Russia and Ukraine

[The Grand Nudger]

The Daily Mail posted a short video of part of the strike here.

Can't tell whose heloes those actually are, but they came in low, meaning below-radar, and at night, confusing visual ID. It's still surprising to not see any point-defense at all.

Would have had to no matter what the circumstances were.   They're not fast, they're not stealth, they're not even quiet.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Would have had to no matter what the circumstances were.   They're not fast, they're not stealth, they're not even quiet.

At 150' AGL, radar is not going to matter until they're very close to the radar-site, meaning tracking time, or even response time, is going to be foreshortened. Detection at a mile when the chopper is doing 120 IAS gives the defenses about 30 seconds' response time before the attack commences

And while the choppers were certainly heard, at night, with transponders off, there could well have been enough uncertainty about ID/IFF that any SAM assets in the area withheld fire until confirming ID.

I'm just throwing out a couple of possibilities to explain the lack of return fire.

[The Grand Nudger]

Absolutely, plenty of ways it could have went down. Each and every one exposing a particular failure of russian command.

[Fake Messiah]

The Russian government is threatening to fine Wikipedia if it doesn't remove content that contradicts its narrative about the war in Ukraine.

https://www.npr.org/2022/04/01/109027918...pedia-fine

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

More corrections, or potential corrections....I posited that russian APC losses indicated that russian btgs, which were designed for defense, were having issues maintaining their defensive perimeter after contact. Ukrainian soldiers claim that it's even worse than that. That the russian infantry are worthless cowards who refuse to dismount and are..instead..trying to use the APCs up front with the tanks. This is a vary bad idea, tantamount to riding into battle in your own coffin.

If true, this puts germany's decision to provide ukraine with ifvs in context. IFV is to APC what ukrainian tractors are to russian tanks. Also, if true, I 'd like to point out that we've been crediting the wrong people with russias past military success. Their local paramilitaries, largely missing in the current conflict, were doing the hard work.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I’m starting to hear what strikes me as a monumentally stupid argument, to wit that the West should stop supplying Ukraine. This would help ensure a Russian victory, speed the war to a conclusion, and reduce suffering in the civilian population.

The geopolitical consequences aside, an occupying military force nearly always provokes an insurgency, which triggers reprisals against civilians. A long, drawn out insurgency would increase, not decrease, suffering.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

if we look at what russia’s short term and long term objectives in Ukraine is, and how much of price russia must pay to attain those objectives compare to how much she has already paid, it becomes clear Russia really no longer has any interest in ending this war relatively quickly.   

A quick war may have been russia’s original goal, to defeat ukraine quickly, establish a pliant client state in an intact ukraine, and bound ukraine to russia economically abs administratively,

But that ship has sailed,   Instead I believe the Russia objective now is to keep the war going at a medium intensity for at least several years.   her goal is no longer to take and hold territory for strategic reasons, but to take, as well as to yield, territory as necessary purely tactically to keep the war going and lay waste to the most developed parts of ukraine.   The real objective is to turn the most productive part of ukrainian population, who inhabit the land that will be fought over, into refugees who will then leave ukraine.   most of them will never return.    This will cripple ukraine by depriving it of the most fundamental resource required for meaningful future nationalism.

so I expect Russia will now pull back from all the exposed tips of the initial offensives in order to shorten and straighten the front line.   This will allow the russian army greatly reduce the number of men required to hold the front, thus freeing up large number of units that can then form a new mobile reserve.

Russia will probably take care to not withdraw so far as to make it inconvenient to renew previous offensives.   the new mobile reserve will then conduct new offensives into ukraine for a different purpose.   The goal is not to take major Ukrainian cities but to fight over them and thus make them unfit for civilian occupation.    It will probably start doing this over this summer,  but will probably do this several more times over the next few years.  This makes these population into refugees.     if the war were to last years, much of the resulting refugee would leave ukraine to be settled in Europe or elsewhere,  where most of them will stay snd never come back yo ukraine.

And that would be the real objective.

Russia followed this policy between 1994-2002 in Chechnya.   And it worked.  the parallel between chechnya and ukraine is striking.   both began with a failed Russian coup de main to take the capital of an intransigent former client state, resulted in apparent success for the defenders and high russian casualties.  Russia responded by broadening her attacks on chechnya from conventional military territory grabbing attacks to a full spectrum of operations designed to dislocate civilian population, forcing refugees to migrate.   Russia also capitalized on the general proliferation of arms amongst the population resulting from the armed insurgency to set up local warlords the fragment the cohesion of organized resistance, until chechnya completely hollowed out.    Now chechnya is a member of the russian federation and run by one of the warlords russia cultivated.  

Now it only make sense for it to do this on much larger scale on ukraine.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Her goal is face-saving because she fucked up so hard and her only plan is to make it up as they go because they have no clue what they're doing because overconfident and expected Ukraine to simply rollover. This isn't some Napoleon-level tactical reassessment. This is a bunch of boozed-up old men realizing their delusions of glorious conquest has exploded in their faces and they are too deep to walk it back.

[Anomalocaris]

a country that will fight a nuclear war over ukraine can’t care less about saving face over ukraine. Russia will destroy the world to forestall a nato ukraine, she will certainly destroy ukraine to forestall a nato ukraine.