The US government reports heavy losses at the Wagner Group.
Meanwhile, Russia is reporting a military success.
The latest news in the Ukraine war.
Wagner Group
"literally throws in a meat grinder" recruits in the
Ukraine war
.
Russian military
reports success: capture of village in Kharkiv region.
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Update from February 18, 2023, 9:48 p.m.:
According to its own statements, the Russian defense industry has significantly increased the production of hypersonic missiles of the Kinshah ("Dagger") type.
“It's been put on the assembly line for a long time, initially it didn't require large numbers.
Now we're increasing," said the head of the Russian armaments holding Rostec, Sergey Chemezov, on Russian television on Saturday.
According to him, Russia has increased production enormously in all areas of the armaments industry.
"In some cases 50 times as much," Chemezov said.
Accordingly, the ammunition factories in particular have significantly increased their output.
However, Russian military bloggers recently reported that the units at the front were suffering from a lack of ammunition.
Chemezov, who is considered a close confidant of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, also said that Russia would produce 300 new attack helicopters by the end of the year.
That's about the amount the Ukrainian military says they've shot down since the war began.
Ukraine News: New offensive in summer 2023?
Update from February 18, 2023, 8:10 p.m.:
An early offensive by Ukraine?
According to former CIA chief General David Petraeus, this summer Ukrainian troops will be able to push back Russian forces further, depending on arms supplies and strategy.
It requires successful combined arms warfare - a complementary approach in which multiple types of combat units support each other - to be successful, Petraeus told US broadcaster
CNN
at the Munich Security Conference.
"They can cause the enemy to collapse and ideally collapse - and that is at least locally possible this summer - and hopefully sufficient to sever the land bridge that Russia has established, allowing it to engage along the south-east coast of Ukraine with the Connect Crimea,” pointed out Petraeus, who was US and coalition commander of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and later served as director of the CIA.
So you can start isolating Crimea and "split up" Russian forces.
Ukraine War: Ukrainian and Russian troops engage in skirmishes
Update from February 18, 2023, 6:20 p.m.:
The Ukrainian news platform Ukrinform reports on several combat operations: In the southern direction, the rocket and artillery units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine carried out more than 70 fire attacks per day.
This prevents the Russian sabotage reconnaissance group from landing on one of the islands in the Dnipro Delta and destroying the enemy boat and personnel.
“Our missile and artillery units have completed more than 70 fire missions.
In another attempt by the hostile DRG to land on one of the islands in the Dnipro Delta, a converted civilian motorboat and its personnel were destroyed," the platform quoted the task force "South" as saying on Facebook.
According to the command, as a result of combat operations, Ukrainian defenders disabled ten Russian soldiers.
In addition, two enemy Orlan-10 drones, an electronic battle station, as well as an anti-tank missile complex and a large-caliber artillery piece belonging to the invaders were destroyed.
Update from February 18, 2023, 3:20 p.m
.: Russian military reports success in the Ukraine war: Vladimir Putin’s Russian military claims to have successfully taken another town in the Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine.
"In the Kupyansk area, the village of Khryanykivka in the Kharkiv region was completely liberated by offensive actions of Army Group West," Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Saturday (February 18).
By autumn, Russian troops in the region had suffered defeat and had to withdraw almost entirely from the area.
Russian military reports success: capture of village in Kharkiv region
Hryanykivka is a few kilometers east of the Oskil River, which the Russians initially wanted to build up as a new line of defense when they retreated from the Ukraine war last fall.
But then Putin's troops had to retreat much further.
The front largely ran along the Kharkiv-Luhansk regional border.
They were only able to hold out in the north, which borders on Russia.
In the meantime, the Russian military has been able to at least partially regain control of the region and, given the current developments in the war in Ukraine, has been able to report that some towns in the north-east of the country have been regained.
Ukraine war: US government reports 9,000 dead Wagner mercenaries
First report from February 18, 2023, 2 p.m.:
Washington, DC – In the Ukraine war, reports and estimates of high losses in Vladimir Putin’s army keep coming up.
For example, Russia is said to have recently lost an entire elite brigade.
But while reports repeatedly refer to the Wagner Group's high losses, the US government has now released an assessment of the soldiers actually killed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a mercenary force in Ukraine known as Putin's cook, of whom fear is growing in the Kremlin .
According to this, about 9,000 Wagner mercenaries are said to have been killed in combat operations in Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.
"About half of those men have fallen since mid-December," said National Security Council communications director John Kirby on Friday (February 18/local time) at the White House in Washington, DC
"Cannon fodder" in the Ukraine war: Wagner group "literally throws recruits into a meat grinder"
According to US intelligence, around 30,000 Wagner troops have been wounded or killed since the war began almost a year ago.
However, such information from the war zone can often hardly or only with great difficulty be confirmed by an independent party.
Kirby said of the Wagner group's handling of the Ukraine war, led by "Putin's cook" Yevgeny Prigozhin: "They treat their recruits - mostly convicts - basically like cannon fodder.
They literally throw them in a meat grinder, in an inhuman way, without hesitation.”
Wagner group in the Ukraine war: high losses of the mercenaries in Bachmut
In his statement, Kirby referred primarily to the current heavy fighting for the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
There, too, Wagner mercenaries are deployed, who have to beg for ammunition due to the power struggle between Putin's defense minister and his cook, Prigozhin.
The British Ministry of Defense on Friday gave the figure of 40,000 to 60,000 soldiers killed on the Russian side since the start of the Ukraine war.
The total number of dead or injured on the Russian side was put by London at 175,000 to 200,000.
According to estimates, the "loss rate" for the Wagner mercenaries was probably up to 50 percent in the war in Ukraine.
