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[RD] Russia Invades Ukraine: Eight

At least something to brighten the mood over the travesty and horrors that Russians are causing in Ukraine...
The source is: https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/01/...himars-porossii-bozhei-karoi-zaaborti-a152548
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:lol::lol:

Though let's be honest. He is absolutely right. A certain someone touched himself looking at the map of the Russian Empire (and the new-found oil/gas fields in Ukraine) and here we are. :cringe:
 

A French-sponsored Ukrainian army brigade has been badly botched​

The scandal reveals serious weaknesses in Ukraine’s military command

The formation of Ukraine’s 155th army brigade was announced at the d-Day anniversary ceremony in Normandy last June, complete with photo-ops with the French president, Emmanuel Macron. Paid for, trained and equipped by France, it was a showcase of nato support, the first of what Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, hoped would be 14 new brigades sponsored by Western allies. Its deployment six months later was a disaster.

Starting in November, articles by Yuriy Butusov, founder of the news website Censor.net, revealed gross mismanagement: 1,700 men, about a third of the brigade, had gone awol (some back to their old units), and 50 deserted in France. France had delivered the Caesar howitzers, armoured vehicles and anti-tank missiles it promised, but Ukraine failed to provide crucial drones and electronic-warfare capacity. On its return the brigade was splintered: units and kit were hived off to other brigades, trained specialists were reassigned to infantry platoons, and desertions spiked as inexperienced units were sent to forward positions and took heavy losses.

Mr Butusov notes that all seven new brigades Ukraine raised in 2024 suffered similar problems when first deployed. But the 155th’s desertions have spotlighted Ukraine’s struggling mobilisation process, its unresponsive high command and the increasing dismay of its allies, who underwrite the war effort but have no say in strategy. The 155th is said to have cost around €900m ($930m). “For better or worse, Ukraine makes all the decisions,” says Jeffrey Edmonds, a former Pentagon official now at the Centre for a New American Security, a think-tank in Washington.

“Nick” (his military call sign), a battalion commander in the 155th, said he trained three tranches of recruits last year, only to see them sent to other brigades. When the 155th went to France it instead brought raw recruits. Only a dozen of his unit’s soldiers had combat experience before going to France. The brigade’s return was jumbled; some officers stayed for additional training. Nick and his soldiers were immediately sent to areas of heavy fighting. At one point he personally led ten men to retake a position, to demonstrate tactics to soldiers with no experience.

Mr Zelensky is now said to be overseeing an investigation into “abuses of power”, to soothe French irritation. General Mykhailo Drapatyi, appointed commander of Ukraine’s ground forces in November, stressed that the French side “fully fulfilled its obligations to Ukraine”. He promised to bolster the brigade’s officer corps and encouraged soldiers to contact him directly.

But for Mr Butusov the problems show failures in Ukraine’s high command. A new mobilisation law enacted last spring has not stopped people being summarily drafted on the street; desertions rose last year. Some generals close their ears to bad news: an internal report rating the brigade “unsatisfactory” was revised to “satisfactory” before it was deployed. Others blame subordinates. After the scandal broke, the brigade’s well-regarded chief was fired.

 

Bodies of civilians found in cellars of Kursk village liberated from the AFU​

The bodies of civilians have been found in cellars in the village of Russkoye Porechnoye, Kursk Region, which was liberated by Russian servicemen. This became known on January 18.

Images from the village were published in the Telegram channel of the group of troops "North".

As pointed out by Rodion Miroshnik, Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry on the crimes of the Kiev regime, among the victims are old men and women. He said that leaving the settlement, Ukrainian militants threw grenades at them.

Miroshnik also noted that Western countries "falsely turn their eyes away" from the crimes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) and block attempts at international investigations.

According to TASS, the remains of seven civilians were found in the village. In the first basement they found the bodies of two people, one of them had bruises on his legs. Five dead civilians were found in the second basement.

Earlier, on January 17, it was reported that the Investigative Committee (IC) of Russia has completed the investigation of more than 50 criminal cases against the AFU military who committed crimes in Kursk region. It was noted that the defendants would soon be brought to trial.

The AFU attacked the positions of the Russian Federation in the border areas of Kursk region on August 6, 2024. The liquidation of Ukrainian fighters who invaded the Russian territory continues.

 
How many civilians were killed in Mariupol?
 
‘I Really Do Not Understand,’ A Ukrainian Drone Operator Remarked After Defeating Yet Another Russian Attack Along The Same Kursk Roads
Russian air assault forces attacked the Ukrainian garrison in western Russia’s Kursk Oblast on or just before Saturday, rolling eight BMD infantry fighting vehicles along the very same roads—around the village of Viktorovka—they’ve been using since November for assaults on the 250-square-mile salient the Ukrainians carved out of Kursk back in August.

The result was predictable. Ukrainian forces anchored by the 22nd Mechanized Brigade and 17th Heavy Mechanized Brigade destroyed four of the eight BMDs from the Russian 234th Air Assault Regiment. “I really do not understand the point of attacking at the place where they attack for the third month,” mused Kriegsforscher, a Ukrainian marine corps drone operator whose company knocked out one of the BMDs.

The repeated vehicular assaults along the same roads by the same Russian regiments, almost all ending in defeat for the Russians, are equally befuddling to the Russian rank and file. In sending vehicles and their crews on pointless “banzai attacks” across the drone-patrolled no-man’s-land in Kursk, Russian commanders gain almost nothing and lose everything, according to one Russian blogger. These stubborn commanders are “geniuses,” the blogger wrote sarcastically.

The predictable and costly assaults help explain the staggering Russian casualties in Kursk as Russia’s wider war grinds toward its fourth year. According to Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky, the 60,000-person Russian-North Korean field army in Kursk has suffered as many as 35,000 casualties trying to eject the 20,000 Ukrainians the oblast.

The Russian counteroffensive in Kursk that began in earnest in November has shrunk, but not eliminated, the Ukrainian-held salient. Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin keeps pushing back the deadline for his forces to fully recapture Kursk. After several revisions amid the overall failure of Russian attacks in the oblast, last fall the Kremlin extended the deadline to February—only to later abandon that deadline, too.

Don’t be shocked if the Russians miss whatever the new deadline is. Saturday was a typical day along the Kursk front line. Russian and North Korean troops attacked from 16 directions, according to the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies. Just one attack resulted in any Russian gains—around Viktorovka. But the Ukrainian 6th Ranger Regiment still controls most of the village.

Bloodied and surely traumatized, some Russian troops in Kursk once again are resorting to brutal war crimes as a way of venting their frustration and, they must hope, terrorizing their Ukrainian foes. Marines from the Russian 155th Naval Infantry Brigade—one of two Russian marine brigades that have been destroyed and rebuilt several times in the 35 months since Russian widened its war on Ukraine—reportedly decapitated four Ukrainian prisoners and displayed the heads on pikes.

If history is any guide, the Russians’ crimes will fail to demoralize the Ukrainians. Indeed, they tend to have the opposite effect. When the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade stripped and executed nine Ukrainian prisoners in October, it triggered a series of deadly raids by Ukrainian troops deliberately targeting the Russian brigade.

In those retaliatory raids, the Ukrainians took no prisoners.
 
He can't understand, neither can others why shrinking territory controlled in Kursk by Ukraine - along with even by this article some new lost territory as a result of this specific attack - is presented as good for Ukraine.
How many times does it need to be said that having a losing ratio (kills/killed) in a war does not mean you are losing the war.
 
The fact that this Kriegsforscher fellow has been featured on a number of articles regarding the Kursk salient for a number a months tells me that the only way Russia will eject the AFU out of the salient will be by way of nuclear warhead, and even that may fail due to robust AA defence Ukraine has been showing lately!
Ukraine has committed much of it of it's best soldiers and equipment and it's shows by the meagre territorial gains Russia is achieving (tree lines and yards) elsewhere on the battlefield but in Kursk they just can't advance beyond the initial counteroffensive gains.
 
Hm, I'd say that if you call yourself "Kriegsforscher", you invite all kinds of insinuations.
Particularly in a war against Russia, in Kursk.
I am sure he is just academically enamored with the german language though :lol:
 
A quick google translate from German to English of "Kriegsforscher" says it translates as a War Researcher...it mean very little to me and insinuates nothing as well. I think he just doesn't want Russian assassins to find out his real name and family, being on the front must be tough!
 
I'm sorry @Kyriakos but whatever this is, it's just to sterile for me...:deadhorse:
Anyway

MoD: losses of the AFU in the Kursk region exceeded 53 thousand people​

‘In total, the enemy has lost more than 53,330 servicemen during the fighting in the Kursk direction,’ the department’s press service said in a statement.
Also the AFU lost in the specified direction 308 tanks, 236 BMPs, 175 APCs, 1,581 combat armoured vehicles, 1,565 cars.

Earlier in Russia in absentia condemned in absentia mercenary from Latvia, who fought on the side of the AFU.

The Ukrainian army reserves arriving in the Kursk border region are often killed before they arrive at the line of contact, where they try to replace the exhausted AFU soldiers, the Telegram channel SHOT has reported.

So far, the Russian military has liberated about 63 per cent of the Kursk territory occupied by the AFU.
Mighty loss indeed, to loose 53.000+ out 20.000 every other source says the AFU has committed to Kursk! Russian propaganda🤡
 
Moderator Action: News please.
 
I'm sorry @Kyriakos but whatever this is, it's just to sterile for me...:deadhorse:
Anyway

MoD: losses of the AFU in the Kursk region exceeded 53 thousand people​


Mighty loss indeed, to loose 53.000+ out 20.000 every other source says the AFU has committed to Kursk! Russian propaganda🤡

The news piece is entirely realistic, goven the initial numbers floated about the invasion contingent and the time the fighting for the salient has been dragged on.
Has the concept of pushing reinforcements into the meat grinder unknown to you? Because that is what the ukranian general staff keeps doing again and again. With predictable results. Russia wants to demilitarize ukraine, the ukranian general staff obliced by exposing their personell in places that are logistically advantageous for Russia. Were I directing Russia's strategy I would make sure they were not ejected from Kurst intul they ran out of men. Which, but, is pretty close.

Ukranian media talks of a mobilization target of 40 tousand per month. That is half a million for year. Where are the over two million recruits gone?
NATO will fight to the last ukranian?
 
Ukranian media talks of a mobilization target of 40 tousand per month. That is half a million for year. Where are the over two million recruits gone?
That's "don't ask don't tell" for now. They'll keep talking about favourable loss ratio.
 
NATO will fight to the last ukranian?
strange question as Russia seems ready to do that with its men, and as NATO is pushing Ukraine to make peace on current positions since some months now, pretty sur red_elk posted an article about that.
 
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