a still-birth, using the engine of the TIGER 1 tank, of all things, and not even working properly on parades.

How are people still quoting this shit...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUp-qGkQ ... eChieftain

Even if it was developed from an older engine, that's how every engine is developed. Saying the T14 engine is the same as a TIGER WUN ENGINE is like saying that all V8 engines are just this:



The fact that you would repeat this suggests that anything you say is just pro-Ukranian propaganda.

I want to see Russia lose as much as the next guy but I'm not going to lie to myself to make that seem more likely. You should endeavor to do the same.

EDIT: Couldn't get the YouTube embed to work so I just left a link.

[LaCroix]

The T14 was a still-birth, using the engine of the TIGER 1 tank, of all things, and not even working properly on parades.

How are people still quoting this shit...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUp-qGkQ ... eChieftain

Even if it was developed from an older engine, that's how every engine is developed. Saying the T14 engine is the same as a TIGER WUN ENGINE is like saying that all V8 engines are just this:

The fact that you would repeat this suggests that anything you say is just pro-Ukranian propaganda.

I want to see Russia lose as much as the next guy but I'm not going to lie to myself to make that seem more likely. You should endeavor to do the same.

EDIT: Couldn't get the YouTube embed to work so I just left a link.

Your video starts with him explaining that he doesn't know, because he did not do any research on this topic.

THE TANK MUSEUM's David Willey, on the other hand, did his research (as much as anyone can do research on a top secret weapon system) and states that the engine is a copy of the Porsche Sla16 Engine, which was slightly modernized and supercharged, and was sold by the producer as a pump/generator engine before being considered as a tank engine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfCG0bNxVL4

So I will concede that my post was slightly hyperbole as it's not the actual WW2 engine but a slightly modernized version, but it is still an engine that never was a commercial success and known for being unreliable, which it has proven on live tv, funnily enough.
How such a mistake in the minutae of a side-snipe at the 'most modern' russian tank using a copy of a nazi engine is making me an entirely unreliable source is frankly beyond me, but you do you. My main point was that it was a still-birth.

Let's look at the production:
A few prototypes were built - nobody knows if they actually are fully functional - and shown at the 2015 victory parade.
100 prototype production announced in in 2016 - never done.
Then ist was said 132 are to be delivered in 2019, which was then being hemmed and hawed about til 2022, when they allegedly finally managed to produce an batch of maybe 20 of them. Which were only seen briefly in parades and highly edited propaganda videos. Russia claimed that it was in ukraine and did 'indirect fire missions', but was withdrawn. Which pretty much means they briefly hauled one to somewhere in a relatively sleepy frontline, lobbed a few rounds in the general direction at maximum range, and shipped it back home. To this day, none has ever been seen in actual combat. Nor has production resumed after this batch, with claims they need to work on a new autolader - which is funny, as the tank was supposed to be working since 2016?

Fact remains that as far as I know, nobody has ever seen more than - I think 7 or 8 of them at the same spot. Which means that most likely, there are no more than this number existing as functional vehicles.

This is pretty much the definition of stillbirth.


Anyway - back to the news:

It seems that last weeks attacks on Belbeck has a prominent victim.
https://www.newsweek.com/crimea-airbase ... ed-1866261
Of course, it has not yet been confirmed, so let's wait and see. After all, Gerasimov is now missing for 33 days after his "yet unconfirmed" death, too.

Just as well, Biden found a way to get some stuff to Ukraine, even though his budget keeps getting blocked.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2 ... -stop-him/
Using a circle trade agreement and a nato clause, he plans on giving stuff to Greece, which in turn gives their stuff to Ukraine.

[PainRack]

Regarding Russian tank production, an older article but indicative of why UK MOD estimates are that way

https://www.foi.se/rest-api/report/FOI%20Memo%208231

The Swedish FOI estimates that Russia is receiving 520 new tanks in 2023

62 tanks, type T-90M Proryv, and 62 more of types T-90/T-90A;
80 tanks, type T-80BVM;
140 tanks, type T-72B3, and 140 more of T-72B3M modification

This ties in nicely with UK MOD estimates of 100 tanks monthly.

Wear and tear on machine tools may reduce reliability and hinder attempts at maintaining such production, especially since so many tanks were from refurbishing older tanks kept in store but yeah.

Their worst case estimate is glaring though. While it does not include the current NK ammunition imports, by assuming Russia can actually increase supply to its max, Russia would run out of artillery shells in late 2024 at current usage , being limited from that forth to newly produced rounds.

The West can technically match deliveries until new production come online, but that will gut US and other powers like SK operational readiness.

[LaCroix]

There is some quarrel going on about the Ukrainian top command.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/31/euro ... index.html

It seems that there are moves to dismiss Zaluzhny for either the current commander of the ground forces, or a younger general.
Not sure if it is going to happen, but a possible reason is that Zalushny is too set in the old ways.
This seems to be over the point of needed conscription ( Zaluzhny seems to be pro massive conscrition) and strategy - mostly the decisions of where to allocate the ressources for most effect.
This discussion was also had in the background of not having ressources vs now getting the EU package, so they might be re-considering some points, but right now it seems that he will step down, soon.

[vakundok]

"Russia has serious problems behind the facade" does not equal to "Russia is on the verge of collapse on the front".
Declaring the two as equal and then flaming I just do not feel right.

[Gandalf]

Here's an analysis from the ABC. It's from an Australian perspective, but it's still a good read.

Ukraine is on the hunt for more soldiers to join its army — but a new bill could backfire on Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Late last year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy raised the option of mobilisation for his nation's war effort.

Speaking on December 1, he also described how military recruiting reform was necessary, noting that "everyone in Ukraine understands that changes are needed in this area. It's not just about the number of those who can be mobilised. It's about terms – for everyone currently in the military – for demobilisation – and for those who will join the military."

Able to rely on a huge influx of volunteers from Ukraine and abroad in the first year of the war, Ukraine has since had a rolling approach to mobilising its people for service in the military. This has been criticised for inefficiency and corrupt practices, and because of this, President Zelenskyy sacked the regional commissars responsible for military recruiting in August 2023. More recently, there have been accusations of Ukrainians being "press-ganged" into military service.

A draft mobilisation bill was presented to the Ukrainian parliament on Christmas Eve. It outlined lowering the age limit of conscripts from 27 to 25, ending service exclusions for people with minor disabilities, legalising digital draft notices and restricting the ability of draft dodgers to conduct financial transactions.

The Ukrainian commander in chief, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, has described the new law as essential to his ability to rotate exhausted frontline troops, raise new formations for future offensives, and give serving troops some light at the end of the tunnel for when their service might conclude.

The proposed law has been criticised by politicians, as well as the Ukrainian parliament's human rights commissioner for being unconstitutional. A new version of the draft law is likely to go to the Ukrainian parliament in early February.

But even if the mobilisation bill is approved by the Ukrainian parliament and the president, Ukraine faces an array of challenges in its implementation.

Finding, training and paying soldiers

The first challenge is training a massive influx of new conscripts. The Ukrainian military training system is already under severe strain. Having expanded the Ukrainian Armed Forces from 200,000 to around a million people in the past two years, maintaining the required training throughput to keep frontline units supplied with fit, well-prepared personnel is a constant challenge.

NATO countries, and Australia, aid the process but Ukrainian senior officers admitted to me on my last visit that most training is too short because of battlefield demands. Increasing the number of recruits will compound this problem.

New soldiers also need to be equipped. While many undoubtedly will employ equipment already issued to units that are either serving on the front line or in reserve and territorial defence units, Ukraine also hopes to form additional manoeuvre brigades.

Given the shortfalls in US military assistance and almost empty inventories of European armies, this equipping challenge in 2024 will be difficult to resolve.

Next, all these new service personnel need to be paid. Ukraine, with a shortfall in US military aid and a delay in a 50 billion Euro financial assistance package, is facing a considerable challenge with its national budget. The Ukrainian budget, released in November 2023, projects a budget shortfall of around $40 billion this year. Adding another 400,000 to 500,000 soldiers who need to be paid, fed, equipped and eventually demobilised will only deepen this economic challenge.

The potential for blowback on Zelenskyy

The way the mobilisation is undertaken and conscripts employed must not undermine the social contract that exists between citizens and military institutions.

While many democracies have conscripted their citizens during times of wartime peril, military institutions still have an obligation under these circumstances to ensure their citizen soldiers are trained, equipped and led appropriately, and employed on appropriate military missions.

The "meat tactics" employed by the Russians, which use poorly trained conscripts as Ukrainian bullet catchers and result in mass casualties, cannot be used by Ukraine.

President Zelenskyy faces political challenges in getting the mobilisation bill approved, and then ensuring that it is implemented fairly and efficiently.

He will also face a presidential election at some point in the near future. A poorly implemented mobilisation campaign may leave many conscripts, their families and his political allies with less-than-positive feelings about returning Zelenskyy to office, whenever that election takes place.

Lessons for Australia

Like many of the lessons of the war in Ukraine, this debate is relevant to Western nations such as the United States, Britain and Australia. The military organisations in these nations, which have all-volunteer forces, continue to suffer shortfalls in their military recruitment.

Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles has described this as a "defence personnel crisis", and a 2023 brief by the Parliamentary Library describes how "planned recruiting levels and entrants into the permanent ADF are failing to offset outflows".

With an increasingly grim strategic environment, and the probable need for Defence to be employed on more deterrence and natural-disaster-related operations, it may be that the post-Cold War all-volunteer model of military service needs reform.

There are sure to be a variety of different strategies that can and should be considered to fill this increasing shortfall in military personnel.

But in considering different solutions, Australia might wish to watch and learn from the mobilisation debate being conducted by the Ukrainians.

Mick Ryan is a strategist and retired Australian Army major general. He served in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan, and as a strategist on the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is also a non-resident fellow of the Lowy Institute and at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

[3-Body Problem]

THE TANK MUSEUM's David Willey, on the other hand, did his research (as much as anyone can do research on a top secret weapon system) and states that the engine is a copy of the Porsche Sla16 Engine, which was slightly modernized and supercharged, and was sold by the producer as a pump/generator engine before being considered as a tank engine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfCG0bNxVL4

So I will concede that my post was slightly hyperbole as it's not the actual WW2 engine but a slightly modernized version, but it is still an engine that never was a commercial success and known for being unreliable, which it has proven on live tv, funnily enough.
How such a mistake in the minutae of a side-snipe at the 'most modern' russian tank using a copy of a nazi engine is making me an entirely unreliable source is frankly beyond me, but you do you. My main point was that it was a still-birth.

While you're backpedaling at a speed that would make Lance Armstrong question your sporting integrity, would you define "slightly modernized" for me and tell me how you know exactly what went into the engine's procurement, R&D cycle, and production? The experts barely know anything about the engine but one parade breakdown, admittedly an embarrassment for the Russian military, and you're willing to state that the T14 is "Using the engine of the TIGER 1 tank...". This doesn't exactly paint you as a factual or unbiased source of information.

Let's look at the production:
A few prototypes were built - nobody knows if they actually are fully functional - and shown at the 2015 victory parade.
100 prototype production announced in in 2016 - never done.
Then ist was said 132 are to be delivered in 2019, which was then being hemmed and hawed about til 2022, when they allegedly finally managed to produce an batch of maybe 20 of them. Which were only seen briefly in parades and highly edited propaganda videos. Russia claimed that it was in ukraine and did 'indirect fire missions', but was withdrawn. Which pretty much means they briefly hauled one to somewhere in a relatively sleepy frontline, lobbed a few rounds in the general direction at maximum range, and shipped it back home. To this day, none has ever been seen in actual combat. Nor has production resumed after this batch, with claims they need to work on a new autolader - which is funny, as the tank was supposed to be working since 2016?

Fact remains that as far as I know, nobody has ever seen more than - I think 7 or 8 of them at the same spot. Which means that most likely, there are no more than this number existing as functional vehicles.

This is pretty much the definition of stillbirth.

I never said the T14 was a good or highly produced tank. I was calling out your unnecessary use of hyperbole and how it, and your uncritical reporting of facts from biased sources, harms the credibility of your opinion on the conflict.

Given that I'm not the only person who thinks your news, sources, and biases are suspect you might want to rethink the tone in which you post news about the ongoing conflict. Part of the reason I was lurking on these boards is because posters here are objective and able to stick to the facts. It would be disappointing if that were to change because people want to will a Ukrainian victory into being with bad sources and wishful thinking.

[vakundok]

Ukraine claims that on Wednesday, six (or more) naval drones sunk the Russian Ivanovets missile corvette. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2 ... -corvette/

As the lower (Sweden) estimates put the Russian tank reserves into 2500, even though I assume only 10 to 20 percent truly new built (for example they announced in September the restart of T-80 - which itself implies that either the T-90 production has issues or that the gas turbine is in fact superior), they can maintain this "production level" for well more than a year. (As there are also estimates of 9K light armored vehicles stored on open fields (https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2023/10/2 ... nt-marsed/), a multiple of that tank estimates is not unbelievable.)

It supports what was already posted here earlier, Avdiivka may represent the "accepted" Russian speed and cost of progress at the Ukrainian defense lines.

[LaCroix]

The progress in Avdiivka is slow, but recently the Russians have pushed another 40k men into that combat zone. That usually means that they are going to throw more men into the field, hoping defenders run out of bullets and have to fall back. Very costly, but effective, as seen in Bakhmuth.

Right now, the Ukrainians are only holding the town out of spite (Russian election) and because it has natural funnels that make it a very convenient place to inflict mass casualties with relative ease, but against huge waves, there is only so much you can do. The new defensive lines (similar to the Russian defenses across the south in their extent) are being under construction since the October offensive of Russia started, and are pretty far along, so it will be similar to Bakhmut, a retreat into fortifications once the cost-benefit no longer works for them.

I don't really see them holding on for longer than a month or so, unless they somehow can leverage some new advantage, like F16s or the new GLSDB in an effective way to increase their own fighting power to offset the new russian troops.

On the news sector, there has been some plan for the US financing cobbled together.
I am not going to hold my breath on this one, since the Orange one is always agitating from the sidelines on the border issue, and Johnson REALLY wants to push an Israel-ony package through to get his cake and keep politizizing all other issues,but since they actually managed a bipartisan thing, maybe saner heads will prevail.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/04/senate- ... rder-.html

[LaCroix]

Oh, and predictably...

There were clerical errors which sadly exclude ANOTHER candidate from the russian elections...
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ru ... 024-02-02/

[EnterpriseSovereign]

This raises the question- how do you defeat such fortifications without suffering enormous casualties?

[vakundok]

A valid answer to that would probably disappear from the forum - alongside the person answered.
Either you have a brand new technology that the fortification has not yet adapted to, destroy the whole area completely, or move around, and secure the area so that the defenders can not get out. Betrayal, memetic/info war (I would expect the Russian troops to be very susceptible to infiltrated communication channels) may work to get a small path across.

As new technology, we are probably closest to a remote controlled swarm with so small units as to make targeting impractical, dispersed till contact. A hornet is a pain, a hornet sized thing, designed to kill humans, is quite a bit worse - but hopefully this is just sci fi.

[LaCroix]

This raises the question- how do you defeat such fortifications without suffering enormous casualties?

That's the big question nobody is able/willing to answer.
It is a multi layer problem.

You have the trenches with infantry, which can only reliably cleared with infantry going in and securing them. Artillery is useful in softening those defenses up, but only to a certain point. UNLESS you are WILLING to simply put gods eraser down. We're talking MOAB or similar type of destruction to take out a trench fortification. Apart form the technical capabilities,it's expensive.

Second - Minefields, drone swarms, artillery cover, guided missiles are another layer that you need to get your troops through into the actual fortification. This is also only possible if you are willing to spend a literal fortune of material to raze the whole area, and hunt down and find the support, which can be hiding 40 miles away, or simply accept that you are going to face horrible losses and commit to an all-out assault.

You need to do this while under the 3rd layer - air cover by aircraft, drones and long-range fire support, which will try to disrupt your attempts to amass enough troops to carry out such a bombardment or assault.

#4 -logistics. Have the stuff, get it in place, protect it while trying to disrupt the other sides's efforts to do so.

It is pretty much an equation with too many variables.One that no matter which way you try to solve it, you need to burn either an ungodly amount of resources, or an immense number of lives. So far, Ukraine is trying the expensive ressources (expensive artillery systems, guided shells, Himars) approach, trying to use less, but more effective weapons and conserving manpower, and going after the Russian logistics, against the Russia using human waves, artillery barrages, and any sytem they can turn the engine over and fire something towards the enemy, in unrelenting attacks till the Ukraine runs out of things to lob at them.

So far, this whole thing is a stalemate, and will stay that way until one side starts to run out of something.

Trench warfare is hell.

[The Sisko]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2 ... 0227e74ea0

Forbes
Business
Aerospace & Defense
A Ukrainian Brigade Ran Low On Ammo. That, Plus Some Bad Weather, Was All The Advantage Russian Troops Needed To Breach Avdiivka.
If the city falls, it’s because the U.S. Republican Party withheld aid.
Marching quickly under a cloudy sky on Sunday, Russian troops infiltrated Avdiivka.

Four months after a pair of Russian field armies, together with 40,000 troops and thousands of vehicles, first attacked toward Avdiivka—a Ukrainian stronghold just northwest of Russian-occupied Donetsk in eastern Ukraine—the long, bloody campaign may be culminating.

“The situation in the city has become critical,” Ukrainian journalist Andriy Tsaplienko wrote.

If the campaign does culminate, and the Russians prevail, it will be clear who largely is to blame: Russia-aligned Republicans in the U.S. Congress, who last fall began blockading U.S. aid to Ukraine and, as a consequence, starved Ukrainian troops of the ammunition they depend on to match the Russians’ own firepower.

“Avdiivka urgently needs fresh reserves and rotation of units,” Ukrainian correspondent Yuriy Butusov explained Sunday. “Ammunition is also necessary—supplies are also extremely small [and] the enemy has a great advantage.”

The Avdiivka garrison has held for a decade—ever since Russian troops and their allies first attacked in eastern Ukraine, back in 2014. And for the nearly two years since Russia widened its war on Ukraine, the soldiers of the Ukrainian army’s 110th Mechanized Brigade have been the city’s main defenders.

It’s not that the Ukrainian eastern command didn’t reinforce Avdiivka when it became clear that conquering the city was one of the Kremlin’s main objectives: it did.

The elite 47th Mechanized Brigade with its American-made M-2 Bradley fighting vehicles rolled into positions north of Avdiivka in order to defend Stepove, an adjacent settlement. The 53rd Mechanized Brigade meanwhile arrived south of Avdiivka.

But the 110th Brigade plus some border guards and commandos alone defend the city center.

The 2,000-person brigade never has rotated out for rest. Day after day, it fights: infantry pile into trenches; drone-operators scurry into abandoned buildings to set up antennae and launch their explosive, one-way drones; gunners take aim with grenade-launchers and anti-tank missiles.

For four months, the 110th and reinforcing brigades bled attacking Russian columns. By December, the Russians had suffered 13,000 casualties—dead and maimed—and lost hundreds of armored vehicles. Two months later, their casualties may have doubled.

But the Kremlin keeps feeding fresh troops into the meat-grinder. Slowly, and at great cost in people and equipment, the Russians have inched forward—first on Avdiivka’s flanks, and then into the city itself.

The Ukrainians’ small drones always were the key to the city’s defense. Surveillance drones would spot the Russians coming. First-person-view attack drones would harry them until Ukrainian infantry or M-2 and tank crews could finish them off.

When the clouds gathered on Sunday, grounding many drones and blinding others, the Russians heaved forward. Scurrying along the edge of a quarry abutting the city’s northern edge, Russian troops “bypassed the Ukrainian battle formations and entrenched themselves in the buildings,” according to Tsaplienko.

Butusov described the panic as the 110th Brigade scrambled to respond. Officers ordered everyone, even elderly mechanics, to grab weapons and head for the trenches. “These grandfathers left,” Butusov quoted a source as saying. “Most of them died in battle.”

“I saw from a drone how an assault group of Russians attacked a house ... where two of our fighters fought to the last,” Butusov added. “The house burned down, no one surrendered.”

If the Russians can hang onto their new positions in northern Avdiivka, they can threaten the Ukrainian garrison’s supply lines, threading into the ruined city from the west. As of Sunday, the Russians were just a few hundred yards from the main road in, Tsaplienko wrote. Close enough to hit trucks with handheld weapons.

Avdiivka may fall, potentially making it the first Ukrainian city the Russians have captured since seizing Bakhmut nine months ago. If that happens, the Republicans who deprived the Ukrainians of ammunition shoulder much of the blame.

They can’t claim they didn’t know their intransigence might result in Ukrainian mechanics dying in cold trenches as the Ukrainians’ supporting guns fell silent. As early as December, around six weeks after Republicans first began blocking aid, Ukrainian units in and around Avdiivka noted their arsenals emptying out.

On Dec. 17, a Russian column took advantage of a foggy day and attacked Avdiivka from the south. Ukrainian drone-operators eventually spotted the Russians, but lacked any means of striking them. “We just don’t have ammo,” one operator wrote.

The Russian column struck a mine and turned back. The Ukrainian drone crews watched the Russians walk back to the safety of their own lines. “It’s very, very awful to see how Russians are walking without punishment,” the operator complained.

Those same Russians seemingly survived to attack again. And again. Until the weather, and the Ukrainians’ dwindling firepower, finally welcomed them into Avdiivka.

The situation seems quite desperate. When (if is not a question now) Avdiivka falls, it will seriously harm supply for the Ukrainians and secure Russia's hold on the newly annexed regions. My question from this reading though, is how much responsibility can really be attributed to the Republicans in this case? I'm willing to believe they had a not-small part in helping this to happen, but I also view claims that they basically made it happen with a lot of skepticism. The article says that the troops here haven't been rotated out since the fighting started months ago. Even if they had gotten infinite ammo, eventually troops are going to get exhausted and start making mistakes or letting enemies slip in, right?

Either way, champagne corks in Moscow.

[Solauren]

Yeah, I'm having a hard time pinning that on the Republicans.

Yeah, they probably didn't help the situation, but without force rotation and relief, eventually, they'll wear down.

Meanwhile, due to their 'human wave' tactics', Russia always has reasonable fresh bodies to throw into the grinder.

[PainRack]

Yeah, I'm having a hard time pinning that on the Republicans.

Yeah, they probably didn't help the situation, but without force rotation and relief, eventually, they'll wear down.

Meanwhile, due to their 'human wave' tactics', Russia always has reasonable fresh bodies to throw into the grinder.

It's more the Ukranians are not able to launch counterattacks due to inadequate fires that's the problem.

[The Sisko]

On that front, their problems go further than some shitty American politicians:

Europe’s arms production is in ‘deep shit,’ says Belgian ex-general
Europe’s ammo production shortfalls are a symptom of a “cultural problem” to adapt to a war-ready industry, retired general Marc Thys tells POLITICO.

It's going to take years for Europe to build up the arms and ammunition production capacity needed to both aid Ukraine and reequip national forces, Belgium's former deputy chief of defense said.

“It’s not a joke, we’re in deep shit," Marc Thys, who retired in 2023 with the rank of lieutenant general, told POLITICO. "Especially in Belgium, but we’re not the only ones.”

With Ukraine running into severe shell shortages as Russians push into key cities like Avdiivka, and growing concern over the reliability of Europe's traditional alliance with the United States, the worry is that time is running out to ramp up arms production on the Continent.

Thys said top commanders warned at the outset of Russia’s war on Ukraine in early 2022 that it would take “five to seven years” to tool up the bloc's industry to reach the kind of industrial capacity necessary to sustain a credible deterrence.

“Ammunition is a symptom of a cultural problem within Europe,” said Thys, pointing to reliance on the U.S. security umbrella as an excuse for decades of underinvestment in the bloc's own production capacity.

While the EU will fail to send a million rounds of artillery ammunition to Ukraine by the end of March, as it had promised, it now claims it's on track to deliver 1.1 million shells by the end of the year.

Defense investment is moving rapidly up the political agenda, both in national capitals and in Brussels.

On Feb. 27, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton is due to set out a fresh strategy aimed at securing sustained investment for defense.

The kind of money needed is eye-watering.

Thys has previously said that it would require investment in the order of €5 billion to €7 billion in Belgium alone to make enough shells to fight a two-month conflict.

European Council President Charles Michel said Wednesday at the European Investment Bank Group Forum: “We could invest at least €600 billion in defense over the next 10 years.”

The EU already offers limited subsidies to boost joint procurement and help build out production lines, but Thys says such initiatives take time to deliver even modest returns.

“You’re talking from an industrial point of view of building a supply chain of two to three years,” he said, adding that Russia was proving faster at ramping up its production of shells and weapons.

While European arms-maker KNDS plans to open a new production line for 155 millimeter artillery ammunition in Belgium, it will take two years just to install and set up machinery to build the round casings, let alone begin production.

Even when up and running, the factory will only produce 30,000 rounds a year, a fraction of the 200,000 shells a month the Ukrainian military says it needs to fight Russian forces along a 1,000-kilometer front.

“There’s a lot of wishful thing … People underestimate the time needed to realize projects,” said Thys. “The industrial fabric in Europe isn’t strong enough to support Ukraine."

The US alone can't be counted on to support Ukraine in this fight, particularly when its political system gives it the national attitude of someone afflicted with untreated Multiple Personality Disorder, but even if it could, is the US supposed to make up for a shortfall of almost 1,000,000 shells by next month? The Russians are firing five times as many shells a day the Ukrainians are source.