The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
So much for Putin announcing a general mobilisation on Victory Day as all the western OSINT people had been claiming all week.
If Russian generals needed more soldiers in the Ukraine, they would deploy them. The frontline is less than an hours drive from the Russian border in most places, its even less if you consider the de facto borders before the start of the war. There's not much difference having them in Ukraine or having them in Russia, and they could easily be redeployed in case of a NATO attack (if that is even a serious consideration).
If you think deploying more soldiers would be an admission of failure, what about the withdrawal from Kiev? A withdrawal from territory you control is much worse than deploying more soldiers.
There's only one reason why more soldiers aren't being deployed, and that's because there is no need for them.
Things could change but there are several things we'll see before Russia decides to deploy more soldiers. For example cutting off power to the Ukraine - they are currently providing electricity for free via the nuclear power plant they control. Not limiting themselves to precision strikes in Kiev and other west Ukrainian cities, using small tactical nukes, and so on.
If Russian generals needed more soldiers in the Ukraine, they would deploy them. The frontline is less than an hours drive from the Russian border in most places, its even less if you consider the de facto borders before the start of the war. There's not much difference having them in Ukraine or having them in Russia, and they could easily be redeployed in case of a NATO attack (if that is even a serious consideration).
If you think deploying more soldiers would be an admission of failure, what about the withdrawal from Kiev? A withdrawal from territory you control is much worse than deploying more soldiers.
There's only one reason why more soldiers aren't being deployed, and that's because there is no need for them.
Things could change but there are several things we'll see before Russia decides to deploy more soldiers. For example cutting off power to the Ukraine - they are currently providing electricity for free via the nuclear power plant they control. Not limiting themselves to precision strikes in Kiev and other west Ukrainian cities, using small tactical nukes, and so on.
I...have a feeling it won't. There are sooooo amny WTF moments already and we're not even 11 weeks in yet.
Did you hear about the mobilisation order for Ukrainians living abroad? Is it true, or just more disinformation?
I have not heard that so far. I'll ping some friends and report back if I hear something.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
It’s perplexing why so many people think Russia would do a mass mobilisation or just what such a mobilisation would even achieve.
Yes, ideally you want more bodies in the fight, but the unspoken caveat is that those bodies would know how to fight. Not really a given when you are mass mobilising conscripts.
It’s very obvious that Putin was very stung by all the incompetence on show during the early stages of the war. So why would he then do a mass mobilisation to throw even more, far worse quality troops into the grind to guarantee exponentially more and worse public screw ups?
That’s doubly damaging because he will be creating much more bad publicity and also his very own ‘Vietnam’ where a broad and deep spectrum of society becomes deeply and personally invested in wanting the war over as soon as possible since they themselves and/or their friends and family will be called up to fight and die in said war. If Putin was going out of his way to destroy his own domestic political and public support and build up opposition, he would be hard pressed to find a better thing to do. Which is why this was always wet dreaming by western ‘experts’ from the start.
I instead think Putin has settled on a much simpler and brutally effective strategy - attrition on an industrial scale, which the Zelensky regime is eagerly aiding him in.
The biggest problem in modern combat is less manpower when you have firepower dominance, but targeting and post war-phase policing. If the enemy refuses to meet you on the field and instead preserved much of its fighting strength and melts into the general population/environment to then do insurgency attacks, you are like prize boxer fighting a swarm of mosquitoes. Each of your mighty blows can kill many, but still the overwhelming majority of your force is wasted or cannot be effectively brought to bare.
That was the smart, long-term play with many historical and recent successful examples. But instead the Reddit Facebook generation needed instant gratification so the Ukrainians needed to fight the Russians head-on to keep the media war ‘on track’.
This, and the willingness of Zelensky and NATO to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian gives Putin the unexpected option of applying attritional warfare to an almost unprecedented degree. I fear that by the time the Russian military grinds its way to Kiev, there won’t be enough fighting age Ukrainians left to mount an effective defence or insurgency.
This means that as long as the Russians can keep their K-D ratio high enough, they can win this war without needing to call up additional fodder-grade troops or worry too much about post-conflict policing or counter-insurgency.
Yes, ideally you want more bodies in the fight, but the unspoken caveat is that those bodies would know how to fight. Not really a given when you are mass mobilising conscripts.
It’s very obvious that Putin was very stung by all the incompetence on show during the early stages of the war. So why would he then do a mass mobilisation to throw even more, far worse quality troops into the grind to guarantee exponentially more and worse public screw ups?
That’s doubly damaging because he will be creating much more bad publicity and also his very own ‘Vietnam’ where a broad and deep spectrum of society becomes deeply and personally invested in wanting the war over as soon as possible since they themselves and/or their friends and family will be called up to fight and die in said war. If Putin was going out of his way to destroy his own domestic political and public support and build up opposition, he would be hard pressed to find a better thing to do. Which is why this was always wet dreaming by western ‘experts’ from the start.
I instead think Putin has settled on a much simpler and brutally effective strategy - attrition on an industrial scale, which the Zelensky regime is eagerly aiding him in.
The biggest problem in modern combat is less manpower when you have firepower dominance, but targeting and post war-phase policing. If the enemy refuses to meet you on the field and instead preserved much of its fighting strength and melts into the general population/environment to then do insurgency attacks, you are like prize boxer fighting a swarm of mosquitoes. Each of your mighty blows can kill many, but still the overwhelming majority of your force is wasted or cannot be effectively brought to bare.
That was the smart, long-term play with many historical and recent successful examples. But instead the Reddit Facebook generation needed instant gratification so the Ukrainians needed to fight the Russians head-on to keep the media war ‘on track’.
This, and the willingness of Zelensky and NATO to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian gives Putin the unexpected option of applying attritional warfare to an almost unprecedented degree. I fear that by the time the Russian military grinds its way to Kiev, there won’t be enough fighting age Ukrainians left to mount an effective defence or insurgency.
This means that as long as the Russians can keep their K-D ratio high enough, they can win this war without needing to call up additional fodder-grade troops or worry too much about post-conflict policing or counter-insurgency.
Sheer cope. Ukraine has unlimited supplies of advanced weaponry from NATO and can impose more costs on Russia than Russia can inflict. Russia, meanwhile is running low on stocks of PGM and will struggle to replace these under sanctions. Plus the number of recruits for the Russian army must be diminishing fast, and there is little left to deploy from elsewhere in Russia.
M777/Excalibur combo with advanced counter-battery radars is going to make life short but interesting for Russian artillery in the very near future, if it isn't already.
A war of attrition only favours Ukraine/NATO.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
By anyone who thinks that the war favors Ukraine, a country that is in ruins with chunks of it missing already. All of Russia's problems are first world problems compared to what its putting Ukraine through.
Those are reject weapons that only fire correctly 25% of the times and like I said, what costs can they impose on Russia? Military equipment and lives. What does Russia impose back? Chunks of Ukraine... and lives. People here trying to cope look at equipment loses and instances of soldier deaths because the big picture is too painful for them; people who can see the big picture see the losing country getting smaller.
Russia hasn't even really begun to fight yet; its best is reserved for NATO. At any time, Russia can send its supersonic bombers and turn Ukraine upside down. It has simply chosen not to as of yet.
Yawn, more microscopic anecdotes while Ukraine loses territory.
Favors NATO in the short term since it's not fighting, but it sure as hell doesn't favor Ukraine as it's being beaten up and taken apart. In the long term, it still favors Russia because personnel, money and equipment are replaceable but land gained is forever unless you get it beaten back out of you.
Excalibur is a GPS guided round. Russia can just blanket jam GPS over the area of operations making it no more effective than a regular round. The Russians have done this in Syria so it would not be anything new.
Ukraine already has counter battery radar and has been operating those for years. As do the Russians.
Russia has less than 1/3rd of its active combat infantry in Ukraine and has called none of their reserves yet.
Ukraine already has counter battery radar and has been operating those for years. As do the Russians.
Russia has less than 1/3rd of its active combat infantry in Ukraine and has called none of their reserves yet.
More soldiers would be better. The deployed forces are only a small portion of Russia's regular army, no reason to think more soldiers would be less experienced than what was already sent into Ukraine. The only reason you wouldn't send more is if you didn't need to.
If Russian losses are as heavy as NATO/Ukrainians claim they are, then they would be forced to send in more soldiers. The last I checked it was 25,000 dead Russian soldiers, what about injured? Going by x3 that's 100,000 casualties in total. If true that's half of Russia's invasion force.
Videos showing Ukrainian soldiers getting wrecked en masse by artillery fire, particularly in shallow trenches. Lots of Ukrainian POWs taken daily according to both sides. Where are the videos of Russian POWs taken by Ukrainians?
Shortages of fuel (again reported by both sides) mean that Ukrainian soldiers will be stuck where they are with limited resupplies.
If NATO wanted to help Ukraine they would be sending in their own soldiers. Instead they seem to be disarming themselves by handing over their equipment for the incompetent Ukrainians to use.
No one apart from America has any meaningful military industry for mass rearmament. Once the Ukraine is taken it'll be very tempting for Russia to continue the war into a disarmed Europe.