Ukraine Update:

Ukraine SitRep – Catastrophic Losses, Failing Wonder Weapons, NATO Escalation 

Moon of Alabama

The Russian military is still integrating most of the mobilized 300,000+ men and volunteers. According to Putin 25% of the mobilized forces are in combat units, 25% in rear positions, while 50% train in Russia. It does not look like an imminent all out attack on the Ukrainian front lines is in the cards. The expected large winter attack may not be coming at all. Instead the new forces will rotate through the frontline and only attack locally whenever they see an opportunity.

The Russian do not need to attack. Their task is to demilitarize Ukraine. As long as the Ukrainians come to the front lines and attack the Russians their is no need to launch a large attack on them.

The map from a months ago versus today shows only a few small changes of the front lines.

Every day all of the frontline sections are full of artillery/bombing symbols. That is mostly Russian artillery mowing the grass and killing Ukrainian soldiers.

Over the last month it was mostly the Ukrainians who attacked all along the front only to run into walls of steel and explosions. They did not manage to break the Russian lines. They tried again and again but failed with high losses.

Russian offenses were mostly confined to the Bakhmut/Artemovsk front where the Wagner private military contractor group has captured multiple Ukrainian trench lines and villages. This usually comes only after the artillery has cleaned the area and the few surviving Ukrainians moved out. The map from a months ago versus today shows small but important differences in that front line.

There must be a Ukrainian high order to hold onto Bakhmut at any price. The Ukrainian army has again and again moved reserve brigades into the area. Its hold operation is extremely costly:

Tony @Cyberspec1 – 5:46 UTC · Dec 10, 2022Polish newspaper NDP (Independent Political Journal) believes that without the support of NATO, the fighting in  would end within a week.

NDP: daily losses of the AFU near Bakhmut reach a battalion (500-800 soldiers), hospitals in the city of Konstantinovka are overcrowded,

The above is not the only source which made that claim.

Big Serge @witte_sergei – 18:32 UTC · Dec 8, 2022LPR officials claim that Ukraine is transferring up to 500 men *per day* to Bakhmut to replenish losses. Even Arestovych admitted that Russian artillery strength in the sector has a 9 to 1 advantage. Bakhmut is becoming the largest and most costly battle of the war for Ukraine.

Newsweek spoke with a ‘former’ U.S. Colonel who, together with ‘volunteers’, trains Ukrainian soldiers. Here is what he says about Ukrainian losses:

“Bakhmut is like Dresden, and the countryside looks like Passchendaele,” he said, referring to the German city destroyed by allied bombing in World War II and the infamously muddy and bloody World War I battlefield. “It’s just a horrible and miserable place.”Ukraine closely guards its casualty figures, but its forces are believed to be suffering badly around Bakhmut.

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