@Fougaro said:
Wagner is much more effective than the regular Russian military is that 1) they have their own equipment and even artillery
I'd just like to say that calling it "their own" is a bit rich, equipment is handed to them by the Russian military, and the whole thing is funded by Putin's regime. Wagner PMC is about as private as Gazprom, it was created so that Kremlin could conduct military operations whilst having plausible deniability.
It's effectively Russian military in everything but name that was given carte blanche, because it's run by Putin's favorite fuckboi on his behalf.
As for their supposed effectiveness, gotta keep in mind that their members are even more expendable than regular Russian troops. They're conscripting fodder from Russian prisons even now, and these people have no rights to speak of, and anyone who gets out of line receives a bullet, or sledgehammer to the head to make an example for the rest.
Thus they can afford to zerg rush and significant losses it causes while chipping away at Ukrainian positions, since no one is going to hold them responsible for some rapists and murderers who should be rotting in prison.
For regular Russian soldiers there's a higher standard, there are people waiting for them at home, and public is keeping an eye on them while Wagner's activity is more clandestine in nature with its overall status being questionable to say the least. In short, there's concern for optics that doesn't apply to Wagner.
The next generation of Banderites.
Do you find this morally reprehensible? Even in the context with everything that's going on? That's amusing.
You constantly show disregard for the lives of Ukrainians, calling them subhuman, excusing Russia's crimes against them, treating all this as a spectator sport, yet somehow get your panties in a twist over something like this. Ukrainians wishing death on those who brought suffering and ruin to their homes? How outrageous indeed.
Every piece of land you control is potentially useful for logistics, but to what extent is the question. Ukraine will keep fighting as long as Kiev stands and they have international support, it's a simple fact. Russia could take the entire Donbas, which they supposedly determined is their goal now, but that wouldn't make Ukraine magically stop from trying to regain their territory or just making what they took unusable. War will continue, Russia would have to contend with it - that's not a win, because prolonged war was never in the plans to begin with.
War is expensive, people who thinks Russia doesn't feel it and that it won't have long lasting consequences are out of their minds.
I just read a lot and watch videos to see what is going on in the war, but if the town wasn't important, why wouldn't the Ukrainians just pull out and abandon it? Why send so many of their men into the meat grinder to die or get maimed for something that wasn't important?
One reason is if you have a good defensive position that enemy is trying to get, it's beneficial to make use of it and deplete advancing forces, inflicting as many losses as possible as they're trying to take it.
There's literally no reason to just cede ground when your enemy is perfectly willing to die for it. You make them die for as long as you can, if it becomes too much to handle, you retreat and do it again in some other place.
Yeah, defenders suffer losses too, but it's a known fact that it takes numerically superior forces to overwhelm dug in enemy, so generally speaking attacker suffers far more. Considering Russia's disregard for human life, it's a given here.
It's war, it's brutal, sometimes all you have is shitty options.
It's a war of attrition, if you haven't figured it out.
