The Numbers Don’t Lie: Ukraine’s Top General Confirms Russian Supremacy

by SIMPLICIUS

Here we have the Guardian with this beauty:

 
It starts off from the get-go with a bit of unintentional humor, exposing its journalists as not being much acquainted with the concept of OPSEC:

 
But the next series of admissions is so shocking, you might need to take a seat for this—and no, I’m not being hyperbolic or clickbaity.

Read the following, then read it again:

 
There’s so much to unpack there, I have to do it in sequence.

Firstly, to this day, I’m the only analyst in the world that has maintained the true total force numbers of the Russian invasion were below 100k, while everyone else had their head in the clouds with the CNN numbers of 250k and up. Here, for the first time, it appears the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces himself confirms Russia’s opening force was only 100k strong. Many will recall I estimated it at various times to have been 80-120k or less, versus a Ukrainian Army that was already 250k+ itself at the time, prior to emergency mobilizing hundreds of thousands more. Mark that as another feather in the ol’ cap.

The next shocker: the Russian Army is on pace to hit nearly 700,000 troops by the end of 2024? How in the world is that possible? You’ve just been telling us they suffer something like 100k deaths per month and are being absolutely slaughtered by the mighty AFU. This simply doesn’t make sense. Could it be that, perhaps, I was right again, particularly about how MediaZona numbers were desperately covered up as they began to hit historic lows, and Ukraine began to overcompensate for its own ongoing collapse by drumming up fake Russian losses?

The next one is related, which we just discussed at length in one of the last reports. Russian tanks not only outnumber Ukrainian ones by several orders of magnitude but have grown from 1700 to 3500? Artillery has tripled while Russian armored personnel carriers went from 4500 to 8900? Weren’t they just gaslighting us that Russia is running out of tanks and IFVs, producing only 50 barrels a year, etc.? What is this sudden revolutionary about-face?

Interestingly, Syrsky acknowledges recent rumors of a new Russian Zaporozhye offensive, which went as follows:

Ukrainian channels with reference to the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine write about the concentration of up to 90 thousand Russian military personnel in the Zaporozhye direction. Forces are accumulating and are almost ready to strike in the direction of Orekhov and Gulyai-pole.

Of course, Syrsky had to throw at least one obligatory bone to the company line somewhere, lest all hope seem lost, thus he trotted out the old losses canard, despite it totally contradicting earlier manpower figures:

Russia’s successes, meanwhile, came at a staggering human cost. The Kremlin’s casualties were “three times” higher than Ukraine’s, and “even more” in certain directions, Syrskyi said. “Their number of killed is much bigger,” he emphasised. In February Volodymyr Zelenskiy said 31,000 Ukrainian service personnel had died since 2022. Could Syrskyi update this figure? He declined, saying losses were “sensitive” and a topic Moscow could exploit.

Quite convenient though how Ukraine’s own losses, however, remain too “sensitive” for publication.

In fact, Zelensky himself recently has been making odd hints at growing Ukrainian losses, coupled with calls for the war to end.

 
As a final confirmation of my own analysis, Syrsky admits that Ukrainian F-16s would likely be relegated to playing air defense roles and says Russian air defenses and airpower is too great for F-16s to be allowed anywhere near the frontline.

Syrsky also finishes the article by hinting at Ukraine’s own mobilization woes, and how troop numbers are difficult. He was likely not at great liberty to give a genuine accounting of the matter, but for that we have other adjacent sources, like Major General Riho Yukhtegi of the Estonian Armed Forces:

Ukraine continues to experience a shortage of fighters, despite mobilization efforts – Major General of the Estonian Army

Riho Yukhtegi noted that plans to form 10 new brigades turned out to be ineffective. Instead, mobilization is mainly aimed at closing gaps at the front.

“Today, many units claim to be fully staffed, but in fact face a shortage of personnel,” he said. “Inadequate training and the static nature of trench warfare make it costly and dangerous.”

Another problem is the lack of time to train new soldiers. “Weekly training is not enough to effectively fight in the trenches,” the expert added. Insufficient training of new fighters creates risks at the front, which the Russian side is actively using.

The situation at the front may remain unstable for a long time, since both sides cannot concentrate large forces for a decisive blow. “The solution to the conflict will most likely be political rather than military,” the expert concluded.

Note specifically what he says how many Ukrainian brigades claim to be staffed, when in actuality they’re not. Here’s another new confirmation of the fact from a real Ukrainian officer:

Ukrainian militant Maxim Skrynnik reports that in some Ukrainian battalions there are no more than 20-30 people left in the ranks and in some companies-no more than five.

In his opinion, it was the transfer of bloodless units to Toretsk and New York that was the reason for such a rapid collapse of Ukrainian defense Otherwise all is well Ukraine is winning on the whole front

 
This was reportedly confirmed by Ukraine’s former Deputy Chief of General Staff:

There is an acute shortage of military personnel in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In some sections of the front, soldiers are not enough even for defensive actions. Such a statement was made by the former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lieutenant General Igor Romanenko.

“At the front, units are staffed by a third in certain areas, difficult, say, in such areas. (…) It is not necessary to count on serious ones not so that on offensive actions, but also on defensive —, “— the Ukrainian general stated. In this regard, Romanenko emphasized that the appeal to the Ukrainian army is not carried out as decisively as the situation requires. “Mobilization does not meet current needs,” — summarized the former chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces.

Indeed, the shortage of middle and junior commanders in the Ukrainian army leads to an increase in losses, especially among yesterday’s mobilized, who have no experience in warfare. The authorities, having arranged an unlimited “rehabilitation”, only strengthened the shortage of high-quality branch commanders, platoon commanders, company commanders, battalion commanders who would correctly make decisions and correctly use force and means, who are subordinate to them. As a result, desertion and the refusal of soldiers to go into “clear” storms that the government arranges for political purposes are growing in the Ukrainian army. Largely because of this, serious fortifications in the Donetsk region will pour out, many of which have been preparing for 8-10 years.

In fact, there have been so many large-scale strikes on Ukrainian deployment points just this week alone, that it seems at least 500-1000 soldiers or more have perished in only 3-4 different Iskander attacks. I’ve nearly lost count of them all, but here’s a few reported ones just from the past several days:

Colonel of the Spanish Army Reserve Pedro Baños:

I just received information that I cannot confirm, I asked for confirmation and they told me that it is accurate. These are sources that I have known for many, many years, 30 years, and they are usually very reliable. So, the Russians carried out an attack on Odessa, which killed 18 members of the British Special Air Service and injured 25 more. And they tell me that French soldiers died. These are not mercenaries who are French, no, these are soldiers of the French army. They were killed in large numbers, I was told that the number was greater than in Algeria. These are scary numbers because we are talking about NATO countries. And, obviously, special operations forces are always the first to act in such scenarios. And it has also long been known that there are special operations forces, which, among other things, are used to guide, for example, missiles, to illuminate targets, and not only missiles, but also drones. Because it is part of their mission, in addition to advising and conducting all sorts of disruption operations, to train special operations forces on the ground.

 
This Iskander attack was said to have wiped out 50 mercenaries in the Kharkov region:

A deployment point for instructors and advisers from NATO countries (including the USA) was discovered near the settlement of Dergachi in the Kharkiv region.

An Iskander-M missile system team decided to visit the foreign specialists to send them back to their homeland as soon as possible (in zinc coffins).

As a result, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 50 of their foreign comrades.

UPD – geolocation from the guys at LostArmour: 50.104426, 36.139116

 
This one reportedly wiped out even many times more:

“Yesterday, Iskander-M missile systems delivered powerful strikes on two echelons of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the DPR. Up to 240 armed personnel of the 41st mechanized brigade were destroyed, and 60 pieces of equipment were destroyed and damaged. The strike was in the area of the settlement of Barvenkovo.”

 
Today’s Iskander attack even wiped out a Ukrainian tank repair facility in the Kharkov region—check out the drone’s new AI detection capable of isolating every tank in the picture:

 
And there was even an Iskander strike on the Ukrainian 61st Brigade for good measure:

Iskander strike on the control point of the 63rd mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Now a Ukrainian economist has reportedly claimed on video that internal budgetary figures confirm at least 400k casualties:

Economist Danil Monin dismantled the expenditures of the military budget for 6 months of 2024, the conclusions are striking, and most importantly confirm the figure of 400 thousand dead and wounded military personnel. It turns out we spent twice as much money on payments to the dead than on providing the living military!

It will now be difficult for the Office of the President and the General Staff to prove the opposite, because no one will tell where hundreds of billions have gone in 2024.

 
Rezident UA channel corroborated with the following slice:

#Inside
Our source in the OP said that now payments for the dead military at the front account for 15% of the budget of Ukraine, the figure constantly melts and makes Kabmin increase spending. To eliminate the budget deficit, the Government urgently raises taxes and military training.

It may say dead and wounded, but in reality we know Ukraine pays nearly nothing to actual wounded, so any budgetary constraints would likely stem from dead or severely wounded only.

Here’s a recent video of a crippled AFU veteran who literally shows his government pay outs to his account on his phone—it comes out to $36 per month:

 

 

 
If you’re thinking maybe 1,500 UAH is a lot, the average Ukrainian monthly salary, a cursory web search shows me, is nearly 25,000 UAH; so you decide how charitable that 1,500 from Zelensky really is.

Read more