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fatherboxx)
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Interestingly, the new Russian minister of defense was on the USAID payroll: https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2024/05/13/novii-ministr-oboroni-belousov-v2000-h-poluchal-amerikanskie-granti-a130479
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May 14, 2024 01:15
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Mr. Apollo posted:Nothing concrete yet, but there are reports that the Ukrainian commander for the Kharkiv region has been replaced. I saw it mentioned in the NYT article about the new offensive so I think it's confirmed?
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May 14, 2024 01:39
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Can someone ELI5 for me is situation in Ukraine really that bad right now? Because for my absolutely ignorant eye it looks really, really bad for Ukraine, but I might be biased by media spreading panic.
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May 14, 2024 03:12
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Szarrukin posted:Can someone ELI5 for me is situation in Ukraine really that bad right now? Because for my absolutely ignorant eye it looks really, really bad for Ukraine, but I might be biased by media spreading panic. Russia took some villages, maybe advanced a couple of km, until we see maps with significant and quick progress of Russia mechanized elements deeper into Ukraine (and even then there's caveats) none of this really means anything. Its concerning that Russia now maybe has the assets available to them to do pinning operations or feints because Ukraine maybe might not have those resources to respond in time to the real thrust or to meet both advances; as Frederick the Great said, "He who defends everything defends nothing."
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May 14, 2024 03:16
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KillHour posted:Maybe, but I don't want to have to track the alliances of every rando on Twitter to understand what they're saying.
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May 14, 2024 03:30
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DarklyDreaming posted:Stalingrad held, but it's not like anyone in it was making a positive contribution to the war effort during the siege I mean at the bare minimum the forces required to maintain the siege are unable to be moved somewhere else and actually do other poo poo.
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May 14, 2024 04:50
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Szarrukin posted:Can someone ELI5 for me is situation in Ukraine really that bad right now? Because for my absolutely ignorant eye it looks really, really bad for Ukraine, but I might be biased by media spreading panic. It's really bad. Ukraine's abilities have been degraded, especially by aid being withheld. They've struggled to do get more manpower because of political concerns. Russia has been expanding their capability. They've gotten significantly better at using glide bombs on the front and missiles in the rear. They apparently passed 30k men per month in recruitment levels which has allowed them to develop significant reserves, which they seem to be about to commit to an offensive. Those recruitment numbers mean they will be able to eat 1,000+ daily casualties for a while. Russia has been adapting and learning a lot. They aren't the terrible military they were at the start of the war. Also of interest to me that I don't see people explicitly talking about much: Andrew Perpetua's numbers on lost artillery has swung from Russia losing vastly more to fairly even, maybe even Ukraine losing more. There could be different reasons for that that range from not really a bad sign to a terrible sign. Bashez fucked around with this message at 06:40 on May 14, 2024 |
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May 14, 2024 06:37
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Bashez posted:They apparently passed 30k men per month in recruitment levels which has allowed them to develop significant reserves, which they seem to be about to commit to an offensive. Those recruitment numbers mean they will be able to eat 1,000+ daily casualties for a while.
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May 14, 2024 06:47
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I dunno, to me this seems like a desperate "Now or never" maneuver by Russia. They were evidently spooked by the 60 bil aid package, and are trying to push through before Ukraine can properly absorb the aid. So yeah, they're going all in now before Ukraine gets more of the good stuff again and can put more bite to their resistance. Honestly, I believe it still all hinges on how the US election goes. If Trump wins, Ukraine is going to be in a real rough ride, while if Democrats win and Ukraine doesn't collapse this year then I honestly don't see how Russia could ever hope to take Ukraine. Time is really, really not on Russia's side here. Imagine if Putin, a 71 year old guy, croaks suddenly. If they narrowly avoided civil war with Prigozhin while Putin was alive, I have a hard time even imagining the potential chaos with the interregnum power struggles and the frontline. Every day that passes, every week, every month that goes by Putin is inching closer to death and no amount of horse cum will save him from that.
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May 14, 2024 07:04
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Also, Ramzan Kadyroh, Putin's ally and dictator of Chechenya, seems not to be well. If he cacks it any time soon it will mean more trouble for Putin.
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May 14, 2024 07:12
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I don't think this is Russia's last ditch effort. I believe they still have the capacity to fight this war harder and longer. And while I'm of course hoping something like regional unrest flaring or a coup attempt throws a wrench in their works, something like that is probably equally if not more likely to happen in Ukraine.
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May 14, 2024 07:20
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The Artificial Kid posted:Are they recruiting 30k per month, or are they increasing the size of their forces by 30k per month? People don’t only die and get injured, they can also finish their military service. It has been reported that they are recruiting 20-30k per month, from 2023 until now. So enough to cover losses. Bashez posted:It's really bad. The situation is not good, but their lines are not breaking and they seem to be falling back in order. At this point manpower is their most critical resource, you can lose land and save lives.
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May 14, 2024 07:22
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Keisari posted:Time is really, really not on Russia's side here. Imagine if Putin, a 71 year old guy, croaks suddenly. If they narrowly avoided civil war with Prigozhin while Putin was alive, I have a hard time even imagining the potential chaos with the interregnum power struggles and the frontline. Aside from the inherent dangers of his office, he seems to have much better health habits than a typical 70-year old. I'm not sure what that would mean.
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May 14, 2024 07:32
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Raenir Salazar posted:Russia took some villages, maybe advanced a couple of km Take a look where the rivers are in the Kharkiv region. The only reasonable place to put defense lines is behind the rivers, not in front of them. This is just skirmishing.
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May 14, 2024 07:32
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The Artificial Kid posted:Are they recruiting 30k per month, or are they increasing the size of their forces by 30k per month? People don’t only die and get injured, they can also finish their military service. No, they can't. During mobilisation, your military contract is automatically prolonged. Of course, this doesn't apply to PMCs, but if you look at the structure of Russia's losses, it appears that convicts are mostly kept on the frontline until they die or can no longer fight.
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May 14, 2024 07:56
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ShadowHawk posted:Putin could also live another 20 years He could also find Kissinger’s phylactery and live another forty years
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May 14, 2024 08:42
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ShadowHawk posted:Putin could also live another 20 years Yes, he could. However, a 90 year old is easier to depose. Couping gets more and more easy as time goes on. I am not saying that "lol gopnik nubs lmao", that this is a last ditch effort before a "collapse", but a last ditch effort to try to break Ukraine before the window of opportunity on total conquest closes. Remember, the narrative swings wildly from "omg russia stronk and ukraine will collapse" to "lmao russia will collapse in two weeks" whenever one side starts to gain ground. Media make their money from pigging on these turns.
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May 14, 2024 09:27
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Keisari posted:I am not saying that "lol gopnik nubs lmao", that this is a last ditch effort before a "collapse", but a last ditch effort to try to break Ukraine before the window of opportunity on total conquest closes. Remember, the narrative swings wildly from "omg russia stronk and ukraine will collapse" to "lmao russia will collapse in two weeks" whenever one side starts to gain ground. Media make their money from pigging on these turns. I think you're going to be disappointed if you think the aid package is going to solve Ukraine's issues with shell hunger. Russia for all their stumbles and miscues has been able to put their industry on war footing, while the West has taken next to zero such steps to do so. 60 billion is a ton of money but you can't actually load money into artillery tubes.
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May 14, 2024 09:40
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Yeah it's all kinds of hosed up. My broad understanding is that: - Ukraine has been forced into an artillery war against a power whose armed doctrine and industry specialises in it, and it has partners that specialise in it are providing it with materiel - Western powers have an armed doctrine that specialises in air domination, but they are not providing the materiel and support to enable Ukraine to fight such a war, and it is becoming increasingly clear that only the US has the supplies and industries to last longer than a few months in such a war, and they won't provide that level of commitment to Ukraine - Russia is gearing its industries towards a long and intense war, while Ukraine's allies are not - Western powers are making some movements to increase materiel production but a. nowhere near enough, b. way too slowly, and. c. a lot of that production will not go to Ukraine but will instead go towards contractual obligations and to backfill western armaments that were already woefully under supplied and are now stripped bare because they sent a lot of whatever they had to Ukraine early on - Artillery production and ramp-ups are constrained by resources and time; cotton linters from china and then a 6 month curing period for shells, and capitalist defence contractors don't want to invest heavily in production unless they have guaranteed long term contracts which don't seem forthcoming - Political issues and lethargic EU bureaucracy means that even theoretically significant financial commitments to Ukraine's military defence efforts are often blocked, delayed, or artificially constrained to bolster anaemic EU military production rather than buying existing stock from third parties Add in Trump, Orban, Russian fingers in western political opposition, uncertain but significant upcoming elections and the resurgence of the far right in domestic politics across Europe and America, and you have a group of economies and industries that should have been able to stop Russia dead instead being paralysed from within while Ukraine struggles to stay afloat and mobilise men because there aren't enough supplies, support, and manpower to levy new troops and have the draft letter not be a one way trip to a very nasty front boofhead fucked around with this message at 10:14 on May 14, 2024 |
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May 14, 2024 10:08
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Ukraine loses because European middle class don't want to give up anything.
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May 14, 2024 10:17
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The West is stepping on its own dick with their handling of this war. If Russia becomes the victor in this war, NATO is going a 2500+ km long border to man/monitor with a very pissed off Russia on the other side for at least a generation. The cost of which will make the current cost of this war a bargain.
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May 14, 2024 10:27
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boofhead posted:- Western powers have an armed doctrine that specialises in air domination, but they are not providing the materiel and support to enable Ukraine to fight such a war, and it is becoming increasingly clear that only the US has the supplies and industries to last longer than a few months in such a war, and they won't provide that level of commitment to Ukraine Are you intending to say that the US only has the ability to fight for a very brief time with its airpower? That seems like an odd conclusion to pull from "the US hasn't given Ukraine airframes".
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May 14, 2024 10:41
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Kchama posted:Are you intending to say that the US only has the ability to fight for a very brief time with its airpower? That seems like an odd conclusion to pull from "the US hasn't given Ukraine airframes". No, maybe you misread or I didn't write it clearly enough. I'm saying that out of all the powers providing military aid to Ukraine, it seems like only the US has the capacity to wage a war of this magnitude longer than a few months, but they aren't willing to provide the level of support that Ukraine requires. The point being that if the war were happening in the EU itself, the EU would have had to have won it in the first few months, after which there'd be significant problems E: using the EU's own armed forces, I mean. It's just a reflection on how much the EU has dialled back investment in military preparedness to instead rely on US combat power, and this attitude doesn't seem to have changed much in terms of how much extra capacity the EU can (or wants to) pass on to Ukraine boofhead fucked around with this message at 10:51 on May 14, 2024 |
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May 14, 2024 10:46
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boofhead posted:No, maybe you misread or I didn't write it clearly enough. I'm saying that out of all the powers providing military aid to Ukraine, it seems like only the US has the capacity to wage a war of this magnitude longer than a few months, but they aren't willing to provide the level of support that Ukraine requires. The point being that if the war were happening in the EU itself, the EU would have had to have won it in the first few months, after which there'd be significant problems You're right, I missed the 'only', which changes the context of the sentence entirely. My apology. I agree with you entirely then.
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May 14, 2024 10:48
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Fish of hemp posted:Ukraine loses because European middle class don't want to give up anything. And all effective weapons (land mines, drones, cluster munitions, dumb shells) are considered immoral. Like the cluster bomb treaty that literally says a country has to let iself be conquered and genocided rather than use cluster munitions which may 'never under any circumstances' be used. When the EU wants to order shells they cannot order them from anyone who makes cluster munitions like the biggest shell producer in South Korea.
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May 14, 2024 11:18
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Dick Ripple posted:The West is stepping on its own dick with their handling of this war. If Russia becomes the victor in this war, NATO is going a 2500+ km long border to man/monitor with a very pissed off Russia on the other side for at least a generation. The cost of which will make the current cost of this war a bargain. An angry, even more revanchist Russia that now has: - tens of thousands of recent combat veterans with actual peer-to-peer conflict experience - a command structure that has learned to adapt and shaken off the rust - an infinite manpower pool - industrial output able to outpace Western arms makers - an ability to ignore horrendous causalities - even more resilient to internal discord - the ability to ignore Western sanctions - partners who will continue to supply them arms, materials and export markets Toss in the possibility of a Trump presidency and things get real scary for Europe pretty quickly.
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May 14, 2024 13:46
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Surprisingly, the new defence minister says that there are issues with recruitment, albeit not severe enough to resume active mobilisation. Something tells me that maybe Shoigu's team wasn't entirely truthful with their 30k a month figure.
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May 14, 2024 13:57
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99pct of germs posted:An angry, even more revanchist Russia that now has: I'm not quite sure any of this is actually true or going to be true. Like, Ukraine's in a real bad spot, but you're positing that Russia is now an invincible juggernaut that can't be stopped by NATO when it is barely making headway against a country that had one of the worst armies in the world about a decade ago. A peer-to-peer conflict against Ukraine isn't going to particularly ready them against a conflict against NATO. Ukraine has been holding them off with old Soviet stuff and tiny amounts of old NATO equipment. And it can outpace Western arms makers... in materiel that Western doctrines do not focus on, or on outdated equipment. They have far from an infinite manpower pool, and the primary reason why they can ignore horrendous casualties right now is because it is the only way they can make progress. But when it comes to the stuff needed to decisively win, they are losing it bit by bit and that stuff is MUCH harder to replace. Their partners can't seem to give them good quality equipment, with it noted that half of the missiles they get from North Korea don't even work. They look great against Ukraine, but if NATO got together, even without the US, it'd be very bad for Russia. So to sum it up: Yeah, Ukraine's in a poo poo situation and they're on the back foot, but this doesn't mean that Russia has synthesized itself into something that can take on anything more dangerous than Ukraine.
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May 14, 2024 14:02
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what Russia has gained is valuable first hand knowledge about how modern drone warfare works, though we don't really know how this would play out in a peer-to-peer conflict.
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May 14, 2024 14:10
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:what Russia has gained is valuable first hand knowledge about how modern drone warfare works, though we don't really know how this would play out in a peer-to-peer conflict. I worry about our ability to integrate these lessons into our operational plans, but I admit I know nothing about how well or poorly we're doing in that area.
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May 14, 2024 14:14
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Russia doesn't have an "infinite manpower pool". What it has is a political and military elite willing to disregard casualties in the short and medium term in order to achieve objectives. So they have the political will to keep this up for a while, especially by using surplus 'disposable' (from their perspective!) populations, like prisoners, non-Russian minorities, etc, who their population in the imperial core will not miss. But they have already emptied out their prisons, so their ability to fight the war without inconveniencing Muscovites/St Petersbergers is declining. They do not have the actual numbers of men to keep this up indefinitely - and are worsening their already existential demographic crisis. As an aside, Putin and co are absolutely relying on propaganda that they are so crazy and ruthless that they are willing drown their opponents in bodies, so there's no point resisting/fighting - you better be sensible and just capitulate to them to avoid a senseless bloodshed.
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May 14, 2024 14:28
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I think that Russia has a definite failure point for the regime internally, and it would probably trigger alarmingly quickly. Problem is nobody in the West has any idea what levers to push to get it to happen, and they likely wouldn't have the political will to do so even if they did. Even besides GOP interference, this (mostly American, but not entirely) focus on giving Ukraine just enough and hurting Russia just enough is going to lose Ukraine the war. It drives me nuts every time I read about us withholding a capability or fretting over Ukrainian deep strikes or floating even more Russian sanctions, because that means we have bullets in the gun and we're not using them.
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May 14, 2024 14:36
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GD_American posted:I worry about our ability to integrate these lessons into our operational plans, but I admit I know nothing about how well or poorly we're doing in that area. There are motions being made in the U.S. Army that is placing some emphasis on drones. Integrated anti-drone systems mounted on vics, some updates in doctrine, etc. Not enough effort for my taste but I'm just a peon. Hopefully there's a serious effort happening somewhere
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May 14, 2024 14:38
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Not wishing to dive past OPSEC, but are they being integrated at the squad level in infantry? Because that's where the biggest sea change seems to be occurring. We were a pioneer of drones at the operational level, but the small,cheap, and deadly seem to have really taken things over.
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May 14, 2024 14:44
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GD_American posted:It drives me nuts every time I read about us withholding a capability or fretting over Ukrainian deep strikes or floating even more Russian sanctions, because that means we have bullets in the gun and we're not using them.
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May 14, 2024 14:49
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OddObserver posted:Not just deep strikes. 1m over border is too much for most Western governments, never mind the kind of peril that puts Kharkiv and Sumy in. I genuinely wonder how this "just enough victory to bring them to the bargaining table" mentality manages to survive across the generations, despite never having worked once ever, anywhere
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May 14, 2024 14:53
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GD_American posted:Not wishing to dive past OPSEC, but are they being integrated at the squad level in infantry? Because that's where the biggest sea change seems to be occurring. We were a pioneer of drones at the operational level, but the small,cheap, and deadly seem to have really taken things over. Imo, yes most definitely yes. Based what the US military has revealed, no, but that’s intentional.
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May 14, 2024 14:53
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GD_American posted:small, cheap, and deadly The US military does none of these things.
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May 14, 2024 14:53
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Morrow posted:The US military does none of these things. They definitely do deadly. A big flaming stink posted:I think you're going to be disappointed if you think the aid package is going to solve Ukraine's issues with shell hunger. Russia for all their stumbles and miscues has been able to put their industry on war footing, while the West has taken next to zero such steps to do so. 60 billion is a ton of money but you can't actually load money into artillery tubes. I presume the US has enough of the good stuff to rectify the situation, considering this situation has arisen due to a lack of the good stuff.
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May 14, 2024 14:56
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| # ? Jun 8, 2024 08:10 |
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GD_American posted:I think that Russia has a definite failure point for the regime internally, and it would probably trigger alarmingly quickly. Problem is nobody in the West has any idea what levers to push to get it to happen, and they likely wouldn't have the political will to do so even if they did. E: Meanwhile politicians here are starting to demand removing the protection status for male Ukrainian refugees in the 18-60 age bracket because they're supposed to return and heroically defend their homeland. Except the people who demand this are mostly the same pathetic shitstains who refuse to offer them anything to actually defend that country with, because it would violate our precious ~neutrality~ after all. orcane fucked around with this message at 15:09 on May 14, 2024 |
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May 14, 2024 14:57
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