The War in the Ukraine

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Atomicfrog

Major
Registered Member
Phead128 said:
It would be 100% correct thing to do from a strategic point of view to Eliminate (not just cripple and de-militarize) a rabidly anti-Russian regime once the Donbass and southern forces are defeated. As you and Wolfie said, whatever remaining weak force in Western Ukraine are unable to resist.

But...knowing Putin, he is probably be content with holding the east and South (
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) and that is a strategic mistake. He cannot allow a crippled regime to exist, that just kicks the can down the road. I don't have much confidence he will go all out to eliminate Kiev, he might just declare victory after East/South (
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) is conquered, which is unfortunate, since a NATO-backed crippled West Ukraine is still a thorn in future, no matter what a paper promise says otherwise. He should Go Big (or go home) is what I'm trying to say.
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It's way harder having not secured all the east. They will have a frontier without good geographic borders from east to west if they stop at Novorussiva. The Dnieper is way easier to manage than open ground...
 
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Weaasel

Senior Member
Registered Member
SampanViking said:
The big problem with decapitation is that once its been done, who is left to negotiate with to close the thing down.
If Russia does move to decapitation, it will simply mean that they no longer have any confidence is there being anyone that they can eventually negotiate with.

As for Kiev, there is a big difference between abandoning a mission and being defeated. Clearly the Russians were not defeated militarily and forced to retreat. The mission, what ever it was, was abandoned and the Russians conducted an orderly withdrawal in good order.

I never bought into the Kiev capture narrative. To me I saw a major scale pincer to develop along the Dnieper, to match the pincer that was developing in the South at the Mouth of the River at Kherson.
I think most people would agree that the Ukrainians should have withdrawn in February to the West bank of the Dnieper and preserved it army along a much stronger defensive line. The order to hold all ground may have made for good TV but is now clearly being shown for the Strategic disaster that many; myself included, always saw it as.

As Wolfie says, once the Donbas force is defeated, what else of any consequence do the Ukrainians have left. Then you can see the rapid rolling up of what is left including a return to Kiev for whatever purpose.
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Do you not think that the Ukrainians are actually holding a significant portion of their troops back just in case the Russians again try to assault the North again?
 
RedMetalSeadramon

RedMetalSeadramon

Junior Member
Registered Member
Weaasel said:
Do you not think that the Ukrainians are actually holding a significant portion of their troops back just in case the Russians again try to assault the North again?
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I think most of these 700k Ukraine says they've mobilized are "National Guard/Territorial Defense" types with no logistic setup once they're outside of their major city supply zone. So they "hold back" because they cant be conventionally deployed.
 
I

isogur

New Member
Registered Member
RedMetalSeadramon said:
South Korea is presented with an excellent business opportunity to offload some 1970s shells that are so old that ISIS wouldn't even take them for IEDs.

Probably a bunch with fuses that dont work, but doesn't matter because they're going to use it for training only.
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Turk here. Most probably 105 mm and 75 mm shells, no longer needed since weapons firing them phased out. In late 1990's we made a similar deal with Germany and Netherlands. They wanted to get rid of large wartime only stocks of perfectly operational 105 mm and 75 mm shells intended for phased out equipment (Leo 1 tanks, M101 105 mm and M116 75 mm arty etc.). We even got a decent "disposal fee". Then we turned them into ultra cheap, sealed, jeep or helo transportable, disposable missile arrays. They have been "disposed of" in Iraq and Syria since then to the much dismay of our "allies".
 
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