The War in the Ukraine

Well, you know my opinion. I think Russia pulling out of Kherson is a bad idea. It will make the defense of Crimea much harder.
I think there was no excuse to pull all the troops out of there. I can understand them evacuating the population from Kherson to reduce the logistics load. But not pulling the troops out. Russia will just be exchanging one problem for a worse one. In the previous situation Ukraine had to expose their troops in open ground to advance. Now Ukraine will be able to use Kherson city itself as cover for their artillery. And this withdrawal basically nails shut any option of Russia invading the whole coast of Ukraine and cut them out from naval transport and prevent NATO from getting an increased foothold on the Black Sea next to Crimea. Bridges, floods, whatever, Russia could have resupplied the troops by boat and air drops if it came to it. Given their lack of ability to easily cross even small rivers in the East I do not see Russia crossing the Dnieper west in the south again in the foreseeable future.

Sheleah said:

Russia has failed in the war. It doesn't matter how well she does in the regions she controls, the military disaster is enormous, the discredit of her army is the same. The image of an invincible military power is damaged. They may entrench the conflict, but not reverse this failure.

I don't mean that Russia is going to collapse or anything like that, but this war is a failure and a disrepute. They have not known how to measure and have underestimated their rival: the objectives that were set have not been achieved...

The withdrawal from Kherson will probably allow them to reinforce other areas, and balance the pressure on some fronts in the face of winter and entrench the conflict, but the damage to the image of the Russian army is very great, not to mention its arms and technology industry ( has needed to acquire material from Iran)... Its regional alliances (Central Asia are not going through their best moment), and you have NATO waiting for the entry of Sweden and Finland, and defense spending increasing in Europe, obviously these are not they were the objectives that the Kremlin had when it launched the invasion.

I don't know how this is going to end, but the victory that Moscow was selling is not going to be achieved because they have accumulated a series of failures that are difficult to ignore.

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It is teh same problem that Hitler faced, when he decided to prioritise areas over the Wermacht manpower and equipment .

Lost huge part of the army protecting and conquering token lands, with 0 value, at the same time loosing the equipment and manpower faster the the Soviets.

For Hitler, the image of Germany and himself was more important than the soldiers of the army, and I think you know the result.

Anlsvrthng said:

It is teh same problem that Hitler faced, when he decided to prioritise areas over the Wermacht manpower and equipment .

Lost huge part of the army protecting and conquering token lands, with 0 value, at the same time loosing the equipment and manpower faster the the Soviets.

For Hitler, the image of Germany and himself was more important than the soldiers of the army, and I think you know the result.

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I think comparing the two is disingenuous, the war between Nazi Germany and the USSR was existential and neither would back down without the complete destruction of the other. Once operation Barbarossa had started there was no other way for the war to end.

In this war Russia has fumbled at almost every step, with almost all of the earlier gains being rapidly recaptured despite having a much larger military on paper. Looking with hindsight it just seems like Russia never had a coherent plan in case things don't go exactly as expected, the mobilization has happened too little too late to prevent Ukranians from regaining a important strategic city.

I don't know how this war will end, but Russia's military reputation will take a very long time to rebuild after getting stallmated by Ukraine, a barely functional state before the war.

Guys check out the Russia defence forum, back there people are claiming this withdrawal is a 5D chess move, that Russia is winning by advancing backwards.
Seriously I thought us Arabs are emotional unpragmatic people who try to portray every loss as a win, but now when I look at how the Europeans (Russians included) talk I realize we are far much more pragmatic and less emotional than people think we are.

obj 705A said:

Guys check out the Russia defence forum, back there people are claiming this withdrawal is a 5D chess move, that Russia is winning by advancing backwards.
Seriously I thought us Arabs are emotional unpragmatic people who try to portray every loss as a win, but now when I look at how the Europeans (Russians included) talk I realize we are far much more pragmatic and less emotional than people think we are.

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Yeah, most white people are very concerned about saving face and public opinion. They love to project this on Asians but in reality reversely most Asians have no trouble admitting problems and errors while Europeans (and their descendants) mostly lie, deflect, self-propagandize & deny up until it is too late to do anything. We already saw that behavior with Europeans on the economic front where they first put up a bravado and now their economies are tumbling at every step.

Antonovsky bridge is finally destroyed, maybe demo charges involved?

Updates from @milchronicles at Telegram:


Regrouping of the RF Armed Forces from Kherson: Details

By the morning of November 11, the main actions for maneuvering from the left bank of the Dnieper were completed. Troops have been withdrawn and consolidated at a new line of defense. According to preliminary data, after the removal of equipment and people, the Antonovsky automobile and railway bridges were blown up.

According to the Military Chronicle, the transition of the RF Armed Forces grouping from the right to the left bank of the Dnieper was covered by divisions of the Smerch and Uragan-1M long-range missile systems.

The area of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station and the adjacent settlements - Berislav, Kazatsky and Nikolaevka - under the fire control of the "artillery sleeve" from the Giacint-B guns and rocket artillery brigades, as well as air defense forces. For the past two days, air defense systems have been covering artillery and the location of the RF Armed Forces from missile attacks from the HIMARS complex.

In some areas, the movement of Ukrainian units is blocked by minefields.

The Lancet drones also prevented the Ukrainian army from moving quickly deep into the Kherson region for the last 48 hours. They are used in tandem with the Orlan-10 drones to strike at the AFU equipment at a distance of up to 40 km, preventing the Ukrainian forces from using artillery against the positions of the Russian Armed Forces on the right bank of the Dnieper.

The advance of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is hampered not only by targeted positions along the main roads, but also by rain-soaked ground, in which Husky TSV, Bushmaster and MaxxPro wheeled armored vehicles get stuck.

Heavy equipment is practically not used by the Ukrainian army - the remaining tanks of the 59th, 63rd, 28th and 57th motorized rifle brigades, as well as the 17th tank brigades, are in their previous positions, as there is a danger of falling into a fire trap of Russian artillery.

xypher said:

Yeah, most white people are very concerned about saving face and public opinion. They love to project this on Asians but in reality reversely most Asians have no trouble admitting problems and errors while Europeans (and their descendants) mostly lie, deflect, self-propagandize & deny up until it is too late to do anything. We already saw that behavior with Europeans on the economic front where they first put up a bravado and now their economies are tumbling at every step.

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this is 100% factual. Asians actually are too harsh at self criticism sometimes.

Atomicfrog said:

Now is time to blow off all the bridges on the Dnipro from North to south. Nothing will be gain with keeping them and I clearly don't know how they didn't blow them off already. After the first 3 months, it was clear that it was impossible to take Ukraine intact, even more the west of Dnipro. Taking all the east of Ukraine could be seen as a victory, taking less could be seen as a defeat, losing more and not being able to have a stable land bridge to Crimea would be an humiliating defeat.

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At this point I doubt that Russia has the capability to do destroy all the bridges over the Dnipro. What weapons would they use to accomplish this? A cruise missile would not be up to the task.

Zichan said:

At this point I doubt that Russia has the capability to do destroy all the bridges over the Dnipro. What weapons would they use to accomplish this? A cruise missile would not be up to the task.

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along the south, take them out with sappers. in the north, ballistic missiles. don't have to destroy all, just destroy as much as possible to reduce throughput and force jams on the remaining bridges. the traffic jams will be more vulnerable to cruise missiles.

the other part is to destroy electrical connection between east and west of the Dnieper which will be much harder to repair and much easier to damage. a river crossing pylon getting hit with a cruise missile is going to go down.