The War in the Ukraine

drowingfish said:

the only potential pitfall to all this would be russia's own tolerance to rising casualties and sanctions. so far it seems to be holding up well as early spike in casualty and the subsequent plateau means that the public have become acclimated to the hardship. Russia's economy has also demonstrated remarkable resilience for whatever reason, thus alleviating pressures for the government to seek compromise.

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The impact of sanctions, well the idiot kind the west has thrown at Russia at any rate, are front loaded. That means western sanctions have done as much damage to the Russian economy as they ever will do since they held nothing back for round 2 in case round 1 didn’t do the trick.

The more time passes, the more the Russia economy recovers as alternative suppliers and markets are secured to replace discontinued European business.

That is very much all part of the plan as I think a major secondary objective of this war is to cut a lot of the toxic (to Russia) links Russian high society had with the west (that Putin was unwilling/unable to cut himself, but which the West has helpfully cut for him).

So long as the Russian elite was so invested (monetarily and emotionally) in the west, modern Russia was always a heartbeat or two away from another Gorbachov coming into power via a helping CIA hand.

Now, with the Russian economy and population being ever more closely link with China, I think Putin might finally have peace of mind for the future of Russia after him.

But back to Ukraine, the slow and steady approach adopted by the Russian military is also very good to ensuring Russian combat losses remain low and sustainable. And as Ukraine looses more and more of their best troops and equipment and replay them with conscripts freshly press ganged off the streets and adhoc nato whip-around gear, the exchange rate between the two sides will only grow more in Russia’s favour.

It’s incredibly hard to see how the tide of war could change without direct and large scale NATO military intervention. Which is simply unthinkable at present.

I suspect that as Russia continue its slow and steady grind and the threat of the war dragging into winter becomes ever more unavoidable, we will see growing pressure on Ukraine to throw in the towel to end the war for the sake of Western Europe.

I would not even rule out a reverse Poland where Poland, with the prodding and support of NATO, backstabs Ukraine and invades from the west (after the prerequisite western MSM preparation work has been done on western populations, so watch out for a potential sea change in western MSM take on nazism in Ukraine, from the ‘they are all perfect angels’ narrative of today to, ‘OMG the nasty naught Ukrainian Nazis were so devious they fooled us all this time! We need to go in now to save the innocent Ukrainian people from the dual horrors of Russian annexation and their very own evil nazi overlords).

drowingfish said:

i think the difference between severedonetsk and lisichansk was the river that runs between the two. Kiev must have initially wanted to hold the line in lisichansk, using the river as a natural obstacle. but once it's right flank gave it was only a matter of time before the line collapsed.

i agree that seversk doesn't have to be the next one for sure. it makes more sense to go for soledar or bakhmut first and let AFU in seversk figure it out themselves. if Seversk defenders opt to retreat, they will be doing the entire thing under fire from both the north and the east.

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What about posturing at Bakhmut with a massive artillery barrage as a feint for an offensive to roll up Ukrainian lines in the countryside close to Kherson or Zaporizhzhia? The next offensive doesn't necessarily need to be in the Donbass because it is known that AFU is going to deploy there to blunt Russian momentum, and thus leave other territories open in terms of armor and artillery. Land grabbing small towns far from Donbass in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia pressures Ukrainians while remaining close to supply lines from Crimea.

plawolf said:

we will see growing pressure on Ukraine to throw in the towel to end the war for the sake of Western Europe.

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Ukraine, since the coup that happened in 2014, has not been a country that has an independent government. Not that they were that independent before that time. All their moves that were made after that time have not been at the best interests of Ukraine the country. Their government, military are both paid for and controlled by the West. At best they can be said as a disposable appendage of the West. They cannot throw in the towel. This thing either ends with the Russians defeating the Ukrainians, or the U.S. decided that we want to throw in the towels.

Hermes NLOS missile fired from Mi-28 NM helicopter.


more captured hardware in Lisichansk

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Sloviansk warned to evacuate ahead of Russian assault​

The mayor of a city in the path of Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine’s Donbas region has warned residents to evacuate ahead of an expected assault.

“It’s important to evacuate as many people as possible,” Sloviansk Mayor Vadim Lyakh said, adding that shelling damaged 40 houses on Monday.

In the south of the city, Russian forces were trying to push towards two more towns and shelling areas near Kramatorsk, the General Staff of the Ukrainian military said.

Russian forces also shelled several Donetsk towns and villages around Sloviansk in the past day but were repelled as they tried to advance towards a town about 20km (12.4 miles) to the city’s north

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Interesting that Sloviansk is being evacuated but not Kramatorsk. I wonder if Bakhmut is the main objective or would it be Sloviansk/Kramatorsk instead.

Women will be banned from traveling outside the borders of their region without the permission of the military registration and enlistment office. - People's Deputy of Ukraine Roksolana Pidlasa.

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Looks like end game is probably approaching at some point. It won’t happen soon but I don’t think the conflict will last super long either.

FriedButter said:

Looks like end game is probably approaching at some point. It won’t happen soon but I don’t think the conflict will last super long either.

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I think that guy conflated two separate pieces of news. I believe it was fighting-age men that are banned from leaving their place of residence, and there was talk to drafting women into the army, presumably to fill some administrative and logistic roles to free up more men for the actual fight.

clearly this doesn't bode well for Ukraine, especially considering the refugees from the east, who are already beginning to overstay their welcome in the west, may slip through the cracks of such restrictive measures. Russia will be further emboldened to grind down Ukraine's collective will to fight through inflicting massive casualties. we've all seen how well the national spirit holds up when pain is applied to everyone during COVID. so yes, draconian measures such as these do bring the end game closer, though by how much we don't know.

drowingfish said:

I think that guy conflated two separate pieces of news. I believe it was fighting-age men that are banned from leaving their place of residence, and there was talk to drafting women into the army, presumably to fill some administrative and logistic roles to free up more men for the actual fight.

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Maybe. Tho it doesn’t seem like it.

"There is every chance that most of men, as well as most of the women, will go to war, since those troops that are now on the front lines will simply need a replacement" The speaker of the Odessa Regional Administration, Sergei Bratchuk

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1544383208090996736

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No comparisons and warmongering language allowed!
T-90m Should be on par with M1A2 / Type 99A2.

Su-34M coming to bring the pain to Kiev regime.

FairAndUnbiased said:

What about posturing at Bakhmut with a massive artillery barrage as a feint for an offensive to roll up Ukrainian lines in the countryside close to Kherson or Zaporizhzhia? The next offensive doesn't necessarily need to be in the Donbass because it is known that AFU is going to deploy there to blunt Russian momentum, and thus leave other territories open in terms of armor and artillery. Land grabbing small towns far from Donbass in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia pressures Ukrainians while remaining close to supply lines from Crimea.

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Unlikely, If the failed Ukrainian offensive at Kherson means anything is that what happens in the east doesn't really affect what happens in the south on an operational level(and vice versa).

We kept hearing about the vulnerability of subsonic and non-stealthy cruise missiles. Tomahawks were successful despite that. But they were used in regions with low SAM density. In Ukraine, even relatively old-tech Ukrainian SAMs are shooting down many cruise missiles and the Kalibr is faster than the Tomahawk. The West has just recently started introducing stealthy cruise missiles and Western inventories almost completely consist of unstealthy and subsonic missiles. I think the Chinese investment in supersonic cruise missiles and ballistic missiles was a better approach that the West couldn't replicate because of the war on terror and its obsession with interventions against distant countries.