Great Power contentions

[Montmorency]

Desultory escalation continues in the north and south (with negative gains). To paraphrase analysts, 'the maximum that can be achieved by such methods is to distract UFOR from counteroffensive preparations.' Whereas the persistent Luhansk counterattacks over the past 4 months had supported this goal with fewer casualties for RuFOR, and the Bakhmut/Central Donetsk Campaign has usually achieved relatively-high attrition against UFOR (while expending lives the Kremlin doesn't care about, viz. soldiers of fortune, separatists, and convicts), the north and south seem to be turning into areas of rapid exhaustion for RuFOR.

Rumors about the RuMOD suppression of Wagner circulating for over a month definitely seem accurate, as it is all but confirmed on both sides and all the way up to Prigozhin himself that Wagner has been removed from the first line almost everywhere. The only exception is said to be north of Bakhmut, which is after all the only place the Russians have been advancing the past week, not long since having regained momentum in the whole AO at the end of January. Not only has Wagner been stopped from participating in most offensive actions, it has been cut off from most sources of recruitment and progressively strangled of supplies.

There's still one week in which to watch for big developments, but at the moment a combination of late Ukrainian reinforcements, a Russian strategic decision to expend resources attacking everywhere in the TO, and factional infighting kneecapping the most successful ongoing Russian campaign and formation, may have staunched the bleeding Ukraine started the year with.

I'm very disturbed by US DoD's estimate of 9K KIA and 20+K WIA Wagner so far (mostly the past two months) though. My previous estimates had come out to, or would extrapolate to, double that (20K KIA, 40K WIA or otherwise discharged). And I'm usually conservative in my casualty estimates. I'm unsure of what to make of this assuming figures like at least 50K prisoners and 10K contractors recruited over the course of the war are accurate.
(To be clear, I had used higher recruitment figures than that wrt my casualty estimates)



Not sure if real.

small, globe-trotting balloon declared “missing in action” by an Illinois-based hobbyist club on Feb. 15 has emerged as a candidate to explain one of the three mystery objects shot down by four heat-seeking missiles launched by U.S. Air Force fighters since Feb. 10.