The War in the Ukraine

Deino said:

Since their aim changed! At the beginning I’m convinced they believed after about three to five days they would have conquered Kiew, all Ukrainians would have cheered them as the brothers who liberated them from the evil Western influence. Now, after desperately failing on this objective and learning the hard way, most Ukrainians have no intention to be liberated under a Russian boot, their aim is to destroy as much as possible in order to rise the price the West has to pay for the upcoming decades in order to restore Ukraine to a country worth living in.

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There's a whole lot more that Russia could do if it wanted to destroy as much of Ukraine as possible. It would require no mobilization and it would happen very quickly, and no, I'm not talking about using nuclear weapons. They can order airstrikes and missile strikes on every energy infrastructure and every critical point if needed to render Ukraine unlivable in days if not a day. But they are not because Russia has 2 goals: 1) Make it as expensive as possible for the West to keep propping up Ukraine in a drawn out conflict it cannot ultimately win and 2) Do as little damage as needed while softening Ukraine enough so when Russian takes over, it will minimize what Russia needs to do to get Ukraine back on track. Because those 2 goals often conflict, it is very difficult to calibrate the extent needed, hence Russia's dilemma and struggle.

Abominable said:

The irony is had Russia used a firm hand on Ukraine from the start Ukrainians would have surrendered already and there would be less deaths on both sides.

The Russian army pussyfooting and showing incompetence has given Ukrainians false hope and will only prolong their agony and has meant far more people will have to die.

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What makes you so sure Ukraine would have surrendered? They had around 600k way better equipped troops vs how they're now, with mechanized units to match.

If they want the whole country, conventional wisdom should tell them that its smarter to weaken them over time rather than sending the whole army and gambling.

Even against far far weaker Iraq, US spent a lot of time weakening them with proxies such as Kuwait and just attacking civilians to create refugees. They were also "pussyfooting" as you put it, until they weren't, and then they achieved a swift victory because there was no one left to resist.

As long as Russia isn't losing too much men or important ground, and Ukraine is grinding itself down, the overall combat strategy is sound, although one can certainly question the tactical level of some Russian commanders that gave ground in the last month.

I don't think Russians care that more Ukrainians will die. They may pay lip service to it, but at the end of the day they're a proxy to weaken NATO and break up EU. The war is much bigger than either Ukraine or Russia.

As the weather gets worse, Russia will intensify pressure against civilians. The methods employed such as destruction of energy transformer nodes are a little more humane than NATO strafing of hospitals and deliberate starvation of civilians. But the end result is the same.

Biscuits said:

What makes you so sure Ukraine would have surrendered? They had around 600k way better equipped troops vs how they're now, with mechanized units to match.

If they want the whole country, conventional wisdom should tell them that its smarter to weaken them over time rather than sending the whole army and gambling.

Even against far far weaker Iraq, US spent a lot of time weakening them with proxies such as Kuwait and just attacking civilians to create refugees. They were also "pussyfooting" as you put it, until they weren't, and then they achieved a swift victory because there was no one left to resist.

As long as Russia isn't losing too much men or important ground, and Ukraine is grinding itself down, the overall combat strategy is sound, although one can certainly question the tactical level of some Russian commanders that gave ground in the last month.

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At the start of the war, Ukraine was in complete disarray. They were shooting each other on the streets of Kiev, claiming to be battling "saboteurs". Russians did not capitalise on that situation, despite having an army sitting outside Kiev doing nothing. We don't know whether Ukraine would have capitulated had Russia been more aggressive, but I think it would have been far more easier in those disorganised circumstances than now.

Biscuits said:

I don't think Russians care that more Ukrainians will die. They may pay lip service to it, but at the end of the day they're a proxy to weaken NATO and break up EU. The war is much bigger than either Ukraine or Russia.

As the weather gets worse, Russia will intensify pressure against civilians. The methods employed such as destruction of energy transformer nodes are a little more humane than NATO strafing of hospitals and deliberate starvation of civilians. But the end result is the same.

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I think the opposite is true. Russian leaders call Ukrainians "hohols", nazis and so on but deep down they think highly of Ukrainians. They're just upset that Ukrainians have betrayed them, and are under the deluded believe it is forced on them by a western imposed regime.

The thinking goes back to Soviet times. After WW2 the USSR mass deported many Asiatic ethnicities for collaboration with the Nazis, yet did nothing to the Ukrainians who actually did collaborate with the Nazis. Maybe it goes back even further and is part of the western inferiority complex Russians have.

It's why there is a big divide between ethnic Russians in power and people like Kadyrov. He seems confused why there still are so many Ukrainians still alive.

Abominable said:

At the start of the war, Ukraine was in complete disarray. They were shooting each other on the streets of Kiev, claiming to be battling "saboteurs". Russians did not capitalise on that situation, despite having an army sitting outside Kiev doing nothing. We don't know whether Ukraine would have capitulated had Russia been more aggressive, but I think it would have been far more easier in those disorganised circumstances than now.


The thinking goes back to Soviet times. After WW2 the USSR mass deported many Asiatic ethnicities for collaboration with the Nazis, yet did nothing to the Ukrainians who actually did collaborate with the Nazis. Maybe it goes back even further and is part of the western inferiority complex Russians have.

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At the begining of the war the best of the Ukrainan army, with the most rabid nationalist units was dug into Donbas.

All disaray was at the unimportant places, like Kiev and so on.

If Russia concentrate the forces there then Donbas gone.


The principal reason of the attack of the Russian army was the iminent invasion of Donbas - the whole Kiev move was there to distract and beak the plans.

This is not isolated incident this is happening all over where the new mobilized are deployed.

Question is do the higherups in Moscow have any clue? Do they know their new recruits are in bad shape or are they in the dark because they believe the lies the field officers tells them?

PopularScience said:

then why not April, May, June, July, August?

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Deino said:

In fact I don't know why and this WHY - regardless of all stupid claims of denazification and now recently desatanisation, which in fact no-one believes - is still the biggest question!

But I think this is a question one must ask Putin himself.

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I wont go into too much politics, but lets just say that Putin isnt as bright as many people think he is.

Btw mobilisation should had been started at end of March the latest, and preferably the same day the war started

When you go to war, you should 100% commit at it not this half way job. Russia's strategic failures are far far worse their tactical failures on the battlefield

Anlsvrthng said:

At the begining of the war the best of the Ukrainan army, with the most rabid nationalist units was dug into Donbas.

All disaray was at the unimportant places, like Kiev and so on.

If Russia concentrate the forces there then Donbas gone.


The principal reason of the attack of the Russian army was the iminent invasion of Donbas - the whole Kiev move was there to distract and beak the plans.

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This war would have been so different if Putin would have ignored Kyiv and Northeast Ukraine and concentrated all his forces in Donbas and all of the current occupied areas. I think Odessa or parts of it could have been occupied by now but it is now a shoulda coulda woulda.

Shoigu tells Putin partial mobilization over in Russia​

The defense minister pointed out that particular attention was focused on training those called up from the reserve at training centers and firing ranges

NOVO-OGARYOVO, October 28. /TASS/. The partial mobilization has ended in Russia, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
"The deployment of citizens called up for mobilization was completed today. The conscription of citizens has stopped. The target you set - 300,000 people - has been met. No additional assignments are being planned," the Russian defense minister said.
"Within the framework of the special military operation, military enlistment offices will continue to replenish the military only by recruiting volunteers and candidates for military service under contract," Shoigu said.
The defense minister pointed out that particular attention was focused on training those called up from the reserve at training centers and firing ranges, where 218,000 people are currently sharpening their skills as members of a crew or a detachment. After finishing their training, 82,000 draftees were deployed to the area of the special military operation. Of those, more than 41,000 are deployed as members of military units.

"During the partial mobilization, over 1,300 representatives of executive power and over 27,000 businessmen were sent to the armed forces. About 13,000 citizens volunteered before they received their conscription notifications, and were sent to the armed forces as volunteers. The average age of mobilized citizens is 35 years," Shoigu said.
The minister emphasized that Russian service members who take part in combat during the special military operation will be designated as combat veterans and will receive social protection benefits.
Among other things, Shoigu admitted having problems with supplies and various types of allowances at the initial stage, but pointed out that those problems had already been resolved, so the arriving troops are provided with the allowances, uniforms, equipment and food in accordance with the requirements for contract soldiers.

SolarWarden said:

This is not isolated incident this is happening all over where the new mobilized are deployed.


Question is do the higherups in Moscow have any clue? Do they know their new recruits are in bad shape or are they in the dark because they believe the lies the field officers tells them?

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300 000 thousand person.

If the efficiency 99.9% then you have 300 mistreated person, with huge mistakes.

Afterwards the job of the USA propaganda is to magnify the small percentage, not to make an objective assesment.

From the pro-Russian Telegram channel "Colonelcassad":

Automatic translation:

Putin acknowledged the mistakes made during the partial mobilisation, noting that they were inevitable.

According to Putin, it is necessary to modernize the entire system of military registration and enlistment offices; mistakes were inevitable, as mobilization had not been carried out for a long time.

The system itself, as it is being activated now, was not activated in our country during Stalin's time. And if in the USSR before its collapse it was still maintained in a more or less adequate state, then in the "holy 90s" and later, when "Russia went to the West", if anything, it was done on the residual principle, so how to fight the West was not intended, and war was seen as conflicts of professional high-tech contract armies in the Third World. They made almost no preparations for a major war in Europe on a 1000+ kilometre front, which actually requires such measures, which causes many of the problems already outlined (not only in the mobilisation activities). As usual, problems already arise in the process that need to be overcome.

The fact that the authorities and Putin have almost at once recognised the existing deficiencies, which are of an objective nature, is good. It would be much worse if they pretended that everything was fine. Acknowledging mistakes and problems is the first step towards eliminating them. And now we can see that a number of problems identified at the beginning of the mobilization have either been eliminated or are in the process of being eliminated. Of course, there are still many problems in terms of supply, organisation and coordination. It is not possible to fix in a month of active work a problem that has a ten-year history.