Ukrainian War Developments

Phead128 said:

Hard disagree.

The Russia did hope to blitzkrieg and surround the capital region to scare Kiev to sue for peace and quick negotiated victory.

Did they actually hope to capture Kiev? No.
Did they hope to scare it into submission by surrounding key cities as rapidly as possible? Yes.

Hard disagree.

When you dedicate ONLY 120K in the initial thrust across thousand mile front, you are expecting the enemy resistance to quit and sue for peace and quick negotiated victory. They did expect Ukraine to sue for peace quickly, but when that failed, now their new strategy is grinding them to ashes/rubble via attrition. And you need to concentrate your forces to grind them down.

They most definitely expected a quick negotiated settlement because they thought Ukrainians would give up very quickly.

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That doesn't make sense. Why would you commit less soldiers if you wanted a quick victory? You would want to use more to maximise their impact. You'd use less if you wanted to make the job of managing supplies and rotations easier.

The idea that Russian generals went into war basing their plans around their enemy to collapse is absurd. In the Gulf war the Iraqi army was considered to be highly trained and one of the best in the world. It wasn't and it quickly collapsed. In the second Iraq war everyone knew the same would happen again, but NATO still planned it as if it was facing a full strength dangerous army.

Its a psychological pressure to sit outside city long term. the city does not develop and finally run out of money to provide services.
this money will have to come from outside with sky high logistic costs.
from voiding patterns in Ukraine. there is no way even after surrender the area can be governed. so still need this much soldiers.

both sides spin.

Russians wants the world to think they never meant to do what they clearly tried and failed to do. So all is going according to plan and success on their terms is inevitable,

The Ukrainians wants the world to believe that because the russians failed to do what they manifestly tried to do, they clearly can’t do anything and just a little more push, and a little more, and a little more ……….. and a little more, then russia will fall.

pmc said:

Its a psychological pressure to sit outside city long term. the city does not develop and finally run out of money to provide services.
this money will have to come from outside with sky high logistic costs.
from voiding patterns in Ukraine. there is no way even after surrender the area can be governed. so still need this much soldiers.

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it is delusional to think the psychological pressure of a stalled advance outside a city that has not been surrounded can have the effect of encouraging the defenders to give up.

the moment a advance towards it around an city stalls, i think the attacker is looking at an either protracted siege if they ever surround the city, or a frantic race to regain momentum and then take a city quickly in a coup de main before the defender can use the lull to build up defences against at an assault.

they had neither the troops to surround the city nor had they regained the momentum to take the city in a coup de main.

if the russians thought they could scare the ukrainians into giving up kyiv without having the force on hand to invest or take kyiv, that would be some powerfully optimistic planning.

Abominable said:

That doesn't make sense. Why would you commit less soldiers if you wanted a quick victory? You would want to use more to maximise their impact. You'd use less if you wanted to make the job of managing supplies and rotations easier.

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The Russians got drunk from the lack of resistance to 2014 Crimean annexation, and perhaps due to faulty intelligence, they erroneously believed Ukrainians would either welcome their as liberators or their resistance will collapse immediately. So that's is why they committed only 120K to initial thrust, expecting they be scared and sue for peace and quick settlement.

Abominable said:

The idea that Russian generals went into war basing their plans around their enemy to collapse is absurd.

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They obviously have Plan A (quick enemy collapse), and Plan B, C, D, E etc... I didn't say this was their only plan.

Abominable said:

In the Gulf war the Iraqi army was considered to be highly trained and one of the best in the world. It wasn't and it quickly collapsed. In the second Iraq war everyone knew the same would happen again, but NATO still planned it as if it was facing a full strength dangerous army.

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Iraq? Just look at the zero resistance from Ukrainians in 2014 Crimean annexation. No need to look at Iraq, look at Crimea.

Richard Santos said:

it is delusional to think the psychological pressure of a stalled advance outside a city that has not been surrounded can have the effect of encouraging the defenders to give up.

the moment a advance towards it around an city stalls, i think the attacker is looking at an either protected siege if they ever surround the city, or a frantic race to regain momentum and take a city quickly in a coup de main if they don’t have the troops to surround and invest the city.

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why would they need to take city quickly unless the population of cities are prepared to live under them willingly. They went faster in Kherson and open the water channel. so they know what is on other side.
every thing need time to come to conclusion. Ukraine is very wide country. only Crimea and Belarus provide North-South shortest logistics. the rest is not sustainable unless major population distribution happens.

Phead128 said:

The Russians got drunk from the lack of resistance to 2014 Crimean annexation, and perhaps due to faulty intelligence, they erroneously believed Ukrainians would either welcome their as liberators or their resistance will collapse immediately. So that's is why they committed only 120K to initial thrust, expecting they be scared and sue for peace and quick settlement.

They obviously have Plan A (quick enemy collapse), and Plan B, C, D, E etc... I didn't say this was their only plan.

Iraq? Just look at the zero resistance from Ukrainians in 2014 Crimean annexation. No need to look at Iraq, look at Crimea.

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2014 was a different story.

Maybe you /USA govrment like to forget, but for the Ukrainan military that way an unconstitutional coup, means they haven't had chain of command any more.


If the CIA manage to kill the outseted president then the situation would be different , but they failed.

pmc said:

Its a psychological pressure to sit outside city long term. the city does not develop and finally run out of money to provide services.
this money will have to come from outside with sky high logistic costs.
from voiding patterns in Ukraine. there is no way even after surrender the area can be governed. so still need this much soldiers.

Click to expand...

They probably hoped the Ukrainian army would rout/defect like in Crimea, but I don't think they would base their troop deployment numbers around that idea.

I imagine they planned for the worst scenario, to fight against a highly trained, motivated NATO-like army.

Governing a country won't be that difficult. They'll mostly use Ukrainian opposition parties and local police forces supplemented with Rusian national guard & reservists.
Even in the worse case scenario where every city in Ukraine revolts against Russian rule only a small detachment of the army would be required to quell it once the Ukrainian army is gone.

Richard Santos said:

Sitting around near a major city without surrounding it, attacking it, or interdicting all approached to it is waste of time. major cities are also transportation hubs that allows the defenders to be better supplied and more quickly reinforced than the attacker. Sitting on you hands next to the city to watch the defenders build up to resist you is lunacy.

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If you can only initially attack Mariupol and other forces near the two republic, and even with that, you need a great deal of time to minimize cost and casualties and wanted to attack these serially which would take more time, and if you also want the option to take the other major cities in the East and South later, then the troops around the cities are just there to ensure that no large formation of troops can come from these cities to fight in the battle grounds of your choice. In fact, you want man power away from these areas to cities like Kyiv so as to make your attack easier. Indeed, no large scale troop formations have come for East Ukraine and Mariupol. In fact, there is very little troop movement at all. Since they don't have the means to surround all the cities, the troops are just there to be in position so later they can surround the cities. They can't do much about supplies coming to the cities. Maybe they are going for a war of attrition for the entire Eastern Ukraine, in which case movement of supplies don't matter as much since they will systematically take out these supplies over time for the entire country.

Phead128 said:

Hard disagree.

The Russia did hope to blitzkrieg and surround the capital region to scare Kiev to sue for peace and quick negotiated victory.

Did they actually hope to capture Kiev? No.
Did they hope to scare it into submission by surrounding key cities as rapidly as possible? Yes.

Hard disagree.

When you dedicate ONLY 120K in the initial thrust across thousand mile front, you are expecting the enemy resistance to quit and sue for peace and quick negotiated victory. They did expect Ukraine to sue for peace quickly, but when that failed, now their new strategy is grinding them to ashes/rubble via attrition. And you need to concentrate your forces to grind them down.

They most definitely expected a quick negotiated settlement because they thought Ukrainians would give up very quickly.

Click to expand...

As a military planner, you need to do much better than "hope for a fast negotiation". You would have a plan in place for the most likely outcome which would be a war of attrition.