by Richard Martin
The Russians are racking up casualties, including senior officers, formation commanders, chiefs of staff. Hospitals in Belarus are full and civilian authorities are saying “leave them on the battlefield.”
For someone like me who has studied the Russian front in Ww2 I am starting to understand how the Red Army could stack up such massive casualties. There is little concern for the rank and file. There are multiple sources indicating officers abandoning their units the closer they get to the front. The Russian units with solid officers appear fairly effective though.
The manoeuvring appears to be limited, with poor coordination of fires and mutual support. The RU air force is much bigger than the UkAF, at least on paper. However, there are limited numbers of precision guided munitions and Russian pilots are poorly trained. They are also having a hard time coordinating ground based air defence for columns. Fuel shortages and logistics deficiencies are massive. Command and control is disorganized and most of their radio comms are in the the open, and easily picked up by civilians.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainians appear to be disappearing into built up and wooded areas. They are using ambush tactics and destroying tanks, light armour and trucks with antitank weapons like the US designed Javelin and British NLAW. These are fire and forget missiles that basically only require a safety briefing to operate with a high kill probability. The scenes of civilians filling sandbags and making Molotov cocktails in Kyiv and Kharkiv look like pictures of the defence of Moscow in November 1941.
The drones also are very effective, but they appear to be using them mainly against air defence systems and command vehicles. Some of the footage shows RU vehicles in open leaguers as if they were on parade. They come under attack by drones without seemingly any awareness that they are being sighted. It’s incredible.
That massive RU traffic jam in the north is a choice target. A squadron or two of A10s would wipe it out in a day.
© Richard Martin
Richard Martin is a Canadian Army veteran, thinker, educator, and trusted advisor. He focuses on extracting valuable signals from all the noise.