For the war to drag, Russia must stop losing ground at that pace first, which is unlikely to happen any time.
The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
For the war to drag, Russia must stop losing ground at that pace first, which is unlikely to happen any time.
3 things that I think people can agree on based on observations of both Russia and Ukraine:
1. Drones, including strike, recon and loitering munitions, are all kings.
2. Infantry numbers still matter.
3. Strategic, not just tactical, intel and recon are vital
1. Drones, including strike, recon and loitering munitions, are all kings.
2. Infantry numbers still matter.
3. Strategic, not just tactical, intel and recon are vital
There is no negotiation. Ukraine said it won't be satisfied with the February 2022 borders or a return of Crimea and Donbass now. They've already declared the intent to invade Russia. Their surrender terms are already laid out elsewhere on this thread and is basically an unconditional surrender of the Russian government.
So Russia cannot surrender and is literally in a state of total war for national existence right now. They just don't know it yet.
My twopeeneth is that Russia went in expecting to fight one sort of war and quickly found itself fighting another.
Realising what this meant, it concentrated its forces in the critical Southern Land Corridor between the Donbas and the Crimea and started to work out a new plan based on the forces they had in the SMO theatre, outside of it and what they could realistically muster at short notice.
It took the Ukraine six months to produce its new current army based on a strategy that looks worked out and ready to implement long before the SMO started.
Russia will have had to play rapid catch up and so its new forces are only just being assembled.
Anyone who thinks the Russian should be holding every potatoe field in Kharkov and Kherson, presumably thinks Montgomery should have fought Rommel for every sand dune in North Africa?
Realising what this meant, it concentrated its forces in the critical Southern Land Corridor between the Donbas and the Crimea and started to work out a new plan based on the forces they had in the SMO theatre, outside of it and what they could realistically muster at short notice.
It took the Ukraine six months to produce its new current army based on a strategy that looks worked out and ready to implement long before the SMO started.
Russia will have had to play rapid catch up and so its new forces are only just being assembled.
Anyone who thinks the Russian should be holding every potatoe field in Kharkov and Kherson, presumably thinks Montgomery should have fought Rommel for every sand dune in North Africa?
As I see it the only important thing is for Russia to keep the Crimea land bridge in a serviceable state. Everything else is expandable as long as Ukraine is paying enough for it.
As many have complained why Russia does not just strike the bridges at the Dniepr, Russia retains that option. Ukraine is geographically encircled in its Eastern territories by Belarus and now the Russian land bridge to Crimea.
Should Russia bet it all and sends the whole army to land lock Ukraine and push through from the Belarus direction, any forces in Eastern Ukraine will be trapped. In that regard, the whole east is expandable because it is easy to gain it back when a full scale assault starts.
On the other hand, if Ukraine can break through the south and destroy the land bridge, then it is probably in Russia's interest to immediately sue for peace with minimal gains. Without the land bridge, Russia is effectively back to square 1.
Russia winning is not really necessary for China. Just like EU losing big time economically presents opportunity for US, so too does a weakened Russia present opportunities for China.
An Ukraine leaning truce is fine by China. The economic damage to US "allies" is alreadg done. Russia's economic reliance on China has greatly increased. If China does not send its own volunteers to Ukraine, China's national prestige has not been tarnished, because they retained neutrality.
It is just sleep talk by Zelensky, if Crimea is threatened and Russia can't conventionally defend it, nuclear ultimatum will come out. And Ukraine will be happy to take any deal where most of or all the Donbass is theirs.
It's not. China actually benefits more from continued war, unlike the West.
Russia never was interested in Ukrainan territory.
Everyone forgot Russia oriignal and current target :
1. Netural Ukraine, no USA / NATO soldiers, weapons on its soil.
2. No anti-russian mentality.
In January, if the USA gurantee the neutrality of Ukraine, and withdraw all USA units from there then no war at all.
As simple as that.
As the situation currently stand Russia has to comit very high ammount of money to recover the freshly annexed regions, beyond those maybe Odessa make sense, but as they going north the bill increase but the benefit doesn't .
This was not negligence on the Russian part,they just simply lack the logistics and the money to support a large group of troops for unlimited periods of time.The new recruits ,if they make to the front are up for a rude awakening when the winter hits.
Except Russia is taking losses too in the areas of retreat.
Frankly if that was the plan, you'd hear about it but what you have is Putin's lieutenants at each other's necks and commanding officers being replaced. You only replace if there is a failure, an outcome very far enough from intended objective.
Russia hasn't lost some random potato or grain fields. They've lost critical rail hubs in the East which will make their logistics immensely painful in the east.
Being biased is one thing and naturally this forum would have have anti-NATO bias due to the whole 'my ad-hoc rules based order' over international law based order. Despite that, it is critical to view certain things with objectively and to L e a r n from them.
Russia isn't over and out but I think 300k isn't enough, maybe double that. The whole SMO vs Anti terrorist op vs war is the dumbest load of copium/hopium I've seen. Going from SMO to war will not suddenly make RuAF gain air superiority or make them react to Lyman like situation faster, they had 3 weeks to spare 10-20k soliders and completely knock out Liman offensive. But in the end they managed to hold an escape route by thread of a hair. There are certain problems, they do not dissapear. 300k is not enough, 600-700k could be. If they want Ukraine to run out of stamina? What have they done? People are partying in Kiev like there is no war. Sending 2-3 "arrivals" once a week is drop in the bucket. Russia isn't fighting just Ukrainian army, they are fighting the entire nation.
They've had no issue completely flattening cities even with majority Russian speaking population.
The reality is they just don't have the right tools in right numbers to inflict pain that would create internal pressures.
And here we had in this very thread people saying 'lets conquer all of Ukraine'.