The War in the Ukraine

Aegis21 said:

Even if they managed to collected 200k troops, how are they going to be armed? The leaked documents showed that the offensive force would be ~60k in strength. Even then, some of the tank numbers and other vehicles are labeled TBD so as of last month they weren’t completely sure how they would fix the shortfalls.

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plawolf said:

I think we are approaching a moment of truth period once the weather improves enough for general spring offensives. The timing, scale and scope of the Russian offensive will offer significant insight into their broader strategic plans.

I personally think the Russian offensive will be smaller and much more limited in scale than many might expect/hope for. The primary strategic objective of the Russian offensive would be to push Ukraine out of artillery range of population centres in the captured territories; to try to secure favourable positions to limit the locations of possible major Ukrainian counter offensives; and to create more Bakhmuts.

The reason is that it should be abundantly clear to the Russians by now that a conventional military win, while emotionally satisfying, will be extremely costly in lives, treasure and time; and be very risky in terms of triggering NATO direct involvement and/or nuclear escalation.

With the way the war has progressed thus far, it’s hard to see how Russia can delivery a decisive knock-out blow to be able to end the war quickly. Any breakthroughs will be limited in scale and depth, with it being one giant slow grind where villages, towns and cities are slowly taken through being pounded to piles of smoking rubble. And as the Russians push further westwards, the logistics will become less favourable to them, as would the risks of Ukrainian counterattacks being able to punch through their overstretched Russian lines and rapidly roll back a lot of gains quickly, as has already happened.

Basically, Russia not doing more mobilisation should have already spelt out that their intentions are not to win this war through conventional battlefield victories.

Instead, I think the Russian strategy is to target the well established American and western weakness of staying power and resolve. Why beat your fists bloody trying to punch your way through an ice wall when you can just sit back and watch it melt under the heat of the summer sun all by itself?

The big strategic struggle right now is Russian seeking to lock the war into a slow grind stalemate that minimises Russian losses while maximising the costs to Ukraine’s foreign NATO backers (Bakhmut and periodic infrastructure hits); and the US and NATO pushing Ukraine to break that deadlock and end the war quickly on the battlefield by going on the offensive themselves, or by trying to goad the Russians into unwise overstretched assaults (shelling civilian city centres).

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plawolf said:

I think we are approaching a moment of truth period once the weather improves enough for general spring offensives. The timing, scale and scope of the Russian offensive will offer significant insight into their broader strategic plans.

I personally think the Russian offensive will be smaller and much more limited in scale than many might expect/hope for. The primary strategic objective of the Russian offensive would be to push Ukraine out of artillery range of population centres in the captured territories; to try to secure favourable positions to limit the locations of possible major Ukrainian counter offensives; and to create more Bakhmuts.

The reason is that it should be abundantly clear to the Russians by now that a conventional military win, while emotionally satisfying, will be extremely costly in lives, treasure and time; and be very risky in terms of triggering NATO direct involvement and/or nuclear escalation.

With the way the war has progressed thus far, it’s hard to see how Russia can delivery a decisive knock-out blow to be able to end the war quickly. Any breakthroughs will be limited in scale and depth, with it being one giant slow grind where villages, towns and cities are slowly taken through being pounded to piles of smoking rubble. And as the Russians push further westwards, the logistics will become less favourable to them, as would the risks of Ukrainian counterattacks being able to punch through their overstretched Russian lines and rapidly roll back a lot of gains quickly, as has already happened.

Basically, Russia not doing more mobilisation should have already spelt out that their intentions are not to win this war through conventional battlefield victories.

Instead, I think the Russian strategy is to target the well established American and western weakness of staying power and resolve. Why beat your fists bloody trying to punch your way through an ice wall when you can just sit back and watch it melt under the heat of the summer sun all by itself?

The big strategic struggle right now is Russian seeking to lock the war into a slow grind stalemate that minimises Russian losses while maximising the costs to Ukraine’s foreign NATO backers (Bakhmut and periodic infrastructure hits); and the US and NATO pushing Ukraine to break that deadlock and end the war quickly on the battlefield by going on the offensive themselves, or by trying to goad the Russians into unwise overstretched assaults (shelling civilian city centres).

Click to expand...

Aegis21 said:

Even if they managed to collected 200k troops, how are they going to be armed? The leaked documents showed that the offensive force would be ~60k in strength. Even then, some of the tank numbers and other vehicles are labeled TBD so as of last month they weren’t completely sure how they would fix the shortfalls.

Click to expand...

SolarWarden said:

If they really had 200k they could have easily spared 50k to Bakhmut and very likely taken it back or stop any Russian advancement in Bakhmut. I think 50-60k troops is the correct count when you add all the troops that have been sent to Europe for training including the 10k troops that came back from training from UK 4 months ago.

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Botnet said:

Haven't the Russians been on the offensive the whole time? Their whole vaunted winter offensive?

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obj 705A said:

And regarding these "leaks" something about them just doesn't make sense. the original "leaks" state that the Ukrainians suffered around just 17k deaths, this number is about as real as was the Ghost of Kiev, that is to say the only people who would believe in these numbers are the same kind of people who believed in the Ghost of Kiev.
The Ukrainian casualty numbers alone are enough to completely discredit these documents.

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Aegis21 said:

The documents themselves say that the US doesn’t have complete faith in any of the casualty numbers or attrition rates. The claims of Ukrainian losses are basically copy-pasted from whatever their defense ministry said. Likewise with Russian casualties and Oryx sourced equipment losses. I can’t tell whether they’re actually too lazy to find the correct numbers (unlikely) or use lower casualty estimates for Ukrainians to gather continued support in the higher levels (likely). It could also be true that this is all some big PSYOP but how does that match up with all the other documents released regarding Israel, ISIS, etc?

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KYIV, Ukraine — The men in uniform could show up almost anywhere, any time.
They knock on civilians’ front doors and randomly stop them on street corners, handing out draft papers that can turn lives upside down.
Ukraine needs more soldiers — and fast. Kyiv is preparing for an imminent assault on Russian occupying forces, and while Ukraine does not disclose its casualty counts, commanders in the field have described large losses.

And the pace and aggression with which officials are now calling on civilian men to report to military offices — or sign up on their own — are sowing panic among those who feel unprepared or unwilling to serve.

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