The War in the Ukraine

SampanViking said:

Well I do scratch my head to be honest.
Can Moscow not find a few thousand extra troops to enter the Ukraine north of Kharkov to secure the border and stabilise that end of the front?

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This is a fair and open question. As an outsider, this is a "could have" "should have" way. But Putin is not Xi in terms of actual control of their respective countries. Putin's domestic politics is order of magnitude more precarious than Xi's. At home, Putin has to fight a propaganda war and maintain his polling number and image. Putin does not have an air-tight party like Xi has in CCP. Putin does not have an air-tight armed forces like Xi has in PLA. These are some of the factors I consider Putin one of the great politicians of our time. He figures out a way of winning by punching above his weight. And these are also some of the factors I said early and often that this is a protracted war of attrition by his design. So far, his economic/financial war is faring better than his military war. But he was preparing for a total war from get-go. He fouled everyone and yet he fouls no one. He is winning kilometer by kilometer and mile by mile, until an external event tells him the party is over. If he can maintain what he gets thus far, he will go down the Russian history as a great hero. And NATO is helping him by playing chickens. Heck, I think everybody is helping him winning, including Japanese and British.

When Moskva was struck and sunk by neptunes, there were questions about whether current-day anti-air systems are nearly as good as people thought they were, if they couldn't even stop 2 subsonic AShMs. It was explained as being caused mostly by Moskva's old age and outdated systems, which I do believe is a pretty solid explanation.

However if it does turn out in the following days that the Admiral Makarov got struck by the same missiles as well, shouldn't that have far greater implications about the actual performance of modern AA? If its far more modern sensors and weaponry (which do work, hopefully) were also insufficient to stop a couple subsonic missiles, wouldn't that mean we currently overestimate to some extent the capability of PLAN or USN anti-air? Or am I missing something here?

Interesting thread showing exactly how badly the Russians are misusing their tanks.

Kich said:

Even the Russian Wagner PMC are saying Russia needs to mobilize.
On their telegram channel Reverse side of the Medal they say "there will be a mobilization or we will lose the war." They estimate that they need 600K-800K to defeat Ukraine.

It was foolishly naive to even think Russia can achieve anything with just 150K troops agaisnt a 40 million population. US needed 700K for a 25 million Iraq population campaign.

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I don't want to derail the thread into the weeds but I must respectfully quibble with the point you made. When did America mobilized 700,000 troops in Iraq War II INVASION? Last time I checked there was a considerable debate pre-invasion, during, and phase IV operation because of Americans utilizing too little troops to accomplish the tasks the military was tasked to do which was to pacify a 25 million country. Check back in history and you realize you made a mistake.

Squidward said:

When Moskva was struck and sunk by neptunes, there were questions about whether current-day anti-air systems are nearly as good as people thought they were, if they couldn't even stop 2 subsonic AShMs. It was explained as being caused mostly by Moskva's old age and outdated systems, which I do believe is a pretty solid explanation.

However if it does turn out in the following days that the Admiral Makarov got struck by the same missiles as well, shouldn't that have far greater implications about the actual performance of modern AA? If its far more modern sensors and weaponry (which do work, hopefully) were also insufficient to stop a couple subsonic missiles, wouldn't that mean we currently overestimate to some extent the capability of PLAN or USN anti-air? Or am I missing something here?

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Admiral Makarov was not sunk. The Pentagon and Kyiv have denied these claims. Not sure who reported it but the "OSINT" bros jumped on the wagon real quick.

Bellum_Romanum said:

I don't want to derail the thread into the weeds but I must respectfully quibble with the point you made. When did America mobilized 700,000 troops in Iraq War II INVASION? Last time I checked there was a considerable debate pre-invasion, during, and phase IV operation because of Americans utilizing too little troops to accomplish the tasks the military was tasked to do which was to pacify a 25 million country. Check back in history and you realize you made a mistake.

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From what I remember, it was 300k troops.

Kich said:

They have not formally declared war for some unknown reason. This means they are severely limited in manpower. Professional troops are not involve as much and Putin doesn't want to use conscripts. They could use conscripts to secure captured locations, but nope.

The way the Russians are fighting this prolongs this war unnecessary which is bad for them cuase it gives NATO time to continue to rearm Ukraine and then more time for those weapons to reach the frontlines. At minimum they need 500K troops. 150K is laughably low. There's something going on internally in the Russian decision making and military brass that we don't know and probably is why they are fighting the way they are. Or maybe Russia is just this weak?

Meanwhile you have Ukraine essentially now a mini-NATO proxy backed by a million manpower to pool from.

The argument that Russia is saving its forces for NATO is weak and we all know conventionally they stand no chance against NATO. They have nukes to keep NATO in check so they shouldn't be afraid to use their all forces against Ukraine.

May 9th is the day to watch for. Will they formally declare war and fight this properly? I think they have to if they have any chance of even securing the East and taking the South.

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Probably waiting for Ukraine to strike the Crimea Bridge.
The more this war drags, the more it emboldens NATO.
We saw at the start his they were afraid of sending artillery but their continuous pushing of the envelope without Russian response has made them send even planes.
Only a matter of time before we see boots on the ground.

Bellum_Romanum said:

I don't want to derail the thread into the weeds but I must respectfully quibble with the point you made. When did America mobilized 700,000 troops in Iraq War II INVASION? Last time I checked there was a considerable debate pre-invasion, during, and phase IV operation because of Americans utilizing too little troops to accomplish the tasks the military was tasked to do which was to pacify a 25 million country. Check back in history and you realize you made a mistake.

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He must be referring to the Gulf War. The US brought in 700k men, and the coalition another 250k.

I include this story as an example of how consent is being manufactured during times of war, by all parties in the war. I have no doubt the Russian side does the same.

This is an example of Western MSM propaganda through selective reporting. It gives the outlet some measure of plausible deniability as they reported the "truth". Of course, only that part that fits the desired narrative.

Reuters censored out parts of the interview with Natalia Usmanova, an evacuee from Azovstal, wherein she criticized the Ukrainian armed forces for using them as human shields. Reuters responded to the allegation:
"We are still seeking to verify key aspects of Natalia Usmanova's account. We are committed to reporting on the conflict on Ukraine in an impartial and independent way, as we do around the world."

Spiegel originally published the entire 3 minute video interview, but then had it deleted. Spiegel vaguely explained that the reason for the removal of the video was "subsequently identified inconsistencies in the content."

In the recording, Usmanova tells reporters that Azov militants “kept us in the bunker” for two months and did not allow her family to leave using the humanitarian corridors established by Russian troops.
“They hid behind the fact that they are supposedly concerned about our safety,” Usmanova said, according to a German translation, adding that her family was repeatedly yelled at to “Go back to the bunker!”
“Ukraine has died for me as a state,” Usmanova said at the end of her testimony.

Source:

I managed to find a 2m truncated version of the interview, corroborating some of the above:

Does anyone have a link to the full version?

Reuters version:

Well, lets not be dismissive of the results so far. For a force of 150,000 the Russian army has performed very well despite some obvious operational cockups at the beginning.

Interestingly its worth taking a quick look at the level of Russian casualties claimed by the Ukraine.
The figure claimed by Kiev is about 15000 Russian dead. It was the Duran boys that pointed out that this figure; stated in April, is exact;y the same as the figure stated at the end of March.
They logically conferred from this that even the Ukrainian side have conceded that the change of tactics has massively reduced the Russian casualty rate.
Secondly, even assuming that the 15000 was remotely accurate, then the aggregate effect would be to reduce Russian combat strength down to 90%. Well that is not a particularly scary figure and if we assume that the Ukrainian figures are significantly over inflated, then it means that the Russian combat strength remains well over 90%.

That being said, it seems pretty clear that 150,000 is not enough or at least an inefficient number to win the war and that more forces should be committed. Even doubling the number should transform the campaign beyond recognition and help keep the initiative with the Russian side, by speeding up the winning of the war and reducing the ability of the Ukraine's NATO backers to effectively escalate in Kiev's favour.

I know that there is massive speculation about the forthcoming May 9th Celebrations in Russia.
Moscow went into the Ukraine talking about the fairly intangible concepts of Demilitarisation and Denazisfication.
The events of the last few moths however have enabled the Russian government to shape public opinion to accept escalation in the name of a far more tangible aim of DeNatofication.

I suspect this is the kind of thing we are going to hear.

I do believe that Russia having taken on board the lessons of the first phase, should send a sizable force back into North East Ukraine (East of the Dnieper) using lighter Infantry to take, hold and occupy the forests of the north of the country and create a buffer along the entire Russian border, plus sending a lot more to the South West for the Kherson front