Press
Wreck after wreck and no end. Ukraine has once again significantly decimated Putin’s tank army. But the vehicles are springing up like mushrooms.
Donzek – “A line to hell,” commented the Defense Ministry Ukraine. The pithy words in Newsweek describe a chain of 42 tanks and armored vehicles that Russia now seems to have lost in the Ukraine war. On their X-Channel (formerly Twitter), a drone flies over a number of burned-out vehicles – although it is unclear to what extent the vehicles were actually filmed in a regional context or whether they even belong to a coherent combat group. There is also no confirmation from the Russian side.
Ukraine claims the vehicles were disabled in a narrow sector of the front in the Donetsk region. In fact, among the vehicles there are also those with cages above the tower, so that drone attacks on the tanks can possibly be ruled out. Due to the devastated environment around the vehicles, an artillery attack by Ukraine seems more likely. It is clear that the vehicles could not have been driving in a column because isolated wrecks are repeatedly shown.
However, Ukraine may have had a smaller success than it tries to portray – that The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) published in February that Russian losses were increasing due to Ukraine’s offensive forces; but its authors Yohann Michel and Michael Gjerstad advise cautious optimism. They assume that “at current rates of attrition, Russia can sustain its attack on Ukraine for another two to three years, and perhaps even longer.” Russia could therefore replace its lost capacities almost identically in terms of numbers; However, quantity is increasingly taking the place of quality, the scientists write.
Russia’s everyday life in the Ukraine war: Endless attacks without regard for losses
Perhaps for this reason in particular, the Russian vehicles become easy prey for the Ukrainian defense system. “42 destroyed Russian tanks – a result of the leadership work of the 58th motorized brigade of Ukraine in cooperation with the Separate Presidential Brigade and the 762nd brigade,” wrote Anton Herashchenko, as Newsweek reported. The former Ukrainian deputy interior minister also had the coup on his Xchannel and paid homage to him accordingly. The images apparently show the price that Russia has to pay for its recently flared offensive efforts. “The pace of combat in this sector of the front has not slowed, and the Russian generals continue to send their mechanized units into endless attacks without regard to casualties,” quoted Newsweek Herashchenko.
“Instead, we realized that the Russians were not counting their dead. So far, the coffins of the soldiers are mostly returned to the provinces, and their deaths have no impact on general opinion in Russia.”
The “line to hell” may also be the first visible result of the most recent US aid deliveries to the Ukrainian front – this is what analyst Gustav Gressel intended in a statement to the daily News about the fighting in the Donbas coalfield, in the center of which lies the Donetsk region. “The Ukrainians had problems sealing off the battlefield there because they lacked artillery ammunition. That may have improved now because they received material from the American aid package. They also brought reserves into the room.”
However, Russian tanks seem to be springing up like mushrooms. Newsweek interprets the IISS figures and observations to mean that Russia “can probably maintain its tank fleet with inferior vehicles for several years.” Reads from the “Military Balance” of the IISS Newsweek found that Russia still has an estimated 1,750 operational tanks of various types and equipment variants, from the antiquated T-55 to the modern T-90 tanks – and still has several thousand vehicles in reserve.
Everyday life in the Ukrainian war: 42 kills remain a drop in the ocean
The 42 vehicles shot down would therefore be a drop in the ocean and theoretically worth little more to Ukraine than a propaganda success. At least the Russian losses could give Ukraine breathing room and prevent infantry advances for the time being. “No one can fight a battle alone,” says Brigadier General Björn Schulz in the Bundeswehr podcast Inquired. “I can’t do it alone with tanks, I can’t do it alone with infantry, I can’t do it alone with artillery, air force and so on.” A modern war can only be won in a battle of combined arms, as he explains.
In this respect, the number of Russian tanks destroyed can actually prevent or delay offensive infantry actions. However, Russia has now continued its offensives in the Donbas and Luhansk regions, as the daily News after confirmations from the Ukrainian army reported. “As for Ocheretyne, the enemy has broken through and established itself in this locality,” Nazar Voloshyn, spokesman for the army group fighting in the sector, told the news agency Interfax Ukraine. Ukraine had responded to the Russian advance with artillery and tried to regain the initiative. According to reports from the daily News According to Voloshyn, the hardest fighting took place on the front sections towards Pokrovsk and Kurakhove. The Russian enemy has achieved tactical successes, but has not yet gained any operational advantage.
The war in Ukraine is threatened by a second front in the West
Nevertheless, the tide is turning in Ukraine. And contrary to what the pictures of the destroyed tanks seem to suggest, the successes depend less on the number of Russian resources destroyed than on the number of available Ukrainian resources. And here a second front seems to be indirectly building up for Ukraine. Colonel Markus Reisner from the Austrian Armed Forces told the Austrian default stated that Ukraine would have to expect the West to stab it in the back until the US presidential elections in November. The observer currently believes that the course of the battle can still be controlled to the extent that “Ukraine will manage to prepare for the Russians’ expected summer offensive,” as he said default writes.
But Reisner is openly one of the supporters of more offensive support for Ukraine. He had it in mid-April Time He said: “We have glossed over the situation in Ukraine.” He also complained about the fact that the West apparently thought that it could support Ukraine, as he said, “out of its back pocket”. In the Times Lieutenant General Oleksandr Pavliuk also complains about the West’s lack of solidarity: “For me personally, the most important lesson is that you shouldn’t really expect to count on anyone else,” he said. “I learned not to rely on others for help. Ultimately, everything is in our sole hands.”
The dejection of the Ukrainian commander-in-chief contrasts strikingly with the success of the high number of tanks currently destroyed. Pavliuk told the Timesthat he had actually experienced two wars – the one in Ukraine, which initially promised success, and now the real war. Initially, the defenders had believed that the invasion would be stopped with a certain number of Russian casualties. In the meantime he had to be taught better than she was Times quoted: “Instead, we realized that the Russians are not counting their dead. So far, the coffins of the soldiers are mostly returned to the provinces, and their deaths have no impact on general opinion in Russia.”
#losses #Putins #army #marches