Yes Russia “won” Avdiivka - similar size to Bognor Regis or Palm Springs - with 4 months fighting - losing 400 tanks and thousands of soldiers
NO RISK TO KYIV - which is similar in size to Chicago or Birmingham
The media is going crazy over Russia winning a tiny city, 30,000 or so population in peace time. They are claiming that this means all of Ukraine is at risk of being captured by Russia. ABSURD!
Russia hasn't won a major battle in Ukraine it has won a small city the size of Bognor Regis or Palm springs after four months of fighting at the cost of a small army of hundreds of tanks and thousands to tens of thousands of soldiers. Nobody is seriously suggesting they could retake Kherson city or take Karkhiv or Zaporizhzhia never mind Kyiv or Odessa. Kyiv is similar in size to Chicago or Birmingham.
What’s more the attack has culminated, Ukraine has retreated to fortified defences just beyond Avdiivka. This attack has straightened out the front line making it easier for Ukraine to defend, and Russia is not likely to be able to go any further but just play “king of the sand” over the pile of rubble that used to be houses and a small industrial area including the plant that used to make the coking cole for Azov steel works which of course is also now a pile of rubble.
Actually it is Ukraine that “won” this battle not Russia in this “war of attrition”. Ukraine’s aim has been to make sure Russia loses lots of soldiers and equipment in an unfair battle where Ukraine has a HUGE advantage over Russia. In this way it has depleted Russia of an entire army.
Short video:
Video: Yes Russia “won” Avdiivka - similar size to Bognor Regis or Palm Springs - short
[A little over 16 minutes]
CORRECTION: Sorry at 13:39 Yes Russia “won” Avdiivka - similar size to Bognor Regis or Palm Springs - short Where I say "when the Russian generals say ..." I meant to say "When the NATO generals say". In context:
13:23 it makes no sense that Russia after losing a battle with Ukraine would decide that it should attack NATO. So when the NATO [was Russian] generals start talking about that I think it's just in a fantasy, it's making up a scenario for a military exercise. It doesn't make sense reality that after losing the war in Ukraine that Russia would then decide that it needs to rebuild and what it really must do is to attack NATO that makes no sense.
Longer video
Video: Yes Russia “won” Avdiivka - similar size to Bognor Regis or Palm Springs - with 4 months fighting
[A little over an hour]
Ukraine whose statistics are reasonably reliable in this war about other figures like tanks and infantry fighting vehciles (close match to open source estimates) say Russia have lost 47,000 soldiers.
A Russian source says 16,000.
If Ukraine is right the army Russia lost to take Avdiivka is larger than the entire armies of the Netherlands or Portugal, , and more than half the size of the Romanian army. It is nearly a third of the size of the entire British army. If the Russian source is right it is about half the size of the Portuguese army.
Either way it’s that entire small army just gone in 4 months, no longer available for Russia to use in summer 2024.
I know it can be hard to believe that the "mighty Russia" can be so very dim but it really and truly is. This is a pointless victory, they lost an entire small army to capture a pile of rubble to call themselves king of a sand castle.
Avdiivka was a thriving city before the war with a factory making coke for the steel industry, a factory making pylons for transmission lines, a quartz sand factory and a large residential area. But that is all now ruins destroyed by Russian shelling, so they are now just fighting over who gets to control the rubble.
Of course they could rebuild it and given time it would be of economic value again. But the Russian economy would struggle to rebuild occupied Ukraine if it did hold onto it. Europe with its far higher GDP can rebuild Ukraine after the war and it will be even a business opportunity and a time of economic growth for Ukraine and for Europe..
And now the media are saying that they can go on to take over all of Ukraine. Kyiv has a population of 2.8 million, same as Birmingham or Chicago. Like using up an entire army to take Bognor Regis then you think “Right, got it, now lets’ occupy Birmingham”. Or after capturing Palm Springs “Right now we are ready to occupy Chicago”.
Russia has been trying to take this city since 2014. It’s been a priority target since the start of this war and Russia escalated to the max from 10th October 2023 when they made capturing Avdiivka their top priority for their winter 2023–4 campaign.
Few people realize how tiny it is. Here is drone footage of Bognor Regis, a small city on the southern coast near London.
video: Bognor Regis - movie, landscape from the drone (DJI Mavic 2 Pro) 4K
Here is a satellite photo that shows nearly all of Avdiivka
Please click on images to unblur - Quora blurs all images on some topics but everything here is kid friendly and with no copyright issues.
You can explore Avdiivka on Bing maps here: Bing Maps
Also it’s not a military town or industrial complex. It’s mainly residential. You can check by exploring it on Bing maps.
There is a major railway line goes through the city but it won’t be of any use to Russia except to travel from Donetsk to Avdiivka, it heads on into Ukrainian held territory.
It is not a communications hub in any way.
Avdiivka has one major railway line goes through the city but continues into Ukrainian held territory - only useful to Russia for travelling to / from Avdiivka
From photosphere on Google maps here
It does have some industry, or did before the war. Wikipedia says
The city is also home to the Avdiivka Factory of Metallic Structures, a quartz sand quarry and a number of other factories and industrial facilities.
The metallic structures factory makes transmission lines and so on.
. AVDIYIVSKY METAL CONSTRUCTION DETAILS PLANT
The coke factory supplied Mariupol and produced 12,000 tons of coke per day, worth $2.4m. But it is now destroyed.
. Avdiivka Coke Plant - Wikipedia
This is what it looked like in 2023. It is probably even more damaged now.
. Avdiivka Coke Plant after Russian shelling, 2023-10-19 (01).jpg - Wikimedia Commons
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These will be of no use to Russia as it destroys the factories throughout the cities it occupies because of the way it attacks with vast amounts of ammunition levelling the city.
It was always likely that Ukraine would withdraw from Avdiivka. They could have held it for longer if it was their top priority like it is for Russia. Or they could have let Russia have it at the start of the winter. The main reason they fought to hold onto it is because Russia is losing so many soldiers and so much equipment to take it. As soon as that figure started to turn around with a risk that Ukraine might start to lose similar numbers of soldiers to Russia, they withdrew.
It was a controlled withdrawal. Professor Phillips P. OBrien summarizes it like this.
Up until this point its been a battle worth fighting for Ukraine. The Russians for political reasons seemed willing to expend whatever the could to take a town of no strategic value. Practically no one was left living there and Avdiivka provided no resources to the Ukrainian war machine. Had Ukraine the ammunition, they would have tried to stay at least until the Russian elections (Putin seems desperate to have some “victory” before the vote, and Avdiivka was one of his primary objectives).
What happens next will almost certainly not involve a fast vehicle-led breakout. The reality is that Russian advances are still being done at the pace a human can walk/run not at the pace a vehicle can drive. If the Ukrainians can dig in, create their own defensive line, and have at least some ammunition, the line will stabilize soon. The real crunch is still to come.
Of course had Ukraine been aided properly, even this withdrawal would not have had to happened.
The entire Russian army has had Avdiivka as its main focus for the last four months. Ukaine say they lost a small army of 47,000 soldiers and 364 tanks in Avdiivka.
The enemy's losses during the active phase of the Avdiivka defensive operation (from October 10, 2023, to February 17, 2024) amounted to:
Personnel: 47,186 individuals;
Tanks: 364;
Artillery systems: 248;
Combat armored vehicles: 748;
Aircraft: 5.
. Ukrainian Commander Named the russia Losses in Avdiivka Sector in 4 Months | Defense Express
It is impossible to confirm the personnel. Also not clear what it means, but probably at that number, killed + injured and out of action.
But that many would be the size of a small army, larger indeed than the army of the Netherlands or Portugal if true.
Please click on images to unblur - Quora blurs all images on some topics but everything here is kid friendly and with no copyright issues.
. The Biggest Standing Armies Of The European Union
The US estimates that since the war started Russia has lost over 300,000 soldiers, or twice the size of the British army.
A Russian source says they lost 19,000. Again not clear what it means. But that’s less than half the Ukrainian number.
I follow Dmitr, “War translated” who translates lots of Russian sources. This is from a Russian volunteer who says that his source says Russia lost 16,000 irretrievable losses. That may be dead + captured? And Ukraine 5,000 to 7000.
QUOTE STARTS
Uhh some painful doomposting from rus volunteer Murz, he found out the numbers of irreversible losses in Avdiivka and it's not making him happy. And he really seems to like Syrsky. Keep in mind that he is risking his ass by voicing this information, so it must be really getting to him.
2/2
Tweet from here
. WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) on X
It’s impossible to know for sure about the soldiers.
But it is much easier to check the equipment lost. The ratio for equipment from open sources based on photographs of every tank destroyed make it a 10 Russian pieces of equipment for every 1 Ukrainian piece of equipment.
Given the huge ratio in equipment losses for Russia v.s. Ukraine, Zelensky’s figure of 7 Russian soldiers lost to every Ukrainian seems very believable given they are losing more than 10 tanks for every Ukrainian tanks and even more infantry fighting vehicles.
This is what Zelensky says:
QUOTE I can't tell you how many victims and victims we have, but, for example, when we talk about the fact that they have too many casualties, you should know that in Avdiivka, I can tell you that it was one to seven. The death of one Ukrainian was equal to the death of seven Russians
. Зеленський: не можу назвати наші втрати, але в Авдіївці було один до семи | УНН
It’s because of the tactics. No strategy. They just send their soldiers to fight full on against fortified positions over and over.
They send lots of soldiers on foot. It is winter with cold and hypothermia. It is the very worst time of year for fighting.
No modern army that was at all strategic and careful would keep fighting at a 10 to 1 or more loss ratio for its tanks. 3 to 1 yes, 10 to 1 though, and for months?!
Nor would a careful strategic modern army fight on foot in winter in wet muddy conditions and in temperatures down to -10 C or 14 F at night when they could wait to the summer and fight then instead - there was no urgency for taking Avdiivka.
Nor would they fight for Avdiivka when it is of no strategic value and the Ukrainians there weren’t going to achieve anything. They would have focused on Robotyne and the Dnipro river
The Ukrainian statistics for tanks are fairly reliable because of open source information confirming them.
This is an open source estimate of the vehicles lost since 9th October 2023 - with every single vehicle documented.
The figures are a little smaller than the Ukrainian estimates - could be because of gaps in the data or having a different definition of the region covered by the conflict. But the extraordinary thing here is the ratio between Russian and Ukrainian losses. In an offensive the attacker would normally lose perhaps 3 times as much equipment as the defender. With Avdiivka the ratio for tanks is 10 times as many and much higher even than that for other equipment.
224 tanks lost by Russia for 21 tanks lost by Ukraine. (the +2 in brackets is the change since the previous day).
375 armoured fighting vehicles + infantry mobility vehicles lost by Russa, 25 lost by Ukraine.
6 anti-aircraft systems lost by Russian, none by Ukraine, and so on.
Russian losses:
Ukrainian losses
Documentation of all the losses: Avdiivka Offensive Losses as of 2024-02-16 by @naalsio26
Tweet these graphics are from here.
We can use the Oryx ones for the entireline of defence, more on those below.
This shows the front line according to the ISW, based on their updated daily situation map here
. Interactive Map: Russia's Invasion of Ukraine
for 18th February 2022
Russia's "Big victory"
Avdiivka peace-time population 32,000
Like capturing Bognor Regis or Palm Springs after four months of fighting.
Donetsk population 2 million held by Russian separatists since 2014
Main battle started 10th October
Ukraine say Russia lost a small army of 47,000 soldiers and 364 tanks
Yellow = claimed Russian advances
This advance isn’t leading anywhere. That screenshot at the bottom says:
Ukrainian forces will likely be able to establish new defensive lines not far beyond Avdiivka, which will likely prompt the culmination of the Russian offensive in this area.
. Institute for the Study of War
Culmination means the advances stop. So it’s saying that after taking Avdiivka the Russians are not likely to be able to advance any further.
We saw the same situation in Bakhmut in 2022–3. The Russians took Bakhmut at huge cost including Wagner almost out of action with so many killed, and eventually rebelling which used to be the most effective Russian fighting force because of its more flexible tactics and somewhat independent thinking.
And it led to nowhere, Russia playing “king of the sand” on two piles of rubble.
King of the Sand by Barbados
This shows the larger picture from which you can see how strategically dim it was for Russia to focus on taking Avdiivka instead of defending Robotyne.
Shows how strategically dim Russia has been.
Larger picture - Avdiivka just fills in a fortified Ukrainian pocket in the Russian front line on the outskirts of Donetsk, a city of 2 million
Robotyne is a foothold that can lead to liberation of Tokmak, Melitopol, and Mariupol, and threatens the Azov Sea supply line
Blue = Ukrainian advances
Yellow = Russian advances
A more straegic Russia would have kept those 47,000 soldiers and 364 tanks to defend here [Robotyne]
Tokmak militarily significant
Threatened Ukrainian counteroffensives
Melitopol Partisan fighting
Mariupol
Militarily important coastal supply route to / from Kherson oblast and Crimea.
In this war the Ukrainian military have been reasonably accurate in their published figures for equipment - and likely for Russian casualties too.
Russia don’t publish estimated losses for either Russia or Ukraine. Ukraine only publish Russian losses but we have open source intelligence for Ukrainian losses of equipment which are far less than the Russian losses.
We can use open sources to count the tanks they lost along the entire front line, most of them in Avdiivka: each one with photographic evidence.
Over the entire front line, Russia lost 406 tanks and Ukraine lost 86. Russia lost 2,082 significant items of equipment and Ukraine lost 659.
The ratio of casualties lost by Russia and Ukraine is likely higher. E.g. if Russia loses 406 tanks and Ukraine loses 86, nearly all the soldiers in the Russian tanks will die, the Ukrainian ones will survive if they are modern NATO tanks though they die if they are the more ancient Russian tanks.
For the infantry fighting vehicles the Bradleys that Ukraine now use are remarkably good at protecting the soldiers inside., Almost never die.
Then the Russians are using human wave tactics in winter with very cold conditions, -10 C, 14 F. In those conditions it is very easy to die of hypothermia - where soldiers just lose interest in living, get out of touch with reality, often even take their clothes off feeling too warm in freezing conditions, go to sleep and never wake up again or injured and out of the fighting because of frostbite.
Ukrainians have much better medical kits for their soldiers, and they rescue their wounded when the Russians often leave them to die. Also they more senibly preserve their strengths in winter and fight in the fighting season which starts in April / May at the end of the mud season. In Avdiivka they were basically hunkering down and shooting at the Russians as they attacked.
So the ratio of casualties lost is likely higher than the ratio of equipment lost.
Checking with open source intelligence.
just uploaded this video to help explain why I use Oryx and the ISW as amongst my reliable sources.
If they make mistakes I would expect to find another website that chronicles the failures, alerts us to duplicate videos or images, or faked images or videos etc. But there isn't any such site and I see no evidence of anyone saying the data is faked.
So as far as I can tell their evidence is very reliable.
First, the Ukrainian figures
Let's go from 1st Oct 2023.Ukraine has lost 86 tanks since 1st October 2023.
742 Attack On Europe: Documenting Ukrainian Equipment Losses During The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine
was 656 Attack On Europe: Documenting Ukrainian Equipment Losses During The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine
It’s lost 80 - 73 = 7 aircraft.
Russia has lost 406 tanks in the same time.
2735 Attack On Europe: Documenting Russian Equipment Losses During The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine
Was 2329 Attack On Europe: Documenting Russian Equipment Losses During The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine
So that is an advantage of 320 tanks that Russia could have used this summer gone.
It’s lost 102 -92 = 10 aircraft
Russia has lost 2082 significant items of equipment like that including e.g. infantry fighting vehicles, - artillery, anti-artillery etc
14393-12311
Ukraine has lost 5169-4510 = 659
So that's an advantage of 2082 -659 = 1423 items of equipment that Russia has lost which it could have used this summer.
Russians are calling it the Avdiivka triangle as with the Bermuda triangle because soldiers and tanks go there and disappear never to return.
Graphic from this tweet
We shouldn't forget though a small city it is a real place with real people whose town is destroyed - and the Russian fighters who are attacking it don't know what is going on and believe in propaganda.
🇺🇦Successful evacuation in Avdiivka #Ukraine of 3 elderly ladies and their pets, plus a bonus stray dog❤️ Great job Denis Khrystoff 🫂
https://twitter.com/SlavaUk30722777/status/1755173101892239705
More video of the "White Angels" police going house to house trying to persuade people who live there to leave.
Footage the unit has shared with the BBC shows the desperate conditions those remaining must endure, and how hard it is to leave under constant bombardment.
The officers have to try to convince people to get out, but some refuse - they say they have nowhere else to go.Russia has lost 1,000 armoured vehicles and tanks in Ukraine since October
. ‘God Mum, please leave’ – The struggle to exit town under attack
Basically Russia has lost an entire army in order to capture this tiny city of around 30,000 in peace-time.
Like that it attacked the UK and lost an entire army to capture Bognor Regis.
If you look at the modern equipment supplied by NATO, then it is even more favorable to Ukraine. The Russians have destroyed very little of it.
Ukraine have lost only one of the UK Challenger tanks Attack On Europe: Documenting Ukrainian Equipment Losses During The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine
UK supplied 14 of them Where have Britain’s Challenger tanks gone?
The most of the modern tanks it lost are the Leopards, 11 destroyed, 8 abandoned. That is out of several dozen supplied.
Wikipedia has a list of military aid sent to Ukraine here List of military aid to Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War - Wikipedia
Ukraine has large numbers of Western tanks that it just hasn't used yet.
The reason is just because the conditions aren't yet favourable for them. It uses them in a small way but not in a big advance.
They are there ready for use. But Ukraine needs better air support.
Its drones will help in 2024 with the big build up to a million drones against Russia’s 32,000. Then the F-16s will help because they give Ukraine parity. Ukraine has been able to keep the Russian jets out of their territory with inferior fighter jets just because they are better pilots and fight better. Then they got the NATO air defences and with Patriot especially are now destroying Russian fighter jets and air command units at a great distance, for instance over the Azov Sea.
When they get the F-16s - for NATO countries this is decades old equipment and they don’t really appreciate what a difference it will make for Ukraine as they are equivalent to the very best modern Russian fighter jets. The F-16 has some advantages the Russian jets others, and they are roughly equal.
Given what Ukrainian pilots have been able to achieve with their almost museum piece Mig-29s (by NATO standards) the F-16s may have a more significant effect than NATO countries expect.
Earlier, Ukraine drove the Russian Black Sea fleet out ofCrimea. They lost Sokolov the commander of the Black Sea fleet when Ukraine hit the headquarters of the Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol - at least Ukraine claimed to have killed him.
. Viktor Sokolov (naval officer) - Wikipedia
[CORRECTION - Russia just sacked him so presumably he is still alive, just keeping a low profile ‘Dead’ Black Sea Fleet Commander Reportedly Sacked After Latest Naval Loss]
Crimea is now almost a no-go area for the Russian ships. It’s air defences are shot to pieces with very little protection from Ukrainian cruise missiles.
And Ukraine has gained control of the grain corridor - Russia made a big thing about blocking it in 2022 and much of 2023 but now it can’t do a thing and Ukraine is shipping grain in and out as if Russia wasn’t there.
There is a rhythm to fighting in Ukraine. The fighting season is April / May to around November in the driest parts of Ukraine in Kherson oblast. It is possible to fight all year round in Zaporizhzhia oblast.
Winter should be a time for hunkering down on both sides, avoiding frostbite and hypothermia, keeping out of the mud, and just shooting missiles at each other from a distance and flying around with fighter jets but Russia very stupidly spends the winter doing massive assaults on pointless very strongly fortified targets - Bakhmut in 2022-3,. Avdiivka in 2023-4.
Ukraine hunkers down and shoots at the Russians and their tanks and does small counteroffensives and uses this opportunity to destroy lots of Russian equipment and kill or put out of action vast numbers of soldiers. This is a foreign volunteer’s account of what it was like to fight the Russians in Avdiivka
Casualty wise (WIA&KIA) Bahkmut was likely higher.
Deaths only wise, Avdiivka was likely 2x worse for the Russians than Bahkmut.
The easiest way to explain why is Terrain, and the built up fortifications. Even in the areas at the flanks.
The opening day of RUs offensive in our sector over a dozen BMPs were destroyed before they even got within 800m of Ukrainian lines. The infantry on and in that initial assault were caught out in the open and mowed down rather quickly.
One defensive operation that we were on, 16 of Chosen and 8 Ukrainians(javelin teams+snipers) destroyed 4 BMPs, damaged one that made it under a bridge with 6 others that escaped unharmed after dropping troops 300m+ away from the line in the field, 2 BTRs destroyed, 2 tanks one of which was destroyed by one of the craziest tank maneuvers by a UA tank team i ever saw and 70+ infantry killed or wounded.
The Russians successfully pushed us out of the trench to another friendly trench (there was only 10 defenders in that 1 trench with reserve force and supporting fires/overwatch being provided from nearby trench 200m away) and took control of the trench. Which was then blown with demolitions, fpv and artillery once the surviving russians (around 12) grouped up into it.
Our losses that day were 4 UA KIA, 2 Chosen KIA (Gander & Stremski) and everyone minor or moderately wounded with frag.
The human cost of Russia's Avdiivka sector endeavor likely cost them 100k WIA&KIA easily. Day after day for 2 or 3 weeks they continously attempted to run armor at fortified lines. In our sector, after they ran out of BMPs&BTRs they used troop transport trucks(Kamaz type) to try and get infantry as close as possible. These vehicles more often then not were hit by fpv or drones waited for dismount and hit infantry with droppers.
We made it a point to try and hit every enemy soldier still alive. If they crawled into a bunker, thermobaric. If they were crawling in an open field, grenade drop.
Mid to end Nov though, something changed. No longer were the Russians attempting 50+ men assaults. They'd move in groups of 8-12 men. If 2 or 3 made it, they'd hide amongst the rubble. The next group would move 5-15 minutes behind the first and they'd do the same. Once the survivors regrouped and had 20 or so men spread in 2 or more positions, they'd then push forward while a new rear element pushed up from behind and they'd mass creeping fires and drones while doing so. Only stopping once the RU infantry were within 25-50m of our positions.
They adapted their tactics to run as a mass of smaller human waves with less armor and more foot infantry to knock out a few meters of the killing fields or Grey area at a time. They didn't try to dig in. They just hid wherever they could.
One position we consistently fought over ended up with dead soldiers stacked around it (obj kyiv). There was well over 100 Russians strewn about infront and inside of it. Our fallen(KIA) Ukrainians around 10 or so that were taken in the 3 weeks of holding it, we had organized to the rear area of the fighting line, in hopes of getting their remains out, some we were able to, others we werent. We did take dozens upon dozens of wounded trying to hold obj k and took a lot of wounded and killed trying to retrieve remains of fallen and wounded soldiers from positions(I'd say 20-35% of all our wounded in the sector was trying to get remains or wounded out). You'd spend more time trying to organize where to throw the dead or move the dead out of firing lines than attempting to rebuild the positions daily.
https://twitter.com/IhateTrenches/status/1758825982922825728
Ukraine is getting replacement fighter jets and will soon be getting the F-16 fighter jets.
Russia started the war with several hundred. But many are now very damaged and reaching the end of their service life. It is building new fighter jets too. But it’s losing many.
In the first few months of the war in Ukraine, the VKS was flying as many as 150 to 300 sorties per day—compared with the peacetime rate of roughly 60 per day. Even dropping to 100 sorties a day since, the VKS has basically flown double its normal annual hours since the beginning of the war.
This extra use is, by commonly used measures, equivalent to losing roughly 34 aircraft since the start of the invasion. However, this only captures the losses relative to the life span of newer airframes. Because the older airframes have so few remaining hours, it's actually equivalent to losing about 57 VKS airframes.
To be clear, the exact composition of the VKS force and the precise age and historical usage of all its airframes are not precisely known. Further, some VKS tactical aircraft aren't operating in Ukraine; they are either harassing NATO aircraft or being used for training. These sorties are in addition to previously mentioned Ukraine-related sorties and are in excess of the usage calculated above. They are being conservatively excluded from the usage being applied to the total force. These factors likely mean that my estimate of 57 imputed losses is an undercount.
This results in total true losses closer to 187 VKS airframes. Extrapolating this, the VKS will continue to lose 30 to 60 airframes a year from combat, accident, and imputed losses.
…
By the summer of 2024, combat losses and imputed flight hour losses may put the VKS below 75 percent of its prewar strength. To make up for that, the VKS will need to either increase production, reduce usage or reduce force structure for the next 30 years. Overall, though, that's not a horrible position to be in.
However, the VKS soon will be facing a very different Ukrainian threat: F-16 fighter jets, more air defenses, and cruise missiles.
As the VKS devotes a greater share of its dwindling force to countering those, it will have fewer aircraft left to support Russian ground operations. VKS fighters in the sky will also be less capable, stemming from two years of overuse. This happens even if F-16s fail to score a single air-to-air kill, and an upgraded Ukrainian fighter and air defense threat will score many.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2023/08/the-uncounted-losses-to-russias-air-force.html
Ukraine is not going to win by trying to match Russia with human waves, it’s not their way either, they protect their soldiers, instead they will win by using clever strategy and technology.
Ukraine plans to make a million drones in 2024, will need some foreign components like the chip and camera (like the one in a mobile phone)
Russia plans to make only 32,000
Ukraine made aircraft engines before the war (a capability it got in the Soviet Union)
Ukraine has its own home-built ballistic missiles - the Neptune now land to land and some other mysterious ballistic missile used against Crimea alongside the Western missiles like Strormshadow - they claim their weapon has a range of over 700 km, so far used in small numbers, perhaps their HRIM2.
Ukraine has numerous innovators, engineers with new startups - and they test and tweak their equipment on the front line so it goes through numerous iterations.
. For Ukraine’s defence industry goals against Russia, the sky’s the limit
NATO’s equipment is vastly superior to Russia’s. And Europe is stepping up to fill the gap temporarily left by the USA.
Last summer the Ukrainians were ready to do a big counteroffensive. They got a batch of ATACMS from the USA which they used to devastating effect but then that was it. The US bill got stuck so they then had to prepare for the possibility that they had to last out all winter with their current stocks of ammunition so they obviously couldn't do a major counteroffensive. I think if the US bill had come through last fall then they could perhaps have done a late counteroffensive before the mud season proper.
But they have footholds through the Russian front line at Robotyne where it took all summer to get through because the NATO methods of getting through didn't work.
They have two outposts across the Dnipro river in Kherson oblast. There Russia itself stupidly washed out its own mine fields with the Nova Kakhova dam flood.
And Russia could have deployed those 130,000 soldiers and 2000 tanks to heal those breaches in their defences. But instead it sent them off to Avdiivka and Bakhmut and another failed offensive further north in Luhanks oblast and very few of those losses were anything to do with trying to heal those breaches.
So they are still there. Ukraine can exploit them as soon as the fighting season starts in April / May if its intelligence says that it is suitable. Or they might do something else completely unexpected.
If Ukraine have some cunning plan for a major counteroffensive in the spring the last thing they'd do is tell the world what they plan to do.
But whatever they do, as a result of what’s happening in Avdiivka, they at least 47,000 fewer Russian soldiers probably many more over the entire front line, and 400 fewer tanks to face in their battles and they have lost only a small fraction of that number themselves.
NO WAY THAT RUSSIA CAN TURN A PROFIT ON THE WAR
So far the direct cost of the military operation to Russia is $132 billion through to 2024: research_reports/RRA2421-1
Direct damage to Ukraine $152 billion and cost of reconstruction and recovery US $411 billion
Updated Ukraine Recovery and Reconstruction Needs Assessment
If Russia keeps the occupied area it will need to find that money. The Russian yearly GDP is $2.2 trillion so that's a quarter of its GDP for one year.
https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp
It's roughly equivalent to its total foreign reserves. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/FI.RES.TOTL.CD?locations=RU
If Russia was to try to pay for it from the GDP of the occupied regions after reconstruction - the Ukrainian GDP is $160.5 billion Ukraine GDP
The currently occupied region is about a fifth of the territory not sure how much of the GDP by %.
But it would probably take the entire GDP of the occupied region for a decade to pay for the damage Russia caused to it for a complete recovery.
Probably the entire GDP for three years or more to pay for the direct damage.
Of course the entire GDP can't be used in that way.
So there is no way Russia turns an economic profit on this war on a timescale of decades, whether it retains the occupied region or loses it.
After the war is over the reconstruction will be a a major cost but also an investment opportunity and an economic boom for Ukraine and Europe. They will likely try to recover some of the costs as war reparations depending how the war ends. Europe with its far higher GDP can find the costs of reconstruction more easily than Russia.
NO WAY THAT RUSSIA ATTACKS NATO ONCE THE WAR IS OVER
There is no way that Russia attacks NATO. If it loses the fight against Ukraine why would it then want to attack the far stronger NATO? Plus Putin all through the war has been trying as much as he can to stop NATO from sending even decades-old equipment to Ukraine which is still more than a match for Russia's best modern equipment. So how would it make sense that Russia would think it can win against NATO? It makes no sense.
So it's not going to do that it's just NATO generals and close to fantasy far future war game exercise scenarios.
[TO CONTINUE]