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I think all 3 Baltic countries get wiped out overnight if Russia decides to press the issue.

Disclaimer: I was born in one of those countries. No, I wouldn't fly back home to go to war. My country is run by crooks like any other, and I am not about to go die like some dumbass. Assuming that it escalates that far.

Also population would play a big role here. The combined population of all three Baltic countries is around 5-6 million. In Ukraine it is 40+ million. Over the last 20 years, a large number of outskirt cities have been left deserted because people went on to find better life elsewhere.

Border cities in particular aren't protected because nobody cares to live there.

I think I am being pretty fair in my assessment, though.

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Like it took a night for the Russians to wipe out Ukraine (which has been lacking modern weapons)? The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown how weak the Russian army is in reality. They have no chance against NATO whatsoever. Poland and Baltics are also arming themselves to teeth now.

>>>The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown how weak the Russian army is in reality.

For context: Germany invaded Poland (population ~31 million) with 60+ divisions, and that invasion required almost a month to succeed, with the Soviets jumping in partway through to quicken the end.

Russia has invaded Ukraine (population ~41 million) with ~13 divisions, less favorable weather, and vastly more urbanized terrain to fight through. While they have made some absolutely embarrassing mistakes, they are fielding the largest army seen in a generation, and still conducting offensive operations.

Not even the US has put 13 divisions into a theater since....Vietnam? Korea? Desert Storm was ~9 US divisions + allies. The big difference is we can show up with ~9 divisions that will be well-supplied and well-motivated anywhere in the world (and with endless air support to make up in bombs what we might lack in manpower), while Russia has a terribly motivated and already-hungry army even in their own backyard, and surprisingly not enough ordnance to make up for it.

I certainly agree that you don't want to declare it over at this point but is there any counterpart in the German example to the logistical failures we've seen so far? The Russian army seems like they didn't just start with less but are losing a significant amount of equipment and are struggling to use what they have in the field effectively in most of the battlefield. Nothing we've seen so far looks like they're going to be able to pick up the pace, especially since the attacks on civilians they've made seem likely to have increased rather than reduced the number of Ukranians who are willing to fight.

>>>is there any counterpart in the German example to the logistical failures we've seen so far?

One early vid featured a Ukrainian civilian driving up to a stopped Russian APC. The Russian crew said they were out of gas. Your vehicle has a 300km+ fuel range and you ran outta gas 50km from the Russian border? WTF? Did you leave your Assembly Area with a 1/4 tank of fuel?! No I don't think the Germans ever launched an invasion with such poor preparation.

>>>struggling to use what they have in the field effectively in most of the battlefield

We've been discussing some examples at work (with an Iraq-veteran Staff Sergeant and a recent infantry company commander): videos of just absolutely terrible security habits from the Russians. I don't care if they are unmotivated conscripts: you've gotta realize by now that you are in "Indian country". You need to keep your head on a swivel and watching your surroundings if you simply want to NOT DIE. There were parked tanks getting knocked out by ATGMs at fairly close range.....doesn't make sense when the T-72B3 has a thermal imager, and it's winter, so body heat should stand out at a reasonable distance. The crew should be scanning the treelines periodically with the thermal.

There's some aspects of the war where I'm willing to give the Russians the benefit of the doubt because, as I said, nobody has done this in 30+ years, maybe even 50+. But there are FAR too many flaws where we are sitting shocked and thinking "You guys suck so bad at your JOB, that I'm embarrassed for you."

Great comment. Some fresh air among a sea of armchair generals that think they could take control of Ukraine in 24 hours "if they wanted to".

Well, by all accounts (and I'd love to read others that diverge from this) this was actually Russia's exact strategy. Move to Kyiv quickly, destroy the existing government, install a new puppet government, and announce it to the world quickly before the west could react. Russia doesn't have the manpower deployed to actually occupy Ukraine. 200,000 soldiers is not enough when the Ukrainian state is actively resisting. This is why they tried some absolutely suicidal paratrooper missions and they are having all of these apparent logistical issues (again if there are other sources I'd like to learn more please share).

I think if I were to summarize the "Russia is failing" narrative it's that Russia expectations of a quick, easy victory were completely unmet, and now even if Russia does want to occupy Ukraine it's not going to be the quick and easy decapitation strike that they thought it would.

>>I'd love to read others that diverge from this

So your argument is you assume Russia wanted to take Ukraine in 100 milliseconds, and if people can't prove you wrong you win?

No?

>this was actually Russia's exact strategy >Russia expectations of a quick, easy victory

I'd actually like to read more of this, if you have happen you have a source at hand.

Keeping in mind that Russia of course isn’t going to come out with a 1-pager on their strategy, there are a lot of sources on this. Understandably if you are hung up on the 24 hours thing I mean there isn’t a source for that but suffice to say the sooner the better was their goal.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-believes-russia-planning-de...

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2022/03/05/ukraine...

https://breakingdefense.com/2022/02/russia-aiming-to-decapit...

https://www.axios.com/russia-seeking-decapitate-ukrainian-go...

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-invasion-of-ukraine-w...

Thank you, that's interesting to know. I had the impression that the Russian plan was to just get there and just never leave until Ukraine kind of surrenders or whatever.

For all we know that’s the plan now… who knows at this point.

Just to supplement the info in your post: Poland had 39 divisions, about 1 000 000 men. It took Germany about 14 days to get a decisive advantage.

Have the Russians proven they are weak? Certainly the war in the northeast has proven incompetent, but the war in the south seems like a far more solid military operation. It's also the more important operation, Odessa for example is a major logistical point for foreign military aid.

> Have the Russians proven they are weak?

Yes. They have shown they are not well organized, have poor leadership, have defective planning, are terrible at logistics, have poor discipline in the ranks.

In fairness to the Russian military they are probably pretty unmotivated. A lot of them seem to have no idea why they were there having been told they were taking part in exercises. Also had Putin let on they were suppose to kill their peaceful neighbours for his self aggrandisement they probably would not have been enthusiastic.

"Certainly the war in the northeast has proven incompetent,"

Eh. I don't understand others military analysis. Russia is doing the right thing to just sit a convoy north of Kyiv. Ukraine doesn't have air power anyway. If they rolled into Kyiv it would be a urban combat meat grinder. They are better off waiting until the forces from the south and east meet south of Kyiv. Then they can surround Kyiv and shell it to rubble [what they learned in berlin]. Wait for white flags, then roll it. Ukraine needs to wipe out that northern convoy NOW.

They arent tactically waiting in that convoy, they got stuck and are being picked off little by little. You must realize how fucked you are when some random farmers are towing away $25mil worth TOR SAM systems away https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD8z_kGe7rs pretty regularly now. This is the third one documented on video.

The Russians are incompetent beyond belief. I thought the farmers were lucky when they confiscated the first tank, but now it's happening all the time. Have you ever seen Iraqi farmers towing away American tanks?

Incompetent or can't be arsed? If you were conscripted into the Russian military what would you do? Personally I'd be happy to go for a tea break while some farmer towed the vehicle.

Do you think the recent shipments from the US of 17,000 anti-air and anti-tank missiles is enough to alter the calculation by much?

Yes. They are going to switch to vacuum explosives. They wont risk their tanks getting to close to Kyiv. They will just level Kyiv from a distance using dummy explosives. That is why everything is parked north. They are trying to bring up more TOS carriers from the south and east.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOS-1

Vacuum explosives aren't nuclear, but god damnit: https://pomf2.lain.la/f/7vj9hxrh.mp4

They've slowly but steadily also made progress in the North, as maps like this one [1] can attest. Kharkiv in the East keeps pretty steady, though.

[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNMiInhXIAQHEdl?format=jpg&name=...

> The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown how weak the Russian army is in reality

You might want to hold your judgment until things are over. You don't judge a football match after the first 10 minutes are passed.

Hello from Kyiv, Ukraine - I need to be completely open minded, and unbiased, to what is happening here (for my own life, and those around me).

In reality, this is an almost total disaster for Russia so far. No matter what, Russia will not recover from the last 12 days in the next fifty years. International support for Ukraine will only grow stronger. The scale of verified Russian losses was NEVER predicted by anyone prior to this invasion. Prior to invasion, the reports were almost entirely about how fast Ukraine would fall.

Now, everything is about "Russia is yet to send it's best, it's early days, etc" - from the same "experts" and talking heads.

With regards to what you have said, of course never underestimate your enemy, and yes it may sadly be on the early days, but you could do this to get one single data point of what is happening:

1)research and find the most likely estimate of Russian troop deaths so far. 2)using that number, estimate the number of injured Russian troops (military experts can help you here, wars are somewhat predicable with death/injured ratios). 3)add those two numbers together.

What number do you come up with, and show your workings please.

A friend of mine has a 100+ dev team in Ukraine. He said about 30 have evacuated while the rest are staying to fight. Currently, he said the main problem is getting money in the hands of his people. They're all still paid and there's lots of funds available but getting actual currency in their hands is the hard part. He's able to stay in touch over Slack which implies inet is working at least. Can you confirm? Also, what is the single most effective thing regular, but well connected (both politically and logistically), people in the US can do to help the situation?

Hi, I would be happy to tell you what is happening here in Kyiv.

For context, I have some hard currency, but I'm not spending it as yet. Electronic means of payment are fully functional - spend at the supermarkets, or pharmacies, without issue (other than supply issues at supermarkets of course). I haven't yet tried an international bank transfer into Ukraine, but I suspect it would be OK. I use an EU issued bank card, it works no problem (I also have a UA bank card as backup)

At the moment, therefore, the best thing to do: get money into the hands of regular Ukrainians. Personally, I have been raising funds from abroad and using the money to either give directly to Ukrainians (via bank transfers), or purchasing food etc and delivering it (in my local area) to the most vulnerable. At the moment, if people run out of money, they will run out of food.

Keeping people fed, keeps people sane. It's the most effective thing for Ukrainians that are remaining in Ukraine.

I would say the second most effective thing, is asking your politicians to do more - that may be providing lethal aid, humanitarian aid, or money, to Ukraine.

Further - logistics are incredibly compromised now, in every possible way. For the moment, money is the most effective solution. The situation is fluid - what Ukraine needed yesterday, is possibly not what they will need tomorrow. Money can be used immediately to help purchase what needed, with respect to what is actually available.

Internet in Kyiv has been stable the entire time.

thank you, i'm going to copy/paste this to my colleague to see if it can help with him and his team.

Edit

> purchasing food etc and delivering it (in my local area) to the most vulnerable.

is there more information here? a way to do this over the inet that can be verified as legit and not a scam? If so, i can see this being very useful. I've been seeing people rent AirBnbs in Ukraine all of social media to get money in people's hands. I'm wary of fraud though, it's a situation ripe for fraudsters to take advantage.

Hi, I would be happy to verify this.

The problem is, I see we both have our contact details empty on HN.

If you can suggest a way for me to contact you, I will reach out. I don't want to be compromised (which for me, is a bigger threat than normal right now).

Unlike a sports game with voluntary competitors, you should judge a military operation early, preferably even before the aggressor plans it. Sounds like Art of War 101.

> you should judge a military operation early

what matters is how you adjust vs your mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, even during military operations, because nothing is known in advance.

For what it's worth Russia's start of WW2 was a disaster, they only started to recover about one year into it.

> they only started to recover about one year into it.

With massive aid from...the United States.

Somehow I don't see the US running arctic convoys round the clock to re-supply the Russians this time.

China is providing some kinds of assistance, for example they are substituting their own (and India's) banking system for the SWIFT cut-off. So far, no military assistance, but that is not really needed; the RF has a huge military of which only a tiny fraction has been committed to the Ukraine action.

Russia's start of WW2 was on September 17 of 1939 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland and they did pretty great taking half of Poland, as agreed in Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, in less than a month. They cemented this victory and cooperation with Hitler in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Frontier.... They had full two years of successes until June 1941 Barbarossa.

Did you perhaps grew up under Russian occupation, like I did, and not learn in school about Molotov–Ribbentrop Pacts? We were only taught the part after 1941 where Russia gloriously liberates Europe.

Yeah, I did, I grew up in Romania, which was also heavily and negatively affected by the the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (we lost everything East of the river Prut, Northern Bukovina and the county of Herța in June 1940, as a result of a Soviet ultimatum). Nevertheless, we did learn that USSR got into the war in 1941, i.e. when the Germans together with some of their allies (including us, Romanians) attacked them.

I did personally know a person that was close to me (he passed away about a decade ago) who had been a soldier on that front, he was in Odessa, in Crimea and all the way East to the Don river. He considered that the war started when his commander in chief at the time, marshal Antonescu, had ordered him and his fellow Romanian soldiers to pass the Prut and attack the Soviets, in June 1941. As it happens marshal Antonescu is considered a war criminal, and he was indeed a war criminal if you look at what he did to the Jewish population from Romania. That didn't count for people like that close person of mine I had told you about, who regarded him as a hero because marshal Antonescu was one of the the only persons who really wanted "to defeat the Bolsheviks" (I'm quoting my close acquaintance on this). That's why history around these parts of the world is really, really complicated, is not black and white all the time.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Antonescu

Ukraine didn't have modern weapons in 2014, but they do now.

Regardless, I don't think anyone has ever thought the post-Soviet Russian military could take on NATO in conventional warfare, but that doesn't matter because they have nukes.

> Ukraine didn't have modern weapons in 2014, but they do now.

And the Ukrainians don't even have a full complement of modern weapons. IIRC, they're mainly getting sent infantry heavy-weapons at the very last minute. Even the US was pretty stingy with things like Javelins until very recently, out of fear of "provoking" the Putin.

Since the Baltics are in NATO, I doubt they'll have as many issues with getting more/better weapons. Hopefully they'll also take some lessons from Ukraine (e.g. really, really beef up their reserve forces and military training for their civilian population).

Also, since they're actually in NATO, they can hopefully count on better support from their allies than what the Ukrainians have gotten.

HAD been lacking :). the most popular pet name in Ukraine right now is Bayraktar. But of course, as others mentioned, it will take only a few blown up 1$bln warships before things turn nuclear. Most likely Russians will have a demo nuclear 'test' in neutral waters sometimes this year. There aren't any 'cooler heads' to prevail in this situation - just bloodlust and enablement

Once the nuclear taboo is crossed it could happen near-instantly. I imagine Russia would prefer to be bordered by nuclear wastelands as a DMZ rather than EU states, which create a existential cultural threat just by existing.

At that point you'd have to ask yourselves: who would risk nuclear escalation to retaliate for Latvia or Estonia? not the US. Would the UK bomb Russia with London on the line? probably not.

Just about everyone has more to lose than Russia at this point, which is an incredibly dangerous situation to be in.

You'd have to ask yourself: once a country becomes so deranged that it's willing to nuke non-aggressive neighbors to remove a "threat", is it really safe to just back down and potentially show weakness to that nation? What if they decide that further strategic aims can be accomplished with additional nuclear strikes?

I'm not saying I know the answer. But this is what strategists on the US/NATO side would be thinking about, and Russia sure knows they would be thinking about it. It would be madness to gamble on this strategy working out in the long run.

The P5 issues a joint statement on Jan 3rd, 2022 that they won't use nuclear weapons. I am not sure if this is an annual announcement for P5 or just well wishes for 2022 by the nuclear armed permanent members of UNSC. (possibly /s)

Obviously Russia would not start a nuclear war. It will simply take steps that either need to be conventionally opposed or dare US/NATO to go nuclear. Sanctions are hoped to collapse the economy of Russia and put the fear into the Chinese and other fence sitters. It's like running the clock down in a game. US probes for incremental steps (the famous "salami slicing") to ramp up counter force. Nothing should happen until we have Russia's promised counter-sanction response this Tuesday. After that next move is getting planes into Ukraine and possibly NFZ. What follows will be a non-nuclear hypersonic attack on NATO airfields used. And so on. Until someone lobs a nuke.

> Obviously Russia would not start a nuclear war.

Oh no, that wouldn't be their objective. Which would be rather 1) military (obliterate resistance) and 2) political (show the resolve to use whatever means they deem necessary).

>Obviously Russia would not start a nuclear war. It will simply take steps that either need to be conventionally opposed or dare US/NATO to go nuclear.

I think the major conclusion from the Ukraine war is that the Russian army is not in a particularly strong condition, and certainly would not fare well against superior NATO forces (particularly the air forces.) And this is assuming they are not further degraded by a long, bloody occupation in Ukraine. Nuclear first-use is a move from weakness, not strength.

I have no idea about their condition. That's state level knowledge and requires military training, & I'm just a dog (with an interest and some talent in CS ;) on the internet and pretty much assume most if not all info prepared for me by the media (of all sides) is dog food. At least that's what it tastes like to me :)

Is it safe to back down and allow Russia to take Ukraine? A similar thing seems to be happening now on a smaller scale. We have a rough idea that they have larger ambitions. I don't think the west would back down if Poland were attacked, but again I have to ask... who specifically would retaliate on the behalf of Estonia and Latvia? I guess it would be a true test of NATO membership, but based on their reluctance to shut down Ukrainian airspace I don't see it happening.

Also, keep in mind that Russia is already spreading FUD about Ukrainian dirty bombs (https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-without-evidence...).

> who specifically would retaliate on the behalf of Estonia and Latvia?

All of NATO

NATO have been quite clear that the line is attacking a NATO member. Russia is pushing that line by invading a country they believed was about to join NATO, but they have not yet attacked a NATO country

If all of NATO wasn't brought to bear to defend Estonia or Latvia then NATO is worthless. I understand your point though, risk civilization over very small nations with low populations? I think the answer still has to be yes.

They're NATO members. Nice try.

If you think Russia can nuke a NATO population center and we're going to sit around and pretend like nothing happened, you're crazy.

That's MAD.

They are not going to hit a city of course but a piece of the military infrastructure should NATO forces get involved. (And the target will not be in one of the Baltic states, I am sure.)

I'm not so sure NATO membership matters as much as people think, at present it seems like a convenient excuse to not intervene.

If the US retaliated with a bomb on Russian soil, would the expectation not be full-out nuclear war? Would it be smart for the US to enter that because Russia bombed Latvia?

Attacking a NATO member in a significant manner would trigger nuclear war. That's the actual meaning of the alliance, the treaties make retaliation compulsory, if the action is a clear attack by a nation-state. Refusing to carry it out would immediately result in effective disbandment of the alliance, with massive effects on the economy of Europe and the US.

This logic doesn't really track... you think the US would directly invoke nuclear war for the sake of an agreement that includes baltic states because if it doesn't... it could hurt the economy? I have no doubt that "hurt the economy" would be preferred to "destroy parts of the country"

NATO doesn't have multiple tracks - a member is a member. The US and their allies understood very well what that meant when they accepted those new members. NATO is about retaliation after external (and generally accepted to mean Russian, in practice) attack, or it isn't at all.

This is not a case of Turkey whining about a few kurds blowing up a few police stations, this is the raison d'etre for the whole thing. Renouncing NATO duties would be the worst loss of dignity the US ever experienced, and would jeopardize its richest partner market, with uncalcolable losses.

How is it the US "invoking nuclear war" if Russia nukes a US ally first? No, Russia's the one starting that war if they do that. Yes, the US would retaliate.

Yes they will. Don't have a single doubt about that. If they don't then their treaties aren't worth more than toilet paper for Putin to use. Make no mistake, NATO will protect its member countries.

What makes you so confident? Treaties have been broken for lesser reasons throughout history. It seems unlikely a country would be willing to enter a nuclear conflict for an ally with a GDP 500 times smaller.

it does matter, that's why it's so hard to get in. One step across a NATO border and the Russians will have started WW3. Don't have any doubt about that.

I don't think we'd launch nukes over one step.

I think Russia could even get away with "peace keeping" a "Russian separatist group" in a Nato country like Latvia.

Which is what makes this war so strange. Russia could've easily stolen Donbas - and NO ONE in the world would've cared. They could've taken away one state at a time, and NO ONE would have cared. There was no reason to rush.

But if Russia nuked a NATO population center, or even just invaded to this degree a NATO country - that's MAD.

You don't really sound like you know what you are talking about.

Safe to assume we're all dogs here.

I hope it isn't, of course. ( the nuclear taboo).

But, what this war has exposed is how bad the russian army is trained, and how not so great their equipment is. While a prolonged war would be hard for any country, they struggled from the get go.

I hope this doesn't embolden the US and Europe to be more aggressive. I really hope that cooler heads eventually prevail.

WRT to the really really far fetched ( I hope ), that Russia would launch any nuclear strike. The missile defense systems that NATO and the US have were built exactly to counteract Russian missiles in a situation like this. This will even accelerate the development of hypersonic interceptors ( afaik, already in final stages) .

It would mean total annihilation of russia, as their in flight missies would be intercepted, and it would guarantee a total attack by the us. ( we as a nation tend to over react... and not go tit for tat ).

I hope this never happens. The reason why countries need leadership changes often. And why stable leaders are needed everywhere :-/

If nobody launches a nuclear retaliation, then Russia knows it can nuke with impunity. What are the rules they are playing with? Literally just hope they don't invade or nuke London first.

Well, they probably can’t nuke Western Europe with impunity.

But it’s not clear what NATO membership’s really worth for Eastern Europe. I’m from EE and I don’t understand why the US or the UK would risk their countries or even WE getting nuked for EE.

I have the feeling that EE was accepted into NATO just to piss off the Russians and put some space between them and WE. Just like with Ukraine before it went sideways.

Because we know that we aren't far behind if such a madman is allowed to exist. It's better to go out with a boom than let a dictator win. --Love, an american

> invade or nuke London first

I don't think that's the plan. Also, no one is going to use tactical nukes against a city. The last thing Putin wants is to look like a mere terrorist. (And no, the Russian forces aren't using terrorist tactics in Ukraine.) So, the first one will probably be used against a military installation (a weapons depot, a radar station, a war ship, etc.), most likely in Poland.

They're already committing war crimes in Ukraine.

>At that point you'd have to ask yourselves: who would risk nuclear escalation to retaliate for Latvia or Estonia? not the US.

That is the point behind asking for US soldiers to be permanently based. They are a sign of commitment. An "engagement ring" if you will. Without the US soldiers there it becomes much easier to ignore an attack.

> who would risk nuclear escalation to retaliate for Latvia or Estonia?

That's the very point of the existence of NATO. If NATO doesn't retaliate, it could as well not exist. Fortunately the Western reaction to Putin's invasion helped to unite NATO and everybody knows that if we give in, there is no reason why Putin should stop at any defined point.

"Who would risk nuclear escalation as millions of people are wiped off the face of the Earth?" - I think if this question is being asked, it's only a matter of times before nukes fly beyond these select boarding countries as escalation would almost certainly continue. Putin is already declaring the sanctions as an act of war while NATO/EU countries begin to rearm.

"who would risk nuclear escalation to retaliate for Latvia or Estonia? not the US."

If a President as unpredictable as Trump happens to be in office, I wouldn't be so sure.

That's not to mention the drastically increased risk of accidents once even a one-sided nuclear war has begun.

Think of how close the world came to nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis.[1] Once nukes start flying the risk grows much higher, even if there are still (presumably rational, cautious, and non-hawkish) adults in control.

[1] - https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/lone-russian-submar...

One could argue a crazy irrational leader is a better defense against the start of conflict than a rational leader

This was explicitly Nixon's approach, and it didn't really work at all

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory

Got a great laugh that the 3 people mentioned are Nixon, Trump, and Putin.

> One could argue a crazy irrational leader is a better defense against the start of conflict than a rational leader

One could argue anything, but I don't think there is a good argument for that position. In fact, I think it's painfully obvious that such a leader makes it less likely that efforts at avoiding conflict will be successful.

That is why NATO has doctrine of "launch everything we have once we see a first nuke fly" and why it is very public about it.

> NATO has doctrine of "launch everything we have once we see a first nuke fly" and why it is very public about it.

No, it doesn't, and, no, it isn't.

NATO is very public about not saying what its specific response plan on various nuke scenarios is.

I would be shocked (and likely dead shortly after) if NATO launched all out nuclear retaliation for the sake of the baltic states. It's a very convenient threat until you're faced with the reality of pushing the button.

i don't believe it would go from zero to nuclear instantly. However, the thought is in a NATO vs Russia fight either side will resort to nuclear weapons before surrender. The thinking is it would be hard to stop a fight from escalating to an eventual nuclear war.

They're all in the EU, so it would invoke the EU defense pact as well. As we can see right now, our stuff seems to be decent enough to scrap those ancient soviet rust buckets.

Also don't forget that France has the Nuclear Reset Button available. I count on them to convince the Russians not to deploy nukes.

We need an EU army nevertheless. And to deploy this army we'll need some proper governing entity for the EU.

Yeah, the famous Russian army. Probably all the money that was directed to it was used for expensive villas.

This is a large scale ground operation with errornous objectives at the beginning. With a fortified city you probably don't have many ways except to shell your way in. I doubt the other major powers can fare better.

They can’t even keep their supply lines moving on open highway. It’s pathetic. They have units that are totally of course and on their own.

Not saying they can’t improve but their best case is starting to look like a many years struggle where they bankrupt their country and lose hundreds of thousands of people and end up worse than when this started.

From what I see on Liveuamap they are proceeding steadily. Ukrainians for sure might hit them here and there but that's not going to stop them. The Russians do not really have the man power to support a full scale war so that was what I said in the post that their initial objectives are errornous. They underestimated the resources needed.

They are a part of NATO, and Russia cannot win a conventional war against the entire NATO armies.

> win a conventional war

Judging by what has been said (or implied), there won't be a conventional war.

The combined forces of Russia, China, NK and Iran could probably muster a fight. Not sure how likely that WW3 scenario would unfold, though.

Despite claims from the US military industrial complex looking for more money, China, NK, and Iran can not do much outside their own borders. Russia is doing a poor job and it is much stronger than the other 3. Only the US maintains the ability to invade countries around the world. UK would be #2.

The UK (and France) were pretty lame in the Libya war, if I'm not mistaken they had to resort to getting help from the Americans when it came to re-fueling their planes mid-air. I'm too lazy to search for links for that, to be honest.

Also seem to remember some scandal with some RAF pilots getting very shitty food at an airbase in Cyprus during the Iraq (or Afghan?) war. That one is more fuzzy for me, though, and maybe it's not even that important, as in shitty food in the military might be a fact of life.

Later edit: I did search for that Cyprus thing, turns out it was more recent, from 2014, since the West was bombing ISIS [1]:

> Raids against Islamic State are being conducted from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus "with broken jets and tired and fed-up people", BBC Newsnight has been told.

and

> In a letter, a serviceman said the base was being neglected, morale was poor and ground crews had taken to eating humanitarian rations meant for Iraqis.

Having to take food from "humanitarian rations meant for Iraqis." doesn't sound ideal to me.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-30338659

This isn't the Avengers, there's no reason for Iran or NK to get involved in that fight.

(they have no ability to project force abroad anyway)

tell me more about this hypothetical Russia+China+NK+Iran axis and why they would be so united in this particular fight?

Not a chance. NATO would control the skies day 1 and that would end any offensive hopes for non-NATO side.

NATO could not easily control the skies of China, such a suggestion is absurd. they likewise could probably not do the same with Russia.

China is interested in weak Russia so that they can take its territory. They only support Russian aggression against Ukraine to benefit from the Russian isolation economically, wound Russian army, economy, and slowly digest it. Even when Soviet Union existed, they were on bad terms with Chinese Communist Party. Even Chinese hate Russian nazis.

Edit: Out of ~90 something joint non-binding agreements between China and Russia, only 4 were actually acted upon by Chinese government.

Digestion of the economy already started, among other things Russia has joined Union Pay, Chinese payment processor.

Why would China possibly help a madman like Putin fight a war? NK and Iran aren't much more than background noise in such a conflict.

Some people thought Ukraine wouldn't last 3 days and yet here we are.

We keep hearing this assertion. Where is the evidence?

Based on the Russian military tactics that were employed during the first couple days of the war. You don't run and gun into a country where you're expecting much resistance. There's also the logistical self-owns by the Russians where, by many accounts, they only had enough gas and food for at most a week but it's been reported only 3 days worth.

The evidence is in the fact that no one supplied them with any aid until they went "oh shit, Ukraine is still standing," 48 hours later.

Russia prepared (and accidentally published) a press release for 3 days after the invasion, congratulating themselves on their victory.

Any source?

I saw it on a major German site, and you can find many links pointing to it. Just the first link from Google (I searched for "Russia prepared (and accidentally published) a press release"):

https://news.yahoo.com/russian-state-news-accidentally-publi...

Incidentally, the contents of that press release is what really shocked me much more than the invasion itself. It showed their twisted state of mind and that it wasn't about Ukraine, that they see themselves in some righteous crusade against the evil West. EDIT: The link I found is not the original, but others have posted other links. What I saw was a link from Der Spiegel (www.spiegel.de) when this was fresh news and it was just an absurd statement all around. The Twitter link that was posted shows it best.

That article was when it all changed for me. It showed to me that this was not the end from Putin's PoV, but just the beginning of some kind of holy struggle. That article really brought it home to me that we needed to up our defense spending ASAP. Because the Russian leadership had gone insane. Some goals in Ukraine I could have logically understood as Russian interest - but the whole "we against the West" thing was just madness.

I mean, the West was pretty happy financing and equipping Russia and China, helping both to modernize for decades. The West also kept pretty quiet any time Russia did some "special operation". Even the invasion of Georgia did not have any great consequences and was soon forgotten. It appeared to me that the West was quite okay with Russia gaining back some power - to take care of issues like militant Islam in the region. I did not see any sign that a weak Russia was in the Western interest. If there were individuals with a different opinion, who cares, the West has a huge amount of different voices unlike the authoritarian centralized China and Russia. If one looked at what happened it was a huge empowering of both China and Russia by the West, not a weakening. George W. Bush even recommended Ukraine to not go independent (Kiev Chicken speech), the USSR falling apart was all the USSR itself. Did the West like having to scramble to ensure the safety of nuclear tech in the years of Russian chaos? Surely not!

How can China and Russia possibly claim/think that the West is out to suppress them? Modernization in both countries would have been impossible or taken a century without all the very active help from the West. So seeing yourself in some victim role is just ridiculous.

I have some connections to Russia, having visited quite a few times and even done a Russian(!) language course (to fresh up, I already spoke a bit) in Odessa for a few months. I also know people who have businesses in Russia and help foreign businesses to invest there. So I saw and see first hand a bit of the great help Russia got in all areas of business and tech.

How anyone (Russian leadership) can ignore all of that and think themselves into a corner where they think they have to take military action to thwart the evil West? It's just so stupid! Which means there is little chance for diplomacy - the whole thing was not created by reason, so it's hard to use reason to get out of it.

That's because you only see part of the picture, because you're a Westerner.

You don't see how, under the guise of "anti-corruption fight", most of the local businessmen (part of them also politicians) would get sent to jail and their businesses acquired on the cheap. That would be ok, of course, if the place of said corrupt local businessmen would be taken by other, non-corrupt, local businessmen, i.e. non-corrupt Russians taking the businesses of corrupt Russians and making them better.

Unfortunately that's not what happens, the place of those corrupt businessmen is taken by Western companies and multi-nationals that are not corrupt on paper because they do not posses personhood (at least not when it comes to doing bad stuff), but which are even more evil because bigger (look at Nestle, headquartered on the shores of the idyllic Lake Leman, no-one is bombing that place any time soon).

Now, you could say: "better have evil Western corporations take the place of corrupt Russian businessmen in Russia!" but the reality is that not everyone thinks like that and that's what this ideological conflict is mostly about.

What does that have to do with the West? That is a Russian problem! Since when do Western governments govern Russia? At no point were laws in Russia made and enforced by anyone but the Russian government. And I did not know the oligarchs were Westerners? Yes there was a lot of stealing and shady practices. Which is how you got the oligarchs. Which are Russian.

This is a conflict Russia is having against the West via Ukraine, they're fighting against the Westernisation of Ukraine, they've said as much.

Thank you for making it clear, exactly what I wrote. Absurdity!

> fighting against the Westernisation of Ukraine

What business is it of Russia to dictate what other countries do? Insanity!

In your first comment you spoke about Russia, now that I responded you moved on to Ukraine and it makes no sense either.

Last time I checked, when I was in Ukraine, they want to be westernized.

We can go back to your previous comment, if Russia does not want it, you can do whatever within your borders. Nobody complained, as I mentioned, the West let Russia do whatever with little to no repercussions. Russia is not a victim, it is an aggressor, without any logical reason.

> Last time I checked, when I was in Ukraine, they want to be westernized.

Doesn't matter what they want it the guy with bigger weapons close to them has different opinions, that's how international relations work, that's how wars start, that's why we're in here. It's nothing "irrational" about it, as in we've been doing this for millennia.

On a more general point, I can see your point, you're most probably an idealist [1], I for myself I'm a realist, I personally think that realism is closer to how things actually work when it comes to international relations.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism_in_international_rela...

Thank you for coming clear about Russian aggression Which is why we need to up our defense spending, as I said. In your last comment you drop all pretenses. "We can do whatever we want, no arguments necessary".

I'm not sure what you are proud of though, you forced many neutrals or even friends - like me - into an antagonistic position.

> On a more general point, I can see your point, you're most probably an idealist [1], I for myself I'm a realist, I personally think that realism is closer to how things actually work when it comes to international relations.

You start with an attempt of arguments, laudable, but when you find they are easily defeated you jump to in the context meaningless generalities that don't even fit the previous comments in any way.

However, your comments do show one thing. There is little room for optimism that sanity and arguments are going to win anything here. I heard even on a German city's market square a German woman selling sausages argue about poor, poor Putin and how the West mistreated him so that he had no choice now but to fight back.

Or just read the comments under a LinkedIn post of former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who is a friend of Putin. There were quite a few comments there urging Schröder to continue to support Putin, and a lot of insane stuff in support of Putin and against the West. No idea if it was from real Germans, but there is no reason to suspect "bots", there really are plenty of people supporting Putin.

Read the comments and despair: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gerhard-schroeder_der-krieg-u...

> Dear Mr. Schröder, I think you being a close friend of Putin you understand that sometimes a man has got to do what a man got to do. I believe in putin and his insight on the security of Europe as a whole.

Etc etc... not all comments are like this, but many (many are in German) - not least of which are the comments by the Ex-Chancellor himself.

I’m Romanian myself, not Russian, sitting at the middle (ideologically and geographically) of all this madness. This being HN I was trying to “debug” the whole situation as an arm-chair geostrategist, and that entailed, imo, making sense of what drives one side of the conflict, the Russians.

As I said, I don’t think they’re irrational, very, very few international conflicts are irrational on the face of it, nobody goes to war because “they felt like it” or because it “was written in the stars”, that would be trully irrational. I do think though that part of the reason Russia started this war is because they want to fight a war against some aspects of Westernization. They most certainly like Western cars and Western-designed iPhones but it looks like they don’t like certain Western ideologies, like the type of democracy that the West now professes. Again, I don’t see anything irrational in all this.

The irrational part is mixing Puylo, who might be rationally against "the West" for he likes to rule and true democracy does not allow that, and everyone else, who actually needs working courts and laws, but are for the war based on the pretenses Puylo put out. Now those are highly irrational, and they are quite possibly the majority there.

But Russia went to war because Putin did it on a whim. Likely the last wish of a dying man. They could have gone along just fine without attacking Ukraine. It is a completely irrational move on their part.

Yeah but Ukraine isn't Russia and it looks like Russia is finding out that they aren't just going to roll over for them.

Nice attempt at false equivocation and outright propaganda. We won't fall for it. If you like Russia so much, stay in Russia and don't attack countries that don't want to be under your control.

You can see my comments from further down to see that I’m not Russian and, as it happens, I don’t live in Russia. I do live though in country bordering Ukraine, I’ve just parked my car 5 minutes ago behind a car with an Ukraine plate (refugees, most probably), right at this moment me, my SO and a couple who are very close friends seriously discuss on WhatsApp what would be the best strategy in case of the worst (everyone bar me is for leaving the country, I still hope it won’t get to that), all this to remind you that we’re on HN, a programmers’ website, not a propaganda one, where we try to make sense of the world around us, no matter if it’s a nuclear power that neighbors you or nasty computer bugs that you dream about at night.

https://amp.economist.com/europe/2022/02/28/the-kremlins-pro...

Here’s a long thread: https://twitter.com/Tom_deWaal/status/1498310064117059585?s=...

https://news.yahoo.com/russian-state-news-accidentally-publi...

Plenty of that, what news sources do you respect enough for me to link to?

The “special military operation” isnt over and even Russia is attempting a limited ceasefire to help humanitarian efforts, for the third time, which means its not over due to Ukrainians resisting with some success

That was the general idea held by some people who were following the conflict online, I knew I was one of them, turns out I (and the people thinking like me) was/were wrong.

I first thought this would play out like Czechoslovakia 1968, with the Soviet/Warsaw Pact paratroopers taking one of the big airports close to the capital, part of the local Army turning sides and the regime collapsing. Under that scenario everything would effectively have been over in 3 days, give or take.

As further proof that that was the Russians' initial tactic is that they only started bombing civilian assets about 5 days in, when it had become clear to them that the initial plan had failed.

Their tactics. Unless their command is retarded which I don’t think they are. But their tactics imply a super fast surrender of Ukraine and the resignation/arrest/death of Ukrainian leadership.

not really an answer but for one Russian military also seems to have expected and even planned for that (e.g. sending recon units first)

The assertion that Russia expected Ukraine to fall in 1-3 days seems like propaganda. In order for Ukraine to stand a chance, it needs allies and reinforcement from the West.

No rational actor throws its weight behind an entity doomed to failure. So, we need a narrative that Ukraine is not doomed to failure despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The most optimistic thing we can say is that the people have fought valiantly and Russia did not sweep across the nation at historically unprecedented speed. By claiming that Putin's inner circle expected to win the war in 1-3 days, we can claim that Ukraine is actually winning. And if Ukraine is winning, then everybody who can sanction Russia in any way should do it right now to accelerate Ukraine's now inevitable victory.

In some sense, it is a necessary narrative. If Ukraine doesn't get global support it will fall. Recasting them as the inevitable victor, therefore can be seen as an attempt to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And it might work (hopefully!)

Society doesn't demand triple-confirmation proof to retell stories that comport with our ideology. This case has some weak concrete evidence in its favor, but that's not the _point_. This is an active war, which means that most of the public information coming from authoritative sources is closely managed to suit the authority's goals.

The supermajority of power in the West wants Putin's conquest to fail. So the narratives we hear will be angled in whatever way to maximize the possibility of that outcome.

It is absolutely propaganda. People forget it took the US 3 weeks just to take Baghdad. The idea that Russia thought it would take 3 days to take Kyiv is preposterous.

Baghdad had a warlord dictator for a leader, and a military that had been in a war with Iran and Kuwait. The Ukraine had a former comedian as a president; and their military had been unable to do anything about Russia's invasion of the Crimea. The scenario where a "shock and awe" invasion along 4 fronts causes the president to flee for his life as Russia waltzes into Kyiv largely unopposed to puts in a new government was certainly in the realm of possibilities.

Realm of possibilities – of course. High enough probability that Putin went all-in on it? I'm skeptical.

Yet all evidence suggests Russia expected the Ukrainian army to surrender quickly. They even prepared a congratulatory release for 3 days after the invasion.

https://news.yahoo.com/russian-state-news-accidentally-publi...

As stated in the original post, we are in active war. Any information coming from state run media should be looked at with extreme skepticism.

Was this published on accident? Or was it intentional? There is no way to know for certain.

Think about this piece of evidence as a data point, but one that is nowhere near damning proof.

Well, it was very embarrassing to take a victory lap with the war getting bogged down, and revealed motivations for the war that contradicted Putin’s statements, and aligned with the “blitzkrieg” analysis of Russia’s early failures.

So, true, it’s not proof, but Occam’s Razor comes into play here.

The three day war idea is the only rational basis for the invasion: 1. Decapitate the government and military 2. Broadcast a message of surrender 3. Install a puppet government and occupation control of cities

That's the only way 200k soldiers can control a nation of 40 million who are united against invaders and united behind a democratically elected government.

Even if half of the first objective can be attained in a few weeks, it will not lead to the following necessary objectives being met. Putin has no viable plan.

Which, if you are making an analogy to Iraq, is somewhat similar: The US had no viable plan to stop patrols being ambushed using the same tactics on the same roads week after week.

I'm not ruling out that Putin hoped for a fast capitulation by Ukraine. It does seem that he attempted to produce exactly that.

I find it harder to believe that he went all-in betting on that gambit.

It looks stupid in hindsight. But we all found out that the weapons meant to stop a mechanized invasion of Western Europe do in fact work.

> People forget it took the US 3 weeks just to take Baghdad.

The Russians were getting high on their own supply and believed their own propaganda that "brotherly" Ukrainians and the ethnic Russians would surrender immediately.

They didn't think they would win in a few days, they thought there would be nothing but token opposition.

No, it's because defense analysts widely expected Russia to use their capabilities much more effectively. In the leadup there were stories about things like training an effective insurgency, which is because a Russian campaign operated to a similar effectiveness of a US military (in hindsight, not accurate) would have absolutely destroyed Ukraine. Russia's logistics struggles and incompetent air force have discredited their conventional forces.

To name a few areas. Comms have been a disaster, with lots of coordination over unencrypted shortwave. Likely as a result, air support has been spotty, and EWar has been completely ignored. Air missions have been with small numbers of planes at low altitude to evade active air defense and drop dumb bombs, which means unexpected losses to stingers instead of higher-altitude flights outranging them. 2 weeks in and Ukraine C2 is largely intact, with even some operational air defense and possibly limited Tochka-U strikes. Ground logistics have been uncoordinated with heavy losses to unconventional attacks, done with unexpected effectiveness by Ukraine, and overall morale is far higher than anyone would have expected.

Obviously, information operations play a huge role. That also wasn't predetermined, in large part it's an upset by Ukraine. Who could have predicted that a Zoom call with Zelensky would convince Europe to cut Russia off from Swift when it was impossible to convincingly precommit to it?

There are also signs that Russia at least hoped to win within 1-3 days, like the day 1 VDV assault on Hostomel that ended up failing, and the domestic portrayal of a "special military operation" leaving the population unprepared for the sorts of casualties and bloody warfare that ended up happening.

Here are a couple articles:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-02-21/r...

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

They absolutely thought they could surround and take down the government in Kyiv right away, probably in less than a week and they are finding out otherwise.

for example - I am.

Do you happen to be from the Russian minority in these countries?

Actual Latvians and Estonians are far more ready to defend their countries.

> My country is run by crooks like any other, and I am not about to go die like some dumbass.

I don't understand how you can look at the development rate in Baltic countries and decide "it's run like crooks".

From a distance your crooks seem to be quite effective at managing the country.

Maybe trying living there?

It would take weeks for Russia to put forces in place to make this a viable threat though.

that's what everyone thought would happen with Ukraine, and Baltic statse will have full support of nato

NATO members don't have any obligation to defend or even really aid an attacked member. The article 5 is ridiculously vague. I think sacrificing the member state to avoid nuclear war is what would happen. It won't be any different than with Ukraine.

> NATO members don't have any obligation to defend or even really aid an attacked member.

"The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all"

Every country has an obligation to defend itself when attacked. Article 5 makes an attack on any member an attack on all of them.

Short of going "fuck y'all this agreement means nothing to us" every member country has to defend against the attack as if it were on their own soil.

I never considered this before, but it looks like GP is right. The specific phrasing doesn't say "parties need to go to war when one is attacked". As a Romanian, it is kinda worrying that it's not straightforward.

Ukraine is not in NATO. Sacrificing three member states won't happen because everyone knows if that is allowed they will be taken one by one

NATO is doing everything it can to avoid war now but i'm pretty sure everyone is preparing to react in case member is attacked

Don't spread propaganda. If a Russian boot steps across a NATO member's border NATO will attack, there's not a single doubt, especially with what is going on in Ukraine because obviously Putin has lost his mind and is trying to recreate the USSR.

How do you figure? Unless you mean member states would just ignore their agreements, treating an attack on one as an attack on all is pretty strong?

If that happened, Europe and NATO would retake and partition Kaliningrad. Russia cannot sustain that level of military force so close to the rest of the European powers.

> I think all 3 Baltic countries get wiped out overnight if Russia decides to press the issue.

When I first heard that Russia had launched an attack on Ukraine, I thought it would be over in a few days and that Russia would steamroll them completely.

But I couldn't have been more wrong, and if Russia attacks a NATO state I don't see how they can stand a chance.

Um.. wiped out by Russia and what army?

The real question here is, how far are Russian soldiers willing to go to protect their pride? At what point do you wake up and realize that you're killing people for no reason other than to appease a tyrant?

That would be few days ago

https://mobile.twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1499352556300... translation https://mobile.twitter.com/mdmitri91/status/1499355164314120...

and already all but 4 dead https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1499763642170019846

"Yesterday the conscripts, who were forced to sign a contract or signed for them, were withdrawn from the war zone in #Ukraine. But from a company of a hundred men only four were left alive."

How long did it take US soldiers in Iraq? at least a few years.

Despite the obviously undemocratic elections, independent polling still puts Putin's approval among Russians at or above W's.

US soldiers weren't being slaughtered by the thousands

1. Nobody actually believes the numbers of Russians killed coming out of Kyiv, these are for morale purposes.

2. Thousands of US soldiers were killed in the Iraqi invasion & occupation.

> 1. Nobody actually believes the numbers of Russians killed coming out of Kyiv, these are for morale purposes.

That was true at first but has increasingly been changing as NATO sources have been reporting numbers closer to the Ukranian reports. That's not saying it's 100% reliable but it suggests the numbers are closer to what Ukraine is reporting rather than what Russia is reporting.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/1-million-flee-ukraine-ru...

> 2. Thousands of US soldiers were killed in the Iraqi invasion & occupation.

This is true, and it turned public opinion against both wars. Now consider what the impact is of having that happen in a week — if the U.S. figures are right, much less the Ukranian, they are rapidly closing on the _total_ number of casualties from their decade-long invasion of Afghanistan in just the current month and all signs point to a long, bitter occupation anywhere they do capture.

> 1. Nobody actually believes the numbers of Russians killed coming out of Kyiv, these are for morale purposes.

All the open source intel analysis I've seen suggests otherwise. Individual battle claims are greatly exaggerated but the overall casualty counts of ~10,000 seems accurate. Hospitals in crimean cities are reportedly overflowing with thousands of wounded soldiers. Vehicles and equipment losses are undeniably staggering. Aircraft losses seem to be confirmed as well, with multiple copters and planes being lost, per day. The convoy north of kyiv is almost certain to draw heavy losses without food, fuel, or shelter from the cold.

"Nobody"? Not in my research. Feel free to provide your best estimate, feel free to use any non-Ukrainian or Russian source, I would love to see it.

Various open source lists, independently curated, align with each other. I know what they say, as my life may depend upon it.

Hello from Kyiv.

There is some difference between losing thousands of soldiers in ten years, and in ten days. Though admittedly life has always been cheap-ish in Russia so maybe that won’t matter.

During the invasion? No. During the occupation and was over several years. Russians have lost thousands in one WEEK. The shock value there is a lot higher.

Dumbass or Donbas? Missed special military opportunity.

Whichever speeds up my US visa process.

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