In the bleak midwinter. Guess which word prevented the posting of this earlier.
"During winter you need good equipment and logistics to survive.
I have extensive training and experience in this, so I will not bore you with details.
Let me just state that I participated in the aptly named N0rthwind exercise.
It set the current world record of s***y conditions. Four died, 70+ was wounded so bad that they needed amputations, and one artillery howitzer exploded due to becoming fragile.
It was at one point -53.6 Celsius.
1) Training on how to survive in cold and harsh conditions. The best are bviously Sweden and Finland. Both countries have minus 50 celsius as the temperature where we stop holding exercises. This was the result of N0rthwind, we got a temperature that was officially to cold to do war.
2) Let this sink in, now understand why I giggle when people say that winter will slow Ukraine down.
3) It will not, winter is your friend in manoeuvre warfare, mud is the enemy.
4) Good gear to keep you warm and dry. And many many socks. Socks are important in cold weather, you must change into new clean and dry socks at a minimum of once per day, preferably twice.
5) Enough socks and you are invincible.
Food, you will burn through 4-7 times as many calories at minus 20C compared to 20 plus.
In the Swedish army the daily summer field rations are 5000 calories per day, winter are 7000-9000 and you are supposed to scarf down two of them.
Enough food served enough times per day and your body will adapt in 5 to 14 days and produce brown fat that is insulating, and increase metabolic burnrate.
Ie, your body will keep you warm even when an unprepaired body would not.
More things will break, and more time will be needed on fixing your gear. Plan for it.
If you have more of 1 - 4 you will win against any odds. See the Finnish Winter War and the Continuation War.
The Swedish official military doctrine is to hold in summer, and to break them during winter. And it was always Russia that was the enemy, we are just too nice to say it out loud (until now).
Ukraine has 1 - 5 in ample amounts. They have had 8 years to prepare together with Canadian, Finnish and Swedish military advisors that have been in Ukraine.
Ukraine is well prepared, well trained, well socked, well fed... Russia is not prepared at all, which in and of itself is just ridiculous.
Yes, some of them are Russian hunter/gatherers from out in nowhere Russia. But they lack sock and food, the rest they have.
For the main bulk of mobiks and soldiers things are much bleeker.
They have summer gear, and only one set of it so they can't change if they get wet. Socks, the original soldiers had 5 pairs when they came to Ukraine, now they get two pairs of feet wrappings. This is why they have stolen socks since the beginning of the war.
Food, well they do not get any and have to scavange for it themselves.
Try to scavange 10 000 calories plus per day when tens of thousands of soldiers are doing the same thing around you, good luck with that.
I suspect that quite a few by now are eating their fallen comrades, and no I am not joking.
It is the only option for them to survive except to surrender for a warm Ukrainian meal.
This leads me to a leaked Russian report on casualties. It is a study over percentages of fatalities.
Up until two weeks ago the bulk of it was in descending order, Lack of medical treatment, Died during treatment, Killed in Action.
This is normal for almost all armies, but the difference in proportion is staggering. Four soldiers died per every directly killed in Action.
This probably means that the Russian figures are much higher than the Ukrainian body count method suggests.
This changed two weeks ago.
Now 52 percent die of "Fell asleep and did not wake up", which is a wonderful eufemism for hypothermia (or being eaten alive in your sleep by your friends).
This is an enormous number.
The Swedish army was counting on a figure of 1 percent fatalities during wartime. The Finns had 2.6 during the Winter War, but with less developed gear and training, so I think the Swedish number should hold. And that Ukraine would end up at 1 - 2.6 percent.
Now ponder 52 percent and the effect on the outcome of the war. This was exactly why Russia lost the Winter War.
And they are not only dying inside Ukraine, there are many who freeze to death in Russia in their baracks and in tent cities as they get mobilised.
Self inflicted auto-massacre will become the term on what Russia is doing to themselves this winter.
Yesterday as I was falling asleep I was pondering how far Russia have fallen from the times of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union landed on Venus.
Russia can't even produce socks."
