According to a video I found linked on another thread (https://youtu.be/b4wRdoWpw0w?t=119) Russia has moved around 75% of its principal combat units to the Ukraine border. The Ukraine invasion appears to be using a significant portion of their conventional military power.
They are using the fraction of their power that they are capable of supporting and supplying, and that is not needed to guard their long borders and coast.
Five million reservists called up into barracks are useless if you cannot transport them into the theater and keep them supplied.
We are using our aviation too accurate for conventional war. As result, we've lost some (2..4) of our decent aircrafts. What supply chains do we need to use more (not ~15) bombers on higher altitudes, e.g. sacrificing precision for being protected from almost-dead Ukrainian ADS ("Buk"s or Stingers, maybe some S-300 near Kyiv)?
AFAIK, they are resupplied with Stinger ADS only, if you know more, pls tell me.
Yesterday we lost 1 aircraft in Kharkiv, which was bombing on terribly low altitude to preserve precision.
Two days ago we lost one AC in Chernigyv, same situation here.
Oryx reports 11 lost aircrafts during war, there are some listed whose nobody can prove (IMO about a half). Im not telling you that its a fake, but that resource definitely sometimes agrees with official Kyiv information.
I guess it depends on how you define "losing". I don't see any scenario where Russia actually "wins". Thus, in turn, I think it's ok to say they will definitely lose this.
This will very likely end by both parties pronouncing they are the victors here.
For Ukraine the victory might be that Russia will most likely be unable to take Kiev and need to "withdraw" closer to their own borders i.e. the victory is not submitting in the "heroic" sense. However with a staggering economic loss and loss of life (including the refugees that might never return).
For Russia their victory will be claiming they "secured" the 2 rebel republics/Crimea. Also at a staggering loss - some of it army but mostly incredible economic sanctions. It remains to be seen if Putins regime will be able to survive that in the long run.
In terms of the classical definition I guess you could call it a stalemate - don't see how either of them can win - everybody loses. Who loses less - arguably I'd say economic sanctions still do not hurt as much as the decades Ukraine will need to rebuild. And Russia still has a huge amount of natural resources that others need and are willing to pay for.
I don't doubt that once this is over, the US and the EU will launch a generous reconstruction plan. Ukraine may end up with much better infrastructure in place of the destroyed one.
This could be financed from seized oligarchs' wealth. No need to spend taxpayer money. And Western construction companies will like those contracts, doubly so after Covid.
Way more than a fraction. The true proportion? I have no idea, but the losses seem to be way too high for this to be just a few guys who were sent to Ukraine for a laugh.
Some of those losses are the Russian military revealing itself to be incompetent and quasi-unequipped, but the number of losses is just too high.
They are already using 100% of the forces they originally lined up on the Ukraine border.
This appears to be something like 75% of their total operational power, with obvious, serious problems, like relying on civilian GPS, being evidently wholly unprepared for the mud, the fact that there's no comms chain back so they rely on Ukrainian comms networks staying up, the lack of a supply chain, the fact that the domestic population is finally catching on to the fact that Putin is illegally using his conscripts on the front line, the consequent astonishing rate of desertion from an army who weren't told they were invading until they crossed the border to "keep peace", the death of two generals, more aircraft losses than they expected, etc.
It's quite a big fraction of their power and what is very striking is that they appear unable to fully support it
The only people really surprised by this attack appear to be essentially all ranks of the Russian army -- an army spoiled by corruption and grift.
The bigger question is which ends first? The war, or Putin?
When I was at the military we "learned" that encrypted communication makes no sense when the transmitted content effects events no longer than half a day into the future as the opponent cannot take effective countermeasures anyway.
The Russians confirmed the death of air-force general Andrei Sukhovetsky. The Ukrainians claim to also have killed army major general Vitaly Gerasimov.
>> The intelligence arm of the Ukrainian defence ministry said Maj Gen Vitaly Gerasimov, chief of staff of the 41st Army, had been killed outside the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, along with other senior officers.
>> Andrei Sukhovetsky was the commanding general of the Russian 7th Airborne Division and a deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army, and by far the most senior Russian figure to have died in the conflict so far.
>> Mr Putin confirmed that a general had been killed in a speech updating the Russian people on the progress of the conflict, eight days into the deadly invasion.
You are either misinformed or lying. Even relying on Russian sources it is clear that they have a substantial commitment in Ukraine. Trying to label it as a tiny fraction is honestly ridiculous.
