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Moon of Alabama – June 4, 2022

Colonel Markus Reisner of the Austrian Army presents the current state (vid) of the war.

Two of the facts he mentions were new to me.

The Ukrainian army has moved seven brigades of its Territorial Defense Forces from the west into the area east of the Dnieper. If these were fully maned each will have had some 3,000 soldiers. That are a lot of troops but they are pure infantry without heavy weapons and with extremely little training. Col. Reisner also showed a collection of 15 videos in which members of such and other units describe hopeless situations, declare a retreat or call out their commanders for neglect.

Morale is so bad because those troops do not fare well.

Yves Smith, with a wonderful Daily Mail style headline:

The War Situation Has Developed Not Necessarily to Ukraine’s or the West’s Advantage But They Plan to Negotiate When They’ve Turned Things Around a Bit – Yves Smith / Naked Capitalism

A very long established contact forwarded this message from a former senior US military official:

Just in from an Army Colonel in the building:
“Spoke to someone today who said that the Ukie basic training is 10 days and then off to the front. 65% casualty rates. At least double or more the losses of the Russians but you don’t hear anything about it.”

I very much doubt that Russian units, the way they are currently fighting, have casualty rates of more than 10%. Russia is regularly rotating units in and out to give them some rest and to let them replenish. It is a classic Russian artillery war now and infantry only comes in when the Ukrainians are already defeated.

As this permanent grinding continues the Ukrainians will soon reach a breaking point.

Cont. reading: Ukraine Beyond Day 100 – Breaking Resistance, Deep Operation, A New Country