In the outreaches of how terrible Vlad Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the weight of an unhinged view of reality Putin has could mean the Ukrainian war crime will continue until there’s either a ‘Korean scenario‘ established or just a military grind-down for all concerned — especially acute is the dismal, cruel failure of the entire Russian military venture.
Is Vlad getting the real picture of actual shit on the ground.?

Michael Kofman, Russian military analyst at Virginia-based CNA (at The Washington Post this morning): ‘ “The big question is, what does Putin actually know of this war? … What is his perception of the reality of the battlefield? What is the military leadership telling him about their prospects for success? … The question comes down to: Does he believe continuing to use force can actually achieve any of his political aims in Ukraine? Or does he see the situation as one of diminishing returns?”‘

Is Vlad told the truth, or a ‘perception of the reality‘ about Russia’s tanks — Yaroslav Trofimov, chief foreign affairs correspondent of the Wall Street Journal:

To put it in perspective, Russia is *visually confirmed* to have lost in Ukraine in one month the entire tank stock of the French Army and half of the stock of the British Army. https://t.co/Il6sIB4PD8

— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) March 27, 2022

Also a glaring reality to being an asshole — via Forbes last Thursday (I missed it!):

Ukraine has lost at least 74 tanks — destroyed or captured—since Russia widened its war on the country starting the night of Feb. 23.
But Ukraine has captured at least 117 Russian tanks, according to open-source-intelligence analysts who scrutinize photos and videos on social media.
In other words, the Ukrainian army might actually have more tanks now than a month ago — —all without building a single brand-new tank or pulling some older vehicle out of storage.

The Russians meanwhile have captured at least 37 Ukrainian tanks — a sum inadequate to compensate for the roughly 274 tanks it is believed to have lost to all causes.
…
Those 117 tanks Ukraine has captured are just the ones analysts visually can confirm. The actual total almost certainly is much higher. Videos of Ukrainian farmers towing abandoned Russian vehicles have become symbols of Ukraine’s resistance.
How many of the seized tanks and other vehicles are fit for further use is hard to confirm.
There are lots of videos of Russian tanks under tow. There are far fewer showing those same tanks back in action in Ukrainian colors.
…
But it helps that Ukraine uses many of the same tanks that Russia does. The Ukrainian army’s main tank, the T-64, no longer is in active use in the Russian army. But the Ukrainians also operate at least two models that the Russians still use, too—the T-72 and the T-80.

The T-80 actually is an evolution of the T-64, itself one of the most sophisticated tanks Soviet industry ever produced.
The T-72, by contrast is a simpler, cheaper tank—one suitable to mass-production and easy support in the field. It’s not for no reason that Ukraine generally assigns its T-72s to reserve formations.

Tanks continued: A weird side/contextual note with those Russians operating their own tanks — per BusinessInsider yesterday:

Russian forces appear to be attaching makeshift metal cages to the tops of their tanks in Ukraine in a crude effort to protect themselves against anti-tank missiles.
Analysts say the cages are inadequate protection against the modern weapons used by Ukraine and demonstrate the Russian military’s lack of preparedness for war.

“They’ve been nicknamed ‘cope cages,’ which I think shows the general more informed military view of how useful they actually are,” Justin Crump, a military veteran, and CEO of risk intelligence firm Sibylline, told Insider.
“They give them psychological protection against weapons, but actually, they do very little.”

Putin really is a dumb-ass, shitty person.

Even a Sunday doesn’t count as once again here we are…

(Illustration out front: Pablo Picasso’s ‘Agonizing Horse,’ found here)