Russia

[GD4ELI]

1 hour ago, Roxanne said:

The German tanks are also on their way. 

The combination of the British & German tanks is reported to have caused mutiny in Russian tank regiments - or at least what's left of these regiments.

[Passing Time]

3 minutes ago, GD4ELI said:

The combination of the British & German tanks is reported to have caused mutiny in Russian tank regiments - or at least what's left of these regiments.

With that madman moving nuclear weaponry into Belarus, not going to take much for him and his cronies to escalate

[The Phantom]

2 hours ago, Roxanne said:

Russian deaths for the last few weeks running at 200 000 and all for moving forward two metres. 

Reports yesterday that soldiers are being blocked from retreating from situations where they know death is certain. They’re being blocked by their own officers. 

Hellish stuff. 

Watched a few reports last night concentrating on Bakhmut.  Most of them are saying about 30,000 Russian deaths just for that strategically insignificant town. 

51 minutes ago, GD4ELI said:

The combination of the British & German tanks is reported to have caused mutiny in Russian tank regiments - or at least what's left of these regiments.

The Orcs are now shipping tanks from the 1950s to the front lines.  Total number estimated numbers of tanks destroyed from various sources are about 1500.  That's around half of Russia's total and more than the combined total of tanks in the European NATO arsenal. 

46 minutes ago, Passing Time said:

With that madman moving nuclear weaponry into Belarus, not going to take much for him and his cronies to escalate

Maybe.  I still think it's bluster. Hitler had chemical weapons but never actually used them on the Allied Forces. 

Nonetheless Belarus should now just be considered a vassal state of Russia.

[GD4ELI]

3 hours ago, Roxanne said:

The German tanks are also on their way. 

Hamish de Bretton Gordon, former commanding officer of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment in the British Army, says the Challengers being sent by the UK are vastly superior to anything the Russians have, such as the T-72 tanks.

Quote

A Challenger L2 will probably take four or five direct hits from a T-72 and survive – while one hit [from a Challenger] will destroy a T-72," he said.

 

[La_Dolce_Vita]

4 hours ago, Passing Time said:

Really??

Yeah, I'm serious.  The propaganda in the west about this war has territorial integrity made out as some sacred thing. Although it is very important, it isn't worth a long war for Ukraine and for the world. It certainly isn't why NATO is so invested in it, so yeah, the sooner it ends the better whether that means Russia holds on to territory or not.

[GD4ELI]

20 minutes ago, La_Dolce_Vita said:

Yeah, I'm serious.  The propaganda in the west about this war has territorial integrity made out as some sacred thing. Although it is very important, it isn't worth a long war for Ukraine and for the world. It certainly isn't why NATO is so invested in it, so yeah, the sooner it ends the better whether that means Russia holds on to territory or not.

Might is right, yes?

Mind if I come round and steal your house and garden?

[manxman1980]

1 hour ago, GD4ELI said:

Might is right, yes?

Mind if I come round and steal your house and garden?

Why bother asking?

 

If it drags on into a long battle he will just give you the property.

[P.K.]

17 hours ago, La_Dolce_Vita said:

If it goes on for years and the Ukraine somehow gets the Crimes and Donbas then what would already be a pyrrhic victory for Europe if it finishes tomorrow would be a disaster for the world and the Ukraine.  The Donbas and Crimea aren't worth the mounting casualties and deaths.

That depends entirely on who you are.

A major factor is that Putin simply doesn't care about casualties because he has an enormous human stockpile to call upon who will go and do his bidding. For now...

At the time of the 2014 invasion some 40% of the population of Crimea were Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars. They absolutely do not want to be Russian. I mean, would you move from a western-style democracy to the constrictive life of a Russian vassal state? Don't think so... Many have moved out and the young have joined the Ukrainian forces. They want their freedom back.

A lot of ethnic Russians in the Donbas don't want to be Russian either. Especially as young men are being taken off the streets, given minimal training and a five-shot bolt action Mosin-Nagant rifle developed in 1891, then sent to the front as cannon fodder. Your Russian zealots wanted you to be "properly" Russian so why are you complaining?

War is a nasty, dirty, miserable business and should always be a last resort. But when the likes of Putin invades then someone has to put him back in his box. Preferably six feet under...

[woolley]

We should be a little suspicious of optimistic Western propaganda asserting that Russia is going to run out of ammunition or equipment imminently. We've been hearing this for a year. We're now told that the Western tanks will make all the difference and that the Russians on the front are in mutiny as a result. Are there even any Western tanks there yet, and if so, in what numbers?

This is only going to be one interminable grinding attrition of death and destruction. The notion that the Russians can be pushed out of Crimea and the Donbas region to restore the prewar border seems fanciful at the moment, quite frankly, and issuing a warrant for the arrest of Putin might give us a warm glow of righteousness as we sit comfortably in our armchairs, but it will achieve nothing and entrench positions still further.

This is dangerous, unpredictable, and there is no easily attainable solution. In the end it will have to be stopped by negotiation, and there will have to be compromise. I cannot see it being ended militarily.

 

[woolley]

7 minutes ago, Passing Time said:

You're a couple of comments short of becoming the MF version of Lord Haw Haw

You clearly know as much about Lord Haw Haw as you know about me. Precisely nothing.

Joyce was a Nazi committed to the German cause who broadcast terror to Britain from Luxembourg in WW2. I'm merely trying to put forward a sober view of the situation between the combatants. I'm not promoting Putin's war aims, far from it. But wishing for the moon and looking at reality from afar through rose tinted specs solves nothing. At some point there will have to be a settlement. It's just that by then many more innocents will have died.

Do you seriously believe that expelling the invader from all of Ukrainian territory pre 2014 is a realistic aim?

[The Phantom]

29 minutes ago, woolley said:

We should be a little suspicious of optimistic Western propaganda asserting that Russia is going to run out of ammunition or equipment imminently. We've been hearing this for a year. We're now told that the Western tanks will make all the difference and that the Russians on the front are in mutiny as a result. Are there even any Western tanks there yet, and if so, in what numbers?

 

Agreed.  We need to be aware that propaganda is going on from both sides. It is a remarkable war however due to the fact that you can get info from the frontlines almost realtime and not through the usual (historical) media outlets.  You can now chose your sources, not be reliant upon what you are being fed.  Don't trust; verify.

Much fanfare today about the deliveries of western tanks.  You can however be assured that due to Opsec, this probably actually happened at least a few days ago.  So they are just getting there now.  Previously I don't believe there have been any western tanks.  Lots of Armoured Personnel Carriers, Humvees and Artillery have been in theatre for quite a while now.  Unfortunately I saw a video of at least two American supplied M113s being blown up in a Ukrainian counter-attack a few days ago. 

 

[woolley]

2 minutes ago, The Phantom said:

Agreed.  We need to be aware that propaganda is going on from both sides. It is a remarkable war however due to the fact that you can get info from the frontlines almost realtime and not through the usual (historical) media outlets.  You can now chose your sources, not be reliant upon what you are being fed.  Don't trust; verify.

Much fanfare today about the deliveries of western tanks.  You can however be assured that due to Opsec, this probably actually happened at least a few days ago.  So they are just getting there now.  Previously I don't believe there have been any western tanks.  Lots of Armoured Personnel Carriers, Humvees and Artillery have been in theatre for quite a while now.  Unfortunately I saw a video of at least two American supplied M113s being blown up in a Ukrainian counter-attack a few days ago. 

 

Well you appear to have studied this in depth. How do you see the prospects over the coming months and years?

[The Phantom]

Just now, woolley said:

Well you appear to have studied this in depth. How do you see the prospects over the coming months and years?

It's war.  Nothing is certain.  However, assuming western support continues at a similar level, I believe there is a better than even chance for Ukraine to take back the majority of what has been taken.  At least to 2014 levels in the Donbas, they'll probably have to relinquish some land there that is near the Russian border to act as a buffer. 

More than likely they'll take back most of the South and most of the East this year.  If they get the South, even just split it then they will be able to cut-off Crimea and eventually it will fall but probably next year.  I also think the Russian Federation will break up; I'm looking forward to a decent into chaos there when all the freed prisoners (who've survived) return with an even greater absence of morals and hardcore PTSD from being used as cannon fodder.  

Even if Russia 'wins' and holds onto what it has now, it will not be able to hold it long-term.  It will descend into serious partisan and guerilla warfare.  The Ukrainians are now too well trained, hardened and supplied.  

Putin has finished Russia as we know it for at least the next 20 years. 

[woolley]

16 minutes ago, The Phantom said:

It's war.  Nothing is certain.  However, assuming western support continues at a similar level, I believe there is a better than even chance for Ukraine to take back the majority of what has been taken.  At least to 2014 levels in the Donbas, they'll probably have to relinquish some land there that is near the Russian border to act as a buffer. 

More than likely they'll take back most of the South and most of the East this year.  If they get the South, even just split it then they will be able to cut-off Crimea and eventually it will fall but probably next year.  I also think the Russian Federation will break up; I'm looking forward to a decent into chaos there when all the freed prisoners (who've survived) return with an even greater absence of morals and hardcore PTSD from being used as cannon fodder.  

Even if Russia 'wins' and holds onto what it has now, it will not be able to hold it long-term.  It will descend into serious partisan and guerilla warfare.  The Ukrainians are now too well trained, hardened and supplied.  

Putin has finished Russia as we know it for at least the next 20 years. 

Interesting. "Assuming Western support at similar levels" is quite a big leap. The Baltics and Poland are staunch because they know the cut of the Russian jib and have fears of their own. There's a lot of stress and fatigue bubbling under elsewhere in Europe though, and there's the coming US presidential election which could yet be a wildcard.

But supposing the support does hold up, I hope you are right about the prospects of Ukraine retaking territory this year, but I think it's optimistic in the extreme to talk of 2014 lines in the Donbas. Lots of Russian sympathisers there who had genuine longstanding grievances with Kyiv - although maybe some have had their views modified by events. We hear much about Russian casualties, but the Ukrainian forces have taken massive losses too, and they don't have a population to match Russia's. I agree that there could never be a total victory for Russia because even with a Belarus style puppet government the underground resistance would be highly motivated and a force to be reckoned with. There would never be peace.

I would be amazed if Crimea went back to Ukraine to be honest. It was historically Russian until 1954 when the USSR under Khrushchev transferred it to the Ukraine SSR in an act of gerrymandering to increase the size of the ethnic Russian population in the country.  Its loss would be the ultimate humiliation, and I think Putin would gamble on escalation if it looked at all likely. (Interesting read on the subject: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/why-did-russia-give-away-crimea-sixty-years-ago  )

In the long run, the biggest problem for Ukraine is that it is always going to have a huge border right up against the bear, it isn't in NATO and it isn't going to be. Whatever ceasefire is arranged is always going to be fragile. To take this a step further, the scenario of a break up of the Russian Federation looks like a convenient scenario for an endgame to this war because there's nothing else that looks like a palatable solution on the horizon. If Putin falls, or indeed the Federation breaks up, what replaces him and it? Is it a better situation, or is it a worse one?

 

 

[P.K.]

8 minutes ago, woolley said:

But supposing the support does hold up, I hope you are right about the prospects of Ukraine retaking territory this year, but I think it's optimistic in the extreme to talk of 2014 lines in the Donbas. Lots of Russian sympathisers there who had genuine longstanding grievances with Kyiv - although maybe some have had their views modified by events. We hear much about Russian casualties, but the Ukrainian forces have taken massive losses too, and they don't have a population to match Russia's. I agree that there could never be a total victory for Russia because even with a Belarus style puppet government the underground resistance would be highly motivated and a force to be reckoned with. There would never be peace.

The Ukrainian casualties are nothing like the size of the Russians.

For years military doctrine dictated that if you are going to go on the offensive, at any level, then you need to match the enemy with at least three and probably four times their weight of men and firepower to take the objective. This reflects the casualty rate and the Russians are really suffering due to low morale, characteristically slow Command and Control coupled with a growing lack of smart munitions.

When the Ukrainians went on the offensive they did extremely well probably due to real time first rate intelligence which meant proper planning and control and high motivation. All key factors. Of course, the exceptionally long border counts against both sides when trying to figure out where the next blow will fall. This is where the Russian obsession with Bakhmut counts against them.

A Ukrainian offensive is clearly on the way.  I hope they have the same luck as last time...