Russian special military operation in Ukraine #55

The fat lady is singing and they thought they could pull a superplay in the last second of the game but the score is 200 to 10 and even if they did manage to score it is still a lost game.

They thought if they could send in HATO troops to fill the role of rear area troops then those rear area troops could be sent to the front line.

The irony is that those rear area troops likely fought very hard to get and keep the jobs they have and have no interest in going anywhere near the front line... they are likely taking bribes and making a very good income in their roles and being thrown into the furnace of the front line will burn all the money in their pockets.

The new terrorism tactics will appeal to nazis, but most western citizens have experienced such mindless violence and I suspect most will be disgusted by this new tactic.. and also the fear that Putin might respond in kind will mean western security will have to be boosted too.

It is an act of desperation and it will just make the conditions of Kievs surrender worse and the terms with the west worse for kiev and the west.

Russia has been given more reason to increase ammo production and also more importantly to use more ammo to destroy the beast.

As others have said, Russia has had 600,000 troops in the combat zone but they rotate them through. It gives the troops valuable experience in combat (and allows them to be more effective in training new troops) and also keeps them well rested. A parallel of the Russian Army was seen in the air war in WWII where Japan and Germany (at least until 1943 had the best pilots and planes). However, Germany and especially Japan had a major problem. Their best pilots flew until they died and while their initally waves of pilots were elite, they had a terrible track record of training replacements. The Americans? We had pilots who were good enough (not as elite as the Luftwaffe and IJNAF and IJAAF, but good enough to accomplish the mission and come home alive) and while the Germans and Japanese pilots flew until they died, The Americans flew until they did so many missions and then they would return to the states, instruct new pilots in their techniques and then over time they'd cycoe back into the theater.

Russia's army is doing similar. They are learning how to fight and defeat NATO standard trained forces using NATO weapons. In a direct war with NATO, this will be invaluable experience. It also explains why Russia is minimizing the use of new technologies in this war (and has no problems using Iranian and North Korean weapons, some built on license). Russian troops are learning how to defeat NATO's state ofnthe art and is collecting all sorts of intelligence about these weapons, and they are minimizing NATO's ability to collect similar intel.

Lastly, lets talk about logistics. Artillery may be the king of battle, but logistics is the tyrant. As a modern combat force, Russia has to have a very large logistics tail. Food, fuel, hospitals, recovery and repair, truck to get supplies to the front and the wounded troops and damaged equipment back to the rear. So if Russia has 600,000 troops in theater, its possible, that's probably an effective combat force of only about 150,000 as you need at least 4 or 5 support personnel for every soldier you have in combat. Most conscript forces are probably not dumped at the front without training like the western corporate state controlled press likes to say. These are probably troops mainly doing reservist type work freeijg up more treops for the front. If we are going to see a drive on the Dniepr, Putin will need to call up about 3 or 4 times as many troops. So I think the plan is still to liberate Kherson, Zaprozhiye, Donetsk, and Lugansk completely and then dig new defense lines and let the meat come to Russia. As combat has shown Ukraine doesn't have all that much in terms of logistics. They are the ones sending meat in full frontal assault human wave assaults and getting mowed down.

Will Putin do a call up and finish the war? He might but we are not yet there. Part of the reason however, is he is still getting enough troops experience to train that mucy larger force.