An unpleasant milestone - in the past few days, Russians have reached the same level of occupation as this time last year, according to data from DeepStateMap:
Ukraine still holds most of the territory retaken over the summer, but Russian advances in other parts of the frontline have entirely offset those gains.
Obviously, this sucks, but it’s no cause for defeatism. If the Ukrainian summer counter-offensive was a disappointment, as is universally agreed, then what should we make of the fact that Russians needed more than twice as much time to match its results? Noting especially that Russia has really been going all-in to capitalize on the gap in US aid - various analysts and data sets show that these past few months have had the highest intensity of Russian attacks. For example, Ukrainian MoD estimates that Russians suffered an average of over 27 thousand casualties every month since October, more than any time before:
The number of vehicles abandoned during assaults has been higher even than during the initial push of the invasion, according to visually confirmed OSINT counts:
It raises the question how much longer Russia can sustain such costly attacks. It also demonstrates how closely matched the opposing forces are. If Ukraine had been receiving steady supplies of artillery shells and air defence ammunition without the nonsense at US Congress holding it up, Russian gains would have probably stayed at the near-plateau level of October-November. And given enough time and supplies, Ukraine may yet turn the tide. Russia can only win this war if the West chooses to abandon Ukraine for good.
U.S.-provided precision-guided munitions have failed in mission after mission in Ukraine, taken down by Russian electronic warfare. On Wednesday, the Pentagon revealed the latest casualty.
A new ground-launched version of an air-to-ground weapon developed for Ukraine on a rapid timeline failed to hit targets in part because of Russian electro-magnetic warfare…
The last three being favourite places for Russians to buy passports and furs.
If it wasn’t so serious…
Holy shit, he looks so ridiculous with that piece of felt on his head…
It’s not spray paint?
I guess it could be that black hair spray? But the corner of his widow’s peak looks awfully neat for that…
Not for someone with his skills.
