The Battle of the Donbas, if that is what we are to witness, may be Russia’s last throw of the dice with this army
Sometimes history is closer than it seems. Russian soldiers who have been wounded, captured or lost friends and colleagues in Ukraine have learned that very painful lesson over the last six weeks.
The losses that the Russian Army has suffered have been extreme, not just by the standards of post-Cold War warfare, but by all 19th and 20th century standards. Indeed the Russian war experience so far is perhaps more reminiscent of the mud and gore of the Battle of the Somme in 1916 than any subsequent military engagement.
By my calculation, based on a variety of public information, the Russians have lost approximately 30% of the forces that they have sent into Ukraine. This is a truly colossal figure, higher, in fact, than almost any engagement in modern military history from the US Civil War through to the two world wars.
#Ukraine: The crash site of a Ukrainian Mi-8MSB helicopter – presumably shot down in the north of the country some time ago.
Interestingly, a single 3BM44 APFSDS projectile assembly is seen, which may indicate it was transporting ammunition. pic.twitter.com/UFqtwRxFEs
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 16, 2022
