The War in the Ukraine

It seems many poster here, including pro-Russian ones, have implicitly accepted the Western propaganda that anything short of a Ukrainian capitulation would be a humiliating loss for Russia.

Let's remember what Russia started this war with: control of Crimea alone, and rebellions in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

Six month later, Russia annexed four Ukrainian provinces and secured a land route to Crimea. All at a relatively low military cost. By all accounts, this is already an amazing return on investment, and easily the most significant reversal of fortunes since the Ukrainian color revolution.

By invading, Russia has demonstrated that NATO is not willing to enter direct conflict with Russia, at least not over Ukraine. People put too much stock in a piece of paper. If NATO isn't willing to fight Russia over Ukraine now, it's not going to fight Russia over Ukraine later.

I understand. It's hard to maintain objectivity when you're constantly bombarded with images and stories of Russian failures. However, when you step away from the propaganda and take a look at the cold hard facts.

MarKoz81 said:

I can't speak to the technical aspects of the explosion. My concern would be the driver - it would have to be remotely piloted truck with a mannequin for disguise. Is there security on the bridge? Would that be possible?

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From what I heard the former Russian owner of the truck said it was being driven by his uncle, that his uncle got an order to deliver chemical fertilizer, and that he was driving to deliver it. So the available evidence is that the truck driver was an unwitting participant in the attack. I am fairly sure they will tighten up the transport of explosives and fuel as a result of this attack. And they will likely improve the checks on the Russian side, up until now most of the checks are done when moving from Crimea to mainland Russia.

solarz said:

It seems many poster here, including pro-Russian ones, have implicitly accepted the Western propaganda that anything short of a Ukrainian capitulation would be a humiliating loss for Russia.

Let's remember what Russia started this war with: control of Crimea alone, and rebellions in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

Six month later, Russia annexed four Ukrainian provinces and secured a land route to Crimea. All at a relatively low military cost. By all accounts, this is already an amazing return on investment, and easily the most significant reversal of fortunes since the Ukrainian color revolution.

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Actually, Russia is pretty far from having a victory, the conditions are the ones put forward by Putin when the conflict started. i.e. the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. As the conflict is going there is little chance this will happen without Russia doing a full blown occupation of the whole country.

solarz said:

Six month later, Russia annexed four Ukrainian provinces and secured a land route to Crimea. All at a relatively low military cost. By all accounts, this is already an amazing return on investment, and easily the most significant reversal of fortunes since the Ukrainian color revolution.

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Four Ukrainian provinces which have yet to be fully militarily secured, and at the cost of many months of HICO, incurring thousands of casualties and extensive material attrition. Downplaying the Russian failure to achieve broader operational objectives by focusing on the paltry successes would be like the PRC failing to prosecute a campaign against Taiwan, but framing it as "We've successfully reunified Kinmen and Matsu, all for a relatively low military cost!"

While we in the US certainly have our own propaganda machine running, the fact that Russian performance during the course of this conflict has been embarrassingly sub-par is independent from that fact.

solarz said:

By invading, Russia has demonstrated that NATO is not willing to enter direct conflict with Russia, at least not over Ukraine. People put too much stock in a piece of paper. If NATO isn't willing to fight Russia over Ukraine now, it's not going to fight Russia over Ukraine later.

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This was never in question. We made very clear before Russian boots ever touched Ukrainian soil that the United States will not send troops to Ukraine. There is zero reason for the United States to enter a direct conflict with a nation stumbling around in a botched attempt to invade a non-NATO nation whom we have no obligation to defend, while they are suffering significant human and material losses. The United States has been able to draw Russian and LDPR blood in ample quantity through material aid alone, which is all we could really want from the conflict, beyond the continued existence of Ukraine as a nation. This particular strain of cope is akin to a school bully picking a fight with a younger kid while his father watches, and taunting the father for not beating him to death while the younger kid is bashing his face in just fine alone.

solarz said:

I understand. It's hard to maintain objectivity when you're constantly bombarded with images and stories of Russian failures. However, when you step away from the propaganda and take a look at the cold hard facts:

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Being bombarded with what is literally happening is just called observing the reality of the situation. The reality of the situation is that Russian force employment has been bafflingly stupid, their sustainment has been anemic, their joint integration is all but nonexistent, their strategic and operational fires was ACTUALLY nonexistent, and they have been repulsed from the North, suffering significant losses in the process (and proceeding to justify it as a "feint" after tucking tail and retreating due to an insufficient concentration of force, and imbecilic sustainment and enabler performance), humiliated in Kharkiv after failing to meaningfully encircle the city, then being subjected to a successful, rapid counteroffensive, have been - at best - inching forwards in the Donbas, which appears to be tilting more towards Ukrainian advance as of late, and are currently clinging on to Kherson despite it being one of their most meaningfully defended positions. All of these have incurred many losses, and vast amounts of war materiel expended in vain. Even if the Ukrainian forces have suffered casualties themselves, which they absolutely have, they clearly still possess the warmaking potential to conduct effective maneuver operations, and have yet to culminate.

While I am skeptical of Ukraine's ability to pull out a "win" still, I think it's pathetic for so many people to so unapologetically dress up, decorate, and take a bite out of the turd that is Russian military performance so far, and then attempt to convince others that "No, you see, it's actually chocolate!"

solarz said:

Let's remember what Russia started this war with: control of Crimea alone, and rebellions in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

Six month later, Russia annexed four Ukrainian provinces and secured a land route to Crimea. All at a relatively low military cost. By all accounts, this is already an amazing return on investment, and easily the most significant reversal of fortunes since the Ukrainian color revolution.

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This is not entirely true, Russia began this invasion with Crimea, and much of Donets and Lugansk under control of the separatists, in February they took without much resistance, Kherson, much of Zaporozhye, and part of Sumy, kyiv, Chernigov and Kharkov.... After those initial seizures of territory, in the last 6 months, Russia has only lost occupied territories... And the only reality is that Russia at the end of March, controlled more territory than today ...

Russia announced among its objectives the demilitarization and denazification, something that obviously it will not achieve, nor will it be able to change the kyiv government... Its objective was also the security of the Donbas, and the Russian territorial integrity, however, the Donbas continues to be a cauldron, and Russian territories have already been attacked on several occasions... So the Russians have not achieved anything, beyond managing to invade territories in February, only to lose them as the Ukrainian army becomes stronger and plants more fight... Today there is not a front where they are not in trouble, to the point of cynicism, that Russian propaganda focuses on Bakhmut, where he has been announcing "his early capture" for more than 2 months and even Wagner's mercenaries Along with the support of the Russian army and the separatist militias, they have not managed to take it

As another member mentioned previously, the fact that Russia required importing Iranian drones (among many other revelations throughout SMO), the old "Russia strong threat" thinking has sort of been removed from the minds of western political and military leaders.

Regardless of how Ukraine war ends up (assuming no massive escalations to nuclear conflict). Russia has not been able to defeat western surplus and half assed ISR assistance provided to Ukraine.

Granted that US or China would really not fare that much better against a guerilla force and successfully occupy, I doubt either of those countries would be taking these level of losses and the relatively slow occupation. Okay yes it does seem like Russia is holding back with respect to not using bombers but this is also because they do not want to lose so many bombers for very little effectiveness outside of leveling Ukrainian cities which achieve little strategic objective other than making more people jump onto an anti-Russian stance.

The major issues with Russia's military wrt the above are their lack of UAV (of variety, purpose, depth, capability, numbers), lack of industrial capability (I mean less than 15 operational Su-57 still and lower rate of production than major military powers), lack of C4ISR, seemingly poorer command structures and organisational ability (from mobilisation and prior to).

On poor command and organisation, there's every possibility the major military nations would not fare much better BUT every detail and every advantage yield significantly improved results. I doubt any first or even second tier militaries will provide even one of their soldiers with completely rusted rifles and massive numbers with no food and critical personal equipment. Yes okay this is a cultural difference or a doctrinal difference where Russians have that initial learning curve and then all initial teething issues are worked out. Perhaps. Until then, western leaders have decreased fear of Russia as a military power.

Everyone expected Russia to gain territory, but the current rate is significantly underperforming. It's not losing the war, but it is not performing as expected (e.g., rapid progress/victory).

Ukraine will never win the war, but Russia will not have a easy and quick victory either, just will take a long time at using the conservative approach thus far. At this point, Russia should just go all-out, full-scale war, regime change.

Sheleah said:

This is not entirely true, Russia began this invasion with Crimea, and much of Donets and Lugansk under control of the separatists, in February they took without much resistance, Kherson, much of Zaporozhye, and part of Sumy, kyiv, Chernigov and Kharkov.... After those initial seizures of territory, in the last 6 months, Russia has only lost occupied territories... And the only reality is that Russia at the end of March, controlled more territory than today ...

Russia announced among its objectives the demilitarization and denazification, something that obviously it will not achieve, nor will it be able to change the kyiv government... Its objective was also the security of the Donbas, and the Russian territorial integrity, however, the Donbas continues to be a cauldron, and Russian territories have already been attacked on several occasions... So the Russians have not achieved anything, beyond managing to invade territories in February, only to lose them as the Ukrainian army becomes stronger and plants more fight... Today there is not a front where they are not in trouble, to the point of cynicism, that Russian propaganda focuses on Bakhmut, where he has been announcing "his early capture" for more than 2 months and even Wagner's mercenaries Along with the support of the Russian army and the separatist militias, they have not managed to take it

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Can't see how you can argue that the Ukrainian army becomes stronger, the losses they are taking vs. gains would not be acceptable for any professional military. The Ukrainian army and Ukraine as a country is also now fully dependent on foreign support, they have no military complex to produce lost equipment, no economy to support a prolonged war, no further capacity to mobilize more soldiers. What they have now is basically it.

To achieve a military victory over Russia, Ukraine would need to destroy large elements of the Russian army in Ukraine, actually defeat sizable Russian forces in direct engagements and basically inflict unsustainable losses to Russia. They have not done any of this.

I sympathize with Ukrainian civilians / Ukraine cause of the long painful history it has with Russian bullying but unfortunately, this war will drag on a lot longer at the cost of largely Ukrainian lives.

ougoah said:

As another member mentioned previously, the fact that Russia required importing Iranian drones (among many other revelations throughout SMO), the old "Russia strong threat" thinking has sort of been removed from the minds of western political and military leaders.

This isn't a good thing for Russia and despite Russia and China not having formal military or national alliances, this also isn't great for China from the fact that western nations have one less "distraction" on their minds. Russia is no longer able to project worry and concern onto Atlanticist groups. Regardless of how Ukraine war ends up (assuming no massive escalations to nuclear conflict). Russia has not been able to defeat western surplus and half assed ISR assistance provided to Ukraine.

Granted that US or China would really not fare that much better against a guerilla force and successfully occupy, I doubt either of those countries would be taking these level of losses and the relatively slow occupation. Okay yes it does seem like Russia is holding back with respect to not using bombers but this is also because they do not want to lose so many bombers for very little effectiveness outside of leveling Ukrainian cities which achieve little strategic objective other than making more people jump onto an anti-Russian stance.

The major issues with Russia's military wrt the above are their lack of UAV (of variety, purpose, depth, capability, numbers), lack of industrial capability (I mean less than 15 operational Su-57 still and lower rate of production than major military powers), lack of C4ISR, seemingly poorer command structures and organisational ability (from mobilisation and prior to).

On poor command and organisation, there's every possibility the major military nations would not fare much better BUT every detail and every advantage yield significantly improved results. I doubt any first or even second tier militaries will provide even one of their soldiers with completely rusted rifles and massive numbers with no food and critical personal equipment. Yes okay this is a cultural difference or a doctrinal difference where Russians have that initial learning curve and then all initial teething issues are worked out. Perhaps. Until then, western leaders have decreased fear of Russia as a military power.

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western ISR support has been extensive and Russian ISR capabilities are too weak.

On the other hand Ukraine is a near peer to Russia, since they are the 2nd largest country in Europe after Russia itself, 1/3 the population and 1/8 the GDP. An analogy would be like China trying to invade and occupy Indonesia backed by US and Australia. You and I both know that would be very difficult due to Indonesia's large population, large and complex geography, and proximity to a safe rear in Australia.

It all goes back to Sun Tzu. Know thyself, know thy enemy.

gelgoog said:

Actually, Russia is pretty far from having a victory, the conditions are the ones put forward by Putin when the conflict started. i.e. the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. As the conflict is going there is little chance this will happen without Russia doing a full blown occupation of the whole country.

Click to expand...

Phead128 said:

Everyone expected Russia to gain territory, but the current rate is significantly underperforming. It's not losing the war, but it is not performing as expected (e.g., rapid progress/victory).

Ukraine will never win the war, but Russia will not have a easy and quick victory either, just will take a long time at using the conservative approach thus far. At this point, Russia should just go all-out, full-scale war, regime change.

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This is exactly what I'm talking about.

The fact that Russia did not end up doing a Desert Storm on Ukraine does not mean their military gains are invalidated.

Objectively speaking, Russia's military achievements so far are extremely significant. Four oblasts have been annexed, creating a wide buffer zone, securing land access to Crimea, and cutting Ukraine's access to the sea of Azov.

The refrain I keep reading is that Russia could've done much better, which gets really tiresome, because it's largely irrelevant to the development of events.

FairAndUnbiased said:

western ISR support has been extensive and Russian ISR capabilities are too weak.

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It was clear from the onset of the war that Russia was fighting a 20th century war. You can't realistically expect that to change in a few month's time.

The best Russia can hope for is to bury Ukraine under heavy firepower while conducting the necessary reforms over years, if not decades.