I did, but it wasn't quantified. BMPD livejournal mentioned something about 10 in 2022, 12 2023 and 16-18 this year. This is only numbers i've seen quoted by reputable source.
So going from 10 per year to 12 per year one year into a war and 16-18 per year... so they have not even doubled peace time production during war time... sounds like they have not lost their entire fleet nor do they expect to do so any time soon.
Since he was always considered as a very solid and knowledgeable source on Russian military, there's nothing better out there to go with.
And it is a rule that such people are never wrong...
That is some next level cope, If it was just a few thousand missing them is understandable but with sates, recon drones etc amassing that many men and the russians missing it isn't defendable.
Nothing can be hidden from satellites and men moving around in a country is obvious proof of an incursion in the planning... always.
I don't even think Putin is that gullible enough to honor some "deal" about not attacking and thinning out troops on purpose, that is one of the silliest excuses I have heard to date
Gulible doesn't come in to it.... ask Merkel and Holland... their names are going to be shit in Russian history books now... sometimes trust is necessary, but even if it only worked for 3 years and failed during the 3rd year it is probably still a good deal he would take again...
his year, the industry in Russia has significantly increased production of combat aircraft. About 20 Su-34s and about 20 Su-57s are coming out. The question is how many Su-35s and Su-30s?
Well there is proof if ever proof was needed... production of 16-18 is supposed to be proof that the Su-34s have been decimated... so 20 new Su-57s means they must have taken heavy losses too...
Now several manuals have been prepared for journalists, in which the Russians are pre-assigned as the culprits.
The problem they have is that they only control the western copy and pasters so no one will believe them anyway... except those already paid off and they likely knew in advance anyway.
This is very bad, Russia needs 5th generation aircraft.
I would have an enormous list of things they would need before I even mentioned 5th gen fighters.
About the trap theory I also have my doubts, but it's somewhat more plausible to me than Russia simply not having any defenses there are at all because they thought some deal would be honored and then being blitzkrieg'd and having to rush reinforcements and throw conscripts into battle in desperation.
You can call it a trap if you want to but it is how normal international borders work... amusing someone from New Zealand has to explain it to you guys... you get thousands of illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico into the US. Actually having a standing army of soldiers watching that border simply makes no sense at all... the border is too big and even if you did have people standing there with rifles and armour there wont be enough of a force of 12 thousand trained and armed men with artillery and drones and armoured vehicles suddenly appeared at one point in the line.
It makes more sense to have guard posts and observation positions placed so they can see the border and if one or two mexicans try to cross somewhere you call a half dozen guys i a jeep to chase them down and lock them up to be sent back. When you see a 12K strong group with armour and drones and artillery you have to call a much bigger much better equipped force that will take longer to assemble and bring in to position.
Call it a trap but that is just how it is... ask yourself if Israel can be surprised by a border incursion with all their fences and expensive border monitoring equipment who else has any chance at all.
Like I said an invasion of Poland or Moldova or Romania and I suspect you would get to the capital before anyone noticed most of the time.
Yes, there is, if you miss a mass grouping of enemy forces and those forces exploit that to execute a surprise attack, that is the very definition of being caught with your pants down.
Perhaps you misunderstand the meaning of the word Surprise in the phrase surprise attack.
Their pants are on and their belts are working... they were surprised and now they are ripping them a new one.
If anyone has lost their pants and are taking a drubbing it is the Ukrainian forces.
The saying means that you are caught unaware and taken by surprise, that the text book example of it
With gay homo erotic, private school suggestions of buggery... which never happened.
Russia wasn't expecting this attack, they didn't know about it until it happened.
Which is directly implied by the term Surprise attack. Any other factors you want to discuss... like they took weapons and armour with them because they intended to fight?
The only reason Ukraine failed to penetrate deeper is because they have so few forces to spare they could not group up the numbers needed
Continuing the unpleasant homo erotic imagery I see... the reason they didn't do better was because large convoys of men and vehicles would have been shredded so the had to quickly split up which massively reduced their fire power and mobility because even though they split into small groups their vehicles are breaking down or getting spotted and destroyed by artillery, airpower and of course drones and teams on the ground.
I merely said they were taken by surprise to those who are denying they weren't, that is all
Nobody disputes it was a surprise attack, the issue most of us have is that any force of 12K trained and equipped soldiers could penetrate most borders so a surprise attack with that sort of force that penetrates 10-20 kms into a border but is then stopped is not really a successful incursion when it is stopped an enormous distance short of objectives like the Kursk NPP.
Defence is made of layers... you know like the three layer defence the west laughed and and then Kievs forces failed to penetrate even the first layer of the defences... but they were front line army defences, not border defences manned by FSB and border guards.
As I said, I doubt the numbers in the article, but also Russian MoD should come out with the real number.
As for Ukrainians, they were coming up with some crazy numbers of over 1000 POWs.
Why?
The public really does not need to know... especially the western public.
Like daily losses report, which continues to show losses north of 2k every day for two months already. I can't see how Ukrainian army can sustain these level of losses for such a long period, without completely falling apart.
You have already explained it... they lie. They lie to themselves and they lie to others...
How many more of these S 300 systems can Ukraine have, every now and then they destroy some S 300 after two years of war. The number of launchers was probably much greater than officially reported.
A full battery is 6 or 8 launch vehicles plus radar and other systems, so when on the run and hiding that means one original S-300 battery could be deployed with only one or two launch truck TELs so when a Ukrainian S-300 "battery" gets hit they have 3 to 6 more of them if they have enough radar systems.
They used to have about 200 systems. Plus Slovakian. Plus some from the US, bought for evaluation back in the 90s.
Which could be split in to two to three times more than that in operation.
I can accept that these partially-conscript manned units were green, given that as a cohesive unit they wouldn't have taken part in the SVO prior, and in some cases may have performed poorly - but that's not the same as being overrun,
They are there to stop illegal immigrants and smugglers, they are a trip alarm that is not supposed to stop any military force... when a military force moves through they couldn't stop them even if they wanted to, they just wouldn't have the weapons and ammo and training and numbers to do so.
They did their job and no one would expect border patrols to stop a nazi invasion... whether it is mid 1941 or 2024.
I'm sure Ukrainians know how many they've captured. On the other hand, Russian general population has to know. When you don't provide credible sources, population will go next for what's available and that's usually enemy sources.
Why do you think the Russian side knows how many Russians the nazis have captured... they are nazis... they can take people off the street and claim they were border guards... when you don't post numbers and the only numbers are from the enemy who lies then the fact is that you simply don't know how many POWs there are... get used to disappointment.
The number does not matter. Russia will not be negotiating with terrorists.
"Putin's zero reaction to the events in Kursk region proves that there is no reason not to give us permission to strike the Russian Federation with long-range weapons" - Zelensky
There is a lot of desperation visible in Kiev.
Made all the more funny by the fact that Putins reaction is still to come and I suspect it will be tailored to make sure Zelensky and the west don't like it.
This attack was likely to achieve several goals... first capture the Kursk NPP, second a distraction, to hit the Crimean bridge, and also to stop progress on the the main battlefield as Putin has to withdraw forces from the front line to deal with this incursion, and of course to spread fear and chaos in Russian territory.
Looks rather like it has failed on all counts, and in fact Russian advances on the front line are accelerating...
And we will have to wait to see the response...
Ukraine has crossed Russia's red line after red line, and they just went "grrrr terrorists, bad"
Actually, when Kiev blew up two parts of the Crimean bridge Russia stepped up their attacks on the Ukrainian electrical grid, which is currently in a very bad way... and winter is coming... things are not looking good for Kiev really... but only if you let the facts get in the way of the story.
Zelensky like or hate him made a logically correct statement, he was saying he called Russia's bluffs so many times and they did nothing so clearly there is nothing to suggest he cannot do more.
One of his red lines was Ukraine in HATO and he invaded the Ukraine and has killed half a million Ukrainian men... was that a bluff too?
And when Iran are flying Su-35s and popping US ships with Onyx missiles you might start to understand no all consequences are obvious or immediate.
A bit like Kosovo declaring independence leading directly to Georgias attack on South Ossetia and that five day war with Russia.
So much for unique.
Putin is weak when you are a moron with no memory or understanding.
One thing I never took into consideration with my rather distaste of how this war was being treated, was the other BRICS states. The Duran guys pointed out that Russia obtained a lot of pressure from India and China to go easy. There may be way too much truth to that, that I didn't even really think of.
They will listen to allies but are not obliged to follow their instructions or vice versa. Countries do not tell other countries what they have to do in a normal world.
The western world is not normal.
They should have evacuated these people.
With what? They spent the time collecting up the forces to kill the nazis, wasting time trying to move civilians out of these areas would be impossible... who would do it? The border guards the Ukraines claimed they captured? Pixies? Will the fairies help them? Maybe Gandalf will summon the Eagles?
The US can only go in quantity now.
And when the US dollar tanks they wont even be able to afford quantity... the first thing they will have to do is close down 9/10ths of their military bases in other countries...