The Story of a Soldier and a Grandson: How Russia has Taken its Toll in the Crimes of the Makiivka Regime

STAVKY, Ukraine — Racing down a road with his men in pursuit of retreating Russian soldiers, a battalion commander came across an abandoned Russian armored vehicle, its engine still running. Inside there was a sniper rifle, rocket propelled grenades, helmets and belongings. The men did not return.

“They dropped everything: personal care, helmets,” said the commander, who uses the code name Swat. “I think it was a special unit, but they were panicking. They dropped everything because the road was bad and it was raining.

After months of static fighting and holding the line under withering Russian artillery barrages, Ukrainian soldiers are exulting over their smashing of Russian lines in the northeast three weeks ago, and their recapturing of swaths of territory seized by Russian troops earlier this year. They have almost retaken the whole of Kharkiv Province, as well as territory in each of the four regions that President Vladimir V. Putin claims to have annexed for Russia.

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia is funneling newly drafted conscripts to the front line in Ukraine’s east, but so far, according to a Ukrainian general and Western analysts, Russia’s newly intensified attacks have proven ineffective, and high Russian casualties are expected.

Russian news media reported that soldiers were telling relatives about high casualty rates as a result of the Russian infantry being struck by the artillery in poorly prepared positions. The videos have not been independently verified and their exact location on the front line could not be determined.

The statement said that Russian forces staged up to 80 assaults per day and had a telephone conversation with an American general.

“We discussed the situation at the front,” General Zaluzhnyi wrote. Ukrainian forces, he said he had told his U.S. colleague, were beating back the attacks, “thanks to the courage and skills of our warriors.”

An assessment from the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based analytical group, also said that the increase in infantry in the Donbas region in the east had not resulted in Russia’s gaining new ground.

The errors by the Russian military are now becoming so blatant, and as the Makiivka attack shows, so deadly to Russian forces, that some of Putin’s most ardent apologists have now begun turning on the military establishment.

In the south, where Ukrainian troops are advancing toward the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, the Ukrainian military said Friday morning that its artillery battalions had fired more than 160 times at Russian positions over the past 24 hours, but it also reported Russian return fire into Ukrainian positions.

With Russian and Ukrainian forces apparently preparing for battle in Kherson, and conflicting signals over what may be coming, the remaining residents of the city have been stocking up on food and fuel to survive combat.

And Ukraine will be watching America’s midterm election results this week, especially after some Republicans warned that the party could limit funding for Ukraine if it wins control of the House of Representatives, as forecast.

State of Ukraine: Power Loss, Air Forces, Disaster Response, and Public Transportation in the Lviv, Ukraine, Air Showers, and Counterattacks

Also Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will host Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. Erdogan insists Sweden must meet certain conditions before it can join NATO.

The General Assembly is scheduled to discuss a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, and likely include Ukrainians on the agenda.

A series of attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure left more than 4 million people without electricity, and President Zelenskyy accused Russia of “energy terrorism.”

Russia rejoined a U.N.-brokered deal to safely export grain and other agricultural goods from Ukraine, on Nov. 2. A few days prior to that, Moscow suspended part of the deal, saying that Ukraine had attacked its ships in the Black Sea.

The Pentagon announced $400 million in additional security aid to the Ukrainians on Nov. 4.

Iran admitted to giving some drones to Russia in the summer of 2016 but denied for a second time that they were still supplying them. Zelenskyy countered that Iran was “lying” because Ukrainian forces “shoot down at least 10 Iranian drones every day.”

You can read past recaps here. Here you can find more of NPR’s coverage. Also, listen and subscribe to NPR’s State of Ukraine podcast for updates throughout the day.

Russia has launched a series of air strikes on civilians in an attempt to force the Ukrainian government to capitulate during the winter months. The bombing campaign has made life in Ukraine miserable, but there are few signs of Ukrainians backing down.

The lead for disaster response in the Ukrainian presidential office has said that several residential buildings in the capital have been destroyed.

An explosion near a playground rattled the windows of nearby homes. Residents were urged to charge their electronic devices and fill their water containers if there was a shortage.

Maksym Marchenko, the administrator of the Black Sea region, said that Ukrainian air defense systems shot down 21 missiles near Odesa. But successful missile strikes left the city without electricity or water.

Ninety percent of Lviv, a city near the Polish border, lost power, according to Mayor Andriy Sadovyi. The outage forced diesel generators to kick in to power emergency services. Public transportation there ground to a halt.

Strikes of the scale have become less frequent since October 10. Earlier this week Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, said that’s because Russia is running low on its stock of cruise missiles.

In separate comments to Russian media Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted Moscow would continue to pursue its objectives in Ukraine with “perseverance” and “patience.”

Violence against the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Donetsk: What have we learnt in the last two years of the Russian Revolution?

The targets have been neutralised. The attack has resulted in stopping the production and maintenance of military hardware and ordnance, as well as in terminating the redeployment of reserve forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from western regions of Ukraine,” the defense ministry said in a statement.

Ukrainian officials have said that both Ukrainian and Russian forces are suffering significant losses in Donetsk. CNN was unable to confirm Russia’s claims.

But in spite of Russia’s purported victories on the battlefield, the ministry did not claim any territorial advances against Ukrainian forces, adding credibility to reports that the two sides are locked in a stalemate.

At the time, Putin insisted his forces were embarking on a “special military operation” — a term suggesting a limited campaign that would be over in a matter of weeks.

The war in Ukraine entered the year 2093 with its deadliest attack on Russian troops and an attempt by Moscow to shift most of the blame for the loss of life onto its own dead soldiers.

Yet the war has also fundamentally upended Russian life — rupturing a post-Soviet period in which the country pursued, if not always democratic reforms, then at least financial integration and dialogue with the West.

Since February, there has been a ban on criticism of the military or leadership. According to a leading independent monitoring group, 45% of people who have been imprisoned for demonstrating against the war are women.

Lengthy prison sentences have been meted out to highprofile opposition voices for questioning the Russian army’s conduct or strategy.

There are organizations and people added to a growing list of “foreign agents” and “non-desirable” organizations that are trying to damage their reputation in Russia.

Even Russia’s most revered human rights group, 2022’s Nobel Prize co-recipient Memorial, was forced to stop its activities over alleged violations of the foreign agents law.

The state has also vastly expanded Russia’s already restrictive anti-LGBT laws, arguing the war in Ukraine reflects a wider attack on “traditional values.”

For now, the repressive measures remain in place. Some of the new laws are not enforced. The measures may be intended to crush dissent when the time arises.

Leading independent media outlets and a handful of vibrant, online investigative startups were forced to shut down or relocate abroad when confronted with new “fake news” laws that criminalized contradicting the official government line.

It is a condition of internet users as well. In March, American social media giants were banned. Roskomnadzor, the Kremlin’s internet regulator, has blocked more than 100,000 websites since the start of the conflict.

Technical workarounds such as VPNs and Telegram still offer access to Russians seeking independent sources of information. But state media propaganda now blankets the airwaves favored by older Russians, with angry TV talk shows spreading conspiracies.

Russian Exodus from the Cold War: After a Hundred Years in the Life of the United States, the Ruin of the Soviet Union, and the Crossroads to Europe

Thousands of perceived government opponents — many of them political activists, civil society workers and journalists — left in the war’s early days amid concerns of persecution.

Hundreds of thousands of Russians fled to the border states of Canada, Australia and the US in order to escape the draft after Putin’s order to mobilize 300,000 additional troops.

Putin argued it was good riddance, part of a “self-cleansing” of Russian society from traitors and spies. Russian officials have suggested taking away the citizenship of people who left the country. Russia’s best and brightest are under scrutiny to see whether it can thrive without them.

Meanwhile, some countries that have absorbed the Russian exodus predict their economies will grow, even as the swelling presence of Russians remains a sensitive issue to former Soviet republics in particular.

Helped by Russian price controls, the ruble regained value. McDonald’s and several other brands ultimately relaunched under new names and Russian ownership. By year’s end, the government reported the economy had declined by 2.5%, far less than most economists predicted.

The West is trying to curb Russian energy profits, by capping the amount countries will pay for Russian oil and limiting seaborne oil imports. There are signs that the efforts are reducing profits.

Ultimately, President Putin is betting that when it comes to sanctions, Europe will blink first — pulling back on its support to Ukraine as Europeans grow angry over soaring energy costs at home. He announced a five-month ban on oil exports to countries that abide by the price cap, a move likely to make the pain more acute in Europe.

The economic damage has already put an end to Putin’s two-decades strong reputation for providing “stability” — once a key basis for his support among Russians who remember the chaotic years that followed the collapse of the USSR.

The government’s tone is unchanged when it comes to Russia’s military campaign. Russia’s Defense Ministry gives out daily briefings about their successes. Putin, too, repeatedly assures that everything is “going according to plan.”

The length of the war suggests Russia underestimated the willingness of the Ukrainians to resist.

Donetsk has been held by pro-Russian separatists since 2014 and it is one of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow sought to annex in October in violation of international law.

Russian Invasion of the Crimea Bridge: The State of the Nation Address and Russia’s Failure of a State-of-The-Nation Address

The true number of Russian losses – officially at just under 6,000 men – remains a highly taboo subject at home. Western estimates place the figures at more than twice as high.

Russia’s ability to defend its strategic infrastructure has been put in doubt by a series of explosions along a bridge that connects Russia to the annexed peninsula of Crimea.

Indeed, Russia’s invasion has — thus far — backfired in its primary aims: NATO looks set to expand towards Russia’s borders, with the addition of long-neutral states Finland and Sweden.

Longtime allies in Central Asia have criticized Russia’s actions out of concern for their own sovereignty, an affront that would have been unthinkable in Soviet times. India and China have been buyers of discounted Russian oil but have not supported Russia in its military campaign.

A state of the nation address, originally scheduled for April, was repeatedly delayed and won’t happen until next year. The “direct line” is an annual media event in which Putin fields questions from ordinary Russians.

This year’s “big press conference” which allows the Russian leader to handle questions from mostly pro- Kremlin media was tabled until at least 2023.

The Kremlin did not give a reason for the delays. Russian leader had run out of good news to share after 10 months of war and no signs of victory.

The Crimes of Vladimir Putin in the Donetsk Region: the Military Kills Thousands of Russian Servicemen in a Black Hole

It was rare for the Russian military to admit a high death toll. The Ukrainian military reported even higher figures, initially claiming up to around 400 Russian soldiers were killed. CNN is unable to confirm or deny the reported death toll. In either instance, the strike was one of the most tragic episodes of the conflict for Moscow.

The strike took place just after midnight on Sunday, New Year’s Day, on a vocational school housing Russian conscripts in Makiivka, in the Donetsk region, according to both Ukrainian and pro-Russian accounts.

The attack has led to vocal criticism of Moscow’s military from pro-Russian military bloggers, who claimed that the troops lacked protection and were reportedly being quartered next to a large cache of ammunition, which is said to have exploded when Ukrainian HIMARS rockets hit the school.

It was claimed by the defence ministry that 63 Russian servicemen were killed in an attack, which would make it one of the most terrible episodes in the war.

Russian state information agency, Tass, reported that Russian senator Grigory Karasin said those responsible for killing of Russian servicemen in Makiivka must be found.

The video from the scene of the attack was shared widely on Telegram and an official Ukrainian military channel. almost no part of the building appears to be standing in the photo.

“Greetings and congratulations” to the separatists and conscripts who “were brought to the occupied Makiivka and crammed into the building of vocational school,” the Strategic Communications Directorate of the Chief Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Telegram. The Russian soldiers’ bodies were packed in bags by Santa.

Daniil Bezsonov, a former official in the Russia-backed Donetsk administration, said on Telegram that “apparently, the high command is still unaware of the capabilities of this weapon.”

Bezsonov hopes that the people who were responsible for using the facility will be reprimanded. “There are enough abandoned facilities in Donbas with sturdy buildings and basements where personnel can be quartered.”

A Russian propagandist who blogs about the war effort on Telegram, Igor Girkin, claimed that the building was almost completely destroyed by the secondary detonation of ammunition stores.

“Nearly all the military equipment, which stood close to the building without the slightest sign of camouflage, was also destroyed,” Girkin said. “There are still no final figures on the number of casualties, as many people are still missing.”

He has denounced Russian generals who he says direct the war effort away from the frontline, calling them unlearned in principle and unwilling to listen to warnings about putting equipment and personnel so close together. The former minister of defense of the self-proclaimed, Russian-backed DONETSK People’s Republic was found guilty of mass murder by a Dutch court for his involvement in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine.

Boris Rozhin, who also blogs about the war effort under the nickname Colonelcassad, said that “incompetence and an inability to grasp the experience of war continue to be a serious problem.”

“As you can see, despite several months of war, some conclusions are not made, hence the unnecessary losses, which, if the elementary precautions relating to the dispersal and concealment of personnel were taken, might have not happened.”

Why Do Russian Forces Attack on Bakhmut? Commentary on David Cohen’s “A Red Line in the Sand” during the Makiivka War

Russian forces “lost 760 people killed just yesterday, (and) continue to attempt offensive actions on Bakhmut,” the military’s general staff said Sunday.

David was a contributor to CNN and winner of the Deadline Club Award twice. His book “A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happened” was nominated for the French Legion of Honor. He formerly was a correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News in Europe and Asia. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. There is more opinion on CNN.

The Russian Defense Ministry said “the main cause” of the Makiivka strike was the widespread use of cell phones by Russian soldiers, “contrary to the ban,” which allowed Ukraine to “track and determine the coordinates of the soldiers’ locations.”

It is telling that days after the deadliest known attack on Russian servicemen, President Vladimir Putin called for a temporary ceasefire, citing the Orthodox Christmas holiday. The move was seen as a cynical way of trying to keep Russian forces afloat at a very bad time.

The range of the satellite-guidedHIMARS is currently 80 kilometers. A longer-range 300-kilometer HIMARS has not yet been authorized, despite repeated Ukrainian pleas. (The Biden administration has worried that the longer-range system could expand the war beyond Ukraine’s frontiers and lead to an escalation of hostilities.)

Chris Dougherty, a senior fellow for the Defense Program and co-head of the Gaming Lab at the Center for New American Security in Washington, has told me that Russia’s failure to break up or move large arms depots is largely a function of the reality that their forces cannot communicate adequately.

It is a view shared by other experts. “Bad communications security seems to be standard practice in the Russian Army,” James Lewis, director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told me in an e-mail exchange.

Compounding the problem, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said after the recent Makiivka strikes that “the Russian military has a record of unsafe ammunition storage from well before the current war, but this incident highlights how unprofessional practices contribute to Russia’s high casualty rate.”

He is not the only one who believes in doubt. “As expected, the blame for what happened in Makiivka began to be placed on the soldiers themselves,” said a post on the Telegram channel known as “Grey Zone,” linked to longtime Kremlin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner Group of mercenaries. It’s a 99% lie and an attempt to throw off the blame.

Indeed, a number of the most recent arrivals to the war are inmates from Russian prisons, freed and transferred immediately to the Ukrainian front. In a world of isolation, cell phones are appealing to prisoners who have been in jail for many years and are used to little or no outside contact.

Semyon Pegov, who blogs under the alias WarGonzo and was personally awarded the Order of Courage by President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin two weeks ago, attacked the Ministry of Defense for its “blatant attempt to smear blame” in suggesting it was the troops’ own use of cell phones that led to the precision of the attack.

He questioned how the Ministry of Defense could be “so sure” that the location of soldiers lodging in a school building could not have been determined using drone surveillance or a local informant.

How Long Can Putin Insulate himself? The Case of the Makiivka Battle in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, After the 2011 Ukrainian National Rejuvenation

How long Putin can insulate himself and prevent the blame from turning on himself is the key question in the wake of Makiivka. There is nothing to suggest that Ukrainian forces have a plan to reduce their influence on Russian forces in the east or south of their country.

A month earlier, the defense ministry underwent a shakeup when Col. Gen. Mikhail Y. Mizintsev, known to Western officials as the “butcher of Mariupol,” was named deputy defense minister for overseeing logistics, replacing four-star Gen. Dmitri V. Bulgakov, who had held the post since 2008. The location of the arms depot, adjacent to the Makiivka recruits, would likely have been on Mizintsev’s watch.

Sergei Shoigu, a Putin supporter, still remains the defense minister, despite the success of the Makiivka attack.

There seems to be no indication that the West will let up on its support for Ukraine. Both the US and increasingly Europe, which recently committed to raising its funding by $2 billion in 2023, appear determined to see Ukraine through this winter and beyond.

Ukrainian officials had repeatedly pleaded with their Western allies to provide modern battle tanks that could be used not only to defend their present positions but to take the fight to the enemy.

A CNN team on the ground has seen no indication of any massive casualties in the area. There is no unusual activity in and around the city of Kramatorsk according to the team.

A report from Kramtorsk said there were no signs of Russian strike on two college dormitories that Russia claimed had been housing hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers.

A rare public blame game broke out between the Russian government and some pro-Kremlin leaders and military experts in the aftermath of the strike, after Moscow appeared to blame its own soldiers’ use of cell phones.

The leader of the unrecognized DPR in eastern Ukraine said that the account had not been confirmed, but that the account was not true at all.

Ukranian needs time to set up supply chains for fuel and spare parts, as well as train mechanics to maintain and repair the new tanks. But he adds that these new tanks will be a “game changer” as Ukraine tries to reclaim occupied territory, just as HIMARs (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems) helped Ukrainian forces reclaim the southern city of Kherson in November.

“What Russia is trying to do now is regroup,” former Ukraine defense minister Andrii Zahorodniuk told me in a telephone interview from Kyiv, shortly after Germany’s tank announcement.

“They are trying to take their time and call another mobilization,” added Zahorodniuk, who served as minister from 2019 to 2020, and is now co-founder of the security think tank Center for Defense Strategies.

The world watched in wonder – and with a strong dose of schadenfreude – as Russia’s intended blitzkrieg dash for Kyiv in the first days of the war last February dissolved in disaster.

At the time, satellite imagery suggested an all out assault on the capital city of Ukranian was imminent but then stopped moving.

Why? First, it simply ran out of gas. US defense officials said that bogged-down columns were running dry of fuel and food because of flawed supply systems.

The mud was there. Russian tanks were overrun by mud in the middle of winter and during the springtime when the snow turns to mud.

Fast forward almost a year later and this time, the Russians are expected to have learned their lesson. “It would be unwise for them to start their attacks in late winter or early spring,” said Zahorodniuk. “They should wait until the end of the spring when things are actually much drier.”

I first stumbled across a Soviet tank driver in Moscow back in the 1980s when NATO was still preparing for, an admittedly remote, possibility of hordes of Soviet armor pouring through the Fulda Gap, overrunning Western Europe.

The driver had a good laugh at the prospect. He told me that the soviet tank drivers would be issued sledgehammers when the gears jammed.

Armatas for the Battle Tanks of the US and the Leopard 2s in the First Month of the Second World War II: A Promise from the Western Allies

Most Russian tanks carry their guns’ ammunition right next to the crews that pilot the tanks, load and fire the guns – up to 40 high-explosive charges. The tanks are armored on their front, but not on their sides or turret.

So, a direct hit by an American-made Javelin or British-Swedish NLAW anti-tank missile targeting a hot engine can impact the thinnest skin of the tank’s armor, exploding the entire ammunition stock and incinerating the crew.

The crews of the M-1 Abrams and the Leopard 2 are not allowed to carry the weapons behind blast-proof barriers.

The Russian new tank, the T-14 Armata, is a great match for the M-1 and the Leopard 2. The problem is they have produced only a handful of Armatas. Just three were in the last May Day parade in Red Square, after the first ones stalled during rehearsals for the 2015 parade.

“It’s how you use them, what sort of concept of operation you have, how effective you are,” said Zahorodniuk. “And as 2022 has shown, Ukraine is more effective, so we can do better with less equipment.” It is not a gamble most would like to take.

Russia has over 3000 operational tanks, so there is a chance that it lost half of them in the war.

According to Zahorodniuk, the ministry of defense estimates that it needs 300 modern battle tanks to supplement their own equipment and get even with Russia.

It seems very unlikely that even a fraction of the number have been pledged by the western allies. So far, the tally is 31 M-1 Abrams from the US, 14 Leopard 2s from Germany, 14 British Challenger 2s. With more promised by Poland, Portugal, Norway, Spain, Finland, and the Netherlands.

The main Leclerc battle tank will not be sent by France, but rather the AMX-10 RC armored combat vehicles.

Russian-Ukraine War, Russia’s First Grand Unified Warfare, and the U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy

Training tank commanders, drivers, technicians, and mechanics on complex machines can take three months, so time is of the essence.

Ukrainian troops will begin training in the United Kingdom to use the country’s Challenger 2, following the British government’s pledge to send a squadron of the tanks to Ukraine.

The International Monetary Fund releases its latest World Economic Outlook (Tuesday morning in Singapore, Monday night ET). The IMF has stressed that the Russia-Ukraine war is a big factor causing economic slowdown and recession in some countries.

A group of European Commission leaders is expected to visit Ukraine on Thursday and European Union leaders plan to hold a summit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy the following day.

Ukraine’s military acknowledged the Russian takeover of Soledar, retreating from the eastern town after a tough battle. Russian forces continued their offensive around Bakhmut and other parts of the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

New U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy arrived in Moscow, at a time of strong tensions between the two governments over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On Monday, Tracy was reportedly heckled by protesters as she entered the Russian Foreign Ministry to present her credentials.

Russia’s ambassadors to two Baltic states were told to leave after Russia’s president said it was expelling the Estonian ambassador because of its “Russophobia”.

Defense Minister Reznikov: Is Ukraine militarized in the First World War? How Russians have responded to Putin’s warning about F-16s

Reznikov believes there are training courses we can offer in Europe. It’s easier because we have to have the same conditions and landscape.

He says that he hopes for fast-track training that the U.S. promised to President Zelenskyy in December. The US started training Ukrainians in Oklahoma this month.

“For the Leopard tanks, for example, [training] normally could be half a year. But I hope that we will do it during one month or probably two months,” he says adds.

He says that he is sure that the F-16s will be realistic, noting that in the past, Ukraine has also managed to get other weapons that at first were out of reach.

On Monday, President Biden seemed to suggest that the US wouldn’t give F-16s to Ukraine, while the German Chancellor told the Tagesspiegel newspaper that the issue of combat aircraft doesn’t arise at all.

Reznikov says in the past, most Western allies have turned down weapons requests for practical reasons, such as difficulty in finding spare parts. He says when he inquires about the F-16, they cite a very long training period for Ukrainian pilots. He claims that by proving that Ukrainian troops can perform shorter, intensive training for other weapons, he can offer a powerful counter-argument.

Russia, meanwhile, has accused the West of taking a more direct role in the war by sending more sophisticated weapons to Ukraine. That’s caused tension within NATO and the European Union. Croatia’s President Zoran Milanovic told reporters that supplying arms to Kyiv will only prolong the war and that it’s “mad” to expect Russia’s defeat. Hungary’s Prime Minister said the Western backers of Ukraine had gone to war.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/31/1152523328/ukraine-defense-minister-reznikov-fighter-jets-f16s

Zero Tolerance with Corruption: Defense, Security, and Security in the Era of the Cold War: A Mission to Assist the Security of Ukraine

Before the Russian invasion, most defense ministry expenses were public. Now most are classified for security reasons. He says transparency is a delicate issue during wartime, but he is working with parliament to change laws and make defense expenditures at least “semi-transparent.”

“It’s not a piece of cake, but I will do it,” he says. “Because my principle is zero tolerance with corruption. We have to be a new Ukraine, with the European standard, not the old-fashioned Soviet Ukraine with a legacy of corruption.”

The visual evidence of military equipment losses in Ukraine has been collected by Oryx, an open source intelligence website.

That toll does not include losses Oryx has not been able to visually confirm, said Jakub Janovsky, a military analyst who contributes to the Oryx blog. He estimated the actual toll could be nearer 2,000 tanks.

A flaw in the design of the Russian tanks caused a single incoming round to explode their stores around the war’s start. The turrets are often destroyed when the blast blows them off the Russian tanks.

What they can do in the next few months is not sustainable, according to Lie-State Propagators at the Sloan Digital Skyrmion

The amount of what they can produce in the short term is less than what they are losing due to sanctions. Those material losses … are not sustainable,” he said in September.