Russia and Ukraine

[Leonardo17]

There are reports of Russian troops shooting on one another or even attacking one another. Their officers are said to not care at all about the lives of new conscripts. So the image is funny but it’s still a sad reality.

[Leonardo17]

It actually amazes me how little Russia's tactics have evolved. It's like they are stuck in a time warp. You would think that if they were not going to go all out on modernization they at least fix the glaring flaws in their old military doctrines. Especially against a country like Ukraine, which would know them well and be able to exploit those flaws.

I don’t see any of this as “tactics”. I don’t even listen to Putin on TV anymore. A rational man would be offering peace terms at this points. This man thinks he is going to win

[Leonardo17]

As many observers have noted, up to and including Zelenskyy..with respect to some fever dream of ww3, Putin is a not a man that seems eager to end this world.  To some extent, he continues his war in ukraine because he isn't certain that (or hasn't quite figured out how) he would survive losing it (politically and/or physically - we all know how dangerous windows in russia can be).  Apparently, they had no real plan for what happened, as opposed to the three day weekend fantasy they went in with.  As for nukes, specifically, as another poster on these boards once opined...they're most useful when you're holding them, not when you're using them.  

The trouble for russia, was that their armed forces were simply not designed for this fight.  Their tactics were not suited to this fight.  Their organizational structure was not adequate for this fight.  Their equipment is not capable of winning these engagements.  None of it was ever even intended to be.  They imagined themselves fighting a war against a technologically superior invading force that leaned overwhelmingly on air power...fighting off the rail lines.  Ukraine knew this, because they were once an integral part of the russian war plan.  So, they knew exactly how to exploit it - before..and even without, any western assistance.  The combination of the ukranian will, insider info, and select western tech, is something that russian planners must be furiosly looking for a workaround to - their initial thought being that the workaround could be global isolation through nuclear brinksmanship...and that failed.  Plan b, insomuch as it existed, appears to be terror attacks....and that's not working - worse, it's making their situation even more dire by the day.

In short, their army is from the 80’s. But still I was surprised to see the current result. This shows us how corrupt the Russian state is especially in the army. I think they would have taken Ukraine if the Russian army was half what it pretended to be before the war. Within a month’s time the whole world saw the “second army of the world” being an army that was only strong against really weak enemies like the Syrian resistance.
 
Still they lost 100,000 men in about 6 months. In their 10 year old campaign in Afghanistan Russians had lost only 15,000 men. The total number of deaths in the Kurdish insurgency since 1978 (both sides + civilian causalities) does not exceed 50,000 people. So it’s enormous. Perhaps the greatest butchery in the world since the Vietnam War.
 
Everyone is hoping for some sort of palace revolution in Russia. I still cannot fully understand how such a big nation managed to get in this path of complete madness. I’m starting to think that this is truly a state in which “The mafia has its own state”. There is no other explanation. 

[Leonardo17]

Kudos indeed. But still all that cash (+ the cash for Taiwan) could have gone to our energy transition as a planet. I still believe that this thing is complete madness from its very beginning.

[LinuxGal]

Everyone is hoping for some sort of palace revolution in Russia. I still cannot fully understand how such a big nation managed to get in this path of complete madness. I’m starting to think that this is truly a state in which “The mafia has its own state”. There is no other explanation.

We've seen it before with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.  The former was fought to the end.  The latter was convinced with a super weapon. I don't expect Putin to see reason until his own people come for him with pitchforks and torches.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Meanwhile:

Moscow has been setting conditions for a new most dangerous course of action (MDCOA)--a renewed invasion of northern Ukraine possibly aimed at Kyiv--since at least October 2022.[1] This MDCOA could be a Russian information operation or could reflect Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actual intentions. Currently available indicators are ambivalent—some verified evidence of a Russian buildup in Belarus makes more sense as part of preparations for a renewed offensive than as part of ongoing exercises and training practices, but there remains no evidence that Moscow is actively preparing a strike force in Belarus. Concern about the possibility that Putin might pursue this MDCOA is certainly not merely a Ukrainian information operation intended to pressure the West into supplying Kyiv with more weapons, as some Western analysts have suggested. ISW continues to assess that a renewed large-scale Russian invasion from Belarus is unlikely this winter, but it is a possibility that must be taken seriously.

[...]

The Russian military has been much more clearly setting conditions for an offensive in northwestern Luhansk Oblast, however. The Ukrainian General Staff reported observing an increased volume of railway transport of personnel, military equipment, and ammunition to combat areas on December 23.[13] Geolocated footage published on December 23 also shows a train loaded with Russian T-90M and T-62M tanks heading toward Luhansk Oblast from Rostov Oblast.[14] ISW previously observed Russian forces transferring elite airborne troops and other elements that previously operated in the Kherson and Kharkiv directions to Luhansk Oblast.[15]

[...]

The Kremlin continues to deflect criticism about Russia’s military failures in Ukraine by rhetorically narrowing the definitions of its initial war objectives without formally changing them. When asked about the Russian invasion’s progress, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that Russian forces achieved “significant progress” in its war objective of “demilitarization” of Ukraine on December 23.[23] Girkin lambasted Peskov’s response, sarcastically noting that Ukraine’s armed forces increased from about 250,000 personnel before the war to 700,000 personnel today and that Ukrainian forces are now equipped with advanced Western anti-tank ground missiles, precision artillery, and other systems that Ukraine did not have before Russia’s invasion.[24] ISW continues to assess that Russia’s maximalist war objectives have not changed despite Peskov’s floundering to save face with the Kremlin’s Russian domestic audience.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s renewed public appearances likely indicate that he has become more concerned about his popularity and image in Russia. Putin has been seemingly making more public appearances in Russian cities and more frequently delivering vague statements about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in recent days compared to his marked absence from public activity outside the Kremlin throughout the first ten months of the war.[25]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgro...ct-updates

************************************

It actually amazes me how little Russia's tactics have evolved. It's like they are stuck in a time warp. You would think that if they were not going to go all out on modernization they at least fix the glaring flaws in their old military doctrines. Especially against a country like Ukraine, which would know them well and be able to exploit those flaws.

I don’t see any of this as “tactics”. I don’t even listen to Putin on TV anymore. A rational man would be offering peace terms at this points. This man thinks he is going to win

Putin's painted himself into a corner: Russia is unable to win, and Putin cannot afford to lose.

[LinuxGal]

I don’t see any of this as “tactics”. I don’t even listen to Putin on TV anymore. A rational man would be offering peace terms at this points. This man thinks he is going to win

Putin's painted himself into a corner: Russia is unable to win, and Putin cannot afford to lose.

And the US did our part in this by giving Ukraine a bunch of old weapons that were going to be decommissioned anyway, for less money that it would have cost to decommission them.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Putin's painted himself into a corner: Russia is unable to win, and Putin cannot afford to lose.

And the US did our part in this by giving Ukraine a bunch of old weapons that were going to be decommissioned anyway, for less money that it would have cost to decommission them.

MLRS/HIMARS are still in our active force, but that's okay. I support sending them as well. Looks like Ukraine will be flying F-16s pulled out of storage sometime next year, too. We authorized training some of their pilots for that in July, and TTBOMK started training them at the end of October.

We should be giving them our A-10s, too. We have about 120 in storage.

[LinuxGal]

We should be giving them our A-10s, too. We have about 120 in storage.

The Russians always so kindly line up their tanks and troop carriers like bowling pins for A-10s to strike.

[Thumpalumpacus]

We should be giving them our A-10s, too. We have about 120 in storage.

The Russians always so kindly line up their tanks and troop carriers like bowling pins for A-10s to strike.

My Serenity Prayer: "Lord, give me a beer to accept the things I cannot change, and an A-10 to change the things I can."