Today, August 2, 2022, is D+158 in the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. For those of you who have been following TFCG’s posts on Ukraine, I will post once a month at the beginning of each month on the war. Today’s post provides a strategic and tactical update, as well as continues the crowd sourced Battle Damage Assessment update of the entire Russian Invasion of Ukraine.

Yesterday, the Oryx Website reported that Russia has lost 916 tanks since the war began. To put this in perspective — in the Active Duty US Army there are 12 Armored Brigade Combat Teams each with 87 tanks (1,044 M1A2 Abrams). If the US lost the same amount of tanks in a conflict, every tank in ~10.5 of the Armored Brigade Combat Teams would have been destroyed.

Current Situation — Big Picture

At the beginning of the war, Russia controlled 7.1% of Ukrainian territory or 43,133 km2. This territory was seized in the 2014-2015 Donbas war. Since February 24, 2022, Russia has seized an additional 81,867 km2 of Ukrainian territory — all-in-all, 125,000 km2 of Ukraine is occupied by Russia. This is approximately 20.7% of ALL of Ukraine (Ukraine was approximately 603,550 km2 pre-2014). If you want to understand military maps better, check out last month’s post entitled Invasion of Ukraine and Military Maps.

Here is Jomini of the West’s (Twitter @JominiW) latest map of the current situation (July 21, 2022). As he states, “Late June to mid-July has seen a host of developments throughout the Ukrainian Theater of Military Action. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (VSRF) have managed to secure the Luhansk Oblast but struggle to produce results on other fronts.”

Some observers are predicting the imminent logistics collapse of Russian forces. As Nadin Brzezinski argues:

There are many ways wars can come to a halt. Total surrenders are the ones most people imagine. The surrender of the Japanese on board the USS Missouri comes to mind. Or, for that matter, Victory Day in Europe. Rarely do wars end that way.

Total surrenders are rare as nails. Most end around a table and even the shape of the table is contested.

Ukraine is likely going to end in very Russian way. It’s starting to look like the armies of Vladimir Putin will go home on foot, leaving a lot of equipment behind. Why? They are facing a logistics collapse like that seen by the armies of the Tzar in 1917, after the Summer offensive.

I’m not sure the Russian military’s logistics collapse is happening as fast as Nadin says, but I think it has a better than 50% probability of happening. I also think that September is more realistic for when the collapse happens.

Total Russian BDA (As of August 1, 2022 at 15:00 EDT) From the Oryx Website (Captures losses from February 24 onwards)

Key vehicles lost include:

• 916x T-72/80/90s Tanks Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned (85 ⬆️ — all change numbers since July 4, 2022)

  • Average of 5.8x tanks damaged, destroyed, abandoned and captured per day since the invasion started

• 1,289x BMPs/BTRs/BMDs (Armored Personnel Carriers) Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned (72 ⬆️ )

  • Average of 8.1x BMPs/BTRs damaged, destroyed, abandoned and captured per day since the invasion started

• 179x Engineer Vehicles Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned (4 ⬆️ )

• 329x Indirect Fire Systems (Mortars, Howitzers, and Multiple Rocket Launcher Systems) Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned (24 ⬆️ )

• 90x Air Defense Weapon Systems Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned (4 ⬆️ )

• 272x MT-LBs (Command and Control) Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned (26 ⬆️)

The war has evolved into a war of an attrition — or an artillery slugfest. We talked about indirect fire assets (Ukraine SITREP, D+124 + Indirect Fire) a month ago. Here is a handy chart by @Volodymyr_D_ to help you understand it better. You can see that Russia still has the advantage in delivering 20,000-30,000 shells a day. Russia also has a marked advantage in light howitzers, heavy self-propelled howitzers, and Multiple Rocket Launcher Systems (MRLS). Ukraine has an advantage in heavy towed howitzers, while shooting 4,500 shells per day.

Ukrainian BDA (As of August 1, 2022 at 1500 EDT the Oryx Website)

So far, according to Oryx, Ukrainian forces have lost:

• 232x T-64/72/80 Tanks Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned

  • Average of 1.5x tanks damaged, destroyed, abandoned and captured per day since the invasion started

• 274x BMP/BTR/BMD (Armored Personnel Carriers) Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned

• 112x Indirect Fire Systems (Howitzers and MRLS) Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned

• 28x MT-LB ACRV (Command and Control) Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned

For More Information on the Conflict:

Invasion of Ukraine and Military Maps

Invasion of Ukraine, Indirect Fire Assets

Invasion of Ukraine, Air Assault

Invasion of Ukraine, River Crossing

BTGs, OoB, and Crowd Sourced BDA in Ukraine, D+11

Conclusion

Want even more? Reach out to me me here for a virtual talk to your group or company on the Invasion of Ukraine and its tactical and strategic implications.

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Use your deeper awareness of the invasion of Ukraine to go on the offensive and follow the conflict with better insight.