Great Power contentions

[Montmorency]

There was a raid into Belgorod, bigger than previous ones, but still of no importance, which currently seems to have been conducted more as a PR stunt than to achieve strategic misdirection.


Prigozhin just delivered a major interview. Unfortunately, I can't find a transcript and I can't access the original on Telegram or any video platform (I haven't gone to the trouble of verifying an account, and the webview platform I used to rely on seems to be out of business). This is an important concern, as media paraphrases often fail to accurately convey some or all of the message, and indeed there are many divergent reports and commentaries on Prigozhin's words.

So this is what I'm relatively confident about was claimed by Prigozhin without seeing the original source:

Wagner is in the process of leaving Bakhmut and will be mostly, but not entirely, in the reserve from June 1 for regeneration. Prigozhin did indeed wait until the final capture of Bakhmut (May 20) to proceed. 

Wagner had 50K convicts available for the Battle of Bakhmut, which in Prigozhin's definition appears to include the area from the canal (~Andriivka) north to at least Soledar if not to the Donetsk-Luhansk boundary. 
The timeline offered is unclear however, since it is possible to define a Battle of Bakhmut as beginning anytime from early summer 2022 to late winter 2023 depending on bounding; 
or from the beginning of November if starting with the Battle of Opytne, Bakhmut's adjacent suburb; or from early January if counting from the fall of Soledar; 
or from late December if starting with the first Wagner inroads on Soledar; or from late July if starting with the first attacks on Soledar - and so on. 
If I had to guess though, I imagine Prigozhin counts from sometime in last December. 

20% of convicts were KIA. Either a similar number or a similar proportion of contractors were also KIA. (As we'll see the latter is more in line with his other claims.)

Ukraine suffered 50K KIA in the battle, and 50-70K WIA. 

Referencing his concrete claim on Ukrainian casualties, Prigozhin asserts that Wagner KIA were about three times fewer than UFOR KIA, and Wagner WIA were two times fewer. 
This would equate to ~16K KIA and 25-33K WIA. I assume in this interview he uses WIA to refer to heavily wounded. Even then, I would note that these are outlandishly-low 
KIA:WIA ratios for Ukraine (as little as 1), but plausible for Wagner specifically (i.e. roughly 1.5-2, mirroring my long discussion earlier in this thread).

This would also equate to ~6K KIA among contractors.

Comparing to my long analysis:

We have a claim of 50K convicts with 10K KIA; 30K contractors with 6K KIA (20% of 30K is 6K); +/- 30K WIA overall, all over a period of at least 5 months.

First point of order is that the implicit claim on the number of contractors is really high; it's hard to believe it can be true. And if we take some commentators' interpretation that Prigozhin said contractors took the same number KIA as convicts, rather than same proportion, then he would had to have possessed 50K contractors, which I categorically reject. Maybe Prigozhin's was improperly factoring in convicts who became contractors plus Wagner contractors around the world?

Regardless, what Prigozhin is saying about contractor death rates is definitely allusive to a higher death rate than I preferred to countenance.

And of course the stock figure of 50K convicts matches a lot of the wintertime reporting, lower than my estimate of as high as 65K.

Note however that a synthetic figure of 50K + 30K = 80K is extremely close to my former estimate of unique individuals who had passed through Wagner Group within Ukraine between March 2022 and the start of May 2023. Also, my estimate for total KIA was 17-18K, and 25.5-36K WIA in that period.

On Twitter today one of the Mediazona/BBC obituary researchers estimated with as-yet unpublished data at least 10K confirmed Wagner KIA.

This all makes a good deal of sense if you adjust Prigozhin's claims as follows, for example (they were never for taking at face value anyway):

55K convicts + 25K contractors unique wartime individuals (potentially counting convicts who became contractors)
5K irrecoverable convict casualties August-November '22 (e.g. 1.8K KIA + 3.15K WIA at 1.75x)
5K irrecoverable contractor casualties March-November '22 (e.g. 1.8K KIA + 3.15K WIA at 1.75x)
== 3.6K KIA & 6.3K WIA March-November '22 [Lower than my previous estimate to account for lower convict head count]
Ignore entirely any Ukraine-deployed contractors did not remain employed by Wagner in the course of the war; assume contract recruitment among ex-cons and the general public makes it all up
10K convict KIA December-May '23
6K contractor KIA December-May '23
28K WIA December-May '23 at 1.75x
== ==
19.6K KIA & 34.3K WIA overall (54K casualties)

This brings us down to 26K remaining Wagner in Ukraine before excluding convicts who have graduated without heavy injury. By the beginning of June, we can figure that a minimum of 80% of all convict recruits will have passed their 6-month milestone even had they all sat things out in Russia, playing bingo. We can guess from the estimates above that at least half of all convicts were either KIA or dischargeably WIA depending on how we play with ratios; the overriding thing is that, assuming attrition is evenly spread across convict cohorts - this can't be true but it's good enough for our purposes - there simply could not be more than 5.5K convicts remaining in Wagner employ.

That leaves Prigozhin with, as a broad estimate hinging particularly on how we interpret Prigozhin's contractor head count and distribute WIA between branches, 4K contractors and ~~5K convicts.

All those convicts will either be gone or contracted by early summer. RUMINT has it that the Russian military has meanwhile recruited 10K convicts for its own purposes.

I wouldn't be surprised if Prigozhin exfiltrates his professional core and leaves the depreciating asset of convicts behind in Bakhmut to face any Ukrainian moves.



The bottom line is that my earlier estimates comport surprisingly well with Prigozhin's claims on Wagner strength/losses, but leave my ultimate 20K estimate from 3 weeks ago too high by perhaps 5K - that is to say, my estimate of 15K prior to adjusting for Prigozhin's figures on convict discharges may have been inadvertently near-perfect.


NB. One thing Prigozhin could be lying about outright, with respect to own losses specifically, is the ratio of losses between convicts and contractors. In which case elements of my long analysis would be more correct instead.

[Montmorency]

This war has seen the development of improvised jousting between small observation drones as a method of neutralizing enemy assets.

In the absence of any good/available NATO kamikaze drones, and partially as a challenge to Russian kamikaze drones (e.g. Lancet), Ukraine developed a small cottage industry of makeshift kamikaze ("FPV") drones.

Someone put two and two together. At last, the problem of enemy tactical UAS observation has a systematic solution. (Note: DoD will not be funding this solution for the US military)

https://twitter.com/i/status/1661535520613183489[VIDEO]


EDIT: Just noticed the WSJ article mentioning offhand that the US has transferred "over 2 million" 155mm shells so far. As the US stopped publishing figures for PDA munitions transfers from February, the rate of 155mm donations between February and May (the latest PDA was a few days ago, so can't have been delivered yet) must have been at least triple that of the first full year.

Ukraine probably has more than 1 million 155mm stockpiled between all sources of donation and purchase, and 3-4 hundred 155mm cannon in active service. I had previously estimated around half a million.

I'm going to upgrade my prior forecast of the degree of success of the upcoming strategic offensive, though I'm unsure by how much that should be.

[Montmorency]

I've remarked before on numerous documented cases of tanks in this conflict, especially on the Ukrainian side, being used to attack/suppress enemy trenches at extreme close range, even 10-20m. On Twitter the Ukrainian officer Tatarigami offered his professional opinion that Ukrainian forces have no other means of covering the advance of mounted infantry across open fields. He also mentioned that it is hoped that bounding tanks very close to enemy positions will get them within minimum range of engagement of available AT platforms.

[spmetla]

Well looks like the counter-offensive has started to enough of a degree that Russia blew the Nova-Khakova dam. Wonder what the river level and floodplain will be like after the flooding ebbs. Tragic for the folks living downriver though, bad enough being the frontline of a war without a manmade disaster washing into your town.
Curious as to how this affects the water supply to the rest of Kherson and into Crimea, I'm aware of some canals that fed from the reservoir not sure how many will function with lower water levels. Same question for the Zaporozhe nuclear power plant's cooling system.

The reporting is difficult to follow on open source info right now so just hoping the Ukrainians do well in their attacks. Russian media has thrown out a lot of plainly false numbers and videos that are showing not-Leo2s under attack.

Best of luck to the Ukrainians in the fight!

[Shaka_Khan]

As someone who questioned the chances for Russia's quick victory early on, I'm impressed at what the Ukrainians have accomplished so far in their current counteroffensive. This is considering that the Russians were expecting it to start eventually and considering that the Russians had a lot of time to prepare their defenses. Ukraine still needs to be careful because there are multiple layers of the Russian defense lines. I find this to be similar to the tactic that the Soviets used during the Battle of Kursk. And Ukraine forces don't outnumber the Russian ones overwhelmingly. Looking on the bright side, I heard that the southern front is harder for the Russians to supply due to its geography. The location sticks out from the rest of the Russian positions. Behind them is the sea. As the offensive continues, the Russians at the southern front might run low on supplies.

I hope this war ends in Ukraine's favor, and I hope the war doesn't continue on for too long after this offensive.

[Montmorency]

The vast majority of the strategic reserve remains uncommitted. UFOR has been attacking in most sectors of the theater of war, for whatever reason, but the most resources seem to have been applied to the Orikhiv-Tokmak and Velyka Novosilka axes in the south. Almost all progress has come on the latter so far, and it's a decent candidate for main effort. I wonder if it's just a matter of keeping it small brained for GSUA; that is, the Novosilka axis is the border between Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk provinces, and it's pretty much been long recognized as the least-reinforced sector of the southern front for RuFOR. The Ukrainians have placed the most pressure, and made the most gains, just attacking straight down the local highway and belt of villages leading down from Velyka Novosilka toward the Russian main line. The road network in the area isn't great, and I barely considered the strategic implications of an offensive along the provincial border, but if they break through the sole RuFOR defensive belt in the sector UFOR could continue south on the road to Mariupol (though there's no advantage in focusing on a narrow salient to attempt to besiege the city), east toward Volnovakha and the relief of Vuhledar, or west toward Bilmak and outflanking Polohy.

"Keep it simple, stupid?"

[spmetla]

Yup, seems a very simple strategy so far, probing attacks all along the southern front, continued pressure on the Bakhmut area and retain the gains from last year in the northeast. The progress from those probing attacks has been okay so far, am a little surprised that there's so little SHORAD support there but I guess there's only so many gepards and air defense systems on had so probably tied up defending cities and logistic/command nodes.
I know the vaunted 'defense lines' haven't been approached yet but honestly it doesn't look like the Russians have the manpower to defend the length of those lines anyhow. The towns/cities around key intersections like Toma will certainly been defend more vigorously but I don't envision 'fortress' defense to the last man efforts if threatened to be cutoff.

I think if they reach the main M-14 coastal highway they'll have met their initial objectives as the land bridge would depend on supplies via Crimea/Kherson for everything west of any such salient. That's still pie-eyed wishing for me though, there's a lot of farmland and plenty of small towns in the 85kms to the highway and we've seen how effective those border hedges/treelines have been for defending forces.

If they get close the highway though, I don't think they'll try to take Mariupol as its too much an icon of the war so far and has overstated political value for both sides to retain, getting the port of Berdyansk would lengthen the supply routes for everything to the West, make the defense of Tokmak more difficult as forces would be needed for retaining Melitopol too. Offensively this would also enable the use of ASMs to threaten shipping the sea of Azov and seagoing drones to threaten Rostov too. Though this threat would be more useful in keeping leverage to keep the grain deal on and denying the black sea fleet another place from where to operate.

We've only seen a few of the new brigades in the offensive but suspect the others are being used as strategic and operational level reserves as well as to rotate out the current forces to prevent culmination too soon. Glad to see the western gear isn't 'tossing turret's and has been for the most part keeping the crews alive.

[CrossLOPER]

I hope this war ends in Ukraine's favor, and I hope the war doesn't continue on for too long after this offensive.

There is the issue of asymmetry related to end-goals. For Ukraine, it is relatively simple: restore pre-2014 borders. Anything after that will be determined by the state of the world. The country will need funding for rebuilding long enough so that it can support its own military industry. It does not have a choice so long as massive threats on its borders exist.

For Russia, the situation is odd. The goal is... hold Krim? Hold The eastern edges? To what end? Crimea will eventually become a battleground like that in Donbas. No one except the desperate would want to live there while it is in that state. What could it do even if it did hold them? The Russian economy was never a strong one, and there is less and less incentive to remain. So the goal is perhaps to wait out the outrage like Assad? Syria is not in good shape and probably will not be for some time.

Speaking of which, the third party, the world, will have to decide long term goals, as well. Will Ukraine be abandoned? Will Russian oil and gas flow freely again, or will alternative sources be used until greener alternatives eventually become as common? What use does Russia have beyond this frankly outdated fuel source? My father told me about burning brown coal for warmth and the haze that resulted. Will Russia just be an outdated village?

Lots of uncertainty. It will depend purely on the strength of leadership and the attention span of the dominant generation.

[spmetla]

For Russia, the situation is odd. The goal is... hold Krim? Hold The eastern edges? To what end? Crimea will eventually become a battleground like that in Donbas. No one except the desperate would want to live there while it is in that state. What could it do even if it did hold them? The Russian economy was never a strong one, and there is less and less incentive to remain. So the goal is perhaps to wait out the outrage like Assad? Syria is not in good shape and probably will not be for some time.

For Putin and his like, that's probably acceptable to him. He wanted to be one of the Great Russians of history and expand/reclaim its borders. Sad for the folks in Russia though, unless the leaders in Russia agree to a formal peace recognizing Ukraine's borders I don't see how they rejoin the international order again in a meaningful way. They may be resource rich but that on its own doesn't build a diversified economy. Could see them more and more dependent on China for investment.

Speaking of which, the third party, the world, will have to decide long term goals, as well. Will Ukraine be abandoned? Will Russian oil and gas flow freely again, or will alternative sources be used until greener alternatives eventually become as common? What use does Russia have beyond this frankly outdated fuel source? My father told me about burning brown coal for warmth and the haze that resulted. Will Russia just be an outdated village?

Lots of uncertainty. It will depend purely on the strength of leadership and the attention span of the dominant generation.

I don't think Ukraine will be abandoned like Syria, it is much closer to the European economies, on a path to join the EU and will be opened up for greater market integration. Ukraine still needs to conduct a lot of domestic reforms to do this but I could see continued investment from the US and EU into Ukraine as no one in Europe can allow so large a state to become a failed state. Modern day Marshal plan would be very much expected.

Sadly, for Russia though, if it continues with this same political class in charge will likely remain a pariah state. Russia has always had the potential to be one of the wealthiest countries around, blessed by geography to have lots of resources, access to lots of markets etc... Unfortunately, it has historically put way to much into its military. Given the countries Russia borders, that's understandable, however not to the degree that currently happens. You don't get such a large military with broad capabilities with an economy smaller than Italy without cutting corners and spending way to much GDP on the military.

I think Putin and his gang would merrily sell Siberia in all but name to China for the ability to continue to flip off the US and NATO and not have to admit that the Ukraine war has not gone in their favor so far. It's been repeated in history too often when aging rulers feel a need to cement their legacy through some drastic action at the expense of their country's future.