The War in the Ukraine

Putin gave a speech talking about the mobilizations and changes that need to be addressed based on the experience during war

• Officers and NCOs who have gained experience in the SMO should be appointed to new positions as a matter of priority.
• Everything a fighter needs must be modern and reliable.
• Mobilization revealed problems.
• The fighting has identified issues on which we must, as they say, work on.
• Putin instructed the Defense Ministry to be attentive to criticism, even emotional, to hear and respond to it in a timely manner.
• Servicemen should have everything at the highest level, including weapons, night vision devices, there can be no trifles on the battlefield, first aid kits, uniforms, shoes - everything should be at a high level, up to date and reliable.
• "I want to draw the attention of the Minister of Defense, the Chief of the General Staff, all commanders who are represented here, we have no restrictions on funding."
• "The country, the government give everything that the army asks. Everything. I hope that the answer will be properly formulated and the corresponding results will be achieved."
• The experience of the SMO has shown that the use of drones has become ubiquitous and such an arsenal should be in combat squads, platoons, companies.

Also talked about restructuring the Russian Armed Forces

- Formation of two new-old districts - Moscow and Leningrad.

- Formation of an army corps in Karelia.

- Formation of two motorized rifle divisions in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

- Two new airborne assault divisions in the VDV.

- Seven motorized rifle and tank brigades stationed in the districts, as well as in the Northern Fleet, will be reorganized into divisions.

- Marine brigades will also become divisions.

- The reform will also affect the VKS (Aerospace forces). Eight bomber and one fighter regiments will be formed.

- Deployment of six brigades of army aviation.

- Eight artillery divisions and brigades, including large-capacity ones.

- Gradual change in the age of conscription from 18 years to 21 years, as well as the age limit of 30 instead of 27 years.

- Increase in the number of armed Forces to 1.5 million people, including 670 thousand contractors.

- Each tank army should contain a mixed air division (Army Aviation?) and an Air-Def brigade.

Russia expands military size by 500,000 additional troops to a total of 1.5 Million troops (eclipsing supah powah India to be #2 in the world)


Now I am curious if this is an addition 500K on top of the 300K mobolized reserves? So Ukraine could potentially be facing upwards of 1 Million Russkies (200K + 300K + 500K = 1M? ). Given Ukraine has 1 Million total, this 1:1 is much more favorable than a 5:1 or 2:1 manpower ratio as an attacking force.

Phead128 said:

Russia expands military size by 500,000 additional troops to a total of 1.5 Million troops (eclipsing supah powah India to be #2 in the world)

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Now I am curious if this is an addition 500K on top of the 300K mobolized reserves? So Ukraine could potentially be facing upwards of 1 Million Russkies?

Click to expand...

Adding total number probably help a lot for troops rotations in the future and also to have more troops to fill end of contracts issues. Not sure if it will change a thing rapidly, they need to build up barracks, training centers, bases, equipments for that troops increase.

Right now new equipments are used in Ukraine to replace lost ones. They will need to ramp up even more or buy abroad to be able to do this transformation fast enough to have a surge of troops before a couple of years.

Phead128 said:

Weird that even with 300K extra manpower, things are still, in Putin's words: "extremely complicated" in the occupied regions. Shouldn't the extra manpower result in a stabilized frontline by now?

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Phead128 said:

Russia expands military size by 500,000 additional troops to a total of 1.5 Million troops (eclipsing supah powah India to be #2 in the world)

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Now I am curious if this is an addition 500K on top of the 300K mobolized reserves? So Ukraine could potentially be facing upwards of 1 Million Russkies (200K + 300K + 500K = 1M? ). Given Ukraine has 1 Million total, this 1:1 is much more favorable than a 5:1 or 2:1 manpower ratio as an attacking force.

Click to expand...

There are posters here who think Russia is purposefully dragging this war out to deplete Ukrainian defenses. For more reasons than one, I do not think that is true.

Instead, I think Russia is restructuring its military to go all in. As in, take over all of Ukraine. I don't think they're looking to stabilize the front line. I think what we are seeing is just Russia taking the time to bring more force to bear.

We've heard from Putin's own mouth that he thinks Ukraine is a historical mistake that should be corrected. Strategically, Russia would want as big of a buffer zone as possible between Crimea and NATO. Geographically, Ukraine east of Dnieper can't serve that purpose, although securing freshwater access to Crimea is certainly critical.

My personal theory is that Russia was initially hoping for a quick conflict followed by negotiations with NATO in order to secure more favorable terms. When that did not happen, there was a period of indecision where the Russian leadership could not decide on the next step. I think the announcement of the partial mobilization was a sign that Russia decided on a Plan B, and we are now seeing it being carried out.

I think it's more of finding out the hard way how corruption over the years messed up the army and there are stark differences in reality vs what was on paper and now they're fixing the shit in trial by fire. This is also evident in related news where Putin basically said that a lot of basic stuff needs fixing like guns and shoes etc and for that money will not be the issue. Holding entire of Ukraine will be just like Afghanistan on steroids. Their best-scenario outcome probably is to annex all the Russian speaking areas and cut off remnant Ukraine from the sea.

solarz said:

There are posters here who think Russia is purposefully dragging this war out to deplete Ukrainian defenses. For more reasons than one, I do not think that is true.

Instead, I think Russia is restructuring its military to go all in. As in, take over all of Ukraine. I don't think they're looking to stabilize the front line. I think what we are seeing is just Russia taking the time to bring more force to bear.

We've heard from Putin's own mouth that he thinks Ukraine is a historical mistake that should be corrected. Strategically, Russia would want as big of a buffer zone as possible between Crimea and NATO. Geographically, Ukraine east of Dnieper can't serve that purpose, although securing freshwater access to Crimea is certainly critical.

My personal theory is that Russia was initially hoping for a quick conflict followed by negotiations with NATO in order to secure more favorable terms. When that did not happen, there was a period of indecision where the Russian leadership could not decide on the next step. I think the announcement of the partial mobilization was a sign that Russia decided on a Plan B, and we are now seeing it being carried out.

Click to expand...

Trying to go on the west part of Ukraine will be epic... only way in from land is now Belarus. Using bridges on the Dnieper give insane choke points to Ukraine and a beach landing south is suicidal. Bridges are probably ready to blow off with mines most probably. They need to sort things out in the east but if they do, the north will be way more protected by Ukrainian forces than now. It will be a longshot to try that presently and if they take the east bank it will be even harder.

Biden says "Allies supplied 2,000 tanks and armored vehicles, 800 artillery systems and 2 million shells".

Lithuanian soldiers are apparently involved directly in Ukraine with the support of their MoD. But you know, no NATO country is participating at all, no sir.

Russia is starting to push back into Lyman and Lysychansk

Pantsir intercepting HIMARS rockets

Claims of what's left of a T-64 after being hit by a T-90. Seems more like what's left of a T-80, going by the roadwheels


Rybar now is part of the working group on mobilization and social support created by Putin

phrozenflame said:

I think it's more of finding out the hard way how corruption over the years messed up the army and there are stark differences in reality vs what was on paper and now they're fixing the shit in trial by fire. This is also evident in related news where Putin basically said that a lot of basic stuff needs fixing like guns and shoes etc and for that money will not be the issue. Holding entire of Ukraine will be just like Afghanistan on steroids. Their best-scenario outcome probably is to annex all the Russian speaking areas and cut off remnant Ukraine from the sea.

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Yes they are certainly carrying out reforms, but the boost in manpower indicates to me they're looking for more than just reforms.

Atomicfrog said:

Trying to go on the west part of Ukraine will be epic... only way in from land is now Belarus. Using bridges on the Dnieper give insane choke points to Ukraine and a beach landing south is suicidal. Bridges are probably ready to blow off with mines most probably. They need to sort things out in the east but if they do, the north will be way more protected by Ukrainian forces than now. It will be a longshot to try that presently and if they take the east bank it will be even harder.

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I think Russia's main difficulty so far has not been in cracking Ukrainian defenses but in holding gained territory.

With Russia's firepower advantage, it's very difficult for Ukraine to mass forces for defenses without suffering heavy casualties. They have had better results counter attacking over the long and porous front line.

Yellow Submarine said:

Someone correct me if I am mistaken, but my understanding is that many modern ARM's including AGM-88 will continue to home in the last known location of the target if the radar is switched off. In theory, an air defense system could use shoot-and-scoot tactics to evade incoming ARM's, but the high speeds of modern systems like AGM-88 mean that the missile has a very good chance of hitting the target before it has a chance to get clear.

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Last known location of the target doesn't help when the target is already running away. There is a reason why these air defense systems are on wheels. Furthermore AGM-88s are shot down with consistent regularity in this campaign with the Russian MoD reporting shootdowns frequently, and we can assume by S-300s, Buks, Tors and Pantsirs. Mach 3 simply doesn't cut it anymore against missiles meant to shoot down other missiles, and the HARM becomes another missile to shot down. You can expect these missiles fly a straight predictable path towards the target from altitude and that makes them vulnerable to interception. Another problem is decoys, things that emit radio waveforms that are intentionally similar to the radars.

Lancet claims another victim. With the way it goes, this has to be an ammo truck.



Tanks getting destroyed by Russian artillery.


Russian artillery and mortars working at infantry targets.