Let's see how well "botched war" does in the coming weeks and months. There is a big, as in enormous, battle coming in Eastern Ukraine and if the Russian encirclement is successful, there will be very little between Kiev and Russia.
Botched indeed, the visual losses for Russia alone are staggering. Give it another couple more weeks with losses like they have no now in their tank force alone and they will have trouble running any sort of armour battalions.
Heres a list of Russias visually confirmed losses, the real numbers are likely much higher.
Russia is not the Soviet Union, and it's no longer the 1940's. If the Russians lose a significant amount of tanks and troops, the country will face serious issues in Ukraine.
Not to mention they are incapable of currently replacing the tanks, and even if they could they only make about 100 hundred a year. Most of the tanks they have where built during the Soviet Union era and where just progressively upgraded.
Finland ceded territory because they where losing the war, Ukraine does not at least yet seem to be losing the war.
You're assuming Russians will just keep on as they are as if nothing happens. But it's not guaranteed. What if they repurpose a plant or two to making the cheapest tanks possible, let's say T-34? What if they call a general draft?
If I was asked to jump into a T-34 against modern ATGM's I would revolt more then the tankers already are.
A T-34 would be next to unless in Ukraine, and would just be a death sentence, a T-34 probably isn't even worth fielding against the more modern armour and ATGM's that are in Ukraine.
Not to mention that Russia likely doesn't have any tank groups trained on the T-34 so they would need to spend time doing that as well.
If Russia calls a general draft they are beyond desperate, their actual contract army is already doing incredibly poorly in Ukraine, called up conscripts would do even worse.
Its worth keeping in mind that Russia still needs to defend the rest of its territory whilst invading Ukraine, they are incredibly paranoid about NATO and if Finland/Sweden join NATO they will need to deploy more troops to that border to try look like a real super power again.
When running away from a tiger, the best strategy would be to move faster than the tiger. This, however, is not always feasible.
A "good-enough" strategy would be, simply, to move faster than some other guy. This can definitely be achieved by running.
Having that in mind:
0. Russia does not need the best hi-tech army in the world. To win, it just needs to out-gun Ukraine.
1. If it takes 100 Russian "tin cans" to destroy one Ukrainian tank, and Russia can produce 101 "tin cans" to 1 tank Ukraine can produce, the strategic balance is not good for Ukraine.
2. Russia produces its own armor, guns, planes, and SAM. Ukraine does not.
3. Russian materiel-producing plants are not under any danger of bombardment. Ukrainian plants are.
4. Russian population is 3:1 to Ukraine's. "Russian losses are twice as big as Ukraine's" is, tactically, nice "feel-good" news. Strategically, that's terrible news.
5. Finally, shall we talk about Russian nuclear arsenal vs. Ukrainian nuclear arsenal?
It’s probably best to start with your last point. There’s a reason Russia and the Soviet Union never actually nuked a country, it’s a threat, that’s it. If Russia nukes Ukraine Russia likely ceases to exist. Russia constantly postures about nukes because they cannot actually use them.
Russians loses are closer to 4:1 not 3:1 and this is with them fielding modern tanks.
Russia is currently giving Ukraine so many tanks that they have more than they started the war with, so it looks like Ukraine is okay from that perspective. Additionally Russias costs in this more then just people and tanks.
America is not sitting on the border for nothing, they are collecting some of the best SIGINT and ELINT of semi modern to modern Russian gear that they could hope for, as well as providing Ukraine with intelligence.
I personally think a lot of Russia failures in this war have nothing to do with the equipment they are fielding and everything to do with a massive failure in Russian doctrine.
Russia is fighting a war from the 1940s, Ukraine isn’t.
It’s been pretty amazing seeing Ukraine capture intact Russian crypto gear and EW vehicles.
> If Russia nukes Ukraine Russia likely ceases to exist.
...while Ukraine certainly ceases to exist. Also, the only country that nuked another country hasn't ceased to exist, so not sure where your claim comes from.
> Russians loses are closer to 4:1 not 3:1
Again, unsure where that claim comes from. Fog of war doesn't allow anyone to know the ratio for sure.
> It’s been pretty amazing seeing Ukraine capture intact Russian crypto gear and EW vehicles.
In the long term, this doesn't matter. Allies have captured lots of Enigma machines, but that's not what got them to decypher the Axis communications.
Finally, the argument I'm making is that short-term doesn't matter, only long-term does, and we haven't seen that yet. The formidable resistance that Ukraine has managed to put up so far is impressive; but the final outcome will not necessarily be determined by it.
> ...while Ukraine certainly ceases to exist. Also, the only country that nuked another country hasn't ceased to exist, so not sure where your claim comes from.
My claim comes from the clear line that was drawn in the sand by NATO. A nuclear attack demands a deviating response. This is also the exact reason why Russia will never use nukes. They understand that there state ceases to exist once that button is pushed.
The comparison to the only use of nukes during a war is also invalid as during that time every nuclear power was effectively on the same side. That’s obviously no longer true with the current conflict.
> Again, unsure where that claim comes from. Fog of war doesn't allow anyone to know the ratio for sure.
These are the visually confirmed loses that we are seeing. But if you want to dismiss them with the same comment sure but if you do that you can claim to know what it is (3:1 or otherwise).
> In the long term, this doesn't matter. Allies have captured lots of Enigma machines, but that's not what got them to decypher the Axis communications.
Knowing how a cryptosystem works and knowing the EW capabilities of your opponent is a huge upper hand. It may not lead to the instant breaking of ciphers or countermeasures against Russian EW equipment but it makes it a lot easier.
This ignores all the ELINT/SIGINT that America is getting from hoovering up all the signals at the border too.
> Finally, the argument I'm making is that short-term doesn't matter, only long-term does, and we haven't seen that yet. The formidable resistance that Ukraine has managed to put up so far is impressive; but the final outcome will not necessarily be determined by it.
Here’s the long term outcomes if Ukraine loses the war. Multiple European countries that border Russia likely want to join NATO and the European countries in NATO largely increases there defence spending.
That seems like a pretty poor victory to me.
But long term we don’t know who is going to win, but we do know it’s not going to be via suicidal moves like nuking Ukraine or building T-34s again.
Second point is not true, even though Ukraine doesn’t have the same capacity for everything, it still produces some tanks and ATGMs. Also civilian planes with Antonov Plant (they weren’t too productive last couple of years though)
I think “production” here is not the most important part, even Russia uses mostly late Soviet era tech, slightly updated.
It mainly repurposes old Soviet tanks, unless you count ten or so of the T-84. I doubt Kharkiv Armored Plant is a viable tank production facility with all the fighting that goes around Kharkiv.
The West (not just NATO and not just EU) are being very generous with NLAWs, Javelins, and Panzerfaust 3 among others that can take out the best Russian tanks. Ukraine also makes a very effective stugna-p that's tripod mounted and allows control from a safer location. Not only are these weapons much cheaper than any Russian made tank, they don't take much training on the order of a few hours to a few days depending on the weapon, and they are being produced in many western countries and donated to Ukraine who provides the man power to use them.
So take a motivated Ukraine citizen, train them for a weekend, and they can periodically take out a Russian tank at around $1M with 3 expensive people inside. I've seen studies showing that out of 110 shots (in the Ukraine war) that achieving 90 kills wasn't unusual. In particular the better weapons are fire and forget, removing the skill needed to accurately hit the tank. I have noticed that Ukraine military are getting really good with the stugna-p and will steer the weapon in a different direction then steer the weapon on target at the last second. Presumably to hit the most vulnerable part of the tank and hide their launch location.
If you mean cheaper armored vehicles that opens up quite a few additional weapons like RPGs, recoilless rifles, Bayraktar tb2 drones, etc. For the less armored or unarmored anti-material rifle rounds can be quite effective. In particular Ukraine has had great success just shooting out tires of armored vehicles and trucks. Even replacing a truck tire at the end of a long supply line is a substantial logistical burden that Russia is not handling well.
Basically it's not going to work having Russia produce more tanks than the Ukraine can destroy. Without a well trained and motivated army that can implement a combined arms attack the armor is just sitting ducks for modern weapons. This is a huge setback for Russia whose military doctrine depends heavily on tanks. It bodes poorly that they are calling in the reserves, which are basically untrained (unlike the reserves in other countries), even compared to the poorly trained soldiers already in the field. Running out of solders just 4 weeks in is pretty bad, and losses have already exceeded much longer Russian invasions.
Russia does produce it's own tanks, however they need to import parts, which has been a big bottleneck and last I heard tank production had stopped in the only tank factory in Russia.
As far as planes go, yes Russia makes planes and helis, but they are significantly more complicated than tanks and depend on more imports than the tanks do. They are also risky to fly when the Ukraine is so well supplies with stingers, starstreaks, and anti-air systems like the s-300. Ukraine has also had growing success taking out Helis with anti-tank weapons.
The longer the war goes, the worse it's going to get for Russia. Sanctions, decreased GDP, trying to compete with the sum of the economies in the EU and NATO. The brutality demonstrated is providing significant incentive for any nearby country that doesn't want to see a Ukraine like invasion in their future. Looks like Finland and Sweden that were generally neutral and promised not to supply weapons to Russia's adversaries and not join NATO have changes their minds because of the Ukraine invasion. Keep in mind that the GDP of the EU is around 18T and USA is 21T. Russia was around $1.5T, before the invasion and sanctions. Even ignoring loss of life, estimates put the daily cost to Russia for the war is around €20 billion per day. Clearly even a 100 day war, even without sanctions, is going to be VERY expensive for Russia. Even just Finland and Sweden have around 50% of the GDP of Russia and needing a 3:1 ratio for invaders vs defenders is a common rule of thumb.
I agree with the points about Ukraine's tactical successes. The argument I'm making is that tactical successes aren't important. Please don't refute my argument with more points about Ukraine's tactical successes.
> Looks like Finland and Sweden
It's possible that Russia swallows their joining NATO, as it did with the two rounds of NATO expansion in the past (former Warsaw pact, then Baltics). It's also possible that Russia sees that as an existential threat, as it did in the case of the announced third NATO expansion (Georgia and Ukraine).
> the GDP of the EU is around 18T and USA is 21T. Russia was around $1.5T
If this escalates to a direct military conflict between EU|US vs. Russia, this can only be expected to lead to a mutually assured destruction of all involved parties. I guess in that case the previous disparity of GDP would not matter much.
> It's possible that Russia swallows their joining NATO, as it did with the two rounds of NATO expansion in the past (former Warsaw pact, then Baltics). It's also possible that Russia sees that as an existential threat, as it did in the case of the announced third NATO expansion (Georgia and Ukraine).
Russia has no real choice this time, they have already shown that there military is both weak and ineffectual. Either Finland or Sweden would absolutely crush the Russian military in their own countries.
In recent years Russia has focused their economy on resource extraction while allowing the farming and industrial sectors to become dependent on imports. As long as sanctions remain in place it is unlikely Russia will be able to consistently manufacture any modern industrial products including tanks.
The largest and only tank factory has gone idle for lack of parts.
Russia had a "Made in Russia" program for the military. But apparently bribes let many side step the rules and post proud "Made in Russia" announcements in the press, while basically relabeling imported parts. Even more amusing is a fair number of those parts come from the Ukraine.
More factories isn't going to help, and these days it's hard to steer, power, target an enemy, or communicate without chips, which Russia is running very short of. Intel, AMD, and even Russia designed CPUs (Elbrus) are hard to come by, TSMC (and other foreign fabs) are honoring the sanctions.
Apparently even the basics like steel are getting hard to come by.
> The largest and only tank factory has gone idle for lack of parts.
This has been reported in western media; it might be true, or it might be a part of information war. Assuming it's true, shall we expect this to be a permanent problem or a temporary one?
> it's hard to steer, power, target an enemy, or communicate without chips
Hard but not impossible. Given that there's a military attache in each Russian embassy, and given the chips are sold over the counter pretty much anywhere, shall we expect this to be a permanent problem or a temporary one?
are Chinese fabs honouring sanctions? what about downstream suppliers of generic ARM chips?
>Apparently even the basics like steel are getting hard to come by.
aren't they a sizeable steel exporter? "2018, Russia exported 33.3 million metric tons of steel, a 7 percent ... Russia exports steel to more than 130 countries and territories."
Russia in 1939 under Stalin is not the same as 2022 under Putin. The big decision make is mobilisation. Finland had a population of 3.5 million compared to 40+ million in Ukraine. They won't be able to fight without at least partial mobilisation as seen by the types of troops they send (RosGvardia and OMON are police force not military).
It's demographics. Russia have a big demographic issue, worse than any other countries in Europe. If you only take into account ethnic Russians, it is even worse.
An interesting thing in those numbers is that Ukraine captured more Russian vehicles than the ones that they lost.
So Russian is in a way making the Ukrainian army bigger.
Theres anecdotal evidence that Russia is also running out of missiles, which would make it a lot harder to bomb the Ukrainian cities into rubble, not that they aren't doing that already anyway.
1. Russia makes almost no industrial parts itself. They don't have the know-how or machinery to do so, because it has atrophied from unuse over the last thirty years. Most industrial parts come from Europe. Europe has banned exporting industrial parts to Russia. Therefore Russia can not make more of its current tank types (or anything really). They'd have to reboot all their industry from scratch to be able to build from scratch. A decades long project at least.
2. Most of the reserve of russian tanks are in long term storage. They are reportedly in complete disrepair and far from combat ready. Russia doesn't have the industrial capacity to repair them, see point 1.
Bottom line is that the tanks Russia has committed to Ukraine are it. Ukrainians are blowing them up at an alarming rate, and Russia has only weeks worth of tank supply left before they are at a direct disadvantage in tank supply compared to the Ukrainians who are gaining supply.
> Russia has only weeks worth of tank supply left before they are at a direct disadvantage in tank supply compared to the Ukrainians who are gaining supply.
Can I ask where you found this data? Specifically, I'd like to see the math of the war. Ideally, I want to see graphs over time.
They are more like steel coffins than anything else in Ukraine. Due to storing ammo around the turret, a single direct hit and can make a Russian tank cook off all of its shells and both destroy the tank and kill everyone inside.
And even if they are build to abandon, they only have so many of them, Russia has reportedly already burnt through ~33% of the tanks that they have committed to Ukraine.
Russia equipped real soldiers with throwaway tanks and not surprisingly made throwaway soldiers.
This is having a profound emotional impact on villages already reeling before the war from the lack of young men to start families (due to rampant alcoholism and suicide).
This conflict alone will result in 1 million fewer people in two generations as it stands, and this number will only grow as Putin tries to save face.
Generally pretty often, frequently the hit from a NLAW or Javelin from above triggers the ammo, which then blows the top off, and kills everyone inside. The ammo forms a ring around the turret, and once the ammo goes off it often flings the turret off the tank.
The Russian tanks are smaller and use 3 people, and an autoloader. But the ammo is stored in the crew compartment. The American M1 abrams is larger, has a human as a loader, and has a separate compartment with blow out panels so the ammo can cook off and the crew could survive. I've no data on that survival rate, but presumably it's much higher than the Russian tanks.
> You know that Russian tanks are throwaway tanks. Low quality, cheap and fast production, built to abandon.
Russians could've easily lost as much even with better military hardware.
Most of Russian military hardware losses are not from battles, but from soldiers routing, and abandoning their vehicles, which are LATER destroyed, or captured.
Most Russian tanks were disabled by artillery, and missiles, not tank vs. tank battles. No tank in the world would survive a 40kg missile, or an artillery shell hitting its roof. So, the quality of hardware is irrelevant.
What is really low quality is the Russian military leadership.
The key here is to understand that losses do not come from 40kg missiles themselves, but from Russian generals knowingly sending their troops into ATGM, and artillery killboxes, and from Russian troops knowing their generals intentions, and acting accordingly (routing upon first battle damage)
What is propaganda about literal images of each individual destroyed / captured Russian tank?. I would probably take 'official' numbers from a lot of sources with a large grain of salt, but these numbers easily serve as good effective lower bound on losses. You cant really get much more verified then an image of a Russian tank blown to bits on a road.
Ukraine uses the same equipment. How can you know whether they were Russian or Ukranian tanks that were destroyed? You could also take pictures of the same destroyed tank from different angles and claim more tanks were destroyed.
The people who do the visual analysis of the losses put a lot of effort into making sure they don’t count duplicates. The tanks despite being the same have some differences between them because they have been upgraded with differently. Russia also fields different variants then Ukraine.
You can also generally tell from the markings on the side of the tank who it belongs to.
A large number of the confirmed tank loses are likely from videos of the two forces attacking each other which makes identification quite easy.
The west has now had time to create a pipeline, so as long as Ukraine doesn't have to accept a ceasefire it can keep all of Russias troops in a hopeless defense of whatever part of the east they can cover. But at least they won't need as much fuel, right?
The Russians should be more concerned that the longer this goes on the more handheld weapons are going to stockpile in Ukraine. What portion will end up traded or given to groups that want a rematch in Syria, Belarus, Chechnya, ..., even if the Ukraine doesn't decide a policy of destabilizing Russia is the easiest road to short term security?
> Let's see how well "botched war" does in the coming weeks and months. There is a big, as in enormous, battle coming in Eastern Ukraine and if the Russian encirclement is successful, there will be very little between Kiev and Russia.
I don't suppose there's ever been any doubt that Russia can defeat Ukraine. The numerical superiority makes a Russian "defeat" essentially impossible.
That still leaves plenty of ways to "botch" the war, even in "victory." Russia is doing this both by wasting resources in poorly planned attacks and by incurring collateral damage amongst the civilian population. They're also botching the "PR" aspects of the war.
All of this is going to make the ongoing occupation/subjugation of the Ukrainian population much more challenging than it needed to be for them, so it makes sense that heads would need to roll.
Unless Russia can overwhelm the Ukraine defenses in one massive battle, victory is all but assured. They failed to do so in the first attack and now the west is pouring ressources into the Ukraine. As long as the west is willing to do so, the Ukraine might actually have a better supply perspective, not counting even the embargo cutting Russia off a lot of supplies.
After all, that Russia managed to defend itself against the Germans in WW2 had a lot to do with the supplies it got from the US.
That for sure. Especially as all the Ukraine resistance fighters would find open borders to e.g. Poland across which they could resupply easily.
However you look at it, this war cannot have a positive outcome for Russia, unless just laying Ukraine to waste is enough for them. This is my greatest fear that complete destruction would be a success for Putin and he would be willing to go all the way to achieve it. Like using nukes.
My big hope though is, especially after withdrawing from quite a lot of regions of the Ukraine already occupied, that after all the losses, the Ukraine together with the supply from the west might be able to hold new offenses from the east and perhaps even push them back. That depends a lot of how many reserves Russia still has and which further weapons they are willing to use.
The west feared the Russia military and generally considered them the #2 military on the planet. Joke I've heard lately is that Dec 2021: Russia had the #2 military on the planet. April 2022: Russia has the #2 military in the Ukraine.
It also seems that Russia underestimated the impact on NATO. Now multiple countries are increasing military spending, several countries are now looking to join NATO, and the supply of weapons to the Ukraine is substantial. The current gen anti-tank weapons are so good that even a few hours to a few days of training can allow a solder or two to take out a tank. Sure intelligence on where the tanks are is helpful, but the Ukraine citizens, foreign powers with satellites, and heavy use of drones have that handled. It's amusing to think of a 1-800-got-tank hotlines causing serious problems for Russia. Keep in mind the GDP of countries helping the Ukraine is on the order of $40T, and Russia is $1.5T. Sure Turkey, India, China, and others are receptive markets, it's unclear how many soldiers and weapons they are going to send, especially since they do not want to lose access to the $40T GDP worth of market.
So Russia's advantage in tanks has largely been offset by anti-tank weapons and attacking supply lines. As a result armored vehicles have been withdrawn from various cities. Russia also has a substantial advantage in artillery and missiles, but the reports I've seen who that they are close to burning through their inventory of usable equipment, in particular ammunition and missiles. Apparently quite a bit of equipment is out of order because of the lack of preventative maintenance and production isn't anywhere close to the current burn rate and inventories are dropping precipitously. Sanctions are hurting their ability to produce, the only tank factory in Russia went idle in March for lack of parts, not heard if that's been fixed.
I do think the pending attack in the East will be more difficult for the Ukraine. Shorter Russian supply lines, lessons learned on the Russian side, and heavier dependence on completely destroying cities before invading will make things harder for the Ukraine. But lack of training, calling in the reserves (which aren't trained like the a weekend a month/2 weeks a year reservists elsewhere), and lack of preventative maintenance aren't easily fixed.
Much will depend on how generous the west is with larger and more sophisticated systems like longer range missiles, better anti-air weapons, tanks, and artillery pieces. I'd say currently Russia is no way going to take over the Ukraine, and even just encroaching from the east to take over a few cities is far from certain.
It's looking like the invasion is likely to be one of the biggest blunders of the century. In particular Germany, Finland, and Sweden have made it a priority to increase military spending and provide a unified opposition of Russia. Collectively just those 3 countries have about 3x the GDP of Russia, before the sanctions. Keep in mind Russia can't go all in on the Ukraine, they have to defend various borders from countries they have taken land from, in particular Japan (which all alone has 3x the GDP of Russia) seems quite interested in taking some islands back.
Kiev is something like 100km from the belarussia border, Kharkiv (second biggest ukrainian city) is 20km from the russian border. We're still waiting for Russia victory. No "they just take care about the civilans", we all know it's a lie, they use artilery on civilians zones and commited insane war crimes during the last weeks.
Kharkiv was a mess, russians got destroyed in this city, just take a look at any photos/videos from Kharkiv. Russian bodies and burned armors all over the place, it was a nightmare.
Russia was supposed to be one of the best army on earth for the last 15 years, but they can't enter a city like Kharkiv, Ukraine being one of the poorest european country. Good luck with the "not a botched war" theory.
It was supposed to be a less than a week operation, we are closer to a 2 month war. Russia is already economically on his knees, they need billions to stay in Ukraine and more sanctions are coming...
All they can do is bassicaly blindly destroy cities with artilery and commits war crimes out of frustration until the money runs out.
Russia will probably make ukrainians suffer a lot at least for too many weeks, but they won't win the war. Even China and India aren't going to fully support them, there are a lot of negative signs for Russia, like this one : https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220316-live-un-security...
Germany and Switzerland broke their neutrality traditions. Sweden and Finland were neutral since the WW2, now they are probably about to join NATO. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/13/finland-and-sw...
Russia basicaly lost everything. Their economy was already stagnant for the last 8 years just with a few sanctions, I bet they'll have a lot of fun during the next 5/10 years.
But they'll have Mariupol (after killing thousand of Mariupol's civilians) and some east countryside, good for them.
Oh no, you definitively can't. Not when you're the one invading.
People always bring up WW2, but in WW2 USSR was being invaded, and had a lot of material support from the west. They could keep "throwing more bodies on it" because
1. Those bodies were still very motivated, since they were being invaded and,
2. They had useful equipment for those bodies, in significant part from western support (lend/lease etc.
Ukraine is more like WW1 for Russia. That didn't end so well for the Russian leadership.
Just to expand on that a bit, the USSR received ~$11 billion in lend-lease assistance from the US, which is roughly $130 billion in current dollars.
The scale was incredible - hundreds of thousands trucks and jeeps, thousands of tanks, thousands of airplanes, as well as small arms, ammo, explosives, etc. Food, too, and lots of oil. A huge part of the Red Army's success was having the US backing them up.
People also forget that the of the red army fighting Hitler about 4.5 million of the troops were Ukrainians fighting on the Russian side. They were supposed to be some of the best troops.
Though a lot of countries manage to cope with the neighbouring countries being independent and not invading them or installing a puppet ruler. Perhaps Russia will be able to get used to it too.
I think that's about as successful in war as it is in software projects, except many of those bodies will end up dead. If there's one thing that the Russian invasion shows, it's the massive difference that morale makes. But also planning, coordination, logistics. You need to have soldiers who know what they're doing.
Not always, Russia lost war in 1920 with Poland. Russia was trying to give military support to communist movements in Europe going across Poland. While Poland was trying to restore lands occupied by Russia in partitions of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772-1795 that lead to Poland not existing for 123 years.
Russia lost that war and had to settle borders with Poland in the Treaty of Riga.
The first paragraph of the news piece states that "the head of the department responsible for Ukraine was sent to prison."
Here's the second paragraph:
> In a sign of President Putin’s fury over the failures of the invasion, about 150 Federal Security Bureau (FSB) officers have been dismissed, including some who have been arrested.
I couldn't read more paragraphs as the article seems paywalled.
Large numbers of people purged by firing don't properly go away so purges by a dictator usually get more brutal in their treatment of the purged over time.
It seems strange to me that there aren't more defections. The West can offer a great deal of money to defectors, presumably, and if rumors of rampant Russian cynicism and greed are to be believed, why not just take it? (I'd also be curious to find out how many Russian pilots and tank crews have taken Ukraine up on it's $1M/$500k offer.)
I don't think it's easy to pull off. Practically speaking, you need to know someone on the other side, convince them you are real, while hiding all these efforts from everyone else. A difficult task in a society full of distrust.
Comparing this to Stalin's purges is borderline offensive. The latter's purge affected almost all walks of society. I recall when I was in grad school I would read the biographies of famous physicists/mathematicians, and virtually all the Soviet ones had siblings or parents who had been killed in the Purge.
It also crippled the Soviet army, which is why a much "weaker" Finland held its own when the Soviets attacked them - the majority of the senior, capable military leaders had either been killed or imprisoned in the Purge, leaving behind a rather incompetent military.
It’s also borderline offensive to treat Putin’s regime as anywhere near as transparent about how people from all walks of society are treated. Famous scientists and mathematicians just mysteriously fall from windows with no apparent explanation. People less famous either meet less notable ends or just aren’t there to be purged from anything worth purging in the first place.
None of which is to say Putin’s regime is anywhere near the atrocity machine that Stalin’s was. That’s an extreme that’s hard to imagine and very exclusive. But this notion that Putin’s regime isn’t committing the kinds of mass violence on Russian society because it isn’t on full display is neglecting both how his own regime has operated as well as how most did/have since the 70s-80s. They just do it with secrecy and plausible deniability.
Just from the top of my head I recall 3 healthcare workers (was it doctors?) that have been critical of the national Covid response who fell from windows. A diplomat in the russian embassy in Berlin. More than one journalist¹ — the only reason there might be no mathematician recently might be that the soviet union had a bigger use for methematicians.
Was it not? Putin and Trump seem to share the same playbook of doing both things to gauge response and cause confusion. It's pretty hard to ask Putin's upper staff whether the spent a few nights in jail.
I think it is just logic that comparing/connecting international nationalists creates an implication in their belief system that comparing/connecting liberals or fiscal conservatives does not. (I suppose that may cause a Streisand effect.)
Erdogan also has many identical campaign methods, can I compare him to one of these leaders but not the other and if so how does your nationality not play a role in your analysis?
Putin needs to be a bit careful here. Historically, when a dictator purges his security service, the survivors sometimes have doubts about their own futures. And the FSB is one of the few outfits that could orchestrate a coup against Putin, if they felt threatened.
Given that the war was meant to capture the capital on day three. By now putin would have expected most of the ruling class to have been disappeared by now and a puppet government almost fully formed, I think yes, its been a cockup.
On paper Russia is supposed to have a massive, effective, overwhelmingly strong army/airforce capable of overrunning any small country on its border.
In this instance, russia chose to invade a country at a time of its choosing, using tactics of its choosing, and has failed to take _all_ of its key objectives.
to put it in perspective, russia has lost ~3x as many tanks as the UK has in _total_ for almost no progress.
When did the war was meant to capture the capital on day three?
This is classical American way of waging wars: shock and awe followed by a mad dash to the capital, declaring victory and then dealing with years of combat.
As Clausewitz put, you win wars by destroying the enemy armies, and this is something the Russians, unfortunately, despite all propaganda in contrary are doing very well.
Without direct NATO involvement, the main Ukrainian forces in the Donbas, will be completely encircled soon, cut from supplies and isolated.
Yeah, I know that the "military experts" are keen on saying otherwise, but those experts are the same behind an 800 billion/year military that failed to pacify both Iraq and Afeghanistan. We would be wise not to trust their expertise so blindly.
> When did the war was meant to capture the capital on day three
Because supply lines.
As soon as you drop paratroopers, you have ~24 hours to reach them, or they are all fucked. They have limited ammo, no heavy support, unless you have air superiority. so dropping two waves of paratroopers is a dead giveaway.
> This is classical American way of waging wars: shock and awe followed by a mad dash to the capital
but to your point, this Russian war is not the classical American way of waging war. American war involves air superiority. close coop between armour, infantry and air, and keeping supply lines clear above all else. The amount of effort devoted to keeping forward bases stocked in Afghanistan is/was huge.
But more importantly it involves letting the "machine" do the work, not just chuck men at the problem.
> the main Ukrainian forces in the Donbas, will be completely encircled soon
Mariupol is currently surrounded.
But given that the Russians _still_ haven't managed to take the rest of Luhansk or donbas its seems optimistic. They've been at it since 2014.
> an 800 billion/year military that failed to pacify both Iraq and Afeghanistan.
which is also the point here. Now the Russians have one thing on their side here, they aren't afraid to just wholesale murder any civilian between 18-50. After all you can't have rebellion if there isn't anyone there to rebel. However I'm not really sure that pogroms are something to boast about.
As far as I can tell there were two different groups of special forces that were supposed to travel quickly to storm Kyiv (a tank division and an actual airborne division.) The long delayed convoy seemed to have the problem that it wasn't competent to do anything once reaching Kyiv because it was only supposed to be reinforcement for the trained troops that had actually achieved nothing since they were killed or repelled.
>Given that the war was meant to capture the capital on day three. By now putin would have expected most of the ruling class to have been disappeared by now and a puppet government almost fully formed, I think yes, its been a cockup.
The western propaganda assumes that Putin had one success scenario - just the most optimistic one - rather than a range of them.
Attempting to take Kyiv was a gamble that didnt work out but it also wreaked havoc on Ukrainian military infrastructure around kyiv and took heat off the eastern front. A gamble that didnt pay off but not a 100% waste and not even a particularly bad gamble.
The land bridge to crimea is almost in the bag. That's one milestone that holds the highest strategic value to Moscow in and of itself. It controls the sea of azov now and has entrenched its previously precarious strategic position on the black sea (site of its only warm water ports).
It also provides land buffer against the economic and energy chokepoint that is the land bridge between the caspian and the black sea.
The Russians would settle for a bruised, broken and weakened independent Kyiv. They wont settle for a mariupol that might host NATO forces. Theyll gladly nuke it rather than see that.
> The western propaganda assumes that Putin had one success scenario
I mean Putin pretty much said as much, in his own words.
> The land bridge to crimea is almost in the bag. That's one milestone that holds incredible strategic value to Moscow in and of itself. It controls the sea of azov now and has entrenched its previously precarious strategic position on the black sea (site of its only warm water port).
I broadly agree, but the cost of kyiv "feint" has been astronomical.
Had Putin just pushed from crimea, he could have taken Donbas and Luhansk without anywhere near as much loss, or international condemnation. I mean he could have been done by now. (no extended supply lines...)
Don't get me wrong, Putin is just going to continue to grind eastern Ukraine, because he can. but, I suggest anything less than complete control is admission that the "Nazis" are better.
>I mean Putin pretty much said as much, in his own words.
Putin has three rhetorical themes for domestic propaganda consumption but they are vague enough to be able to claim success under a range of criteria on the ground, some of which certainly will be met. He's not dumb enough to paint himself into a corner like that.
Western propaganda has and will try to characterize almost anything less than the total capitulation of Ukraine and tanks rolling on lviv as a crushing defeat. Comparisons to the winter war will permeate twitter to the point of tedium after this is all done because Russia will get some territory.
>Don't get me wrong, Putin is just going to continue to grind eastern Ukraine, because he can. but, I suggest anything less than complete control is admission that the "Nazis" are better.
Defeating the azov brigades in mariupol is probably sufficient to claim success against the nazis. Thats where all the fighters with swastikas tattooed on them were anyway. A parade of dead swastika tattooed bodies and a few stories of them using human shields after winning will satiate the domestic audience.
If he loses there then yea he really cant claim victory under any circumstances but thats increasingly unlikely.
> He's not dumb enough to paint himself into a corner like that.
Mostly agree. but given the bluster of the on air pundits, some of them will need special briefings.
> Comparisons to the winter war will permeate twitter
Perhaps, but I don't think people realise just how bad Finland was for the USSR. The land gained was nowhere near worth the effort.
> Thats where all the fighters with swastikas tattooed on them were anyway
I've never understood this bit. Yes, the Azov have ultra nationalists in them, but then the some of the Donbas fighters appear to be wearing Totenkompf badges. If you're going to be anti nazi, don't wear SS badges.
But that aside, are Russian state parading captured "nazis" on TV yet? surely you'd be doing that to show progress no?
Especially when parents and wives start to realise that their significant other isn't communicating anymore.
but I digress.
The real issue comes from holding all that land. Its not like the populace are going to take it lying down
Putin would definitely not avoid international condemnation in any scenario of Russian involvement in Ukraine.
Donbass had a huge amount of best Ukrainian corps stationed, taking them out would take months in any scenario short of regime change in Kiev. This is what will happen now and there would be huge loss of human life from both sides (but especially Ukrainian once pocket around their troops is formed).
> You seem to expect that if plan A fails, that's that, there is no plan B, C, etc.
There clearly isnt. By every fucking means there is no plan B. Unless you call shell a city to the ground a "plan". And now that is being abandoned.
> But that's not how it works, and especially not how it works with Russia.
Apparently plan A's also don't work with russia like they should.
Anyone trying to scaremonger that big bad russia is still out to get ukraine is a fool or a troll.
Two months ago nato was still planning for case when russian tanks will be in berlin by sunset, now we can see they can barley travel to a border town.
They fell flat face unable to do anything for a whole month (not counting all the war crimes by command and by individual units/soldiers). Now their troops are tired and most munitions are spent, not to mention the loses. But yet russia has more plans? What are those retreat plans?
As a matter of fact russia reunited and rekindled unity in ukraine and eu, pushed eu countries to diversify their fossil fuel imports and blew wind into green energy sails.
Sweeden and Finland are now partners of nato.
And with crashing economy china becomes a big daddy of russia.
What if these aren't retreat plans? I assume the plan is now to fully take Mariupol, destroy the army that Ukraine has on Donbass (and which is also very tired and without munitions) and by that, sort-of achieve the military objectives.
I don't know what's the plan of converting a local military victory to a political success, though. The idea was to make Ukraine recognize the loss of territory - don't see that happening.
I'm not writing to you directly so please only respond if you have anything constructive.
Their plan was quite obvious roll in from north take capital, and control major supply lines routes leading to south and east fronts. Then install puppet government and make them give away claims to crimea and eastern provinces. There is a large newly discovered gas field there that putin surely would love to claim for russia.
They clearly failed with north invasion and disruption of supply lines. They are clearly retreating and the military leadership is either dead by Ukrainians or let go by kremlin. You don't fire your general(s) for achieving goals.
Russia is amassing troops on south and east, as probably last attempt to take and hold ground. But that will be much harder now (no political support of puppet government, plus failed to disrupt logistical channels). They have less then a month to do something substantial to claim war goals for their Victory Day parade.
> Unless you call shell a city to the ground a "plan". And now that is being abandoned.
Shelling cities to the ground is absolutely a plan A tactic.
Armor can't return fire at high azimuthal angles, to move it through a city without risk of ambush, they destroy tall buildings near the route. And to avoid giving away the route ahead of time, they cut multiple routes.
China won't be the economic force it could be anytime soon. Their futule Zero COVID strategy is making sure of that.
And it's not scaremongering to say that Russia wants to remove Ukraine from the map, that is literally Putins plan. But thankfully it looks like the plan won't happen.
> China won't be the economic force it could be anytime soon.
What do you mean? 90% of stuff we have is with Made in China sticker on it.
> And it's not scaremongering to say that Russia wants to remove Ukraine from the map,
I didnt say that, I said that russia can only dream about it, since they are clearly not able to do it. As a matter of fact they had everything prepared to suppress population and purge the leaders of Ukraine after the blitz. So their thankfully failed plan was to crush and dismantle Ukraine.
Russia absolutely botched the war, they failed to capture Kyiv and withdrew their troops in that area. They are taking enormous losses in equipment and people.
> It's just infuriating how they insult us thinking most people will be taken in by it.
Not just thinking. They are being taken in.
Front page of Reddit today was a completely nonsense story from three old women talking about Russian soldiers stole their toilet seats to take home because they could not imagine the magic of flush toilets. Absolute propaganda.
Ever been to rural Russia? The places that many Russian professional soldiers come from, because being in the army is a nice professional career compared to the crushing poverty around, even though the pay is actually low? Not a flushing toilet in sight.
Russia has horrible levels of income inequality. A lot of the oil and gas money flows into the hands of the oligarchs and is thus concentrated either abroad, or in a few elite places like Sochi. Of course, the largest cities such as Sankt Peterburg and Moscow do reasonably well, too.
But a random village in Siberia has unpaved roads, wooden shacks and outhouses. Fully comparable to poor parts of India or Africa. This is where many of the soldiers come from, and where time has stopped, because the Russian state does not give a f*ck about living standards of rural people.
We had the same experience with them in 1945 and 1968 in former Czechoslovakia. And when they withdrew their forces in 1991, they bargained guns and grenades for stuff like toilets as well.
There is a huge difference between growing up in a village that doesn't have flush toilets and never having heard of the concept of a flush toilet and believing that bringing home the toilet seat will magically turn your toilet into flush toilet.
It is not about "flush toilet", is about having a nice, expensive ceramic toilet, which could upgrade a typical "hole in the floor" style lavatory, common to many villages.
about having a nice, expensive ceramic toilet, which could upgrade a typical "hole in the floor"
Obviously that is perfectly reasonable and no doubt happens. However the original comment was about "soldiers stole their toilet seats to take home because they could not imagine the magic of flush toilets." That I do not believe.
I know the Ukrainian language and I know the context, I've heard the stories (about marauders). "soldiers stole their toilet seats to take home because they could not imagine the magic of flush toilets." — this is just an issue of mistranslation/signal noise:
1) Flush toilet systems are uncommon in poor parts of rural Russia, where a good chunk of their contract soldiers are from. Having proper plumbing for your private house (not an apartment, where the infrastructure is done by the state) is very expensive. That is why soldiers were genuinely surprised to see them in Ukrainian villages. Also, note that Russian propaganda always portrays Ukraine as extremely poor.
2) Expensive ceramic toilet is as good target for marauding as any.
Ceramic toilet weighs maybe 20kg and costs $300. It is also huge. Can't imagine anyone stealing a ceramic toilet of all things. If anything, people coming from rural areas have much better grip of what physical things really worth than us megapolis dwellers.
But $300 could be more than those guys make in month in peace time, literally.
In most of Russia’s regions median (!) salary is closer to 350 US dollars, and that’s before war. Minimum wage is around 100 dollars (not sure if there are many people on min. wage, but still..)
There were reports from Belarus that one guy sent some 440 kilos of “presents” to his family in Russia.
I don't dare to speak about what is or isn't propaganda these days, but when I was a teen I had a chance to witness Russian army leaving their base in Borne Sulinowo, Poland in early 90's. They did in fact took toilets with them, along with things like radiators and, in some places, even bathroom tiles.
Ok. Except the video had “anecdotes” that they literally could not imagine and have never seen the concept of a flush toilet. Understood it so little that they wouldn’t believe Ukrainians would defecate inside their houses and then stole the toilet seat alone to make the same system work in their homes.
It isn't hurting anyone. Yes, it's a bit disparaging of rural Russians who are not as cut off civilization as this video implies, but tbh, if you know anyone who took the transsibérien after 2000, you'll see that this story isn't as outrageous as it sounds sadly.
Cool how it only took you one post to completely reverse your position from “oh no one would believe that obvious garbage” to “oh it’s okay people believe that”.
