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>What offense? Only major Russian operation so far this year was Bakhmut. They are not in a rush.

a little revisionary take. Bakhmut is the only one they want to talk about out loud, all the other attempts fail so bad its treason even mentioning them in the motherland. One example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Avdiivka_(2022%E2%80... and whatever 10th Tank Regiment was doing around there last month losing another commander and tons of armor for zero progress.

This is standard ru attack https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1660706066726887430 followed by mopping up prisoners by AFU https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1660707781391839232

Its been over a year and ru are still passing tanks burned on a mine because nobody would mine sides of the road, right? Bilohorivka https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1660374809316937729

6th time a charm? apparently not https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1660562311432531968

Here is Russian ultra nationalist Girkin’s take https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1660273337744982023...

> Oh, they will almost inevitably do something, somewhere. But the fact that they managed to retake a lightly-defended area that one time gives people all kinds of crazy ideas.

That lightly defended area was 12000 km.

Gonna let you in on a little secret: Colonel Girkin has never not been fulfilling his duty, not now and and not in 2014. Make of that what you will.

Neither have most Russia military men

Sorry man but you are delusional if you think this is the best the Ukrainians have got. The Russians are in for a world of hurt.

While the Russians have depleted their forces, the Ukrainians have spent the winter training on modern military equipment from the west. As one example of many, take a look at this: https://mil.in.ua/en/news/ukrainian-brigade-was-trained-in-s...

So far nothing the Ukrainians have used comes close to the above mentioned brigade. The Russians don’t have anything to match. In addition, they have one massive advantage which is the continuous support of the U.S. intelligence services, nothing the Russians have come close.

I don’t doubt the Russians are continuously improving their strategy and tactics - not hard considering how badly they’ve been doing since the war started.

If this war has shown one thing it’s that the thing that matters most is mass:

Massed artillery fire, millions of shells, thousands of armoured vehicles, and so on.

A couple of glorified regiments, green ones at that? That’s not it. No matter the quality of the gear and training.

The West is not prepared for industrial warfare, and inexplicably to me they are barely trying to change that. Massed hot air but not much to show for it.

(And besides, the fact that in Bakhmut the Ukrainian army with plenty of Western gear and training got beat by Wagner plus artillery support alone should get you to question the notion of qualitative superiority. And I just don’t understand how people can come to the conclusion that the Russian forces in Ukraine are depleted when they’ve at least doubled in size, and gear just keeps pouring in.)

Ultimately, we don’t have to fight here, by all acounts Ukrainians are going to show us in a few days what they can or cannot do. And then we’ll see.

This would be a more compelling summation if you could accompany it with a case for how Bakhmut was more important strategically than Kherson, whose strategic importance seems pretty obvious even to a layperson, which Russia was fiercely committed to holding, and which Ukraine took through a campaign of industrial warfare.

Having failed to turn Nikolaev (and apparently no intent to take it by force), Kherson held little strategic value for Russia at that point.* Promising to never leave Kherson was political folly, something Ukrainians tried to make as costly as possible. However, they largely failed at that.

Those who paid attention saw column after Ukrainian column get mauled by VDV artillery. There was indeed a moment where Ukraine took some land but in the end nothing came of it but pain.

But certainly they did keep on the pressure (plus some other things), and so in the end Russians made the militarily prudent but politically very difficult decision (causing a period of widespread doom and gloom among supporters of Russia) to leave in good order. Ukrainians were apparently as surprised as almost anyone else.

* I know people don’t want hear it but the taking of Odessa and the rest of the coast will very likely still happen, eventually. Probably not via Kherson, preferably without force.

It's easy to find dozens of sources about the strategic importance of Kherson, which is also evident from a glance at a map, and Kherson is also ten times larger than Bakhmut, so this doesn't really respond to my question. Without any expertise in war, or the region, I can still say that it looks like your arguments say that when Ukraine loses territory, it's a strategic disaster, but when Russia loses territory, it never meant to have that territory. If I can defend that argument, weak as my grasp on this subject is, your own position might be pretty flimsy.

> I can still say that it looks like your arguments say that when Ukraine loses territory, it's a strategic disaster, but when Russia loses territory, it never meant to have that territory. If I can defend that argument, weak as my grasp on this subject is, your own position might be pretty flimsy.

It’s because he’s here to try push public opinion about why Ukraine is losing, he is not here to engage in honest arguments. Look through his post history and you will seem summarily dismiss any evidence Russia has worse casualties or is in anyway losing this war.

Let me put this way: It’s not going to happen, that’s not how it’s done, but pulling a bit back and just doing it again wouldn’t be the craziest thing Russia could do at this point.

This is industrial warfare. The primary (not only) goal is to destroy the enemy army. Ideally with short/long supply lines (“Why are the Dnieper bridges still up?”), in favorable territory. Yes, this is as ugly a thing as it gets. Hundreds of thousands of men are dead and hundreds of thousands more will die in all likelihood. That’s how it is. And no side is innocent in this.

And, again, people don’t want to hear it but Russia is doing well enough.

The original, mostly post-soviet Ukrainian army of 24th Feb. is all but gone. More than half of their officers are confirmed dead (obituary and all), most of their original heavy gear is destroyed. Gonna avoid discussing overall casualties here but it’s a lot. People are going to be shocked when/if the numbers ever come out.

This is why in the West it’s all about begging for and donating of gear, and the training of fresh troops. Because Ukrainians need it.

And their “second army”, post-soviet gear from outside is also mostly gone. Willing donors are all but depleted, too.

And this is why, after much reluctance, Western tanks are now in Ukraine. But the West does not have all that much to give. And they are not really producing either.

So, unless things change drastically soon, there will be no “fourth” Ukrainian army.

And then Russia will cross the Dnieper again.

Or maybe not. Because the situation is much more serious than most of us Westerners realize. Our leaders are playing with nuclear fire, whether they know it or not. But not because Russia is losing. Because the West is all but at war with a nuclear power and when/if that threshold is crossed Russia is not going to wait for US forces to deploy in Poland or whatever, or worse. They don’t want this but they are prepared for it. They want to avoid it but they are not bluffing. As they keep warning us.

Finally, given the complexities and constraints of the system, “F-16s for Ukraine”, if it actually happens, will at very least mean even more NATO crews in Ukraine and in fact probably takeoffs from Poland and Romania. It’s not certain that Russia will consider this the threshold crossed, but you bet they’ll give an unambiguous response.

This is a lot of words, but this is also the second time you've tripped over, like, one of the few basic things I think I know and can reasonably research about the conflict: that Ukraine enjoys interior lines, and Russia must defend a long exterior line. Things people have written about interior vs. exterior lines aren't motivated reasoning about Ukraine; they predate Ukraine by decades.

There‘s something to this but I‘m talking about something very basic and obvious: it‘s a long way from Donbas to the comparatively safe western Ukraine and NATO borders, where most of supply comes from and maintenance and training happens these days.

And, I should add, there are some difficulties but for Russia Russia is right there, and mostly safe. Ukrainians talk big and pull the occasional stunt but they know better than to attack Russia proper.

Now it seems like the goalposts are moving, because I don't recall anyone talking about Ukraine's outlook in terms of their likelihood of invading Russia.

No, I’m not moving goalposts. I’m telling you why Russia fights where it fights. And Ukraine largely not daring to attack supply lines in Russia proper is of course part of the calculus.

They literally just attacked supply lines in Russia proper.

But in fact they pretend it was the work of a “Russian militia” and not them.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36038451

OK, I think I understand where you're coming from. I don't agree. Thanks for the chat, though.

> Ukrainians talk big and pull the occasional stunt but they know better than to attack Russia proper.

Russia claims that the Donbas (and Crimea) is “Russia proper”, and also, well, just now: https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/22/europe/belgorod-ukrainian-for...

“Pre-war Russia” would have been clearer. They consider Crimea as Russian as Moscow and would respond accordingly to a serious attack. They are apparently more pragmatic about the new territories.

There’s a reason they hide the work of SBU, GUR and also certain Western countries under monikers like “Russian Volunteer Corps”. And why these attacks are, all things considered, rare and their effect negligible. We might, however, see significantly more of that in the near future and Russia could finally be forced to respond overtly.

> “Pre-war Russia” would have been clearer. They consider Crimea as Russian as Moscow and would respond accordingly to a serious attack. They are apparently more pragmatic about the new territories.

Considering that the Crimean bridge exploded, and that many airbases and other military facilities in Crimea keep exploding with no consequence, I take that as Russia would do nothing if Ukraine hit Moscow itself?.

There’s also the multiple attacks that have taken place against Russia proper using either drones helicopters or missiles and nothing happened again.

> There’s a reason they hide the work of SBU, GUR and also certain Western countries under monikers like “Russian Volunteer Corps”.

There are no western countries fighting for Ukraine at this moment just volunteers.

It’s also par for the course to hide things like intelligence activities behind not the regular army, like Russia did in 2014.

> And why these attacks are, all things considered, rare and their effect negligible. We might, however, see significantly more of that in the near future and Russia could finally be forced to respond overtly.

Sure they are negligible mostly but they have also take a lot of aircraft including strategic TU bombers, this outside the fact pro Ukrainian forces currently occupy part of Belgorod at the moment.

Still no overt response.

I follow what you're saying. What overt response could they offer? Their opening bid was an attempt to take Kiev. Whatever Russia can do, it is trying to do. It's already all on the table. They're doing better now because so many of the incompetent Russians are dead, but they're still limited by what Ukraine allows them to do.

> I follow what you're saying. What overt response could they offer?.

There’s lots they could do but they won’t because they can’t.

* Declare it war instead of a SMO although I think in reality this doesn’t change anything

* Try and take Kyiv again although I don’t think they will because I don’t think they can

* Test a nuclear weapon Russian territory as a warning. No idea why this hasn’t happen but my guess is it just bolsters support for Ukraine.

My point is the exact one you’re making despite multiple hits on Russia proper there’s no response because they are doing everything they can realistically.

Right: it seems like this basically comes down to them using nuclear weapons, or some other major escalation that will generate a coalition response. Otherwise: there really aren't retaliatory options open to them that I see. Every horrible thing you can imagine doing, they've already done or attempted to do, and then left a trail of Russian Armed Forces corpses and burning tanks as Ukraine pushed them back.

Having failed to turn Nikolaev (and apparently no intent to take it by force),

Not only did they absolutely intend to take Mikolaiv - they were expecting to positively waltz their way through it, on their way to waltzing through Odesa, where their countrymen were surely waiting to welcome them with thronging parades, offering bread, salt and flowers.

> * I know people don’t want hear it but the taking of Odessa and the rest of the coast will very likely still happen, eventually. Probably not via Kherson, preferably without force.

Genuinly curious, because this is the first time I read this. How do you see the taking of Odessa by Russia as very likely? It's their main port, I don't see how Ukraine would be able to survive without it.

> The West is not prepared for industrial warfare

The west cleared the floor with massed russian equipment, twice, maintaining 1:100 attrition rate while crossing an ocean.

But the rest of the post is not far off. ukr is on the back footing, and fog of war is very unidirectional, which means we're consuming propaganda, and its best not to form opinion out of it.

> plenty of Western gear

one fact tho remains, which is that we haven't seen yet combat footage from ifv and tanks delivered, so ukr forces are not yet fully committed, which seems positive.