Absolutely right. The theories of Giulio Douhet that bombing of civilians will cause a country to collapse and surrender have been shown time and time again to be completely wrong. In fact, military historians have argued that bomber Harris’ campaign of bombings in Germany merely served to harden the resolve of German civilians, and it was only boots on the ground that forced surrender.
Yeah, causing the two World Wars does not bode well for the idea…
Yep. Mass nite bombing did not do much besides paint the Allies as also War Criminals. Now, the more precise day bombing on strategic and tactical targets, like the ball bearing factories and Oil fields- that worked.
Precise only in comparison. The ‘pickle barrel’ the 8th Air Force bragged about was 1,000 feet across as opposed to five miles for the night bombing.
Fair point.
I think he is just trying a different tactic toward getting the quantities, and especially, qualities, of advanced war materiel he wants and needs for Ukraine.
Here, he is offering up the plaintive voice of the war-weary instead of the formidable and dogged war-leader he usually comes across as (I think
naturally).
So I think what he’s quoted as saying is something of a departure for him and thus a small jolt.
There’s a part of me that wonders if he’s baiting a trap-- He’s trying to make whatever-it-was that the Russians did most recently look like it was working, so they’ll commit more there, leaving Ukraine open to… do something.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see revolt in Chechnya. They must be watching Russia’s losses closely.
Link ‘We’re fighting for a free future’: the Chechen battalions siding with Kyiv | Ukraine | The Guardian
This was my first thought as well.
Concerning Bakhmut, I find myself questioning Ukraine’s commitment at this point to defending it apparently at all costs. It’s common knowledge that the town and the nearby surrounding territory represents relatively little in terms of strategic importance to Ukraine in conducting its war. For whatever reason, though, Russia has curiously chosen this fortified bastion as the target of all its efforts, and for that reason the town now has considerable political importance. Given that Ukraine’s strategic objectives at this stage are to reduce Russia’s offensive capabilities and thereafter retake territory, shouldn’t Ukraine redeploy elsewhere the forces that are holding this increasingly difficult area to defend? Hasn’t Bakhmut already served its purpose and paid for itself?
As long as they are defending it, it still prevents the Russians from advancing and wrecking even more Ukrainian cities. If I were Ukrainian, my first goal would be to kick Russia out of Ukraine, but with a secondary goal of preserving as much of Ukraine as possible.
I agree that keeping Bakhmut right now is probably in conflict with the first goal. Just looking at a map, even if the Russians take it, there is an even larger string of cities that they would have to face 10 or so miles down the road. But if the Ukrainians retreat to it, the Russians will then systematically start to destroy those cities even more than they presumably already have, even if it makes sense in a balance of forces way to retreat to a firmer line of defense.
If they have fortified defensive positions that are still tenable in Bakhmut, why would they retreat from them? Now if their supply lines are in danger of being cut off it becomes another story, and things may be nearing that point, but until they do it’s better to fight the Russians where you have a nice established defensive advantage, and the buildings being shelled are already rubble anyways.
That’s not necessarily true.There are railroad lines that Ukraine needs for its supply lines, and, there are the salt mine, which may or may not be important strategically. The mines comprise a couple hundred miles of underground tunnels. Might be useful to the Russians for shelter and ammo storage.
Which is why Ukraine should not abandon Bakhmut.
Russian artillery has ,(I think) a range of about 20 miles. They have an unlimited supply of old World-War II style artillery shells, and will totally devastate everything within range, just as they have done to the 40 small towns around Bakhmut.
It all hangs on the ‘if’ part. I’m under the impression that all supply routes leading into Bakhmut are now effectively under fire control. That’s a relative thing of course, but the question a field commander must make is if they’re experiencing diminished access to supply due to the movement of the lines south of Bakhmut, then they need to evaluate whether they can continue under diminished support or need to withdraw and shorten their lines to avoid a more serious encirclement. Ukraine appears to be much more strongly committed to force preservation than Rus
I believe the road to Chasiv Yar through Khromove is still reasonably secure, though Russian advances around Klischiivka are threatening. It would certainly be prudent for the Ukrainians to have plans in place for an organized withdrawal if the supply situation deteriorates. There is certainly no sense in fighting to the last man.
On the other hand, the recent Russian advances have been made at the cost of ruinous casualty rates. There’s a possibility that at least some of the gains might be wiped out by counterattacks. Pushing back even a small amount around Klischiivka would stabilize things.
Are there any verifiable statistics on this?
We’ve been hearing about “unsustainable losses” ever since the first days of the fighting a year ago. (“Ten generals killed! …Russia can’t keep this up for more than a few weeks!”)
I use an old yahoo email, and the front page of yahoo feeds me “news” from a Ukrainian site called Ukrayinska Pravda, which seems so biased that it’s a joke. Every single day it proudly announces 400 or 500 more dead Russians.
I ignore it, but I would like to find some actual facts about casualties on both sides.
(And even if a couple thousand Wagner soldiers are dead, will it make any difference to the Russian war machine, with its quarter million new draftees every year?)
A quarter-million barely trained recruits, with no motivation to fight other than to avoid punishment, are nothing more than cannon fodder. As long as we keep Ukraine well supplied with ammunition, that kind of desperation-recruiting is not much of a threat. Once again, on a macro level, war is logistics and morale, and that’s it. Ukraine has an advantage in both. Ukrainians are fighting for their existence, while Russians are fighting for conquest that will benefit no one but Putin and his chosen few. Ukraine is supplied by the industrial might of the West, and Russia is supplied by its own corrupt and incompetent logisticians, and no one else. If these factors don’t change, there’s no way Russia can win in the long term.
Fog of War, we won’t know what the casualties rates were for years or decades. I’m sure both sides are misreporting in their own favor. That is pretty standard.
Statistics? No. Best I can do is point to anecdotal reports from Ukrainians, and drone video footage of Russian infantry advancing (often completely unsupported) and then getting blown to kingdom come by artillery or dropped munitions, etc. To my knowledge no one is compiling lists of visually confirmed Russian troop losses the way that Oryx is compiling lists of lost equipment. Russian and Ukrainian press releases about casualties are guaranteed propaganda, though it’s plausible that Ukrainian reports of Russian casualties at least track with trends, i.e. the numbers may be fantasy but when they’re higher the actual Russian losses tend to be higher as well. And Ukrainian reports of Russian losses have recently been very high indeed.
Good luck. All you are going to get are rough estimates from outside sources and propaganda leavened with nuggets of truth from the combatants.
In early January someone from the White House claimed that out of a total mobilized force of ~50,000 Wagner mercenaries, they had suffered around ~14,000 casualties (~4,000 dead, ~10,000 wounded) and ~1,000 of those dead had been lost around Bakhmut in just a short span around November-December. Whether that is a reliable estimate is impossible to say.
Ukraine says over 100,000 Russians have been killed in the war. The U.S., much more cautiously, says there has been well over 100,000 Russian casualties (which would count the wounded). The actual truth is pretty much a cipher.
Let’s wait fifty years and count the sunflowers.
If you are under a HIMARS strike, there aren’t even going to be sunflower seeds surviving. Between fog of war, propaganda and the “efficiency” of modern munitions we’ll never know the real numbers.