Russian artillery losses good news for Ukrainian front lines

Hey everybody Peters lane here coming to you from Denver International Airport where I’m about to catch a flight to California so I can go kayaking in Yosemite, which means you’re not going to get any good updates from me on Ukraine or over the next roughly month, because I will be out of touch. So let me give you an idea of what I’ll be looking for when I’m getting back because there is another new wrinkle in the conflict that Oh, anyway, the Ukrainian government over the last roughly five, maybe even six weeks down has been reporting a tripling in terms of the tolls inflicted upon Russian artillery. Now Russian artillery is really where it’s at the with the Russian military’s artillery force, not an infantry force, not harbor force. And probably 80% of the casualties that Ukrainian military suffered has been because of artillery. When the Russians go into a town, they don’t go to a door by door to clear it. They just use artillery power and everything in the rubble and then take control of the ruins. So if there has been a significant uptick in matters now that tripling I can’t confirm that it’s true, it’s probably part propaganda, probably part optimism. But independent recordings of artillery have also indicated a very, very sharp uptick. The problem with those reports is they tend to be somewhat dated. Anyway, there are a couple of things that are going on that do suggest that the Ukrainians have having a lot more success. The first one is kind of technical than that is we have a lot of North Korean shells that are entering the field now. And these things can’t use modern artillery systems. North Korea has many things but a technological leader it is not. And so most of the artillery pieces of the Russians have it can use the North Korean artillery shells date back to the 1950s. They have much shorter range since Ukrainian loitering munitions. Until now we’ve only had about a range of 12 miles. That means until now, there haven’t been a lot of Russian artillery pieces within range. But with the North Korean stuff in place, some of them are second, and far more importantly, the Ukrainians have really built up an industry from scratch for robotics and drones. And there are now not just dozens, but high hundreds, maybe even low 1000s of basically garage shops or US country. Anyway, these, these garage shops are making more and more advanced and most importantly, longer ranged drones now that have ranges in the 20 to 35 mile range. And that puts the majority of Russian artillery potentially within range was a question really, of how fast the Ukrainians can spin all this up. It’s not all the Ukrainians have force, most of the Western Allies have now allowed Ukraine to do at least limited strikes within Russian territory with the weapons they brought in of the so things like the American AP terms are having a much bigger impact. But ultimately, the numbers of those things are relatively limited. And so they’re reserved for relatively large concentrations, as opposed to a single artillery piece. But if you can produce, you know, 1000s of drones and throw a dozen in each target, you’re talking about a significant change in the picture of the front line. So by the time I get back a month from now, we should have a really good idea if this is working or not. The Russians started the world with about 2000 artillery pieces in operation in their regular units, and another 19,000 in reserves at various stages of disrepair. If you can have a burn rate of that that’s triple. The Russians simply can’t keep up with that in terms of new manufacturers, or refurbishment, so obviously it would be I don’t want to use a game changer. There’s so many things in play here. But it’s definitely the most significant thing that’s happening this summer.