enigma74 posted:

Pretty sure he was just using the standard abbreviation for [O]bvious [R]ussian [C]onman. No relation to any tolkienesque creatures.

Huggybear posted:

Yes, I accept those realities. They are harsh. The possibility of the West to prove fickle if gains are not maintained seems unfounded, so I would appreciate elaboration on that.

However, it seems evident Russia does not have the capacity to mount more of an ongoing attack or to commit further to any offensive than the Bakhmut insanity we have seen. I don't think it is politically untenable for Ukraine to tell the west that they will commit to a serious counter-offensive if the west can try to help gain air superiority and build a bigger, better army and armored fighting force, as long as the West maintains sanctions. I don't see how this affects the western nations supplying tools and enforcing sanctions. Everyone hates Russia and this can do nothing but help the current dictatorship topple.

In WWII the Allies knew about the camps and the vicious and genocidal Nazi occupation for years, and built and practiced an effective amphibious landing and invasion force with air and naval support for most of that time. This just seems to be a historical precedent as a key to victory.

Not trying to be alarmist, I hope I am wrong and they break through using the tools and strategies they have now.

Saladman posted:

^^^^ Oh, yeah good point. I guess not quite the example I was going for, although they still never bombed the US or any of its Pacific bases and successfully made the US and France pull out.

Enjoy posted:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...ake-sullivan-5/

"We have provided Ukraine with a historic amount of unitary artillery rounds, and we are ramping up domestic production of these rounds. We’ve already seen substantial increases in production, but this process will continue to take time, and it will be critical to provide Ukraine with a bridge of supplies while our domestic production is ramped up. We will not leave Ukraine defenseless at any point in this conflict, period."

Enjoy posted:

You think that, in between the paragraphs where Jake Sullivan talks about cluster munitions being sent to Ukraine, he started talking about a completely unrelated topic?

What do you think he was calling "a bridge of supplies"?

Chalks posted:

It has been reported as a stop gap while the US gets its artillery production online, but I'm not sure that this will be the case when the time comes.

Adequate production for Ukraine's needs is subjective and Ukraine's operations will expand to utilize the resources available. If the weapons are withdrawn there with be a cliff edge in their capacity, and with the taboo broken, where will the pressure to do this come from?

Chalks posted:

From the NYT

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/us/politics/biden-ukraine-cluster-bombs.html

Chalks posted:

Sorry, maybe we're talking at cross purposes. The original statement was

Reports state that there is a shortage of shells that the US is willing to supply to Ukraine compared to the rate at which Ukraine requires shells. The reported reason cluster munitions are being sent is in order to temporarily cover that shortfall, not specifically because they are appropriate for the situation.

Despite this, they are appropriate for the situation, that's just not the primary reason the US claims they are being sent. This is one of the reasons why I think that supply won't simply cease as the US supplies ramp up. They will be an extremely effective tool, and there would need to be a compelling reason to withdraw it at some point and set back Ukraine's capabilities.

Vox Nihili posted:

A lot of the corruption/shortage/incapacity line feels pretty handwavey in light of how much Russia has actually been manufacturing since 2014. For example, Russia produced something like 3.5 million standard 152 mm artillery shells between 2014 and 2021, and they have ramped up production significantly such that they are now allegedly pumping out over 2 million total shells a year; that's per British estimates. Those shells go on trains that take them straight from the factory to the front line, and they don't have to worry about fitting them into 30 different tubes when they arrive. Meanwhile, the EU and US are talking a lot about how their ramped up production will be online in 2025.

Source article:

https://archive.is/YgOdn

It seems to me that when you look at the hard numbers (such as are actually available), the EU MIC is ephemeral compared to even the shadow of USSR production that remains within the modern borders of Russia, and it consists of a gigantic hodgepodge of incompatible systems. Russia has also mobilized itself in a way that Europe has been very slow to even begin to match.

Herstory Begins Now posted:

I'm not accusing you of cheering for Russia, I'm pointing out that your listed reasons are entirely american and russian-centric

saratoga posted:

With respect to the original invasion (which is what was quoted), the main reason it failed is that it was poorly planned, had impossible objectives, and conducted over multiple axes of advance with woefully insufficient forces. You could also add specific enemy actions, but those are really secondary in that they determine the details of how an already doomed plan came apart.

saratoga posted:

The plan was to end up in Moldova, so I'm not sure about that. They'd have gotten a lot further, but that is a lot of ground to cover with not a lot of people.

Sure, but this was a list of reasons the invasion failed, not a list of people who deserve respect. It failed because the plan was insane. If they'd fought less hard, maybe Kharkov falls and the war looks a lot different, but they're still not getting to Moldova.

Starsfan posted:

I'm going by reports in western media that indicate that Ukraine and their western advisors have recognized that Ukraine's approach to the counter offensive was not working and they subsequently changed up to a different approach that they hope will be able to salvage some sort of results out of the whole thing down the line.

Like i don't think it's controversial to suggest that what happened in June was not very good for Ukraine.

Starsfan posted:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/15/us/politics/ukraine-leopards-bradleys-counteroffensive.html

https://kyivindependent.com/isw-28/

and there have been others as well.

I mean to clarify, re-evaluating your tactics and trying to change things up when things aren't working out for you is actually a good thing and a sign of competency. And just because Ukraine is getting the "worst of it" on the ground doesn't necessarily mean that they can't achieve their overall objective. Alot of people in this thread have compared this offensive to the Kherson one from last year and I think one of the interesting elements of comparison between the two (that hasn't really been acknowledged) was that in Kherson the Ukrainians were taking horrendous losses to the point that it was even starting to leak out into the western media.. they couldn't really be said to be getting the better of the fighting at any point up until the Russians withdrew across the river. I think the Ukrainians are likely fully cognizant of this fact as being something that is an inherent part of going on the offensive against a well prepared and heavily armed opponent, it just is what it is.

Starsfan posted:

I use hope because whether they meet their goals or not is something that is prospective and in the future and can't be determined one way or the other right now.

My recollection of the end of the Kherson offensive was that Russia did indeed decide to withdraw their forces while Ukraine was preparing another large scale attack. Russia claimed that it was because Ukraine was threatening to blow up the dam which would have isolated their best units in the Russian army (which were the ones fighting in Kherson) on the other side of the Dnieper river. They apparently did this without alerting the Ukrainians who seemed to proceed cautiously expecting a trap and eventually found an evacuated city.

Cpt_Obvious posted:

I think the west is just out of things to sanction. They have almost entirely cut trade with russia. Their biggest weapon was financial sanctions, but cutting off Russian access to SWIFT hasn't really done much to the ruble. There was an initial shock but it stabilized and now the ruble is trading better than it was before the war.

Western manufacturing has declined significantly since the end of the cold war. In order to really hurt Russia with sanctions you'd have to get China to participate because of their massive manufacturing isn't going to happen while simultaneously rattling sabers over Taiwan.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

It's not a mistake. Isn't no labels funded by right wing billionaires? They know what they're doing. It's just vote splitting under a different flag.

GABA ghoul posted:

The US shouldn't be relied on at all at this point. They might be out of NATO as soon the next election + 1 year.

Considering how fast Russia took Mariupol, they might already be dug in around occupied Riga when the French, British and Germans finally mobilize and get their asses over there. And I'm not putting my money on the Bundeswehr grinding themselves down on heavy Russian fortifications to liberate Riga, like Ukraine is doing right now in Bakhmut. There is absolutely no way we could put up a fight like Ukraine. I don't know if our ragtag cat herd of 20 different hollowed out armies are capable of sophisticated offensive operations, even if we had the equipment for it.

Enjoy posted:

I was asked "whose narrative" it was, as if this is defeatist propaganda circulated by Russia. When in fact it's the view of some troops on the ground.

Enjoy posted:

I used the article to show it's not a nefarious narrative from Russia. The reason I think the offensive has failed is that it hasn't taken any significant ground.

Enjoy posted:

Kavros suggested it.

If they meant something else, I hope they chime in and correct my misunderstanding

Enjoy posted:

I understand why it angers people: I think a lot of liberals subscribe to magical thinking where acknowledging that a thing is happening makes it happen.

Enjoy posted:

My source is 1. the lack of movement on maps by the ISW etc and 2. some Ukrainian soldiers say the defences are too strong for a breakthrough

We can disagree on the strength of the evidence but people are pretending this is just trolling when it isn't.

Enjoy's own post" posted:

As the casualties from Ukraine's counter-offensive mount, it is easy to see why - on a rare visit to this closely guarded section of the southern front - some soldiers and observers are starting to wonder if a breakthrough is possible, or whether Russia's defensive lines, built up and heavily-reinforced over the winter months, are simply too much of a barrier."

Paladinus posted:

The truth is, we don't really know how well Ukraine is doing. OSINT data indicates that losses in military vehicles in the past month are favourable to Ukraine, but we also know that minefields have proved to be a huge obstacle and have slowed the counteroffensive, pressuring Ukraine into adopting a different approach. The rest I don't even think is possible to assess properly. Anecdotes from regular soldiers about how dire things are at the frontline on both sides are not an indicator of much, since it's been a constant almost from the very start of the full-scale invasion.

steinrokkan posted:

Is there actually any reason to assume Russian milbloggers know wtf they are talking about, other than that their talking points happen to align with our preferences? History is full of grunts on the ground spewing the most ignorant, misleading hogwash imaginable.

steinrokkan posted:

Actual first hand accounts are fine. Stretching their weight beyond the point of credibility and extrapolating from these anecdotes and "trust me, bro, I've seen some poo poo" platitudes to systemic assessments without proper and qualified analysis is not. That's how you get persistent pseudo-historical myths.

steinrokkan posted:

Bring pro-Rusdian doesn't mean having a correct picture of the state of the Russian war machine on a strategic level or seeing past their sector of the front. Every army is full of doomers even if they end up winning in the end.

I wouldn't trust a low ranking us army grunt or an embedded reporter to give me an accurate analysis of the complex outlook of the war in Afghanistan either, I don't see a reason to put greater trust in Russians.

Starsfan posted:

Starsfan posted:

^^I'm not recommending him for his political commentary, only that his work in reviewing what Oryx does has been recommended by others as a critique of their methodology and presumably that work can be reviewed and considered on the face of the evidence provided.

lol I don't follow his account, like I said he is referenced by other people when this question comes up. I wasn't aware that he is apparently a pedo?

Starsfan posted:

I don't have time to review the photographic evidence of thousands of images on Oryx, cross reference them to eachother and against other sources and make conclusions on the accuracy of the estimated losses.

Starsfan posted:

oh I thought you meant with respect to Oryx

Starsfan posted:

This is basically what I was trying to convey earlier as to my view of how observers of this war should digest information. What is being claimed as part of a consistent trend is significant enough that it should produce a result which is impossible to deny for even the worst pro Russian tankie.

Starsfan posted:

In and around the end of June and the first week of July there were various reports of Ukrainian breakthroughs in the area of Klischiivka. Before the Chechens were confirmed to be transferring to the area to reinforce the Russians there. Russian sources at the time did acknowledge the presence of Ukrainian soldiers inside the urban area of Klischiivka and that control of the city was contested at one point but subsequent Russian counter attacks had regained control of the heights around Klischiivka which has now led into this most recent push by Ukraine.

https://bnn.network/conflict-defenc...ian-aggression/

This was what I was recalling, but I will acknowledge that it's difficult to ascertain what these sources are talking about when it comes to the actual geographic location where the fighting is purportedly taking place.

Enjoy posted:

Someone should tell him that you can't just look at a map to tell how a counter-offensive is going

the holy poopacy posted:

The Russians already know there's an attack going down but that doesn't mean broadcasting "HEY GUYS THIS IS IT THIS IS THE MAIN ONE" is a good idea, mindgames notwithstanding.

Staluigi posted:

My god. 40,000 russians ... dead

ummel posted:

They're still getting enough chips smuggled in through Chinese companies and even USA companies. The world doesn't want to impose the kind of sanctions that would be needed to stop it. They'll keep cranking out a significant number of missiles to continue these same random acts of civilian death.

TheDeadlyShoe posted:

2 months is just a long time for an offensive, particularly an armored offensive. To put it in perspective, Russia invaded on Feb 24th and essentially declared its assault in Kyiv a failure by the end of March.

Nenonen posted:

It is a long time for an all out offensive across multiple fronts over lots of territory, though. But the current operation has been sluggish systematic clearing of obstacles and causing pain to Russian troops in the way in a few locations. Little advance means logistics has had no trouble keeping up. Limited frontages means that few units have been committed at a time.

Vox Nihili posted:

Targeting and destroying Russian logistics hubs, command centers, artillery, etc. is all well and good but that's not an offensive push, it's attrition warfare. It isn't yet clear if continuing with that strategy of attrition will actually result in retaking strategically significant positions.

Vox Nihili posted:

If you ignore everything else I said and pretend I only posted that one line then your reply might make some sense.

The core intent of the offensive is to advance on the Southern axis. Blowing up Russian equipment in the vicinity is subordinate to that effort. It's something you need to do to succeed, but it's not how you define success. You would also hit strategic targets on axes you are defending or otherwise not attempting to advance on.