In a recent intelligence update, the UK Ministry of Defence reported that Russian Ground Forces (RGF) have made steady advances in central Donetsk Oblast throughout July 2024.
The RGF has captured several villages and is progressing westwards towards the strategic logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
Additionally, Russian troops have advanced northwards into the town of Niu York, a frontline area since 2014, which is now contested between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
The UK update highlighted that despite these territorial gains, the Russian military is experiencing significant challenges. The RGF is facing high casualty rates and a shortage of officers, which are hampering their overall operational capability. The intelligence update suggests that while Russia may continue to make tactical advances in the coming weeks, these gains come at a steep cost.
The Ministry of Defence stated, “The RGF made steady advances westwards, taking control of several villages and moving closer to the logistics hub of Pokrovsk. The RGF also made advances northwards into the town of Niu York, which has been on the frontline since 2014. The town is almost certainly contested between the RGF and Ukrainian Armed Forces.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 30 July 2024.
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/8a9J78bCiw #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/tGJr16aYRR
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) July 30, 2024
The ongoing conflict has seen both Russian and Ukrainian forces suffer heavy casualties. British defence chiefs warned that Russian forces are likely to seize more territory in the near future, despite the high attrition rate and limited training impacting their operational effectiveness.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military campaign, which began in February 2022, aims to capture four regions of eastern Ukraine. However, the pursuit of this objective has resulted in the deaths and injuries of hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers. Ukrainian forces have also endured significant losses, and the civilian toll is substantial, with tens of thousands killed or injured.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently visited the frontline area of Vovchansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region, near the Russian border, where Moscow’s forces are actively trying to break through.
The Ministry of Defence’s update concluded, “It is likely that Russia will continue to make tactical advances in the coming weeks. However, its overall operational capability remains limited by several factors including a high attrition rate, limited training, and a shortage of officers.”
It sadly comes as no surprise.
Putin will continue to steamroller forward regardless of the cost.
People have to understand he cares not one jot how many Russian conscrips die. If it takes a million or more dead to secure his objectives, then so be it….
How on earth can you fight such a mentality??
I think the initial events of 1917 featured the women of Russia marching through the streets. Kirill needs to denounce him from the pulpit. Unlikely to happen of course.
The Patriarch will be the last person to denounce him, Putin has made him a very rich man and now has him, like very many others, in his pocket. Things won’t start to change until the body bags arrive in numbers in Moscow and St Petersburg. At the moment the bulk of the casualties are from places well removed from the seat of power, only once Muscovites start dying might you see the mothers of Russia start to march.
Very possibly; maybe if the the Russian economy crashes it will bring him down sooner.
The Russian economy is not going to crash in the short term, it actually grew by over 3% last year sustained by the wartime demand for weapons. The critical tipping point might come when the factories run out of soviet era tanks etc to refurbish allied with trying to sustain the casualty rate. I find the Institute for the Study of War an interesting read every morning, try it if you haven’t already. Understandingwar.org.
Useful site, thx.
understandingwar.org: A gem of a site! Far more sense than all the claptrap distributed by mainstream media. Thanks for the pointer.
I can’t believe that the Ukrainians have not executed terrorist acts in . Moscow bringing the war into the everyday lives of the Moscow people would be a great coup for the Ukrainians. but to sink to 5 same level of Indiscriminate killings and that Russia has inflicted on them would not help them at all.
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I’m afraid so Paul, Putin has weaponised the church as part of his great crusade to rid Russa of the shame of loosing what he sees as it’s rightful ‘territory’.
In doing so he’s created a strange hybrid govenment that’s 50/50 Tzarist, Soviet with a pinch of personality cult for good measure….
Mother Russia wants ‘ its’ lost territory back. Very Dangerous times…
It’s effectively turning into North Korea before our eyes….
Well, they say pride comes before a fall. Let’s hope so.
Tragically it needs to be fought with a lot more of The Wests money and tech in the hands of Ukrainians who need to spill much more blood until ordinary Russians have had enough.
Europe getting away from Russian gas and a far more aggressive diplomatic push to try and limit there other fossil fuel markets would also help.
There is probably a theoretical upper bound on the number of casualties Russian society can ensure before political instability ensues. Russian casualties in WW,I and unfortunately, Soviet casualties endured during WWII, are probably valid data points. Reasonably certain that RAND and other analysis centers across NATO are making these calculations. Mad Vlad exhibited some comprehension of this issue when he permitted emigration at the beginning of this conflict. Eminently practical method of eliminating potentially serious internal dissent. Reasonably analogous to the concept of a pressure relief valve. Bottom line: Pessimistic Russian casualties alone will materially affect Russian policy in UKR… Read more »
… society can endure…🙄 (autocorrect strikes again)
The Russian’s can afford to be in the meat grinder for years. The Ukrainian’s cannot as they don’t have the human resource. This will end in a negotiated peace anyone who thinks the Ukrainian’s will win does not Russia stamina and willingness to accept losses that are terrible. best to end this war with negotiation now. Also, I’m not a Russian apologist to all those armchair warriors out there.
Erm, gotta remember that WWI and II as data points have a slight wrinkle in that those casualties include Ukranians, Kazakhs, Estonian, Latvians, Finns, Uzbeks, Georgians, Tukmen, Tajiks, Belarussians… non of whom are dying for Vlad this time.
Yes, did realize that Soviet casualties in WWII reflected the casualties from those groups, and presumably, estimated numbers would be backed out in the analysis. Thought the list was smaller for Tsarist Russia. Was not aware of a similar grouping for WWI, but, would probably be handled in a similar fashion. Thanks for the input. 👍
Tsarist Russia was if anything larger than the USSR, eg it included Finland as part of “Russia”.
the russians have always considered the life of a russian soldier to be negligible. In a true civilised country the whole sad story of the Ukrainian issues would not have been tolerated I’m gob smacked that other factions in the Kremlin have not removed him. I await a nation prepared to execute the international arrest warrant on him. when he next slides his despicable carcass out of the country. but I won’t hold my breath in the expectation that it will ever happen. if there is anything that the civilised work can do to Russia it MUST BE DONE.
It’s the only way Andy…
I could see the possibility of a coup, the Russan military must be getting pissed off with having its capabilities steadily degraded, as all efforts are fed into fueling a WW2 type attritional slog…
This year’s US elections will be pivotal, if the Republicans win, the Russans will be encouraged to double down..
If the Democrats get in and guarantee 4 years of continuing support for Ukraine. Then it might be the straw that breaks the camels back, Putin might well break every bone in his body falling out a bungalow window…..
Unfortunately the only person who was realistically going to launch a coup fell out of a window 10,000 feet high last year.
True Dern, that said, it has to be a group of people with sufficient muscle to make everyone jump ship….
That’s the Russan military head shed.
Putin and his people are well insulated and protected, it’s only the military that have capacity to decapitate them.
Not by restricting UKR military support & supplies. I think we need to be sending troops to relieve some of the pressure on exhausted UKR forces, rather than allowing UKR to be bled dry. Facing down aggresion is the only language tyrants understands & deters others.
So basically Russia is slowly winning the war. And slow defeats tend to end in sudden collapses. If Trump wins, it’s hard to see the Ukraine holding out beyond Jan 2025.