In a sane military, leadership recognizes that a unit with greater than 50% losses is already attritted to the point of combat ineffectiveness and has it rotated out with a relief unit with better status.
But (a) I guess we already know “sane” has nothing to do with Russia, and (b) the Russians probably don’t have a reserve they can use to plug obvious incipient breaches in their defense line, so expect a Ukranian breakthrough someplace shortly.
Yeah. That’s the second shoe. The unit should have been replaced long ago. The fact it hasn’t been says pretty loudly that it can’t be. Not peicemeal with new individual troops, and not wholesale by rotating in a different company or brigade or whatever.
A bit like the Germans in mid 1944, there simply were/are no remaining reserves. You were at the front until you were dead or by some miracle the war ended due to stuff you had no info about.
For a German defending their homeland, albeit probably generally aware of how badly their government had screwed up, staying there to fight until killed, overrun, or deprived of weapons and ammo makes a grim sort of sense.
For a Russian in a foreign country sent on a bogus war of adventure, led by incompetents, and with plenty of internet-fed knowledge of the larger war context, sticking to the end seems pretty foolhardy vs cutting and running.
Russia’s Vietnam was Afghanistan. Ukraine is Russia’s Iraq.
On steroids, vodka and crystal meth.
Ukraine may well be Russia’s Iraq’s Iran.
Moderating:
OK, back to the news now. Sorry to be the spoilsport.
About that article — I see it’s from the Express. Any time I’ve browsed it I’ve had the impression it was pretty sensationalistic. Is that an accurate impression?
I was wondering about the accuracy also. The person being quoted is described as a fierce Putin critic, which suggests a certain degree of bias in his interpretation of what he’s allegedly being told.
That said, if his observations are backed up by independent sources, then yes, it seems increasingly likely that a collapse spreading from one unit’s rebellion to an entire section of the front could happen.
Well, I notice that the lead story on the side bar is:
Siberian tiger waits 12 hours to kill two men in vicious revenger spree
Sounds like responsible journalism to me.
Depends on what the men did to the tiger to provoke the revenge. Tiger bites man: not news. Man bites tiger: News, big News. 
Seriously, the tiger has nothing to do with this thread.
Moderating:
Another normal night on prime time Russian state TV’s discussion show talking about the war…
They’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel there. But they have been beating the “gay = unspeakable un-Slavic horror” drum now for about 15 years. So the ground has been carefully tilled, seeded, and fertilized.
If they wanted to instill utter fear and revulsion of the UKR military in the hearts and souls of Russians of all stripes, telling the brainwashed Russian public that the UKR army is gay is just about ideal. Truly vile, but ideally effective.
Further, the idea the UKR government had the technology or drugs or hypnosis or whatever to turn people gay suggests that if they did conquer any Russian or Russian-occupied territory, the poor hapless innocent male (and female?) Russians there would be subjected to the horrors of The Gay Ray. Better to fight to the death than submit to that.
It’s corny comic book crap, but once you get your populace spun up, they’ll buy corny comic book crap like it was something from the Bible or an encyclopedia.
Thanks for the reminder, @What_Exit .
If there’s anyone interested in discussing the repute of the Express, I’ve started a thread in IMHO:
Day 545 of the 3-day special military operation:
It’s a bit reminiscent of the permanent war in 1984, what with the rockets back and forth.
Explosions in occupied Crimea took place on the morning of 23 August near the village of Olenivka on Cape Tarkhankut, destroying a Russian long- and medium-range S-400 Triumf anti-aircraft missile system.
Source: press service of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine
Quote: “The explosion completely destroyed the system (S-400 Triumf – ed.), the missiles loaded in it and the personnel.”
The advisor to the Mayor of Mariupol said that a Bastion anti-ship missile system and its radar stations were damaged.
Here’s video:
Ukraine has claimed that it helped this Russian helicopter pilot to defect along with his family and his helicopter:
Noticed these items among the side blurbs on that page:
UK Defense Ministry: Russian use of pontoon bridges indicates logistical bottlenecks.
As of mid-August, the use of pontoon bridges indicate that Russian forces occupying Crimea and Kherson Oblast face logistical issues, weeks after Ukrainian attacks on the bridges that link the two occupied regions, the U.K. Defense Ministry said on Aug. 23.
General Staff: Russia has lost 258,820 troops in Ukraine.
This number includes 480 casualties Russian forces suffered just over the past day.