Counteroffensive: Military expert: Ukrainian partial successes are overestimated

According to one expert, Ukraine’s partial successes in its counteroffensive against the Russian military are being overestimated. “Individual Russian defense lines are being overcome with great losses, but so far there has never been a real breach of the dam,” said the Ukraine expert for the Austrian Armed Forces, Markus Reisner, to the German Press Agency. “The alarm bells should be ringing that after 117 days of counter-offensive no operational breakthrough has been achieved.”

Overall, Ukraine receives too little military equipment, including to defend itself against Russian air strikes in the hinterland. “Only with increased air defense could hits on critical infrastructure be minimized.” If the country’s electricity supply were to suffer serious damage again, the backbone of arms production would also be broken.

“Actually, four to five fully loaded freight trains with war material should roll into Ukraine every week,” said Reisner. While the USA is very aware of the difficult situation, the EU’s perception of what is happening is inappropriate. “Europe is about to miss the moment when we no longer have it under control and the situation tips in favor of the Russians,” said the colonel. Ukraine’s allies have only partially fulfilled their promises regarding military equipment. The effectiveness of the Leopard 2 tank, for example, is also less than expected. Of the approximately 90 tanks of this type delivered, at least a third were destroyed or damaged.

Overall, the losses on both sides were shockingly high. Reisner considers the figures most recently given by the New York Times, citing US military circles, of around 160,000 fallen and 140,000 wounded Russians to be credible. On the Ukrainian side, losses were estimated at 80,000 dead and 120,000 injured. On top of that, Kiev lost 4,500 military vehicles and Moscow lost around 12,300, said the expert, referring to the independent platform Oryx, which tries to record every vehicle through photos.

US Institute: Bloggers hide the reality on the front

According to US experts, Russian military bloggers practice self-censorship to a large extent and only publish a small part of their findings on the course of the war of aggression against Ukraine. Some particularly critical bloggers admitted that they only revealed 5 to 15 percent of their information from the front, writes the Washington-based Institute for War Studies (ISW) in its report.

Overall, there appears to be broader self-censorship on the Russian side about the tactical realities on certain sectors of the front. This suggests that Russian sources deliberately limited their coverage of tactical actions, particularly those with an unfavorable outcome for Russia. On September 25, a blogger partially deleted a post about the successes of the Ukrainian army near Novoprokopivka in the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia.

According to ISW, another reported that Russian commanders routinely concealed complaints and existing problems, for example with communications, drones, tires or the pay of fighters. Another commander complained about the inefficient flow of information from the Russian front to decision-makers, according to a blogger.

One blogger commented that certain information should not be shared and that the ability to remain silent at the right moment is an important quality. Censorship or self-censorship among Russian military bloggers also affects the ability of the ISW and the West to report on Russia’s operations, the institute wrote.