(Thread IKs:
fatherboxx)
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The point others raise about civic responsibility and the social contract is an interesting one, especially when you compare and contrast the Russian and Ukrainian experiences in terms of mobilization and popular support for the war. In response to the invasion, Ukraine experienced a surge in volunteers - far more than they had the capacity to train, with images of hundreds of men queuing outside recruitment centres. Why is this? There's of course the obvious factors like this being a defensive war against a historical oppressor that has clear genocidal intent. But there are indications that many Ukrainians feel like they have a greater stake in society - certainly since Maidan. They see that some progress has been made already, and there is a real chance of an actual better future: of democracy, economic growth and social progress. But there is zero chance of that under Russian domination - just a return to the worst of the bad old days, at best. So they have reason to fight. Russia on the other hand has consistently struggled with manpower shortages, relying upon economic incentives a lot of the time (contract soldiers, bonus payments, fish blocks, looted toilets, etc), the use of mercenary forces and coercion (mobilization, use of prison troops, etc). It clearly has motivation and morale problems, and popular support does not seem to be overly high. Why is this? Well, obviously its an offensive imperial war, so there is naturally lower motivation - people aren't fighting for their homes and families. But the Russian social contract also likely plays a role. Some like Anders Aslund frame it as almost a form of feudalism, with oligarchs controlling key economic assets and sectors, with limited opportunities for regular Russians outside the patronage networks. Others like Vlad Vexler frame it as the bulk of Russian society 'outsourcing' politics to the Kremlin - implicitly agreeing not to involve themselves in politics, so long as the state delivers a degree of stability and lets them get on with their day to day lives mostly untouched. Sure, they find it nice to read about Russian foreign policy wins and successes, but don't really care that much as it doesn't directly affect them. Basically, there are indications that many Russians feel they have very little stake in society, or hope for a better future, so why should they bother fighting and dying for their country? EDIT: In view of Rigel's post, I cut out the bits not relevant to Ukraine/Russia Tigey fucked around with this message at 01:33 on May 24, 2023 |
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May 24, 2023 01:31
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Its cool, you were probably working on that long post while I posted
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May 24, 2023 01:35
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Kraftwerk posted:The Soviet mindset refers to among other things a culture of covering your rear end to the detriment of your strategic success. Many of the Russian failures can be attributed to holdovers from the Soviet Union where nobody wants to be the bearer of bad news and it encourages lies instead of truth when it comes to situational awareness for top battlefield commanders. This is a Good Post™ and matches commentary from various analysts and anecdotes from various (generally younger) Ukrainian soldiers.
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May 24, 2023 02:14
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:- also relatedly, the 'garbage in, garbage out' problem that some have noted, where incentives lead to lies or exaggerations that results in doubling down when they really, really shouldn't. (The rules say to exploit reported breakthroughs, but if someone hmmm slightly exaggerates whether theyve made a breakthrough then you end up throwing your reinforcements into a wood chipper.) Perun has a banger of a video on exactly this topic, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz59GWeTIik
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May 24, 2023 02:34
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Ynglaur posted:This is a Good Post™ and matches commentary from various analysts and anecdotes from various (generally younger) Ukrainian soldiers. Thank you, that's high praise considering I'm a rank amateur and you actually have operational experience in these matters. For content I thought I'd include an addendum to the quoted post: As another poster so astutely presented, there are good reasons why the Soviet military is like this - with the whole breakdown in communication and so on with WW2 era radios so you compensate by giving everyone strict orders to follow regardless of battlefield situation. But it's important to note they doubled down on this during the cold war because they evolved their deep operations doctrine to match the technology of the era. I might be wrong on this one Ynglaur so you can correct me, but Soviet military planners viewed nuclear weapons as another form of artillery that allows them to further implement their doctrine. Rather than saturate a grid with shells for a breakthrough they'd fire some tactical nukes at the area then try to plant a motor rifle division onto Bonn and beyond. Given their employment of nuclear weapons in such a scenario all those BMPs and T-62s etc needed NBC protection to be able to fight in post nuclear hellscapes where its presumed any form of modern infrastructure, communications and order would completely break down. It's important to understand in this context that you would then mass a combined mechanized division armed to the teeth and have it go like a runaway freight train. Nobody stops. If someone dies, the next guy picks up what he has and keeps going. The tanks keep going. The BMPs keep going. They blow up anything they run into and they don't stop to take a break, they keep moving until they hit the waypoint on their maps. Thus these rigid heavily micromanaged operations serve as a sort of dead man's switch to allow commanders to vertically coordinate their strategic aims down to the tactical level and to relentlessly pursue them in the absence of command and control. Push logistics handles the rest. When the soviet union was at its zenith I would say that their firepower and military readiness would have made them quite formidable as a superpower. But now with all the corruption, decay and other issues the Soviet era doctrine is misplaced for the kind of army Russia has today. So now you can see how this played out in the first few days of the war. Russia blasted a hole in Ukraine's defenses. Columns of tanks and mechanized units poured through the borders simultaneously and they kept going. Kiyiv is the goal. They did not stop, they kept pushing until they hit organized resistance. When that resistance started blasting them to bits and hitting their flanks with guerilla style hit and run attacks and artillery they still stuck to their original package of battle plans and kept moving. If the resistance was too stiff, they stopped. This is where you saw that massive convoy. There was no room for anything else. Meanwhile Ukraine decided they would disperse all their military assets so the places Russia hit trying to achieve break through had nothing to destroy. In this sense rather than having an unstoppable force hit an immovable object- UKR forces became like water, spreading out and surrounding the tip of the spear, harassing the supporting shaft until it all ran out of energy and unwound. I am sure that Russia has adapted heavily since the war started but they're still attempting to execute deep operations strategies with half the equipment, training and infrastructure necessary for it to work properly. The same playbook repeats in other battles. Sieverodonetsk, Lysychansk, Bakhmut. Keep blasting the enemy where they are and hope for a breakthrough with a relentless "cavalry charge" of armored vehicles. This tactic also fails spectacularly in Avdiivka where you saw tanks driving straight through minefields and prepared positions being obliterated one after the other. The Russian commanders have a method to this madness. This tactic would have completely overwhelmed other armies in other time periods. But Russia did not have the assets or combined arms capabilities to exploit the short lived advantages their firepower is supposed to give such spear thrusts. Were I them, after this war is over I'd focus on really re-evaluating how Russia fights wars and come up with a new doctrine. Russia doesn't have the population, industry and weapons to fight like that anymore. But of course given the corruption and fear in their military I doubt this will happen in any way that will meaningfully threaten anyone else. Kraftwerk fucked around with this message at 04:31 on May 24, 2023 |
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May 24, 2023 04:16
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Genuine question for those in the thread who are currently against a ceasefire or peace while Russia has illegally occupied/annexed Ukrainian territory - what do you think Ukraine should do if the counteroffensive fails to achieve a significant result? Is there any price in casualties and infrastructure that you would consider too steep for Ukraine to pay?
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May 24, 2023 06:14
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tatankatonk posted:Genuine question for those in the thread who are currently against a ceasefire or peace while Russia has illegally occupied/annexed Ukrainian territory - what do you think Ukraine should do if the counteroffensive fails to achieve a significant result? Is there any price in casualties and infrastructure that you would consider too steep for Ukraine to pay? I think that choice is up to Ukraine to make. If they decide to negotiate for peace, that's fine, if they want to keep fighting I support that too, and hope my government is equally willing to support them if that's the choice they make. I'm not going to sit here safe in front of my computer on the opposite side of the planet and claim I know better than them.
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May 24, 2023 06:23
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tatankatonk posted:Genuine question for those in the thread who are currently against a ceasefire or peace while Russia has illegally occupied/annexed Ukrainian territory - what do you think Ukraine should do if the counteroffensive fails to achieve a significant result? Is there any price in casualties and infrastructure that you would consider too steep for Ukraine to pay? No, because Ukraine decides when Ukraine stops fighting and not any of us. Ukraine's current stated goals are the restoration of its territory before any negotiations can occur, and they haven't wavered from that. Unless you are Ukrainian, whatever opinions you might have about price in casualties or infrastructure being worth it or not for the continued survival of the Ukrainian people and state is irrelevant. On an unrelated note, have some truly awful Harry Potter fanfiction written by Igor Girkin: https://vk.com/@iistrelkov-progulki-po-hogvartsu-s-ritoi-skiter
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May 24, 2023 06:23
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tatankatonk posted:Genuine question for those in the thread who are currently against a ceasefire or peace while Russia has illegally occupied/annexed Ukrainian territory - what do you think Ukraine should do if the counteroffensive fails to achieve a significant result? Is there any price in casualties and infrastructure that you would consider too steep for Ukraine to pay? Personally my answer would be "whatever the Ukrainian polity wants." If they want to keep fighting the invasion we should support them in that, if they want to seek a ceasefire we should support them in that
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May 24, 2023 06:25
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I think an issue the Ukrainians probably have is that Putin seems to have a Trump-like approach to international relations, in that contracts are just a way of scamming idiot normies where you only follow the terms while they are advantageous to you, and trash them as soon as they aren't.
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May 24, 2023 06:37
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tatankatonk posted:Is there any price in casualties and infrastructure that you would consider too steep for Ukraine to pay? The more relevant question is what price in casualties and infrastructure that Ukraine considers too steep to pay. I'm not really in a position to speak for Ukraine's people or leadership but so far the answer seems to be "not yet." The calculus is complicated by the fact that there's no guarantee that a ceasefire will lead to the end of casualties and infrastructure losses (especially considering the annexed portions of Ukraine, should Ukraine continue to feel responsible for any peacetime casualties in the ceded territories due to oppression & neglect, as observed in the DNR/LNR.) Note also that Ukraine was negotiating for peace very earnestly from the start and was willing to put substantial concessions on the table, but Russia decided that Ukraine had nothing to offer and wouldn't take anything less than capitulation. Reportedly this came right from the top, Russia's negotiators talked about coming close to an agreement that would have mostly restored the prewar status quo but that got quashed. Zelensky did not adopt a maximalist stance on Ukraine's borders until after peace talks broke down, which suggests that's more about maneuvering into a bargaining position than it is an actual demand.
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May 24, 2023 06:46
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tatankatonk posted:Genuine question for those in the thread who are currently against a ceasefire or peace while Russia has illegally occupied/annexed Ukrainian territory - what do you think Ukraine should do if the counteroffensive fails to achieve a significant result? Is there any price in casualties and infrastructure that you would consider too steep for Ukraine to pay?
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May 24, 2023 07:07
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What does a failed Ukrainian counter offensive look like? Their forces cut off and destroyed? Not achieving their stated or unstated objectives? Outside of the most extreme cases in which a large percentage of Ukrainian forces or made combat ineffective, there will not be serious discussions of a ceasefire on their part. The risk of that happening though, is why I do not expect any sort of large scale or massed maneuvers by the Ukrainians any time soon. Instead we will see small elements try and make local gains or cut off local Russian forces, and maybe if they see something that would lead them to take that risk they will go for it. The Russians still have an air force and a lot of artillery, and I assume they still have mechanized/armored forces in reserve for such an occasion.
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May 24, 2023 07:22
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Cicero posted:Up to Ukraine to decide -- but from what I see, the main problem is that a ceasefire or peace is likely just going to be a lengthy pause while Russia builds up for another attack, like how the invasions in 2014 stabilized around certain territory and then Russia just invaded again 8 years later. This. Arguing for a limit on casualties and infrastructure damage without having any skin in the game would be really tacky. To proclaim you know better and that all the sacrifice so far isn't worth anything is disgusting, leave that to the people doing the fighting. I would also imagine there's no real path to peace that also leaves Ukraine a path to stability today. Basically Ukraine would be surrendering because I see no way Russia accepts a peace deal where Ukraine isn't required to remain "neutral" aka remain under Russian influence. As long as either side isn't exhausted, there's no real end to this. The success or failure of the counteroffensive is largely irrelevant except to bring one side closer to exhaustion.
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May 24, 2023 07:27
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tatankatonk posted:Genuine question for those in the thread who are currently against a ceasefire or peace while Russia has illegally occupied/annexed Ukrainian territory - what do you think Ukraine should do if the counteroffensive fails to achieve a significant result? Is there any price in casualties and infrastructure that you would consider too steep for Ukraine to pay? Listening to Ukraine is key, of course. It's their land and their culture being erased, it would be ridiculous for me to sit in safety and dictate their conditions so that Germany can have some more gas. Still, it's not like the day Russia gets all the land and NATO nonsense its little heart desires means no more deaths and suffering. Russia would have to start integrating hostile territories, which undoubtedly would mean more death and suffering. Is it better for 10000 Ukrainians to be tortured to death in school basements than for 10000 Ukrainians to die in a counteroffensive? It's not an obvious calculus to me, and it's one Ukrainians are keenly aware of, in my experience.
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May 24, 2023 07:35
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Cicero posted:Up to Ukraine to decide -- but from what I see, the main problem is that a ceasefire or peace is likely just going to be a lengthy pause while Russia builds up for another attack, like how the invasions in 2014 stabilized around certain territory and then Russia just invaded again 8 years later.
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May 24, 2023 07:44
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Irony Be My Shield posted:Ukraine should receive binding security guarantees from Western countries for this reason. How would those protect in an LNR/DNR scenario where Russia supports ostensibly local insurgents? My only solution would be making sure Ukraine has a plausible defense on its own, basically what Zelensky talked about when he said Ukraine has to turn into another Israel.
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May 24, 2023 07:48
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Nobody needs to be another Israel, and everybody knows what L and DNR were and are. I don’t see the problem. Forgive my bias as a Jew who very much dislikes being associated with genocideland, but Ukraine as Israel sounds like the vatnik’s wet dream. Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 07:52 on May 24, 2023 |
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May 24, 2023 07:49
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Nobody needs to be another Israel, and everybody knows what L and DNR were and are. I don’t see the problem. It could mean potentially continuous instability until Russia decides to come to its senses. NATO can't provide intelligence services or be in a constant state of article 5, and it doesn't cost much for Russia to send its yearly harvest of Girkin wannabes. I doubt NATO/whatever security guarantor would be happy to conduct a full invasion of Russia next time it decides that Odessa really wants to be part of Russia, with plausible deniability. I don't mean Israel in the sense of invading the Gaza Strip every five years, but it has the ability to defend itself against most scenarios without fully depending on how the US feels at that particular moment. edit: Finland might be a better example, actually. poor waif fucked around with this message at 08:07 on May 24, 2023 |
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May 24, 2023 07:57
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tatankatonk posted:Genuine question for those in the thread who are currently against a ceasefire or peace while Russia has illegally occupied/annexed Ukrainian territory - what do you think Ukraine should do if the counteroffensive fails to achieve a significant result? Is there any price in casualties and infrastructure that you would consider too steep for Ukraine to pay? https://twitter.com/maxseddon/statu...umber%3D318pti4
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May 24, 2023 08:02
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Yeah, the fact as I see it is that the question doesn't matter, actually.
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May 24, 2023 08:08
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When the Russians pushed the incursion team out of Russia there were a bunch of pictures of abandoned vehicles they left behind. The soldiers that performed the attack immediately denied any losses which seemed like a stupid lie given all the evidence. However... https://twitter.com/FluteMagician/status/1661162964261404673 Actually amazing the Russians were able to do that in such short notice? Can't do anything else but they're world class grifters. *edit* seems this is disputed. I'm more inclined to believe these are real losses just because analysis of multiple images and geolocations is far more likely to be accurate than the above that is based on a single photo https://twitter.com/ArchieIrving2/status/1661339193325555718 Chalks fucked around with this message at 15:39 on May 24, 2023 |
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May 24, 2023 08:19
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tatankatonk posted:Genuine question for those in the thread who are currently against a ceasefire or peace while Russia has illegally occupied/annexed Ukrainian territory - what do you think Ukraine should do if the counteroffensive fails to achieve a significant result? Is there any price in casualties and infrastructure that you would consider too steep for Ukraine to pay? I'm not sure there are anyone in this thread that are opposed to a cease fire if the Ukrainian government and people want it. I'm however opposed to imposing a cease fire on Ukraine whether by stopping support or by coercion.
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May 24, 2023 08:36
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tatankatonk posted:Genuine question for those in the thread who are currently against a ceasefire or peace while Russia has illegally occupied/annexed Ukrainian territory - what do you think Ukraine should do if the counteroffensive fails to achieve a significant result? Is there any price in casualties and infrastructure that you would consider too steep for Ukraine to pay? Genuine question here, how do you negotiate a ceasefire or peace with Russia in its current state? They've repeatedly said they're not interested in it and have repeatedly broken agreements.
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May 24, 2023 08:45
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I don't see Ukrainians settling for less than having iron clad protection against getting raped and murdered in a genocide. Russia's intent is very clear from both words and actions. Russia also doesn't follow agreements, breaking them as soon as it's convenient. So the only settlement that is possible is one enforced by military means.Storkrasch posted:How would those protect in an LNR/DNR scenario where Russia supports ostensibly local insurgents? The only reason it worked then was because the Ukrainian military was in shambles. It was a serious wake up call that led to extensive reforms of the Ukrainian military so it wouldn't happen again.
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May 24, 2023 08:54
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Atreiden posted:Genuine question here, how do you negotiate a ceasefire or peace with Russia in its current state? They've repeatedly said they're not interested in it and have repeatedly broken agreements. With the Minsk agreements as a backdrop, a ceasefire seems to be pretty meaningless. "it's not Russia bombing Kherson, it's the entirely independent country of DNR and/or Ukraine doing it to themselves" and so on. A ceasefire requires some level of trust, or some enforcement mechanism. Maybe if the UN got involved somehow?
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May 24, 2023 08:56
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Antigravitas posted:The only reason it worked then was because the Ukrainian military was in shambles. It was a serious wake up call that led to extensive reforms of the Ukrainian military so it wouldn't happen again. Right, but Russia can do a lot to screw with Ukraine without fully invading. Before 2014 they were regularly poisoning politicians, messing with the gas supply, funding various political movements, threatening military action, assassinations. Now, I'd suspect the gloves are off even more than then. None of those things would be covered by a security treaty with e.g. NATO. An Odessa People's Republic doesn't need to be successful, it just needs to disrupt society as long as they don't do whatever Russia wants.
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May 24, 2023 09:05
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Atreiden posted:Genuine question here, how do you negotiate a ceasefire or peace with Russia in its current state? They've repeatedly said they're not interested in it and have repeatedly broken agreements. Soviet Union wasn't interested in negotiating with the Mujahedeen either, until eventually the quagmire had proven so unsolvable that they had to face the truth. (Then during the withdrawal when some Soviet columns were attacked by the Muj, Soviets threatened that if they don't abide to the agreement then Russians will turn back. The Mujahedeen presumably responded with 'lol, lmao'.) Nenonen fucked around with this message at 09:09 on May 24, 2023 |
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May 24, 2023 09:06
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Back with Prigozhin TV, regretfullyquote:During the war in Ukraine, 20,000 mercenaries of the Wagner PMC have died, half of them were recruited prisoners; a total of 50,000 people were recruited from the colonies into the ranks of mercenaries. This was said by Yevgeny Prigozhin in an interview with media technologist Konstantin Dolgov. https://twitter.com/sssmirnov/status/1661281396822777859?t=LAcq5YrXMmrRzqi8jXkVxA&s=19 Somehow Mr PMC considers 1 out 5 fatality rate for recruited convicts and losing close to half of his force (35k remaining with 20k dead) in total to be OK to report Regarding UA casualties i am not going to listen to a loving 1 hour interview so unclear if he means just for Bakhmut or in total for the whole current war. If it is the latter, seems realistic, considering RU army casualties are certainly higher. fatherboxx fucked around with this message at 09:24 on May 24, 2023 |
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May 24, 2023 09:16
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That's crazy, cause I'm also looking at an old map which conclusively proves that the Americas don't exist and there are large dragons menacing the western Atlantic. I guess Putin would also see that as a big win right now
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May 24, 2023 09:53
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It's hard to learn anything when your leadership is constantly getting murdered or disappeared at the slightest hint of failure. The only avenue for personal survival is doubling down on lying about your losses or pinning them on others if that's not possible. It's like designed to kill off anyone of merit. Completely bizzare if you want a functioning country. I do not see Russia learning anything from their experience in Ukraine without a complete collapse
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May 24, 2023 10:28
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That's funny, *unrolls a Byzantine map showing Kyiv but not Moscow*
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May 24, 2023 11:36
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Said map also shows Crimea not part of Russia and St Peterburg... or more accurately the swamp in its place as part of Sweden.
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May 24, 2023 11:54
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Kraftwerk posted:I don't see how how any counter offensive is going to yield meaningful results given the time that Russia has had to fortify the gently caress out of their side of the front. There's multiple layers of defense, minefields, pre-sighted artillery, anti-tank ditches, dragons teeth and an extensive trench network rivalling that of WW1 powers. Ukraine is already kind of outgunned and outnumbered using its defensive advantage to wear down Russian troops on the attack, even if they can clear a strip or two out of the minefields and blast their way through the defenses they are going to be advancing along narrow corridors while constantly hammered with artillery. If they aren't perfectly coordinated and fast in their actions it's going to gently caress up and they'll get eaten alive. In this scenario the only way an equivalent NATO force could gain an edge is using their air assets to bomb the gently caress out of the area and provide CAS which again is impossible due to lethal layers of ground based air defence provided by Russia. the defenses aren't comparable to ww1 level fortifications e: and there were tools how to defeat trenches etc already at the end of the ww1 and the 2023 ukrainians have somewhat better tools at hand ChubbyChecker fucked around with this message at 12:28 on May 24, 2023 |
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May 24, 2023 12:26
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Russian space agency Roskosmos posted a video about their volunteer batallion Uranus https://twitter.com/ilyakharlamov/status/1661007416786554884?t=SwGDIaOC95l1Ppz8hSG2LA&s=19 They say it is 250 soldiers total so probably they just recruited from internal security department (i.e. bored guards from space industry objects). Instead of doing full wave of mobilization, Russian government ordered state corporations to do a recruitment drive and if this is the result... Welp
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May 24, 2023 12:41
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fatherboxx posted:Russian space agency Roskosmos posted a video about their volunteer batallion Uranus as long as they don't send postal workers
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May 24, 2023 12:44
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Is this kind of vehicle directly helpful on the attack or is it mainly to help prepare defensive positions and pull stuck tanks out of the mud? https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1661017391810383876
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May 24, 2023 13:16
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The latter. Engineering vehicles are a big asset and you generally do not want to risk losing them.
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May 24, 2023 13:20
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fatherboxx posted:Russian space agency Roskosmos posted a video about their volunteer batallion Uranus I read this wrong at first so I thought it was a meme post by Russian NASA showing off their “volunteer battalion to Uranus the planet”. Didn’t realize the name of the unit was called Uranus until after the video.
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May 24, 2023 13:24
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Unlike most long-range weaponry, this mobile suit specializes in close quarters, grappling combat
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May 24, 2023 13:25
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