Thoughts and Comments on Current Russian,Ukrainian Conflict/War

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I know Estonia has already joined NATO so if Russia attacks them, that'll activate article 5, which would mean WW3. I haven't looked up the other 2 to see if they're in NATO but I wouldn't be surprised.

EDIT: all 3 joined NATO as soon as possible after the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
 
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heada said:
I know Estonia has already joined NATO so if Russia attacks them, that'll activate article 5, which would mean WW3. I haven't looked up the other 2 to see if they're in NATO but I wouldn't be surprised.
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All three Baltic states are in NATO.

The only eastern European countries that aren't at this point are Bosnia, Serbia, Belarus, and Ukraine.

Edit: Forgot Moldova.
 
Dotini said:
Stoltenberg says the war could go on for years. All of Europe will be involved even if only through huge energy and economic cost.
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are now on the hit list for Russia to repeal their recognition as independent states. In Germany, the coal mines are being reopened to stave off the coming winter.

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I agree, I think it will drag on for years. Attrition won't cut it. Until Ukraine is allowed to strike back deep inside Russia where all those rockets are originating from, it's not going to change. For now the only ones suffering are those in Ukraine.
 
Antares JS said:
I'm skeptical of this. Those three are NATO members and I doubt the Russian government is suicidal.
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After this latest Invasion I'm starting to wonder. Russia could've taken over Ukraine slowly piece by piece like they did with Crimea. I would've said Russia would never throw away 25 years of good faith built up Globally just to reveal the truth about their poorly trained Military. They successfully had the entire World fooled for decades and threw it away just for a now destroyed country they might not even seize. Logic and reason are out the window with Putin. Russia was doing soo well until this Invasion. Everyone too young to remember the USSR thought Russia was just another Country until now.
 
TSMILLER said:
I agree, I think it will drag on for years. Attrition won't cut it. Until Ukraine is allowed to strike back deep inside Russia where all those rockets are originating from, it's not going to change. For now the only ones suffering are those in Ukraine.
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What about the many fires that have started inside Russia? Are those done by Anti Putin/Invasion Russians,, Ukrainian Military forces, or paid Terrorists? The media is not talking much about the attacks happening inside Russia, although Russia is very good at hiding bad news. They even denied Chernobyl happened until it was obvious they were covering up something big.
 
PDawg said:
After this latest Invasion I'm starting to wonder. Russia could've taken over Ukraine slowly piece by piece like they did with Crimea. I would've said Russia would never throw away 25 years of good faith built up Globally just to reveal the truth about their poorly trained Military. They successfully had the entire World fooled for decades and threw it away just for a now destroyed country they might not even seize. Logic and reason are out the window with Putin. Russia was doing soo well until this Invasion. Everyone too young to remember the USSR thought Russia was just another Country until now.
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It is exactly this sudden urgency to throw away the economic ties built since the beginning of Glasnost that made the connection to Putin's health. A dire diagnosis or other significant health scare offers a good explanation for why he has a sudden urgency to establish his legacy rather than repeating the slow accumulation that has been working for the last decade or more.
PDawg said:
What about the many fires that have started inside Russia? Are those done by Anti Putin/Invasion Russians,, Ukrainian Military forces, or paid Terrorists? The media is not talking much about the attacks happening inside Russia, although Russia is very good at hiding bad news. They even denied Chernobyl happened until it was obvious they were covering up something big.
Click to expand...

These could easily be local insurrections by individuals or groups or, since a great many Ukrainians speak Russian, and many ethnic Ukrainians probably live in Russia anyway, they could be deliberately targeted covert Ukrainian military operations and/or native Ukrainian/Russian residents acting as "patriot saboteurs" or resistance fighters behind enemy lines.
 
Some of the fires are natural. This is the fire season there and normally the army is used to fight the fires. They're kinda busy at the moment doing stupid stuff so they can't fight the fires. There are also videos of people worried about being recruited/drafted that are setting fire to the recruitment centers so all the paperwork is destroyed. I'm sure a good number of the fires are similar in nature. Lastly, there are some questionable fires that have been started that I think are clearly sabotage either by Ukrainians currently in Russia or Russians that are upset at the government/army.

Natural fires that get out of hand are a tragedy. I wish the army was available to fight them as normal. The other 2 types are to be encouraged as a method to fight this war as best they can.
 
heada said:
The US Air Froce has been trying to retire the A-10 for years. There has been a huge push-back on that and I agree. The A-10 fills a role that no other plane fills nearly as well. There are 23 A-10s at the reserve base in North East Indiana that are scheduled to be replaced with F-16s. USAF has the F-16s ready to give the reserves but there's still push back. I say give those 23 A-10s to Ukraine. They're ready to be retired already. Replacements are ready and in place. The A-10 is ideal for the fight in Ukraine and due to the nature(stick and rudder, old school) of the A-10, any pilot can fly it with very minimal training. Supply them with the planes, 30mm ammo and spare parts. The cost to the US is so minimal is it's a rounding error on the state budget much less the federal budget. How many similar cases are there throughout the US?

I love the A-10 but say let those warthogs free to wage war like they were designed to do and are the absolute best solution for a tank war in Europe.
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and the brrrrr factor for both allied troops and enemy is crucial :D I love that masterpiece of engineering.
 
heada said:
I know Estonia has already joined NATO so if Russia attacks them, that'll activate article 5, which would mean WW3. I haven't looked up the other 2 to see if they're in NATO but I wouldn't be surprised.
Click to expand...
I doubt Russia is in any position to ballistically attack anyone else anytime soon. But I do think WW3 has already started - not as a military conflict but as an economic and political conflict.

My humble take on the prospective Russian repeal of their acceptance of the independence of the Baltic states: It's a cheap feint to cast doubt over the legitimacy of these states being members in NATO. In other words, propaganda.
 
Dotini said:
I doubt Russia is in any position to ballistically attack anyone else anytime soon. But I do think WW3 has already started - not as a military conflict but as an economic and political conflict.

My humble take on the prospective Russian repeal of their acceptance of the independence of the Baltic states: It's a cheap feint to cast doubt over the legitimacy of these states being members in NATO. In other words, propaganda.
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Even if Russia declared that they never were independent, what can they do about it now? The rest of the world recognizes them as a legitimate sovereign states. I'm sure that Russia has had some official diplomatic relations with them in the last 31 years which kinda negates their claims.
 
Dotini said:
I doubt Russia is in any position to ballistically attack anyone else anytime soon. But I do think WW3 has already started - not as a military conflict but as an economic and political conflict.

My humble take on the prospective Russian repeal of their acceptance of the independence of the Baltic states: It's a cheap feint to cast doubt over the legitimacy of these states being members in NATO. In other words, propaganda.
Click to expand...

You might be right, but it will be a non-starter regardless. Otherwise Russia could say the sale of Alaska was illegitimate and get the US kicked out of NATO.

The three Baltic states were independent after WW1 until they were forcibly incorporated into the USSR in 1940. All three of those countries now loathe Russia and eagerly turned to NATO for protection. No sane country will agree with Russia that their independence is illegitimate.
 
How V. P. met with advisors 3 days before sending troops into Ukraine.

 
According to this article, UK intelligence officials estimate that the Russian proxy forces in the Donbas region have suffered shocking losses. In the case of the Donetsk separatist militia, they estimate it is as high as 55%! Holy crap! The DNR and LNR militias are the pro-Russian Ukrainian militias that have been fighting as Russian proxies for Donbas independence against Ukraine since 2014. Some of them are very experienced veterans of the war in Donbas, but many are conscripts being forced to fight, and many have no experience and crap equipment that is decades obsolete. Apparently in the big push to capture all of the Luhansk oblast, the Russians have been sending these inexperienced and ill-equipped troops into the front lines, and they are getting slaughtered.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61891462
And yesterday, I read this ISW assessment that said there is some indication that the Kremlin is doing another reshuffle of their military leadership for the war. It cites some confirmed and some unconfirmed reports that top Russian officers are being replaced.

I like this quote:

Such drastic rotations within the Russian military, if true, are not actions taken by a force on the verge of a major success and indicate ongoing dysfunction in the Kremlin’s conduct of the war.
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That’s probably an understatement.

Here’s the article.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-21

So those are two assessments that don’t bode well for Russia. But I’ve read elsewhere that Russia has a sort of unofficial deadline for itself to complete the capture of Luhansk oblast by the 26th, and that’s not far off. So they are throwing everything at it, and they are making headway. Soon they will probably have captured all of Severodonetsk. And I’ve read that they have succeeded in efforts to advance up from the south toward Lysychansk. If they can succeed in that, it will be a lot easier for them than to fight their way across the river. So things are not looking very great for Ukraine right now in that region.

I’m wondering how soon Ukraine will be able to get the first MLRS and HIMARS systems into that fight. Or will they use them somewhere else?
 
ThirstyBarbarian said:
According to this article, UK intelligence officials estimate that the Russian proxy forces in the Donbas region have suffered shocking losses. In the case of the Donetsk separatist militia, they estimate it is as high as 55%! Holy crap! The DNR and LNR militias are the pro-Russian Ukrainian militias that have been fighting as Russian proxies for Donbas independence against Ukraine since 2014. Some of them are very experienced veterans of the war in Donbas, but many are conscripts being forced to fight, and many have no experience and crap equipment that is decades obsolete. Apparently in the big push to capture all of the Luhansk oblast, the Russians have been sending these inexperienced and ill-equipped troops into the front lines, and they are getting slaughtered.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61891462
And yesterday, I read this ISW assessment that said there is some indication that the Kremlin is doing another reshuffle of their military leadership for the war. It cites some confirmed and some unconfirmed reports that top Russian officers are being replaced.

I like this quote:



That’s probably an understatement.

Here’s the article.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-21

So those are two assessments that don’t bode well for Russia. But I’ve read elsewhere that Russia has a sort of unofficial deadline for itself to complete the capture of Luhansk oblast by the 26th, and that’s not far off. So they are throwing everything at it, and they are making headway. Soon they will probably have captured all of Severodonetsk. And I’ve read that they have succeeded in efforts to advance up from the south toward Lysychansk. If they can succeed in that, it will be a lot easier for them than to fight their way across the river. So things are not looking very great for Ukraine right now in that region.

I’m wondering how soon Ukraine will be able to get the first MLRS and HIMARS systems into that fight. Or will they use them somewhere else?
Click to expand...
So Russia is taking staggering losses in order to gain a short-term objective while Ukraine trains and builds reserves for an eventual counterattack. When that eventually comes, are the Russians likely to a) withstand the attack or b) have any forces left to hold much of anything? At the rate they're going, they won't have any Russian sympathizers left alive in the Donbas.
 
Peartree said:
So Russia is taking staggering losses in order to gain a short-term objective while Ukraine trains and builds reserves for an eventual counterattack. When that eventually comes, are the Russians likely to a) withstand the attack or b) have any forces left to hold much of anything? At the rate they're going, they won't have any Russian sympathizers left alive in the Donbas.
Click to expand...

Exactly. It seems like a short-term strategy to win the battle, but lose the war.
 
ThirstyBarbarian said:
Exactly. It seems like a short-term strategy to win the battle, but lose the war.
Click to expand...
From the looks of it, even if free and fair elections were possible in the Donbas, there wouldn't be enough Russian sympathizers left and the region would vote to be Ukrainian.
 
jderimig said:
Only US forces engaged in battle with Russia will prevent the fall of Ukraine now. In my humble opinion.
Click to expand...
"Fall of Ukraine" implies Russia occupying all of Ukraine? Or Ukraine surrendering?

I don't think that is, or ever was, feasible, even if Russia ever hoped for that outcome.
The closest comparisons would be Russian occupation of Czechoslovakia (relatively uncontested) that required 750,000 soldiers to subdue the population of 14M people. Or the brutal suppression of Chechen armed insurgency that took 90K Russian soldiers to subdue <1M Chechens.
Ukraine has (had?) population of ~44M before the war. So figure somewhere between (44/14 * .75M) = 2.35M Russian soldiers needed and (44/1 * .09) = 3.96M fully equipped and battle ready Russian soldiers required for the job of occupying's Ukraine.

Russia started Ukrainian war with ~130K soldiers and 80 BTGs. It is now down to maybe 50-65% of those who are still mission capable 4 months into the war. That's maybe 2-5% of what would be required to occupy Ukraine.

The above math and conclusions were available and well known even before the war had started, though it's not clear that anyone dared to share that reality with Putin:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/03/russia-couldnt-occupy-ukraine-if-it-wanted-to/
 
afadeev said:
"Fall of Ukraine" implies Russia occupying all of Ukraine? Or Ukraine surrendering?

I don't think that is, or ever was, feasible, even if Russia ever hoped for that outcome.
The closest comparisons would be Russian occupation of Czechoslovakia (relatively uncontested) that required 750,000 soldiers to subdue the population of 14M people. Or the brutal suppression of Chechen armed insurgency that took 90K Russian soldiers to subdue <1M Chechens.
Ukraine has (had?) population of ~44M before the war. So figure somewhere between (44/14 * .75M) = 2.35M Russian soldiers needed and (44/1 * .09) = 3.96M fully equipped and battle ready Russian soldiers required for the job of occupying's Ukraine.

Russia started Ukrainian war with ~130K soldiers and 80 BTGs. It is now down to maybe 50-65% of those who are still mission capable 4 months into the war. That's maybe 2-5% of what would be required to occupy Ukraine.

The above math and conclusions were available and well known even before the war had started, though it's not clear that anyone dared to share that reality with Putin:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/03/russia-couldnt-occupy-ukraine-if-it-wanted-to/
Click to expand...
Agreed. I meant the fall or destruction
of the east.
 

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