Russia and Ukraine

[arewethereyet]

Thump is also quite knowledgeable.

Take a minute and read Nudger's sig.

I did. A while before you posted this. It was pretty good, and pretty well said. It is also pretty in line of what a solider would say. I must ask, though, does this reflect any of his real life experiences? Not that it changes anything or will change my thought on him in a negative way, at all, but I would like to know.

Yes.  He is a combat veteran.

[ShinyCrystals]

I did. A while before you posted this. It was pretty good, and pretty well said. It is also pretty in line of what a solider would say. I must ask, though, does this reflect any of his real life experiences? Not that it changes anything or will change my thought on him in a negative way, at all, but I would like to know.

Yes.  He is a combat veteran.

I thought so. He must have been a good one at that.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well...I did train a good number of what was the russian vdv nco core back when we were still buddies in the early aughts - war on terror.  I like to think I knew them.  They're not different, as in they're exactly like joes in any country...and..I suspect, any time.  So when I say there's no "them" in the regimes calculations of what cost would be too great you have to understand that even in the best of times, soldiers don't feel like their lives are highly valued by their government or their societies.

I am a combat vet, I was an infantryman, and an urban warfare specialist (I'm just an old shitbag now). I've held every position on a Bradley, from dismount to commander. I've been rolled, shot, and blown the fuck up, lol. Got stabbed once...don't feel too bad, went worse for the other guy....but I still can't properly raise my arm.

I'm still wrong all the time, I was wrong then at least a couple of times that I will never be able to make up for.

[ShinyCrystals]

Well...I did train a good number of what was the russian vdv nco core back when we were still buddies in the early aughts - war on terror.  I like to think I knew them.  They're not different, as in they're exactly like joes in any country...and..I suspect, any time.  So when I say there's no "them" in the regimes calculations of what cost would be too great you have to understand that even in the best of times, soldiers don't feel like their lives are highly valued by their government or their societies.

I am a combat vet, I was an infantryman, and an urban warfare specialist (I'm just an old shitbag now).  I've held every position on a Bradley, from dismount to commander.  I've been rolled, shot, and blown the fuck up, lol.  Got stabbed once...don't feel too bad, went worse for the other guy....but I still can't properly raise my arm.

I'm still wrong all the time, I was wrong then at least a couple of times that I will never be able to make up for.

Wow, that is quite a story. I respect you for what you did for the country in your time in the military. That said, I do feel bad for you about the injuries you had received, and that you can't properly raise your arm. I don't know if you need this, or if this even needs to be said, but I do hope your injuries don't weigh you down in life.

That said, I salute you!

[Anomalocaris]

So, I was wondering; Russia has a higher population than Ukraine, but still, it kinda seems to me (but not completely) that Russia is losing troops fast, and is giving little training when they recruit new troops for the war. So, how do you you all think this war of attrition thing will end for Russia? I mean, even should Russia win, it will be costly. If they continue what they are doing now, they will lose a lot of lives and resources, so the war can't be that beneficial for them.

What do you all think, though?

This will end when Ukraine runs out of manpower,  coinciding with disintegration of western resolve to pay the necessary price to continue to support the proxy war, and Russia sniff the opportunity to launch a counter attack to force a ceasefire that would leave Russia in control of the territory it seized, and Ukraine in effect will be barred from joining NATO.

In the long run, Russia will have vastly weakened Ukraine’s potential as a viable independent state by forcing a large percentage of the young and educated to leave as refugees to Europe from whence they will never come back, and by opening or widening chasms in Ukrainian society between those who fought, those who profiteered, and those who fled to another country, leaving Ukraine with a nearly unviable demography and domestic political landscape.    While some of those remaining may be true believers, majority of those remaining will feel a sense of resentment because the touted benefit of the pro-western course since 2004 will manifestly not have materialized while the losses incurred in its pursuit could not be made up.     So in the long run, while the settlement might seem to be partial and superficial success for Russia, it would in fact be a deeper strategic success for Russia because Russia will likely regain her pre color revolution influence in Ukraine and dominating influence in Ukraine’s internal landscape.    So what is left of Ukraine will be become a semi-satellite buffer state for Russia as she had been through the 1990s and early 2000s, de facto if not de jure, but with much less economic infrastructure and potential remaining to provide bargaining power with Russia and other countries around the world in her own service.    For Ukraine the best theoretical scenario for internal politics and external stance is finlandization, as Finland pursued in the shadow of the USSR from the end of WWII to the end of cold war, but Ukraine manifestly lack Finland’s internal political flexibility and ethnic unity, and resulting national pragmatism.  So the practical scenario for Ukraine is Russophile kepto state, as she had been on and off between 1991 and 2014.

Russia would be superficially weakened by its isolation from the west and by the  cost of the war. However the isolation from the west would not continue for very long if China under Xi Resumes its interventionist and aggressive stance, especially if Taiwan issue moves towards open conflict.    Between China and Russia, China is a far more capable immediate and long term threat to western led world order no matter how much the west plays up the importance of Russia attack on Ukraine.  The west would quickly try to establish a rapprochement with Russia once the guns fall silent in order to isolate China and help offset the likely effect of a favorable conclusion for Russia in Ukraine on China’s view of subjugating Taiwan.    So Russia is much more likely to be able to make up her lost ground due the war than Ukraine is.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sounds like one of master strategist putins fever dreams to me. The only way a russophile ukraine emerges now is if every single living ukranian is exterminated. Even the "breakaway regions" that russia absorbed are tired of their shit.

[The Grand Nudger]

@ShinyCrystals

Nah, don't feel bad for me.  It was a good job.  3 squares, my own c hut....ac.   I'd have found a way to fuck myself up at home anyway.  The ukrainians have it far worse than I ever did..and the russians..even worse than them.  If you wander over to russian telegram you'll see why they're still fighting.  They're promised more money than they can make back home, and not by a little.  Now...they apparently have trouble getting paid...and the russian fascination with leaving the dead lie makes it difficult for survivors back home to get death benefits.  Not that russia could afford to pay out those benefits if they -did- recover bodies and wanted to pay.

The idea that the russian fed can in any sense win an attritive war is a fantasy. They're already losing it. The territory they hold has only shrunk since their full scale invasion, and the casualty numbers keep getting worse.

[Anomalocaris]

Sounds like one of master strategist putins fever dreams to me.  The only way a russophile ukraine emerges now is if every single living ukranian is exterminated.  Even the "breakaway regions" that russia absorbed are tired of their shit.

Russophile on this context means aligning its policies to ensure it is not seen as security or economic liability for Russia,  as Finland had done between 1945 and 1991, not as in fondness for things Russian.     

The difference between Finland and Ukraine is Finland was ethnically homogeneous and politically unified, well informed, realistic and mature.   So it had no fevered illusions about its ability to oppose Soviet will and get away with infringing on Soviet Union’s self-perceived security interests, and still form a common domestic understanding in finland that western and Soviet rhetoric aside, an independent economic and domestic policy, and a functionally independent democratic domestic government is feasible without making itself seem an economic or security liability to the Soviet Union.     

Ukraine on the other hand lacks every aspect of political maturity, intellectual honesty, sincerity of political parties, avoidance of ideological showboating, to be able to form such a sophisticate and realistic national outlook and follow its dictates.     So a Necessary Russophile government in Ukraine, unlike a finlandized government in Finland, will be a kleptocratic government that domestically aligns with Moscow and uses threat, coercion, and corruption in handing out rewards to sustain its own power.

[The Grand Nudger]

That also sounds like one of master strategist putins fever dreams. Perhaps the one that convinced him to launch his brilliantly successful three day invasion.

[Anomalocaris]

Just because it is Putin’s fevered dream doesn’t mean it is not likely to be true.     And Putin has show himself to be a more sophisticated strategist whose plans didn’t depend solely on a single throw of the dice or a single measure of superiority, and are therefore more robust and can achieve favorable ends by different means in the face of different contingencies.