21206

There’s something kind of cool about citizens of democratic societies crowdsourcing the defense of another democracy. I mean, I wish it wasn’t in any way necessary but I can’t help but be impressed by people willing to step up and directly put their money towards the defense of Ukraine.

21207

Same Czech plant upgrading/modernizing various T model tanks (around 90 to 120) for the Ukranian army:

More reinforcements on the way.

21208

The EU is happy to work around vetoes when it suits it, and it seems it could easily do so in this case with a separate treaty to funnel funds to Ukraine which excluded Hungary. This is just a convienient excuse to not spend the money while claiming credit for “committing” to it.

21209

The quality of work on these refits seems really high. At least, visually, but compared to anything we’ve seen from the Russians there’s just no comparison. Nice paint and symmetrical panels don’t mean it works, of course, but bad paint and wonky parts usually do mean it doesn’t.

21210

The Ukrainians can’t even figure out how to mount unhewn logs to their vehicles. They’ve got a long way to go to catch up with Russian tank technology.

21211

I suspect the the reactive armor actually is filled with something useful,

21212

The reality of war:

21213

The Verdun of this war - bloody Bakmut:

21214

Ukrainian woman giving Russian occupiers hell:

21215

That’s the part that still gets me. Russia has been assaulting this town since August, from what I understand it’s pretty much their only offensive operation underway. My understanding is that Bakhmut doesn’t have strategic importance since Ukraine recaptured Izium and yet we’re now into the fourth month of the battle (likely series of battles, but you know what I mean).

The article is paywalled so I’m not sure if they delve too much into that, but it’s mindboggling that Russia is still trying to take the town.

21216

At the most brutal level, Ukraine probably needs to be killing something like 5:1 to win. 3:1 to 2:1 will probably stalemate. 1:1 casualties will (eventually) lead to a Russian victory.

I can’t recall which old Korean war movie it was but it was about a squad trapped on a meaningless hill in the dark. Near the end, as the Chinese troops poured in to take it after a valiant stand against all odds, the general’s staff said something like, it doesn’t make any sense, the hill isn’t important. And then it suddenly dawned on the general “It’s unimportance is its importance. It’s a test of wills. Send in the troops!” At which point the metaphorical cavalry arrives and saves the survivors.

Setting aside whether the fictional general was right, Bakhmut is a wretched inhuman grist mill for troops. That’s all Putin really wants. From his point of view, while he scrapes up the dregs of his society and sends them to die, the best and brightest of Ukraine also fall. With enough time (and enough bodies), so will Ukraine.

21217
21218

This is Wagner’s operation; so it may be that Prigozhin thinks that offering Putin Russia’s only victory in six months - however expensive and pointless - will boost his position further vs the army and the MoD. Alternatively, or as well, it may be that he’s trying to sell Putin on an attritional theory of how to win the war. Throw in a non-stop stream of prisoners and newly mobilized men to inflict casualties on the Ukrainian defenders until UA morale breaks.

21219

Yeah, I could see Prigozhin using a “victory” in Bakhmut for political purposes in his power struggle with Shoigu. If lives are being thrown away like that, it makes me wonder if there’s a point where they just turn their guns on the people giving the orders.

21220

Thing is, Verdun was hugely costly for the French as well as the Germans. For Bakhmut to function in the same way, it would have to draw in more Ukrainians than it seems to be doing. And keep in mind, for all the bloodshed, the Germans lost.

21221

If you sign up, you can get a couple of free articles per month.

That said, there are two factors at play per the article:

1). For whatever reason the Russians think they can gain a badly needed victory here.

2). The head of Wagner has convinced Putin he can get it done, so he’s taken charge of the battle and has to make good on his promise. He’s throwing mobik cannon fodder at the UA during the day (they get savaged by artillery) to try to wear the UA down, then Wagner mercs at night to try and break through.

21222

At Verdun, the Germans had actual, trained and competent troops to throw at the French, requiring the poilus to engage heavily. And they had shit-tons of artillery. I’m not sure the calculus works out quite as well here, all things considered.

21223

I honestly haven’t seen anything to make me think the Wagner mercs are even good. Certainly nothing to suggest they are on par with regular US units.

I think there was some kind of mythology built up suggesting they were some kind of super soldiers, but I’m thinking that was baseless hype and propaganda.

21224

As far as I know, PMCs in the real world, as opposed to video games or technothrillers, tend to draw their baseline quality from the national militaries that provide their personnel. As a rule, for serious PMCs, you don’t join them fresh out of high school; you join after having served in a national armed force where you were (presumably) trained and most likely got some significant experience under your belt. The whole business model of these things in the West at least is built on having the national armed forces do the difficult and expensive work of training people, and then scooping them up to run a shadow army without a lot of the costly (and ethically constraining) baggage of an actual military.

If Wagner is drawing its personnel from former Russian soldiers, the quality of their recruits must be, at best, uneven. I’m willing to believe that some of the better people who served in the Russian forces jumped to Wagner for the pay or the lack of constraints, but Russia does not really seem to have a premier training pipeline let’s just say.

21225

I suspect there’s a big difference between Wagner’s quality pre-Ukraine and now. Wagner has been recruiting prisoners, which seems likely to not lead to a lot of quality recruits: