Russia is 'running out of munitions and has lost as much as 50% of its tanks' in Ukraine, senior US

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Russia has lost up to half of its tanks in Ukraine since the start of the war and is running low on ammunition, a senior US official said.

Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo made the assessment at an event Tuesday held by the Council of Foreign Relations think tank in Washington, DC.

In a version of his speech posted online by the Treasury, Adeyemo argue that US-led sanctions on Russian had harmed its economy and limited its ability to replace equipment lost in the war.

The sanctions, he said, "degraded Russia's ability to replace more than 9,000 pieces of military equipment lost since the start of the war, forced production shutdowns at key defense facilities, and caused shortages of essential components for tanks and aircraft production.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-is-running-out-of-munitions-and-has-lost-as-much-as-50-of-its-tanks-in-ukraine-senior-us-official-says/ar-AA17MDV6

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. Russia's Massive Offensive

There was a thread about the massive Russian buildup that claimed that Russia had 500,000 troops, 1800 tanks and a ton of airplanes amassed to attack Ukraine. I was amused to see that thread was deleted when the facts in the OP were disputed. Russia and Putin need a victory in Ukraine and the heralded spring offensive appears to be doomed to failure as noted by the OP.

Link to tweet

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-15?sd=pf

One story that seemed to take off, was that the Russians had massed a huge force not only of newly trained soldiers, but also tanks and aircraft and that they were poised to mount a hammer blow attack on Russian forces. This article in Foreign Policy, might have been the most extreme example. The Russians had supposedly put together 1800 tanks, 700 aircraft and hundreds of thousands of new troops. Ukraine, on the other hand, didn’t have enough and the Russian assault would start long before new NATO-standard tanks arrived......

All of this sounded extremely alarmist, and much of it seemed to run counter to everything that has been shown for the past year. Russian advances, when they are successful, are incremental, their losses in tanks and aircraft when they engage the Ukrainians are extremely high (especially for tanks) and so far we see no sign of successful combined-arms Russian warfighting which would allow for such an amazing reversal in the course of the war......

All I can say, is that I see no indication whatsoever that the Russians could attempt such a major, air-armor breakout and exploitation. I don’t see how they could supply it, I don’t see any indication that their army knows how to execute it, and I cant see how the Ukrainians could be caught by surprise were the Russians to attempt it.

1) Logistics. The large Russian depots are still located out of Himars range. A reminder of how this has worked from this excellent thread.

Link to tweet

What that means is close to the front the Russians have to rely on small, scattered depots and constant truck supply, shuttling from their larger depots far behind the lines. Supplying a breakthrough under those conditions would test the most efficient army in the world with an large number of up to date trucks, oilers, trailers etc. The Russian army is not this. One of the reasons we have seen no Russian exploitation (and only one Ukrainian exploitation for that matter) is that getting supplies forward in this war is really difficult. Tanks, APCs, etc, gobble up fuel and ammo. If you cant get it in regular supply to advancing forces, they will stop moving and in that case become a burden not a liability. So you would need to have a large store of trucks near the breakout point to head down the road with all those hundreds, even thousands of tanks. Its not happening.......

The US would be able to detect any large build up of this type and get that info to the Ukrainians quickly. There would be no surprises—indeed if the Russians did mass vehicles for a major offensive, the Ukrainians would more than likely inflict more and more Vuhledars.

So the idea of some massive Russian mechanized steamroller, which spread like wild-fire last week has little in reality to recommend it. The Ukrainians, who seemed to feed the story (anonymously) earlier in the week, also seemed to understand that this story was doing them no favors (it really wasn’t). In fact, stories of growing Russian power were exactly the things those wanting Ukraine to be forced into a bad peace deal instantly latched onto to make their point. The New York Times published a number of op/eds saying Russia is now in a better shape to win the war, including this terribly wrong-headed understanding of military power......

As long as Ukraine has enough ammunition (always the key consideration) these massive Russian offensives should be containable. Indeed, assuming Ukraine does have enough ammo, its preferable to see the Russians expending their resources in this wasteful way. It would be worse for the Ukrainians if the Russians were intelligently collecting their resources.

Russia does not have 1800 working tanks or 500,000 troops ready for a spring offensive. The Russian Troops are poorly trained and poorly equipped.

We need to continue supporting Ukraine and the new tanks from NATO will help.