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Comment by bhaak | Hacker News Reader

> Once there is a casus belli, cyberattacks will likely follow to degrade Ukraine’s military command and control systems and public communications and electrical grids. Next, kinetic operations will likely begin with air and missile strikes against Ukraine’s air force and air defense systems. Once air superiority is established, Russian ground forces would move forward, slightly preceded by special operations to degrade further command and control capabilities and delay the mobilization of reserves by conducting bombings, assassinations, and sabotage operations.

The Russian commandants were so sure about their chances that they didn't wait for air superiority.

Or, they didn't want to be seen as an invader but a liberator and as we know that failed terribly.

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Or other reasons: https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentar...

>Or other reasons: https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentar...

I think there's a far simpler explanation; genocide. Putin has been throwing Chechen conscripts into this meatgrinder at a pace which shows he has zero issues whatsoever with any level of casualties. The losses are a feature, not a bug. This is Russia, not Iran. They have reserves of over 10 million troops to call on, and the worlds largest inventory of military equipment. He knows he can just throw bodies at this and avoid losing the expensive aircraft and pilots he will need for his coming showdown with NATO.

Okay, by trying to operate all that (mostly incredibly crappy) equipment and massive conscript reserves in a hostile country all at once means just burning up your fuel and food much faster, leaving your equipment stranded and your soldiers deserting. You wouldn’t think logistics would be a problem just 100 or 200 miles away from your own de facto borders, but here we are.

I’m sure Ukraine appreciates all the weapons Russia is donating to them, though.

>Okay, by trying to operate all that (mostly incredibly crappy) equipment and massive conscript reserves in a hostile country all at once means just burning up your fuel and food much faster

Russia has unlimited food and fuel. And their capture of Ukraine will only solidify that. Soldiers and tanks are cheap. Su-57's and pilots are not.

>You wouldn’t think logistics would be a problem just 100 or 200 miles away from your own de facto borders, but here we are.

This is week 1 of an invasion that is going to last for years. Moving that kind of tonnage just physically takes time no matter what.

I doubt the Russian economy will last for months without a complete collapse, much less years.

> I’m sure Ukraine appreciates all the weapons Russia is donating to them, though.

Some Ukrainian bureaucrat with a sense of humor has done their part to declare the acquisition of Russian tanks and equipment is not a taxable event: https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/804441.html

> the worlds largest inventory of military equipment.

I think the proper word is scrapeyard. The equipment does not work.

Yes there are many Chechens in Ukraine and you are right that they basically want to get rid of them but there are also many Russians. The regime simply does not care for the lives of people.

> Yes there are many Chechens in Ukraine and you are right that they basically want to get rid of them but there are also many Russians. The regime simply does not care for the lives of people.

https://youtu.be/-pBh7bOvcBQ?t=247

We are officially in a clown timeline.

> I think there's a far simpler explanation; genocide.

I don't think so.

I'm seeing estimates of 120-150k Russian troops deployed in Ukraine from sources like the Ukrainian government and the Pentagon. Outside of Russian propaganda, the estimates range from 10-12k range for Chechen fighters. The 10k number came from Chechen leadership. These numbers don't support the notion that Chechens are doing the bulk of the fighting or dying in Ukraine.

Moreover, the only reports of engagement with Chechen forces are in regard to the elimination of a special forces unit tasked with assassinating Zelensky. Russians are using the image of Chechens as fierce, brutal, battle-hardened fighters in an attempt to demoralize Ukrainians. If Chechens were doing a significant share of the fighting it would all over the news. Ukraine would capitalize on this as well to rally the populace against the "Putin's vicious Chechen mercenaries".

>I'm seeing estimates of 120-150k Russian troops deployed in Ukraine from sources like the Ukrainian government and the Pentagon. Outside of Russian propaganda, the estimates range from 10-12k range for Chechen fighters. The 10k number came from Chechen leadership. These numbers don't support the notion that Chechens are doing the bulk of the fighting or dying in Ukraine.

There's a 10:1 ratio of logistical units to front line fighters for any modern military. The Chechen units are 100% light infantry.

The only way he could have 10 million is if he starts drafting, I believe that the military of Russia has ~1.1 million members

Makes sense but there's a resource that's running out much faster for Putin, popular support.

The Russian military seems to be extremely unmotivated, and rightly so. This is Putin's war. Nobody else wanted it. There is evidence that lower ranks in the Russian military don't want to kill their neighbors who mostly speak the same language. Morale is very low, as many cases of abandoned vehicles and surrender illustrate. Unfortunately, the longer a war goes on, the more both sides harden and the more brutal the war becomes.

I wonder if it wouldn't help for the West to guarantee political asylum for Russian deserters, maybe even with a new identity for them. But I don't know if this is practically achievable, at least not without extensive vetting and not as long as they are PoWs. Has this ever been attempted?

+1 to a witness-protection-type program for Russian soldiers. How can we expect them to want to stop without it? The choice is: carry out your questionable orders, or be court-martialed and be sentenced to treason by a stone-cold regime.

The decision is pretty obvious for most.

Ukraine is offering complete amnesty and 40000 euro for deserters.

Ukraine has already offered to pay defectors, at a significantly higher rate than the compensation Russia pays to their family if they are killed.

Ukraine is playing this whole thing, so far, brilliantly. The time to prepare since Crimea was annexed was apparently used very, very well.

They have been constantly battling Russian/Russian backed forces in Donbass as well. That's going to have given them valuable experience over the last 8 years.

Anyone who has worked in public leadership will recognize that Zelensky has been putting on a diplomacy/PR/propaganda masterclass. His decisions and actions will be studied for a long time to come as an example of how to gain and exert soft power, and how to translate soft power to material power.

Yup, and the reason it’s working is Zelenskyy is putting himself at huge risk as part of it. Risk like that cannot be faked, and people know it. People know that some of the stuff is flashy PR stunts and exaggerations, but it doesn’t matter because Zelenskyy is clearly willing to risk his life for this. Like, an enormous, enormous risk. He has maybe a 50% chance of surviving this. Absolute legend. And we can see the whole country is cut from the same cloth.

That will to fight matters more than the sophistication of their weapons. Weapons without the will to fight just go right into the enemy’s hands as you surrender. In a sense, soft power then is the vastly more important power.

If Kyiv falls that is 0%. The risk is a lot higher to him, he can't just walk out of this or be evac'd. The Russians have a price on his head and want him dead because they believe that that will break the Ukrainian spirit, which I highly doubt will be the effect, if anything it will spur them on.

Zelensky has broad cultural appeal in Ukraine (or you could frame it as "he's not polarizing and isn't hated by a large fraction of the country" which I think is the better way to look at it). How else would someone become president with such a limited political background? Killing him would be a textbook way to make a martyr.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the Russians to read the ideological room. The details of this operation seems predicated on Russian misunderstanding of who they were dealing with. An entire generation has grown up living with the background threat of Russian aggression and this point has really been driven home sine 2014. Expecting the people and leaders of Ukraine to not be mentally prepared for that comes across like the nation state version of the feds showing up on the doorstep of a bunch of apocalypse preaching crazies expecting an easy win and then being baffled that their victims prefer to die together.

Or something might happen and Ukraine might just roll over. Nobody knows yet. Time will tell.

That could be part of the plan so. Worst case, Russia is creating a martyr. Hell, the more I think about it the less that invasion makes sense...

I think that is the collected western view of it. Everyone is baffled of the ignorance and ... well, mostly not finding words to describe the enormous disconnect from reality that russian leaders are showing.

The first wave of soldiers from Russia was kids with normal walkie talkies unencrypted communication thinking they are doing a normal manouver and suddenly realising they are at war.

The asylum for deserters probably wouldn't work if they have family back in Russia.

Though if invasion failing is what finally takes down Putin's regime, then the deserters might likely be granted pardons by the next regime.

If they are still alive.

Wait, we're talking about deserters who would have opted to take political asylum in Europe instead of fighting. Why would they be dead?

Novichok

There are a few steps between sneaking away from your unit and securing political asylum in Europe.

Do you sneak away at the front? The opposition is hunting infiltrators, will they ask questions or shoot first? Do you sneak out behind the front? Your own side is likely to dispense quick "justice" and report you as KIA if you're caught (less trouble). How do you get to a border with a Western country? Do you stay in Ukraine and wait for things to settle down before making your move? That's a bet that you won't find yourself in a Russian-occupied zone. And so on.

How willing would Russia be to admit they deserted instead of surrendering or capture? Each family you punish is like telling their every colleague, relative, neighbor, and friend your army is faltering.

Why not allow the families of deserters to immigrate into Ukraine as well?

putin's war or not it's the result that matters

This is brilliant, why stop at political asylum? Change the narrative for attacking soldiers as a way to escape a regime and make some money. If you incentivized deserting without consequences that would be interesting. If each soldier was paid 10k to dessert and pick a country to immigrate to. Total cost 1.9billion on 190k soldiers. If you don’t dessert and join Ukraine in their fight you get 100k.

it's actually 40 TEUR

https://www.dailysabah.com/world/europe/kyiv-offers-over-40k...

> Once air superiority is established, Russian ground forces would move forward

>> they didn't wait for air superiority

Are we sure they didn't? Otherwise how do you explain the 40 mile long convoy not being attacked by air?

Just because the Russian army doesn't have air superiority doesn't mean they have no air support at all.

It's possible the convoy is protected but that the Russians can't or don't want to deploy more aircrafts for other operations.

It's also possible that the Ukrainians don't want to attack the convoy but the support this convoy needs to get. That's a powerful tactic if you can cut off the supply chain for such a massive number of vehicles.

Note: I'm no military expert (is there a handy acronym for that?) :-)

I was also very interested in that point. Later in the article, they also suggest the US give (via a lend-lease program) equipment to prevent Russia from gaining air superiority. So I wonder if the analysis of both the authors and Russia is that gaining air superiority would be time consuming, and Russia thought they needed to try ti advance faster.

Imagine how disconnected from the reality Putin must have been if in the modern world where you can get any information, to be so wrong about this. It looks like he really believed rusian army will be welcomed in Ukraine.

Possibly also assuming that the Ukrainian army would falter like it did in 2014.

Totally ignoring (or not even receiving) the intelligence reports about the buildup that happened since then.

In any case, it's a surprising display of incompetence on so many levels. Possibly enough that in the end Putin's regime will fall without making Ukraine or the world a wasteland.

I read that he's been isolating himself because of Covid, and that he has a very limited circle of people who are allowed to talk to him (see the images of him at the head on a comically long table). If this is true and those people are sycophants, then he's operating in a different reality.

That could explain a lot. Putin never struck me as the guy taking stupid risks and being prone to rash decisions.

Sounds like what Hitler ended up doing.

It's helpful to remember that there is effectively no free/independent press in Russia (certainly not at these official meetings). Nobody snaps an embarrassing photo or takes a compromising video - all media is curated, censored, and crafted for release. If you're seeing it, it's because Kremlin wanted you to see it.

What's the message from that photo? That if Putin starts feeling unwell after the conference it wasn't due to one of those guys at the other end of the table?

In that photo, the message is "There is only one ruler". Putin represents the stern father figure, and in the moment of crisis, he does not debate, discuss, plead, or succumbs to the influence of the lesser court dwellers or foreigners.

Another example is this video of Putin's "heated exchange" with his chief spy [1]. The point of releasing that clip is to demonstrate that "The weak, meek, and confused oppose the ongoing liberation on independent nations". Viewers would not see themselves reflected in the speaker, and that distances them from his ideas. Yet there is a strong protagonist in that clip.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2022/feb/22/speak-pl...

It happened to George W and Dick Cheney when they convinced themselves Saddam was building nukes but the Iraqis would welcome us as liberators. Same thing here.

Do you believe they actually believed this? Was Bush really just a pawn to the military industrial complex? Maybe, I don't think this is true of Dick Cheney though.

My guess at the time was that with the international coalition keeping Saddam contained faltering, they decided it was better to finish him sooner rather than later, after he'd managed to rebuild his military.

I think they really did. Especially with how they went in with basically no plans whatsoever for nation-building post-invasion. I mean, I think they wanted to invade Iraq for a lot of reasons, but then convinced themselves that the Iraqis wanted it too.

They didn't convince themselves of anything of the sort. Those were just lies the Bush administration made up to convince the rest of the world.

My theory is that he has a terminal illness. That would explain the intense fear of Covid, and would explain the rush to take all of Ukraine in one bite, rather than the methodical approach they've been taking over the last decade. Reconstituting the Russian empire is on his bucket list, and time is running out.

He's isolated like he's receiving chemotherapy. A few years back he pointed out that many leaders appeared to be dying of cancer. Add the US mortality statement last week and it's clear to me he's got terminal cancer.

Mortality statement?

Well, since we're theorizing: my theory is that he's f*in' goofy!

Which reminds me of an old joke:

The judge opened the courtroom proceedings: "Mr. Mouse, as I understand it, you're petitioning the court for a divorce from your wife because she is insane. Is that correct?

Mickey sighed: "No, your Honor, what I'm saying is that she's f*in' Goofy!"

All dictators are surrounded by sycophants, their ego can not handle criticism.

If we assume that we should probably all be really alarmed that a man that disconnected from reality has their finger on the nuclear trigger. I find the idea that they are ruthless and calculating and trying to force something that no one wants to somehow be the much less frightening option.

Fortunately there is still a chain of command. He can't just press a button and launch nukes.

The narrative that "the native population will be happy, and they are suppressed by Nazis" is propaganda aimed at the Russian people and the army.

Putin knows very well what's happening, he has been planning this war for a very long time. He made sure the EU received less gas than agreed last summer, so their reserves are insufficient. Leaked plans show he is aiming to attack Moldova next.

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