A Peculiar Math.

Mr. Burns, CIA Director, gives his "estimates". 

ASPEN, Colorado (Reuters) -The United States estimates that Russian casualties in Ukraine so far have reached around 15,000 killed and perhaps 45,000 wounded, CIA Director William Burns said on Wednesday, adding that Ukraine has also endured significant casualties. Nearly five months since President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Russia's neighbor, its forces are grinding through the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and occupy around a fifth of the country. Burns, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, said those gains have come at great cost.

Burns, who heads an organization which HAS to know, which most of the time is not the case nowadays, heard about this ratio--a very rough one--of one to three of KIAs to wounded during combat and, using his math skills decided to come up with a base number of Russian forces' KIAs and then multiply it by 3. So, 15,000 KIAS x 3 = 45,000 wounded. Sure. The only issue here is that Burns, evidently, doesn't understand how this works in real life and what it takes to provide hospitalization and transportation of those both KIAs and wounded to the rear areas and there is no med-evac activity, even through open sources (remember, OSINT--Open Source Intelligence), which is even remotely commensurate to Burns' claims. 

Yes, there are KIAs and wounded on Russian side, not to mention the fact that the bulk of those also comes from LDNR militias, but if Mr. Burns would be a serious and responsible professional, not an average US political appointee who needs to lie for a living, the real number would have been--estimates only--about 15,000 wounded and, by following this 1 to 3 ratio, about 5,000 KIAs on Russian side. But then again, even the brief look at the American "elites" today tells one everything one needs to know. When even Pentagon begins to express grave concern:

President Biden issued some surprise comments weighing in on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's upcoming Taiwan trip, telling reporters Wednesday that the US military think's it's "not a good idea" for her to visit the island.When asked specifically about the potential trip which days ago began to widely be reported, earning condemnation and a warning of "forceful measures" from China, Biden said, "The military thinks it’s not a good idea right now, but I don’t know what the status of it is.”

Pelosi also wants to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, so, as you can see, the legislative activity in the House is at its peak and this old mummy is getting involved fully into foreign policy without having a clue what she is doing, which is a normal Modus Operandi for Washington. 

In related news, what everyone knows in Russia has been reiterated today (in Russian)--HIMARS are controlled by NATO personnel and the tactics is pretty primitive: "hide" HIMARS rockets behind VSU's salvo of MLRS (such as Smerch or what have you), allow local Russian AD to expend its missiles shooting initial salvo down and then launch HIMARS rockets while Russian AD complexes reload. Well, it is a kindergarten thinking which already was addressed by "portioning" of AD assets in any given locality, reserving missiles for shooting down HIMARS missiles. They are being shot down in large numbers. Even when one considers almost real time targeting provided by the US to VSU, Pentagon doesn't have a concept of modern and effective front line air defense and the only thing which they have going for them is the high mobility of HIMARS which leave the position immediately after the launch. Nothing new, really. In general, this is the extent to which Pentagon realistically can get involved without beginning to lose personnel and assets in Middle East. That is easily arranged. 

Now they want to send combat aircraft to 404.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force is working to decide how best to train Ukraine’s pilots as the embattled nation’s air force looks to modernize. In comments at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado on Wednesday, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown said Ukraine will need to shift its air force away from legacy Russian MiG and Sukhoi fighters and toward more modern Western-made aircraft. With the supply of Russian spare parts for MiGs cut off, Brown said, Ukraine will have to eventually move to other fighters. It remains to be seen which platforms make sense, he said, but there are many possibilities — not just U.S.-made fighters such as the F-15 and F-16, but the Eurofighter, Swedish Gripen and French Rafale could also be options for Ukraine’s air force. “Part of this is understanding where Ukraine wants to go, and how we meet them where they are,” Brown said. “All of our allies and partners have an interest in ensuring Ukraine can provide for its own security.” Later at Aspen, asked why the U.S. doesn’t give Ukraine some of its aging A-10 Warthogs — which the Air Force has long sought to retire — Kendall said it’s “largely up to Ukraine” to decide the aircraft it wants.

Sure, let those arrive to Ukraine, LOL. I am positive there are many Russian pilots of Su-35s and Su-30SM (will omit now Su-57s) and crews of S-400s and S-300V4s who are salivating at the possibility to down a few F-15s or Rafales. Per A-10, it is not even serious, A-10 is a good CAS aircraft, but it is very slow and it never faced anything like S1 Pantsir or Tor M2, let alone Buk-M3. Not to mention first rate air force. But sure. Looks like this Aspen Forum was one huge concentrated fantastical thinking and butt-hurt gathering. 

Meanwhile Ukies and Washington continue to masturbate to Russian mobilization in the piece from Ukie propaganda outlet titled: General mobilization in Russia would mean Putin's failure in Ukraine – Ukraine’s intelligence

According to the official, the Kremlin regime now considers it better to conduct so-called covert mobilization, which does not require the declaration of martial law, as well as recruiting mercenaries. Skibitsky confirmed that Russian losses in Ukraine are significant, but at the same time not critical, since Russia has large mobilization resources. "But we already see the problems they have," he said.

But for some reason this, oh so desired, mobilization doesn't come. I addressed this issue yesterday in my latest video and the unraveling of the guiding myths of America's self-proclaimed global status continues with acceleration and desperation now oozes from every pore of what's left of the contemporary so called governance in the United States. We ain't seen nothing yet.