“The Armed Forces of Ukraine lost 31 vehicles in the battle for the village of Staromayorsk alone, including 23 mine-protected armored vehicles, given to them by NATO countries,” reports Julian Röpke of pro-war German newspaper Bild.
On Bild TV, Röpke showed Russian images of the destroyed armor, saying that Bild had been able to verify the veracity of the images. The destruction caused to Ukrainian forces in the course of liberating just one of six villages they had taken in the direction of Mariupol in South Ukraine was “incredible”, Röpcke said. The destroyed vehicles were “mainly western-supplied vehicles”, Röpcke noted.
Ukraine has lost 9 out of 18 German-supplied Leopard 2A6 tanks, according to Bild. While some tanks may possibly be repaired, maintenance facilities are 1000 miles to the west and some tanks are still trapped under enemy fire.
“This does raise the question of how long Ukraine can keep this up,” Röpcke said, who has been one of the main saber-rattlers for the NATO-Russia war in Europe. “We know that way more than 30 vehicles were destroyed seizing the village of Robotyne (Robotina), which still hasn’t been completely liberated.”
“If Ukraine is losing 20 to 30 vehicles per village, and has a total of about 500 western-supplied tanks and APCs, you can do the math and figure out Ukraine will not be liberating southern Ukraine at that pace.”
“Despite the pledge of over 100 Leopard, Challenger and Abrams main battle tanks in January 2023, neither Germany, Great Britain, nor the USA have followed up on their tank deliveries.” In contrast, the Russian army brings between 20 and 50 new or upgraded main battle tanks a month, Bild reports.
Springer Publishing’s Bild tabloid, the largest newspaper in Germany, has been one of the leading cheerleaders for endless war in Ukraine since Day 1 of the Russian invasion. Springer is majority-owned by New York-based KKR & Co. (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts). Gen. David Petraeus is chairman of KKR Global Institute. Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner served as board member of NATO think tanks Institute for Strategic Dialogue and Aspen Institute, the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group and the World Economic Forum.
Russian sources estimate Ukraine lost 7,000 men taking the villages of Staromayorsk and Urozhaynoye. According to the Russian Ministry of Defence figures, Ukraine has lost approx. 54,000 men since the start of the “counter-offensive” June 4, with 1400 casualties last weekend alone.
As more and more Ukrainians seek to escape the “Meat Grinder” by bribing draft board officials, President Volodymir Zelenski fired the heads of all the military recruitment centers and replaced them with wounded combat veterans, RFE/RL reports.
“Amid a war that has killed tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians, a report that a $4.35-million seaside villa in Marbella had been purchased by Yevhen Borysov, the head of the Odessa regional military enlistment office — along with an office in the Spanish resort city and a luxury car — pushed public anger to a point where the government apparently decided it had to act”, US government-controlled RFE/RL reports.
According to Valeriy Bolhan of USAID-tied Center for Public Investigations, as many as 50,000 people had paid off military recruiters in Odessa with $5,000 to avoid conscription or go abroad.
US officials are “increasingly critical of Ukraine’s counteroffensive strategy and gloomy about its prospect of success,” the Financial Times reports, “deepening tensions between Kyiv and Washington at the most critical point in the war since Russia’s full-scale invasion.”
“I don’t think that you’ll hear an argument from anyone that this is going well right now or that this is heading to a place that people would view as good, but there is not much by way of plan B,” said Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the Rand Corporation.
“It’s been about 10 km of advance at most no matter where you look in this offensive,” Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told FT.
Even in the face of massive casualties, Biden Regime operatives “encouraged Ukraine to be less risk-averse and fully commit its forces to the main axis of the counteroffensive in the south so it would have a chance of breaking through Russian lines to reach the Sea of Azov, effectively cutting Russia’s land bridge in southern Ukraine to Crimea”, FT writes.
Even if Congress authorizes the latest package of Ukraine funding requested by the White House, “some US officials and analysts say it is unlikely that Washington will be able to offer the same level of lethal assistance to Ukraine next year, given the looming presidential election and munitions manufacturers’ longer-term schedule to increase production,” FT writes.
Republican congressman Andy Harris told a town-hall meeting in Maryland the counteroffensive had “failed”, FT reported. “Is this more [of] a stalemate? Should we be realistic about it? I think we probably should,” Harris told constituents in Abingdon, Maryland, 25 miles north-east of Baltimore. “I’ll be blunt, it’s failed.” He was also pessimistic about the course of the war, saying, “I’m not sure it’s winnable anymore.”