Thread by @WarSpotting

Let's take a quick look back at August and what it felt like for 🇷🇺 in 🇺🇦, shall we? 306 total losses mark rather significant decline compared to 350 in July. 10 confirmed losses a day are still in very much active phase ballpark, though. What's behind those numbers?
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Loss severity distribution can tell you smth even if you haven't been following any news lately. Few captures with lot of destroyed vehicles, for instance, suggest heavy fighting with minimal gains. This is no revelation but rather confirming sitrep from Robotyne, Bakhmut.
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Quick advancements normally go along with increased captures. This is very noticeable if you look at Autumn 2022 loss distribution. Nearly half was captured back in Sep 2022:
3/ukr.warspotting.net/search/?bellig…

Higher-than-usual abandoned equipment numbers, on the other hand, suggest rather unsuccessful counter-attack efforts by 🇷🇺 (Kupiansk/Svatove, Bakhmut). This was much more prominent back in early 2023 following Vuhledar RuAF misadventures.
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Overall, 2023 features incredibly steady 🇷🇺 loss rate of 310ish/month, or nearly exactly 10 losses/day, except sharp drop back in April. 🇷🇺 was recovering from empty-handed Feb/Mar attack attempts, and 🇺🇦 wasn't ready to kick off its counter-offensive just yet.
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What's even more incredible, they did it again! Aug 2023 just narrowly surpassed Aug 2022, very much like July did. Almost as if those numbers were made up (but they aren't). Meaning 🇷🇺 is now on exact same trajectory as in 2022 for the 2nd month in a row.
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Now, if you remember (it's hard not to), that path lead 🇷🇺 to Autumn 2022 disaster in Kharkiv, and then Kherson. It'd be naive to assume 🇺🇦 is on track to do it again just because graphs converged. This was a black swan event, after all. We're not saying they aren't, though 😬
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Finally, let us once again remind you how those numbers – recent months especially – aren't final as new evidences of past losses are coming in every now and then.
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That, and uncertain dates being attributed to the last day of the month/season. That's how 31 Mar 2022 became seemingly the worst day for 🇷🇺, and 31 Nov 2022 is on track to overtake it soon. Needless to say, in fact, none of them was really special.
/end