The War in the Ukraine

tankphobia said:

Ultimately a slow push is good for Ukraine, unless Russia dramatically steps up strikes, Ukraine will continue to receive a steady stream of trained soldiers and equipment for use in future offensives. The current gambit is that Europe falls apart over winter, but if that does not happen the Russian strategy will fall into deep trouble.

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You expect the Russians to continue as the past month strategy infinitevly.

Most likelly they waiting for the key moments, when the pain in Ukriane, EU and everywhere the biggest, and start the big push at that point of time.

There is still oil and gas flowing thorught Ukriane , and God know what is in they mind.

I mean, we can expect sudden push in random direction into Ukraine, even a huge push to Kiev or similar things.

At the moment it feels like they waiting, and just passing the time with pointless moves, centered around to keep the soldiers awake and avoid boringness, and in meantime destroy as big part of the Ukrainans / NATO military and equipment as possible, just to spend the time with something that makes sense for the grunts


Or I am completly wrong, and all Russian strategy decided by a 20 sided dice and a table , rolled every second week.

tankphobia said:

Ultimately a slow push is good for Ukraine, unless Russia dramatically steps up strikes, Ukraine will continue to receive a steady stream of trained soldiers and equipment for use in future offensives. The current gambit is that Europe falls apart over winter, but if that does not happen the Russian strategy will fall into deep trouble.

By next winter if needed Europe would've been able to fill the power gap with thermal coal and the energy leverage would be much less effective. Azerbaijan is also eager to chip in with large reserves of energy also, so a long war is in no way advantageous to Russia.

The Ukrainian strategic situation has improved immensely over even a month ago, now that they have shown their worth, the west is supplying increasingly heavier weapons, while Russia does not seem to be committing extra resources to this misadventure.

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The winter offensives will be the deciding factor. If I were Putin what I'd do is to throw everything in this winter.

1. Shut off the last gas pipelines which are still delivering gas to Ukraine in late November when the snow starts but ground is not yet frozen.

2. At this time, hit as many Ukrainian dams, fuel depots, pipelines not originating in Russia, bridges, major electrical pylons, power plants and distribution substations as possible with bombers, cruise missiles and SRBMs. The rivers will still be flowing but icy, rendering it hazardous to conduct repairs and ship supplies by water.

3. Air dispense mines at some points and post drones at others (closer by) to stop repairs.

4. Commit reserves in early/mid December when the ground freezes and Ukrainian forces have been softened up by cold and hunger.

Don't underestimate Russia's resolve on this conflict. Winter is coming and it can only get worse for Ukraine because the West is running out money and supplies to keep them barely surviving. Even when this is conflict is over and the damages done to the country Ukraine will require extensive amount of resources and money to rebuild the infrastructure at pre-war state. Who is going lend Ukraine that money? Not the EU and US bankers lending to them (at least to the amount Ukraine will need). Yup, China. There the Western media will have a field day when President Zelenski meeting up with President Xi in a suit to talk about loans.

el pueblo unido said:

I saw that too, was it due to some sort of mal-function of BMP or just panic attack from the driver/crew ?

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Looks like they were ambushed.

Definately contact from house at top of screen and a couple of the craters ... You can see what looks like puffs of weapon discharge coming from there. Either that or the contact is from off screen and the puffs are from impacting rounds

May be also ambushers in the white house in the bottom right. There seems to be an exchange of fire between the rear bmp and some party in the house. Either that or those puffs coming from the bottom house are incoming rounds impacting on the walls.

I'm just dumbfounded as to why Russia doesn't retaliate when Ukraine militants hit civilians inside of Russia. I saw earlier today that Belgorod was hit again and there are footage of dead civilians.

Why do they not strike back everytime these militants commit these acts? Is it some kind of ploy to cement Russian public opinion in support of a broader scope of war?

They have demonstrated the capability to strike targets anywhere in Ukraine, and to repeat it for months on end yet they just sit in their hands when this happens. It's so frustrating

Equation said:

Don't underestimate Russia's resolve on this conflict. Winter is coming and it can only get worse for Ukraine because the West is running out money and supplies to keep them barely surviving. Even when this is conflict is over and the damages done to the country Ukraine will require extensive amount of resources and money to rebuild the infrastructure at pre-war state. Who is going lend Ukraine that money? Not the EU and US bankers lending to them (at least to the amount Ukraine will need). Yup, China. There the Western media will have a field day when President Zelenski meeting up with President Xi in a suit to talk about loans.

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The West cares not for Ukraine after the War, but during the war there is nothing stopping them from throwing all the money they can at a Russia sized problem. This is what NATO was built for, as long as public support remains high (it currently is still extremely high), EU will continue to pump money and equipment into Ukraine.

The last point I think I agree on, this whole conflict China's attitude has been lukewarm at best, after all war is bad for business. I believe that they much preferred dealing with the Ukrainians rather then the Russians, at least in terms of MIC cooperation, I've read multiple stories of how much the Russians looked down on their Chinese counterparts in joint projects. Hopefully this whole ordeal will teach Russia a bit of humility when dealing with China and actually import products from Chinese MIC rather than holding to that useless arrogance.

The sooner this war ends, the sooner China can run in with it's excess industrial capacity, so that they can belt and road the shit out of the bombed out country.

Biscuits said:

Fundamentally very different approach.

China's goal was to take uninhabited areas, and, speaking in a politically incorrect way, inflict a massacre on Viet soldiers to deplete their military strength.

Russia on the other hand wants to take highly populated territory and somehow seems to go easy on the AFU. It seems like Russia wants to forment organic resistance within the separatist regions, with the Russian forces acting in a supportive role.

During 1979, China immediately moved a comparable amount of soldiers to Vietnam into the north, and they never tried to capture major cities. Instead, they would destroy all the vital infrastructure, walk around the towns and let the Viet army meet them in the fields. This approach was effective at causing maximum pain for the defending armies, but China didn't take control of even a single city after the war and didn't have any designs on doing so.

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I want to point out even with the relatively small goals the PLA had in 1979 compared to the current SMO, they deployed something like 550k troops for it.

If the U.S. is concern about the depletion of its own stockpile of ammunition, that is a seriously warning that the Ukrainians could be dangerously close to exhaustion, they are putting everything in this offensive and the gains in "my opinion" different from what mainstream media says are not that impressive.
Is fair to remember that the Russians still have their manufacturing capabilities pretty much intact only supplementing from North Korea and Iran.

The US has given Ukraine nearly 1 million 155 mm artillery shells. Now it's looking for US companies to build more of them.​

• The US Army is looking for companies that can build up to 12,000 155 mm artillery shells a month.
• The Army's survey comes as the US supplies Ukraine with arms, including about 800,000 155 mm rounds.
• The scale of the effort to supply weapons has raised concerns about the status of US stockpiles.

Temstar said:

I want to point out even with the relatively small goals the PLA had in 1979 compared to the current SMO, they deployed something like 550k troops for it.

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Wait according to what? Pretty sure China sent 200 000, but this was comparable to the Viet forces of ~100 000 regulars and 150 000 draftees.

reservior dogs said:

I am curious about the Russian strategy as the next guy, but here is what I see.

1. Russia now has 80K regular soldiers, 20-30K Wagner Group, 20-30K Chechens and 40-50 territorial forces in the theater.
2. Russia has far more forces inside Russia and in Belarus.
3. Tens of thousands of regular Russian troops participated in the Far East Exercises.

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Speaking on numbers, I've come to the conclusion that the supposed 1 million army Russia has is on paper only.

Conscripts likely make up the vast majority of the 1 million figure. They are exempt from serving abroad and once their service is over they have no interest in staying on. It's probably why a disproportionate number of soldiers we've seen come from the far east and Muslim regions, there is less economic development there and a career in the military makes more economic sense.

All over the developed world countries are having problems with recruitment. Even America with the amount of funding they throw at the military is struggling with getting people to join the military.

Kadyrov's plan for every province to raise a volunteer force is interesting, but ultimately I think if Russia is going to win the war they need to drop the ban on conscripts fighting abroad. You can't win a conventional war as a "special military operation".