Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[CanadianDemocrat]

Every Russian missile used in these attacks is one not being used on the actual battlefield. The Russians do not have the capacity to do mass attacks on both.

This is most certainly true. Their stocks of Kalibrs and Iskanders are very limited (I will avoid repeating "the Russians are running out", since we've been hearing that since March)

But Iran's weapons complicate the issue somewhat when it comes to static targets, especially if they actually start supplying cruise missiles along with their cheap drone arsenal.

Again, the West cannot do much here, due to the already maxxed out US sanctions on Iran. This is one of the issues where Biden pursued a incomprehensibly stupid policy.

What was the policy you think Biden should have pursued to prevent Iran from selling weapons to Russia lol

Reversed the Trump policy on the nuclear deal, among other things. Iran isn’t the only country which could have supplied Russia with useful weapons, but there are few others under such diplomatic, economic and military pressure.

This literally makes zero sense because (A) the Biden administration hasn't actually reversed any tangible Trump policy, all they've done is try and restart negotiations (which haven't gone anywhere), and (B) even under the full sanctions -- which, I repeat, are what they're under now -- Iran wouldn't be prevented at all from selling weapons to Russia.

If Trump was president there wouldn't have been a war in the first place. Him and them had respect for each other.

if Trump was president, Putin would've invaded Ukraine, Trump would have justified and defended it, Ukraine would receive zero aid from America and we'd probably share intel with Putin, meanwhile most of Europe would still be on Ukraine's side but without American leadership they'd be disorganized and ineffective.  So the divide between America and Europe would widen further, the residents of Kiev would be exported to Siberia and their children kidnapped and sold to wealthy Russian families, and Putin would be emboldened to start planning his attacks on other nearby states as he continues trying to rebuild the USSR, which for some reason you fully support.

Lib brain emotional fantasy.

How do you know? Trump warned about Nord Stream. Events such as Syria, Georiga, Crimea, etc.. never happened under his watch. Status quo between West and East. We already have a record to se from Trump. And now, same with Biden: biggest land war since WWII

I mean Trump also extorted Zelensky so we know more or less how he felt about Ukraine as well as about Russia...

Trump said that Ukraine is not a real country, as it is filled with Russians and the Russian language. Trump shares Putin's genocidal beliefs on Ukraine.

Trump winning a second term would have been a disaster for Ukraine, NATO and the West.

[CanadianDemocrat]

For the love of God people stop engaging posters who are engaging in bad faith and do nothing but drag the conversation down. Stop. Just stop. There's an ignore button. Use it.

I have all the tankies and Putin bots on ignore, please stop quoting them.

[CanadianDemocrat]

Refurbished T-72s still sound better than the kind of tanks Russia has been fielding lately tbf.

I would rather take a Czech or Polish T-72 then a captured Russian T-72. Russian doesn't properly maintain their tanks and sends old rusted tanks which have spent over 30 years in reserve.

Poland has also sent PT-91 tanks to Ukraine, they have 230 of them. They are waiting for US and South Korean tanks to arrive, then they will send the rest of the PT-91's.

[CanadianDemocrat]

Yeah, the Wapo article says it is all about PR, rather than substance and I agree. There will never be a  peace agreement unless and until Putin gets desperate. In the meantime he thinks he can just hold on, until public opinion in the West snaps. The West on the other hand hopes continual progress in rolling Russia back will help to anneal the will to bear the burden to stand up and thwart the existential threat.

I wonder if there is any way to induce China to shut the war down short of handing them Taiwan.

After a peace agreement, Putin will violate the agreement and will invade Ukraine in 5-10 years. Putin wants to wipe out Ukraine and annex the whole country.

The only way to end the war sooner is to send Ukraine heavy weapons like Leopard 2 tanks and fighter jets. The only thing Putin understands is force, not diplomacy.

[CanadianDemocrat]

The Russians are now about to lose the capital city of what is supposedly one of its regions, with barely a whimper. What a disaster!

Interesting Russia held off on announcing this until after the USA midterm elections.  I guess they did not want to give Biden a domestic political victory before the elections.  Well the GOP underperformed anyway but I guess perhaps they would have done worse if the Biden administration got such a political win before the elections.

Maybe. Perhaps the Saudis will become more willing to loosen the oil spigots for the same reason.

Kherson is as Russian as Moscow or Saint Petersburg, according to Putin. What a humiliating strategic and political loss this is for Russia.

[CanadianDemocrat]

Kherson City is basically a ghost city now. Everything of resource has been stripped, and it's citizens sent to mainland Russia or occupied territory. I would compare it to Moscow/Borodino 1812.

With Russia's last significant logistical strain gone/Dnieper river as cover, it's offensive capabilities are strengthened.

Its not been the best of weeks for you overall, has it? Never mind

Russia has lost the battles of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson. Russia can never push by land to Odessa.

[CanadianDemocrat]

Kofman's forecast post-Kherson: https://warontherocks.com/2022/11/the-liberation-of-kherson/

- The grain deal is unfinished business
- Offensives will slow down for the next couple of months. Ukraine will want to launch an offensive after that; Russia is likely to wait four months instead. Whoever launches it will depend on the results of the upcoming attritional warfare
 - Russia will want to bring its mobilised forces and repaired equipment online, and may be suffering from a general lack of ammunition, in which case they'll also want ship in lots of ammunition from the likes of North Korea
- Ukraine will want to create more cohesive units (potentially with the help of more weapons) and keep the initiative with disruptive tactics until it is ready to launch an offensive
- Bakhmut is probably going nowhere. Other offensives are to secure positional gains for the months to come
- The infrastructure destruction campaign is Russia's most competent since the early phase of the war
- The biggest challenge for Ukraine's supporters is air defence, especially ammunition (he has earlier said there is a real possibility they're running low on ammunition for their pre-existing air defences, which are pretty advanced, effective, and numerous). The next biggest challenges are protected mobility and helping the country weather the infrastructure campaign

The fall mud season is worse for offensives then winter. Ukraine is waiting until winter when the ground freezes before launching a counter offensive. Ukraine has the imitative, so the mud has slowed down their counter offensives in Luhansk.

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the fall mud was worse then the winter. Germany had to stop the Moscow offensive until the ground froze in the winter.

[CanadianDemocrat]

This Andrew guy who Mr. Woodbury has so graciously shared with us above has an update, and the way I read it, is the the Wagner Group is throwing those felons they rounded up out of prison as cannon fodder against the Ukraine line to the south of Bakmut to give them something to do, and/or to make sure that they are dead before their six month "internship" is up, and supposedly they are to be set free, but it's all sound and fury signifying not much else, and Wagner is savvy enough to not mess with Bakmut itself, because then they would be utterly destroyed in short order.

Sir Wood has his little interpretations and I have mine.  

Bakhmut is a heavily fortified well defended city, going back to when Russia invaded the Donbass in 2014. The Ukrainians have been building fortifications since 2014, so trying to take Bakhmut in mass frontal assaults' is stupid.  

[CanadianDemocrat]

I've been getting a kick out of the collective decadent-Western-concern-troll attempt to reframe Russia's obsessive tactical focus on Bakhmut, a city about the size of Schenectady along a frontline that they should by rights be able to consolidate quite easily, as some sort of masterclass in pressing an advantage. Keep it up, guys!

The Vatniks have been coping and seething since they retreated from Kherson and Kharkiv, they have been desperate for a win. Russia hasn't taken a big Ukrainian city since Lysychansk 5 months ago. 

[CanadianDemocrat]

Nothing can sum why Russia is and will lose this war better than the fact that with there artillery and missile stockpiles quickly drying up they decided waste them with wave attacks on civilian targets in a failed attempt to break Ukrainian public resolve (when historically its always done the opposite)

Ukrainian anti-air systems are also shooting down around 85% of Russian missiles. Western anti-air systems such as the Flakpanzer Gepard, IRIS-T and NASAMS are making a big difference for Ukraine.

Ukraine shot down 60/70 Russian missiles in the latest attack.

[CanadianDemocrat]

Iran seems to be limiting the range of ballistic missiles they will provide Russia, but 300km will still allow Russia to hit much of Ukraine if they stage the launchers near the border / LOC in Belarus, and Kherson / Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1602349277321334788

I hope with the anti Iran hawk Netanyahu back in power, Israel will send Ukraine it's advanced anti-aircraft systems. Israel bombed a Iranian drone manufacturing plant in Syria a few months ago.

[CanadianDemocrat]

Reminder about why wars of Invasion / Occupation can be extremely problematic for the Occupier / Invader...

The role of the underground Ukrainian Resistance Movement in Russian Occupied Ukraine cannot be understated enough.

During Russia’s occupation of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, a large electronics store served Russian forces as a field hospital, barracks and storehouse for food.

One morning last summer, Ukrainian forces struck the store, completely destroying it. It was one of numerous attacks that day on Russian-controlled territory deep inside the Kherson region.

Before the blast, a small group of local Ukrainian activists had been sending photographs of the location and coordinates of the Russians over an encrypted Telegram channel to the Ukrainian military. That intelligence helped Ukrainian forces target the site, according to a military official who worked with such groups.

They monitored roads into the city, watched feeds from street cameras trained on key intersections and cycled into fields pretending to tend to livestock while clocking Russian troops.

The group had around 20 members, say those involved. After Russia disabled Ukrainian network connections, they used Russian SIM cards and VPNs to disguise their traffic. Two of them were Ukrainian reconnaissance officers who verified images and coordinates sent to the group and forwarded them to military commanders, who then alerted officers in Kyiv authorized to order a strike.

It usually took about 15 minutes for the military to act on a tip—less if a Russian Buk or another air-defense system, a priority target, was spotted. A photo or video sent by partisans was treated as evidence of a Russian position if coordinates were given, according to Andrei, who would ask the military to verify the target, sometimes using drones.

Maksym, a car repairman who was a member, took three trips to Russian-occupied Crimea with a Russian officer whose vehicle he had helped fix in Kherson. All the while, Maksym was gathering valuable information for the Ukrainian military.

Maksym took sedatives en route to keep himself calm. “It was very tense,” he said. Once they arrived in the Crimean city of Simferopol on the third trip, he was invited to drink with three other Russian officers. He passed details of the conversation that helped the military confirm that many Russian troops were living not in the city of Kherson but in Tarasivka, a place to the south.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraines-secret-weapon-is-ordinary-people-spying-on-russian-forces-11671012147?mod=hp_lead_pos7

There was 2-3 months of Ukrainians wiping out Russian HQ's, ammo dumps, fuel depots and troop concentrations in Kherson before the Ukrainians liberated Kherson city.

The same thing is happening now, with HIMARS strikes on Russian occupied Melitopol and the Zaporizhzhia region. When the mud season is over and the ground freezes, Zaporizhzhia region will be the next big counteroffensive.

[CanadianDemocrat]

"To the German Commander:

NUTS!

The American Commander"

- General Anthony McAuliffe, in response to a German request to surrender, 22 December 1944

https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1604286515563175936?s=20&t=pTfKLNm...

Russia is a Orthodox fascist theocracy, similar to Iranian Islamic fascist theocracy. Putin's Russia has a mix of the worst characteristics of the the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire.

[CanadianDemocrat]

Why isn't the US giving tanks.?Misiles and planes make sense due to China and Taiwan but I can't see anywhere the US needs tanks.

Ukraine has been trying to get Germany to send Leopard 2 tanks, but Germany won't because they don't want to be the first Western country sending tanks. If the US sends M1 Abrams tanks first, then Germany will likely send Leopard 2 tanks as well.

We all saw how poorly Iraqi Soviet tanks did against Western tanks in the Gulf War in 1990 and the 2003 Iraq invasion.

[CanadianDemocrat]

I've been reading headlines along the lines of "Russia only has enough missiles for 3-4 mass strikes" for months now, and it's going up to as many as 8. Obviously if these predictions were accurate, Russia would have run out of strike options a while ago.

I think the general issue here is some combination of everyone under-counting Russian stocks of missiles, even if some are older and not widely in use anymore, and also the rate at which Russia can produce new missiles.

Granted we are also talking mostly about cruise missiles, which are relatively easy to take down with enough air defenses. Ballistic missiles are much more of a problem and why potential deals with Iran are such a major threat.

After the Russian illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, the West kept selling microchips and other high tech military equipment. Russia still has a lot of Western microchips in stockpile for it's missile production. If the West had tougher sanctions in 2014, then Russia would be running low today.

The West had a chance to take a tougher stand in 2014, but they wasted 9 years.

[CanadianDemocrat]

Seems likely that Biden will actually pull the trigger on the Bradley, at least in the sense that other countries are finally opting to send modern IFVs to Ukraine, so they must believe the US is going to as well, or have received assurances of such. France is going with the AMX-10 RC:

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1610694187824943107
https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-updates-france-to-send-light-tanks/a-64281700

France is to send AMX-10 RC armored fighting vehicles to Ukraine following a call between the countries' presidents.

"This is the first time that Western-made armored vehicles are being delivered in support of the Ukrainian army," a French official said.

I'll note that this is NOT a "tank" so much as an wheeled IFV (infantry fighting vehicle, so an APC with offensive capabilities). In fact, it's even more a mobile gun system, like America's Stryker MGS. These are IFVs with large caliber cannons, like the 105mm. In fact, the US is retiring all 120+ of their Stryker MGS's and should have nearly concluded that process already, so I do wonder if this has come up in discussions at the White House. I haven't seen it mentioned but if the US is willing to go with Bradleys, this seems like a no-brainer.

It's going to take a lot of these to truly make a difference and make the increased logistical demands worth it, though. So I hope France isn't planning to just send a couple dozen and call it a day. Ditto for Biden. Ukraine needs many hundreds of these vehicles to truly make a difference. In our case, we have thousands of these in reserve.

Germany should send in Marder IFVs to Ukraine as well, along with the US Bradleys. Germany sent Marders to Greece, and Greece sent Ukraine BMP-1s in exchange a few months ago.

[CanadianDemocrat]

https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1612434145493360640

One source suggested Britain might offer around 10 Challenger 2 tanks, enough to equip a squadron.

The source said this in itself would not be a "game changer" but it would still be hugely significant because the move would breach a barrier that has so far prevented allies from offering up Western tanks to Ukraine for fear of being seen as overly escalatory by Russia.

"I have delivered 10, now you should deliver 100," is galaxy-brained logic which could only work because of how arbitrary some of the escalatory lines were in the first place. The UK government could probably deliver more practical aid for the same price by sending something scalable or easier to maintain than a batch of 10 tanks which will never be added to. If they're desperate to get some good PR by being first to deliver in a category, they could always pay for something like the 150km GLSDB instead (which would probably be more useful for Ukraine than these tanks).

The UK is retiring their Warrior IFVs, as their upgrades were deemed too expensive. They should be sent to Ukraine along with the Challenger 2 tanks. 

[CanadianDemocrat]

Russian confirmed casualty count update.
https://en.zona.media/article/2022/05/11/casualties_eng

How does Russia try to explain why causalities rates are that low but they keep losing battles like Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, etc..?

Any Russian casualties that they admit, you have to multiply it by 10. Never trust Russian propaganda. Russia has over 115,000 dead over the last 11 months.

Russia lost 15,000 soldiers in the 10 year Soviet-Afghan War. Russians are claiming that their dead soldiers are missing and cremating the soldiers, so they don't have to pay money to the families.

[CanadianDemocrat]

RU has been escalating it's mini-offensives during these last few days in different parts of the front, most likely prepping up for spring. In under 24 hours they launched another "surprise" attack. This time towards Vuhledar, reaching it's outskirts for the first time.

So what is it going to be? Zaporozhye, Kharkiv, or Lviv/Kyiv through Belarus?

IDK. Doesn't matter. Not a matter of if, but when.  


After Putin signed the mobilization order, it was over for Ukraine. It's only gonna get uglier from here on out on the battlefield map.

If you ignore the piss poor quality of Russian soldiers, I guess.

It's easy to say this when we sit behind the computer. But if you were to ask those Ukrainian soldiers out on the field, who see their compatriots/friends get killed weekly, about what is what, then it doesn't become a joke anymore.

Your continued insistence to portray the Russian army as some type of mighty force in defiance of all existing evidence is really something

The 'mighty' Russian army, lost the Soviet-Afghan war, World War 1, the Russo-Japanese War and the Crimean War. Russia can only win wars when they have lots of foreign help like the Allies sending Lend Lease to Russia in World War 2.

[CanadianDemocrat]

To help put two certain posters “OMG Russia is winning because muh Bakmut” into perspective
https://mobile.twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1619685450624667648

It doesn't put anything into perspective, because the ISW is not providing unbiased analysis that compares genuine data of losses sustained by both sides.   According to a statement by Mark Milley, both Ukraine and Russia sustained about 100,000 casualties in the middle of November, 2022.  The Russians had conscripted an additional 300,000 troops during this time, in addition to 40,000 poorly-trained convicts that were promptly utilized to grind down Ukrainian battalions that were comprised well-trained Troops and Veterans.  According to the Western Organizations, more than 90% of the casualties sustained by Wagner are made-up of convicts, so is that a 'victory in losses' for Ukraine?

That depends on Ukraine losses.  The Russian estimate is around 25,000 casualities in the Soledar Direction.  That seems reasonable to me given the videos/photographs, and reports about certain brigades being 50-75% depleted.  Does that troop loss outweigh the tens of thousands of Russian convicts?  

First off ISW is just providing the map in the tweet so unless you’re saying the map is wrong and that Russia secretly holding more territory than anyone else including them are reporting then the accusations of bias make no sense in the context. Second your entire argument rests on the idea that Russian human wave attacks are somehow going to be effective in the long run and that Ukraine can’t get enough people into their army to replenish losses and the facts on the ground heavily dispute both notions

Russia doesn't have enough soldiers to launch human wave offensives like they did in World War 2. Ukraine has the manpower advantage, they have 900,000 soldiers in the armed forces. Ukraine did a total mobilization a few days after the war started.

The media and Russia says that Ukraine is outnumbered 10 to 1. Ukraine has more soldiers then Russia.

[CanadianDemocrat]

Not only is surrendering the territory Russia holds a bad economic hit but it will invite Putin or his successors to try again in the future. The only way to avoid an even deadlier conflict is to grind it out now and beat Russia.

I agree in principle, but again, if Ukraine keeps sticking to its strategy of "corrosion" even in the face of ever-escalating Russian mobilization efforts, then the sheer loss of life and attrition on Ukrainian resources might not lead to a favorable outcome, or might get to a point where Ukraine loses too many people (how many is too many is first a political question, but eventually it becomes a basic math problem). Ukraine doesn't have as deep of mobilization potential as Russia, whose population is over 3x larger (not including Ukrainians in occupied territory, and not able to be mobilized by UKR), nor do they have as many resources or large operational defense industrial capacity. And there will come a time where weapons deliveries start having to come from industry and not stockpiles for the simple reason that the stockpiles of willing and able donors are exhausted. That will cause crucial delays in kit Ukrainians need immediately.

All of this is to say that if Ukraine wants to win this war without massive loss of life, or maybe even at all, they need to move beyond just grinding down the Russian army. That worked before Russian mobilization, but it's a tough lift now. For example, Kherson was a victory, but not being able to actually trap most of those Russian forces was a major missed opportunity. This was how decisive victories were won on the Eastern Front in WW2. They didn't always just wear each other down, entire armies were sometimes out-maneuvered and encircled and essentially removed from the field without the insanely high cost of fighting each other to the death. Suffice to say, I get why it wasn't possible for Ukraine at the time, but still, that's the point. I would say that the larger these armies get, the more necessary this will become for the most optimal outcome.

Just my two cents.

Not to belie the points you have been making in a couple posts earlier today, but Russian estimated combat losses are now hitting around 200k, according to Western officials.

The number of Russian troops killed and wounded in Ukraine is approaching 200,000, a stark symbol of just how badly President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion has gone, according to American and other Western officials.

While the officials caution that casualties are notoriously difficult to estimate, particularly because Moscow is believed to routinely undercount its war dead and injured, they say the slaughter from fighting in and around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut and the town of Soledar has ballooned what was already a heavy toll.

With Moscow desperate for a major battlefield victory and viewing Bakhmut as the key to seizing the entire eastern Donbas area, the Russian military has sent poorly trained recruits and former convicts to the front lines, straight into the path of Ukrainian shelling and machine guns. The result, American officials say, has been hundreds of troops killed or injured a day.

Russia analysts say that the loss of life is unlikely to be a deterrent to Mr. Putin’s war aims. He has no political opposition at home and has framed the war as the kind of struggle the country faced in World War II, when more than 8 million Soviet troops died. U.S. officials have said that they believe that Mr. Putin can sustain hundreds of thousands of casualties in Ukraine, although higher numbers could cut into his political support.

On Norwegian TV on Jan. 22, Gen. Eirik Kristoffersen, Norway’s defense chief, said estimates were that Russia had suffered 180,000 dead and wounded, while Ukraine had 100,000 killed or wounded in action along with 30,000 civilian deaths.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/02/us/politics/ukraine-russia-casualties.html

Most armies have a 3:1 wounded to killed ratio. The Russian army due to its disregard for human life and poor medical services, has a much higher death rate then Ukraine. Ukraine's wounded soldiers are much more likely to return to combat, then a wounded Russian soldier.

[CanadianDemocrat]

The thing about casualties in Bakhmut is that while Ukrainians are losing their best and brightest, Russians are losing murderers, rapists and thieves ; people everyone are happy to be rid of. So even if you assume a highly favorable 1:10 casualty ratio, Ukraine still loses in human capital terms.

But the reason Russia is sending murderers, rapists and thieves is they already lost their best soldiers in the opening stages of the war. It’s not a case of Russia having this well trained army in reserve waiting to take over after Wagner is all gone

The Russian paratroopers, special forces and other elite units were wiped out in the failed Kiev offensive. A Wagner penal soldier used as as cannon fodder, is useless compared to a paratrooper or special forces. 

[CanadianDemocrat]

Given what was once beyond the pale, is no longer, it seems as if the West takes seriously the prospect that Putin will launch is big push this spring.

Which is actually amazing considering launching an offensive in early spring aka Ukrainian mud season is a disastrous idea from not only a historical standpoint but something his army already had problems with last year

The media always talks about how bad launching an offensive in the winter is in Ukraine, but the spring and fall mud season is just as bad.

[CanadianDemocrat]

Been away from this thread for a week.

It's interesting how a few weeks ago people were saying Bakhmut would fall any day now. Russia's made gains in that area but Bakhmut is still resisting now. How many more weeks will we have "Bakhmut will fall any day now" before we finally see it happen? Will we still be having this same conversation in March?

Bumping, two weeks later. Bakhmut STILL hasn't fallen yet.

The Battle of Stalingrad lasted 5 months, the Battle of Verdun lasted 10 months. The Battle of Bakhmut has gone on for 6 months.

With all the wiped out Russian equipment and manpower destroyed in Bakhmut. Ukraine is going to launch a counteroffensive in the spring to liberate Melitopol and the land bridge to Crimea.

[CanadianDemocrat]

Been away from this thread for a week.

It's interesting how a few weeks ago people were saying Bakhmut would fall any day now. Russia's made gains in that area but Bakhmut is still resisting now. How many more weeks will we have "Bakhmut will fall any day now" before we finally see it happen? Will we still be having this same conversation in March?

Bumping, two weeks later. Bakhmut STILL hasn't fallen yet.

The Battle of Stalingrad lasted 5 months, the Battle of Verdun lasted 10 months. The Battle of Bakhmut has gone on for 6 months.

With all the wiped out Russian equipment and manpower destroyed in Bakhmut. Ukraine is going to launch a counteroffensive in the spring to liberate Melitopol and the land bridge to Crimea.

Quoting for posterity.

It is certainly a bold prediction. Let's see where things stand when the time comes.

It seems less likely than not, but at one point it was also considered a "bold" prediction to say that Ukraine would last longer than four days after the Russian invasion began.

Of course, there are things that change the ballgame. US intelligence assistance stopped Russia from taking Kiev and thus stopped Ukraine from losing early.
It seems we are reaching a point where now both sides have the relative strength needed to weather a long-term stalemate. As you noted, Ukraine taking the land bridge can still possibly happen.
If Ukraine's offensive is doing as well as the Ukrainian funeral business, it certainly can.
We just shouldn't assume that the side we support will win, or take what any side says uncritically. Exaggerating casualty counts and various equally truthful things have been a thing since time immemorial, and "fog of war" exists as a phrase for a very good reason.

In the spring and summer of 2022, the Ukrainians bled out the Russians in the Donbas. The Russians suffered high casualties in the battles of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. Russia had to pause its offensives for a long time after to replenish.

It lead to the successful Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kharkiv in September, which took back more land then Russia has taken since April.