Robin Horsfall
Nov 1, 2024
November 2024 is going to be all about the US Presidential Elections and the mayhem that will occur afterwards. Whatever the result is, it will affect the whole world and in particular Ukraine.
Every day in Ukraine it is estimated that two thousand Russian and Ukrainian casualties are lost. By the 5th of November that is an additional 10,000 killed or seriously wounded.
It has become clear the war in Ukraine is not going to be resolved by military strength alone. Neither side has the resources to mobilise, train and arm enough strength to obtain victory. Most assaults are tactical in nature and operate in numbers of 1000 or less. These battalion or company level assaults take a field or village but have no strategic effect on the war.
However, the losses Russia is suffering far exceed that of Ukraine. It has been reported Russian casualties are as much as eight times the levels of Ukraine. Some claim Russia can afford such losses; that Russia is prepared to accept huge losses of men to achieve victory. Russia might be a huge land mass, but its population is only 145 million.
It is close to three years since Putin launched his ‘three day’ special military operation. He has lost close to 700,000 soldiers, killed, or seriously wounded. When he began, he had numerical superiority in manpower, armour, artillery, naval power, and air power. He had economic superiority with a 170-billion-dollar national wealth fund and three hundred billion planted overseas. Now with the exception perhaps of artillery he has lost the advantage in every area.
Russia has spent two thirds of its material and economic wealth in Ukraine. It has lost two thirds of manufactured weapons and is unable to replace them as fast as it looses them. The national wealth fund is down to fifty billion and falling daily as the Russian economy spends reserves on more military hardware. Foreign assets have been frozen. Their air force has lost superiority to Ukrainian air defences and the arrival of F16s. Ukraine, supported by the west (especially the USA) has technical superiority. Ukrainian innovation in drone technology defeated the Black Sea Fleet and forced them out of the Black Sea, one third sunk including a submarine in dry dock.
When the war began Russia held an eight to one advantage in artillery ammunition stocks. Since then, by increasing manufacturing in the west and in Ukraine, the careful use of munitions in combat, the purchase of existing foreign stocks and the focused destruction of Russian ammunition depots, that advantage has been reduced to two to one. Russian purchases of artillery ammunition from North Korea have proved to be old, poorly maintained, and unreliable so there might be parity even in artillery.
The war continues, but it will be the realisation that there is no money to pay with, and no credit to borrow with, that will end Putin’s war.
Until then the democracies must continue to give their treasure because Ukraine continues to give its blood.
Slava Ukraini!
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Robin E Horsfall
