5 Jun, 2023 23:43

NATO-supplied tanks destroyed in failed Ukrainian offensive – Russian MOD

Kiev lost eight German Leopards and three French AMX-10s, the military has claimed

Russian forces have repelled a renewed large-scale attack byUkrainian troops in several parts of Donetsk and Zaporozhye regions, the Russian Defense Ministry said in the early hours of Tuesday, claiming thatKiev’s armed formations and military units suffered “significant losses.”

“Having suffered heavy losses the day before, the Kiev regime reorganized the remnants of the 23rd and 31st mechanized brigades into separate combined units, which continued the offensive operations close to Novodarovka and Levadnoye,” said the ministry’s spokesman, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov.

The renewed offensive mainly focused on the village of Vremevka in Donetsk Region, but wasstopped by missile, artillery and heavy rocket- propelled flamethrower strikes, according to Konashenkov.

“The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ total losses in south Donetsk direction wereover 1,500 servicemen, 28 tanks, including eight German-made Leopard tanks and three French-manufactured AMX-10 wheeled tanks, as well as 109 other armored fighting vehicles,”the Russian military spokesman said.

It was unclear if the tally included the losses from Sunday's botched attack, which was described as “large-scale” yet “unsuccessful”by the Russian military. In that attempt alone, Kievlost more than 250 service members, 16 tanks, three infantry vehicles, and 21 armored vehicles, according to the ministry.

Some videos circulated by military bloggers on Telegram did show what appears to be several abandoned French AMX-10 light tanks, but did not include visual confirmation of the German-made Leopards lost in battle.

The Russian Defense Ministry has yet to release footage of the latest strikes on Ukrainian military vehicles. On Monday, it published a video of Ukrainian heavy equipment, supplied by the Western nations, being destroyed by Russian strikes the day before.

Ukraine's Deputy DefenseMinister Anna Maliar confirmed that Kiev’s forces were moving to “offensive actions” in some areas, but provided no comment on the failed attacks andclaimedthat Moscow’s talk about the Kiev’s “counteroffensive” blunders was an attempt to to “divert attention” from its own alleged failures.

https://www.rt.com/russia/577545-ukraine-offensive-western-tanks/

6 Jun, 2023 01:12

Ukraine’s population close to half level of 1991 – think tank

Data shows Kiev faced a demographic disaster even before the conflict with Russia escalated

Only 29 million people remain in Ukraine, down from 52 millionwhen it declared independence in 1991, the Ukrainian Institute for the Future said on Monday. The think tank noted that demographic trends raise concerns for the country’s very survival.

While more than half of the 20,7 million Ukrainians who left the country in February 2022 seem to have returned, that still leaves 8,6 million who appear to have left permanently, according to UIF. The remainder is “carried” by theproductive population of only nine million – of which only around six million actually generate revenue in the private sector, while therest are on the government budget, the think tank explained in a recent report.

As birth rates have also collapsed far below replacement, in just a few yearsUkraine will have twice as many retirees as working citizens, the UIF said, warning that “there will be no one to generate GDP” unless something changes.

The institute did not address battlefield casualties, which tend to come from the able-bodied male population. Its demographic data also counted the population of Crimea and the four regions that joined Russia last fall as part of Ukraine’s total.

Last month, the Russian Border Guard Service reported that more than 3.5 million Ukrainian citizens crossed into Russia since February 2022. That number did not factor in the populations of Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, or the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.

Ukraine’s population was already down to 45.5 million by 2013, when the Maidan protests began. The following year, a US-backed coup brought the nationalists to power in Kiev and set off the reunification of Crimea with Russia and the Donbass conflict.

The UIF was established in 2016. Its newest report, ‘New Economic Policy for Ukraine’, urges the government of President Vladimir Zelensky to urgently prioritize demographics to address the question of “preserving Ukraine as a state.”

The report criticizesevery government in Kievsince 1991, arguing that they havetreated the country as a vessel for personal enrichment and party patronage. According to UIF,Ukraine’s society “remains immature, infantile and prone to paternalism,” in a system where the governing bureaucracy controls all resources, treatsbusinesses as a “cash cow”to be milked for assets, and does not think in terms of common good or serving the citizens.

“Corruption is the main element and lever of management. The actions of politicians and officials are subordinated to one goal – to keep power,” the report says. From one of the most industrially developed Soviet republics, the UIF adds,Ukraine has devolvedinto a source of raw materials and “an object of international politics, where other actors determine our path.”

While insisting they are not a party to Kiev’s conflict with Moscow, theUSand its allies have pledged over $100 billion in weapons, ammunition, and equipment to the Ukrainian military over the past year, as well astens of billions in cash to help Zelensky’s government pay the government salaries and pensions.

https://www.rt.com/russia/577546-ukraine-population-shrink-half/