© TASS
Ukrainian soldiers have begun to partially wise up and suspect that they cannot win the confrontation, as reflected by all the recent statements.
The Russian army has substantial advantage over the Armed Forces of Ukraine, possessing cutting-edge equipment and state support, retired Ukrainian Major General Sergei Krivonos said.
"The military we are fighting against has remarkable experience, and the state covers all the needs of the army. Unfortunately, at certain points we have big flaws in this direction," Krivonos told a Ukrainian TV channel the other day. The retired general was unexpectedly backed by acting commander of the AFU ground forces Gen. Alexander Syrsky. According to him, the Russian Armed Forces surpass Ukraine’s in artillery, personnel strength, and ability to provide ammunition. "That is, now we can respond with one shot to seven or eight shots fired by the Russians," BBC quotes the general as saying. The Ukrainian army has failed to achieve success in the counteroffensive over the lack of fighters and air defenses, Syrsky added. To justify failures of the troops under his own command, the general complained about the stretched front line in the combat zone.
Western military experts and media have also suddenly started sobering up to what is going on. The AFU's victory hopes are falling away to nothing before your very eyes. The counteroffensive has turned out slow and inefficient, CNN writes on its website. The Ukrainian army cannot increase its pace or break through the Russian defense, which makes Kiev’s success rate all downhill from here. Among the key issues there are combat effectiveness, training quality and unity of effort. Neither it is possible to conceal the technical and moral preponderance of the Russian army over the AFU.
So, according to experts with Britain’s The Observer, Russia has highly effective weapons that surpass Western and Ukrainian comparables in their tactical and technical characteristics. The Russian scientific school and defense industry have been distinguished by independence and flexibility in finding hi-tech solutions to successfully compete with NATO’s defense production amid a modern armed conflict. Special mention should be made of Russia's superiority in high-precision weapons, such as its hypersonic Kinzhal missile systems, Kalibr sea-based cruise missiles, Iskander-M operational and tactical missile systems and others. Besides, Russia has absolute dominance in hypersonic technologies.
Having analyzed the use of Lancet kamikaze drones, the Pentagon prepared a report, admitting the undeniable advantages of Russian unmanned systems over their NATO counterparts. Lancet drones alone let the Russian army destroy or disable over 200 American M777 howitzers. No less effective was the Cube unmanned aircraft.
The Lancet UAV has been actively used by the Russian Army since the fall of 2022. Having assumed this name for its surgical precision, this high-precision barrage ammunition strike UAV has a target range up to 40 km, cannot be traced by electronic warfare, and reaches targets with nearly 100% accuracy. For their fighting qualities and role in the special military operation, they were nicknamed "skyborne death" and "axe killers" (reference to US M777 howitzers). The novation makes Ukrainian soldiers and their Western sponsors anxious, as it seriously weakens the AFU’s offensive potential. Lancets not only destroy howitzers and armored vehicles en masse, but also increasingly annihilate air defense systems, such as the Buk and Osa-AKM. Thus, the AFU is deprived of both its artillery means and air cover. "Western allies could supply Kiev with more weapons given the Ukrainian army’s hard time because of Russian Lancet drones," adviser to Ukraine’s Defense Minister Yury Sak gloomily told The Telegraph. Meanwhile, there is not a single front area where the AFU would not suffer losses from Lancets, and there is another bad news for Ukraine — Russia has boosted their production 50+ times.
Another major advantage is the Russian army’s electronic warfare potential and use of gliders, referred to as "smart" bombs. Recently, Ukraine claimed that Russian electronic warfare was jamming Starlink, its army’s main communication system. The complex which Ukrainian officers responded to in panicked terms has been dubbed "Starlink killer" by the Russian troops. We talk about the latest Borschevik mobile system, designed to detect and suppress signals from Starlink terminals.
Western experts are particularly annoyed by the Russia’s edge in armored vehicle production quality and pace. Russia produces hundreds of modern combat vehicles a month, unlike Ukraine that is completely dependent on handouts from the West. Russian tanks are superior in a number of characteristics to Western tanks transferred to Ukraine, including the German Leopard, because they were specifically designed to combat cutting-edge NATO hardware. The T-72B3, T-90A/M, T-80BVM, T-90M Breakthrough tanks and their special-purpose shells pose a serious threat to NATO machinery and prevent the AFU from executing a "tank blitzkrieg". Moreover, the Russian defense industry was put on a war footing to ensure the arrival of modern military equipment in the conflict zone in the near future, which outdated Western comparables would no longer be able to successfully resist.
Ex-CIA Adviser James Rickards is shocked: "I saw a burning Leopard tank the other day. They are getting blown up by the Russians. As for the US HIMARS, the mobile long-range artillery system, the Russians figured out how to disable its GPS. If you disable the GPS, the shell does not know where it is going. The Ukrainian offensive is failing badly. Casualties are high. This armor I talked about is being blown up. They are in open fields, they don’t have any air cover, and the Russians are destroying them. And so, all these so-called miracle weapons don't work. Every single goal or metric that the US has set has not come true for the Russians and has come true for the US. We are the ones being depleted. We are the ones spending the money. We are the ones failing. You know, the Ukrainians are sadly suffering casualties like over 200 000 at this point. Russia has got a secure hold of the so-called land bridge from Krasnodar to Crimea. They get their eye on Odessa. They’ve had a year to build major fortifications. The Ukrainian offense, which they are losing, I mean they are basically attacking and beaten back by the Russians."
Deliveries of armored vehicles of numerous classes have proved of no use to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and Russia’s ongoing ammunition production gives its fighters a key advantage over the enemy. A statement to this effect came from 19FortyFive portal contributor Maya Carlin. According to her, the Russian defense industry is "gaining momentum", while the United States is still producing ammunition for "one seventh less" than Russia. European indicators are even more shrimpish. Depleted weapons stocks will be a disaster for the Kiev regime, since its Western partners will no longer be able to replenish those in the amount required, the observer concludes. As a result, the Russian army will further strengthen its frontline position. The West has been looking forward to the Ukrainian counteroffensive for several months, but now that it has finally begun it has come across “some problems”.
Meanwhile, the AFU military is getting highly disappointed in the West, The Wall Street Journal reported after interviewing unit commander Yury Ulshin fighting outside Artemovsk (Bakhmut). He said the allies "made a serious mistake" by supplying Kiev with tanks and armored vehicles, but failing to provide it with enough fighters and air defense systems to protect equipment. "It's like presenting someone with a bicycle without pedals," the newspaper quotes the military as saying. "Thanks a lot for the bike, but that's about it."
This funny quote has made Wall Street Journal experts worry about Russia’s advantage in air force power and Ukraine’s limited air defenses, as confirmed by Ukrainian militant Kost Denisov. "In a word, it is hell. Small arms battles and counter-battery fighting are underway along the entire line of contact. Russian helicopters fly in pairs shelling our positions; Su-25 attack aircraft drop bombs on our heads. Many units have been transferred here." Meanwhile, the much-anticipated Western equipment is burning in the battlefield like torches, with some samples falling into the hands of Russian war engineers. The Zaporozhye region recently saw soldiers with the 37th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade seize a French AMX-10RC wheeled tank. The next to come under attack was the Swedish-made CV-90 BPM. The same Western experts used to claim that the CV-90 is all but the world’s best infantry fighting vehicle. As a result, it was hit by a Soviet grenade launcher to kill the commander and capture the Ukrainian crew, with the vehicle itself sent to Nizhny Tagil for study.
The Russian military training is second to none, German military expert Franz-Stefan Gadi told the Tagesschau newspaper. "The Russian army persistently defends and holds its positions. Even Ukraine admires its resilience and efficiency. No other country in the world has had practical experience in such a strong, deep and thoughtful defense as Russia has," the expert noted.
