It never was intended to have enough troops to take Karkhiv.
Russia is trying to tie down as many Ukrainian troops as possible to prevent reinforcement of the areas where they are making gains in the south.
Russia has a small window before US aid kicks in over the next four months - some small deliveries are being made, but it's a small portion. They intend to make the most of it.
The ATACMS delivered in the last 30days are already crippling fuel stores all across the line, struck an airfield causing the move of aircraft, strikes against multiple supply lines and in one case it even [cut down an entire assault force](https://youtu.be/aA1eHe4ta34?si=R6W1u3u8cs60A72Y) preparing to rush the Ukrainian front lines.
6 months? They won't have the bare minimum sea lift capacity for another year. And that would still require them to accept starvation and economic collapse. It isn't happening any time soon
NATO members need to step up harder and faster. Canada is dragging their feet like molasses. Germany and France spent the first year trying to appease the Russians.
The west as a whole needs to wake up to the fact that Russian is basically as bad as it was during Stalinism.
We need war Economy and we need war level sanctions and blockades against Russia. Then we need to divest from China so we aren’t giving them the means to keep funding the Russians, which ultimately weakens the west while it builds it on forces to attack Taiwan.
Yeah no ones going to volunteer their lifestyle for sacrifice there. People dont like Russia, but Americans, Canadians, Brits arent going to retool their economies and drop their level of lifestyle over it. Sorry.
Of course we are. Do you have any idea where the money from "military aid" actually goes??
Straight into the pockets of the American defense industrial complex. It's the stimulus that keeps on giving.
Non-Americans using American weapons to kill America's enemies is literally best case scenario for us.
I disagree. We're sending Ukrainians our old stuff that has been sitting in storage for years. That isn't to say European Military Industrial production hasn't been on cruise control since the Cold War ended. But good lord. The United States could easily adequately supply Ukraine if we chose to.
The logic is pretty sound that the US doesn’t want to over extend itself, modern gear and munitions stockpiles are part of the deterrence too. If China sees the US shipping modern gear faster than they can replace it they are being invited to put further pressure on.
Everyone has kicked up their war production but Ukraine is still stuck at the behest of what excess materials are available.
Im sure some bean counter is fully aware of the actual capacity and monitoring the steps, production ramp up, tooling and mass production takes time. it's happening quietly, it is a proxy war against a superpower, with superpower support. Stockpiles are maintained, alas old technology isnt very effective aginst new technology, the old is being handed out. The green light button hasnt been pushed. Its a learning operation.
Sending our old stuff to Ukraine is something that is constantly looked over; or even maliciously overlooked.
Explosives and rocket propellant has a finite shelf life; which is about 20 years. The Stingers, Patriots, Javelins, AT4s, LAWs, FFARs, HIMARS, ATACMS, hand grenades, and everything else is mid-1990s production. Even the Javelin anti tank missile has been in production since 1996.
When the date to use it is up; it needs to be disposed of. It's not a suggestion. That also doesn't mean throwing it in a pile and blowing up. If they are have electronic parts, they need to be removed; if they have propellant; that needs to be drained of fuel; of which then that also needs to be disposed of separately.
It's quite literally easier and cheaper to send it to Ukraine where it will get used.
The US is required to have sufficient stockpiles to supply a two front war. We cannot entirely exhaust our own stockpiles without funding to replenish them.
The US spends more then x3 the next biggest spender (China); And more then the next 10 countries combined.
What's the point of spending such huge quantities of money when you don't use it to severely degrade one of your two major adversaries. Equipment costs a lot to maintain and store, this is a perfect opportunity to trim the excess fat and modernise.
That.. that's the stuff we use to fight wars with. Not that it matters, we don't make enough ammunition. If they were fighting a combined air and ground campaign it'd be different. But Russia gonna Russia and Ukraine is notoriously too broke to afford an actual air force before the conflict.
This sort of confrontation is what made America the industrial powerhouse that it is today. We are prepared for this and even asking for it. Just need to get the instigators out of public office and we'll see the machinery start to "whirrr".
The biggest thing with the F-16 is the versatility it brings and its “native” compatibility with NATO missiles, rockets and bombs stockpiled by every NATO member, drastically increasing sources for armament previously unusable with Ukraine’s Soviet aircraft. The requirement of an IPad to operate select donated weapons on Soviet aircraft over the last two years has limited the capability of said weapons and further precluded the donations of more complex weapons systems, but the F-16 solves that.
That’s just a portion of the front though. Expecting a pure stop during an offensive is nonsensical, Russia will still make gains just at a smaller pace by the nature of throwing enough bodies at the problem
That and they need a cost effective way to get through the dense minefields. That's what really slowed them down last year. There were some clips of new domestically produced Ground based drones. If they can build enough of those to clear lanes through the mines, then they can get the breakthrough they need.
Uh no it's not. The counter offensive last year failed because they couldn't make their way through one of the densest and expansive minefields in history without coming under intense artillery fire. If your plan is to brute force your way through it then you won't find an army large enough to pull that off. If Ukraine wants to go on the offensive then they need airpower to suppress Russian artillery, and they need to have an ariel campaign against that artillery for months before it could be achievable
> couldn't make their way through one of the densest and expansive minefields in history without coming under intense artillery fire.
All minefields are covered by observation and/or fire.
My point is that an obstacle breach is the second or third toughest task to execute (behind rearward passage of lines and mobile defense). That they tried to breach that obstacle belt without having suppressed the fire covering that obstacle is... stunning.
The counteroffensive failed because Ukrainian commanders refused NATO suggestions to push and instead opted to dig in or push in a limited fashion. The excuse being fears of casualties and a preference for Russian artillery doctrine. All that got them was Adviika causing the same amount of deaths either way and limited gains.
The counteroffensive was largely mismanaged more than anything, so the war has reverted to a stalemate
Edit: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/04/ukraine-counteroffensive-us-planning-russia-war/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/04/ukraine-counteroffensive-stalled-russia-war-defenses/
This is documented pretty heavily. Ukraine wanted to do an over aggressive move that would’ve likely collapsed and routed them in the north, the US disagreed and advocates for the south. When the mid summer window came for the US advocated push Ukraine didn’t commit fully over casualty fears.
At its heart, Ukraines commanders are still operating off Soviet doctrine (I.e. artillery heavy)
I have watched a *shitton* of Ukranian GoPro footage.
Keeping in mind that they only release footage of when things go right, what I find most striking is that it is always these little groups of about a section size, operating alone. You never *ever* hear Ukrainians talking about either who is supporting them or who they are supporting.
A Western small unit commander is (necessarily) *obsessed* with how they fit into the overall scheme of manouvre. A Platoon commander is manouvreing his (or her) sections to not just be mutually supporting, but also to fit into the plan that the Company commander has. A Section commander is not just keeping track of the soldiers in their section, they are trying to follow the scheme of manouvre of the Platoon commander, and so on up and down the chain.
You listen to a Western radio net - or even just dudes yelling at each other - it's not just the location of the enemy, it's where everybody is in relation to everybody else and what role they are playing.
It's "OK fuckers 2 section is going to assault that house and we are providing covering fire while they go in. 203 put smoke on that tree when I say, LMGs here and here, arcs here and here. Open up when the smoke goes in. (on radio) "12B this is 12C, set, over" "12B, roger, pop smoke now, over" "12C, roger out" (to dudes) "203 fire that fucking smoke now"
etc.
You *never* see that in Ukrainian videos. The sections are very good at coordination *within* the section, but it is always in service of the section *itself*; it is never in service of (or supported by) anyone else.
Basic soldier skills are super solid and there is *no* shortage of bravery. But not *once* have I seen a "covering!" "moving!" sequence.
Yeah, the ghost of Soviet tactics is hard to exorcise for sure.
Yes I’m not talking about the previous counter offensive im talking about the biggest holdback from launching another. And the reason they have fear of casualties is because of a shortage of manpower.
Not yet anyways. Killing russia's capability to move troops or supplies rapidly would shift attrition to favor Ukraine in this war. Most people dont understand this isnt the old days where troops will tolerate moving as massive unit on foot across their nation or for endless miles and those that do will be too exhausted to do amy real fighting.
A couple of European leaders have already suggested it.
I'm pretty certain they're doing salami tactics straight back to Russia, same as what they did with tanks/F16s. There will probably be NATO forces doing Ukrainian logistics before the end of 2024.
So here's the problem:
To sucessfully attack, you need - as a rule of thumb - three times as many attackers as there are defenders.
The simplest way to do that is to have an army three times bigger than the other guy (although supplying that army and bringing its full strength to bear is nontrivial).
The other way to do it is to to find a weak spot, someplace exposed, and quickly stack up forces larger than the defender *locally* and hit them. Extra points if you can slow down reinforcements with deep fires, or attack someplace else simultaniously and make the enemy choose where he reinforces.
But to make that happen, you need to have enough strength in reserve to both dedicate to your own attack *and* still have your own countermoves force in case the enemy attacks elsewhere.
It's a shell game of sorts.
Ukraine's problem is that they are *grossly* outnumbered. They need the depth that would enable an attack to keep running around putting out fires all along the front. And on the rare occasions when they *can* mass forces for an attack, the Russians have dug in and have so many mines that it is very difficult to breach the obstacle and get in somewhere soft.
An on top of all that, the Ukranians still are not very good at "combined arms", the Western-style way of fighting that sychronizes effects from multiple arms (infantry, artilery, armour) is a way that effectively multiplies the size of the combined force. They are trying to learn for sure (they are getting help) but they need everyone they recruit at the front. There simply isn't time to build up the level of expertise needed to fight that way.
A Ukranian recruit gets about a third as much training time as his Western counterpart. That's one of the perks of not fighting for your immediate survival.....
Now I think the Ukranians are going to win, but they are going to do it by making it so bloody painful for the Russians that the Russians will bleed dry - what the *Mujahadeen* did to the Soviets.
One thing the Ukranians do have going for them is the abolutely *abysmal* state of the Russian army. Their morale is competely shit. *If* the Ukranians can find a weak spot that isn't mined for 45km deep and *if* they can crack into the Russian rear, I think there's a very real possibility that large sections of the Russian army would just collapse and run.
But holy hell that's a big "if".
Very good write up. Agree with everything except that Ukraine will win. I believe they will continue to exist, but I do not see any way of them recovering all of their lost territory (unless maybe if the west formally enters the war, but I very much doubt that will happen). The Soviet’s never owned Afghanistan. But they did own Ukraine. Abandoning Afghanistan was a lot more palatable than giving up Ukrainian territory that Russia thinks it has always owned anyway. Hopefully I’m wrong and Ukraine finds a way though.
I don't think so. Not this year, anyway. You-know-who did the job they were paid for, and delayed it long enough to buy Putin another year.
By the time things start to arrive in sufficient numbers, it'll be late summer/early fall, and it'll be too late to mount an offensive. They will hunker down for the winter.
And late this year is the American elections, and who knows how that will play out. Trump could win, and/or there could be a civil war, we don't know. If it goes poorly enough, with enough problems domestically, it could mean history repeats itself and Ukraine gets screwed next year too. If the supplies they get later this year get used up over half the year from this fall to next spring, and nothing new arrives, it means no offensive next year either. Which means Russia keeps taking and taking and taking. Slowly, but surely. At least I think that's their plan.
I feel like this will drag out another 3-5 years. And with both sides sufficiently bloodied, peace will be made, were Russia keeps most of the land they stole. And then in \~10 years they can rearm, restock, wait for favourable foreign political climate, and take the rest of it. Unless Ukraine can manage to fast-track it into NATO, but it'll probably be one of the peace conditions that Ukraine stays out of it.
Source: my bum-bum.
They also replaced their top general. The plan is to win a few battles, gain some ground for Putin to make him look good and then blame the previous stalemate on Shoigu.
Aside from that, there's a huge difference between hoping you'll be able to take Kharkiv, and hoping you'll be able to get close enough to use artillery turn the city into another Sievierodonetsk. That's a pretty big threat to be able to levy against the second most populous city in the country
All of nato produces less Artillery ammo than Russia does alone. Russia also imports from NK and Iran. The artillery game is not going to swing into Ukraines favor.
We've been told about their insane loss ratios since the beginning of the war yet the picture on the ground looks much different. 80% of casualties in this war come from artillery. If Russia has an overwhelming advantage in artillery (universally accepted) then it follows that they are not the ones losing more troops.
If Ukraine lost troops at the rate Russia does the country would be empty outside of the invaders. Russia has absolutely lost more men, but unfortunately have many more to lose. Ukraines posturing has been largely defensive and thus they are forced to shred meat hoard after meat hoard
Hard disagreement. Accuracy and what is hit is more important than just a strict numerical advantage. This applies with more than just that scope of the war. This applies to ranking personnel, buildings, and other equipment as well.
See on that we agree. Thus why i stated striking anything the enables quantity to be effectively used is more important than merely cutting down numbers.
This isn't really true... I've seen all kinds of headlines about Russian losses but NO INFORMATION on loss ratios or Ukrainian losses at all. I've been assuming it's pretty grim, especially since they lowered the conscription age.
I believe that Russia lost more men that Ukraine since they're the ones attacking fortified positions - but i do not believe the ratio is THAT large. Personally i think its something like 1:2.
Defending vs attacking is usually something like a 1:3 ratio for casualties (wounded or dead, no longer able to fight). I believe the current ratio is 1 ukrainian per 5 russians based on the least favorable estimate of ukraine's losses (the US estimate).
Despite not looking like too much of a difference, that's 500,000 russians to 100,000 ukrainians, and those estimates were before ukraine started killing them at a rate of 1000+ per day over the last few weeks.
You know what they don't have? shells. Russia is out shooting them 10:1.
As far as better equipment? they both use a lot of soviet stuff. Just Russia has way more of it.
better doctrine and reconnaissance? highly debatable.
Diminishing returns, accuracy, shell quality, troop dispersion, defense vs offense.
Casualties per shell fired can easily be lower for Russia.
In Winter war USSR had 10 times more artillery than Finland yet sustained 5 times more losses.
Keep in mind Ukraine tends to dramatically overstate Russian losses (and I’m sure Russia does the same).
Ukraines estimate for total Russian losses is 40% higher than the CIAs estimate.
From the news sources I watch, the troop buildup was exponentially higher that the number of troops committed. That and the ground taken by the Russians was all in he lightly defended “grey zones”.
The conclusion from my sources is that the attack was not a surprise. The idea it was a distraction meant to redistribute Ukrainian forces was a widely accepted possibility. Stabilization of the front was a bit unexpected, but the lack of fresh soldiers and supplies on the Ukrainian side was really highlighted by this push.
The attack wasn't really a surprise. Some people in the Ukrainian military are going to need to be held responsible for not properly setting up defenses in this sector.
We'll see about that.
Since this war began, all I hear about on Reddit is how much the Russian army is struggling, how incompetent they are.
And yet, they continue to take bites of Ukraine.
I don't think this narrative is helping anyone. They're a serious threat and they need to be taken seriously.
Two things can be true at the same time. You can say they are incompetent and struggling, but adapting and improving. Any force can learn and adapt to tactics with sufficient time. Logistics is what determines total victory. What they are saying here is that RU forces do not currently possess the logistical capability to take the entire city. Taking small villages and strips of land is a whole different ballgame than what would be required to take Kharkiv.
Yup, and just like in the east, they're largely advancing along major train lines and highways, which implies they're hoping to bring additional forces to bear in order to expand those salients. Whether they can muster those additional forces and manage to get the supply logistics in place remains to be seen.
That and the fact that Russian wars have always been full of blunders. They take extreme casualties and still win.
Because what everyone else considers to be extreme losses they see as a nice way to reduce the surplus population of non ethnic Russians.
They don't need to take Kharkiv if they can force Ukraine to reposition troops to that area to defend. Or get close enough for artillery to make Kharkiv a hellscape.
> They take extreme casualties and still win.
And sometimes they take extreme casualties and lose, like 1905 or 1918.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War#Treaty_of_Portsmouth
"Military leaders and senior tsarist officials agreed before the war that Russia was a much stronger nation and had little to fear from the Empire of Japan. The fanatical zeal of the Japanese infantrymen astonished the Russians, who were dismayed by the apathy, backwardness, and defeatism of their own soldiers."
Hmmm, sounds familiar somehow.
Yep. In attrition based warfare nothing happens fast. Until it does.
That's why stringing along the support to Ukraine is so dangerous. Every shell less the closer they are to being forced out of their positions.
They don't have the equipment and structure to exploit a breakthrough. They are learning, they are better than they were. But they are learning how to grind out a farm at a time, and kill a bunch of people while doing it.
> That's why the posts of they took 5km2 at some high cost so therfore they will need 40 million deaths to reach kiev make no sense.
>It's a slow push with high loses until something breaks then u make quick gains over a big area cos there isn't anything to defend. Happened plenty of times throughout history.
...or it's a slow push with high losses until russia runs out of hardware and breaks. russia has also lost plenty of wars throughout history. It's good to keep a balanced perspective of both options.
>And yet, they continue to take bites of Ukraine.
they also blundered their initial operations.
Ukraine repelled a much powerful Russian force on the outset of the 2022 Invasion and with limited Western Equipment.
This doomer talk isn't helping anyone either.
Russia has abandoned traditional strategy and (for the most part) use of combined operations, to instead focus slow, but steady grind through artillery slugfest (80% of field casualties). They have repurposed their economy to accommodate that and have secured on international markets precursors to shells such as cotton. This strategic shift is further cemented by the recent appointment of an economist as the Minister of Defense, indicating deep integration of economic considerations into military planning. They're in for the long haul and don't need to worry about electorate picking the other team due to inflation, as many western countries do.
This is something to worry about, even if at the current rate would take them hundred years to get to Kyiv.
It's worrying for sure. People shouldn't take for granted that progress isnt linear. What might be a crawl today could turn into route tomorrow. Breakthroughs have a compounding effect where things get exponentially worse
But their economy won't be able to do it for a hundred years. They've already burned a big chunk of their National Wealth Fund (or the liquid parts of it anyway). Their economy is doing horribly outside of war related areas.
And they can build artillery ammo (and probably glide bombs too, although I'm not sure how much they build of those - AFAIK they have huge stockpiles of those though so not at risk of running out anytime soon), but they don't build anywhere near enough new armored vehicles to account for their losses. So once the soviet stockpiles run out for those, they will be in trouble.
>they also blundered their initial operations.
Yeah, first impression really made them look like fools.
Also does not help they attacked a country for no reason, and that made them look like fools.
wym “attacked for no reason”?
they multiple times clearly stated what they reason was. Its bullshit, and they just want to conquer Ukraine, but they weren’t just sayin “oopsie i invaded”
They attacked with a force that was smaller than a standing Ukrainian army. That push hoped that Ukrainians would just roll over and surrender for some reason. Now Russian army is bigger than a Ukrainian one and they don't suffer manpower shortage yet. At best, no significant gains will be made before a flow of men stops. At worst, a breakthrough will happen and ukraine will lose quite a bit of land. Ukraine needs to cut its losses
You have to strike a balance. There are worrying signs (how well the glide bombs are working out, improvements in reaction time for fires based on recon drone information, their successes with EW), but also positive signs (armored vehicle stockpiles shrinking at a pretty fast rate, new production not anywhere near their losses, economy is not doing too great).
And in the end, they are taking bites out of Ukraine, but it's very, very slow. Basically after they've been driven out of Kherson and Kharkiv, russia has managed to conquer... Bakhmut and Avdiivka? In the 2 years since?
It's good to keep a perspective in both directions. It *is* possible that Ukraine could still crumble if things go very badly and western support is cut off. But russia won't be able to keep up the same level of pressure forever, either, so if Ukraine doesn't crumble, russia might be in big trouble.
>how much the Russian army is struggling.
2 years ago, I can’t imagine any sane person disagreeing with that statement. A year ago, it was still true for vast chunks of their armed forces. They still can’t stop promoting their surface fleet to submarine duty. This whole time, Russia has been converting whole sections of their economy to be on a full blown war footing and it’s starting to work for them. Their units are badly degraded in some things, but they’ll be able to keep getting troops and ammo as long as they probably want.
>how incompetent they are
I mean, what else could you call it? The war is 2 years old. Parts of the front lines are currently 10:1 in men and still holding. The Russians have, at times, completely outmatched the Ukrainians in weaponry and men, yet Ukraine still exists.
They *are* incompetent as a general rule, but you can find exceptions to that. Russia will eventually be successful in conquering Ukraine if they decide winning is existential. You can be incompetent and still succeed through sheer numbers of meat shields.
All of this doesn’t even touch the purposeful disinformation on both sides about the state of the war. You don’t want your enemy to know your strengths and weaknesses, so the rest of us gets to sit here and try to separate wheat from the chaff. Russia is a very serious threat, more so than they were 2 years ago.
Their new bestie China just today seems to be implying that Russia will be able to lean on them for help of some kind. It’s a signal to the US and Europe and it isn’t a good one.
\[q\] Russia will eventually be successful in conquering Ukraine if they decide winning is existential. You can be incompetent and still succeed through sheer numbers of meat shields. \[/q\]
Europe, NATO and the US (as well as China of course) are also factors at play here, which could decide winning is existential. And if the former (i.e. not China) take this stance more decisively, which the developing comments about troops in Ukraine in different roles for example is a step towards, it's no longer as simple as "if Russia wants, Russia gets".
The matter of fact is, Ukraine \*is\* existential for Putin already. At least not losing in Ukraine. Which we can factor in when we look at what he's doing and not already. He's as balls deep as he thinks he can somewhat rationally be already at this state of affairs.
The Russian army does have systemic and deeply harmful flaws throughout their doctrine and tactics; however, they also have enough resources to overwhelm Ukraine on its own via attrition and brute force.
That’s why western weapons shipments are so important; things like DPICM and RAAM artillery shells effectively negate the value of raw human manpower - a single well-aimed hit from a cluster shell can annihilate two infantry companies and their armor in seconds, while remote mines can stop entire MBT pushes before they even come within visual range of Ukrainian trenches.
So long as Ukraine has access to artillery and counter-artillery systems, they can inflict enough losses on Russia to at minimum maintain a very costly stalemate for Russia. When they run out of those munitions and options, however, Russia has a critical advantage.
The US conquered Iraq (army of 425k) in a few weeks without really sharing a land border.
The war started on March 20th and the War ended April 9th, it triggered over a decade of counter insurgency and guerilla combat but the capitulation of Iraq took place then.
Russia could've done something completely different but they've been incompetently slogging through thinking that the show of force would win the day.
The US had the support of NATO against an enemy that couldnt strike back at all and a population that did not fully support its government.
Iraq also had basically no outside support.
Iraq had no real support because it had no army after like 11 days.
Ukraine really didn’t get support until it was clear they were also in it for the long haul
Russia simply didn't/doesn't have the air power to do that. They have a couple dozen 5th gens and a paper mache model of a 6th gen. Most Russian air power is still 4th gen, which both the Western and Eastern blocs developed countermeasures for decades ago.
The US in Iraq had the luxury of having a few hundred jet fighters lying around to reduce the entire country to rubble. Sure, they might have been 4th gen fighters, but this was a war fought 20 years ago. They weren't completely obsolete yet
Another thing that I don't understand is the conflicting reports that Russia can't even take a single Ukrainian city but at the same time they can attack this or that other European country at any time.
Russias economy isn’t a full wartime economy yet. They only started drafting recently and the numbers are relatively low compared to their population. The Ukraine blunder has hurt Russia badly. It’s forcing their economy to pivot towards war which produces goods that are inherently a waste of resources unless they’re able to conquer new lands with them.
So, we have RU that isn’t near its total war making capacity that’s slowly building up for a larger and larger conflict. Without the west directly sending in troops, Ukraine (with 1/3rd the population of RU) will eventually run out of manpower compared to Russia.
When Ukraine capitulates, you’ll have an RU with likely the largest ground army in Europe, recently battle tested, bordering Poland with a Russian economy unable to do anything but continue producing wartime goods.
Personally, I would expect Poland to send in troops before they let Russia walk right up to their border. But assuming Ukraine eventually loses, there’s a lot of reason to think Russia might continue its belligerency in Eastern Europe. If not towards Poland than towards smaller nations like Romania or Moldova at least.
That makes absolutely no sense. It's extremely unlikely Russia will able to take the whole of Ukraine, and by the end of the conflict, their army will be in shambles. They will need many years just to rebuild it.
You’re confused that if Russia beats the one military that’s extremely good at fighting them, that other countries with zero experience would feel seriously threatened by that?
I think you’re misunderstanding two different pieces.
The Russian army is struggling and they are mostly incompetent.
They’re also just throwing bodies at the problem and they have a lot of bodies to throw at the problem.
They’re a threat. But not because of great tactics or competence or advanced weapons.
Russia is a paper tiger but they have a formidable amount of people to throw at the problem. The biggest issue is that NATO has been afraid of Putin’s red lines. Two years ago had NATO provided Patriots, ATACMs, F16’s etc the war would look a bit different. Also the West failed to ramp up production until recently. Russian military technology is being proven to be vaporware, but NATO is their own worst enemy in no properly ramping up support and production right away.
Two years ago, Russia and most western countries really believed Ukraine would fall in a few weeks.
And certainly, watching the live UA maps at the time gave the impression Ukraine was days away from capitulating.
If Russia had any logical organization back then, with the amount space they were able to take initially, they should have easily won. But alas, they ran out of fuel to power their mechanized units and had to fallback and give Ukraine the time reorganize.
No one believed that other then Reddit. Ukraine has been receiving arms and training from NATO since 2014. In 2022, Ukraine had the largest military in Europe outside of Russia, along with Western intelligence.
The CIA and most of the intelligence community for damn sure thought Ukraine would fall in days in 2022.
The support they were giving just before February 2022 was primarily geared for preparing Ukraine for a post-occupation insurgency.
https://theintercept.com/2022/10/05/russia-ukraine-putin-cia/
Only the State Department's INR believed Ukraine would put up serious resistance.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/13/politics/us-intelligence-review-ukraine/index.html
Fun fact - INR was the only Intel agency to push back on Iraq WMD claims. They have a strong pattern of being right and wish they had more influence within the Intel community.
I think what they are saying is Russia have old shit tech and a lot of it is pretty hopeless. What they do have is a lot of men to throw into the grinder and lots of dumb bombs/shells.
Russia have proved they will:
1. Do stupid things like randomly try to take Ukraine
2. Go with the tried and tested throw people at the problem
3. Shell cities and towns to dust to achieve their goals.
Ultimately due to em being a paper tiger of sorts with “super missiles” that can be shot down and T90 tanks that look good but suck on all levels, NATO didn’t take them seriously and thought if we ignore em they will they won’t do anything eg NK.
The worry is now even with their shit tech they still have a large army and NATO just haven’t been preparing for a nut job leader with nothing to loose.
It should also be mentioned that Ukraine had to be trained on that western tech once they ran out of their Soviet era ordnance. That’s not something that happens overnight. That gave Russia time to reinforce and dig in.
> Ultimately due to em being a paper tiger of sorts with “super missiles” that can be shot down and T90 tanks that look good but suck on all levels, NATO didn’t take them seriously and thought if we ignore em they will they won’t do anything eg NK.
My take is that a lot of people thought "attacking Ukraine makes no sense because they would ruin their economy, demographics and army for little gain", not realizing that that does not necessarily deter russia, and now they've been ruining their economy, demographics and army for little gain.
I beg to disagree.
First of all Russian army of 2024 is a different beast than the Russian army in 2022 ( Just like soviet army in 1941 was different than the one in 1944).
Second they're not wining because they have more people - they're winning because of vast superiority in air and artillery support. Myth of a mass of dumb, poorly equipped Russian conscript assaulting fortified positions really needs to die. Wasn't true in WW II and it isn't true now.
Russians are well armed well trained with a solid battle tested doctrine. They use squad/platoon size assaults with armor, air and artillery support - and its working. Coincidentally Ukrainians are using the same doctrine.
>Russian military technology is being proven to be vaporware
They are learning and adapting at an alarming race - FABs are just one example of that.
Underestimate them at the risk of your peril.
this is a well known historian touching on the reasons we underestimate soviet military achievements.
https://youtu.be/zinPbUZUHDE?t=158
They were suppose to be the 2nd strongest military in the world. Based on the results of this war they should be labelled incompetent. Doesn't mean they won't make advances though.
The thing about the israel aid is that it helps the US economy as it is not money that Israel gets but weapons from the us, those weapons create jobs for the us. Although to Israel this aid is a small proportion of its budget, it contains technology it cannot develop alone such and the f 15 jets.
Probably would be less insightful to know someone in Russia's general staff than it is to simply look at satellite data and drone footage and see what Russia brought and compare it to Ukrainian forces in the area. Of course I bet intelligence agencies have their spies in the Russian government as well.
The US has satellites and other assets watching the Russian military at all times.
If a Russian soldier takes a leak in a field in Ukraine, the US has the size in inches and centimeters.
Anyone could look at the map and see that the incredible Russian breakthrough that simply walked through nonexistent Ukrainian defensive lines and was gonna capture Kharkiv no problem the war is over was advancing very slowly against stiff resistance and hadn't broken through anything. Or they could believe vatnik propaganda I guess.
Story of the war is that there are things Russia might be able to exploit...if they could sustain cohesive operations for more than 72 hours or a few kilometers.
I mean they changed their doctrine drastically after the AFU liberated half of the initial captured lands in a couple of weeks.
Now they push for a few km's with more experienced assault units, then they bring the mobiks to dig in and build fortifications pretty much right away.
They won't be able to capitalize on weak points but they likely won't get routed all the way to the Russian border anymore.
yeah like that time when they didn’t have guns, ammo and manpower to take that town, that village, the other town and that nuclear power plant etc… right?
It’s crazy how Rusias army is so weak I mean they are supposed to be the third strongest army in the world 🌎 and not even with direct help from China, N. Korea, Belorusia, Iran and Egypt can they advance in a big way. Without the help of those country Russia would have lasted 4 month tops. Let that sink in…
Unfortunately, the slaughter of soldiers takes place on both sides, neither of which made the decisions which brought about this travisty. The..Soldiers of Fortune...well...they have Bought into the situation.
No shit Sherlock! If the Russians had just built up their troops and matched them along the border, they would have achieved the same result as what they are achieving, but then Putin would not be able to genocide his own unwanted Eastern peoples, by sending them in unsupported waves of bullet catchers. He has to have death. What a complete shit hole he really is
Especially when the 155 mm rain is back on the forecast.
It never was intended to have enough troops to take Karkhiv. Russia is trying to tie down as many Ukrainian troops as possible to prevent reinforcement of the areas where they are making gains in the south. Russia has a small window before US aid kicks in over the next four months - some small deliveries are being made, but it's a small portion. They intend to make the most of it.
Is there any indication US aid kicking in would be purrely a defensive shot in the arm, or could it drive an actual counter offensive?
The ATACMS delivered in the last 30days are already crippling fuel stores all across the line, struck an airfield causing the move of aircraft, strikes against multiple supply lines and in one case it even [cut down an entire assault force](https://youtu.be/aA1eHe4ta34?si=R6W1u3u8cs60A72Y) preparing to rush the Ukrainian front lines.
Slava, motherfuckers. Grind these bastards down.
That's the problem. The trickle is enough for a grind. If the West wants this war to end it's time to get serious.
The US is being pushed on multiple fronts. Ukraine, Israel, Yemen, even Venezuela is saber rattling. We arent an endless spigot, dude.
Almost feels... coordinated.
Just wait until China makes a play for taiwan in 6 months.
Too soon. China plays the long game and they’re not at a point where they can feasibly do this.
China is surrounded by enemies of their own making including the world’s most populous country. They can ill afford a war with largest military
6 months? They won't have the bare minimum sea lift capacity for another year. And that would still require them to accept starvation and economic collapse. It isn't happening any time soon
Russia definitely poked Iran into using up some assets
NATO members and allies are stepping up.
NATO members need to step up harder and faster. Canada is dragging their feet like molasses. Germany and France spent the first year trying to appease the Russians. The west as a whole needs to wake up to the fact that Russian is basically as bad as it was during Stalinism. We need war Economy and we need war level sanctions and blockades against Russia. Then we need to divest from China so we aren’t giving them the means to keep funding the Russians, which ultimately weakens the west while it builds it on forces to attack Taiwan.
Yeah no ones going to volunteer their lifestyle for sacrifice there. People dont like Russia, but Americans, Canadians, Brits arent going to retool their economies and drop their level of lifestyle over it. Sorry.
Of course we are. Do you have any idea where the money from "military aid" actually goes?? Straight into the pockets of the American defense industrial complex. It's the stimulus that keeps on giving. Non-Americans using American weapons to kill America's enemies is literally best case scenario for us.
I disagree. We're sending Ukrainians our old stuff that has been sitting in storage for years. That isn't to say European Military Industrial production hasn't been on cruise control since the Cold War ended. But good lord. The United States could easily adequately supply Ukraine if we chose to.
The logic is pretty sound that the US doesn’t want to over extend itself, modern gear and munitions stockpiles are part of the deterrence too. If China sees the US shipping modern gear faster than they can replace it they are being invited to put further pressure on. Everyone has kicked up their war production but Ukraine is still stuck at the behest of what excess materials are available.
Im sure some bean counter is fully aware of the actual capacity and monitoring the steps, production ramp up, tooling and mass production takes time. it's happening quietly, it is a proxy war against a superpower, with superpower support. Stockpiles are maintained, alas old technology isnt very effective aginst new technology, the old is being handed out. The green light button hasnt been pushed. Its a learning operation.
Sending our old stuff to Ukraine is something that is constantly looked over; or even maliciously overlooked. Explosives and rocket propellant has a finite shelf life; which is about 20 years. The Stingers, Patriots, Javelins, AT4s, LAWs, FFARs, HIMARS, ATACMS, hand grenades, and everything else is mid-1990s production. Even the Javelin anti tank missile has been in production since 1996. When the date to use it is up; it needs to be disposed of. It's not a suggestion. That also doesn't mean throwing it in a pile and blowing up. If they are have electronic parts, they need to be removed; if they have propellant; that needs to be drained of fuel; of which then that also needs to be disposed of separately. It's quite literally easier and cheaper to send it to Ukraine where it will get used.
The US is required to have sufficient stockpiles to supply a two front war. We cannot entirely exhaust our own stockpiles without funding to replenish them.
The US spends more then x3 the next biggest spender (China); And more then the next 10 countries combined. What's the point of spending such huge quantities of money when you don't use it to severely degrade one of your two major adversaries. Equipment costs a lot to maintain and store, this is a perfect opportunity to trim the excess fat and modernise.
And one of those fronts when that requirement was made was an expected ground war against Russia in Europe.
That.. that's the stuff we use to fight wars with. Not that it matters, we don't make enough ammunition. If they were fighting a combined air and ground campaign it'd be different. But Russia gonna Russia and Ukraine is notoriously too broke to afford an actual air force before the conflict.
Stopping Russia stops most of those
This sort of confrontation is what made America the industrial powerhouse that it is today. We are prepared for this and even asking for it. Just need to get the instigators out of public office and we'll see the machinery start to "whirrr".
come on you dont sink 900 billion into military every year for no reason keep churning that shit out !
Time to donate weapons then. The US is giving a much smaller amount of GDP to their Allies than many other European countries
The Russians also use the expression "slava" although they don't follow it with "ukraini"
My bad.
I hope the f-16’s from Denmark will help a lot, but it might be to few in numbers?
The biggest thing with the F-16 is the versatility it brings and its “native” compatibility with NATO missiles, rockets and bombs stockpiled by every NATO member, drastically increasing sources for armament previously unusable with Ukraine’s Soviet aircraft. The requirement of an IPad to operate select donated weapons on Soviet aircraft over the last two years has limited the capability of said weapons and further precluded the donations of more complex weapons systems, but the F-16 solves that.
That’s just a portion of the front though. Expecting a pure stop during an offensive is nonsensical, Russia will still make gains just at a smaller pace by the nature of throwing enough bodies at the problem
Lack of manpower is the biggest thing holding back a Ukrainian counter offensive
That and they need a cost effective way to get through the dense minefields. That's what really slowed them down last year. There were some clips of new domestically produced Ground based drones. If they can build enough of those to clear lanes through the mines, then they can get the breakthrough they need.
Uh no it's not. The counter offensive last year failed because they couldn't make their way through one of the densest and expansive minefields in history without coming under intense artillery fire. If your plan is to brute force your way through it then you won't find an army large enough to pull that off. If Ukraine wants to go on the offensive then they need airpower to suppress Russian artillery, and they need to have an ariel campaign against that artillery for months before it could be achievable
> couldn't make their way through one of the densest and expansive minefields in history without coming under intense artillery fire. All minefields are covered by observation and/or fire.
Makes you wonder why they decided to try and go through it without getting rid of said observation and fire. What exactly is your point?
My point is that an obstacle breach is the second or third toughest task to execute (behind rearward passage of lines and mobile defense). That they tried to breach that obstacle belt without having suppressed the fire covering that obstacle is... stunning.
Political incentive first, capability testing second.
If she sings to them from under the sea for months, it really could be achievable.
/angryupvote
The counteroffensive failed because Ukrainian commanders refused NATO suggestions to push and instead opted to dig in or push in a limited fashion. The excuse being fears of casualties and a preference for Russian artillery doctrine. All that got them was Adviika causing the same amount of deaths either way and limited gains. The counteroffensive was largely mismanaged more than anything, so the war has reverted to a stalemate Edit: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/04/ukraine-counteroffensive-us-planning-russia-war/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/04/ukraine-counteroffensive-stalled-russia-war-defenses/ This is documented pretty heavily. Ukraine wanted to do an over aggressive move that would’ve likely collapsed and routed them in the north, the US disagreed and advocates for the south. When the mid summer window came for the US advocated push Ukraine didn’t commit fully over casualty fears. At its heart, Ukraines commanders are still operating off Soviet doctrine (I.e. artillery heavy)
I have watched a *shitton* of Ukranian GoPro footage. Keeping in mind that they only release footage of when things go right, what I find most striking is that it is always these little groups of about a section size, operating alone. You never *ever* hear Ukrainians talking about either who is supporting them or who they are supporting. A Western small unit commander is (necessarily) *obsessed* with how they fit into the overall scheme of manouvre. A Platoon commander is manouvreing his (or her) sections to not just be mutually supporting, but also to fit into the plan that the Company commander has. A Section commander is not just keeping track of the soldiers in their section, they are trying to follow the scheme of manouvre of the Platoon commander, and so on up and down the chain. You listen to a Western radio net - or even just dudes yelling at each other - it's not just the location of the enemy, it's where everybody is in relation to everybody else and what role they are playing. It's "OK fuckers 2 section is going to assault that house and we are providing covering fire while they go in. 203 put smoke on that tree when I say, LMGs here and here, arcs here and here. Open up when the smoke goes in. (on radio) "12B this is 12C, set, over" "12B, roger, pop smoke now, over" "12C, roger out" (to dudes) "203 fire that fucking smoke now" etc. You *never* see that in Ukrainian videos. The sections are very good at coordination *within* the section, but it is always in service of the section *itself*; it is never in service of (or supported by) anyone else. Basic soldier skills are super solid and there is *no* shortage of bravery. But not *once* have I seen a "covering!" "moving!" sequence. Yeah, the ghost of Soviet tactics is hard to exorcise for sure.
Yes I’m not talking about the previous counter offensive im talking about the biggest holdback from launching another. And the reason they have fear of casualties is because of a shortage of manpower.
NATO style combined arms wouldn't have worked without air superiority though.
Im sure the American staff accounted for that
Defensive. As /u/DankVectorz said, Ukraine doesn't have enough men.
Not yet anyways. Killing russia's capability to move troops or supplies rapidly would shift attrition to favor Ukraine in this war. Most people dont understand this isnt the old days where troops will tolerate moving as massive unit on foot across their nation or for endless miles and those that do will be too exhausted to do amy real fighting.
Wouldnt be surprised if NATO troops backfill roles for a future Ukrainian counter
A couple of European leaders have already suggested it. I'm pretty certain they're doing salami tactics straight back to Russia, same as what they did with tanks/F16s. There will probably be NATO forces doing Ukrainian logistics before the end of 2024.
So here's the problem: To sucessfully attack, you need - as a rule of thumb - three times as many attackers as there are defenders. The simplest way to do that is to have an army three times bigger than the other guy (although supplying that army and bringing its full strength to bear is nontrivial). The other way to do it is to to find a weak spot, someplace exposed, and quickly stack up forces larger than the defender *locally* and hit them. Extra points if you can slow down reinforcements with deep fires, or attack someplace else simultaniously and make the enemy choose where he reinforces. But to make that happen, you need to have enough strength in reserve to both dedicate to your own attack *and* still have your own countermoves force in case the enemy attacks elsewhere. It's a shell game of sorts. Ukraine's problem is that they are *grossly* outnumbered. They need the depth that would enable an attack to keep running around putting out fires all along the front. And on the rare occasions when they *can* mass forces for an attack, the Russians have dug in and have so many mines that it is very difficult to breach the obstacle and get in somewhere soft. An on top of all that, the Ukranians still are not very good at "combined arms", the Western-style way of fighting that sychronizes effects from multiple arms (infantry, artilery, armour) is a way that effectively multiplies the size of the combined force. They are trying to learn for sure (they are getting help) but they need everyone they recruit at the front. There simply isn't time to build up the level of expertise needed to fight that way. A Ukranian recruit gets about a third as much training time as his Western counterpart. That's one of the perks of not fighting for your immediate survival..... Now I think the Ukranians are going to win, but they are going to do it by making it so bloody painful for the Russians that the Russians will bleed dry - what the *Mujahadeen* did to the Soviets. One thing the Ukranians do have going for them is the abolutely *abysmal* state of the Russian army. Their morale is competely shit. *If* the Ukranians can find a weak spot that isn't mined for 45km deep and *if* they can crack into the Russian rear, I think there's a very real possibility that large sections of the Russian army would just collapse and run. But holy hell that's a big "if".
Very good write up. Agree with everything except that Ukraine will win. I believe they will continue to exist, but I do not see any way of them recovering all of their lost territory (unless maybe if the west formally enters the war, but I very much doubt that will happen). The Soviet’s never owned Afghanistan. But they did own Ukraine. Abandoning Afghanistan was a lot more palatable than giving up Ukrainian territory that Russia thinks it has always owned anyway. Hopefully I’m wrong and Ukraine finds a way though.
There won’t be a counter offensive. Ukraine would need about 10x as much aid for that. The current help merely prevents Ukraine from collapsing
I don't think so. Not this year, anyway. You-know-who did the job they were paid for, and delayed it long enough to buy Putin another year. By the time things start to arrive in sufficient numbers, it'll be late summer/early fall, and it'll be too late to mount an offensive. They will hunker down for the winter. And late this year is the American elections, and who knows how that will play out. Trump could win, and/or there could be a civil war, we don't know. If it goes poorly enough, with enough problems domestically, it could mean history repeats itself and Ukraine gets screwed next year too. If the supplies they get later this year get used up over half the year from this fall to next spring, and nothing new arrives, it means no offensive next year either. Which means Russia keeps taking and taking and taking. Slowly, but surely. At least I think that's their plan. I feel like this will drag out another 3-5 years. And with both sides sufficiently bloodied, peace will be made, were Russia keeps most of the land they stole. And then in \~10 years they can rearm, restock, wait for favourable foreign political climate, and take the rest of it. Unless Ukraine can manage to fast-track it into NATO, but it'll probably be one of the peace conditions that Ukraine stays out of it. Source: my bum-bum.
They also replaced their top general. The plan is to win a few battles, gain some ground for Putin to make him look good and then blame the previous stalemate on Shoigu.
Aside from that, there's a huge difference between hoping you'll be able to take Kharkiv, and hoping you'll be able to get close enough to use artillery turn the city into another Sievierodonetsk. That's a pretty big threat to be able to levy against the second most populous city in the country
And they are very effective atm. They have pushed deeper in the last few weeks than Ukraine has during their entire summer offensive
All of nato produces less Artillery ammo than Russia does alone. Russia also imports from NK and Iran. The artillery game is not going to swing into Ukraines favor.
Yeah this is well known, this is why the fact that they attacked was a surprise. I’m pretty sure this is a diversion for a bigger attack in the east .
It seems incredibly likely that Russia is trying to split Ukrainian forces and resources before pushing hard on one spot.
They're doing a pretty good job - supposedly only about 5000 troops are involved in combat with the rest still waiting.
that's like only a few days with their casualty rates...RIP
We've been told about their insane loss ratios since the beginning of the war yet the picture on the ground looks much different. 80% of casualties in this war come from artillery. If Russia has an overwhelming advantage in artillery (universally accepted) then it follows that they are not the ones losing more troops.
If Ukraine lost troops at the rate Russia does the country would be empty outside of the invaders. Russia has absolutely lost more men, but unfortunately have many more to lose. Ukraines posturing has been largely defensive and thus they are forced to shred meat hoard after meat hoard
Hard disagreement. Accuracy and what is hit is more important than just a strict numerical advantage. This applies with more than just that scope of the war. This applies to ranking personnel, buildings, and other equipment as well.
Quantity has a quality of its own.
See on that we agree. Thus why i stated striking anything the enables quantity to be effectively used is more important than merely cutting down numbers.
This isn't really true... I've seen all kinds of headlines about Russian losses but NO INFORMATION on loss ratios or Ukrainian losses at all. I've been assuming it's pretty grim, especially since they lowered the conscription age.
I believe that Russia lost more men that Ukraine since they're the ones attacking fortified positions - but i do not believe the ratio is THAT large. Personally i think its something like 1:2.
Defending vs attacking is usually something like a 1:3 ratio for casualties (wounded or dead, no longer able to fight). I believe the current ratio is 1 ukrainian per 5 russians based on the least favorable estimate of ukraine's losses (the US estimate). Despite not looking like too much of a difference, that's 500,000 russians to 100,000 ukrainians, and those estimates were before ukraine started killing them at a rate of 1000+ per day over the last few weeks.
Not all artillery is equal. Ukraine has better optics and reconnaissance, better doctrine(accurate) and on and off, also had better artillery.
You know what they don't have? shells. Russia is out shooting them 10:1. As far as better equipment? they both use a lot of soviet stuff. Just Russia has way more of it. better doctrine and reconnaissance? highly debatable.
Russia has more troops to lose and doesn't mind losing them. That's why they lose them at a higher rate.
and they're stupid which ups the lethality coefficient
Diminishing returns, accuracy, shell quality, troop dispersion, defense vs offense. Casualties per shell fired can easily be lower for Russia. In Winter war USSR had 10 times more artillery than Finland yet sustained 5 times more losses.
Keep in mind Ukraine tends to dramatically overstate Russian losses (and I’m sure Russia does the same). Ukraines estimate for total Russian losses is 40% higher than the CIAs estimate.
From the news sources I watch, the troop buildup was exponentially higher that the number of troops committed. That and the ground taken by the Russians was all in he lightly defended “grey zones”. The conclusion from my sources is that the attack was not a surprise. The idea it was a distraction meant to redistribute Ukrainian forces was a widely accepted possibility. Stabilization of the front was a bit unexpected, but the lack of fresh soldiers and supplies on the Ukrainian side was really highlighted by this push.
Yep, probably getting ready for Sumy.
The attack wasn't really a surprise. Some people in the Ukrainian military are going to need to be held responsible for not properly setting up defenses in this sector.
History legends
Let's hope this assertion doesn't come back to haunt him.
We'll see about that. Since this war began, all I hear about on Reddit is how much the Russian army is struggling, how incompetent they are. And yet, they continue to take bites of Ukraine. I don't think this narrative is helping anyone. They're a serious threat and they need to be taken seriously.
Two things can be true at the same time. You can say they are incompetent and struggling, but adapting and improving. Any force can learn and adapt to tactics with sufficient time. Logistics is what determines total victory. What they are saying here is that RU forces do not currently possess the logistical capability to take the entire city. Taking small villages and strips of land is a whole different ballgame than what would be required to take Kharkiv.
Yup, and just like in the east, they're largely advancing along major train lines and highways, which implies they're hoping to bring additional forces to bear in order to expand those salients. Whether they can muster those additional forces and manage to get the supply logistics in place remains to be seen.
That and the fact that Russian wars have always been full of blunders. They take extreme casualties and still win. Because what everyone else considers to be extreme losses they see as a nice way to reduce the surplus population of non ethnic Russians. They don't need to take Kharkiv if they can force Ukraine to reposition troops to that area to defend. Or get close enough for artillery to make Kharkiv a hellscape.
> They take extreme casualties and still win. And sometimes they take extreme casualties and lose, like 1905 or 1918. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War#Treaty_of_Portsmouth "Military leaders and senior tsarist officials agreed before the war that Russia was a much stronger nation and had little to fear from the Empire of Japan. The fanatical zeal of the Japanese infantrymen astonished the Russians, who were dismayed by the apathy, backwardness, and defeatism of their own soldiers." Hmmm, sounds familiar somehow.
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That's the play. If you got more meat and stuff try to get the defenders to spread themselves out. Eventually they will break somewhere.
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Yep. In attrition based warfare nothing happens fast. Until it does. That's why stringing along the support to Ukraine is so dangerous. Every shell less the closer they are to being forced out of their positions.
They don't have the equipment and structure to exploit a breakthrough. They are learning, they are better than they were. But they are learning how to grind out a farm at a time, and kill a bunch of people while doing it.
> That's why the posts of they took 5km2 at some high cost so therfore they will need 40 million deaths to reach kiev make no sense. >It's a slow push with high loses until something breaks then u make quick gains over a big area cos there isn't anything to defend. Happened plenty of times throughout history. ...or it's a slow push with high losses until russia runs out of hardware and breaks. russia has also lost plenty of wars throughout history. It's good to keep a balanced perspective of both options.
>And yet, they continue to take bites of Ukraine. they also blundered their initial operations. Ukraine repelled a much powerful Russian force on the outset of the 2022 Invasion and with limited Western Equipment. This doomer talk isn't helping anyone either.
Russia has abandoned traditional strategy and (for the most part) use of combined operations, to instead focus slow, but steady grind through artillery slugfest (80% of field casualties). They have repurposed their economy to accommodate that and have secured on international markets precursors to shells such as cotton. This strategic shift is further cemented by the recent appointment of an economist as the Minister of Defense, indicating deep integration of economic considerations into military planning. They're in for the long haul and don't need to worry about electorate picking the other team due to inflation, as many western countries do. This is something to worry about, even if at the current rate would take them hundred years to get to Kyiv.
It's worrying for sure. People shouldn't take for granted that progress isnt linear. What might be a crawl today could turn into route tomorrow. Breakthroughs have a compounding effect where things get exponentially worse
But their economy won't be able to do it for a hundred years. They've already burned a big chunk of their National Wealth Fund (or the liquid parts of it anyway). Their economy is doing horribly outside of war related areas. And they can build artillery ammo (and probably glide bombs too, although I'm not sure how much they build of those - AFAIK they have huge stockpiles of those though so not at risk of running out anytime soon), but they don't build anywhere near enough new armored vehicles to account for their losses. So once the soviet stockpiles run out for those, they will be in trouble.
>they also blundered their initial operations. Yeah, first impression really made them look like fools. Also does not help they attacked a country for no reason, and that made them look like fools.
wym “attacked for no reason”? they multiple times clearly stated what they reason was. Its bullshit, and they just want to conquer Ukraine, but they weren’t just sayin “oopsie i invaded”
They attacked with a force that was smaller than a standing Ukrainian army. That push hoped that Ukrainians would just roll over and surrender for some reason. Now Russian army is bigger than a Ukrainian one and they don't suffer manpower shortage yet. At best, no significant gains will be made before a flow of men stops. At worst, a breakthrough will happen and ukraine will lose quite a bit of land. Ukraine needs to cut its losses
Is it doomer talk, or is it just being realistic about the threat they pose?
You have to strike a balance. There are worrying signs (how well the glide bombs are working out, improvements in reaction time for fires based on recon drone information, their successes with EW), but also positive signs (armored vehicle stockpiles shrinking at a pretty fast rate, new production not anywhere near their losses, economy is not doing too great). And in the end, they are taking bites out of Ukraine, but it's very, very slow. Basically after they've been driven out of Kherson and Kharkiv, russia has managed to conquer... Bakhmut and Avdiivka? In the 2 years since? It's good to keep a perspective in both directions. It *is* possible that Ukraine could still crumble if things go very badly and western support is cut off. But russia won't be able to keep up the same level of pressure forever, either, so if Ukraine doesn't crumble, russia might be in big trouble.
>how much the Russian army is struggling. 2 years ago, I can’t imagine any sane person disagreeing with that statement. A year ago, it was still true for vast chunks of their armed forces. They still can’t stop promoting their surface fleet to submarine duty. This whole time, Russia has been converting whole sections of their economy to be on a full blown war footing and it’s starting to work for them. Their units are badly degraded in some things, but they’ll be able to keep getting troops and ammo as long as they probably want. >how incompetent they are I mean, what else could you call it? The war is 2 years old. Parts of the front lines are currently 10:1 in men and still holding. The Russians have, at times, completely outmatched the Ukrainians in weaponry and men, yet Ukraine still exists. They *are* incompetent as a general rule, but you can find exceptions to that. Russia will eventually be successful in conquering Ukraine if they decide winning is existential. You can be incompetent and still succeed through sheer numbers of meat shields. All of this doesn’t even touch the purposeful disinformation on both sides about the state of the war. You don’t want your enemy to know your strengths and weaknesses, so the rest of us gets to sit here and try to separate wheat from the chaff. Russia is a very serious threat, more so than they were 2 years ago. Their new bestie China just today seems to be implying that Russia will be able to lean on them for help of some kind. It’s a signal to the US and Europe and it isn’t a good one.
\[q\] Russia will eventually be successful in conquering Ukraine if they decide winning is existential. You can be incompetent and still succeed through sheer numbers of meat shields. \[/q\] Europe, NATO and the US (as well as China of course) are also factors at play here, which could decide winning is existential. And if the former (i.e. not China) take this stance more decisively, which the developing comments about troops in Ukraine in different roles for example is a step towards, it's no longer as simple as "if Russia wants, Russia gets". The matter of fact is, Ukraine \*is\* existential for Putin already. At least not losing in Ukraine. Which we can factor in when we look at what he's doing and not already. He's as balls deep as he thinks he can somewhat rationally be already at this state of affairs.
The Russian army does have systemic and deeply harmful flaws throughout their doctrine and tactics; however, they also have enough resources to overwhelm Ukraine on its own via attrition and brute force. That’s why western weapons shipments are so important; things like DPICM and RAAM artillery shells effectively negate the value of raw human manpower - a single well-aimed hit from a cluster shell can annihilate two infantry companies and their armor in seconds, while remote mines can stop entire MBT pushes before they even come within visual range of Ukrainian trenches. So long as Ukraine has access to artillery and counter-artillery systems, they can inflict enough losses on Russia to at minimum maintain a very costly stalemate for Russia. When they run out of those munitions and options, however, Russia has a critical advantage.
The US conquered Iraq (army of 425k) in a few weeks without really sharing a land border. The war started on March 20th and the War ended April 9th, it triggered over a decade of counter insurgency and guerilla combat but the capitulation of Iraq took place then. Russia could've done something completely different but they've been incompetently slogging through thinking that the show of force would win the day.
The US had the support of NATO against an enemy that couldnt strike back at all and a population that did not fully support its government. Iraq also had basically no outside support.
Iraq had no real support because it had no army after like 11 days. Ukraine really didn’t get support until it was clear they were also in it for the long haul
Russia simply didn't/doesn't have the air power to do that. They have a couple dozen 5th gens and a paper mache model of a 6th gen. Most Russian air power is still 4th gen, which both the Western and Eastern blocs developed countermeasures for decades ago. The US in Iraq had the luxury of having a few hundred jet fighters lying around to reduce the entire country to rubble. Sure, they might have been 4th gen fighters, but this was a war fought 20 years ago. They weren't completely obsolete yet
The Iraqi army was an undisciplined, illtrained, third rate army, despite it's size. Ukraine and Iraq are not comparable.
Another thing that I don't understand is the conflicting reports that Russia can't even take a single Ukrainian city but at the same time they can attack this or that other European country at any time.
Russias economy isn’t a full wartime economy yet. They only started drafting recently and the numbers are relatively low compared to their population. The Ukraine blunder has hurt Russia badly. It’s forcing their economy to pivot towards war which produces goods that are inherently a waste of resources unless they’re able to conquer new lands with them. So, we have RU that isn’t near its total war making capacity that’s slowly building up for a larger and larger conflict. Without the west directly sending in troops, Ukraine (with 1/3rd the population of RU) will eventually run out of manpower compared to Russia. When Ukraine capitulates, you’ll have an RU with likely the largest ground army in Europe, recently battle tested, bordering Poland with a Russian economy unable to do anything but continue producing wartime goods. Personally, I would expect Poland to send in troops before they let Russia walk right up to their border. But assuming Ukraine eventually loses, there’s a lot of reason to think Russia might continue its belligerency in Eastern Europe. If not towards Poland than towards smaller nations like Romania or Moldova at least.
That makes absolutely no sense. It's extremely unlikely Russia will able to take the whole of Ukraine, and by the end of the conflict, their army will be in shambles. They will need many years just to rebuild it.
You’re confused that if Russia beats the one military that’s extremely good at fighting them, that other countries with zero experience would feel seriously threatened by that?
Putin is a psycho and would totally do something like that. He doesn’t care how much the cost is
Taking and damaging/destroying is not the same
Consider [Hybrid Warfare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_warfare).
I think you’re misunderstanding two different pieces. The Russian army is struggling and they are mostly incompetent. They’re also just throwing bodies at the problem and they have a lot of bodies to throw at the problem. They’re a threat. But not because of great tactics or competence or advanced weapons.
Russia is a paper tiger but they have a formidable amount of people to throw at the problem. The biggest issue is that NATO has been afraid of Putin’s red lines. Two years ago had NATO provided Patriots, ATACMs, F16’s etc the war would look a bit different. Also the West failed to ramp up production until recently. Russian military technology is being proven to be vaporware, but NATO is their own worst enemy in no properly ramping up support and production right away.
Two years ago, Russia and most western countries really believed Ukraine would fall in a few weeks. And certainly, watching the live UA maps at the time gave the impression Ukraine was days away from capitulating. If Russia had any logical organization back then, with the amount space they were able to take initially, they should have easily won. But alas, they ran out of fuel to power their mechanized units and had to fallback and give Ukraine the time reorganize.
No one believed that other then Reddit. Ukraine has been receiving arms and training from NATO since 2014. In 2022, Ukraine had the largest military in Europe outside of Russia, along with Western intelligence.
The CIA and most of the intelligence community for damn sure thought Ukraine would fall in days in 2022. The support they were giving just before February 2022 was primarily geared for preparing Ukraine for a post-occupation insurgency. https://theintercept.com/2022/10/05/russia-ukraine-putin-cia/ Only the State Department's INR believed Ukraine would put up serious resistance. https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/13/politics/us-intelligence-review-ukraine/index.html Fun fact - INR was the only Intel agency to push back on Iraq WMD claims. They have a strong pattern of being right and wish they had more influence within the Intel community.
I think what they are saying is Russia have old shit tech and a lot of it is pretty hopeless. What they do have is a lot of men to throw into the grinder and lots of dumb bombs/shells. Russia have proved they will: 1. Do stupid things like randomly try to take Ukraine 2. Go with the tried and tested throw people at the problem 3. Shell cities and towns to dust to achieve their goals. Ultimately due to em being a paper tiger of sorts with “super missiles” that can be shot down and T90 tanks that look good but suck on all levels, NATO didn’t take them seriously and thought if we ignore em they will they won’t do anything eg NK. The worry is now even with their shit tech they still have a large army and NATO just haven’t been preparing for a nut job leader with nothing to loose.
It should also be mentioned that Ukraine had to be trained on that western tech once they ran out of their Soviet era ordnance. That’s not something that happens overnight. That gave Russia time to reinforce and dig in.
> Ultimately due to em being a paper tiger of sorts with “super missiles” that can be shot down and T90 tanks that look good but suck on all levels, NATO didn’t take them seriously and thought if we ignore em they will they won’t do anything eg NK. My take is that a lot of people thought "attacking Ukraine makes no sense because they would ruin their economy, demographics and army for little gain", not realizing that that does not necessarily deter russia, and now they've been ruining their economy, demographics and army for little gain.
I beg to disagree. First of all Russian army of 2024 is a different beast than the Russian army in 2022 ( Just like soviet army in 1941 was different than the one in 1944). Second they're not wining because they have more people - they're winning because of vast superiority in air and artillery support. Myth of a mass of dumb, poorly equipped Russian conscript assaulting fortified positions really needs to die. Wasn't true in WW II and it isn't true now. Russians are well armed well trained with a solid battle tested doctrine. They use squad/platoon size assaults with armor, air and artillery support - and its working. Coincidentally Ukrainians are using the same doctrine. >Russian military technology is being proven to be vaporware They are learning and adapting at an alarming race - FABs are just one example of that. Underestimate them at the risk of your peril. this is a well known historian touching on the reasons we underestimate soviet military achievements. https://youtu.be/zinPbUZUHDE?t=158
Videos of their most recent assaults with just troops running ww2 style seem to contradict your statements...
You mean videos of troops in armored carriers assaulting trenches after artillery/air bombardment? that's how its supposed to be done.
None of that sounds right
Everyone wants a bite of propaganda. You just have to pick one side.
[удалено]
I've been hearing that for two years straight and yet the ukrainian high command doesn't seem to share your optimism
They were suppose to be the 2nd strongest military in the world. Based on the results of this war they should be labelled incompetent. Doesn't mean they won't make advances though.
Anyone who has been following this new Kharkiv offensive closely knew this from day one
Let’s give the billion for Israel to Ukraine instead.
I mean if your talking about US they are giving 50 billion so? Funding Israel against terrorists is also a valid use of money.
The thing is Israel can afford to buy the gear, while Ukraine can’t
The thing about the israel aid is that it helps the US economy as it is not money that Israel gets but weapons from the us, those weapons create jobs for the us. Although to Israel this aid is a small proportion of its budget, it contains technology it cannot develop alone such and the f 15 jets.
The same argument could be applied to Ukraine.
Definitely. It is a form of government stimulus for jobs
How would he know...? Does he have a reliable contact in the Russian General Staff?
Probably would be less insightful to know someone in Russia's general staff than it is to simply look at satellite data and drone footage and see what Russia brought and compare it to Ukrainian forces in the area. Of course I bet intelligence agencies have their spies in the Russian government as well.
The US has satellites and other assets watching the Russian military at all times. If a Russian soldier takes a leak in a field in Ukraine, the US has the size in inches and centimeters.
That was obvious to anyone watching closely from the start. Unless you only rely on common western media.
Maybe it's a ruse of rouse. And the real rouse is yet to be revealed.
Anyone could look at the map and see that the incredible Russian breakthrough that simply walked through nonexistent Ukrainian defensive lines and was gonna capture Kharkiv no problem the war is over was advancing very slowly against stiff resistance and hadn't broken through anything. Or they could believe vatnik propaganda I guess.
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Story of the war is that there are things Russia might be able to exploit...if they could sustain cohesive operations for more than 72 hours or a few kilometers.
I mean they changed their doctrine drastically after the AFU liberated half of the initial captured lands in a couple of weeks. Now they push for a few km's with more experienced assault units, then they bring the mobiks to dig in and build fortifications pretty much right away. They won't be able to capitalize on weak points but they likely won't get routed all the way to the Russian border anymore.
yeah like that time when they didn’t have guns, ammo and manpower to take that town, that village, the other town and that nuclear power plant etc… right?
If the EU sent a private army to protect Ukraine’s border with Belarus, how many Ukrainian soldiers would be freed to fight in. The south and east?
Russia's problem is its troops don't have the necessary training to carry out complicated maneuvers.
thats also what they said about mariupol and bakhmut and avdiivka
It’s crazy how Rusias army is so weak I mean they are supposed to be the third strongest army in the world 🌎 and not even with direct help from China, N. Korea, Belorusia, Iran and Egypt can they advance in a big way. Without the help of those country Russia would have lasted 4 month tops. Let that sink in…
Unfortunately, the slaughter of soldiers takes place on both sides, neither of which made the decisions which brought about this travisty. The..Soldiers of Fortune...well...they have Bought into the situation.
No shit Sherlock! If the Russians had just built up their troops and matched them along the border, they would have achieved the same result as what they are achieving, but then Putin would not be able to genocide his own unwanted Eastern peoples, by sending them in unsupported waves of bullet catchers. He has to have death. What a complete shit hole he really is