Russia's Winter Offensive & The War in Ukraine - The Initiative, losses, & air, sea & land campaigns

Even as global attention is pulled in a dozen different directions, the fighting in Ukraine continues amidst a winter cold that provides better conditions than the mud seasons. .

Russia's offensive has focused on Avidiivka, but fighting has been hard at multiple places along the front.

In this episode, we look at the recent fighting, from Avidiivka to the great Patriot missile road trip, examine the available loss data, look into the question of casualties and mobilisation (including some Sergei Shoigu math) and close out by touching on the wider sustainability issues probably deserve further discussion.

Patreon:

Relevant Reading/sourcing

Putin on intention to achieve all military goals

Credit to @naalsio26 for localising visually confirmed losses

Russian military size increases

Shoigu giving Shoigu numbers
Putin giving Putin numbers

The lostarmor site referenced for loss analysis

The Bradley engagement mentioned

Ukraine Su-34 claim

Jan 24 missile attacks

December 23 missile attacks

DPRK shipments to Russia

Featured image of Koalitsiya

Jamestown foundation on Russian military recruitment

Example of volunteer units signing contracts

Reference to UA casualty estimates

Ropucha getting hit

Ukraine drone strikes

Reporting on UA EW

Reporting on possible incursion into Polish airspace

Caveats & Comments:
All normal caveats and comments apply.
In particular – I would like to note as always that this material has been created for entertainment purposes and is not intended to be a complete or comprehensive examination of the topic in question and should not be relied upon to inform financial or other similar decisions.

Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Opening Words
00:00:47 — What Am I Talking About?
00:01:20 — The Winter Offensives
00:10:10 — Equipment Losses
00:20:27 — Adaptations And Observations
00:27:17 — The Black Sea Theatre
00:33:25 — The Air War
00:50:18 — Manpower And Mobilisation
01:01:39 — Notes On Resupply
01:06:37 — Conclusion
01:07:08 — Channel Update

[PerunAU]

In preparing this episode, the greatest challenge I had was trying to make sure that points that don't fit together in a clean narrative were brought together. For example, it's possible at the same time for Russian losses somewhere like Avdiivka to be heavy, but the pressure on the defenders to be extreme and the future highly uncertain. It's also possible for neither side to be close to achieving their territorial war goals, but for the war to not be in a sustainable stalemate, and it's possible for Russia/the West/your power of choice have extensive resources, but not infinite ones.

It's why I'm so thankful for the 60 minute format where I can get the data out front, and why I am so grateful for the fact all of you engage with the long form every week.

Thank you again, and I'll see you again next week.

[mr.laserman]

"The unmanned warfare equivalent to tea-bagging your opponent and then publishing the replay" Lol I died. This man has a gift for words

[jaschasticher]

"Generally, destroyed aircraft do underperform in the ground strike role compared to the intact ones" - Perun, 2024

I f'in love this guy.

[Nooneself]

Being your oldest fan(nearing 70 years old)... I've watched war reporting since the Vietnam War when I was in grade school. Your analytical evaluation, along with your humility of stating you're not sure of the accuracy of some of the sources, is the best evaluation of this war and one of the very few I greatly trust. Thank You so much🙏

[sortaspicey]

Doing a drive-by with the Patriot missile system is the most baller thing I've heard of in my life

[allannakhle]

Here I sit the day before finally returning to the war again for my 2nd tour of service for Ukraine watching perun as I have done since the start and as usual perun delivers, if I don't get the chance again I want to say thank you sir for your videos I love your work slava ukraini

[defective]

Just as a point of order, for a very brief amount of time a destroyed aircraft _can_ outperform a non-destroyed one in the ground attack role. But only once, and its notoriously difficult to aim.

[Winged_Gunsknecht]

I am 50% sure that "Math with Sergei Shoigu" Is an actual russian children's television show.

[piedpiper]

“Destroyed aircraft generally underperform in the ground attack role compared to intact aircraft.”

Woah, hot take there buddy.

[saint-miscreant]

Perun’s content is genuinely more entertaining and useful than some of my uni lectures

[anthonyoch]

There's something about watching a newly minted Perun video and seeing the minutes since it's upload tick by but still be less than the length of the video, so you know as you watch it the entire community is there watching it alongside you. Sunday's are such a treat.

[st-ex]

As far as territories defined by Russian law, Russia does not occupy a single square kilometer of Ukrainian soil, while Ukraine holds wide swaths of Russian territory in four of their oblasts!
This is of course viewed from the nonsensical russian perspective and... obviously written tongue-in-cheek!

[irusia]

As Ukrainian I really appreciate your videos, you are one of the very few western bloggers whose videos on our war I watch

[colinhiggs]

A request: in future maps would it be possible to use colours other than red and green to denote territory held (or indeed anything)? If you are colour blind these are the most likely colours to get mixed up. Which makes it a real shame that they are also the most likely colours to choose to mean something opposite to each other.

[jasonmcclatchie]

Bonus points for the Solaris VII reference!

[OscarThePouch]

After the military I never thought I would like PowerPoint again, then I found Perun

[jonp]

"A duel between two Bradleys and a T-90M that looked like something out of Solaris 7."
For those who know the reverence, that's *very* descriptive. Also nostalgic.

[markusmeldre]

I understand speculation is not among the topics you cover, but it is interesting to note how European nations (especially those in the East) have recently issued many statements regarding preparations for war. There's been a clear change of attitude towards the peace that we have and towards Russia also.

[setlerking]

As good as any topic Perun covers is the analysis of Russia’s war on Ukraine is always the most interesting

[TransoceanicOutreach]

There's a non-zero chance that this one guy produces more accurate analysis than the entire Russian army.