BTR-90 in Mariupol. Just some Ukrainians from bikki’s “not an army” taking out some Russian armor.
The box around that crosshair would drive me insane. I’m hoping that is just the angle of the camera or something.
In 36 days of fighting on Iwo Jima during World War II, nearly 7,000 Marines were killed. Now, 20 days after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia invaded Ukraine, his military has already lost more soldiers, according to American intelligence estimates.
The conservative side of the estimate, at more than 7,000 Russian troop deaths, is greater than the number of American troops killed over 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
It is a staggering number amassed in just three weeks of fighting, American officials say, with implications for the combat effectiveness of Russian units, including soldiers in tank formations. Pentagon officials say a 10 percent casualty rate, including dead and wounded, for a single unit renders it unable to carry out combat-related tasks.
With more than 150,000 Russian troops now involved in the war in Ukraine, Russian casualties, when including the estimated 14,000 to 21,000 injured, are near that level. And the Russian military has also lost at least three generals in the fight, according to Ukrainian, NATO and Russian officials.
Pentagon officials say that a high, and rising, number of war dead can destroy the will to continue fighting. The result, they say, has shown up in intelligence reports that senior officials in the Biden administration read every day: One recent report focused on low morale among Russian troops and described soldiers just parking their vehicles and walking off into the woods.
The high rate of casualties goes far to explain why Russia’s much-vaunted force has remained largely stalled outside of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.
With Russian ground forces in disarray, Mr. Putin has increasingly looked to the skies to attack Ukrainian cities… That aerial bombardment… has helped camouflage the Russian military’s poor performance on the ground.
Signs of Russia’s challenges abound. Late last week, Russian news sources reported that Mr. Putin had put two of his top intelligence officials under house arrest. The officials, who run the Fifth Service of Russia’s main intelligence service, the FSB, were interrogated for providing poor intelligence ahead of the invasion…
On the 4 generals killed:
Two American military officials said that many Russian generals are talking on unsecured phones and radios. In at least one instance, they said, the Ukrainians intercepted a general’s call, geolocated it, and attacked his location, killing him and his staff.
More info on Russia’s dearth of infantry, and on their awful tank tactics.
Russia’s defence ministry says Ukraine has until the early hours of 21 March to give its answer on surrendering Mariupol, according to Russia news agency RIA.
President Zelenskyy has been adamant that Ukraine will accept no peace terms that compromise its territorial integrity.
Also,
“A terrible humanitarian catastrophe has developed,” Colonel General Mizintsev said.
Ie. the general causing said catastrophe.
It’s clear Russia wants Mariupol to complete a land bridge to Crimea, and once they have it they can either 1) Continue besieging Ukrainian cities, or 2) Sue for peace and try to keep the land bridge.
It’s possible this threat will proceed a huge and lethal bombardment of Mariupol if ignored.
Russia has used 2 hypersonic missiles to great effect in the last few days, and it’s possible they will use another here…
Russia’s combat power in Ukraine has declined below 90% of its pre-invasion levels for the first time since its attack began, a senior US defence official has said.
The decline in combat power could suggest Russia is suffering heavy losses of weaponry and growing casualties.
The United States has estimated Russia assembled more than 150,000 troops around Ukraine before the invasion, along with enough aircraft, artillery, and tanks for its full-scale attack.
“For the first time they may be just a little bit below 90 percent,” the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said.
Nearly a month into the war, Russian troops have failed to capture a single major city and their advance has been halted on nearly all fronts by Ukrainian forces.
Russia has not officially updated its casualty figures since stating on 2 March that 498 servicemen had been killed and 1,597 wounded.
Under Fire, Out of Fuel, No Air Support
The Times put together collected transmissions from Russian soldiers. A cool window into the fight for Makariv. (You can skip to 3:30 if you don’t want the explanation about the radio/video footage.)
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Brilliant from the Times.
Ya think?
Relevant to the generals getting killed using unencrypted phones if true. Basically Russians blew up the 3G/4G towers that are required by the encrypted cell phones to work. We joke about it in IT because higher ups sometimes don’t listen to what we say and then when shit goes sideways we either get blamed or we get to say “I told you so”.
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I don’t think any information from any source about this operation is reliable. I’ll wait until a winner is declared or a retreat is announced.
Yes that’s why I said it?
Yeah, this is hilarious. Russia spent a lot of time and money inventing a brand-new secured comm network called Era. It was supposedly unhackable. Except it used 3G/4G towers and Russia destroyed them.
As I’ve stated before, you are 100% transactional. You don’t believe anything unless you see if with your own eyes. Except of course, your god and gateway pundit (lmfao).
Not that I admit this but why would it be a bad policy? Seems pretty reasonable to me.
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It’s a bad policy because of the other half of his statement.
I’ve called you out on this before too. The gist is this:
If you see something you are against, you demand high standards of proof, and you mention how easily it could be fake.
However, when you see something you agree with, your standard of proof is very low and you make assumptions of wrongdoing.
Like your “election fraud” post, for example. When Warden makes similar posts, you say “it’s not election fraud, it’s voter fraud, this is an isolated case, who cares about this person.” Then when you post about “election fraud” and I use your argument back at you, you say “nuh uh, it IS election fraud because they probably did it in a coordinated effort with a bunch of people” etc. Not to mention we don’t even know that your video showed wrongdoing at all. But since you want to see wrongdoing, you assume it’s there.
If I could impress one thing on you from your visits to the Shelter, it would be this. Not to stop believing in conspiracies, not to believe the earth isn’t flat. It would simply be to apply an equal burden of proof/logical thought to positions whether you agree with them or not.
Except I’ve posted multiple times showing evidence of calculated, systemic, centralized fraud from the democrats. This is simply a part of it.
Doesn’t believe in reality folks.
You can’t even have a conversation with these types. Lunatic