The War in the Ukraine

Deino said:

Not sure where you read this and IMO no-one is hyping this as THE viceroy of the Ukrainian army, but regardless the more or less small military gains of this action, it is indeed embarrassing for Russia and as such a PR-Stund for Ukraine.

Click to expand...

The gain is mostly for moral benefits and most importantly, norm-breaking the "can't invade Russian territory" thing. This is Ukraine's biggest accomplishment in that operation.

Their (temporary?) gain of a few meters or kilometers is irrelevant when viewed in the above context.

After all, even in war, politics and diplomacy still play a role

Krasnopol strike on a Ukrainian 2S1 Gvozdika SPG.


Downed Ukrainian UAV. It might have been downed with gunfire.


This looks to me along that strip of road towards the MiG-17 monument and the final Ukrainian holdouts in the now Artemovsk. Ukrainian holdouts using a civilian home as a shelter, followed by a Russian ATGM that destroyed it.

MarKoz81 said:

Here's my reading of the events.

OBJECTIVES:

1. strategic level

1.1. test of invasion of Russian territory


1.2. test of false flag operations in Crimea


1.3. test of intervention in Belarus


2. operational level

2.1. test efficiency of Russian decision process


2.2. shaping operations for Ukrainian offensive


3. tactical level

3.1. test simulation of uprising as a tactic


3.2. test maneuver as foundation of tactics

Click to expand...

Your evaluation is based on the assumption that the Russians are stupid.

This is the asumption of the Capitol, this shaped the whole Capitol controlled actions in political and NATO sphere in the past year.
OF course, the Russians could be stupid, but the current actions won't different if we expect them to be incompetent, or to expect them to hide the reaction timings and control structures.

At the end of the day the Russians well aware of the need of the Capitol/CIA to see the internal working of the information and logistical structures .

If the NATO command doesn't know the Russian reaction times and general reaction for an invasion then the plans will be bad and innacurate, that makes easier to defeat it.


Say they mobilised a bigger force immedietly, neutralised the intrusion on the spot - it would be a tactical success, but a strategical defeat.

From that point of time the NATO command in Brussel know well that if they send one ukrainans to the border then it will tie up say ten russian.
And the Capitol is not short of ukrainans, they haven't got enought equipment , and trained soldiers, but there are countless untrained/minimally trained personal that can be driven to the border in passanger cars with same cold war relic german guns.

Deino said:

Not sure where you read this and IMO no-one is hyping this as THE viceroy of the Ukrainian army, but regardless the more or less small military gains of this action, it is indeed embarrassing for Russia and as such a PR-Stund for Ukraine.

Click to expand...

I don't believe the sight of destroyed **United States** military equipment in the act of invading Russian motherland soil to the Russian people is a proper statement, and one I think embarasses the White House who are looking to control escalation of the conflict.

SolarWarden said:

I think the panic by Russian forces when Ukraine started localized counter attacks at the Bakhmut flanks is a bad omen of what's to come when Ukraine launches its offensive.

Click to expand...

Panic in what? Social media channels? Who was it that confused a small Ukrainian attack to ensure the remaining defenders can withdraw with an actual encirclement of the city?

SolarWarden said:

Ukraine has been stocking up on 155mm and GMLRS and more are coming in with more launchers for the GMLRS. Russian trenches are going to get hit hard before any armor rolls in.

Click to expand...

So what? Russia before the war started had 20 Tornado-S launchers, i.e. upgraded Smerch, in service. Right now they have 100 such launchers. How many HIMARS MLRS launchers does Ukraine have? And Smerch uses 300mm rockets, while GMLRS uses 227mm ones. Guess which system has more range and larger warhead. Each HIMARS vehicle can launch 6 227mm rockets, and each Tornado-S can launch 12 300mm rockets. Do the math.

Also, unlike Ukraine, Russia has the huge amounts of modern short range air defenses to be able to intercept the low numbers of large artillery rockets that Ukraine fires. The air defenses might not have 100% coverage or work 100% of the time but it is more than what Ukraine can do.

SolarWarden said:

It's a whole different army Russia is going to face Better trained and equipped with high morale it is very possible Ukraine can push Russia back close to pre 2022 lines.

Click to expand...

So you are telling me that guys who trained for a couple of months are going to fair better than all the also "NATO trained" troops Ukraine has produced since at least 2014 who have been rotated in and out of Donbass and had actual prior combat experience. Right. For how long do you think the West has had military advisors training troops in Ukraine?

As for "better equipped" that is debatable. Ukraine have better light vehicles and more long range high precision systems than when the conflict started. But they have little to no aviation remaining to speak of and their heavy vehicle park keeps shrinking every day. And Russia still has more light vehicles. More equipment in all cases. Not to mention that Russian vehicles can actually travel through the mud and soft terrain in Ukraine better than most of those Western supplied vehicles that Ukraine is getting.

Tam said:

I don't believe the sight of destroyed **United States** military equipment in the act of invading Russian motherland soil to the Russian people is a proper statement, and one I think embarasses the White House who are looking to control escalation of the conflict.

Click to expand...

Yeah, USA miltary vehicle and equipment used to invade Russia - no one needs better fuel for propaganda.
But, not the the propaganda in the interest of the Captiol, but rather to trigger more support for the war in Russia, and to show the Belorusians and everyone else whom is the enemy.

And generally, the Russians, Belorusians , Ukrainans are quite well aware what is the result for the bottom line of the average person all of the USA medling in they internal /neighbrought politics.

Don't think that there is a real support in these countries for the Captitol strategy - honestly I think even the average poles see all of these negatively, and require huge sum of money flow from the captiols's treasury to keep them on the atlantic side of the story.


How can anyone think that it is a good support to make and nurture internal oposition in Russia ?


Warning: sarcasm. Seriously everyone. Refrain from being sarcastic.

Anlsvrthng said:

If this had a political / propaganda intention then it is a huge failure, on the level of the Bud Light.

Click to expand...

Only reason for this attack was to take away public focus from Bakhmut loss and problems with announced spring counter offensive. Losing several MRAPs, Humvee with unknown numbers of Ukrainians soldiers in process are not so big price. Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm particularly at loss with the logic behind claiming that Bakhmut is a pyrrhic victory for the Russians but the waste of resources in Belgorod by Ukraine is a massive victory somehow.


Apparently Ukraine is losing around 10.000 drones a month to Russian EW systems, or around 300 drones a day. RUSI estimates that there is a Russian EW system every 6 miles of the frontline



French outlet claims the French governement has lost contact with around 40% to 60% of the Ukranian soldiers it has trained, estimating that they are likely dead or seriously injured

Analysis of the effects of Russian thermobaric weapons in Ukraine, with a documented case of a soldier suffering burns over 80% of their body despite being 60m away from the blast

Defence Politics Asia has geolocated all videos. All seem to be on or close to the border. He thinks it could have been an attempt to draw Russian forces into a trap.

He also believes 70 soldiers died in it.

Anlsvrthng said:

If this had a political / propaganda intention then it is a huge failure, on the level of the Bud Light.

Click to expand...

I doubt it was a PR campaign as outlets like Bellingcat were saying bad things about the Free Russian Army.

I still think the Ukrainians just wanted to send them to their deaths, maybe they had a history of poor discipline. In that regard it was a very successful operation.

Russian news on Zaluzhny's condition, claiming to have an Ukrainian military source:

First aid was provided Zaluzhny in Nikolaev in order to stop the bleeding. He had a cranial trepanation done in the Kiev military hospital

Click to expand...

The forecast is that he will live, but he will not be able to do his job

Click to expand...