NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
On February 01 2023 08:04 Gorsameth wrote: Isn't the obvious and simple answer that the US is not operating at "war time production"? The US is not at war, and doesn't consider the situation in Ukraine to warrant such a ramp up in production that would certainly come at a cost somewhere else.
Russia is fighting for its future, for the US its just another day in the week.
I'd say this (though the US is in a proxy war imo) plus the whole not being able to account for almost 2 out of every 3 things they have on paper makes giving up what they can account for (and/or people presume they have) harder.
This is not a proxy war. By definition, in a proxy war either one or both parties involved wage war at the instigation of another state, not directly involved. Ukraine was not instigated to do anything. They are simply defending. And Russia is clearly not doing anything at the instigation of the US. Russia is the aggressor and they are directly involved.
Is this right? Your wording is extremely similar to the definition given by the Wikipedia page for “proxy war”:
A proxy war is an armed conflict between two states or non-state actors, one or both of which act at the instigation or on behalf of other parties that are not directly involved in the hostilities.
But there’s a big ol’ “on behalf of” in the Wikipedia definition. Are we gonna say a proxy war can’t be defensive? Was Vietnam not a proxy war even though the Soviets supported the Viet Cong, because the US was the one invading? Or when the US supported the Mujahideen against the Soviet invasion, was that not a proxy war? If we insist on that definition, surely you can at least grant they have a lot of commonalities with proxy wars (great powers supporting sides in a smaller conflict as a way of furthering their position against other great powers).
I confess that “proxy war” is exactly how I’ve been thinking of the war in Ukraine. I don’t consider it a criticism; I think the Ukrainian cause is just, and the rules of engagement between nuclear powers seem to be that, for various reasons, military aid is allowed but direct intervention is not, so we’re doing what we can within those parameters. Don’t get me wrong, I feel bad that Ukrainians are risking their lives while the rest of us are only risking our pocketbooks, but averting nuclear escalation is also a just cause and this seems to be how we’re trying to prevent that.
I distilled definitions from a few websites, including Wikipedia. Ukraine is not fighting on behalf of anyone. Ukraine is fighting for its own survival. Calling it a proxy war is a Russian propaganda talking point. It makes it seem as if the US and Russia were duking it out in Ukraine. It's insulting to Ukrainians and takes responsibility away from Russia by feeding into the NATO bogeyman nonsense. The US tried very hard to prevent this war by discouraging Russia, calling out the invasion, and so on.
Russia and the US are duking it out in Ukraine with Ukrainians doing the fighting. Russia invading them doesn't change that. I commend Ukrainians' fighting spirit and they have every right to fight, but it'd basically be a memory without the support from the US.
Anyway, the point was that the US is engaged in multiple proxy wars around the world and Ukraine is being treated like another one of those (or "just another day" as Gor put it), when it comes to the US's capacity to supply more.
I guess a closer approximation is the beginning of WWII. Was US and Germany waging a proxy war with Britain doing the fighting (to be commended, and every right to fight, but basically just a memory with out lend lease?) Or was Britain waging a war with Germany and was being supplied by their allies (the US).
On February 02 2023 02:39 Sermokala wrote: Zeihan is the guy I think that says things at that limit where you have to be an expert to figure out if its really wrong or not. I think he speaks enough that what he says is what he believes that you can collect it with economists or meteorologists for predictions.
But a lot of his core points about russia make a lot of sense and come from basic facts. The future situation for russia is so unbelievably bleak no matter what happens out of this war. If the things he says about the Russian education situation the russian demographic situation and the russian oil industry situation are true then things are so much worse than what I think joe on the street believes. I think a bigger problem than how bad things are going to get from them is that I just don't see how things will ever get better for them. There is a cascading series of problems that will be coming from them in the coming years. I just don't see how they will be able to reinterface with major economies if they hold onto any part of Ukraine and I don't see how they stay together without a major "victory" in the war. If they don't reinterface with the EU their wages for the dwindeling skilled labor they have now will not compete with EU wages. I'm talking basic consumer level technically skilled labor like AC repairmen.
Every road just seems to lead to becoming a chinese vassel state or worse.
He posted a bit of a follow-up to the previous video, adding a bit of info on how the sanctions will probably collapse Russian economy by the 15th of April (when the default deadline hits and Russia has no way of paying its debts as their central bank has been cut off from all major foreign currencies). He's also talking about how the oil prices might change (expecting $170-200/barrel on a worldwide market) and how Canada might be the big beneficiary of the sanctions on Russia.
As far as becoming the Chinese vassal state I think that's rather unlikely. China is going through some very rough times right now and it's unclear if it won't also collapse as they're hitting crisis after crisis and things are only going to get worse.
I'm very sceptical of any claims of "Russia will collapse by X date".
On February 02 2023 02:39 Sermokala wrote: Zeihan is the guy I think that says things at that limit where you have to be an expert to figure out if its really wrong or not. I think he speaks enough that what he says is what he believes that you can collect it with economists or meteorologists for predictions.
But a lot of his core points about russia make a lot of sense and come from basic facts. The future situation for russia is so unbelievably bleak no matter what happens out of this war. If the things he says about the Russian education situation the russian demographic situation and the russian oil industry situation are true then things are so much worse than what I think joe on the street believes. I think a bigger problem than how bad things are going to get from them is that I just don't see how things will ever get better for them. There is a cascading series of problems that will be coming from them in the coming years. I just don't see how they will be able to reinterface with major economies if they hold onto any part of Ukraine and I don't see how they stay together without a major "victory" in the war. If they don't reinterface with the EU their wages for the dwindeling skilled labor they have now will not compete with EU wages. I'm talking basic consumer level technically skilled labor like AC repairmen.
Every road just seems to lead to becoming a chinese vassel state or worse.
He posted a bit of a follow-up to the previous video, adding a bit of info on how the sanctions will probably collapse Russian economy by the 15th of April (when the default deadline hits and Russia has no way of paying its debts as their central bank has been cut off from all major foreign currencies). He's also talking about how the oil prices might change (expecting $170-200/barrel on a worldwide market) and how Canada might be the big beneficiary of the sanctions on Russia.
As far as becoming the Chinese vassal state I think that's rather unlikely. China is going through some very rough times right now and it's unclear if it won't also collapse as they're hitting crisis after crisis and things are only going to get worse.
I think exact predictions like that assume a level of good faith on the system to just acept that they're going to collapse. 2008 was famously about state actors just denying the end of the world and just telling the system to keep moving forward. Russia can just deny its collapse and keep going on war economy provisions until their war against Ukraine is finished. Russia has a lot of space in that realm as it cannot exist without winning the current war to such a degree that it can negotiate back its post war survival.
Canada can be the big beneficiary with russian sanctions but their economy is so tied into the United states (I don't think they even sell oil on the international market they just put it into the Americans system) that it would just get washed in. NAFTA is already 30 years old almost and continuing to expand that into some sort of NAU just seems inevitable.
On February 02 2023 05:58 Falling wrote: I guess a closer approximation is the beginning of WWII. Was US and Germany waging a proxy war with Britain doing the fighting (to be commended, and every right to fight, but basically just a memory with out lend lease?) Or was Britain waging a war with Germany and was being supplied by their allies (the US).
Both world wars do look like proxy wars for the first few years until the US decided it was the right time. or was finally brought in fully. Even after the soviets seemed to act like they were a proxy for the Americans against Germany.
I don't think you have to fully consent to be a proxy in a war and that the ones that become a proxy do so beacuse of their pre-eisisting best choice to become one.
By definition a proxy state to a war must be the instigating element. From Russia's point of view the US is/was among the instigators. From Ukraine's point of view Russia is/was the only instigator. Therefore to call this war a proxy war, one would have to lend credence to the version told by Russia more than to that of Ukraine. That is only possible with a pro-Russian bias, because the facts point either in the opposite direction or at least they can't be used to support Russia's claim. Therefore it's not a proxy war by any sense of the word.
Start of the war Wagner increase to around 50k personnel and now is reported to have less than ten thousand left. Stories like this doesn't appear to give much doubt to the claims... this honestly sounds like they are drugged.
A Ukrainian soldier who recently had a run-in with a group of Wagner mercenaries said the fighters "didn't stop coming" during a battle in Bakhmut, Ukraine.
"We were fighting for about 10 hours in a row. And it wasn't like just waves — it was uninterrupted. So it was just like they didn't stop coming," the soldier, named Andriy, told CNN of fighting troops from the Wagner Group, a private military contractor linked to the Kremlin that consists of mercenaries and former prisoners.
He said the fight was between 20 Ukrainian soldiers and about 200 Wagner troops and described it as a "frightening and surreal experience."
Andriy detailed the ruthless nature of these fighters, comparing the battle to something out of a "zombie movie."
"They're climbing above the corpse of their friends, stepping on them," he told CNN. He even suggested that the Wagner troops might be "getting some drugs before the attack."
Andriy said their machine gunner was "almost going crazy" because he knew he was shooting at and hitting his targets, but none of the troops he hit were falling.
"He said, 'I know I shot him, but he doesn't fall,'" Andriy told CNN. "And then after some time, when he maybe bleeds out, so he just falls down."
The soldier said his group's AK-47 rifles became so hot from constantly firing at the Wagner troops that they had to keep switching out guns.
He described Wagner's attack method to CNN, saying that first, they send a group of attackers — mainly made up of recruits fresh from Russian prisons. At that point, they begin "digging into position," Andriy said.
A second group then advances to claim more land "step by step," moving forward and into position, Andriy recalled. As Wagner loses more troops and groups are exhausted, they send more as an attempt to hold their spot on the battlefield.
Eventually, Andriy's group was surrounded. "We didn't expect them to come from there," he told CNN.
"We were shooting until the last bullet, so we threw all the grenades we had and left only me and a few guys. We were helpless in that situation," he told CNN.
At the end of the day, Andriy and comrades got a stroke of luck: Wagner retreated.
Tens of thousands of Wagner fighters have joined in Russia's war efforts to capture Bakhmut, where intense fighting has raged for months. Among the group's fighters are recruited prisoners who have been sent to the front lines — sometimes alongside newly mobilized Russian troops — and used to absorb heavy Ukrainian fire.
US military officials have said that these forces are taking the brunt of Ukrainian firepower.
Top US Gen. Mark Milley said last month that Russian casualties have climbed to "significantly well over 100,000 now." That assessment includes the regular military and Wagner.
Though Wagner is taking heavy losses, the group also appears to be the only Moscow-linked force that has found any sort of success on the battlefield, specifically the capture of the strategically insignificant Soledar, and its prominence has at times caused rifts between the mercenary group and Russia's regular military.
The US government announced a litany of new sanctions last week aimed at the Wagner Group, designating it a "significant transnational criminal organization" and targeting individuals and entities involved in supporting its global network.
On February 02 2023 08:37 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Start of the war Wagner increase to around 50k personnel and now is reported to have less than ten thousand left. Stories like this doesn't appear to give much doubt to the claims... this honestly sounds like they are drugged.
A Ukrainian soldier who recently had a run-in with a group of Wagner mercenaries said the fighters "didn't stop coming" during a battle in Bakhmut, Ukraine.
"We were fighting for about 10 hours in a row. And it wasn't like just waves — it was uninterrupted. So it was just like they didn't stop coming," the soldier, named Andriy, told CNN of fighting troops from the Wagner Group, a private military contractor linked to the Kremlin that consists of mercenaries and former prisoners.
He said the fight was between 20 Ukrainian soldiers and about 200 Wagner troops and described it as a "frightening and surreal experience."
Andriy detailed the ruthless nature of these fighters, comparing the battle to something out of a "zombie movie."
"They're climbing above the corpse of their friends, stepping on them," he told CNN. He even suggested that the Wagner troops might be "getting some drugs before the attack."
Andriy said their machine gunner was "almost going crazy" because he knew he was shooting at and hitting his targets, but none of the troops he hit were falling.
"He said, 'I know I shot him, but he doesn't fall,'" Andriy told CNN. "And then after some time, when he maybe bleeds out, so he just falls down."
The soldier said his group's AK-47 rifles became so hot from constantly firing at the Wagner troops that they had to keep switching out guns.
He described Wagner's attack method to CNN, saying that first, they send a group of attackers — mainly made up of recruits fresh from Russian prisons. At that point, they begin "digging into position," Andriy said.
A second group then advances to claim more land "step by step," moving forward and into position, Andriy recalled. As Wagner loses more troops and groups are exhausted, they send more as an attempt to hold their spot on the battlefield.
Eventually, Andriy's group was surrounded. "We didn't expect them to come from there," he told CNN.
"We were shooting until the last bullet, so we threw all the grenades we had and left only me and a few guys. We were helpless in that situation," he told CNN.
At the end of the day, Andriy and comrades got a stroke of luck: Wagner retreated.
Tens of thousands of Wagner fighters have joined in Russia's war efforts to capture Bakhmut, where intense fighting has raged for months. Among the group's fighters are recruited prisoners who have been sent to the front lines — sometimes alongside newly mobilized Russian troops — and used to absorb heavy Ukrainian fire.
US military officials have said that these forces are taking the brunt of Ukrainian firepower.
Top US Gen. Mark Milley said last month that Russian casualties have climbed to "significantly well over 100,000 now." That assessment includes the regular military and Wagner.
Though Wagner is taking heavy losses, the group also appears to be the only Moscow-linked force that has found any sort of success on the battlefield, specifically the capture of the strategically insignificant Soledar, and its prominence has at times caused rifts between the mercenary group and Russia's regular military.
The US government announced a litany of new sanctions last week aimed at the Wagner Group, designating it a "significant transnational criminal organization" and targeting individuals and entities involved in supporting its global network.
On February 01 2023 08:04 Gorsameth wrote: Isn't the obvious and simple answer that the US is not operating at "war time production"? The US is not at war, and doesn't consider the situation in Ukraine to warrant such a ramp up in production that would certainly come at a cost somewhere else.
Russia is fighting for its future, for the US its just another day in the week.
I'd say this (though the US is in a proxy war imo) plus the whole not being able to account for almost 2 out of every 3 things they have on paper makes giving up what they can account for (and/or people presume they have) harder.
This is not a proxy war. By definition, in a proxy war either one or both parties involved wage war at the instigation of another state, not directly involved. Ukraine was not instigated to do anything. They are simply defending. And Russia is clearly not doing anything at the instigation of the US. Russia is the aggressor and they are directly involved.
Is this right? Your wording is extremely similar to the definition given by the Wikipedia page for “proxy war”:
A proxy war is an armed conflict between two states or non-state actors, one or both of which act at the instigation or on behalf of other parties that are not directly involved in the hostilities.
But there’s a big ol’ “on behalf of” in the Wikipedia definition. Are we gonna say a proxy war can’t be defensive? Was Vietnam not a proxy war even though the Soviets supported the Viet Cong, because the US was the one invading? Or when the US supported the Mujahideen against the Soviet invasion, was that not a proxy war? If we insist on that definition, surely you can at least grant they have a lot of commonalities with proxy wars (great powers supporting sides in a smaller conflict as a way of furthering their position against other great powers).
I confess that “proxy war” is exactly how I’ve been thinking of the war in Ukraine. I don’t consider it a criticism; I think the Ukrainian cause is just, and the rules of engagement between nuclear powers seem to be that, for various reasons, military aid is allowed but direct intervention is not, so we’re doing what we can within those parameters. Don’t get me wrong, I feel bad that Ukrainians are risking their lives while the rest of us are only risking our pocketbooks, but averting nuclear escalation is also a just cause and this seems to be how we’re trying to prevent that.
I distilled definitions from a few websites, including Wikipedia. Ukraine is not fighting on behalf of anyone. Ukraine is fighting for its own survival. Calling it a proxy war is a Russian propaganda talking point. It makes it seem as if the US and Russia were duking it out in Ukraine. It's insulting to Ukrainians and takes responsibility away from Russia by feeding into the NATO bogeyman nonsense. The US tried very hard to prevent this war by discouraging Russia, calling out the invasion, and so on.
Russia and the US are duking it out in Ukraine with Ukrainians doing the fighting. Russia invading them doesn't change that. I commend Ukrainians' fighting spirit and they have every right to fight, but it'd basically be a memory without the support from the US.
Anyway, the point was that the US is engaged in multiple proxy wars around the world and Ukraine is being treated like another one of those (or "just another day" as Gor put it), when it comes to the US's capacity to supply more.
They are not. It would imply that the US was seeking confrontation with Russia. Like I said, the US tried very hard to discourage Russia from invading. If you consider this a proxy war, then pretty much any war with a semblance of outside support should be classified as one. It would make it a rather useless term.
On February 02 2023 08:37 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Start of the war Wagner increase to around 50k personnel and now is reported to have less than ten thousand left. Stories like this doesn't appear to give much doubt to the claims... this honestly sounds like they are drugged.
A Ukrainian soldier who recently had a run-in with a group of Wagner mercenaries said the fighters "didn't stop coming" during a battle in Bakhmut, Ukraine.
"We were fighting for about 10 hours in a row. And it wasn't like just waves — it was uninterrupted. So it was just like they didn't stop coming," the soldier, named Andriy, told CNN of fighting troops from the Wagner Group, a private military contractor linked to the Kremlin that consists of mercenaries and former prisoners.
He said the fight was between 20 Ukrainian soldiers and about 200 Wagner troops and described it as a "frightening and surreal experience."
Andriy detailed the ruthless nature of these fighters, comparing the battle to something out of a "zombie movie."
"They're climbing above the corpse of their friends, stepping on them," he told CNN. He even suggested that the Wagner troops might be "getting some drugs before the attack."
Andriy said their machine gunner was "almost going crazy" because he knew he was shooting at and hitting his targets, but none of the troops he hit were falling.
"He said, 'I know I shot him, but he doesn't fall,'" Andriy told CNN. "And then after some time, when he maybe bleeds out, so he just falls down."
The soldier said his group's AK-47 rifles became so hot from constantly firing at the Wagner troops that they had to keep switching out guns.
He described Wagner's attack method to CNN, saying that first, they send a group of attackers — mainly made up of recruits fresh from Russian prisons. At that point, they begin "digging into position," Andriy said.
A second group then advances to claim more land "step by step," moving forward and into position, Andriy recalled. As Wagner loses more troops and groups are exhausted, they send more as an attempt to hold their spot on the battlefield.
Eventually, Andriy's group was surrounded. "We didn't expect them to come from there," he told CNN.
"We were shooting until the last bullet, so we threw all the grenades we had and left only me and a few guys. We were helpless in that situation," he told CNN.
At the end of the day, Andriy and comrades got a stroke of luck: Wagner retreated.
Tens of thousands of Wagner fighters have joined in Russia's war efforts to capture Bakhmut, where intense fighting has raged for months. Among the group's fighters are recruited prisoners who have been sent to the front lines — sometimes alongside newly mobilized Russian troops — and used to absorb heavy Ukrainian fire.
US military officials have said that these forces are taking the brunt of Ukrainian firepower.
Top US Gen. Mark Milley said last month that Russian casualties have climbed to "significantly well over 100,000 now." That assessment includes the regular military and Wagner.
Though Wagner is taking heavy losses, the group also appears to be the only Moscow-linked force that has found any sort of success on the battlefield, specifically the capture of the strategically insignificant Soledar, and its prominence has at times caused rifts between the mercenary group and Russia's regular military.
The US government announced a litany of new sanctions last week aimed at the Wagner Group, designating it a "significant transnational criminal organization" and targeting individuals and entities involved in supporting its global network.
So 10k remaining Wagner troopers continue to attack and take ground against this many AFU units?
It's a pretty silly comparison when you have two different conventions for labeling units. NATO standards for what units can operate independently vs post soviet btgs is a completely different and mostly semantic argument to have.
Here's an article today from El Pais in Spain, on the current situation in Bakhmut. If the number of Wagner mercs dead is at 40k or more, the rate of losses could cause them to collapse completely within a month or two if they keep throwing bodies at Bakhmut and Ukraine can defend TL;DR is: NATO countries are saying Ukraine is suffering too many losses defending Bakhmut and should retreat to regroup for an offensive in Zaporizhzhia
The battle for control of Bakhmut, one of the bloodiest of the Ukraine war to date, is a “meat grinder,” in the words of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the businessman who heads up the mercenary Wagner Group, which has been described as the personal army of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The offensive to capture this key city on the Donetsk front has resulted in the deaths of thousands of Wagner troops, but the Ukrainian defenders have also suffered heavily. Neither side reports its casualties but the intelligence services of various NATO countries have warned that the price Kyiv is paying to keep its flag flying over Bakhmut is too high.
On January 20, German daily Der Spiegel revealed that the German BND secret service had told a Bundestag security commission that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were suffering daily casualties – killed, wounded or missing in action – numbering “three figures.” The last official report on Ukrainian losses was provided by Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who said that the Ukrainian military was reporting between 100 and 200 casualties a day across all fronts.
The New York Times published a report at the end of November stating that Bakhmut hospital was attending to 240 wounded Ukrainian soldiers per day. Since then, the situation for the city’s defenders has worsened. Russia has been targeting Bakhmut since the beginning of the invasion, but it was last November that the Kremlin launched its full military might against the city. Attacks have intensified since January 6, when a surprise attack by Wagner mercenaries gave them almost total control of Soledar, a town located 11 miles from Bakhmut. Now, the Russian mercenaries are besieging the city on three flanks, with the opposing armies locked in street-to-street combat.
Wagner mercenaries being used as cannon fodder According to the BND, Russian losses are far higher than Ukrainian casualties because the Wanger mercenaries do not employ military tactics, with commanders sending their men in as cannon fodder. Independent Russian media outlet Meduza published a chilling statistic on January 23 from an investigation by the NGO Rus Sidyashchaya, which specializes in the rights of prisoners: of the 50,000 Russian inmates who volunteered to join the ranks of the Wagner Group, only 10,000 are still fighting. The remainder have been killed, wounded or are missing in action – or have deserted.
At the end of December, Podolyak said that the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed in the war could be around 13,000. A traditional calculation in military theory is that combat deaths account for roughly a third of all casualties. That suggests, based on Podolyak’s estimation, that Kyiv had suffered 40,000 losses – killed wounded, missing or captured – overall. But recent academic studies published by institutions such as MIT and the Harvard Kennedy School state that the ratio of combat deaths has improved over the past few decades to one for every 10 wounded, due to advances in battlefield medical technology. Taking Podolyak’s figures into account, estimates of Ukrainian losses rise to as many as 100,000. That number aligns with US military estimates. In November, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Milley said that losses on both sides stood at around 100,000. His Norwegian counterpart, Eirik Kristoffersen, said during an interview on January 22 that Ukrainian losses were around 100,000 soldiers, compared to 180,000 Russian troops.
Allied concerns over Bakhmut While it remains reluctant to publish Ukrainian losses, Kyiv’s High Command does release daily estimates of the number of enemy casualties. On January 31, that number stood at 127,000 Russian servicemen killed in action, a figure that independent analysts question. An example of the disparity in casualty reports from both sides was provided on January 1, when Ukrainian missiles hit a temporary barracks housing a Russian battalion in Makiivka, on the Donetsk front. According to Kyiv, the strike left 400 Russian troops dead, while Moscow stated losses were fewer than 100. British intelligence concluded last week that the real figure was 300, while a BBC investigation placed the number at 100. The BBC’s Russia service, together with independent media outlet Mediazona, calculated last week that Russian casualties overall stood at 110,000, and that the number of soldiers killed in combat had increased considerably since Moscow started sending conscripts to the front lines last September.
Ukrainian estimates of Russian losses do however serve to give an idea of the scale of slaughter in Bakhmut. Between January 6 and 31, the Ukrainian High Command claims 17,000 Russian troops lost their lives in the battle, a figure that represents almost double the monthly average reported by Kyiv throughout 2022.
The struggle for Bakhmut has become more of a matter of honor than a strategic objective for both sides. Should Russia prevail, it will signify the first battlefield victory for the Kremlin since last July, after which humiliating retreats on the Kharkiv and Kherson fronts swung momentum toward Kyiv. For Zelenskiy, Bakhmut has become another symbol of Ukrainian resistance. During a surprise visit to the front in December, the Ukrainian president said the defense of Bakhmut was critical “for Donbas and Ukraine.”
But Kyiv’s Western allies have their doubts about the military value of continued carnage in Bakhmut. A recent CNN report cited senior US and NATO officials suggesting that Ukraine should abandon its defense of Bakhmut and concentrate on a fresh attack backed by NATO-supplied heavy armor in the south, preferably in Zaporizhzhia, to sever the connection between the Russian border, the occupied territories in the Sea of Azov and Kherson.
In a visit to Bakhmut on January 13, EL PAÍS confirmed that Ukrainian forces have already fortified new defensive lines around the city in case Russian forces break though and decide to launch an offensive further west. This newspaper gathered the testimony of at least two battalions – one infantry and one armored – who had been forced to withdraw from the front line due to a lack of ammunition and high numbers of casualties. The Ukrainian authorities have so far managed, for propaganda reasons, to keep images of wounded fighters away from the public eye, but as the battle for Bakhmut has worn on more and more soldiers are sharing graphic accounts of the reality on the front lines of the besieged city.
On February 02 2023 08:37 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Start of the war Wagner increase to around 50k personnel and now is reported to have less than ten thousand left. Stories like this doesn't appear to give much doubt to the claims... this honestly sounds like they are drugged.
A Ukrainian soldier who recently had a run-in with a group of Wagner mercenaries said the fighters "didn't stop coming" during a battle in Bakhmut, Ukraine.
"We were fighting for about 10 hours in a row. And it wasn't like just waves — it was uninterrupted. So it was just like they didn't stop coming," the soldier, named Andriy, told CNN of fighting troops from the Wagner Group, a private military contractor linked to the Kremlin that consists of mercenaries and former prisoners.
He said the fight was between 20 Ukrainian soldiers and about 200 Wagner troops and described it as a "frightening and surreal experience."
Andriy detailed the ruthless nature of these fighters, comparing the battle to something out of a "zombie movie."
"They're climbing above the corpse of their friends, stepping on them," he told CNN. He even suggested that the Wagner troops might be "getting some drugs before the attack."
Andriy said their machine gunner was "almost going crazy" because he knew he was shooting at and hitting his targets, but none of the troops he hit were falling.
"He said, 'I know I shot him, but he doesn't fall,'" Andriy told CNN. "And then after some time, when he maybe bleeds out, so he just falls down."
The soldier said his group's AK-47 rifles became so hot from constantly firing at the Wagner troops that they had to keep switching out guns.
He described Wagner's attack method to CNN, saying that first, they send a group of attackers — mainly made up of recruits fresh from Russian prisons. At that point, they begin "digging into position," Andriy said.
A second group then advances to claim more land "step by step," moving forward and into position, Andriy recalled. As Wagner loses more troops and groups are exhausted, they send more as an attempt to hold their spot on the battlefield.
Eventually, Andriy's group was surrounded. "We didn't expect them to come from there," he told CNN.
"We were shooting until the last bullet, so we threw all the grenades we had and left only me and a few guys. We were helpless in that situation," he told CNN.
At the end of the day, Andriy and comrades got a stroke of luck: Wagner retreated.
Tens of thousands of Wagner fighters have joined in Russia's war efforts to capture Bakhmut, where intense fighting has raged for months. Among the group's fighters are recruited prisoners who have been sent to the front lines — sometimes alongside newly mobilized Russian troops — and used to absorb heavy Ukrainian fire.
US military officials have said that these forces are taking the brunt of Ukrainian firepower.
Top US Gen. Mark Milley said last month that Russian casualties have climbed to "significantly well over 100,000 now." That assessment includes the regular military and Wagner.
Though Wagner is taking heavy losses, the group also appears to be the only Moscow-linked force that has found any sort of success on the battlefield, specifically the capture of the strategically insignificant Soledar, and its prominence has at times caused rifts between the mercenary group and Russia's regular military.
The US government announced a litany of new sanctions last week aimed at the Wagner Group, designating it a "significant transnational criminal organization" and targeting individuals and entities involved in supporting its global network.
So 10k remaining Wagner troopers continue to attack and take ground against this many AFU units?
It's a pretty silly comparison when you have two different conventions for labeling units. NATO standards for what units can operate independently vs post soviet btgs is a completely different and mostly semantic argument to have.
What BTGs? From Russian side there is only Wagner with, as it's been established here, 10k men, and couple of other units, and then there is AFU of "NATO standards" with 14 infantry brigades of (mostly) 5 infantry battalions each+2 tank brigades with 3 tank battalions each and bunch of separate units. Pretty easy to count and compare.
Also question to Polish - what's up with this recruitment banner? Reportedly on some subway in Poland (checked it out, seems to be Centrum station of Warsaw subway) https://t.me/boris_rozhin/76977
On February 02 2023 08:37 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Start of the war Wagner increase to around 50k personnel and now is reported to have less than ten thousand left. Stories like this doesn't appear to give much doubt to the claims... this honestly sounds like they are drugged.
A Ukrainian soldier who recently had a run-in with a group of Wagner mercenaries said the fighters "didn't stop coming" during a battle in Bakhmut, Ukraine.
"We were fighting for about 10 hours in a row. And it wasn't like just waves — it was uninterrupted. So it was just like they didn't stop coming," the soldier, named Andriy, told CNN of fighting troops from the Wagner Group, a private military contractor linked to the Kremlin that consists of mercenaries and former prisoners.
He said the fight was between 20 Ukrainian soldiers and about 200 Wagner troops and described it as a "frightening and surreal experience."
Andriy detailed the ruthless nature of these fighters, comparing the battle to something out of a "zombie movie."
"They're climbing above the corpse of their friends, stepping on them," he told CNN. He even suggested that the Wagner troops might be "getting some drugs before the attack."
Andriy said their machine gunner was "almost going crazy" because he knew he was shooting at and hitting his targets, but none of the troops he hit were falling.
"He said, 'I know I shot him, but he doesn't fall,'" Andriy told CNN. "And then after some time, when he maybe bleeds out, so he just falls down."
The soldier said his group's AK-47 rifles became so hot from constantly firing at the Wagner troops that they had to keep switching out guns.
He described Wagner's attack method to CNN, saying that first, they send a group of attackers — mainly made up of recruits fresh from Russian prisons. At that point, they begin "digging into position," Andriy said.
A second group then advances to claim more land "step by step," moving forward and into position, Andriy recalled. As Wagner loses more troops and groups are exhausted, they send more as an attempt to hold their spot on the battlefield.
Eventually, Andriy's group was surrounded. "We didn't expect them to come from there," he told CNN.
"We were shooting until the last bullet, so we threw all the grenades we had and left only me and a few guys. We were helpless in that situation," he told CNN.
At the end of the day, Andriy and comrades got a stroke of luck: Wagner retreated.
Tens of thousands of Wagner fighters have joined in Russia's war efforts to capture Bakhmut, where intense fighting has raged for months. Among the group's fighters are recruited prisoners who have been sent to the front lines — sometimes alongside newly mobilized Russian troops — and used to absorb heavy Ukrainian fire.
US military officials have said that these forces are taking the brunt of Ukrainian firepower.
Top US Gen. Mark Milley said last month that Russian casualties have climbed to "significantly well over 100,000 now." That assessment includes the regular military and Wagner.
Though Wagner is taking heavy losses, the group also appears to be the only Moscow-linked force that has found any sort of success on the battlefield, specifically the capture of the strategically insignificant Soledar, and its prominence has at times caused rifts between the mercenary group and Russia's regular military.
The US government announced a litany of new sanctions last week aimed at the Wagner Group, designating it a "significant transnational criminal organization" and targeting individuals and entities involved in supporting its global network.
So 10k remaining Wagner troopers continue to attack and take ground against this many AFU units?
It's a pretty silly comparison when you have two different conventions for labeling units. NATO standards for what units can operate independently vs post soviet btgs is a completely different and mostly semantic argument to have.
What BTGs? From Russian side there is only Wagner with, as it's been established here, 10k men, and couple of other units, and then there is AFU of "NATO standards" with 14 infantry brigades of (mostly) 5 infantry battalions each+2 tank brigades with 3 tank battalions each and bunch of separate units. Pretty easy to count and compare.
Also question to Polish - what's up with this recruitment banner? Reportedly on some subway in Poland (checked it out, seems to be Centrum station of Warsaw subway) https://t.me/boris_rozhin/76977
I'm glad you agree with me that you were engaging in ignorant semantics.
Also is that the right link beacuse that not in a subway and just looks like a drone and not a banner.
On February 02 2023 08:37 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Start of the war Wagner increase to around 50k personnel and now is reported to have less than ten thousand left. Stories like this doesn't appear to give much doubt to the claims... this honestly sounds like they are drugged.
A Ukrainian soldier who recently had a run-in with a group of Wagner mercenaries said the fighters "didn't stop coming" during a battle in Bakhmut, Ukraine.
"We were fighting for about 10 hours in a row. And it wasn't like just waves — it was uninterrupted. So it was just like they didn't stop coming," the soldier, named Andriy, told CNN of fighting troops from the Wagner Group, a private military contractor linked to the Kremlin that consists of mercenaries and former prisoners.
He said the fight was between 20 Ukrainian soldiers and about 200 Wagner troops and described it as a "frightening and surreal experience."
Andriy detailed the ruthless nature of these fighters, comparing the battle to something out of a "zombie movie."
"They're climbing above the corpse of their friends, stepping on them," he told CNN. He even suggested that the Wagner troops might be "getting some drugs before the attack."
Andriy said their machine gunner was "almost going crazy" because he knew he was shooting at and hitting his targets, but none of the troops he hit were falling.
"He said, 'I know I shot him, but he doesn't fall,'" Andriy told CNN. "And then after some time, when he maybe bleeds out, so he just falls down."
The soldier said his group's AK-47 rifles became so hot from constantly firing at the Wagner troops that they had to keep switching out guns.
He described Wagner's attack method to CNN, saying that first, they send a group of attackers — mainly made up of recruits fresh from Russian prisons. At that point, they begin "digging into position," Andriy said.
A second group then advances to claim more land "step by step," moving forward and into position, Andriy recalled. As Wagner loses more troops and groups are exhausted, they send more as an attempt to hold their spot on the battlefield.
Eventually, Andriy's group was surrounded. "We didn't expect them to come from there," he told CNN.
"We were shooting until the last bullet, so we threw all the grenades we had and left only me and a few guys. We were helpless in that situation," he told CNN.
At the end of the day, Andriy and comrades got a stroke of luck: Wagner retreated.
Tens of thousands of Wagner fighters have joined in Russia's war efforts to capture Bakhmut, where intense fighting has raged for months. Among the group's fighters are recruited prisoners who have been sent to the front lines — sometimes alongside newly mobilized Russian troops — and used to absorb heavy Ukrainian fire.
US military officials have said that these forces are taking the brunt of Ukrainian firepower.
Top US Gen. Mark Milley said last month that Russian casualties have climbed to "significantly well over 100,000 now." That assessment includes the regular military and Wagner.
Though Wagner is taking heavy losses, the group also appears to be the only Moscow-linked force that has found any sort of success on the battlefield, specifically the capture of the strategically insignificant Soledar, and its prominence has at times caused rifts between the mercenary group and Russia's regular military.
The US government announced a litany of new sanctions last week aimed at the Wagner Group, designating it a "significant transnational criminal organization" and targeting individuals and entities involved in supporting its global network.
So 10k remaining Wagner troopers continue to attack and take ground against this many AFU units?
It's a pretty silly comparison when you have two different conventions for labeling units. NATO standards for what units can operate independently vs post soviet btgs is a completely different and mostly semantic argument to have.
What BTGs? From Russian side there is only Wagner with, as it's been established here, 10k men, and couple of other units, and then there is AFU of "NATO standards" with 14 infantry brigades of (mostly) 5 infantry battalions each+2 tank brigades with 3 tank battalions each and bunch of separate units. Pretty easy to count and compare.
Also question to Polish - what's up with this recruitment banner? Reportedly on some subway in Poland (checked it out, seems to be Centrum station of Warsaw subway) https://t.me/boris_rozhin/76977
I'm glad you agree with me that you were engaging in ignorant semantics.
Also is that the right link beacuse that not in a subway and just looks like a drone and not a banner.
No, I'm not, I was asking you to count how much would be 14*5*500 (even leaving out all support elements and tank units).
On February 02 2023 10:52 Ardias wrote: Also question to Polish - what's up with this recruitment banner? Reportedly on some subway in Poland (checked it out, seems to be Centrum station of Warsaw subway) https://t.me/boris_rozhin/76977
Anything specific you want to know about the poster? It's nothing uncommon, we've had army recruitment posters pop up here and there for years now. This particular one is about becoming a tank crew member in a Leopard.
On February 02 2023 10:52 Ardias wrote: Also question to Polish - what's up with this recruitment banner? Reportedly on some subway in Poland (checked it out, seems to be Centrum station of Warsaw subway) https://t.me/boris_rozhin/76977
Anything specific you want to know about the poster? It's nothing uncommon, we've had army recruitment posters pop up here and there for years now. This particular one is about becoming a tank crew member in a Leopard.
Exact translation of the text in particular. I'm only vaguely familiar with Polish, so had to go to Google translate, but I wonder how correct it is. "Stand in defense of true Polish lands Consider a Leopard tanker Poland's defense in Ukraine"
The image is fake. It should be your first assumption after seeing something like this, especially if Russian telegram is the "source" of such revelations.
On February 02 2023 16:37 Velr wrote: And your issue is what exactly?
Russians keep trying to push the narrative that Poland considers Western Ukraine its "rightful clay" and wants to take it back by force.
To those who never read polandball comics: "rightful clay" means land that should belong to given nation.
"Stand in defense of true Polish lands, Poland's defense in Ukraine" This sounds like there are true Polish lands in Ukraine. Unless it's badly translated so the real meaning is different.
EPT
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/MQFfFt1.png)
