The War in the Ukraine

anzha said:

I really shouldn't be here right now, but...

Wild reports coming out of Kherson. VERY unverified, but starting to come from the Russian side as well.

13 reported his last orders were to change into civilian clothes and GTFO any way they could. Looking less than good for the Russians.

I wanted to see if the folks here had debunking, but...quiet here. Soooo...?

Click to expand...

I think it's more rediculous made up baloney. As if it's going to make a difference if UAF is going to shell the choke point crossings or not if people are in civilian clothes or not if they can even tell. They are known to launch shells that mysteriously land on markets and civilians anyway. Just keep your BS filters on the highest settings for the next week because the psyops are in maximum overdrive from both sides.

The whole situation is just so ludicrous that I can't begin to believe much of anything being said anymore, especially from Twitter even telegram is so unreliable that I cant force myself to believe what i read on it anymore. Instead of speculating, I'll just wait to see what already happened.

One thing I'm pretty sure of is Putin is walking towards a Musolini ending. Whoever is going to replace him is going to be the devil we don't know.

A pair of Ukranian jihadi Humvees encounter a mine. One of them gets destroyed while the other bails and leaves the survivors behind



Alleged video of the Ukranian governor of Mikolayiv and Kherson talking about rounding up "pro-russian" civilians that haven't left the area

BoraTas said:

I realized that the Russian military almost looks like a European military from the times before European kings managed to assert their authority over regional lords. Before then kings had a little part of their country under their direct control. Even though they were the sovereigns of the other parts of their countries, they weren't actually managing the lands. When they needed soldiers, most of the army was mobilized, sent and, sometimes, even led by the local lords and nobilities. To give a popular culture reference to describe how armies were raised, think of the Seven Kingdoms from the Game of Thrones.
The concentration of martial power under central governments happened mostly after the Thirty Years' War and then the French Revolution. Nowadays, almost every national government holds a monopoly over martial power and has a standing national military. That national military commands a vast majority of the country's martial power. You don't see modern nations clumping together a lot of different regional armed organizations to wage war.

Now let's look at the Russian forces in Ukraine:
- Russian Armed Forces. The standing national military of Russia.
- Rosgvardiya. It is like a gendarmerie but is uniquely independent of the national military and ministries. It is effectively a second military.
- LPR and DNR armies. The militaries of recently annexed de-facto republics. Separate from the Russian Armed Forces.
- Various police forces from Russia. I have no idea who is commanding them.
- Militias from various parts of Ukraine. Again, I have no idea who is commanding them.
- Chechen forces. Another military force from Russia that is independent from the Russian national military. But this time, it is raised, trained, and commanded by a local governor.
- Wagner and a lot of other mercenaries. Largely independent from the Russian Armed Forces.

Russophiles here, I am sorry but this is not how a modern nation wages war. This is a widely inefficient organization. It makes coordinated action and uniformity impossible. This is how military forces looked until the late-1700s. I am not sure how Russian Federation ended up like this. The results are easily observable, though.

Click to expand...

It is not exactly surprising when you actually look at how Russia is governed and how all these militaries came up:
- Chechen forces are the direct result of having to compromise during the Chechen wars where Russians were unable to defeat the rebels without making a pact with another warlord (Kadyrov's father) which de-facto allowed him to maintain his personal army;
- Wagner, Rusich and other merc groups are largely products of the Russian militant neonazi groups that were abundant in 00s (read-up on the people who founded all those merc groups - e.g. here is the founder of Wagner ) and were infamous for killing non-white people (especially Asian and African students) across all large cities in Russia;
- LPR and DNR militias are the result of Russia's actions back in 2014, these are actually under control of Russian military if I remember correctly;
- Rosgvardiya is essentially Putin's own paramilitary;
- police forces (OMON and other groups) were primarily used to maintain control in the occupied territories but also as ground forces in some of the attacks (like that Kiev attempt back in March), idk why on the latter.

These neonazi mercs, Chechen legion, and Rosgvardiya highlight the fact that Putin is not an all-powerful dictator but actually has to do plenty of power-sharing in order to stay in charge. As a result, there is no singular cohesive force which is probably one of the main reasons behind Russian underperformance in Ukrainian war.

Genuinely think Russia might loose the war now and Ukraine will take back everything including Crimea.

memfisa said:

Exactly what economic strength is Ukraine going to muster after this war? I just don't understand where this economic might and strength is going to come from unless western nations excise their own valuable industries and place them in corrupt Ukraine

Ukraine doesn't have economic strength. If it did, it wouldn't be demanding handouts from every western taxpayer every single waking day

Click to expand...

Ukraine will be a ruined state regardless how this war ends. Who cares though if we are being honest? There are plenty of war-torn failed states in the world, this will be just another one.

xypher said:

Ukraine will be a ruined state regardless how this war ends. Who cares though if we are being honest? There are plenty of war-torn failed states in the world, this will be just another one.

Click to expand...

it will be exporting the type of stability and human capital that the Middle East and Africa have enjoyed for decades straight to the heart of EU. Hope they are ready.

Phead128 said:

I think we can agree that S.M.O. progress is slow or not going well, but a resounding failure? No need for hyperbolic inflammatory exaggeration please.

It's probably a combination of both.... Kherson city in a vulnerable position and difficult to defend in long-term, so cut losses earlier, and Kherson city not a core interest (despite annexation), so we can negotiation on some land to further peace settlement. They are not mutually exclusive per se.

Click to expand...

What you're saying doesn't make sense. If giving up Kherson in negotiations was part of the plan, Putin wouldn't have annexed the province a month ago. It would have been better to keep the city in limbo than to annex it then hand it over.

Initially, I assumed it was America that was ignoring Russia. Turns out it was the Russians who were refusing dialogue the whole time. That changed when Russia reached out to America to warn about the dirty bomb threat.

I think negotiations have been occurring, but they are all low level through intermediaries and have been about small matters, like grain transport, sanctions, the state of Kaliningrad. There won't be a peace deal until there are high level talks between Russians and Americans.

From @MarKoz81 back in August
The War in the Ukraine
If Russia concentrates sufficient forces in this area - and there were various rumors of VDV units being redirected there - it might prove decisive, but in the other direction. It is the single worst area for anyone to defend, and the same reasons why Ukrainian defenses collapse on the very first day will hamper Russia if it chooses to defend territory. Russian positions west of Dnepr as very bad long-term. East of Dnepr there are no real "positions" to speak of. In such conditions Russian concentration and then defeat means combat power loss forcing negotiations to freeze conflict. Ukrainian defeat means status quo because Russia currently doesn't have means to push further.

Therefore the factor that will determine the outcome is politics since expending resources here will have consequences in other areas. The obvious tradeoff is that an achievable success in Kherson, will mean loss of Donbass. While strategically feasible it might be problematic politically.

from September
The War in the Ukraine

Syerdukov designated VDV as the branch intended to become fully professional primary rapid reaction force. He then reorganized the ground forces into a flatter structure with brigades as basic unit and armies as operational commands. He proposed that every army designate a number of high-readiness brigades which would be manned by contract-service troops while the remaining brigades would be manned by regular conscripts. Per Russian law conscripts are not allowed to serve abroad so those contract units would be used in any foreign military interventions while conscript units would be used for training and mobilization
.….
This is also why VDV have been absolutely ground to dust and the next batch coming in a few months to quickly fill in the slots is going to be undertrained. VDV were the only proper tactical formation. Every other unit had some fighting force but how much - that depended on how much the commander lied to his superiors. The rout from Izyum is the consequence of it as well. That and the fact that Russians decided to throw all remaining VDV units to Kherson. A timely deployment of a VDV airborne battalion could change a lot. Perhaps not the outcome of the operation but at least reduce the tempo and buy time. But if they didn't do it, then the offensive in the south would happen because geographically Russians put themselves in a corner.

TK3600 said:

Isnt purpose of a dam to stop water flowing?

Click to expand...

Are you trolling? A dam is to make the water level higher... in that case they need it for irrigation and power.

FairAndUnbiased said:

They could reroute power from residents to water and sewage treatment. This is just taking that option away. Eliminating a few granaries and refrigerator warehouses would put additional strain on their food supply chain by forcing them to either accept shorter shelf life or drive food around on refrigerated trucks.

Click to expand...

Just blow the damn bridges on the Dnipro, all of them and for good. They should have done it after a week or so... the east would have fallen and they would not be in that stucky mess. Don't know what they are waiting about beside losing more at this rate.

TWZ update. Both Koreas coining it from this war:


ISW Update, increasing protests in Russia at poor pay, conditions and equipment of mobiliks:


MilitaryLand update: