This past month the war in Ukraine passed five important but terrible milestones: two years since the war began; 400,000 Russian soldiers killed or very seriously wounded; about 180,000 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians killed or seriously wounded; the battle for Avdiivka lost by the Ukrainians; and the greatest Russian dissident, Alexei Navalny, murdered by Putin.
The best man at my wedding lives in Kiev with his Ukrainian wife, and my wife and I have visited them there. We want to visit them again, but we’re nervous. So I have a vested interest in the war, and keep up with the news. Today I will lay out the recent good news, bad news, and surprising news from the war, and for the next two months I will analyze the war’s various domains, and make some predictions about the future.
THE GOOD NEWS
The 400,000 Russian killed and wounded in action (KIA/WIA) mentioned above in only two years is a figure about 10 times more than the estimated 40,000 casualties suffered by Russia in its catastrophic ten-year invasion of Afghanistan. According to The Economist, Russia lost only about 140 soldiers KIA per month in Afghanistan, but is losing an average of 5400 per month KIA in Ukraine! On many recent days, Russia has lost 1000+ soldiers PER DAY as KIA. The ratio of Russian to Ukrainian KIA is between 6 and 10 to 1 in rural fields combat, but this declines to 2 to 1 or even 1 to 1 in urban fighting.
Ukraine has no real navy, but has managed to destroy a quarter of the Russian Black Sea Fleet of 74 combat vessels with Magura V5 and other uncrewed sea drones. The most recent casualty was the Caesar Kunikov, a valuable landing ship capable of carrying 340 troops or 10 main battle tanks. This is the fourth such ship destroyed by the Ukrainians, and the result is that an amphibious assault by the Russians on the Ukrainian coast near Odesa is nearly impossible.
Ukraine has figured out a way to transport vital, lucrative grain shipments along the coast of the western Black Sea, using the territorial waters of Romania to avoid Russian planes, ships and mines.
Ground-launched small diameter bombs (GLSDBs) were finally delivered (ten months late) by Boeing and Saab to Ukraine, with the first launched in February 2024. The first Russian target hit was a fuel depot in Kriminna, and such depots are likely targets in the future. Perhaps 160 per month will be delivered for many months, allowing several important targets to be hit every day.
THE BAD NEWS
Secretary Hillary Clinton recently correctly stated that “the Republican Party is now acting as a ‘fifth column’ for Russia” inside the US, and former Representative Liz Cheney warned about a takeover by the “Putin wing of the Republican Party.” Intelligence analysts use the terms “agents of influence” and “useful idiots” for two different types of recruited spies and traitors. Donald Trump and his minions such as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA-04), Rupert Murdoch, Tucker Carlson, Roger Stone, Alex Jones, etc. are clearly acting as Russian agents of influence, while the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and their ilk are Russia’s useful idiots. (This Russian takeover is the greatest intelligence coup against America since the Nazis helped to create the powerful German-American Bund before World War II.) These bad actors are working very hard to prevent the US from supporting Ukraine, and are attempting to weaken or destroy NATO. As a result of their actions, democratic Ukraine could very well be annihilated, with millions more children, women and men displaced, killed, wounded and tortured.
NATO countries in Europe are (correctly) panicking that Trump will be re-elected and will refuse to cover them with the US nuclear umbrella. As a result, some countries such as Poland (and Ukraine?) will probably try to quickly build their own nukes. This nuclear proliferation will make global thermonuclear war more likely.
A new anti-West “Axis of Evil” has formed, comprised of Russia, Belarus, Iran, Iran’s terrorist proxies in the Middle East, Syria, Hungary and North Korea, supported economically and even militarily by China and India.
Many media talking heads tout the $50 billion the EU has recently promised to Ukraine. In their ignorance they omit the key fact that the aid will be spread over four years, not one; and in their unwarranted optimism and ignorance they forget that the EU often over-promises and under-delivers. For example, the EU countries promised Ukraine 1,000,000 vital artillery shells in 2023, and only delivered 300,000.
Putin will be re-elected as President of Russia on March 17, 2024. Some analysts predict a turnout of 90 percent and a win with 98 percent of the vote; I estimate 70 and 80 percent respectively, a much worse result for Putin. All reported numbers are suspect, however, since Russia has now abandoned paper ballots in favor of electronic voting which are controlled and can be easily altered by Communist Party “apparatchiks.” All real opponents have been barred from running, and major dissidents, such as Alexei Novalny, murdered.
The recent dramatic loss of the town of Avdiivka is serious, and shows that Ukraine could indeed fall without support from the US. The main cause of the loss was the Republican Party blocking aid, especially 155 mm artillery shells. Eighty percent of Ukrainian battle casualties are caused by artillery shrapnel. Artillery is still “The King of Battle,” and Ukrainians are only able to fire one shell for every ten Russian incoming.
THE SURPRISING NEWS
Some of the most surprising developments in the war include:
Heating and water systems all over Russia have failed “bigly” this winter. Millions of Russians in half of the country’s regions, including one quarter of Moscow’s residents, have lost heat or hot water in weather down to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. The causes are Putin’s underinvestment in infrastructure over the last 20 years, the widespread use of vulnerable district heating systems which link dozens of large apartment buildings, and the brain drain of most HVAC operating engineers from low paid civilian jobs (~$833 per month) to better-paid military maintenance jobs behind the front lines (~$2,200 per month). (This latter amount is huge by Russian standards.)
The horrific October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists in Gaza was launched on Vladimir Putin’s birthday. This was not a coincidence. Hamas and its sponsor Iran were giving a birthday gift to their key ally.
Russia is now firing failed military officers after they are dead. Admiral Viktor Sokolov, Commander of the Black Sea Fleet, was killed six months ago by British Storm Shadow missiles launched by Ukraine in “Operation Crab Trap,” which destroyed the Admiral’s HQ in Sevastopol, Crimea. Rather than acknowledge this death and perhaps give the Admiral a posthumous medal, Putin showed old videos of the Admiral to “prove” he was alive, and then “fired” him this past month for incompetence, to remove him from public view.
Russian troops who retreat or refuse to attack Ukrainian lines in human “meat waves” are often shot by specialist Russian snipers or by Chechen “blocking” units. Those men not shot are sometimes pushed into ten-foot-deep muddy pits, stripped naked, and forced to have unwanted sex with each other while being laughed at and filmed by onlooking Russian soldiers. Videos of this illegal and disgusting practice have emerged on Telegram.
Russian soldiers wounded in action, lying on the battlefield, have been observed and filmed killing themselves with hand grenades, since they know they will usually not be rescued by their fellow soldiers.
Vladimir Putin was interviewed by sycophant Tucker Carlson in February 2024. Putin in his total isolation was not briefed properly by his staff, and Carlson (who had been fired by Fox, CNN and MSNBC, and offered a job in Russian state media) wanted to hear (untrue) propaganda such as Biden and Democrats are pedophiles, how US sanctions on Russia are actually hurting America, and why Putin is a MAGA conservative just like Trump’s supporters. Instead, Putin delivered a boring two-hour lecture on 1000 years of Russian history, and turned off most of his American audience.
Over 500 people who put flowers on the grave of Alexei Novalny have been arrested and forcibly drafted into the Russian military, and are now being sent to die in the front lines of battle.
Photos courtesy Lew Toulmin
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- 1. Map of the Black Sea and Ukraine. Current Russian-held Ukrainian territory is shown in reddish pink. Territrory re-captured from the Russians is in medium blue, and the Black Sea is in light blue.
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- 2. The unmanned, semi-stealth Magura V5 sea drone is manufactured in Ukraine, is about 18 feet long, has multiple sensors and guidance systems, a 700-pound warhead, a range of 500 statute miles, and a top speed of 42 knots (48 mph). Its successes call into question Russian, Chinese and even US naval strategy – who wants to invest $13,000,000,000 in an aircraft carrier that could be destroyed by a $200,000 drone?
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- 3. This chart shows the destroyed and surviving vessels in the vaunted but now pretty useless Russian Black Sea Fleet, of which 25% is “kaboomed” and most of the rest have fled to the eastern Black Sea. Two more ships have been destroyed since this chart was developed. The Fleet cannot be reinforced from the other Russian fleets (the Northern, Pacific and Baltic Fleets and the Mediterranean Flotilla), because Turkey bars warships from transiting the Bosphorus choke point into the Black Sea during wartime.
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- 4. Viktor Sokolov capped his 43-year Russian naval career by being appointed Commander of the Black Sea Fleet in August 2022, and achieving the rank of full Admiral on June 6, 2023. Three months later, on September 22, 2023, he was killed in his HQ by Ukrainian missiles. His corpse was fired from his job six months later, in February 2024. His highest awards were the Order of Merit to the Fatherland (4th Class; the large red medal in the upper left), which made him a “Cavalier,” the equivalent of an English Knight (who says Communist Russia is egalitarian?), and the Order of Nakhimov, a top naval medal (the blue medal beside the Order of Merit). RIP.
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- 5. The Russian landing ship Caesar Kunikov was attacked and sunk in February 2024, by seven Ukrainian Magura V5 unmanned sea drones with three different roles: scouting, distraction, and attack. No lifeboats were launched by the Kunikov, no rescue ships made it to the scene, and the entire crew was lost. RIP.
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- 6. Dmitry Medvedev, the alcoholic and bizarre former Prime Minister of Russia, key advisor to Putin, and current Deputy Director of the State Security Council. He recently stated that “War with the United States is inevitable” because the US will not give Alaska back to Russia. Earlier he repeatedly threatened the West with nuclear attack, and called the French a nation of “frog-eating pederasts, scum, bastards and degenerates.” A true diplomat.
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- 7. Russian losses through February 20, 2024 in men, equipment, drones, etc., in two years of war. The figures in white (such as 404,950 soldiers KIA/WIA) are all losses for the entire war, and the numbers in yellow (such as 1,230 KIA/WIA) are figures for just the previous day.
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- 8. Ground launched small diameter bombs (GLSDBs) are a combination of standard GBU-39 Boeing small diameter (9.5 inch) dumb bombs, developed for use by aircraft, with bolt-on kits of wings and M26 rockets. All this allows the bombs to be launched from HIMARs or other ground-based systems. Since the Ukrainians have a very small air force and every plane is valuable, ground-based launchers are much preferred. GLSDBs have a range of 90 miles, fragmentation multi-purpose warheads that can penetrate 3 feet of steel reinforced concrete, and are able to attack fixed or moving targets from any direction or vertical angle. Unit cost is only about $168,000, compared to $2.5 million for a Storm Shadow cruise missile.
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- 9. The town of Avdiivka has been under siege since 2014, and was dramatically attacked in October 2023 by Russian forces, with a 7 to 1 force advantage. The Russians finally captured the town in February 2024, suffering about 48,000 casualties and losing 199 combat vehicles, while advancing only 15 kilometers – about 9 miles. Compare this one battle’s casualties to the 33,700 American KIA and died of wounds in the ENTIRE Korean War! This was not really a win for Russia – it was a non-sustainable “meat wave” meatgrinder defeat. But it got Putin what he wanted, a minor “victory” just before his March re-election.
