The War in the Ukraine

There was one overestimation and one underestimation.

NATO overestimated the Russian military, however NATO underestimated Russia's economic resiliency wrt to the sanctions imposed on it.

Russia should keep going at its pace until winter. When winter comes, that's when the real game will begin and when Russia's negotiating position reaches its peak (also known as "position of strength")

FriedButter said:

Doesn’t help that the West went full xenophobia. Putin telling the domestic public that the West wants to destroy them for years. Then the West goes and proves that.

Even the Russians who hate Putin were shocked at the rapid western xenophobia. Now you got the latest calls to ban all Russians from travelling.

How are you going to convince anyone in Russia that the West supports “freedom” and “democracy” while at the same time continuing the path to treat Russians as sub-human.

Click to expand...

It's simple, Nazi ideology is a failed ideology and it cannot survive unless kids are indoctrinated into it at a massive scale for decades. Like they were experimenting with in Ukraine pre war.

Remember the Hitler youth, Germany understood how this works. It was crushed in time, but this is how you convert a people into nazis. Ukraine has been doing exactly this.

When a group of people see another group as subhuman or less equal to deserving human rights, that's a clear warning sign that Nazism has already rooted itself in the society and is trying to grow.

This is Ukraine 2015-2021

At this point i think people are so solidly behind Putin that there is no hope to conduct a regime change through social upheaval. that chance disappeared in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Overbom said:

There was one overestimation and one underestimation.

NATO overestimated the Russian military, however NATO underestimated Russia's economic resiliency wrt to the sanctions imposed on it.

Russia should keep going at its pace until winter. When winter comes, that's when the real game will begin and when Russia's negotiating position reaches its peak (also known as "position of strength")

Click to expand...

I don't know where your getting this overestimating thing from. Russia was supposed to be on fire by now and out of weapons according to NATO

memfisa said:

I don't know where your getting this overestimating thing from. Russia was supposed to be on fire by now and out of weapons according to NATO

Click to expand...

Overestimation in regards to assessments of the Russian military before the war. Obviously these (and mine) assesments were clearly wrong. I will give it to them, Russian PR is certainly world class. Shame that reality didn't match marketing

The Russian military has been proven to be a far more paper tiger than I ever imagined

Overbom said:

Overestimation in regards to assessments of the Russian military before the war. Obviously these (and mine) assesments were clearly wrong. I will give it to them, Russian PR is certainly world class. Shame that reality didn't match marketing

The Russian military has been proven to be a far more paper tiger than I ever imagined

Click to expand...

Share these assessments with us all, I'd love to see it because the actual ones I seen were that Russia was going to bogged down in an insurgency the likes of which weve never seen, and there would be internal upheaval that would have resulted in the violent ousting of Russian leadership.

As it turns out Russian forces are welcomed where they control at this point and there is zero evidence available to show any signs of internal upheaval.

I guess McDonald's cricket meat burgers werent that important to Russians afterall

Also some words from one of the sacred MSM experts doesn't qualify for me. I can get a more accurate assessment from my dog

memfisa said:

Share these assessments with us all, I'd love to see it because the actual ones I seen were that Russia was going to bogged down in an insurgency the likes of which weve never seen, and there would be internal upheaval that would have resulted in the violent ousting of Russian leadership.

Click to expand...

I remember these assesments but I always put the "for public consumption" label on them. Certainly not any serious defence analyst was expecting this kind of shambles by the Russian military before the war started.

There was actually a sense of doom that in case Russia attacked, Ukraine would fail in a reasonable time frame (obviously not the 24-72hr nonsense) with a far better Russian military performance.

Instead what has happened is a complete and utter shambles. Russian airforce might as well as not exist at this point given its impact in the war(and what about SEAD/DEAD..), EW (what EW? lol), Russian Navy (what Navy? lol), the much hyped BTG (yeah these criminally under-equipped and undermanned formations), Russian drones (no comment), the feared Russian tank formations, Russian military strategy (remember Russia starting the war with some 100 000s fewer troops than it should? Pepperidge Farm remembers) etc.
And don't even get me started with the hilarious yoyo-style isolated convoys touring the Ukrainian countryside alone lol

All garbage (for a so-called military superpower) in the end. You talk about NATO public assessments of the Russian military, but my points are evidenced on Russia's own propaganda and claims on its weapons and military capabilities

---

I won't comment further on the topic as reality is in front of my eyes so I don't need to waste my time debating someone seriously when they basically say that (pre-war) NATO didnt think that Russia would steamroll Ukraine.

memfisa said:

It was thought Russia would be crippled by sanctions, and thus the military would be no threat once it collapsed and Putin would be dragged in the streets like Ghaddaffi.

I don't think anyone ever thought we'd be seeing what we're watching today or Ukraine would have had all these cool wunderwaffe from NATO countries before this war.

Javelins were supposed to be all they needed to stop the Russian Fulda gap push, however they forgot to check where the Fulda gap is. These same idiots still think the Soviet Union exists yet there are people breathing air that take their words as gospel

Over estimated? Oh for sure, by a few internet Twitter dorks that never left their moms basement never mind ever handled or cared for a rifle in their lives

Click to expand...

I think you're conflating wildly unrealistic public propaganda with what US internal planners believe.

America's plan was likely never for Russia to invade at all. That's why they went all out to try and dissuade them by "exposing" them. US wanted to move their forces so they can prepare an offensive in Asia, potentially even an invasion of Taiwan. That would have happened late 2022 or early 2023, with moves like Pelosi's visit and that war declaration act serving as buildup. However, they have a real problem now with a 2nd front having been opened in Europe, making them unable to buildup to attack China at all.

The US plans for Ukraine would involve just waiting and eventually allowing Ukraine to join NATO. Then, Ukraine can initiate armed reunification of the Donbass and possibly even Crimea, and Russia would be unable to attack them without risking war with NATO.

Russia preempted the US plans and just attacked first. Everything the west did afterwards was a reaction. If they had wanted the war like this, they'd have sent weapons to Ukraine a long time ago instead of sending in stuff randomly in waves as soon as the previous wave gets disabled and/or proves ineffective.

memfisa said:

It was thought Russia would be crippled by sanctions, and thus the military would be no threat once it collapsed and Putin would be dragged in the streets like Ghaddaffi.

Click to expand...

That is absolutely not what the general consensus was in the West! What a disgusting misrepresentation of the zeitgeist at the time.

The general consensus was that Russia would crush Ukraine as Russia was viewed as one of the major military powers of the world. The idea that it would struggle to occupy a country that it shares borders with was highly unlikely. The fact that they have failed to achieve air superiority over Ukraine in the past six or so months is embarrassing. I don't care what piecemeal support the west has provided!

SlothmanAllen said:

That is absolutely not what the general consensus was in the West! What a disgusting misrepresentation of the zeitgeist at the time.

The general consensus was that Russia would crush Ukraine as Russia was viewed as one of the major military powers of the world. The idea that it would struggle to occupy a country that it shares borders with was highly unlikely. The fact that they have failed to achieve air superiority over Ukraine in the past six or so months is embarrassing. I don't care what piecemeal support the west has provided!

Click to expand...

why will Ukraine fail when Russia is not using bombs that will make them fail?. you may want to look at Syrian cities and compare with Ukrainian cities.
they are avoiding the shock bombs that can create earthquakes and ultrasonic waves. only those weopons can stream roll fortifications but collateral damage will be huge. i doubt they have even used bunker busting bombs.
they are using much smaller surgical weopons like cruise missiles from subs, corvettes, bomber for precision strikes etc.
The have mass deployed attack choppers and Su-25 for low altitude fight using rockets/machine guns. trying isolate the miscreants in isolated pockets. infact Russia still using Ukranian pipelines to provide oil and gas to Europe but reducing it to Germans directly. This will help Ukraine in better bargaining position to squeeze Germany.

Biscuits said:

I think you're conflating wildly unrealistic public propaganda with what US internal planners believe.

America's plan was likely never for Russia to invade at all. That's why they went all out to try and dissuade them by "exposing" them. US wanted to move their forces so they can prepare an offensive in Asia, potentially even an invasion of Taiwan. That would have happened late 2022 or early 2023, with moves like Pelosi's visit and that war declaration act serving as buildup. However, they have a real problem now with a 2nd front having been opened in Europe, making them unable to buildup to attack China at all.

The US plans for Ukraine would involve just waiting and eventually allowing Ukraine to join NATO. Then, Ukraine can initiate armed reunification of the Donbass and possibly even Crimea, and Russia would be unable to attack them without risking war with NATO.

Russia preempted the US plans and just attacked first. Everything the west did afterwards was a reaction. If they had wanted the war like this, they'd have sent weapons to Ukraine a long time ago instead of sending in stuff randomly in waves as soon as the previous wave gets disabled and/or proves ineffective.

Click to expand...

America's plan from the start of 2014 Euromaidan was to bait Russia into the Soviet Afghanistan war on steroids. One where so many Russian soldiers would die it would feed the domestic inferno at home ignited by sanctions crippling the domestic economy.

The US plan, they sat and waited patiently for Russia to take the bait, for 8 years. Longer than the military buildup of Germany in the 30s that fought World War 2.

Attempts to dissuade, being seen on western TV, is just early propaganda from the start of the conflict designed to lay the basis of building support for the war. Which was a total 180 degree turn by the way, which should of have been a red flag for anyone paying attention.

If NATO wanted to get in Ukraine to use article 5 while Ukraine went on the offensive, they would have done it without wasting 8 years of preparation of Ukraine for a Russian invasion.

This was thoroughly planned years ago by NATO and all that time they couldn't figure out how to cripple the east