Russia's HOLE ARMY is in Ukraine, gonna be hard for Ukraine to push them out

The battlefront in eastern Ukraine is over 700 miles long, the distance from London to Barcelona. Moscow has committed virtually the whole of the Russian army to the invasion.

Its forces are organised into battalion tactical groups [BTGs], which consist of up to 40 tanks with artillery, armoured vehicles and engineering support. In total, Putin has 168 BTGs, each one a self-contained fighting force with full autonomy — and 115 of them are now in Ukraine.

But even that immense military presence is not enough to man the whole of the front line, which is why Russia is concentrating on focal points such as Bakhmut in the Donetsk region. Zelensky has accepted the challenge, throwing his army into the fight for Bakhmut despite heavy losses. He knows that winning there will prove he can win anywhere.

His chances are good. The BTGs are seriously under strength, with only 30 to 40 per cent of their full manpower. Their military intelligence has proved inadequate and they've fallen back on brute force and their overwhelming superiority in artillery firepower.

British intelligence also suggests that a new Russian tank regiment — part of the 3rd army corps — has suffered heavy losses, including a 'large proportion of its tanks'. The regiment is engaged in the city of Avdiivka, near Bakhmut, and is alleged to be mired by drunkenness, low morale and ill discipline.

Latest figures show the Russians have 1,330,900 men on the ground, compared with just half a million Ukrainians. They have 4,182 aircraft, including 1,531 helicopters and 773 fighter jets; Ukraine is far behind, with 312 aircraft, including 113 helicopters and 69 fighters.

Russia has 12,566 tanks, 151,641 armoured vehicles, 6,575 self-propelled guns and 3,887 mobile rocket launchers. In every case, that's at least four times as many as Ukraine possesses and sometimes six.

If firepower alone won wars, this one would have been over long ago. But Russia lacks a crucial military component — unity of command. Their generals are at loggerheads.

Putin will not permit his forces to pull out, however much punishment is inflicted.

Instead, he is playing for time, waiting for elections in the U.S. and Britain next year, which he will do his utmost to rig. Already Russia is ramping up its cyber operations, flooding social media in the West with fake news.

If the Republicans take the White House, American support for Ukraine could be largely withdrawn.

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