The valiant Defenders of Ukraine

Very true and excellent point. yes the Russians are doing much worse than expected but basically all info is propaganda. As for numbers like in Dilbert you can’t peg to untrustworthy numbers as there is an infinite range to thoseThe sad thing is that Europe is getting lots of new sites with lots of remains of war casualties. :pensive:

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I do not think so, the Ukranian public information is just not exact or complete information. They are at war.

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The public information about German support to Ukraine, which has some holes (not on the not providing site):

I don’t blame the Ukraine as it is at war but we don’t know if they are telling the truth every time or just leaving things out. Good for them, as they have to survive.

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Yes, they have to survive and not to provide the public with “scores”.

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However with that being said most NATO members do supply accurate numbers of wounded and dead to the populace because we demand it(Afghanistan and Iraqi wars) If Ukraine were to supply the accurate numbers it could be a double edged sword. On the one hand it would likely embarrass Russia on how few causalities Ukraine actually have but at the same time could have a negative effect on the Ukrainian populace or vice versa have a positive effect on the populace.

It is still a lot of casualties 50-100k killed and 300k+ wounded.
And how many more civillians.
So many lives lost and for what because Putin and others thinks might is right.

But we don’t report as accurate numbers on the enemy losses. Both because it’s harder and people don’t really want to know how many we kill. It’s hard to be the good guys and show off your body count. The US has been there before.

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Or the losses of our allys when they are Kurds or Afgani.

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Excellent point. We just don’t want the names of our soldiers haunting us. No one wants to see their own men die but the fact we kill 20 to our one is not a consolation. Countries want to fight for a moral reason. We fought communism and terrorism and people got behind that so no one wanted to hear we killed a million Vietnamese for the fight. I honor the men who sacrifice themselves for their country. I do not honor the government that gets us into wars

Or the goverments who fails when getting us out (sry in German and the auto English subtitles are suboptimal:

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Watching this. Not great subtitles but I get the idea. I hope you don’t blame your government here because I see it as a black mark on America foreign policy. They had the military pull out of the perfect defensible capable airport in the middle of the night. That imho was not a decision made by any military person but by. Pencil pushing beurocrats who did not care about any reality beyond that of a press release.

I will, because my at the time goverment made a lot of mistakes.

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I respect your knowledge here. No doubt I’m more informed about US mistakes. No one is immune from mistakes and the last 20 years has seen some whoppers.

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Today the liberation of Xepcon (Kherson) will have a very positive effect on a lot of people, so I hope because the Ukrainians need our support.

This time of year, I worry about logistics. Getting food water and shelter to the liberated population. I expect we will all provide help here.

The retaking of Kherson is a double edged sword. On the one hand it is a major military and political victory for Ukraine and a huge embarrassment for Russia both militarily and politically. On the other side it now allows Russia to bomb Kherson indiscriminately as they have done with other cities, blow up the dam or even possibly release a dirty bomb in Kherson for Ukraine now they have to feed, house, care for and provide basic services for an entire region with as many as 100,000 civilians in the area which can put a big strain on the supply chain.

Russia also stated that they withdrew 30,000 military personnel and 5,000 vehicles and equipment in good order in less than 2 days which is logistically impossible. In reality they started withdrawing troops and equipment in October but unlike their statement all vehicles and equipment have been withdrawn is false as multiple videos, satellite images and eye witness accounts show the Russians abandoning, destroying and booby trapping their own equipment before retreating. It’s thought up to several hundred pieces of equipment and vehicles were abandoned or destroyed in the retreat.

On the retreat of armed forces the Russians intentionally left many of their wounded behind and in some cases killed their own wounded as they retreated. Western and Ukrainian think tanks believe there may be as many as 6,000 Russian forces in hiding or in civilian clothes still on the West Bank of the Dnipro river either trying to escape or harass supply lines.

It is also well known that if Ukraine gains a foothold on the east bank of the Dnipro river most operations the Russians have in the south will be severely compromised. The biggest issue is how to get enough vehicles, equipment, manpower and supplies across to maintain a foothold as there is no easy way to cross the river.

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On the south bank of the Dnipro near Kherson the Ukrainians would be in the same bad logistic situation the Russians had just fled from. So in my opinion they will look elsewhere for offensiv operations.

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I don’t see how the Ukrainians cross the River. That will cause the Russians to blow the dam but they won’t do it unless they have to to stop the crossing because blowing the dam causes more flooding on their side swamping defensive positions they have prepared.

If the dam gets blown the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe loses its coolant. I hope this has been thought through.

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Remember this is the Russians we are talking about they have not used a lot of common sense throughout this war.

If they were to blow the dam it would affect the Russian side more than the Kherson city side as it sits higher and the area the Russians are now in are flooded plains and flood several kilometres inland which makes little military sense.

Both sides are running low on weapons Russian stocks are critically low and are relying heavily on Iran and North Korea for missiles, shells and bullets. The Ukrainians rely heavily on western nations for weapons and many of these nations were using their own stockpiles and they are reaching minimums until the factories go into high gear at least.

As to crossing the river the Ukrainians will cross it the question remains when and where?

Both sides are tired and in serious need of downtime to re-arm, retrain and relax.

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