Ukraine War Update NEWS (20231204a): Pt 1 - Overnight & Other News
Table of Contents 📖
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"People are dying as a result of that leveraging, right? But you're not doing it anywhere else. You're not doing it with any other initiative that's going on, any other funding that's going on in the US government. You're only doing it on Ukraine aid."
Hello Team!
Jonathan starts the video with an update on the latest figures from the Ukrainian General Staff on Russian losses. The losses are slightly down from over 1,000 to the 700s, which could be due to weather conditions affecting the fighting. He also looks at Andrew Perpetua's list comparing Ukrainian and Russian losses, showing a ratio of around 4:1 in favour of Ukraine.
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🪦 DISCLAIMER FOR GENERAL STAFF LOSSES DATA
- These are real people with real lives and real families who love them. Don’t let the numbers sap your humanity.
- These numbers probably aren’t accurate but they’re the best we have and we don’t need them to be accurate to be indicative of patterns of activity.
- All losses are estimates. Losses cannot be counted with accuracy because of the conditions on the ground.
- Both sides would see it to be of their advantage to minimize their own losses maximize the other side’s losses.
- Neither side releases their losses but we have enough transparency from the Ukrainian side to have confidence in they are indicative.
- Personnel losses are hard to count. If a soldier gets injured, heals up, and returns to the front line only to get injured again, is that one loss or two? Also, how to deal with losses from PMC’s or soldiers fighting with RF from occupied territories?
- Equipment losses are hard to count. If an AA complex involves several parts and one part gets disabled, is that a loss, or a fraction of a loss? If a tank gets disabled, repaired, back into the fight, then disabled again, is that one lost tank or two?
- All recorded losses are vulnerable to multiple reporting. We have already seen numerous cases of multiple drones in the air reporting the same loss from different angles as multiple engagements.
- Losses are not always reported on the same day they occurred. It is frequent that drone losses are reported at least 24 hours after other terrestrial equipment losses. Certain losses may not be reported for days or weeks for military intelligence reasons.
Analysis of Avdiivka Losses
Jonathan discusses an analysis by Dell (who compiles the General Staff figures into an Excel spreadsheet) on the losses around Avdiivka. During the 53 days of the Russian offensive on Avdiivka (5th Oct - 27th Nov), there was an increase of 372 personnel losses per day on average compared to before the offensive. The Russians also lost an extra 6.5 tanks, 8.3 APVs and almost 13 artillery pieces per day during this period. In total, Russia gained around 20 square kilometres of territory, showing Avdiivka was an incredibly costly campaign for minimal gains. Jonathan notes that Russia appears willing to sacrifice huge numbers of troops and equipment for small territorial gains, as they do not seem to value human life.
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Fires in Russia
There have been more large fires in Russia, with a blaze at a luxury car plant in Moscow and another big fire in Vladivostok. Jonathan believes if you add up all the fires across Russia during the war and the costs to deal with them (emergency services, economic impacts, insurance costs, etc.), it would have a meaningful effect on the Russian economy and budget. He thinks this is part of a concerted effort by Ukraine to target Russia, along with some potential insurance fraud and accidents. The scale of these fires will cause knock-on effects felt across the Russian economy.
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Drone Attacks
- Ukraine's air defences shot down 18-24 drones overnight, a fairly good interception rate, but that still means 6 drones got through. Residents reported explosions in Khmelnytsky and Dnipropetrovsk.
- On the other hand, Ukrainian forces attacked an oil depot in Luhansk using a drone, showing the damage even one drone can cause. So the 6 drones that got through Ukrainian air defences likely caused significant damage too.
Russian Gains in November
In November, Russia expanded its territory in Ukraine by only around 4 square kilometres, the smallest change in a single month since February. Looking at the progress of the war, the Russians made big gains in the first couple of months, then Ukraine had successful counter-offensives in Kharkiv and Kherson. Since then, the situation has been largely stable with positional fighting. Jonathan is feeling down about the situation as he's worried the international political landscape is turning against Ukraine. He's concerned about the rise of far-right politics in Europe and the influence of Putin. In the US, Ukraine aid is being held hostage by Republicans over border security funding, which angers Jonathan as he believes the two issues are not linked and the Republicans are not doing this with any other policy area. He fears Putin is pleased by the West's dithering and lack of full commitment to Ukraine.
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Delays in Western Aid
Former CIA chief General Petraeus criticised the slowness of the West in providing military aid to Ukraine in a BBC interview. He said delays in delivering tanks, cluster munitions, ATACMS and Western aircraft caused the failure of Ukraine's counter-offensive. Petraeus believes Putin decided to invade Ukraine because the West did not take sufficient measures after the occupation of Crimea in 2014.
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Other News
- US diplomats say sinister Russian NGOs, including far-right biker groups, have been involved in abducting and illegally deporting Ukrainian children to Russia and Belarus. The European Parliament estimates up to 300,000 children have been deported since 2014.
- Russia's Deputy Prime Minister said reproductive health checks will be included in mandatory health checks for Russians from 2024, hinting at Putin's calls for Russian families to have more children to provide future soldiers.
- Russia has censored "My Little Pony", restricting it to 18+ due to a character with a rainbow hairstyle representing the LGBT community, which Russia views as an extremist organisation.
Wrap up
Jonathan is feeling annoyed and needs to vent as he is worried about the situation in Ukraine and the international response. He plans to have a full rant about these issues in his next video on geopolitics.
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