The War in the Ukraine

Kich said:

You don't leave the regions bordering the enemy you've been fighting for 3 years exposed. Yet the Russians keep doing it. I've lost count how many times Ukraine has started incursions into Russia.

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So what. The US cannot even guard its border against migrants and drug dealers.

Kich said:

You seal the borders.

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The US also had a hard time sealing the borders in Iraq and Afghanistan. Arguably they were never able to do it.
Many Iraqi troops and equipment fled into Iran. And ISIL crept in from Syria. In Afghanistan the border with Pakistan was highly porous and they could never close it.

Kich said:

You mobilize the entire nation, not this half-measure mobilization or conscription. Look at Israel against a weak opponent in Hamas.

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That is because Israel itself is weak. They cannot mount a proper response without mobilization.

Kich said:

You allocate a major part of your finance to the military to design and produce vital equipment needed for the war (satellites, aircraft, etc).

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It is not that they couldn't have certain equipment. But how exactly would having more aircraft help against Ukraine?

Kich said:

You declare NFZ over the entire Ukraine airspace and portions extending to the Black Sea. Even if you can't enforce it, it would give you cover if you down any Ukraine ally that violates it.

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And then you look like an idiot because you cannot enforce it. Like the US have been looking like idiots against the Houthi in Yemen.

Kich said:

You actually declare a war not the "special military operation"

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The US hasn't formally declared a war since like forever. Their invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were not preceded by declarations of war either.

Kich said:

Russia acts like it can have its cake and eat it too. Putin wants to launch a major war, while trying to not bring any suffering or consequences to Russian citizens. All these measures creates hardship for Russian citizens, but the top priority should be victory at the earliest.

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Putin has a lot of experience fighting the West. Since the Second Chechen War. Which experience do you have?

Kich said:

At this rate, the war will go on for another 3 years especially if the same administration wins US elections.

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For a lot of people in Russia they do not care how long it takes.

Kich said:

1. The Kursk region is very forested. They can hide infantry in those forest, while having them dig trenches in those forest.

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I don't think that looks really forested.

The video of the alleged HIMARS strike on the Russian column in Oktyabrskoe is bizzare: dozens upon dozens of killed Russian soldiers inside Kamaz trucks with some vehicles showing no visible damage, other than flat tires.

The consensus seems to point to “tungsten rain”, the M30A1 warhead with 180,000 preformed tungsten fragments that shred through vehicles and light armor. However, that would imply Ukraine used a cluster like warhead in the middle of an urban settlement.

Potentially an entire battalion was wiped out, making this one of the deadliest single strikes of the war.

Zichan said:

The video of the alleged HIMARS strike on the Russian column in Oktyabrskoe is bizzare: dozens upon dozens of killed Russian soldiers inside Kamaz trucks with some vehicles showing no visible damage, other than flat tires.

The consensus seems to point to “tungsten rain”, the M30A1 warhead with 180,000 preformed tungsten fragments that shred through vehicles and light armor. However, that would imply Ukraine used a cluster like warhead in the middle of an urban settlement.

Potentially an entire battalion was wiped out, making this one of the deadliest single strikes of the war.

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The videos are all over reddit. Possibly 100-200 KIA. Bodies, some burned still in the trucks. I don't want to post here to get banned.

There's an IR drone video of the strike and ground civilian of the aftermath. The column were bunched up as usual and the missile didn't look like a cluster version. Just singular explosions but it was from multiple warheads.

The key point is Ukraine had surveillance of the battlefield. They are ready for this and are not posting too much online. Operation silence and security is the first time I've seen from them; unlike the infamous summer offensive.

This weekend will be key. I would be watching to see if the Russians have established some sense of control. Putin looked very angry when Garismov was updating him.
He also had a red folder; some say he had a red folder on the last security meeting before they invaded Ukraine, 2022. Could have some significance; could not.

so Ukraine and the US basically just salami sliced Russia's "red lines" about HIMARS not targetting Russia's original territory. surely that counts as some sort of win for Ukraine

Kich said:

Start posting comment about how Russia can't prosecute this war correctly and the mods here will threaten you with a ban.

The level of incompetence is amazing yet many here keep eating Russia MOD lies.

This is not how you fight a major war.

You don't leave the regions bordering the enemy you've been fighting for 3 years exposed. Yet the Russians keep doing it. I've lost count how many times Ukraine has started incursions into Russia.

You don't leave the enemy energy and other vital infrastructure intact. You level everything. That's how the West fights. It works.

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It didn't work for the west in Vietnam or in Korea, it doesn't work against any army worth it's salt because AAMs, dispersed units and defenses are a thing. Modern supply lines can apparently be insanely durable, to the point where even a tiny enclave like Gaza cannot be fully blocked.

Kich said:

You seal the borders.
You mobilize the entire nation, not this half-measure mobilization or conscription. Look at Israel against a weak opponent in Hamas.

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Many months later, Hamas has rotated out some 10-20% of its forces. At least Russia took Mariupol properly in a few months. This is probably the worst example of how to do things properly.

Kich said:

You allocate a major part of your finance to the military to design and produce vital equipment needed for the war (satellites, aircraft, etc).
You declare NFZ over the entire Ukraine airspace and portions extending to the Black Sea. Even if you can't enforce it, it would give you cover if you down any Ukraine ally that violates it.
You actually declare a war not the "special military operation"

Russia acts like it can have its cake and eat it too. Putin wants to launch a major war, while trying to not bring any suffering or consequences to Russian citizens. All these measures creates hardship for Russian citizens, but the top priority should be victory at the earliest.

At this rate, the war will go on for another 3 years especially if the same administration wins US elections.

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The correct doctrine when facing an army that fights as you describe is to disperse your locally firepower inferior forces, make your own mobilisation, outlast the enemy mobilisation and inflict attrition on his constant air warfare. US lost 10 000+ aircraft in Vietnam, in part due to the insistence of trying to fly B52s deep into Vietnam for raids that had almost no military value. After mobilising too early and for too long, they also began to experience unrest. Together, these factors forced a defeat.

Because all great powers today have no experience fighting major wars, they default to trying new tactics and looking back on long ago near peer conflicts. Russia is probably not prosecuting the war optimally but I don't see other parties necessarily doing better, there aren't any concrete examples of such a war being fought "more correctly".

Mobilisation is a huge card they can play, but learning from Vietnam and delaying it has imho proved the more correct choice. What is better, mobilising for a major push today when Ukraine has ~25 000 offensive capable troops, or mobilising 2023 when Ukraine had 400 000+ offensive capable troops?

In the Vietnam War the draft was a major source of political instability in the US. They learned their lesson and in the Gulf War it was all done with contract soldiers.

I do not think the exact same situation would apply for Russia however. Since they are fighting on their own borders, for Russian speaking citizens, and now even inside Russia proper, the morale and hardened resolve to continue fighting and escalate will be totally different. This is why comparisons with the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan also fall flat on their face. For the Soviets it was a fight in their periphery very far from their main population cores with little benefit.

TK3600 said:

Alternative: Sit in your town, eat bombs, get pushed out in 1 month. Russians just sit out and take minimal casualty.

Plan: Push out of town, eat bombs, inflict proportional damage to Russians, gtfo after a month.

Result is the same, but at least they died doing some real damage for once. The damage might not be enough to win a war singlehandedly, but what can you do? Just take the small win and forget it.

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The alternative is biding your time for better opportunities.

Trends are not set in stone. Focusing on minimizing your losses and slowly ceding territory is indeed an option. Perhaps, the best option at the moment.

If I was Ukraine, I would sit on the defensive. I would mobilize the country even more than it already is. I would focus on trying to get the nation to see it as an existential threat as much as possible. I would try to exhaust the Russians and make them see that they will not be able to occupy my country unless they are ready for decades of war, insurgency, and terrorism. I would leverage this reality to extract concessions.

Of course I would also take the very generous terms offered in 2022, but my point is that Ukraine didn’t have to do a Kursk offensive. Now Im not saying it already failed. We don’t know what happened, but these troops could’ve greatly slowed down the Russian advance in the East.

Under the right circumstances Ukraine can put up a very stubborn defense and they have done so before, but they’re not going to bluff Russians into a favorable treaty with this stunt.

HighGround said:

If I was Ukraine, I would sit on the defensive. I would mobilize the country even more than it already is. I would focus on trying to get the nation to see it as an existential threat as much as possible. I would try to exhaust the Russians and make them see that they will not be able to occupy my country unless they are ready for decades of war, insurgency, and terrorism. I would leverage this reality to extract concessions.

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What more can Ukraine do that they haven't already done? Sure they should've mobilized earlier, but we don't even know how many military aged male is left in the country after the initial exodus and likely over a million have seen the front line this war. They have fought for every inch and paid dearly for it. They have conducted deep ranging raids and long ranged strikes on Russia military and oil infrastructure and have proven that they can pretty much keep it up forever. At least they are eating fabs in Russia territory rather than Ukrainian ones, it's even unclear if Russia CAS is even that active in Kursk due to limited recon assets away from the front.

If Russia didn't get the message 2.5 years into the war then they were never going to get it. After the pound of flesh they have dropped for their gains what reason would they even have to stop? Putin has bet his whole house and legacy on this gambit and it remains to be seen whether the gamble will pay off. This is already the deadliest conflict in Europe since WW2 and there is no end in sight.

The Russians also had a significant amount of troops in Belarus to help them guard their border. They can move them to this area.
Or they can use them to enter Ukraine by marching south outright.

Ukraine never had a chance. Thus far they have been lucky in that the fighting is happening in hard to traverse muddy terrain, half the year fighting there is near impossible, they have very few paved roads to begin with. That and defenses they built in the Donbass since 2014 that took a long time for Russia to crack. But even with Russia fighting on their most well defended terrain and prepared defenses those lines have been collapsing all this summer. Avdiivka, Niu York, etc.

The solution was quite simple. Ukraine should have accepted the Minsk deal. Had they done that they would still control the Donbass, and the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia areas now controlled by Russia. They wouldn't have control over Crimea, but they also were not being forced to accept the status quo of Russia owning it, it could have just been an unsettled territory dispute like many in Europe such as Gibraltar which is owned by the UK and claimed by Spain.

They still had a chance with the Istanbul deal before the Russians did the referendums on the regions to make them accede to the Russian Federation as subjects. Now the more time passes the more they will lose. Any chance of getting those regions back is pretty much non-existent since Putin changed the Russian constitution making outright concessions of territory impossible after Russia's annexation of Crimea.

Anyway, Ukraine wanted this war, and now they are losing their male population and territory. Their power generation, grid, and industry have also suffered extensive damage.

You can bet that even if Ukraine gets a deal with Russia now it will require extensive further territory concessions. Just like what happened with Finland in the Winter and Continuation Wars. It won't be restricted to the current battle lines.