I don't think the aim is to take all of Ukraine east of the Dniper, but Odessa is likely in my assessment.
The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
Someone back in Feb posted this picture which showed the pro-Russian population ratio:
At the time this division made more sense to me than the river. I though of it at the time as the "maximum" goal for a possible Russian offensive, the "minimum" I thought would be just to expand the two republics to their administrative border. Hence I too was very surprised with the attack on Kiev with a "okay... I hope you guys know what you're doing" feel.
Speaking of war goals, I am on the camp of Russia will grab big instead of small like "just west of river" and "just connect to crimea".
First lets define the minimums. Kherson, Zaporizha are already in process of integerating into russia. These two russia will not let go. Luhansk and Donetsk are no brainers basic initial war goal. What about the rests?
Hypothetically speaking Russia could be perfectly happy with these gains, and secure a neutralized Ukraine as client state. But will it really go that easy? No way Ukraine will just surrender even if it seems rational to cut the loss at that point. Therefore the war goes on.
As Ukrainian military disintegerate, westerrn stocks run low, the economy collapses, Russia will advance further, and have less of a reason to give back. They will advance faster and faster. Cities will fall one after another and Ukraine will stay on the fight. Russia will obtain Odessa, dnipro, kharkov, and even Kiev. And Ukrainian government will still be too stubborn.
At this point Russia can just call it a defacto win and attempt to roll over and police rest of ukraine. Or Ukrainian people finally had enough and coup the leadership. Either extreme scenario is more likely than a flat surrender.
This means either Russia grab all of Ukraine and spend time police it, or at least hold enough land to cause collapse of Ukrainian society. No matter what there can be no "call it a small win and go home".
The so called maximalist gain of grabbing most of ukraine west is really a very conservative estimate. It is far more likely to go above it.
First lets define the minimums. Kherson, Zaporizha are already in process of integerating into russia. These two russia will not let go. Luhansk and Donetsk are no brainers basic initial war goal. What about the rests?
Hypothetically speaking Russia could be perfectly happy with these gains, and secure a neutralized Ukraine as client state. But will it really go that easy? No way Ukraine will just surrender even if it seems rational to cut the loss at that point. Therefore the war goes on.
As Ukrainian military disintegerate, westerrn stocks run low, the economy collapses, Russia will advance further, and have less of a reason to give back. They will advance faster and faster. Cities will fall one after another and Ukraine will stay on the fight. Russia will obtain Odessa, dnipro, kharkov, and even Kiev. And Ukrainian government will still be too stubborn.
At this point Russia can just call it a defacto win and attempt to roll over and police rest of ukraine. Or Ukrainian people finally had enough and coup the leadership. Either extreme scenario is more likely than a flat surrender.
This means either Russia grab all of Ukraine and spend time police it, or at least hold enough land to cause collapse of Ukrainian society. No matter what there can be no "call it a small win and go home".
The so called maximalist gain of grabbing most of ukraine west is really a very conservative estimate. It is far more likely to go above it.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
I don’t think Russia would simply stop after taking all the pro-Russian areas. There is just no reason or benefit for them to do so while there will be a hell of a lot of downsides to leaving the job half finished.
I still think Putin is going for all the Ukrainian marbles, but we may see a significant shift in operational approach after they have taken the pro-Russia areas.
Currently the Russians are working with significant restraint in their application of force in and around civilian population centres while the Ukrainians are indifferent or actively using their pro-Russian civilians as human shields.
You will have to be an idiot to think the Russians have not taken note and remembers that.
As such, I can easily see the Russians reversing their self imposed restrictive ROE once they get to the anti-Russian parts and just flatten everything with truly excessive use of artillery and probably a lot more aviation if precision isn’t really needed anymore.
That has a multitude of benefits such as further reducing their casualties; vastly speeding up their advances, and driving the anti-Russian population out of Ukraine so post conflict there will be much less insurgency to deal will while also creating a massive welfare and societal problem for NATO and the EU.
The cost is going to be massively bad PR, but the extreme western media war has already tried to make Putin out to be worse than Hitler and the devil combined, so I don’t think there is that much downside as far as Putin is concerned.
Those who want Russia to magically stop simply has OCD and want a pretty border. There is no sane reason to leave the job half done, especially after doing the hardest part.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
And having already incurred as much economic and diplomatic costs as they are ever going to.
This is the downside of going to the extreme with sanctions and the propaganda war right off the bat - if/when that fails, you got extremely limited escalation options and thus no leverage to try to restrain opfor behaviour without rolling up your sleeves and getting into the fight yourself.
The extremes of western sanctions did surprise Putin, not with their effectiveness but with their stupidity. In many ways, the west made it so much easier for Putin to go for all the marbles, as I’m sure he always wanted but probably didn’t think he could get enough domestic support for.
Had the west played it smart and started off with heavy but not full sanctions and worked to shore up international support for full economic isolation of Russia; confiscation of Russian private and public overseas assets and logistics to replace Russian exports, and threatening Russia with those full sanctions if it crossed a certain line in the sand, that might have worked to persuade Putin to call a halt after taking the pro-Russian areas to avoid going over the brink economically speaking as he would have faced massive and growing domestic opposition as well as significant uncertainty on how the Russian economic might fare.
But the west when for broke right off the bat, and ended up getting broke as their vaunted economic weapons proved as illusionary and ineffective as Russian BTU reforms. While Russia quickly reassessed and adjusted their military strategy, the west seems wholly incapable of doing anything like that with their economic and diplomatic loosing strategy and can only seem to keep doubling down and then backtracking when reality bites.
Perhaps this briefing explains the assessment:
Please always post original source URL and provide relevant commentary or thoughtful analysis to accompany Twitter posts.
⚡️Briefing by Russian Defence Ministry
During an inspection of the Azovstal plant underground facilities in Mariupol, where the surrendered Nazis of the Ukrainian Azov formation were hiding, Russian servicemen found an isothermal van.
152 bodies of dead fighters and servicemen of the AFU were stored in the van with the broken cooling system.
I recall that before surrendering, the Azov command publicly appealed to Zelensky to take the bodies of the dead so that their families could bury them on Kiev-controlled territory.
However, there were no requests from Kiev to receive the bodies of the dead from the Azovstal plant.
Moreover, during the inspection of the van, Russian sappers found four mines under the bodies of the dead Ukrainian soldiers. The total mass of explosives in them was enough to destroy all the bodies left in the van.
Based on the results of interrogations of captured Azov fighters, it has been established that the mining of the bodies was carried out on direct orders from Kiev.
The purpose of the provocation is to accuse Russia of deliberately destroying the bodies and preventing their removal for transfer to relatives in order to save the political "reputation" of the Kiev regime and Zelensky personally.
In the near future, the Russian side plans to hand over the bodies of Ukrainian fighters and servicemen found on the territory of Azovstal plant to representatives of Ukraine.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation in Ukraine.
During the day, high-precision air-based missiles have hit 4 control points, as well as 13 areas of concentration of Ukrainian manpower and military equipment.
Operational-tactical, army and unmanned aviation have hit 3 command posts, 69 areas of manpower and military equipment concentration, 1 radar station and 2 ammunition depots of the AFU near Raigorodok and Nikolaevka, Donetsk People's Republic.
The attacks have resulted in the elimination of more than 290 nationalists and 23 weapons and military equipment. 1 Su-25 aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force has been shot down near Kobzatsy, Nikolaev Region.
Russian air defense means have shot down 6 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles near Donetsk, Makeevka in Donetsk People's Republic, Popasnaya in Lugansk People's Republic, Liptsy, Bolshie Prokhody in Kharkov Region, including 1 UAV have been shot down near Snake Island.
Missile troops and artillery have hit 38 command posts, 417 areas of manpower and military equipment concentration, and 46 firing positions of artillery and mortar batteries.
36 pieces of weapons and military equipment nave been destroyed, including 1 Ukrainian Uragan multiple-launch rocket system battery, 1 Grad multiple-launch rocket system battery, 2 ammunition depots, and 1 fuel depot.
In total, 184 Ukrainian aircraft and 128 helicopters, 1,070 unmanned aerial vehicles, 325 anti-aircraft missile systems, 3,342 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 454 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,738 field artillery and mortars, as well as 3,311 units of special military vehicles were destroyed during the operation.
#MoD #Russia #Ukraine #Briefing
@mod_russia_en
During an inspection of the Azovstal plant underground facilities in Mariupol, where the surrendered Nazis of the Ukrainian Azov formation were hiding, Russian servicemen found an isothermal van.152 bodies of dead fighters and servicemen of the AFU were stored in the van with the broken cooling system.I recall that before surrendering, the Azov command publicly appealed to Zelensky to take the bodies of the dead so that their families could bury them on Kiev-controlled territory.However, there were no requests from Kiev to receive the bodies of the dead from the Azovstal plant.Moreover, during the inspection of the van, Russian sappers found four mines under the bodies of the dead Ukrainian soldiers. The total mass of explosives in them was enough to destroy all the bodies left in the van.Based on the results of interrogations of captured Azov fighters, it has been established that the mining of the bodies was carried out on direct orders from Kiev.The purpose of the provocation is to accuse Russia of deliberately destroying the bodies and preventing their removal for transfer to relatives in order to save the political "reputation" of the Kiev regime and Zelensky personally.In the near future, the Russian side plans to hand over the bodies of Ukrainian fighters and servicemen found on the territory of Azovstal plant to representatives of Ukraine.The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation in Ukraine.During the day, high-precision air-based missiles have hit 4 control points, as well as 13 areas of concentration of Ukrainian manpower and military equipment.
Operational-tactical, army and unmanned aviation have hit 3 command posts, 69 areas of manpower and military equipment concentration, 1 radar station and 2 ammunition depots of the AFU near Raigorodok and Nikolaevka, Donetsk People's Republic.The attacks have resulted in the elimination of more than 290 nationalists and 23 weapons and military equipment. 1 Su-25 aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force has been shot down near Kobzatsy, Nikolaev Region.Russian air defense means have shot down 6 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles near Donetsk, Makeevka in Donetsk People's Republic, Popasnaya in Lugansk People's Republic, Liptsy, Bolshie Prokhody in Kharkov Region, including 1 UAV have been shot down near Snake Island.
Missile troops and artillery have hit 38 command posts, 417 areas of manpower and military equipment concentration, and 46 firing positions of artillery and mortar batteries.
36 pieces of weapons and military equipment nave been destroyed, including 1 Ukrainian Uragan multiple-launch rocket system battery, 1 Grad multiple-launch rocket system battery, 2 ammunition depots, and 1 fuel depot.In total, 184 Ukrainian aircraft and 128 helicopters, 1,070 unmanned aerial vehicles, 325 anti-aircraft missile systems, 3,342 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 454 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,738 field artillery and mortars, as well as 3,311 units of special military vehicles were destroyed during the operation.
#MoD #Russia #Ukraine #Briefing
@mod_russia_en
What job? What is the National Strategic Objective? Why occupy a population that is not in any way inclined to you? Brilliant Plan!