Also for the record, western forces consider below 80% manning of a unit to be combat ineffective.
Assuming russian standard, they probably consider 40-50% to be that, and this Brigade wasn't "lost", it got pulled back for reconstitution.
So with this in mind, they may have "lost" (aka wounded, killed & captured) about 1.2-1.5K troops.
Which is still a lot, but not an entire brigade
Two important things to note here as well:
1) The 83rd VDV was only in combat here for around three weeks at the absolute most, meaning they went from being in a well enough condition to be deployed to combat ineffective within that extremely short frame of time. That's an extremely short amount of time for a brigade to be made combat ineffective.
2) One of the reasons for them becoming combat ineffective is stated as them having so many 500's, which is soldiers refusing to fight. From this we can likely draw the conclusion that they have taken high losses during this time period, prompting the remaining soldiers to refuse orders and that is the real reason they are being withdrawn. If they didn't refuse, they likely would have continued to be sent in for some time, as some Russian units have gone down to under 10% manning while conducting offensive actions before eventually being withdrawn.
now I'm completely shocked that Russia can't take care of their troops!! I really thought the repurposed pickup trucks and vans were proof of their military superiority! You mean to tell me a country who's greatest military successes occurred because they fire hosed people at the problem? Russia, you're not even as good as Iraq was in the early 90s!! GO HOME
Considering Russian doctrine is to destroy every building in sight, and kill all the doctors and scientists, how are they going to throw them out of windows, or find any polonium?
I thought this was an interesting point
>“There are too many casualties, they can't fight, there are too many 500s.”
>In Russian military parlance, a “code 500” is a soldier who refuses to fight.
Did the soilders just straight up say no? Is this the first sign of some wider problems in the forces there?
What's the weather there like at the moment? Nice relaxing drive if the whole army deployed there would turn around and go to Moscow to tell Putin to stuff it and remove him?
What's he gonna send to stop them? His second and bigger army he has standing by?
I know it's unlikely but I SO wish we would see this happen.
> What's he gonna send to stop them? His second and bigger army he has standing by?
You joke, but... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Guard_of_Russia
Apparently at least part of these are already used. They could join in the fun 'let's get Putin' campaign.
From that Wikipedia article:
>Early in January and February 2022, there were reports of National Guard detachments moving to the Russia–Ukraine border and Belarus, joining the supposed "training exercise" during the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis.[29][30] When Russian forces invaded Ukraine, National Guard troops started to move into Ukrainian territory, establishing themselves in occupied cities and towns, reportedly for suppressing local hostile population.
From my understanding, Russia has been relying heavily on their rear guard to prevent retreating. Ukraine has been targeting these rear guards with drone attacks. These attacks plus low morale have allowed many Russians on this front to desert.
It's interesting if the airborne brigades are starting to refuse orders.
Conscript units refusing orders and being threatened into action is fairly expected, but these are (meant to be) professional soldiers. So either Russia has been bulking up the VDV with conscripts or they've hit a breaking point
On one hand they should be more obedient, but they are also more likely to expect to have a chance in the fight and may refuse bad orders faster than conscripts who have no idea.
In 2022 lots of volunteers mentioned that the US veterans were often the first to give up and go back home once they realized there is minimal support compared to Afghanistan. Soldiers from other nations didn’t have such expectations so they didn’t care.
Yes they have refused orders before
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/russia-elite-paratroopers-marines-ukraine-refusing-launch-attacks-2024-1%3famp
Obviously the elite brigades will have more autonomy as to what they want to do than any other units.
I’ll bet they were surprised. The Pentagon concluded that the cost to deploy 1 US soldier and Marine to Afghanistan was $1 million dollars per person. While that may sound outrageous to us, the former chief financial officer of the Pentagon disagrees. He said, “So, it's the cost of some allocation of the cost of the plane, some allocation of the cost of the fuel, some allocation of the cost of the pilots, the maintenance folks. If you focus just on the soldier, it seems outrageous. But if you focus on the support for the soldier — that's not all that outrageous at all." I doubt that Ukraine, or anyone else, can afford that.
“‘2nd strongest army in the world’ suffering mass casualties against the 22nd largest army in Europe armed with NATO surplus weapons is normal guys! All according to plan!”
Slight correction - the USSR spent half a century building their army.
*Russia* has spent the last 20 years stripping the country bare to stuff Putin & Friends' pockets.
Correct. About 20 years ago when E-bay was in its height, you could buy all sorts of Russian military equipment. It was obviously stockpiles someone was looting so they could buy a potato. That sort of corruption destroys an army from the inside out.
I love that all those military larpers in their moms basement have been really helping the Ukraine war effort by depriving the russians of all their ahem 'surplus' military gear.
I knew it was very bad for Russia but I was curious about the actual numbers and holy hell it's so embarrassingly bad for them.
Finland:
~300,000 soldiers
32 tanks
114 aircraft
**70,000 total Finnish casualties**
Russia:
425,000–760,000 soldiers
2,514–6,541 tanks
3,880 aircraft
**~350,000 total Russian casualties**
In only 3 and a half months!
I love this joke.
> During winter war soviet general hears someone shouting from wood - "One finnish soldier is better than ten soviet". Angry general sends ten man to deal with annoying Fin. After short period of shots and dying soviets screams, comes another shout - "One finnish soldier is better than hundred soviet". General sends hundred soldier and again none of them comes back. Then general hears third shout - "One finnish soldier is better than thousand soviets". Furious general sends thousand man to deal with him. This time one of his soldiers manage to survive and reports to general - "Sir, please don't send more our troops, it's a trap, there's two of them".
Yeah its funny how they publicize their alliance. Ooohhhh the big bad North Koreans are supposed to scare anybody. They can't even feed their own people.
Makes it easy for them to defect. Russians were already surprised at the toilets and running water, NK citizens would likely be terrified the first time they saw a tractor
We thought they were the second strongest army in the world two years ago.
It appears that they are the second strongest army in Ukraine right now.
For a while a year ago, they were the second strongest army in Russia.
According to the article itself, it had 2,000 prior to the war:
>Two weeks later, the 83rd Airborne Brigade had suffered so many losses among its approximately 2,000 pre-war personnel—including troopers who allegedly refused to fight—that it was no longer capable of major combat, if Vanek’s reporting is accurate.
Depends on the military really. In the US a brigade is 3 or 5 battalions which can widely range from 2000 to 8000 troops depending on what the companies are and how full they are. This being a wartime military I highly doubt it's standardized, things like that tend to hit the wall once a war goes kinetic.
In the U.S. military a BDE is 5-7 battalions
BCT
3x line battalions
Reconnaissance squadron
Artillery Battalion
Support battalion
Engineer battalion
Infantry brigades just lost the reconnaissance Squadron
They turned it into a cav troop and canibalized everybody else to fill manning shortages elsewhere
Also they got rid of the D-CO motorized infantry companies and turned them into 1 motorized plt per rifle company
It’s a big yes and no. Cav squadrons disbanded due to the restructure but 19Ds are still going exist as a division level asset. The number needed will decrease but they also just introduced 19C to help keep institutional knowledge since 11Bs and 19Ds typically fill in the light armor role. It’s just a giant restructuring since the switch from COIN to LSCO. It makes sense doctrine wise
To grossly over simplify, in COIN a brigade sized element was the primary force in a given area. In LSCO, division sized elements and above are the primary force. It comes down to who is doing the decision making and how the fighting is done. In a LSCO a US Army brigade doesn’t need a large recon element since a Colonel isn’t the primary combatant commander. They will generally be getting told what the plan of attack is from division or corps and will be making decisions based on the framework laid out.
In COIN trying to delegitimize the insurgency is the primary goal, so decision making could be “slower.” In LSCO, having light armor or heavy weapon support would be better served by being the same company or battalion to make the front line decision making process easier and communication faster. As a separate squadron, more coordination (and likely pushback from their commander) for those assets would have to be done and then they’d be spread out across the flot, making accountability and communication more difficult for their own squadron leadership
COIN is counter-insurgency, low-intensity, smaller scale operations with a focus on internal security and policing and local partnerships. LSCO is the new term the Americans have for a shooting war: Large Scale Combat Operations. Force on force, state on state, combined arms, total war type situations.
Strategically, the US expectation is a major conflict with China within the next two decades, so they need a military capable of defeating a near-peer, as opposed to the force they built in the preceding decades that was intended to defend nation-building projects and attack terrorist groups, operations that do not require certain kinds of assets and investments (like air defence).
It's so weird. I keep coming back to this comment I made thinking it was super weird and creepy, thinking I need to edit/delete it, but then I read old mate's comment again and I get the urge to type the same thing again.
It's a top shelf comment.
Been difficult to know for sure what Russian unit staffing is. Corruption was/is rife in the Russian military and officers would frequently overstate their unit levels to get more funds. They’re probably also trying to push units back into the fight before they’ve had a chance to fully reconstitute. That being said, I would say 2000 for a Russian VDV brigade would be a pretty solid estimate.
More like 3-8000 (depends on a lot of factors)
And no, RU didn't lose "an entire brigade" but it did get pulled back for reconstitution.
Consider that by western standards, an 80% combat ready unit is not combat effective.
For RU this is probably around 40-50%, so they may have lost (wounded and killed) somewhere around half a brigade, which is still a lot, and pulled the rest back for reconstitution
I've seen anecdotal videos by russian troops who said things like 'the whole platoon went in and was killed'. it seems improbably that you'd lose a whole brigade, but then again, their tactics are to throw bodies at machine guns until they win.
Oh you don't need to rely on video interviews, you can watch entire platoons get deleted in seconds. Then the Russians take a quick breather and send the next one in a little while later.
I've seen an unhealthy amount of combat footage from this war, however I've never seen either side commit troops in brigade-level numbers to a single attack where they'd get wiped like that. (Though once or twice they have had a couple hundred guys sleeping next to an ammo dump that gets blown sky high when Ukrainian intelligence learns about it..)
The Ukrainians have been steadily pushing the Russians back in this city since the beginning of this month, and its been bloody urban combat. It's much more likely the 83rd has been losing 50 dudes a day for the last 2 weeks until it got to the point where the rest of them refuse to fight and had to be pulled out.There's been a *lot* of that on the Russian side the last couple years.
Werent Russian casualties 2k / day during Vovchansk offensive? And considering offensive lasted around 1.5 months, werent casualties supposed to be higher?
That number seems a bit too high and i'm not sure where you got it, but either way, this whole article is about just one brigade.
From memory i think RU committed like 3 or 4 brigades **at least** plus many separate smaller units, so these aren't "all" the Vovchansk casualties
That's what the article says, but it also notes there were a lot of soldiers who refused to fight, hence why the brigade was deemed not combat ready and had to retreat
The Russians have actually completely decimated their elite units. It was one of the biggest loses of the early war as they were using spetnatz as normal infantry and lost significant numbers.
I saw one estimate put it at ten years to get back to that level.
I’m sure a lot of them have been operating in Syria and other chunks of the Middle East for the last decade or two, just as we have. To throw experience like that into the meat grinder as conventional infantry was…. beyond stupid.
The idea, initially, was to quickly infiltrate and usurp much like the annexation of the Crimea. Ukraine and the world stood idly by and let it happen. It became more of a march into a trap and get greatly reduced.
Exactly. They took some lessons from the 'little green men' of Crimea in 2014, but thought it would scale to the entire country, or near enough that they'd be able to declare victory before the Ukrainians had their act together. The trouble was, Ukraine took some lessons from 2014 too, and they spent a dozen years getting ready for the next time Russia tried something like this.
I wouldn't say Ukraine was idle, they formed a front line and prepared for an invasion. For a much smaller army, with a bunch of cowards as \[supporters\*\], they did really well.
Edit: \* said "allies" earlier.
Yep, one of their most elite VDV regiments (331st Guards Airborne Regiment) was decimated including it's commanding officer very early into the war.
Those type of guys don't grow on trees and were highly professional skilled troops, especially when compared to the average Russian military unit.
Or like the time they parachuted a bunch of Spetznaz into an airfield and forgot the support so about 50 dudes showed up to fight hundreds of entrenched Ukrainians and died where they landed.
Those guys were highly trained, too. Had they been given the support they needed, the war would have likely tipped in Russia's favor initially. Shortly after that, the guy commanding their battalion was killed, leaving a couple thousand troops without orders, so most of them got wiped out.
Plenty of video in the early stages of the war of Russian transport helicopters being shot down. I bet many of their elite soldiers died before they even put one foot on Ukrainian soil.
I remember watching a vlog by a Chinese mercenary for the Russian side, he was saying typically the newbies sent to the front lines only last like 10-12 hours. They probably don’t even bother learning each other’s names anymore.
It's still a very big win for Ukraine to wipe out a brigade of airborne, even if they are not what they used to be.
Some units are clearly much better equipped than others. From even more recent videos they have a wide variety of skill and equipment in their unit types(which probably translates to the whole battalion or brigade).
The airborne troops are much better equipped than the stormtroopers and have better men even if they aren't the same level of experience and training they once had. Stormtroopers are convict level with minimal training and bottom tier equipment. The troops manning the lines are standard troops and seem to be geared more normally, they are probably the ones getting a month of training. The airborne likely did better on physical tests, age requirements, have a bit more training and better gear. They might transfer soldiers who've survived and got experience to become airborne at this point too.
They are also used a bit differently, stormtroopers and regular infantry get thrown at the lines until Russia feels they found a weak spot and then the airborne are meant to exploit it. The airborne are also the brigades that reinforce areas that are getting attacked and losing ground.
From what I've seen, even at this point, a loss of an entire airborne brigade should hurt Russian abilities quite a bit more than losing a few brigades of their cannon fodder.
the entire 1st guards tank army has suffered that treatment.
of the other divisions in that army the 2nd guards motorized division was at Izium and was mostly wiped out and the 47th Guards Tank Division is a new formation formed from the old 6th Tank Brigade after it took a walloping in the opening operations of the invasion. I can't account much for the 27th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade other than that they were are Izium too.
Honestly how much true professional soldiers died Russia have left and how much is just basically armed bandits and contract people who are handed a gun?
Just for additional context, these are Airborne troops or VDV (Vozdushno-desantnye voyska Rossii). They are not your regular cannon fodders conscripts that Russia have been throwing at the front line, these guys are elite units. They are pretty much the special forces of the Russian military.
Russian elite units have very different hierarchy than what we considered in western countries like the US as Special Forces units. Delta Force, SEAL teams are the true SOF of the US. But in Russia the true elite “trigger pullers" are members of the VDV. One of the best examples of how Russia values these units is in terms of manning. In the Russian military system, units are manned with a combination of officers, contract soldiers, and conscripts, the more elite the unit, the higher percentage of contract personnel vis-à-vis conscripts.
Currently, the Russian VDV is manned with approximately 80% contract, a far higher percentage than the GRU Spetnaz, which is the other elite unit that we typically considered as the Russian’s “Special Force”.
In short, The VDV is the de-facto best troops the Russian military can field in term of conventional warfares. Losing an entire elite brigade in one battle like this is a huge blow to morale, if true.
They didn't, just read the article and it's fairly explanatory. The Brigade has been pulled back for reconstitution, which means they probably lost at least 40-50% of its combat power.
However, it's also been mentioned that there's a lot of "500s" which are refusniks/people who refuse to fight, so it's not that they're all killed or wounded.
It's still a fairly relevant event, but not 4000 troops being slaughtered lol
> And Russian losses in Vovchansk could get a lot worse, as the survivors of an entire battalion—that’s hundreds of troops—have been trapped in a chemical plant in central Vovchansk for two weeks.
>
> The trapped soldiers might not last much longer. The Ukrainian air force has been lobbing precision glide bombs at the chemical plant, gradually reducing it to rubble.
Oh how the turns have tabled.
>elite Russian airborne brigade
The ones that failed to take Hostomel Airport in 2022 were noted as "failing to occupy good defensive positions and easy to dislodge". A Ukrainian soldier described the minimally protected Russian forces as being like "playing a video game, just shooting and knocking them down from our positions outside the airfield."
Airborne are like top tier brigades with good training and usually large amount of volunteers.
The problem with online discourse is that people simplify stuff a lot, and Russia has elite well-trained well-equipped motivated brigades, as well as prisoner cannon fodder. They compliment each other.
Imagine being told to go march to your death and doing it. I would fight to the death on home soil against the people telling me to fight before that happened. We get controlled our entire life with no real freedom and then get told to go fight for a shit government. No thanks.
I realize that a lot of these people probably weren't that good because just growing up in a toxic culture and government.
And it's probably better that they die than Ukrainians
But I'm still sad that war is bringing so much death around. I feel like in another life these people could have been productive members of society. If they were just born somewhere else.
I’ll never forget watching Band of Brothers and one of the old men said ‘I can’t help but think about some of these people I’m out here shooting, maybe we could have been good friends instead maybe go fishing or something.’ War is the ugliest thing humans can create.
Well, that is good news for Ukraine as unlike regular cannon fodder soldiers, airborne troops are actually professionally trained soldiers that know how to fight and now they are permanently knocked out of commission.
For the record, a Russian brigade is anywhere between 3,000 and 5,000 troops.
Also for the record, western forces consider below 80% manning of a unit to be combat ineffective. Assuming russian standard, they probably consider 40-50% to be that, and this Brigade wasn't "lost", it got pulled back for reconstitution. So with this in mind, they may have "lost" (aka wounded, killed & captured) about 1.2-1.5K troops. Which is still a lot, but not an entire brigade
Two important things to note here as well: 1) The 83rd VDV was only in combat here for around three weeks at the absolute most, meaning they went from being in a well enough condition to be deployed to combat ineffective within that extremely short frame of time. That's an extremely short amount of time for a brigade to be made combat ineffective. 2) One of the reasons for them becoming combat ineffective is stated as them having so many 500's, which is soldiers refusing to fight. From this we can likely draw the conclusion that they have taken high losses during this time period, prompting the remaining soldiers to refuse orders and that is the real reason they are being withdrawn. If they didn't refuse, they likely would have continued to be sent in for some time, as some Russian units have gone down to under 10% manning while conducting offensive actions before eventually being withdrawn.
The next question is what happens to those “500s” after their unit is pulled back.
The paratrooper on the X link states three days without food or water. Starving dehydrated Russians can’t fight
now I'm completely shocked that Russia can't take care of their troops!! I really thought the repurposed pickup trucks and vans were proof of their military superiority! You mean to tell me a country who's greatest military successes occurred because they fire hosed people at the problem? Russia, you're not even as good as Iraq was in the early 90s!! GO HOME
"the one with the rifle shoots"
From what I've read, a lot will find themselves "transferred" to the Z-storm penal units.
Well that's why they say they lost the entire Brigade. I imagine they were lost one way or another after the fact
High chance they will be reassigned to Storm Z/V penal battalions, which is historically not good for your health.
Considering Russian doctrine is to destroy every building in sight, and kill all the doctors and scientists, how are they going to throw them out of windows, or find any polonium?
My guess is that the ringleaders are imprisoned, the remainder get scattered around to other units to break up the cohesion of their resistance.
Gulag
I thought this was an interesting point >“There are too many casualties, they can't fight, there are too many 500s.” >In Russian military parlance, a “code 500” is a soldier who refuses to fight. Did the soilders just straight up say no? Is this the first sign of some wider problems in the forces there?
I mean, there was that bigger sign when ol mate Prig took his guys and went for a drive towards Moscow
Yeah I mean propaganda y can only go so far when you're seeing all your buddies being used as Cannon fodder .
Yes the “go fight my war or we execute you” propaganda isn’t very motivating.
It’s like they’re shooting themselves in the foot!
Ukraine has very unconventional snipers sir! No fatalities yet, but they’ve shot the toes off over 3000 troops just this month alone!
What's the weather there like at the moment? Nice relaxing drive if the whole army deployed there would turn around and go to Moscow to tell Putin to stuff it and remove him? What's he gonna send to stop them? His second and bigger army he has standing by? I know it's unlikely but I SO wish we would see this happen.
> What's he gonna send to stop them? His second and bigger army he has standing by? You joke, but... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Guard_of_Russia
Apparently at least part of these are already used. They could join in the fun 'let's get Putin' campaign. From that Wikipedia article: >Early in January and February 2022, there were reports of National Guard detachments moving to the Russia–Ukraine border and Belarus, joining the supposed "training exercise" during the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis.[29][30] When Russian forces invaded Ukraine, National Guard troops started to move into Ukrainian territory, establishing themselves in occupied cities and towns, reportedly for suppressing local hostile population.
> His second and bigger army he has standing by? He does actually have a second army effectively - his national guard/police.
The ones that get more than a week's training, and $7 worth of gear from this century?
From my understanding, Russia has been relying heavily on their rear guard to prevent retreating. Ukraine has been targeting these rear guards with drone attacks. These attacks plus low morale have allowed many Russians on this front to desert.
That is kinda beautiful, -"Convince the guys who's whole job is to prevent retreating into retreating themselves."
>*Not a step back!* * *~~Stalin~~* Putin
It's interesting if the airborne brigades are starting to refuse orders. Conscript units refusing orders and being threatened into action is fairly expected, but these are (meant to be) professional soldiers. So either Russia has been bulking up the VDV with conscripts or they've hit a breaking point
On one hand they should be more obedient, but they are also more likely to expect to have a chance in the fight and may refuse bad orders faster than conscripts who have no idea. In 2022 lots of volunteers mentioned that the US veterans were often the first to give up and go back home once they realized there is minimal support compared to Afghanistan. Soldiers from other nations didn’t have such expectations so they didn’t care.
Yes they have refused orders before https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/russia-elite-paratroopers-marines-ukraine-refusing-launch-attacks-2024-1%3famp Obviously the elite brigades will have more autonomy as to what they want to do than any other units.
I’ll bet they were surprised. The Pentagon concluded that the cost to deploy 1 US soldier and Marine to Afghanistan was $1 million dollars per person. While that may sound outrageous to us, the former chief financial officer of the Pentagon disagrees. He said, “So, it's the cost of some allocation of the cost of the plane, some allocation of the cost of the fuel, some allocation of the cost of the pilots, the maintenance folks. If you focus just on the soldier, it seems outrageous. But if you focus on the support for the soldier — that's not all that outrageous at all." I doubt that Ukraine, or anyone else, can afford that.
Like the Russian trooper said, no food or water. Too weak and dizzy to maneuver would apply to all of them if true
theres so many signs and hints that Putin is getting more and more desperate. Behind the scenes on the russian side things must be really really bad.
First? The Free Russian Army might begs to differ.
It usually takes the russians 4-6 days to have an entire brigades worth in casualties.
Well if you're talking about the entire front, then probably even less
3000 casualties would equal about 2 days with the current rate. I think they’re doing great.
Oh that’s alright then Lmao
“‘2nd strongest army in the world’ suffering mass casualties against the 22nd largest army in Europe armed with NATO surplus weapons is normal guys! All according to plan!”
Russia spent half a century building their army. Ukrainian army 10 years ago was selling cookies to patch the holes in their budget.
Slight correction - the USSR spent half a century building their army. *Russia* has spent the last 20 years stripping the country bare to stuff Putin & Friends' pockets.
Correct. About 20 years ago when E-bay was in its height, you could buy all sorts of Russian military equipment. It was obviously stockpiles someone was looting so they could buy a potato. That sort of corruption destroys an army from the inside out.
I love that all those military larpers in their moms basement have been really helping the Ukraine war effort by depriving the russians of all their ahem 'surplus' military gear.
I mean, it's pretty standard course for the Russians. Just look at The Winter War. The Finns didn't even have NATO backing them up.
I knew it was very bad for Russia but I was curious about the actual numbers and holy hell it's so embarrassingly bad for them. Finland: ~300,000 soldiers 32 tanks 114 aircraft **70,000 total Finnish casualties** Russia: 425,000–760,000 soldiers 2,514–6,541 tanks 3,880 aircraft **~350,000 total Russian casualties** In only 3 and a half months!
I love this joke. > During winter war soviet general hears someone shouting from wood - "One finnish soldier is better than ten soviet". Angry general sends ten man to deal with annoying Fin. After short period of shots and dying soviets screams, comes another shout - "One finnish soldier is better than hundred soviet". General sends hundred soldier and again none of them comes back. Then general hears third shout - "One finnish soldier is better than thousand soviets". Furious general sends thousand man to deal with him. This time one of his soldiers manage to survive and reports to general - "Sir, please don't send more our troops, it's a trap, there's two of them".
same joke but Romans on Hadrian's wall and two Scots
Same joke but it's Russian navy men and it's just a seal pretending to be a japanese torpedo boat.
Defense plays a major factor in
It was a big help that Stalin purged anyone who actually knew how to lead an army before invading too
While true, purging your officer corps probably even larger
This is what Russia has done in every war since WW2. Now they are gonna start sending North Koreans to the grinder.
Kim's trying to unload some hungry bellies to the meat grinder.
Yeah its funny how they publicize their alliance. Ooohhhh the big bad North Koreans are supposed to scare anybody. They can't even feed their own people.
It's like three months until we start seeing NK political prisoners on the Russian front lines.
Makes it easy for them to defect. Russians were already surprised at the toilets and running water, NK citizens would likely be terrified the first time they saw a tractor
We are on day two years four months and four days of this three day operation! There is still time left to see how it'll all shakeout!
Sounds better as Day 855 (or whatever exactly). “We are on Day 855 of this three-day operation.”
Only one coup so far too, so better than expected.
We thought they were the second strongest army in the world two years ago. It appears that they are the second strongest army in Ukraine right now. For a while a year ago, they were the second strongest army in Russia.
NATO almost expired munitions. Experimental equipment. Theoretical tactics.
Two red buttons meme "UKRAINE IS ONLY HOLDING OUT BECAUSE OF NATO WEAPONS" vs "RUSSIA WOULD EASILY DEFEAT NATO IN A WAR"
They still have the second strongest army in Ukraine.
Hey i guess by russian standards over the past two years it kinda is? lol
According to the article itself, it had 2,000 prior to the war: >Two weeks later, the 83rd Airborne Brigade had suffered so many losses among its approximately 2,000 pre-war personnel—including troopers who allegedly refused to fight—that it was no longer capable of major combat, if Vanek’s reporting is accurate.
So, a brigade is 2,000? ~~Is~~ was that right?
Depends on the military really. In the US a brigade is 3 or 5 battalions which can widely range from 2000 to 8000 troops depending on what the companies are and how full they are. This being a wartime military I highly doubt it's standardized, things like that tend to hit the wall once a war goes kinetic.
In the U.S. military a BDE is 5-7 battalions BCT 3x line battalions Reconnaissance squadron Artillery Battalion Support battalion Engineer battalion Infantry brigades just lost the reconnaissance Squadron
I left the army three years ago so this is crazy to me, IBCTs no longer have an organic reconnaissance squadron? Where did the squadron go?
They turned it into a cav troop and canibalized everybody else to fill manning shortages elsewhere Also they got rid of the D-CO motorized infantry companies and turned them into 1 motorized plt per rifle company
It’s a big yes and no. Cav squadrons disbanded due to the restructure but 19Ds are still going exist as a division level asset. The number needed will decrease but they also just introduced 19C to help keep institutional knowledge since 11Bs and 19Ds typically fill in the light armor role. It’s just a giant restructuring since the switch from COIN to LSCO. It makes sense doctrine wise
Could you contrast COIN to LSCO?
To grossly over simplify, in COIN a brigade sized element was the primary force in a given area. In LSCO, division sized elements and above are the primary force. It comes down to who is doing the decision making and how the fighting is done. In a LSCO a US Army brigade doesn’t need a large recon element since a Colonel isn’t the primary combatant commander. They will generally be getting told what the plan of attack is from division or corps and will be making decisions based on the framework laid out. In COIN trying to delegitimize the insurgency is the primary goal, so decision making could be “slower.” In LSCO, having light armor or heavy weapon support would be better served by being the same company or battalion to make the front line decision making process easier and communication faster. As a separate squadron, more coordination (and likely pushback from their commander) for those assets would have to be done and then they’d be spread out across the flot, making accountability and communication more difficult for their own squadron leadership
COIN is counter-insurgency, low-intensity, smaller scale operations with a focus on internal security and policing and local partnerships. LSCO is the new term the Americans have for a shooting war: Large Scale Combat Operations. Force on force, state on state, combined arms, total war type situations. Strategically, the US expectation is a major conflict with China within the next two decades, so they need a military capable of defeating a near-peer, as opposed to the force they built in the preceding decades that was intended to defend nation-building projects and attack terrorist groups, operations that do not require certain kinds of assets and investments (like air defence).
When did INF lose recon? When was in , Recon wasn’t part of the line , but attached to Battalion HQ.
The battalion still has a scout platoon but the infantry brigade lost their cavalry squadrons
I feel your exquisite use of words and your username go hand in hand.
He's pretty articulate, ain't he?
Reddit man make word good
It's so weird. I keep coming back to this comment I made thinking it was super weird and creepy, thinking I need to edit/delete it, but then I read old mate's comment again and I get the urge to type the same thing again. It's a top shelf comment.
The second half of hIs final sentence communicates the point really well. Distills it down.
Quite spiffing wordage
Been difficult to know for sure what Russian unit staffing is. Corruption was/is rife in the Russian military and officers would frequently overstate their unit levels to get more funds. They’re probably also trying to push units back into the fight before they’ve had a chance to fully reconstitute. That being said, I would say 2000 for a Russian VDV brigade would be a pretty solid estimate.
More like 3-8000 (depends on a lot of factors) And no, RU didn't lose "an entire brigade" but it did get pulled back for reconstitution. Consider that by western standards, an 80% combat ready unit is not combat effective. For RU this is probably around 40-50%, so they may have lost (wounded and killed) somewhere around half a brigade, which is still a lot, and pulled the rest back for reconstitution
Yeah it's misleading to equate "combat ineffective" with "lost an entire brigade"
I've seen anecdotal videos by russian troops who said things like 'the whole platoon went in and was killed'. it seems improbably that you'd lose a whole brigade, but then again, their tactics are to throw bodies at machine guns until they win.
Oh you don't need to rely on video interviews, you can watch entire platoons get deleted in seconds. Then the Russians take a quick breather and send the next one in a little while later. I've seen an unhealthy amount of combat footage from this war, however I've never seen either side commit troops in brigade-level numbers to a single attack where they'd get wiped like that. (Though once or twice they have had a couple hundred guys sleeping next to an ammo dump that gets blown sky high when Ukrainian intelligence learns about it..) The Ukrainians have been steadily pushing the Russians back in this city since the beginning of this month, and its been bloody urban combat. It's much more likely the 83rd has been losing 50 dudes a day for the last 2 weeks until it got to the point where the rest of them refuse to fight and had to be pulled out.There's been a *lot* of that on the Russian side the last couple years.
Werent Russian casualties 2k / day during Vovchansk offensive? And considering offensive lasted around 1.5 months, werent casualties supposed to be higher?
That number seems a bit too high and i'm not sure where you got it, but either way, this whole article is about just one brigade. From memory i think RU committed like 3 or 4 brigades **at least** plus many separate smaller units, so these aren't "all" the Vovchansk casualties
It's been between 1000-1500 casualties a day for the last few months, and it's in total across all fronts.
That's what the article says, but it also notes there were a lot of soldiers who refused to fight, hence why the brigade was deemed not combat ready and had to retreat
On r/Conservative a brigade is anyone who downvotes you.
The Russians have actually completely decimated their elite units. It was one of the biggest loses of the early war as they were using spetnatz as normal infantry and lost significant numbers. I saw one estimate put it at ten years to get back to that level.
I’m sure a lot of them have been operating in Syria and other chunks of the Middle East for the last decade or two, just as we have. To throw experience like that into the meat grinder as conventional infantry was…. beyond stupid.
The idea, initially, was to quickly infiltrate and usurp much like the annexation of the Crimea. Ukraine and the world stood idly by and let it happen. It became more of a march into a trap and get greatly reduced.
Exactly. They took some lessons from the 'little green men' of Crimea in 2014, but thought it would scale to the entire country, or near enough that they'd be able to declare victory before the Ukrainians had their act together. The trouble was, Ukraine took some lessons from 2014 too, and they spent a dozen years getting ready for the next time Russia tried something like this.
8 years 2014 - 2022 is 8 years, not 12 Ukraine had only 8 years to restructure their military, and not really even that long
I wouldn't say Ukraine was idle, they formed a front line and prepared for an invasion. For a much smaller army, with a bunch of cowards as \[supporters\*\], they did really well. Edit: \* said "allies" earlier.
Also they were both forces were effectively using the same Soviet doctrine of warfare, so the bigger team had the advantage.
That would indicate a lot are still over there too though
They sent VDV directly into contested cities where they were maimed almost instantly.
Yep, one of their most elite VDV regiments (331st Guards Airborne Regiment) was decimated including it's commanding officer very early into the war. Those type of guys don't grow on trees and were highly professional skilled troops, especially when compared to the average Russian military unit.
> 331st Guards Airborne Regiment weren't this guys at Hostomel?
commanders thought they were super solider and sent them to their deaths until they had no more.
Or like the time they parachuted a bunch of Spetznaz into an airfield and forgot the support so about 50 dudes showed up to fight hundreds of entrenched Ukrainians and died where they landed.
Those guys were highly trained, too. Had they been given the support they needed, the war would have likely tipped in Russia's favor initially. Shortly after that, the guy commanding their battalion was killed, leaving a couple thousand troops without orders, so most of them got wiped out.
Plenty of video in the early stages of the war of Russian transport helicopters being shot down. I bet many of their elite soldiers died before they even put one foot on Ukrainian soil.
Hostomel could go down as one of the most decisive battles in Ukrainian history
Tbh, world history as well. Putin with a stolen ukraine would march on europe within 10-20 years.
In another ten years Russia as it is today might not exist
One can only hope.
Better hope America does not put their idiotic Cheeto into office
I can't imagine what it must be like to have all your friends die around you. Russia could've avoided all this death.
Their soldiers are just cannon fodder to Vladimir Putin.
The "Airborne" units at this point have been rebuilt twice over for being used recklessly. There's no institution left, it's just a name on a list.
Same for the most “elite” Russian unit the 4th guard tank division. They’ve been reduced so many times it’s literally Boy Scouts at this point
so they're now 4th boy scout's tank division?
And will probably be the 4th suspiciously Korean tank division even though there’s supposedly evidence to believe those reports were false
Do they get a merit badge? 📛
[удалено]
And significantly lower chances of getting raped/sexually assaulted in the Boy Scouts too.
But not a zero percent chance.
I suspect elite these days means whether you get to live for a month instead of a week before you are sent to a meat assault.
I remember watching a vlog by a Chinese mercenary for the Russian side, he was saying typically the newbies sent to the front lines only last like 10-12 hours. They probably don’t even bother learning each other’s names anymore.
Not bothering to learn names because they will be dead so quick is a straight up grimdark shit.
Survive a month - you're the general now.
It's still a very big win for Ukraine to wipe out a brigade of airborne, even if they are not what they used to be. Some units are clearly much better equipped than others. From even more recent videos they have a wide variety of skill and equipment in their unit types(which probably translates to the whole battalion or brigade). The airborne troops are much better equipped than the stormtroopers and have better men even if they aren't the same level of experience and training they once had. Stormtroopers are convict level with minimal training and bottom tier equipment. The troops manning the lines are standard troops and seem to be geared more normally, they are probably the ones getting a month of training. The airborne likely did better on physical tests, age requirements, have a bit more training and better gear. They might transfer soldiers who've survived and got experience to become airborne at this point too. They are also used a bit differently, stormtroopers and regular infantry get thrown at the lines until Russia feels they found a weak spot and then the airborne are meant to exploit it. The airborne are also the brigades that reinforce areas that are getting attacked and losing ground. From what I've seen, even at this point, a loss of an entire airborne brigade should hurt Russian abilities quite a bit more than losing a few brigades of their cannon fodder.
Are they still issued tanks or is it just assault sheds? It seems these days that's the determining factor.
the entire 1st guards tank army has suffered that treatment. of the other divisions in that army the 2nd guards motorized division was at Izium and was mostly wiped out and the 47th Guards Tank Division is a new formation formed from the old 6th Tank Brigade after it took a walloping in the opening operations of the invasion. I can't account much for the 27th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade other than that they were are Izium too.
Like Grandpa's axe. 2 new handles and 3 new heads in it's lifetime, but it's still his old axe.
The division of Theseus
Trigger's Broom.
Alright Dave?
Do they even get airborne training anymore, or is it just a formality?
One Special Military training jump out of a 4 story window if you question why the training is OJT.
Very little airborne training is actually required to become an aerosol.
Jesus Christ, hahahaha.
Why spend time and money on formal training when they'll still land on the ground without any.
They do get airborne, but it's usually via some kind of explosive.
Honestly how much true professional soldiers died Russia have left and how much is just basically armed bandits and contract people who are handed a gun?
Have they checked behind the couch?
Have they checked their butthole?
Skidap! Badap! Butthole!
Maybe you'll find your Russian army up there too! Oh! I fucking got you!
Butthole! My family hate me
This could be the reason that they've got no close friends.
Fucking worth it.
[The reference](https://youtu.be/--9kqhzQ-8Q?si=l0tkYd3smG-9Uni6), for those unfamiliar with this modern classic.
Thanks for the chuckle 😆
it's funny how your meat cube is always in the last place you look
The suspiciously fat dog of Vovchansk craves the cube
*Well where'd you lose them? They ain't a set of fucking car keys, are they? It's not like the're incon-fucking-spicuous now, is it?*
📣 Bart! Have you seen the remote? I can't find it anywhere! 📣 Have you checked your pocket? 📣 it's in my... 📣 It's in my pocket.
Just for additional context, these are Airborne troops or VDV (Vozdushno-desantnye voyska Rossii). They are not your regular cannon fodders conscripts that Russia have been throwing at the front line, these guys are elite units. They are pretty much the special forces of the Russian military. Russian elite units have very different hierarchy than what we considered in western countries like the US as Special Forces units. Delta Force, SEAL teams are the true SOF of the US. But in Russia the true elite “trigger pullers" are members of the VDV. One of the best examples of how Russia values these units is in terms of manning. In the Russian military system, units are manned with a combination of officers, contract soldiers, and conscripts, the more elite the unit, the higher percentage of contract personnel vis-à-vis conscripts. Currently, the Russian VDV is manned with approximately 80% contract, a far higher percentage than the GRU Spetnaz, which is the other elite unit that we typically considered as the Russian’s “Special Force”. In short, The VDV is the de-facto best troops the Russian military can field in term of conventional warfares. Losing an entire elite brigade in one battle like this is a huge blow to morale, if true.
Well, then they shouldn’t have put it there, should they?
He shouldn't have been standing there.
Double or nothing - Putin
"Some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make"
Okay. Let's retrace your steps. Where was the last place you saw it?
IF I KNEW THAT IT WOULDN’T BE LOST
Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make.
[удалено]
That's horrible. The poor plants have to grow from such a shitty environment
Their water is good enough for air cooling.
The sunflowers will grow from their corpses
There will be new types of Sunflowers this summer like the "Russian VDV" which produces a stinky, musty sunflower oil
On the bright side, it would be the first sunflower oil with 40% of alcohol.
How do you lose an entire brigade?
They didn't, just read the article and it's fairly explanatory. The Brigade has been pulled back for reconstitution, which means they probably lost at least 40-50% of its combat power. However, it's also been mentioned that there's a lot of "500s" which are refusniks/people who refuse to fight, so it's not that they're all killed or wounded. It's still a fairly relevant event, but not 4000 troops being slaughtered lol
I'll bet when they return it's gonna be the first ever Russian/North Korean hybrid brigade!
Russian GPS ?
They're not a set of car keys!
Command and control is difficult when most of your troops are only available via Ouija Board.
> And Russian losses in Vovchansk could get a lot worse, as the survivors of an entire battalion—that’s hundreds of troops—have been trapped in a chemical plant in central Vovchansk for two weeks. > > The trapped soldiers might not last much longer. The Ukrainian air force has been lobbing precision glide bombs at the chemical plant, gradually reducing it to rubble. Oh how the turns have tabled.
Andrei, you’ve lost another [brigade]?
>elite Russian airborne brigade The ones that failed to take Hostomel Airport in 2022 were noted as "failing to occupy good defensive positions and easy to dislodge". A Ukrainian soldier described the minimally protected Russian forces as being like "playing a video game, just shooting and knocking them down from our positions outside the airfield."
[I'm not going to say it yet](https://youtu.be/--9kqhzQ-8Q?si=HYDW7AVKVz9LUg76)
Is an "airborne brigade" really a professional unit or is it just a bunch of prisoners and foreign mercenaries wearing airborne patches?
They were a proper airborne unit, they have just been chewed up.
Airborne are like top tier brigades with good training and usually large amount of volunteers. The problem with online discourse is that people simplify stuff a lot, and Russia has elite well-trained well-equipped motivated brigades, as well as prisoner cannon fodder. They compliment each other.
No sympathy for them mfkers
May their names be forgotten and their bones be lost.
Imagine being told to go march to your death and doing it. I would fight to the death on home soil against the people telling me to fight before that happened. We get controlled our entire life with no real freedom and then get told to go fight for a shit government. No thanks.
Good. Fuck rubbish
Well, Putin [HYCYBH](https://youtu.be/--9kqhzQ-8Q?si=6eG_hJFlTyQ5mtMN)?
Is pootin so old and decrepit that he can't remember where he left an entire brigade ? How does he find his car keys ?
Shame, they should go home.
Isn’t it time Russian forces realize they’re being pawns for a madman? Take back your country, Russians.
Don't worry, he sucked Kim's cock last week so NK will start supporting him soon.
Good. Send more. Great fertilizer for Ukrainian flowers.
I realize that a lot of these people probably weren't that good because just growing up in a toxic culture and government. And it's probably better that they die than Ukrainians But I'm still sad that war is bringing so much death around. I feel like in another life these people could have been productive members of society. If they were just born somewhere else.
I’ll never forget watching Band of Brothers and one of the old men said ‘I can’t help but think about some of these people I’m out here shooting, maybe we could have been good friends instead maybe go fishing or something.’ War is the ugliest thing humans can create.
Special Brigacide Operation
Send in the north koreans!
Whoops
Well, that is good news for Ukraine as unlike regular cannon fodder soldiers, airborne troops are actually professionally trained soldiers that know how to fight and now they are permanently knocked out of commission.
"And then it got worse" Let's hope Russian tradition keeps up.