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ADAPTIVE INDOMITABLE UKRAINE Steadily Hollowing Out Russian Army. Officers Paying to Hide in Rear [1]

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Date: 2025-06-21

For those of us who share Ukraine’s hopes and aspirations as a burgeoning bulwark of democracy, it is always important to bear in mind that in spite of the daily cacophony of noise from Putin and his minions in the Kremlin about how they are winning their misbegotten revanchist war against Ukraine(and how all of Ukraine belongs to Russia), Russia with all of its pre-war advantages only managed in all of 2024 to occupy an area just a tad larger than metro Anchorage, Alaska(4,500 Square km) … mostly hamlets and farmlands on the Ukrainian agricultural steppe. This is hardly the overwhelming conquest that the Russian propagandists and their acolytes in the media would have us believe.

In an exhaustive study and analysis of the war to date, the British Center for Strategic & International Studies(authors of the above caption map), described Russia’s performance as paltry:

Russia’s Battlefield Woes in Ukraine Russia’s seizure of approximately 5,000 square kilometers of territory in Ukraine since January 2024 has been paltry—amounting to less than 1 percent of Ukrainian territory—and has occurred mainly in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv Oblasts. Russia’s marginal gains are particularly noteworthy compared to its conquest of 120,000 square kilometers during the first five weeks of the war and Ukraine’s recapture of 50,000 square kilometers in the spring of 2022. Russia’s slow and limited advances since January 2024 are most comparable to Ukraine’s own offensive in the summer and fall of 2023, which managed to push forward at a rate of just 90 meters per day against heavily fortified Russian positions. www.csis.org/...

The BBC quoting the Institute for the Study of War(ISW) is even less charitable in their estimate of Russia’s 2024 effort considering the cost in personnel alone, even if one factors in their Fall 2024 blitzkrieg from Avdiivka to the outskirts of Pokrovsk:

How Russia took record losses in Ukraine in 2024 According to estimates by the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), from September to November 2024, Russian forces captured 2,356 square kilometres of Ukraine. Even then, Ukrainian forces at the front did not collapse. The cost of this advance was at least 11,678 Russian military deaths. Actual losses figures are likely higher. We have only accounted for soldiers and officers whose names appeared in publicly available obituaries and whose dates of death or funeral fell within this period. Overall in 2024, according to ISW, Russia captured 4,168 square kilometres of land. If we assume that our figure of 45,287 confirmed deaths in 2024 is about 40% of the full number, then the total number would be closer to 112,000 fatalities last year. This means that for each square kilometre captured, 27 Russian soldiers were killed, and this does not include the wounded.(emphasis mine) www.bbc.com/...

2025 is so far bringing even less success to Russian arms as Ukraine’s elastic defense has successfully blunted most of the piece meal assaults mounted against their defensive lines all along the 1,000 km battle trace. It is early yet in the Summer 2025 Russian offensive but so far their much anticipated mighty strike at Kostiantynivka in order to break through the Ukrainian “Fortress Belt” in Donetsk oblast has met with failure:

Reinforced assault near Kostiantynivka repelled by Ukrainian forces On 18 June, Ukrainian military observer Yuriy Butusov reported that a reinforced company-sized Russian assault near Kostiantynivka ended in failure. Ukrainian defenders reportedly destroyed 15 heavy armored vehicles and eight motorized vehicles during the clash. euromaidanpress.com/...

And today President Zelenskyy had this to say about the similarly ballyhooed Russian effort to assault the Sumy direction:

President Volodymyr Zelensky on June 20 condemned Russia's attempts to advance in Sumy Oblast, as Moscow intensifies its rhetoric of maximalist demands toward Ukraine. "The Russians had various plans and intentions there — absolutely insane, as usual. We are holding them back and eliminating these killers, defending our Sumy Oblast," Zelensky said in his evening address. kyivindependent.com/...

But even as Putin and his minions daily bruit out new maximalist demands seeking Ukrainian capitulation, Russia’s ability to enforce such demands on the battlefield seems to wane by the day. This week for the first time, some of the Kremlin’s most prominent economists, including Elvira Nabiullina , the Governor of the Central Bank of Russia, openly and publicly indicated that the Russian state’s coffers are running dry and the tricks she has employed up to date to give the illusion of a sound economy may no longer work. Shockingly she said this at Putin’s own much hyped annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum:

Russia's war-fueled economy is running on empty, Central Bank chief warns Russia's wartime economic momentum is fading fast, with key resources nearly exhausted, Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said, warning that the country can no longer rely on the same tools that sustained growth in the first two years of the full-scale war against Ukraine, the Moscow Times reported on June 19. kyivindependent.com/...

, Thereby forcing Putin to publicly make this demand:

Putin says Russian recession must not happen ‘under any circumstances’ Russia’s economy must not slide into recession, President Vladimir Putin said, after economists warned for months of a slowdown in growth. “This must not be allowed to happen under any circumstances,” he said. “We need to pursue a competent, well-thought-out budgetary, tax and monetary policy,” he added. www.aljazeera.com/...

In other words he is ordering his economists to continue finding more abracadabra(ancient Mesopotamian avra kedabra' “I create as I speak”) magic tricks to keep up the illusion that a hollowed out economy is still going gang busters. Good luck with that!

That’s on the economy. But the real debacle for Russia, as a nation, is occurring on the battlefields in Ukraine. The abracadabra of hyping recruitment numbers(made up of the elderly, infirm, drug addicts, drunks and other denizens of Russian demi monde as well as the press ganged) in order to give the impression of an ever burgeoning irresistible conquering army is proving to be just as hollow amidst the now rampant daily reports of fragging and desertion, surrendering, low morale, lack of supplies and basic care among the troops on the front lines. And it is not just among the lowly mobiki who are often thrown into senseless “meat assaults”. Putin’s war has basically hollowed out Russia’s professional army.

Russia’s entire professional army has long been destroyed, Ukrainian general says “Putin no longer has the resources he once did. Especially not the cannon fodder that was constantly pushed to the front. We remember how Russia was offering up to 1 million rubles for signing a contract with the army. But when it came to real combat, these recruits were just thrown into 'meat assaults', and they still are. As a military man, I can say many more die in those attacks. Now, that recruitment wave has died down. People in Russia see only coffins coming back from the front. Plus, the money’s running out, they’ve started paying less,” Malomuzh said. “At the start of the war, Russia had over 750,000 troops. Now that number is over 1,115,000. But Ukraine’s defense forces have already eliminated over 1 million occupiers. In other words, the entire professional army has been destroyed. Only around 10% of the Russian special forces are left, those who can actually fight effectively. And even their resources are running out,” he added.(emphasis mine) global.espreso.tv/...

And with the increasingly horrific casualty rates among the Russian officer corps in Ukraine, it is no surprise that Russians being Russians, officers are now paying bribes and or buying their way out of front line duty … a few rubles or favors change hands and presto chango, abracadabra an official assignment or transfer to a rear posting opens up:

Russian officers massively avoiding front, hiding in rear - Defense Intelligence "The mass escape from the front line, framed as a formal transfer to the rear, indicates demoralization and crisis in the russian command structure. Realizing the scale of losses and the inevitability of their own death, officers of the aggressor state are trying at all costs to avoid participating in hostilities," the Ministry of Defense's Defense Intelligence stressed. ukranews.com/...

So left with both an economy and an army running basically on fumes what is a dictator to do? Why, just issue orders for things to be done to conform to my wishes … a massive summer offensive to steam roll those pesky Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines with my fearsome mechanized collection of bone yard/Mad Max war machines and my imaginary host of super macho motley crew army from the Russian demi monde. And if that don’t get it just bomb and terrorize the living day lights of those insolent peasant hohol civilians. Every inch of Ukraine, just like Chechnya, belongs to Russia, Why don’t they understand that? He says.

Through terror and attacks on civilians, Russia is trying to force Ukraine to surrender and accept the Kremlin's terms "I have repeatedly said that Putin is trying to resolve the Ukraine issue the Chechen way. Specifically, through intimidation and terror against the civilian population. This is a perfectly logical approach if you want to resolve a conflict the Chechen way. Putin says they want the war to end as soon as possible, even diplomatically—meaning Ukraine's capitulation. In other words, the sooner Ukraine surrenders, the better for everyone, according to Putin. That’s the logic behind his thinking. And what does it take for Ukrainians to realize the need to surrender? Constant terror against civilians, so that the population begins blaming its own government for not making the necessary diplomatic efforts to end the war," global.espreso.tv/...

But what Putin fails to understand is that ADAPTIVE INDOMITABLE UKRAINE is not Chechnya. And Zelenskyy is no Ramzan Kadyrov who betrayed the the Chechen independence movement which his own father, Akhmad, once led in exchange for being a favored Putin toady.

SLAVA UKRAINI ! PREMOHA(Victory) !!

[END]
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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/6/21/2329277/-ADAPTIVE-INDOMITABLE-UKRAINE-Steadily-Hollowing-Out-Russian-Army-Officers-Paying-to-Hide-in-Rear?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

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