The War in the Ukraine

[Temstar]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1585590485825060864

The hits on 750kV transformer station is having a major effect. Even the previous rolling blackout across Kiev could no longer be maintained and instead they're going into longer and even more widespread and unpredictable blackout now.

As I understand it 330kV is for moving electricity around across their national grid, while power stations send power into the grid at 750kV. There are a lot fewer 750kV transformers and they're much more critical pieces of the infrastructure.

 

[Temstar]

Here's why the 750kV transformer hit is affecting Kiev so much:

Khmelnytskyi NPP is 2000MW. It sends its power west with two 750kV lines and east with one 750kV line towards Kiev and central Ukraine. Kyivska substation is along this route and since it's out of commission that route is just gone.

Kiev has multiple thermal power plants just around it to supply itself but they too have been hit repeatedly and are probably averaging only a fraction of their normal capacity.

The white lines and orange text boxes are 750kV systems, the green lines and text boxes are 330kV systems.

 

[Hadoren]

I don't understand why Russia didn't do this from the very beginning.

 

[Temstar]

I don't understand why Russia didn't do this from the very beginning.

Because a lot of those big name things destroyed in this war: Malyshev factory, An-225, Azovstal, this substation. Each one of them is the fruit of Soviet socialist labour and once they are gone they are gone for good, the Soviet Union isn't going to come back and fix them up again. So you can see why Russia would much rather they are captured intact, even if it makes military sense to destroy them right away.

 

[Biscuits]

I don't understand why Russia didn't do this from the very beginning.

I'd guess that they were not confident in their offensive power at the start.

AFU was much stronger, there was a chance of NATO joining etc.

At that stage, if they struck critical infrastructure, it'd be repaired by now. And the 200k troops sent by Russia at the start have no chance at beating the 800k-ish forces from Kiev in 1 go, electricity or no electricity.

Either you can believe in the glowie narrative that "Ivan is drunk and stupid, he doesn't know he sent too little troops to win at the start to Kiev, he doesn't know that it's possible to attack infrastructure etc.". Or, Russia just did a very convincing impression to make the world including Kiev think they're going for the whole country at once, allowing them to take the most critical strip of land in the South with minimal losses and hold it until AFU has been degraded sufficiently.

There are some grains of truth in that Russian politicians are truly just as corrupt as the ones in the countries Yeltsin modeled the system on. There are also incompetent commanders. But the long delay on any form of infrastructure fight until the start of winter tells us that it is some sort of strategy.

If it was incompetence based, you'd almost certainly see sporadic strikes from day 1 but they either don't reach the targets or aren't repeated enough to matter.

Due to how much control there is on the NATO side of the Internet, a lot of people on both sides started to think Russia is on a strict timer to do stuff. That is likely completely different from how Putin and his commanders see the war.

Awhile ago some glowie on twitter posted that Russia lost 1900 officers during the war as a major gotcha moment, only they were preying on misinformed people, because a modern army consists around 20% of officers. If months of war were ongoing and Russia lost less than 10k (just going off the glowie numbers, personally I think Russia lost more, but its impossible to know due to thick fog of war) +, then that is a rate Russia can sustain forever.

Just like during the Iraq invasion NATO was not in a hurry, they can take months letting the Iraqis and Kuwaitis duke it out, keep bombing civilians until the country became demoralised and depopulated etc. If you were there you can say "why is Bush not going in with tanks and massed air on day 1?"
Russia shows no signs of being in a hurry to rush in with everything they have either.

 

[Deino]

I don't understand why Russia didn't do this from the very beginning.

Since their aim changed! At the beginning I’m convinced they believed after about three to five days they would have conquered Kiew, all Ukrainians would have cheered them as the brothers who liberated them from the evil Western influence. Now, after desperately failing on this objective and learning the hard way, most Ukrainians have no intention to be liberated under a Russian boot, their aim is to destroy as much as possible in order to rise the price the West has to pay for the upcoming decades in order to restore Ukraine to a country worth living in.

 

[PopularScience]

Since their aim changed! At the beginning I’m convinced they believed after about three to five days they would have conquered Kiew, all Ukrainians would have cheered them as the brothers who liberated them from the evil Western influence. Now, after desperately failing on this objective and learning the hard way, most Ukrainians have no intention to be liberated under a Russian boot, their aim is to destroy as much as possible in order to rise the price the West has to pay for the upcoming decades in order to restore Ukraine to a country worth living in.

then why not April, May, June, July, August?

 

[pmc]

I agree with you with the statement of the horrible performance of the VKS and it is also worth remembering the VMF, but your friend there questioned the great Russian logistical problems 100 km from the border when Ukraine receives daily 50,000 rounds daily affirmed by the AFU itself and western channels.

This 100km from border does not mean that people and material are arriving from 100km. it could be 10,000km in circular way. this in addition to enormous logistic effort Russia put in shifting trade away from West.
VKS performance is very effective thats why Ukraine need so much mobilization and more air defense system.

I don't understand why Russia didn't do this from the very beginning.

to make sure Ukrainian stay in Ukraine as long possible. there are other variables not for this thread.

 

[Deino]

then why not April, May, June, July, August?

In fact I don't know why and this WHY - regardless of all stupid claims of denazification and now recently desatanisation, which in fact no-one believes - is still the biggest question!

But I think this is a question one must ask Putin himself.

 

[SampanViking]

Since their aim changed! At the beginning I’m convinced they believed after about three to five days they would have conquered Kiew, all Ukrainians would have cheered them as the brothers who liberated them from the evil Western influence. Now, after desperately failing on this objective and learning the hard way, most Ukrainians have no intention to be liberated under a Russian boot, their aim is to destroy as much as possible in order to rise the price the West has to pay for the upcoming decades in order to restore Ukraine to a country worth living in.

I have never understood why Pro Nato circles keep trying to push this narrative. We know that the Northern Force was no more than 50K (maybe only 30K) strong and that no one would plan to try and storm a Capital City with such a small force. Why people push the notion that any country, especially one with a very formidable intelligence community, would launch an operation using a strategy based on the notion of the enemy running away is a mystery to me and simply risible.

My belief has always that the Russians expected the Ukrainians to do the sensible thing on day one, which is to pull back to the best defensive line they had, which was the West Bank of the Dnieper. This is why I have always believed that the Northern Force was sent, to hold the two banks of the Northern part of the River, just as in the South in Kherson, they took the Southern Banks.

Sure, if in the unlikely event that the Ukrainians had abandoned Kiev, obviously they would have taken it as a target of opportunity.
As a opening gambit? No, not outside of a Tom Clancy novel.