Marat Khairullin Responds!

Zinderneuf asked Marat for his thoughts on a recent article, and Marat answered!

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russia-freaked-ukraines-drone-strikes-destroy-30000-tons-ammo-213007

This article clearly shows how the so-called West deceives itself, repeating the same mantra - Russia is weak. Setting itself up for a confrontation with what it thinks is a weak opponent, in reality our non-partners constantly encounter a strong and seasoned fighter and therefore lose. In this particular article, the author writes, for example, that Russia lost 30,000 tons of ammunition as a result of just one strike. Firstly, such an accurate assessment itself raises doubts. But even so. The problem for Ukraine is that this is a drop in the ocean.

Zelensky admitted that more than 900 airstrikes were carried out last week alone. The average load of Russian aircraft is 8 tons. If we assume that each aircraft dropped a full load, then this will already be more than 7 thousand tons of aerial bombs. Russian aviation makes 150 to 200 sorties per day, that is, it drops up to 1,600 tons of bombs.

Su34 Fully Loaded

The author goes on to write that Russia fires up to 20,000 artillery shells per day. These are very low estimates, because the capacity of the artillery grouping in the Pokrovsk direction alone (from Kurakhovo to Toretsk) is estimated at over seven thousand barrels (excluding tanks, MLRS, mortars). Each barrel fires up to 30 shells per day - this is currently the minimum daily standard at the front. For tanks, the standard on the Pokrovsky Front is two carousels a day - 44 shells.

The weight of one 152 mm shell is about 50 kilograms. In total, every day, Russian artillery alone produces a thousand tons of metal. It is believed that the Russian MLRS today uses approximately twice as much ammunition in pure weight as artillery.

Currently, the capacity of the Russian tank group is estimated at approximately three thousand tanks directly on the front line, even if only a thousand operate daily (we will understate it frankly, so that no one will find fault) - that is, 22 thousand shells per day at a minimum.

There is also air defense - also a considerable expenditure. There are small arms ammunition, also quite a lot. There are also mines - they are measured in thousands of tons, because mining is one of the main instruments of war. Well, and the new thing - FPV drones - also a huge expenditure, they also use standard ammunition.

That is, no matter how you look at it, it turns out that the Russian army uses approximately 7 to 10 thousand tons of ammunition per day. A single warehouse with 30 thousand tons of ammunition, which was hit with difficulty, is a drop in the ocean. Ukrainians need to destroy enough per day to have a real effect on the combat situation.

Now compare with Russian figures - we have been destroying 15 to 20 Ukrainian ammunition depots per day since August. That's all of the maths. Let's move on.

The author points out that the losses of the Russian army are allegedly three times greater than the Ukrainian ones - this is also self-deception. These figures do not correspond even to purely theoretical calculations based on open data. In Russia, there are a number of indirect sources that make it easy to track that the losses of the Russian army for the entire period of the SMO are within the range of 50-60 thousand. This roughly corresponds to the words of President Vladimir Putin that our losses are a fifth of the Ukrainian ones.

In general, the author's position in this article is similar to the position of a person who closed his eyes, stood in the path of a rushing train and stubbornly repeats - the train will go around me. It's time for the West to understand that the train won't go around simply because that's how large systems are designed - they have a lot of mass and inertia. If you accelerate them, you won't be able to stop them quickly enough.