Ukraine War Evolves - Who's REALLY Winning? - Data That Challenges the Narrative

G'day legends, I hope you're having a fantastic day. You had a brilliant weekend and so far your week is even better. You may have noticed I've been away for a few days. I was interstate. I was up in Brisbane so my partner could run the Brisbane marathon. She went fantastically and we had a fantastic time away. So this is why the video of the wrap-up of May is a few days late. So of course at the end of every month or the beginning of the new month we do a wrap-up of the month previous. We look at losses. We talk about who is winning or ahead in the war, who may have the advantage, who may have the initiative and of course this is difficult because well what do you assess? What metrics do you use? What data is and isn't important? What statements do you or don't you listen to? So as I always do in this, I say the way that you present data, your inputs of your data are often more important than actually just the back end of the data itself. You could easily present something to show someone is winning or someone has the initiative or is ahead that may not actually be the case. That's why today we're going to show you different ways to display this. We're going to of course look at manpower and the mid-range strikes. Of course on that mid-range strike this is really what is one of the defining characteristics of the battlefield at the moment and that this is changing and evolving the dynamics but we will see more of a grasp on this in the coming months. Of course then we'll talk about territory. What territory has been won or lost? What is the exchange of territory? Remember net and gross. This is important because you'll see net territory. Spoken about net, net, net, net. We still need to look at the gross to see where things are shifting and of course then we'll look at losses, tactical losses, tanks, self-propelled guns, IVs. I've got a lot of that data to show you today but what's important about May? Well May was really the month that we'd seen everyone speak about Ukraine has regained the initiative on the battlefield. They are winning that XYZ all about that and what I've said is well did any of these officials, analysts, propagandists, news outlets, did any of them ever assess that Ukraine didn't have the initiative and wasn't holding the upper hand for the last 18 months? Now we know that to be true. I would still say that Ukraine does not have the initiative on the battlefield. There are elements of which they do of course say the mid-range strike. I'll happily say that but overall I don't assess that to be the case. I'll show you this data today but more so did they ever assess that and we have seen Ukraine uptick of course the amount of territory that it is taking back off the Russians and of course those mid-ranges but we need to look at the cost this is having and then we'll look at the holistic nature of war. Tactics are not standalone. Tactics need to influence political outcomes and see how as Ukraine has increased its efforts on the battlefield especially in offensive action how its rhetoric has changed to wanting to end the war sooner rather than later and how that rhetoric well I think that says a lot because if everything was about to collapse you've got a massive ratio of losses that's in your favor you wouldn't be the one wanting to end this sooner rather than later so we've got of course a lot to look over now for an attritional war the primary metric if we had good numbers would of course be manpower this isn't the be-all end-all but would be the best metric and what I is well to get a good figure on manpower is almost impossible so what we have to do is work with the best that we have got now some of these haven't updated so of course we have the UA losses this is the Ukrainian losses at 191 000 but of course this hasn't updated since mid-April so that's the figure that we're working with here and then we have of course the media zone losses these are the Russian losses of course many people on both these websites question the way that they gather the data to put into this and we have at least 225 000 up until June the 2nd of June so another month and a half beyond but as you can see that neither of these figures are dramatically different there's going to be a lot of missing in action there's likely going to be a lot of double counting there's likely a lot that haven't been counted but what you can see is one figure is not 800 000 and another 50 000 okay and this is where this really annoys me as I see really clever people a general that I can think of an Australian major general I can think of as well as heaps of other analysts that they take the figures like what Zelensky will say just as complete reliable not question them and use that as the foundation of their assessment so let's look at this this is Zelensky's open letter to Russia to Putin as he said we need to run the numbers in May once again the number exceeded 30 000 Russian soldiers killed or seriously wounded we've been maintaining that level month after month we have video confirmation of every one of your losses he goes on to say 63 of your battlefield losses are killed while only 37 are wounded no army can afford such ratio I've got a lot to say on this firstly if every part of this was video confirmed which it wouldn't be because well artillery shooting long range all of that but if it was we would see far far more footage if a thousand Russians were hit a day with a drone and it was videoed I guarantee all of that would be released why psychological purpose psychologically negative for the Russians positive for the Ukraine so all that would come out like that argument I had of we have footage of meat wave assaults over the top boys blow the whistle that way but we're not releasing it and what I've said is if that existed it would be the first thing to be released so I question that and of course those that just take yep that is true because he has said it you can obviously see why he has incentive to fudge numbers I'd be doing the same thing if I was the head of state during a war let's look at the battlefield losses of 63 percent of battlefield losses are killed 37 are wounded now with drones you are likely going to of those killed to wounded typically it worked maybe three wounded to one killed what I would say is I think it's highly unlikely to see a complete inversion of that and if we have seen a complete inversion of that I would also say that Ukraine would have had the same inversion because when we look at the ability to evacuate off the front line drones artillery usage there's not some huge disparity between being able to get someone off the front between Russia and Ukraine so if we have seen the inversion it will be both ways he continues say when the ratio of Ukraine loss to Russian losses is one to five or one to six now again the best losses that we have being media zone ua losses that this does not suggest this neither does the amount of busification that we see so again where actually is this data because we're not seeing the video of it nor do we have reliable data to suggest that many people are just taking as absolute truth this is where I bring up something like this what we're looking at here is a false color filter over a satellite imagery in Zaporizhia Oblast and what you can see by what amk says here is the accuracy of Russian FAB glide munitions on the tree lines I know Clement Molen he's done a lot of these recently too and you can see where these FABs from 250s all the way to 3000s they're not used often 250 to 500s are laying down in all of these tree lines and this is this artillery advantage and I put FABs as a piece of artillery that Su-34s they're able to drop these all night all day thousands thousands of these munitions with no recent losses of Su-34 and these are flying in tandem now with Su-35 an air dominance fighter that is resulting in more targeting of Ukrainian fighters with air-to-air missile haven't seen any of those go down recently confirmed that it's putting more danger on trying to counter these Su-34s too and when you see this you see the overwhelming amount of tactical losses of vehicles on the front line no obvious huge disparity in things like drones that is in Ukraine's favor at the mid sorry at the short range I question how people are taking this figure as completely everything but there's more of this letter we're going to go over this a little bit later is this is an open letter to Putin it's titled as such but it's a tacit understanding that this is a letter to increase morale in Ukraine and supporting elements and signal a willingness to the European partners but also to Russia that they're willing to speak and it's this willingness to speak openly about negotiations ending the war ending it before winter is why when we see this Ukrainian push on the front line this is that Clausewitzian link that war is just an extension of politics and where these are playing in tune is pushing hard then wanting to negotiate but the question I've had is if Russia doesn't negotiate how does this massive push we see how does that influence the ability for 2027 maybe 2028 as Zelensky says himself in his own letter that Russia has signaled to be willing to fight into those of course we spoke about earlier that this month has been characterized by the mid-range strike now these are very important this of course affects logistics do I think that people are making a larger deal out of it than it is yes I do and we've seen this characterized before by this is the Wonderwolf it's going to be this system this tactic this that and the rest this is very very challenging for the Russians it will decrease their ability to defend and go on offensive action do I think it's going to have that cataclysmic collapse of everything that people are saying well I don't think so but again this we need to look at the actual best numbers that we've got and none of them are perfect so of course I've got some footage here showing over Lugansk area I believe and strikes on a lot of Russian logistics here vehicles trucks we've even seen more trains hit but let's look at the scale of this okay so let's firstly look at the Ukrainian MOD numbers now this is from the 3rd of June but you can go back and you'll see the same thing it appears a lot like the eliminated personnel where it just adds 1100 a day and you pick the last couple of it seems to be that it seems to be floating between 350 and 450 day after day after day and when we look at the best figures we have well that seems massively over represented so firstly let's look at uh war spotting he does a great job of this that over the month has been then double the size of vehicles lost between May and April of the Russians but that is double due to the amount of transport that has been destroyed so less of others maybe more tactical vehicles but a transport so supply trucks newly found Ukrainian successful tactic compromised over half of last month's losses so over the month more than half we're seeing here of he's saying 85 transporters have been destroyed I think that would be the absolute bottom end but this is the base then we step on to Mr Clement Molen who's been doing a great job of this too Ukraine continues to launch important number of mid-range strike targeting Russian logistics since early May 270 trucks have been hit so since early May and this is on the 5th of June so slightly under that he says Ukrainian forces are constantly looking for fuel trucks which are a priority target about 30 of those have been destroyed so far which further complicates all the logistics so again he's saying 270 from basically the first of May to early June again we see this figure here of more than 400 a day again this is why I question any figures of course where there is incentive to change numbers on this but there's a difference too between this figure from Mr Molen and this figure here from war spotting will be firstly just how you collect data also the assessment of a vehicle that I think with a lot of Mr Molen's that I see is this is trucks but taken as everything of tactical vehicles of like what you'd consider like an MRAP through to logistical trucks through to what I'd call a ute or a pickup all of that or I believe from what I've seen of this one here is more like a typical flatbed logistics style military truck but that if it's hit of course he says hit here when this guy's talking about destroyed but again that gives us a baseline of that and somewhere around this maybe 300 mark with some that aren't seen but again this is bringing in the question of these figures do I think it is catastrophic no and I think the rhetoric tells us a lot okay so I'm just going to quickly copy this slide because I want to get into these territory and losses slides and talk about that rhetoric that if Zelensky was as confident as those who are ostensibly analysts more advocates of this war that everything's about to collapse and walk through well this rhetoric wouldn't be taking place so let's have a look at the at a lot of data here so I'll bring these up so you can screenshot them you can use them as you would like and those who help me with some of these numbers thank you very much so of course this is the net data we take from the first to the first so deep state you're talking just a net of 16.6 kilometers square suryak 35 amk 26 pretty close numbers it's around that 20 to 30 mark somewhere like this you can see the smallest since then january well it depends how you look at it before suryak we can talk about how we add up net and gross differently and how this has a huge effect but i'm seeing some of the same characters who i spoke about before former generals analysts etc saying that it's now been three months of net gain for ukraine what i'm saying is no one but maybe the isw saying that not even deep state themselves but you can see how much smaller the net has been this year compared to last year it's looking more something like 23 24 this is where we need to then look at that gross figure before we do that let's look at the vehicle losses then look at a chart summary and then we'll look at the gross because it's still changing a lot and the losses are then steady and increasing in some areas so where we see this is just 2026 we need to cut out armored vehicles and m wraps i don't think this is fair to put in here because ukraine's operating more of these vehicles therefore more being hit russia's favoring more of your smaller lighter vehicle and this of course fudges the total down in here but let's look at others now i believe the most important in this uh ifvs spgs and tanks engineering incredibly important too we can see when we step onto spg that ukraine is losing five times almost five times the amount that russia is of course russia fields a lot more guns they make a lot more guns and of course have access to a lot more ammunition russia lost six ukraine lost 27 we talk if these very very low ukraine lost three russia lost two tanks ukraine lost six russia lost three why are these lower well we're just seeing less of these actually used on the battlefield but this is where we need to go over my summary charts here and look at what is being gained v what is being lost okay so this is where net and gross is confusing because of course what you can end up with is this in february 2026 suryak map only showed one kilometer square going in favor of russia and ukraine only losing one but if we want to step onto then the february gross this is what you'll see and you go willy these numbers don't add up that in february russia made around 350 squares ukraine made around 290 squares where's that disparity of a lot of territory what this is is how the battlefield is changing that there's large areas that were red that may have been blue that have now gone gray and it is not as simple anymore they're just purely deducting these figures from themselves okay this is where i say the net will never be completely right the best that we have is the suryak is the closest we have due to how mr hey hey hayden actually adds it up and takes into account that uh gray zone change how from contested to infiltration because remember if you were just to deduct you'd have to just have red to blue and as me and mr hayden have talked about that the war is no longer like that what is control if you have a hundred soldiers here but then there's two soldiers behind you what is controlled anymore that is a conversation for another time but that's why gross is important and when we look at the may gross well this tells us russia still gained 299 kilometer squares ukraine gained 221 kilometer squares so when we look that this figure is still very low around the syriac you know 35 others that this goes against that the battlefield is static it's not there's just two sides making ground in other directions again that maths won't be one-to-one so let's step on and have a look at the net first remember i'm trying to display the data as many ways as i can for you so dual axis chart graph here of course on the right we have the net kilometer squares change this on the left is units loss now i've cut out the mraps i've cut out the engineering vehicles i've cut out the mrls all we are looking at is tanks ivs spgs solid lines for russia checked lines for ukraine so you can see how the spgs losses are high how ukraine's losses in many vehicle types are higher than the russians but that is having a net gain less remember these figures are from the ukraine losses from lost armor the russian losses are from ukraine war spotting i don't think this tells us as much as when we look at the gross and see yes to make ground but it's going to cost you a lot but again these vehicles are used to less and less on the battlefield this doesn't mean their importance or relevance has decreased we still see russia china america europe armies all around the world focusing massively on armored vehicles it doesn't mean they've just decreased it merely means the war's current status is not favorable to mechanized movements given the saturation of drones and the standing of the two militaries head-to-head at the moment but remember many who said that mechanized maneuver was irrelevant it's just a sign of incompetence to try and attempt it that it no longer exists many who said that are now suggesting that ukraine will be able to reintroduce mechanized maneuver things like isw are saying this none of this data shows that either side will be able to introduce mechanized maneuver for a very very long time observing the war i would be astounded if that could be introduced within years if it continues but these charts these are important if you say well they're not being used much why are these important well you can draw a lot of information out of these because these are tactical vehicles lost these are still important to be able to make hold change terrain okay the logistics is incredibly important what what we see is those logistics vehicles there's significantly more of them and categories change massively i'll try and look if there's someone having a project on on these exactly but i've seen some figures of like kamaz losing you know this many trucks but they can make an astronomical amount of them okay but this is still important tactical vehicles are still very very important and of this the most important as self-propelled guns now what we have seen is yes the mid-range strike where ukraine had the superiority i think less superiority than people think i think they think russia has none and ukraine has it all it's more like this has shifted and changed the nature of operations and we will see the war evolve and change in response to this but barrel tube artillery it is under appreciated this will that artillery under say 30ks of range it's massively under appreciated in the informational space why because you don't get a video of an artillery shell on a vehicle you don't get that footage of it against a person etc that you get from a drone so it doesn't trend as well but it is incredibly important what does barrel artillery give you that a drone doesn't it gives you an ability to suppress and destroy wide area targets for extended periods of time a drone is more like a highly efficient effective needle of artillery where arty can just suppress an entire area and if that working with drones in that paint by numbers we talk about is very very deadly again that's why i showed you the fab strikes the beginning of this and given the month-on-month ratio of ukrainian spg with some months being around 50 at the same time when the russians were somewhere around four to five given that ratio this should have some red flags going up going there's a concern here but what we see is less of these operating more getting destroyed or russia operate more so russia's got more they're losing less ukraine's losing more not being used in my reading of this that gives them evidence of russia's short-range drone superiority this is what we needed to look at here was this is the gross territorial advance which i think when we see two sides advancing at once is a better way to look than this than the net so you can see where ukraine and where russia are making games remember february tiny same as may very small net but both states made large amounts of ground now this is where we speak about that gray zone that has changed from contested to infiltration to what now is blue what is red how do you assess what is that showed you february here you can end up with a tiny amount with both sides making a lot of ground but this graph i think exposes the reality behind the headline figures it exposes behind what people are saying is the net territorial it creates the illusion of a frozen war which people saying a frozen war this that and the rest well this tells a different story it shows that both russia and ukraine are making advances every month what we see is to make these advancements for russia we've still seen a decrease in the amount of losses of tactical vehicles where ukraine we've seen a decrease in some but an increase in things like spg it's being done at a high cost so the cost of movement is not equal for ukraine to do this they are losing more armor than russia is okay what i could do i didn't think about doing this is i could give kilometer squares to tackle vehicle lost now what you may say is but these are using less they're less important yes but what other data are we going to work off and if you go we'll then work off a statement from putin or zelensky well you're on the wrong channel okay so what we've seen is the spg has consistently outpaced these ratios and the russia is advancing more gaining more ground losing less equipment and ukraine is paying a higher price for less in return this is where this sort of data presented how you can because you can present this in many different ways is very important okay so that's how we're looking at it but when we see this when we look at higher amount of losses still a less amount of gains who is winning you know you're winning in nutritional but who is ahead well i would say russia so that's what we need to look at and when you want to say that there are more losses like this in some categories significantly more but then say that it is a five or six to one casualty rate on the front when we see area weapons like these fabs okay when you want to say that these mid-range strikes is still at 63 is killed rather than wounded that's where you know we need to step well outside of what a statement that an official is making look at the us statements about certain things in the middle east at the moment but i've shown you all the data and this is where i want to say though this is the holistic approach you need to look at is tactical operational strategy and political because there's been a big shift politically especially from zelensky this is in that open letter the choice is now yours enough of the war that ukraine proposes an end to this war we see the us is fully focused on the issue of iran every wrong to simply wait to the war in europe returns the center of its attention the ukraine war in europe will not return to the center of us attention what is the center of us attention it's beyond iran it's beyond europe it's beyond ukraine especially the us attention is and will be on containing china trying to maintain us dominance what i will say is russian relations between washington and moscow is one of the key elements to this because russia as a balance between then america and china well can tip a lot of power to chinese direction okay that is where the u.s attention is u.s especially through the current administration they want less and less to do with europe that ukraine propose ending the war through direct engagement between us and you and it is leaders who resolve key issues no it's not it's working parties resolve this the leaders then are the ones who they're not working through every little bit that's what we see when there's relay when the negotiations we see working parties speaking about this leaders are there to basically sign off on it at the end but what i say is if this was rhetoric coming out of the kremlin we want to end that this is in your court i think many would have a similar assessment as to what i'm having since the war is taking place in europe and ukraine needs security guarantees while you also seek security guarantees for yourself it would be logical involve those who can genuinely serve as guarantors talking about some arab states maybe turkey who could mediate and who can guarantee security remember that if you're in the russian side of this you'll be saying well this security guarantees is what we were after the front line today is the line from which diplomacy must begin so not from here no it must begin at the front line and this is where you use something like a net figure to say well why shouldn't it start here rather than focus on more of a gross figure okay ukraine is ready for a full ceasefire the duration negotiations this is standard practice what i'll say is this isn't standard practice been over that before negotiations are another part of the holistic nature of war that is often done while the fighting is continued and he speaks about iran well we're seeing how well that the ceasefire is going in iran that ukraine is ready for an awful prisoner exchange of a prisoner of war exchange of course what we believe is russia has significantly more ukrainian pows than the other way we've seen that exchange we've seen that of course with body exchanges too but i think there's a lot we need to pull out and read between the lines here is if it was putin penning this letter how would the world's media be taking it now this is what we see is ukraine zelensky the president his chief uh advisor of of course buddhanov former chief of the intelligence service that they've been speaking about more and more signaling to end the war before winter so this is my takeaway from all this if ukraine was so confident that russia was about to collapse and the suffering was completely unsustainably if they believe that as much as the online space does or the western media space does it would not be ukraine taking initiative on negotiations if it was six to one casualties 63 are being killed well over 30 000 a month gaining net zero or net positive which is no reliable figures are showing but if it was that what is believed from many ukraine wouldn't be on this then we'll just walk through we'll fight the conclusion what i'll assess out of all this is the year has started far more difficult for russia than i believe they assessed that it would but i think that inside the kremlin they still assess that they have the upper hand especially in time manpower delivery of systems and that the decision makers they need to walk away with and what i fear is is that so much is being thrown into bring up this gross here so much is being thrown into make these figures here to have a net basically negative that can this actually be sustained on operation if it needs to end by winter open letters if it doesn't what happens next year what happens thereafter maybe it will reconstitute none of us have crystal balls but i do fear of well we have seen two clear examples of 23 and kursk of early huge victory sabotaging long term could we be seeing that well i'm unsure but you're not going to just win a war only off one element of strike it needs to be holistic it needs to be everything from the man in the field with an ak all the way through to a political sequence and war is holistic it's an organism where everything you push here it pulls their prods your pains it's a whole organism it's an art at large scale operations like this and this is where america's war in iran has been incredibly militarily competent but the art of warfare america has shown over the past decades incompetence there's no one better in the world being able to deliver strikes and military operations somewhere than america but to actually carry that power into a victory we haven't seen that link good at warfare bad at war and that's something we'll see evolve over this war to when we see someone who will declare themselves a victor or will be ahead okay i hope that's enough for you to get an idea of where you see people ahead or not again all of these charts and they're available on my telegram if you want to have a look that's how i read into the rhetoric of this i think at this point it's important to look at both the net and the gross and take as good numbers as we can of things like this but also apply our own logic you've got a side with significantly more air artillery short range long range strike you've got one with superior mid-range strike does that then tell you it's going to be six to one but we will continue to see this evolve and if russia can get on top of those mid-range strikes legends you have a fantastic day you look after yourself and i will speak to you tomorrow thank you bye