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sillysaurusx

> Let's face it, the Russians are not stupid.

I thought so too. But one surprising thing about military conflict is that it's easy to be stupid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lICRQPIduFc&ab_channel=Monte...

Even with overwhelming superiority during WW2, the US damn near lost their first attempt to invade Japan.

Ditto for Japan attacking Midway, and every other decisive battle.

It's unclear what Russia is even trying to achieve at this point. Supposedly they've only committed 1/3rd of their forces, which means they have about 100k troops in reserve. But the 50k they did commit seem to have achieved nothing. I was expecting a blackout (thanks to air bombardment), followed by a destruction of Ukraine's air force, then the fall of Kiev. Not one of those things happened.

It really makes you question whether Russia's reputation is well-earned.

The next few days will be crucial. Russia has only a few more chances to plan their next moves. If they continue failing, they'll be forced to withdraw when they run out of supplies. Which is to say, a Ukrainian victory doesn't seem to be impossible, and it doesn't seem to be the result of Russia not wanting to punch too hard.

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As of now the estimate is they have committed 50% to Ukraine, that is pushing hard at the upper limit of how many can actually be committed before there is no logistical support at all. They could go to 2/3 for a short time, but even more of them would be wandering about begging for food than are now.

They appear to have made the same mistake as Rumsfeld when invading Iraq, a similar sized country with a similar sized invading force - he tried to go light and immediate reinforcements were required. The difference is the country of Ukraine is better prepared, they have better resolve, and some better weapons, while the Russians have far lower equipment quality, morale, and training.

Nonetheless, there is an enormous logistical advantage of attacking a neighbor from three sides and not a country halfway around the world. Ukraine also has much more forgiving terrain for an attacker than Iraq.

Everything is up in the air, but I share your optimism that Ukraine could come out on top.

> Even with overwhelming superiority during WW2, the US damn near lost their first attempt to invade Japan. > Ditto for Japan attacking Midway, and every other decisive battle.

What you're missing here is the fog of war. When decisions are viewed through what information was available to the decision-makers, it paints a far more relatable picture. No one was stupid at Midway. Have a look at this long video going through the battle from the Japanese perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8_vO5zrjo

It’s only day 3 and Ukraine is big. I imagine Plan A was to expect the Ukrainian military to surrender rapidly, and they are now gathering and mobilising for Plan B.

"Hope the enemy immediately surrenders" should never be plan A.

Why not? It's usually the lowest cost (in money, materiel and bloodshed) option for both sides, so it doesn't seem a bad first option. Of course it's unlikely to happen, so you should be ready to execute a plan B.

~It can definitely work, see for instance Nazi Germany -> Poland.~

Edit: Nevermind. I am very wrong on this. What I understood to be a "quick" victory from my vague memory of history lessons was a month. I also never considered that Poland never surrendered but _lost_ the invasion. There was no surrender.

If Putin believes he had the means to capture Kyiv within a really short time AND he believes his own propaganda that Ukrainians are idiots and cowards and drug addicts and whatever then yeah. I do see how you could logically conclude that they would surrender quickly.

But Ukraine turned out to have an extremely strong leader, raising morale to levels far beyond Russia's. Turns out the folk is nationalistic, proud and doesn't want to take shit from Russia.

So many civilians in Kyiv are joining the fight because they want to and they have to.

Is that what Putin was expecting? I don't know.

Do want to note that on Dutch television a historian stated that he believes Russia believes they will have Kyiv captured before early March, since airports near the Ukrainian border have been closed until then. So while 3 days is long for Kyiv to hold out, the reality might be they'll have to hold out for at least 2 weeks before it starts really mattering in the eyes of Putin.

> It can definitely work, see for instance Nazi Germany -> Poland.

What are you talking about? The invasion lasted several weeks and had the support of the USSR. They quite literally destroyed the Polish army. In fact, Poland never officially surrendered.

> see for instance Nazi Germany -> Poland

I don't know what your understanding is of the invasion of Poland, but you should probably read up on it if you think it ended in an almost immediate surrender.

>>Is that what Putin was expecting? I don't know.

This is the weird point to me. I had zero problem understanding why Afghanistan fell as quickly as did it. And that is with seeming IC warnings that Taliban had enough clout and American's sufficiently disliked.

It is hard for me to believe Russia did not have appropriate intelligence on nation's mood as a whole. And it seems like they either did or disregarded it.

Maybe there are other considerations at play that weigh harder than the risk. Then again, if Chechnya showed anything, it is that Russia can play long occupation and 'win'.

> Then again, if Chechnya showed anything, it is that Russia can play long occupation and 'win'.

You can't compare Ukraine with Chechnya. Also Russian soldiers are much more hesitant to attack Ukrainians, the plan as I see it was to scare them to surrender, but Ukrainians weren't scared so what could follow might be a horror for humanity to behold if it continues for a long time because resentment builds up we might see some terrible atrocities of war.

>It's unclear what Russia is even trying to achieve at this point.

That's really the crux of the matter here. What is Russia's goal here? If you're operating on the assumption that they indeed want to capture the entire Ukraine, it then indeed looks like they aren't doing as well as a lot of people seem to have expected, thus far.

However, it's possible that Putin is using the Russo-Georgian-War (2008) playbook again which didn't aim to capture the entire country, with the goals of ultimately capturing only some of East Ukraine (Dombass in particular, and keeping Crimea) and forcing the remaining Ukraine in negotiations to become a "neutral" state located between Russia and NATO/EU. While again embarrassing the West and their military and diplomatic resolve as a cherry-on-top. That Russia has been hitting targets in the west of Ukraine might have been to destroy Ukrainian military's capabilities and capacities, in this scenario.

Even if it's the Georgian playbook again, I still think Putin might have grossly overplayed his hand there. The NATO and EU will likely not let go as easily this time, especially not because in particular Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states as NATO and EU members feel very threatened and expressed themselves as such.

It's 50 more years of standoff if a Russian doesn't give Putin the coup de grace, because of the geographic location. But that is what Putin wanted - to consolidate fiefdoms and polarize the divisions.

> forcing the remaining Ukraine in negotiations to become a "neutral" state located between Russia and NATO/EU

This keeps coming up as if Ukraine's acceptance into NATO was imminent any day now. Realistically NATO membership Ukraine was decades away, if ever.

It's a convenient pretext pitched mainly by Russian media, which needed to frame the sense of urgency, but the real reason must be elsewhere.

Hypothetically if you were Putin and that was the actual reason, wouldn't you want to deal with it asap when it's still years or decades away, rather than wait until it's close enough that your invasion might lead to them quickly signing it and then sending in Nato forces? Not to mention the fact that he might not trust reports of how far away it is and think it's happening sneakily behind his back soon?

I've no idea what Putin's motives are, but I don't think the fact that Ukraine joining Nato wasn't weeks away from happening prevents it from being as likely a reason as if it was that imminent.

Russia's demography is declining, and global warming will thaw the permafrost and annihilate a ton of infrastructure in the East. Oil prices are high right now, but European reliance on Russian oil is probably at the highest it will ever be. Putin is not getting younger, and he probably wants to finish the long work of integrating Ukraine into his governance system before he dies. The Russian army, as the last three days have shown, is strong, but not getting stronger with every passing day. It's probably way past its prime.

Even though what Putin hated was not the risk of Ukraine joining NATO, but merely Ukraine saying it wanted to join NATO, on the Russian side, it might have been now or never for Putin.

Russians fear that NATO will join Ukraine.

It has only been 3 days. I would give it 30 days for them to destroy (or more likely take control) of critical Ukrainian infrastructure.

Make no mistake. This is a seizure of Ukrainian land, sovereignty, resources and infrastructure.

Isn't 30 days essentially a military and political failure though? I can see in Putin's thinking that a 3-5 day long decapitation strike would be feasible, and then they occupy Kiev and it's fait accompli.

But 30 days, with almost all of the world against it? It's way too long and someone else may get involved.

Desert Storm took that long when you consider the initial air campaign, and even then the ground invasion still took 4 days in a theater with complete air superiority, decent terrain for a mechanical warfare rush, and local support from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia

But was the rest of the world almost unanimously against Desert Storm?

I simply cannot see a scenario where a 30+ day slog in Ukraine, with attrition and mounting casualties, has any positive outcome for Putin.

(I struggle to see any positive outcome for Putin anyway and cannot understand what his endgame is, to be honest. Even success at toppling Ukraine's government, if achieved at all, may prove to be short-lived)

If Putin doesn't care about the opinion of his own voters, the whining of the Western world wont matter (China, Iran, Venzuela and others are not against Russia).

But don't you think in a protracted conflict some power is bound to get involved, triggering an escalation? With each day, week and month the chances of this increase.

It's one thing for Putin to get it done in a week or so. Even then, how does he plan to hold his puppet government in Kiev?

I wish I could be as optimistic as you are about that but looking at Georgia, Belarus, and other recent historical examples makes that hard. China, Russia, and Iran (with hangers-on like Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, et al) have been working hard at building an alternate global trade and financial system for more than a decade now, precisely to remove what little socio-economic leverage the west had. And, it's stil winter in Europe. The Germans and French need to heat their homes, which currently depends on Russian gas.

Also keep in mind that China is working towards this same "resolution" with Taiwan. It's in their interest for Russia to succeed here.

> decent terrain for a mechanical warfare rush, and local support from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia

This applies to Russia in Ukraine as well. It's mostly flat plains, Russia has support from Belarus and is a direct neighbour itself.

Russia supposedly stopped the offensive yesterday for negotiations and it's now back on. Makes sense considering how calm the front was yesterday and how we are seeing tons of movement today. But of course that could be pure BS, it's hard to even get verification that things were actually calm yesterday since both sides have a pretty solid opsec... at least compared to what I got used to with the syrian civil war!

That is most certainly BS. There is no doubt, no question.

For the past several months Russia’s stated efforts at diplomacy have been an utter farce, the saying “pissing on you and saying it’s rain” does not go far enough.

Now all of a sudden Russia says they paused for negotiations… “fool me once shame on you; fool me 100 times with the same ruse, I should stop taking drugs”

> Russia supposedly stopped the offensive yesterday for negotiations and it's now back on.

An important caveat is that this is according to Russia.

Ukraine's version is quite different (it was Russia's attempt to lure Ukraine's top officials to Minsk, which is the only place where Russia is prepared to conduct the talks).

In any event, it seems pretty clear that there was no actual ceasefire yesterday or today.

Agreed 100% that this is absolutely just from russian and like very pro russian sources. The only reason why I give it any credit is that it fits with the reality on the ground. If russia was pushing and got actually stalled, I'd have expected to see a lot more air raids and shelling. Yesterday was weirdly calm, even when it comes to airstrikes, bombings etc. Not exactly the signs of a desperate push

My interpretation is they're pushing and (sadly) making progress, though much slower than they'd like.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russia-ukraine...

Judging by the many videos of interrogations of Russian POWs, many of them are just kids who barely know where they are, are unmotivated and poorly equipped. Hardly a professional and well-equipped army. There are also indications of logistical challenges (videos of Russian military vehicles running out of fuel, that sort of thing).

Running out of fuel is pretty common in military vehicles as the fuel gauges are at best reliable to half a tank.

Drivers are supposed to track how far they have driven, but if its driven by multiple people and someone forgets to log distance or the vehicle is forced to idle for a long time the distance can be off.

Also a broken fuel gauge will not mark the vehicle as a casualty. Its not critical equipment as your supposed to be tracking fuel usage as a driver.

The main problem (?) here is why Russian forces totally forgot how to move in a convoy.

They constantly lose their mates, move in a line like they are on a parade, move without deployed AA.

This is beyond "unmotivated and poorly equipped", this is Africa/Middle East levels of incompetency.

There is something very, very fishy going there.

is the adviser to the President of Ukraine seems to be very pro russian to you?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30478794

Again, the source that your other comment cites is a Kremlin propaganda outlet. There's little reason to trust it to accurately represent Ukraine government's position on anything related to this war.

https://www.stopfake.org/en/strana-ua-or-strana-ru-how-a-san...

Search your «facts» in this little collection of Russian fakes with 13000+ items: https://euvsdisinfo.eu/disinformation-cases/

Sorry, I'm a noob in HN interface and didn't find how to answer your original comments -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30478874

> This "evidently Ukrainian site" is a Kremlin propaganda outlet

I'm not going reasoning here about how propagandistic is stopfake itself, because, as I already said, if you only wanted, you could easily find some information about this s*ithole for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t05R_cPVjtU

but I ask you:

did you find any confirmation or refutation of my words?

is the current advisor of the president of Ukraine any pro russian?

I am not an expert but this is my rough take.

It seems that the Russians are having logistical issues. They are running out of gas. Not sure how but it seems like it.

We are hearing today about them sending in more armored divisions. These will re enforce the supply lines. But this is a really risky play. It is a double edge sword. Now that they send more in they need even more gas. And if they run out they suffer a larger loss. What good are 4,000 tanks without fuel? Suddenly your armored division are infantry divisions who are outgunned on foreign soil.

The less risky play would be to withdraw there armor pretty far back. But this means an extend war. Which they should lose do to basically endless international support to the Ukraine and their willingness to fight.

So the play would be to pull back and stick to claiming the small section of the separateness region they have capture so far. This is will happened when the last of the armored units cross the line to cover the retreat. Given Ukraine can last four more days and keep the supply lines broken.

Ukraine is open to a negotiation with Putin at Hague. Putin refuses, but Ukraine will convince him.

Why would Russia run out of supplies? They have an unlimited and uninterrupted supply line back to Belarus and Russia in multiple directions. I find it more likely the folks in Kiev run out of food in a few days.I support the Ukrainians but the writing is clearly on the wall and it makes more sense the Russians would wait them out and use their air superiority to keep supplies out of Kiev, for example.

Russia doesn't even have air superiority yet. Ukrainian air force is blowing up elite paratroopers before they even have a chance to reach the front lines.

This entire invasion is already a disaster. Russia still has an advantage but they're taking unnecessary losses already.

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No Ukrainian city is encircled yet either. Kyiv can't run out of food when it's still safe for supplies to come into the city.

Russia needs to establish the basics, and haven't even done that yet.

EDIT: it's been like 3 days. It's too soon to expect Russia's military to have a big success yet. Russia's superior weaponry should have a relatively easy time but... Russia is basically trying to perform 4 or 5 simultaneous 'Battle of Fallujah's here simultaneously.

Just going all in on major cities around the country simultaneously, where most people in those cities really hate Russians right now.

It appears to be an accurate assessment. I was expecting to see blitzkrieg based on initial reports, but it seems less likely now. In a very real sense, I hope that is the case.

If anything, the Russians are moving in too fast. I think the Russians really were going for the 'decapitation', trying to quickly kill or capture the politicians in Kyiv, leaving the Ukrainians leaderless.

All signs point to this IMO. Russians have failed in that attempt this far, but it's only day 3.

Ukraine has been routing or killing a lot of airborne / paratroopers in and around Kyiv (Russian VDV units). Russia really is going for a quick victory, committing so many airborne units there.

But in all likelihood Russia still wins easily from Ukraine. Even if at a slightly higher cost than hoped

The initial war? Quite possibly.

The ensuing Western-supported insurgency, under the name of either Zelenskyy the hero or Zelenskyy the martyr? Quite a bit more doubtful.

Russia has already lost more airplanes than the US did in the entirety of the Iraq war. (USA lost 24 fixed-wing aircraft in all of Iraq 2003 to 2009).

I do realize that this is a Ukrainian propaganda, but their claims are incredible: https://mobile.twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1497643063...

7 aircraft shot down in a singular night, including 2x IL-76 MD just last night alone. Big, slow, 4-wing transport airplanes (carrying either 100+ paratroopers or heavy equipment to the front lines). These aren't drones they're shooting down, Ukrainians continue to threaten the logistical support Russia needs to feed the front lines.

We're no longer in "slightly higher cost" territory. We're in "Russians failed to disable Ukrainian's airforce and air-defenses... advanced _ANYWAY_ and are taking heavy losses" territory.

Yeah, Russia may win after this. But what's incredible... something completely unthinkable just a few days ago... is that the Ukrainians might actually win conventionally. Russia's failure to disable Ukrainian's air force is already a costly mistake, especially because Russia continues to advance despite being in a state of air-parity with the Ukrainians.

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I think the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv is in trouble however. But there's video proof of entire convoys being blown up (https://mobile.twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/149757339550817...) on their way to Kharkiv, definitely proving that the Ukrainian Air Force continues to fly.

> Why would Russia run out of supplies? They have an unlimited and uninterrupted supply line back to Belarus and Russia in multiple directions.

I'm not an experienced armchair logisticians, but it seems like at this moment: Russia can't bring in supplies to the airfields; Ukraine has anti-tank weapons that I'd expect to work well against supply convoys; Ukraine has a motivated population resistant to the Russians.

Maybe the route from Belarus, through the Chernobyl exclusion zone is short enough to avoid interruptions. And if Russia can establish operations at an airstrip, that changes a lot. The route from the south seems disruptable because there's a single bridge chokepoint. (But maybe temporary bridges are viable, again, no logistics experience).

They have an unlimited and uninterrupted supply line back to Belarus and Russia in multiple directions.

It does seem unlikely and I can't confirm specifics but someone posted on another thread that the Ukranians or their allies have apparently disabled all the train lines from Russia to the border to frustrate Russian logistics.

> But the 50k they did commit seem to have achieved nothing.

A bit far-fetched I admit, but thinking outside the box, perhaps those on the Russian side of the front line don't really fancy being involved in this ? In other words, "we need to make some noise because the boss is watching" but really the commitment isn't there.

Reason I say that is perhaps its an extension of what we saw on that infamous broadcast where Putin was seeking approval from his cabinet but some of them were struggling to find a way to disagree without actually saying it.

> It really makes you question whether Russia's reputation is well-earned.

But this is also a possibility of course.

Who knows. Its impossible to second-guess Putin.

> perhaps those on the Russian side of the front line don't really fancy being involved in this ?

I think that's definitely the case, Russians are very close to Ukrainians culturally and ethnically. They were on the same side on several wars.

I think this may explain why things are not going full on bloodthirsty kill-everything-that-moves yet... but just wait until coffins start piling up on the hangar. Seeing your mates being killed has a way to make you de-humanize and hate the other side, no matter who they are. That's how you end up with entire cities bombed to the ground in later stages of a war... I don't think any war starts that way, that's how it usually ends though.

Let's hope they'll find a way to stop this in time.

In another thread, commenters were remarking about how ineffectual protests by the Russian people would be on account of Putin not caring about their opinions. Whether or not that’s true, I wonder if the Russian people could shame their soldiers into a degree of ineffectiveness (“throwing the game”).

No, but upper echelon is well-versed in money and power. If it seems like Putin is losing the game, their opinion could change the power structure. That is not automatically a good thing by the way. There is a reason 'devil known' is a phrase.

Robert Axelrod's "evolution of co-operation" book on Game Theory discusses instances of German and Allied trench forces in WWI firing their artillery at the same time and place each day so it looks and sounds like a war is happening but the poor schmucks on the front line aren't needlessly murdering each other. It supposses they can organize this without any explicit communication as it's fairly obvious when someone is trying to kill you.

There's also a long history of people in wars not even firing their weapons covered in the book "On Killing". People generally don't want to needlessly kill other human beings and a big part of army training and tactics is to work around this basic human instinct e.g. making you fight to keep your small group of friends alive, rather than for the financial benefit of some oligarch hundreds of miles away in safety.

> People generally don't want to needlessly kill other human beings and a big part of army training and tactics is to work around this basic human instinct e

I wonder if that's the actual source of the purported necessary 3:1 attacker to defender ratio in an insurgency. You have three times as many people willing to kill to defend their home as to invade, so you need more people to get the same number of shooters.

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