People are claiming it's a victory when Russia hasn't totally taken over within 72 hours, but is that really any kind of victory?
Their plan in general seems unnecessary complex and risky. They are burning through VDV at a fearful rate.. why in the hell did they try all of those unsupported helicopter landings? It all seem like Market Garden all the way to Kyiv.
Southern axis are a problem. Order needs to be given for a breakout of the forces holding line of control in the east. Of course we have no idea what reserves and where Ukraine has. Hopefully they did not keep too much too close east and there is a strategic reserve being held somewhere west of Dniepr
Why do you believe that? I am just assuming that many Ukraine troop concentrations visible from satellites has been bombed (vehicles, tents ...) without anything indicating that.
The videos available seems very onesided. I.e. Ukrainian civilian or soldiers' videos of victories. It is probably hard to tell much from the videos on the overall progress of the invasion, except where there are fights.
there is also enough of videos of ukranian equipment blown up.
another point, russia doesn't really have much precise ammo for ground attacks. and there is no signs of carpet bombing in cases where ukranian tanks are blown
Of course it's "on the cusp of encircling Kyiv" - it's less distance than the average US drive to WalMart.
I doubt it. I checked the distance from the center of Kyiv to the closest Belarus border and it was around 55 miles. The actual distance is probably higher because I'm taking the distance over the lake/river that's north of Kyiv. Meanwhile...
>For most people in the United States, a Wal-Mart is literally just down the road. The median distance to a Wal-Mart in the United States is 4.2 miles
https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2006/thomas-j-holmes-...
1.) Kyiv is 50mi from the border, Baghdad is 200mi.
2.) Iraq was a numerically far superior force to the coalition, with >500,000 active soldiers and >1.3 million total. Clearing out that many people simply takes time.
3) The coalition moved slowly and largely neutralized resistance along their way, they didn't skip settlements or cities. Russia is trying deep strikes and bypassing/avoiding many of the larger cities/settlements. And those places are not necessarily under any kind of coherent siege at this point either.
4) Coalition losses in the entire war, where they were again, fighting a numerically far superior force, were tiny. ~200 killed. Estimates of Russian losses so far are 10x+ that and with a lot of lost equipment.
I'm not suggesting I think the Ukrainian position is great or that they're poised to win other than via long insurgency, just that I don't think the comparison works.
The quick two week land grab by Iraq that turned into an 8-year slog that they got nothing out of?
Yeah, I can see that.
War is a nasty virus on brain for people away from all this. It is a privileged take but mental faculties are overloaded with the emotional language being used. A TV station was showing how to make Molotov cocktails to non-Ukrainian audience. Is that helpful at all?
So much thoughts on this invasion. Have seen maybe 4 conflicts (Kargil, Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine); numerous military mobilizations and small scale strikes between sworn enemy nations. It is just bile churning to see the whole events play down with no accountability.
What sort of lies are they spreading out of curiosity?
cordial behaviour of Russian soldiers There are no massed artillery barragesThere's one famous video of an APC going over a car, and it's not clear, but some people have mentioned that it was an Ukranian APC (in any case, the crash looked like a mistake). I don't know whose APC it was, but without having deep knowledge it's really hard to tell just from the footage.
Also, for the record, there are many videos of american tanks rolling over iraqi cars, even one particularly notable video where they were doing it on purpose as a punishment.
Empty cars, you mean.
you should tell it to ukranians in general, they seems not to share your sentiment. or to my wife's family and friends who sleep in shelters in kharkiv. or to old neighbors of my wife who discovered leftover smerch stuck in ground between buildings.
i guess they should they wake up and realize that this is actually russian spring comes to free them from occupation by neo-nazi benderovzis that are chaired by jew president?
In the end it is still an occupation, they are brutal there’s no disputing it. Degree of brutality was my point, I have seen how Armies behave and Russian way of capturing towns is brutal which they have yet not displayed in Ukraine.
Yes, we are.
> Infrastructure is intact, electricity and internet is working.
Yes, the concept of operations is a quick decapitation (“Demilitarization”, “Denazification”, or “Decommunisation”, depending on Putin’s mood at the moment) strike followed by installing a productive puppet regime.
> There is no vibe of an occupation.
That’s because they haven’t gotten to the occupation point, they are still trying to achieve initial control.
> There seem to be no embedded journalism from Russians.
As if all the information being canned, centralized propaganda, that doesn't require any contact with the real facts on the ground is a good thing?
> If US was directly invoked, 10 fact checking orgs would have propped by now and started warning on game videos being spread.
Numerous fact checkers have done that.
> At the end it is still an invasion and Ukrainians will be killed and come under an occupation, but US is more ruthless with its occupations.
That is rather premature.
As you mentioned, civil services are all operational, there are no drone strikes based on questionable intel, artillery strikes are focused and kept on the minimum.
On the other side, we see Ukraine giving weapons and instructing citizens on how to fight, which can only become a disaster.
Just so i'll understand, mobilization of citizens (i believe all countries have laws like this) in order to fight invading force and arming them is a disaster ? Could you please expand a bit on more appropriate approach that should be taken instead ?
They're effectively camouflaging soldiers as civilians, don't you see a problem with that? How can invading force make a distinction between a civilian and a soldier?
And speaking of Iraq, Biden's "minor incursions" [1] comment before the invasion reminds of US ambassador's 'it's not our business' [2] input to Saddam Hussein before he attacked Kuwait.
[1]: https://www.npr.org/2022/01/20/1074466148/biden-russia-ukrai...
"[Biden]: I think what you're going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades. And it depends on what it does. It's one thing if it's a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do."
[2]: https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/ARTICLE5/apri...
"Journalist 1 - You encouraged this aggression - his invasion. What were you thinking?
"U.S. Ambassador Glaspie - Obviously, I didn't think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait."
The latest figure reported by Ukraine was they have killed 3500 Russians already. So allowing for a few hours of losses, about 20x.
[0] Similar report https://nitter.net/pic/media%2FFMmXu6eWYAMOSUB.jpg
Also we see Russians ask for unconditional talks, which wouldn't be happening if they felt they had a good chance.
I think, as I have hinted to before, that Russians would be wise to break a leg instead of going down to Ukraine.
Same for Russian factory workers, store workers and railway workers: if one can delay/prevent young ones from being sent down to the righteously furious Ukrainians, that might save many lives.
My understanding was that this number was their claim for total casualties (meaning mostly WIA). And that this got lazily cut-and-pasted all over the place to mean KIA.
What else are they going to claim? That everything's fucked and there's no realistic hope of even a partial victory?
Regardless of whether or not the war goes well or poorly, the news will be positive, right up until the end. If it turns out to be the latter, everybody who spent the past few weeks listening to it will be struck with one hell of a cog-dissonance hangover.
I am cautiously optimistic for Ukraine based on early reports. But I am also aware of the history of war propaganda.
The front pages of US and UK newspapers during the Battle of France, for example, were filled with headlines talking about French successes in repelling the Hun. Anyone paying attention to the details, however, could see that the successes were constantly occurring closer and closer to Paris.
If Russia wins, there is going to be (as you said) a lot of cognitive dissonance among those whose worldviews are entirely shaped by Reddit headlines and Twitter takes. I'd hope that having their worldviews shattered so abruptly and violently would cause such people to reexamine all of their preconceptions, but given how previous such cases (notably Brexit and Trump's election) mostly caused them to double down rather than seriously self reflect, I am not hopeful.
Because man, a lot of people still don't believe that has happened.
This is also why normally-classified intelligence was leaked by the US goverment.
Historically when something like this happened, it was always hard to understand who really started a violent confrontation. In this case, the US has been successful at showing that the invasion was pre-meditated.
By this I mean the West's addiction to immediate gratification. If Putin hasn't conquered every last inch of Ukraine within 72 hours then he has "failed" according to Western media.
To some degree I don't blame them. In Iraq for example, the war tempo was intentional rapid. The US decided that maneuver warfare[1] would be the doctrine to use and it worked out okay only because they largely dealt with demoralized forces - but in areas where they encountered a willing opposition, it crushed the tempo.
Then, less than a year after "victory" they had terrible battles lasting months where the US lost and public sentiment flipped[2].
I keep two things in mind: in war, the first casualty is the truth.
The second: that it was only a year between "freedom fries" (because the French did not want to help invade Iraq) and "no blood for oil". What will US sentiment be a year from now when the crushing energy and food prices caused by this have worked their way through the system and the Democrats and their media go into the elections with full weaponized Russia-paranoia all over again?
When China is now even stronger because the West weaponized the financial system against an enemy that didn't warrant it?
When China leapfrogs the West even further because they benefited from the sanctions while not having deal with any material suffering?
Could Putin maybe have had an iota of a point about the enlargement of NATO suffocating Russia and backing them into a corner?[3]
Is there perhaps a shred of truth to the claim that there are neo-Nazis in Ukraine - some even trained by the West - even if its understood that this is just an excuse?[4]
These are questions that will inevitably be visited, but not today.
---
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuver_warfare
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Fallujah
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO
[4] https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/far-right-extremists-in-ukraini...
Gee, I wonder where we learned it from...
"NBC CAUGHT Spreading Literal Nazi, Deep State Propaganda | Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar"
Not a fringe or right-wing source, especially considering their position among Spotify political podcasts.
Iraq had a much larger military in 2003 than Ukraine does now, the US wasn't able to come at it from all sides, and was doing it from the far side of the globe, with a smaller force than Russia deployed in and around Ukraine. And Baghdad is 350 miles from Kuwait, Kyiv 70 miles from Belarus.
So, yeah, Russia is expected to be way ahead of the Iraq War schedule.
> People are claiming it's a victory when Russia hasn't totally taken over within 72 hours, but is that really any kind of victory?
Yes, when the decapitation portion was expected to be much shorter, with Russia’s problems expected to be more guerrilla-ish resistance after the lightning-fast takeover that the massive paper imbalance of forces suggested, it is, especially when there is evidence of serious logistical and morale problems contributing, which will also make the phase after a takeover harder than they would otherwise be expected.
Kazakhstan rebuffing Russia’s request for additional troops, and a number of previously relatively pro-Russia governments not aligning the way Putin might have hoped also is a complication (Hungary, one of the more pro-Russian EU/NATO governments, coming down hard against Russia on this is particularly significant, and the pro-NATO swing in Swedish public opinion is a hard backfire on Putin’s attempt to capitalize on the invasion with further threats.)
While it is still very bad for Ukraine, this has the early signs of a massive debacle for Russia.
I am positive that those threats are also purely for internal consumption. There's no possible way where this invasion would not result in Sweeden joining NATO. (Other than a complete and total Russian defeat, that revealed it to be a paper tiger, and no real threat to anyone. That's not quite the outcome we're seeing, though.)
Rewriting this for clarity sake:
It is absolutely that this invasion would result in Sweden joining NATO.
Some in the Kremlin might have expected the takeover to be as swift as the Taliban taking back Afghanistan with little to no resistance, before other countries can agree upon any sanctions or reaction. If that were the case, I think sanctions from the west would have been much tamer, due to the war already being over and less political pressure from their own constituencies. E.g. German government needed at ton of public outcry first, before they changed their mind.
Also the longer it takes, the more Putin has to deal with opposition in their own ranks and populace.
Ukraine and the west have an incentive to share news about the war, about civilian and russian casualties. Russia has no incentive at all to share such news before they have a definitve symbol of victory (e.g. a surrender signed by Zelenskyy).
This means it could be that the news we are getting are quite overly optimistic (although I personally hope the Ukraine is really doing as well as it seems).
Russia is bungling forward, but it’s gaining ground.
Post-war (if it concludes favorably for Ukraine), Putin can still create pain for Ukraine (and Europe) by cutting off gas supplies. He can still do much to hold back Ukraine economically and politically. If we want to score one for democracy, then we would do well not to 1. "win the fight" and 2. get triumphant. If there is a positive resolution for Ukraine in terms of military outcome, the leaders over nonetheless need look for an endgame.
If you stop pumping gas through the pipeline, you have several options: abandon the field (not reversible, I think), pump it to the atmosphere, burn it, store it in gas form, store it in liquid form. Russia lacks the infrastructure for the last two options.
Bellingcat reports that the orders are to take Kyiv by Monday regardless the losses if Ukraine can hold out for longer they might just be in the clear.
It’s also clear now that the Ukraine is getting direct intelligence from NATO especially from the global hawk drones and the sigint/elint aircraft it’s been flying their ability to avoid Russian offenses, hit key targets and to mount effective counter attack seem to indicate they do have map cheats enabled.
The training they got from NATO forces seem to be paying off in spades too.
Russia seem to be closer and closer to the point where their only winning condition is a Grozny scenario and if that happens then there is no chance that NATO would stand by.
Conventional warfare with limited civilian casualties would be tolerated leveling cities wouldn’t this isn’t Syria.
The EU and NATO knows that even if Russia takes Ukraine they won’t be able to hold it it might take another decade but it eventually would be free again even without major insurgency.
Puppet regimes don’t hold and Ukrainians have been far more interconnected with the EU especially through Poland than say Belarus.
And from I see, the Ukrainians will probably force them to do that, if they want to take it.
Javelins would probably not be that effective if the tanks enter the city but other anti tank weapons like the NLAW are. Also barricades could have them bogged down. But still if the numbers of 500 tanks in Kyiv are true and the Russians are under orders not to retreat under any circumstances holding the city might be difficult.
If Russia takes Kyiv even if they don’t kill Zelenskyy they’ll have a bargaining chip to play in the negotiations that would surly have to happen sometime next week if they don’t they don’t have anything.
Right now Russia is running out of win conditions or even a way to get out of this situation at all and that is the most dangerous part.
If they have nothing to bargain with they can’t come to the negotiating table to get the sanctions removed and they will not issue an unconstitutional surrender under any circumstances other than if there to be a regime change in Russia.
Even if they make no progress from this point onwards, their main bargaining chip would be withdrawing from western and central Ukraine.
Could that be the way this all ends? Maybe the FSB will serve Putin a cup of its world-famous Polonium tea.
also kyiv is built from very long and very wide streets (i was born there). if you have enough javelins/nlaw, it will be not too different from shooting range in urban environment
Javelin or any ATGM with DFA doesn’t like power lines.
Line of sight can also be a problem.
IR seekers are more difficult to use due to interference from other IR sources.
Wire guided missiles don’t like urban environments either fences, power lines etc.
Wireless guided missiles actually do get interference from WiFi.
Then you have the tactical issues.
Fear of collateral damage, fewer firing positions which make your actions more predicable etc, and due to the nature of the urban environment you have much fewer enemy vehicles exposed at any time.
It’s not that ATGMs become totally useless it’s just that they aren’t nearly as useful as on an open battlefield.
and it seems fairly open. If I was a tank driver I wouldn't count on a couple of power lines saving me from missiles.
If that happens we are facing the very real possibility of escalation to some kind of nuclear war per Russia’s doctrine.
If we do not save Ukraine due to our own fear, then that’s the effective precedence Putin will have just set. Russian conquering Ukraine is an _escalation_ from NATO perspective.
They can’t risk it especially considering they can’t control the skies over central and eastern Ukraine.
Russia hasn’t been able to stop Israel from controlling the skies over Syria either and despite the fact that there is probably a major political component there (Russia doesn’t want Iran to establish themselves in Syria either since it would diminish Syrian dependence on Russia) there is also a very much practical component to it too.
Israel can knock Russia out of Syria even if it can’t do it without any losses it can do it without major losses and other than a symbolic attack most likely a Russian sub sinking Israeli naval assets or attacking Israeli gas platforms in the med Russia cannot wage a conventional war on Israel due to the distance and the vulnerability of their logistics chain.
The situation in Ukraine isn’t that different Russia knows that it only can operate there as long as NATO allows it too and know it probably knows that better than ever.
If we to assume that Russia does not want a nuclear armageddon then we can assume that they would respect which ever red lines NATO has telegraphed to them in private.
That this is not some abstract far away war for us?
I think Russia probably can succeed in occupying significant parts of Ukraine, but I think the idea that it will ever succeed in occupying the entire country is much more dubious – especially the westernmost regions, such as Lviv. Far Western Ukraine is the culturally most dissimilar from Russia – being dominated by Ukrainian speakers and with relatively few Russian speakers; having an Eastern Catholic rather than Orthodox majority, and with most of its Orthodox population belonging to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) rather than the Moscow-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC-MP); a lengthy history of rule by Poland and Austria – all of which makes it a hotbed of Ukrainian nationalism whose population are among the most likely to give sustained resistance to any attempted Russian occupation or rule by a Russian puppet government. Added to that, it is geographically protected by its borders with NATO member states (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania), which prevents Russia from encircling it, and gives it guaranteed supply lines; and Russia must be wary of fighting near those borders, given the risk that NATO might be drawn into the conflict. Moldova to the south also provides some protection – although Russia could conceivably invade Moldova as well (and indeed already de facto occupies the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria), doing so may risk overextension, and given the deep cultural and linguistic links between Romanians and Moldavians, risks drawing Romania (and hence NATO) into the conflict.
I really don't think Russia has fully thought this through. It is conceivable the war may end with a split of Ukraine in two, one internationally recognised but with significantly diminished territory, the other a Russian puppet regime only recognised by Russia and its close allies. It is conceivable the war may end with Russia annexing further large chunks of Ukraine, especially the South and the East and maybe even significant parts of Central Ukraine. It seems very unlikely it will end with Russia, or a pro-Russian regime, controlling the whole of Ukraine.
NATO receives no benefit by standing by and letting Ukraine fall. The next fight would be on NATO soil, against a battle hardened, victory spirited aggressor. Oh, and he would know for a fact his nuclear threat worked like a charm.
Now is the time to stop Russia’s aggression once and for all, nuclear threat or not. Putin has never gotten less crazy. There is zero reason to assume a Ukrainian victory would pacify him. We will win handily against any future conflict. But why choose a harder victory tomorrow with one less ally, when we could have lasting victory today?
If he is rational or not I do not know but there can be a great deal of difference between what he wants to do and what he can do because of resources and capability.
The nuclear threat only takes you so far since it’s understood as a last resort response. Even an irrational actor realizes the minute he unleashes nukes he…and everyone else loses.
Sounds like you're stretching a bit, in particular with the last point:
Ultimately it has enough forces to overwhelm the Ukrainians on every front.