2024-04-12 05:59:16
First: Russia is fully mobilized politically, industrially and militarily. But this mobilization is draining resources that the Kremlin can’t renew — especially old stockpiles of Cold War-era weapons. In other words, Russia is strong but fragile.
Second: Ukraine is also mobilizing – but it is still dependent on foreign aid to meet its immediate financial and military needs, and the US is blocking much of that aid.
Third: Ukrainian tactics are superior to Russian tactics, so Ukrainian units can defeat much larger Russian units. But tactics don’t matter when Ukrainian forces simply run out of ammunition.
The interplay of these three dynamic factors explains the seemingly contradictory things that are seen every day on a thousand-kilometer front line. The Ukrainians beat off most of the Russian attacks, inflicting catastrophic losses on the increasingly poorly equipped Russian offensive groups.
But the Russians are still getting closer and getting more entrenched.
During 26 months of intense fighting, the Russian army in Ukraine lost 15,300 tanks, combat vehicles, howitzers and other weapons, as well as hundreds of thousands of soldiers. And yet, Russian forces in Ukraine are larger than ever. “The military is now actually 15 percent. bigger than when it invaded Ukraine,” NATO’s top US commander, General Christopher Cavoli, told the US House Armed Services Committee. “Over the past year, Russia has increased the number of its frontline troops from 360,000 to 470,000.”
This is possible only because the Kremlin from 2022 called up more than 300,000 men by the end of the war – and increased premiums for volunteers. At the same time, the Russian brigades shortened the basic training of recruits so that fresh forces could reach the front more quickly.
But these unprepared recruits don’t last long on the front line. Recently, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, between 800 and 1,000 Russians are killed every day.
Russian soldiers are dying as fast as they arrive in Ukraine, says Forbes. The Estonian Defense Ministry concluded in a recent study that the death of 100,000 Russians this year would permanently damage — if not derail — the Kremlin’s mobilization efforts.
Losses of Russian equipment are also high. Russian industry produces 500 or 600 new tanks and maybe a little over a thousand new combat vehicles every year – but loses more than a thousand tanks and nearly 2,000 combat vehicles every year. And the number of losses is increasing.
This is creating a gap that the Kremlin is filling by pulling tanks and war machines dating back to the 1960s, and in some cases even the 1950s or 1950s, from long-term storage warehouses. However, the resources of these old machines are limited. They were produced during the industrial boom of the Soviet Union, so they cannot be replaced by new products.
The fact that, according to the latest forecasts, already in 2025 is threatening to the Russians. in the middle, there will be no more old tanks and combat vehicles in the warehouses. “Time is ticking for Russia,” wrote Estonian analyst Arturas Rehi.
Evidence of the shortage is already visible: Russian soldiers ride into battle in unarmored cargo trucks and even in open-top golf carts that the Kremlin purchased from a Chinese company.
It should go without saying that golf carts won’t last long against Ukraine’s anti-tank missile teams and the most skilled drone operators. It doesn’t matter if the Russian military has 300,000 or 400,000 soldiers in Ukraine – as long as those soldiers have absolutely no protection on the battlefield.
The fragility of the Russian military could be more apparent if Ukraine’s own military were not experiencing a shortage of ammunition. When at the end of last year Ukraine’s 2023 the offensive, which had achieved modest gains, ceased, Russia seized the initiative – and attacked along the entire front line.
Ukrainian forces had to make difficult decisions: to withdraw from positions that, with sufficient firepower, they could have held.
In mid-February, 2,000 Ukrainians left the city of Avdiyivka – although the attacking Russians suffered tens of thousands of losses, but later the Ukrainians ran out of ammunition. Now another group of 2,000 Ukrainians is facing the same dire dilemma in the Chasiv Yar Canal area.
At the same time, Ukraine’s best anti-aircraft defense batteries went silent – due to a lack of American-made missiles. Ukraine’s largest cities – Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa – are becoming increasingly helpless as more and more Russian missiles and bombs are raining down on them.
In March, airstrikes killed six hundred Ukrainian civilians, including children. A recent missile strike in Kiev destroyed the city’s largest power plant, leaving thousands of homes and vital weapons factories in the dark.
Ukrainian soldiers are losing ground – but they are losing against legions of poorly trained Russian soldiers in ancient vehicles. They only lose ground because they run out of ammo. The Ukrainians’ “ability to defend their territory, which they currently control, and their airspace would quickly disappear – quickly disappear – without … the continued support of the United States,” said Ch. Cavoli.
In contrast, a re-armed Ukrainian army with US support could defend its cities against Russian attacks and gain a front-line fire superiority against the Russian army, which is rapidly running out of modern weapons. Tragically, it is not Ukrainians who have to make the choice.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky understands politics and the stakes. “If Ukraine’s partners act decisively, I am confident that we can defeat Russian terror before it spreads even further,” V. Zelenskiy wrote on Thursday.
2024-04-12 05:59:16