If the Ukrainians lost 4,600 troops this week, that is huge!

(Watchman comment):The fact that the Russians bought a HIMARS does not surprise me. When I was in the U.S. Army our captured Soviet equipment came from Ukraine. I know because I conducted tests on the equipment at Aberdeen Proving Grounds and elsewhere. Why would some corrupt Ukrainians stop selling equipment now?

READER COMMENTS:

As to Ukrainian losses, Ukrainian defense minister Reznikov has said he believes "tens of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed, but he "hopes" the number is below 100,000." It would appear that Russian Defense Ministry estimates are corroborated by the Ukraininan defense minister.

The whole war in Bosnia and Herzegovina took around 97.000 victims on all sides, including Croats, Serbs and Muslims. And that war lasted for over 3,5 years. That includes both military and civilian casualties. Maybe that gives you better picture what is going on in Ukraine, what disaster Ukraine is in.

20,000-25,000 Ukrainian soldiers lost a month? Jesus, I remember the US flipping out losing like 5000 troops in Iraq over 8 years… that rate of attrition is insane!

Regardless what a person thinks is justified … it’s terrible to hear such horrendous losses of life. I hope Ukrainians realise that nato Is using their lives in the proxy war on Russia. It would be best if Ukraine and Russia can come to terms and end this war diplomatically as soon as possible. Zelensky doesn’t seem to care for lives but only for his prestige and western “friends”.

Most of the raised piles of debris that you call "land fills" are actually waste dumps from mining, industrial processing, and smelting operations. In the Donbas, many of the older dumps have been there since before WW2 and are partially stabilized by vegetation.

Many, many thousands of young men's lives both Russian & Ukrainian could have been saved if UKRAINE had simply declared itself a ' NEUTRAL STATE' .

Russian military morale must be very high with all the success they are having. The people fighting the WEF and the Satanists are also having a high morale because of the Russian success.

The numbers are just so depressing. I don't understand what motivates these people to throw away their life at the instigation of foreign powers. Ukraine was in no danger from the Russians as long as they kept neutral.

This battle around Donbass is a deadly military trap for the Ukrainians. It makes the longest possible logistics road between the ukrainian supply from Poland. It exposes thousand of kilometers of logistics under the Russian air superiority. Bridges to cross. Dnieper barrier. Russian supply is only 100km from Russia. Any move from the russian army toward Odessa would extend a weak Ukrainian logistics flank on the north.

The Russians should ask the Americans to train them to use their new HIMARS. That would be world class trolling.

I am also hearing reports that Russia was able to purchase 2 of the "Caesar" self-propelled howitzers

The Avdiivka garrison had better fight to the last man because it will definitely beat what the DPR guys have in store for them after what they’ve done to the city of Donetsk

One of the stronger analyses I came across argued that the constant Russian artillery bombardment is a double edged sword, because use of artillery systems degrades the rifling in the barrels of artillery, and if Russia is indeed firing 60k shells a day it will be burning through its barrels fairly quickly, degrading their precision and effectiveness at engaging dug-in targets. I find this interesting, because while the sanctions have led to a great financial position for Russia (largest cash reserves in a long minute) its domestic auto manufacturing has absolutely plummeted, due to a lack of high tech manufacturing components from abroad. Do you consider that this may be a point of weakness for the Russian war machine: quick consumption of artillery barrels coupled with reduced domestic manufacturing capacity?

Can you talk about the Kraken unit in Bilohorivka? They posted video evidence of small victories in the town with dead/captured Russian soldiers. I'm pro-Russia but looking at both sides sources should be the goal of these reports.

Better send them another 80 billion dollars

Bear in mind that for every kill you can figure x2 wounded so I'd put losses both KIA and WIA as at least 30-35k per month. That's absolutely shattering losses and it's not surprising that at this point their line is basically just being rolled. They're losing their frontline as fast as they can push bodies into it.

The July 16^th link is below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBleD1DPpZw