Thoughts and Comments on Current Russian,Ukrainian Conflict/War

[ThirstyBarbarian]

This is interesting. Russians, backed by Ukraine, operating inside Russia. Its staright out of the Putin playbook. It's the kind of operation that worries me as the Kremlin hawks could easily choose to misinterpret it as an invasion.

That is a really interesting development. I saw a mention of this in a video late last night, and I wasn’t really sure what they were talking about. They we’re talking about it as if a Russian-on-Russian civil war was breaking out. This analysis of it being a kind of diversion makes more sense to me.

 

[Tyeeking]

I would think that a solar field would be incredibly vulnerable to air burst cluster munitions be it artillery, missle or bomb delivered. None of those munitions in the big scheme of things is particularly expensive or high tech.

 

[kuririn]

Operative word is decentralization.
If power generation is from multiple smaller sources than from one large power plant then targeting and destroying them becomes an order of magnitude more difficult.
And the Russians aren't going to go after individual rooftop solar installations.

 

[boatgeek]

Maybe it is better software connected than I thought, but that is another separate weakness. Usually something that damages a significant portion of power generators, causes large amounts of downstream/collateral damage, and subsequent further damage to end-users equipment. When things get overtaxed and shorted......... Well, we'll see.

I'm not making light of or being pessimistic about it. I just have doubts that a solar field is any less susceptible to strategic damage than a conventional generator, except that it may only be a percentage loss of largely foreign sourced products that only produce in the daytime, rather than a complicated machining loss of something that works all the time. So, if you asked me, I would agree that wrecking a solar field would be less disruptive to American life than destroying a gas turbine, coal fired, or nuclear sourced generator.

If I had a dollar for every time I had an electrical product salesman tell me that his products would: Deal with lightning, handle transient voltage issues, be unsusceptible to bad ground loops, be hot swappable in emergency, etc..... I wouldn't be working.

Dealing with war and/or shrapnel generating explosives, isn't part of what most deal with, and isn't part of any design I'm aware of.

I definitely hear you on reliability and salesperson promises that don't pencil out. I think there's fundamentally two reasons why solar has it somewhat easier in this regard. The first is that PV solar has to deal with partial outages all the time, due to shading of the panels. That might be from "structural" things (like the neighbor's tree that shades my home panels every afternoon in winter and early spring) or transient things (like clouds). If the software has to deal with some subset of the panels suddenly losing 80% of their normal output due to a cloud rolling over, they'll be able to deal with losing 100% as well. The article also said that the panels were coupled with a battery system. That makes things a lot easier since the battery can even out the supply and demand curves by absorbing or adding power. It does take some black box work, but that has also already been done for projects from grid to home scale. If the PV panels were supplying the hospital loads directly, I agree that it would be a mess.

The other is that as @Funkworks and the article mentioned, these aren't massive arrays. It's pretty easy to attack 20 major 100 MW power plants in a country and maybe drop power to a third of the nation if a third of the missiles get through. It's a lot harder to attack 20,000 distributed 100 kW solar arrays, so it becomes less strategically valuable to target them.

I would think that a solar field would be incredibly vulnerable to air burst cluster munitions be it artillery, missle or bomb delivered. None of those munitions in the big scheme of things is particularly expensive or high tech.

Within artillery or glide bomb range of the front, I absolutely agree with you. 500 miles from the front is another matter. Then you're talking about using a relatively limited supply of longer-range cruise or ballistic missiles since Russian planes rarely go deep into Ukrainian-controlled airspace if they cross the front line at all. Russia seems to be able to mount attacks of 25-30 long-range missiles once or twice a week. If that's the available firepower, would you spend it on solar panel whack-a-mole?

[partially ninja'd by @kuririn]

 

[afadeev]

It's the kind of operation that worries me as the Kremlin hawks could easily choose to misinterpret it as an invasion.

They certainly could.
But then what?
They might invade Ukraine in return? Bomb its cities in reprisal? Ethnically cleanse Russian-occupied territories and kidnap Ukrainian children?

Seriously, why exactly are we so worried about Kremlin's response here?

Ukraine clearly thinks that Russia has already laid all of its cards on the table.
And now Ukraine is starting to play its own hand.

That is a really interesting development. I saw a mention of this in a video late last night, and I wasn’t really sure what they were talking about. They we’re talking about it as if a Russian-on-Russian civil war was breaking out. This analysis of it being a kind of diversion makes more sense to me.

Russian-on-Russian internal conflict is exactly how Ukraine is playing it. Though, I suppose, there is a fair amount of tongue-in-cheek in that approach.
This is exactly how Russia described its invasion of Donbas in 2014, when tens of thousands of Wagner and Russian GRU fighters crossed into Ukraine.

Long story short:

1. It's embracing for Putin, who claimed invading Ukraine was going to benefit Russian safety.
2. It's distracting for Putin who has to deal with guarding the entire ~1,500 mile border with Ukraine, instead of the ~600 mile open front in the South.
3. There is nothing Putin can do about it, other than what he has already done in the past (in no particular order):
   1. Huff and puff
   2. Ignore the situation
   3. Issue a sternly worded press statement
   4. Send some missiles back across the border

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[PhilC]

1. There is nothing Putin can do about it, other than what he has already done in the past (in no particular order):
   1. Huff and puff
   2. Ignore the situation
   3. Issue a sternly worded press statement
   4. Send some missiles back across the border

5. deliberately or for other reasons interpret this as an attack by NATO, as I pointed out in a post last week.

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

5. deliberately or for other reasons interpret this as an attack by NATO, as I pointed out in a post last week.

6. Probably the outcome Ukraine hopes for. Divert troops, equipment, and supplies to Bolgorod from the fight in Ukraine.

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

Personally, I’d be a lot more comfortable with this Bolgorod thing if I knew that the troops were outfitted exclusively with Russian kit, which it sounds like they are not. We don’t need them rolling around on Russian territory in western vehicles, with western rifles, wearing western uniforms.

 

[jderimig]

Sullivan did suggest Sunday that Biden will allow Ukraine to use U.S. military equipment to launch a potential counteroffensive in the Crimea, which the White House declares of part of Ukraine. The Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014.

That may be the Putin trip wire.

 

[Antares JS]

Sullivan did suggest Sunday that Biden will allow Ukraine to use U.S. military equipment to launch a potential counteroffensive in the Crimea, which the White House declares of part of Ukraine. The Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014.

That may be the Putin trip wire.

Crimea is the one thing that I can kind of see as being debatable who really has the superior claim. It was part of the Russian SFSR before Nikita Khrushchev (who grew up in Ukraine and had a Ukrainian wife) transferred it to the Ukrainian SSR. As they were both part of the Soviet Union at this time, it was a symbolic gesture that ultimately didn't make much difference. I doubt Russia would have done that if they had known Ukraine would be independent in a few short decades. It doesn't excuse Russia taking it back by force though.

Side note: the Lithuanian SSR was offered jurisdiction over Kaliningrad and they turned it down. I bet Lithuania is really glad they did right now.

 

[boatgeek]

Sullivan did suggest Sunday that Biden will allow Ukraine to use U.S. military equipment to launch a potential counteroffensive in the Crimea, which the White House declares of part of Ukraine. The Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014.

That may be the Putin trip wire.

If the standard is "what Russia has annexed" then Ukraine is going to have to give back a bunch of liberated Kherson oblast as well. I agree that Crimea holds a special place in Putin's heart, but an illegal annexation is an illegal annexation. Caving on that will just give Russia more impetus to annex territory in the future.

Crimea is the one thing that I can kind of see as being debatable who really has the superior claim. It was part of the Russian SFSR before Nikita Khrushchev (who grew up in Ukraine and had a Ukrainian wife) transferred it to the Ukrainian SSR. As they were both part of the Soviet Union at this time, it was a symbolic gesture that ultimately didn't make much difference. I doubt Russia would have done that if they had known Ukraine would be independent in a few short decades. It doesn't excuse Russia taking it back by force though.

Side note: the Lithuanian SSR was offered jurisdiction over Kaliningrad and they turned it down. I bet Lithuania is really glad they did right now.

"Righting a wrong from the 50's" is pretty weak tea to justify annexing territory. There's an awful lot of borders that could be "readjusted" under that doctrine, starting with large swathes of European powers' empires.

Lithuania doesn't have much to worry about as a NATO member, at least as long as the US continues to support NATO.

 

[Antares JS]

"Righting a wrong from the 50's" is pretty weak tea to justify annexing territory.

I agree, but it's a better one than "a rebel movement that we ourselves incited and equipped want to break away and join us."

 

[afadeev]

If the standard is "what Russia has annexed" then Ukraine is going to have to give back a bunch of liberated Kherson oblast as well. I agree that Crimea holds a special place in Putin's heart, but an illegal annexation is an illegal annexation. Caving on that will just give Russia more impetus to annex territory in the future.

To make this a less hypothetical argument, Russian ex-President Medvedev (still in Putin's inner circle) has declared the other day that the three (3) Baltic states belong to Russia.
Writing on Twitter, he generously referred to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as "our" provinces, saying they had "soiled themselves" over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

All 3 of those states are members of NATO. But all 3 are very small, and will be nearly impossible to defend before Russia were to roll over them.
All 3 add up to ~67K miles^2. For comparison, area of Ukraine currently occupied by Russia is ~62K miles ^2.

So, yeah, if anyone thinks that giving Russia a piece of Ukraine will appease them and make them go away, there is a reality check for you right there.

Russia's Dmitry Medvedev claims Baltic countries belong to Russia

The former Russian Prime Minister referred to the three Baltic states as "our" on Tuesday, adding Poland was "temporarily occupied".

www.euronews.com

Lithuania doesn't have much to worry about as a NATO member, at least as long as the US continues to support NATO.

In theory, yes.
In practice, what are we (US) really going to do if Russia rolls over all of Lithuania (25K miles^2) in a day or two? The whole country is about ~150 miles wide, and the capital sits right on the border with Belarus.
Launch amphibious counter-attack from Finland or Sweden?
Counter-attack from Poland (if Russians roll on Lithuania, I trust they will not bother respecting borders of Latvia and Estonia either)?

It all gets very ugly very fast if we don't stop and declaw Putin in Ukraine.

 

[jderimig]

I agree that Crimea holds a special place in Putin's heart, but an illegal annexation is an illegal annexation.

An attack on Crimea with US weapons just might end the war. I'd better order more vacuum tubes from the Ukraine soon.

 

[boatgeek]

I agree, but it's a better one than "a rebel movement that we ourselves incited and equipped want to break away and join us."

Well, yes but that bar is pretty low. I think we're in violent agreement here.

To make this a less hypothetical argument, Russian ex-President Medvedev (still in Putin's inner circle) has declared the other day that the three (3) Baltic states belong to Russia.
Writing on Twitter, he generously referred to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as "our" provinces, saying they had "soiled themselves" over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

All 3 of those states are members of NATO. But all 3 are very small, and will be nearly impossible to defend before Russia were to roll over them.
All 3 add up to ~67K miles^2. For comparison, area of Ukraine currently occupied by Russia is ~62K miles ^2.

So, yeah, if anyone thinks that giving Russia a piece of Ukraine will appease them and make them go away, there is a reality check for you right there.

Russia's Dmitry Medvedev claims Baltic countries belong to Russia

The former Russian Prime Minister referred to the three Baltic states as "our" on Tuesday, adding Poland was "temporarily occupied".

www.euronews.com

In theory, yes.
In practice, what are we (US) really going to do if Russia rolls over all of Lithuania (25K miles^2) in a day or two? The whole country is about ~150 miles wide, and the capital sits right on the border with Belarus.
Launch amphibious counter-attack from Finland or Sweden?
Counter-attack from Poland (if Russians roll on Lithuania, I trust they will not bother respecting borders of Latvia and Estonia either)?

It all gets very ugly very fast if we don't stop and declaw Putin in Ukraine.

View attachment 582204

Given that it's taken Russia a year to advance 25 km from Popasna to Bakhmut, Lithuania would have a little bit of time. And the moment Russian tanks rolled over the border, they'd be subject to the full might of NATO air power. NATO would also have some time to prepare, since the Russian tanks aren't going to show up on the border overnight.

An attack on Crimea with US weapons just might end the war. I'd better order more vacuum tubes from the Ukraine soon.

There's attacks on Crimea on the daily with British weapons (eg Storm Shadow) right now. I don't think Putin sees any daylight between UK and US (or German or French) weapons.

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

Sullivan did suggest Sunday that Biden will allow Ukraine to use U.S. military equipment to launch a potential counteroffensive in the Crimea, which the White House declares of part of Ukraine. The Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014.

That may be the Putin trip wire.

The way you phrased this, describing Crimea as a region “the White House declares part of Ukraine” seems to minimize Ukraine’s claim to Crimea. Crimea is internationally recognized as legally part of Ukraine that has been illegally occupied by Russia. That claim isn’t based on a White House declaration — it’s based on international law.

Here are my edits:

Sullivan did suggest Sunday that Biden will allow Ukraine to use U.S. military equipment to launch a potential counteroffensive in the Crimea, which the White House declares recognizes as part of Ukraine, according to international law. The Crimea was illegally invaded, occupied, and annexed by Russia in 2014.

That may be the Putin trip wire.

That said, I do think Putin might see retaking Crimea as a trip wire.

I also agree with @Antares JS that Crimea is a little bit different from the rest of Russian-occupied Ukraine due to the history. But I still don’t think Russia should be allowed to succeed in taking it by force, and if Ukraine can take it back, then I’m for that.

 

[kuririn]

I doubt that history or tradition was behind the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
The Black Sea fleet and port at Sevastopol may have had a little bit to do with it.

 

[Greg Furtman]

This is interesting. Russians, backed by Ukraine, operating inside Russia. Its staright out of the Putin playbook. It's the kind of operation that worries me as the Kremlin hawks could easily choose to misinterpret it as an invasion.

I watched this video and it seems to me the the citizens of the Belgorod Oblast were pretty friendly with "the Invaders". This part of Russia suffered as did Ukraine during the Holodomor.

 

[smstachwick]

Well, yes but that bar is pretty low. I think we're in violent agreement here.

Violent agreement, I like that.

Remember that Russia stoked separatist sentiment in Crimea as well. The peninsula briefly set up their own puppet state similar to the DPR and LPR in the Donbas region.

If Ukraine could advance to the Crimean “border”, cut the bridge, and acquire enough naval/air strength to blockade the peninsula, they could starve the Russians into surrender there. Given the devastation to their own (de jure) civilian population and the requirement for additional heavy equipment, it wouldn’t surprise me if they decided to risk a land-based invasion. What would the Russians realistically be able to do about it? Bleed on them?

 

[Antares JS]

(...) it wouldn’t surprise me if they decided to risk a land-based invasion. What would the Russians realistically be able to do about it? Bleed on them?

They would be able to bottleneck the Ukrainians in the short isthmus connecting mainland Ukraine to Crimea and turn it into a killing field. Any invasion of Crimea is likely to be extremely bloody.

 

[cwbullet]

They would be able to bottleneck the Ukrainians in the short isthmus connecting mainland Ukraine to Crimea and turn it into a killing field. Any invasion of Crimea is likely to be extremely bloody.

Unless you have the resources to bomb it into the stoneage first. We could make it less bloody, I do not think Ukraine can.

 

[smstachwick]

They would be able to bottleneck the Ukrainians in the short isthmus connecting mainland Ukraine to Crimea and turn it into a killing field. Any invasion of Crimea is likely to be extremely bloody.

Well poop on a scoop. The “mental map” I was working with had the Isthmus of Perekop a lot wider than it really is. Only 5 kilometers at its narrowest. Killing field indeed.

 

[boatgeek]

They would be able to bottleneck the Ukrainians in the short isthmus connecting mainland Ukraine to Crimea and turn it into a killing field. Any invasion of Crimea is likely to be extremely bloody.

Well poop on a scoop. The “mental map” I was working with had the Isthmus of Perekop a lot wider than it really is. Only 5 kilometers at its narrowest. Killing field indeed.

Only if the Russians have ammunition. Russian logistics depend primarily on rail. As long as the Kerch Bridge rail link is out, Russia would be dependent on ferry crossings to rail depots. There's a limited number of those, and also a few places where the rail lines all cross in the middle of Crimea (see below). Those ports would all be prime targets for Storm Shadow or other long-range weapons. I believe that the rail crossing up north would be in HIMARS range, and definitely in GLSMB range. Further, any ammunition dumps close to the front will be subject to HIMARS attacks.



It would take time for stocks to run low, but not years.

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

I think the approach to Crimea is likely that Ukraine would fight up to near the bottleneck, but not try to invade until a much later date. It’s probably not in the cards for this year. But if they can sever the land bridge from Crimea to Russia, that would be strategically huge. And moving the front forward that far would put a lot of Crimea in range of more of Ukraine’s missiles and rockets.

I think the counteroffensive is likely to be in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson provinces, south toward Crimea, Melitopol, Mariupol, etc. to cut that land bridge. I wouldn’t be surprised if Russian forces end up retreating into Crimea.

 

[rcktnut]

I wonder why Russia is "playing" with smoke screens.

Crimea Bridge Smoke Just 'Exercise,' Russian Official Says as Videos Emerge

 

[Greg Furtman]

I wonder why Russia is "playing" with smoke screens.

Crimea Bridge Smoke Just 'Exercise,' Russian Official Says as Videos Emerge

Good question!

 

[afadeev]

Personally, I’d be a lot more comfortable with this Bolgorod thing if I knew that the troops were outfitted exclusively with Russian kit, which it sounds like they are not. We don’t need them rolling around on Russian territory in western vehicles, with western rifles, wearing western uniforms.

The jury may be out on that count.
Russia released pics of strangely positioned Humvees somewhere near Belgorod, strongly suggesting they were staged there for a photo-op:


Also here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPgLNge0xqQHWM5B5EFH9Cg/community?lb=Ugkxkj-r523vXdoY876CM_DI0ecuQoM57GcD

 

[afadeev]

1. Huff and puff
2. Ignore the situation
3. Issue a sternly worded press statement
4. Send some missiles back across the border
5. deliberately or for other reasons interpret this as an attack by NATO

6. Probably the outcome Ukraine hopes for. Divert troops, equipment, and supplies to Bolgorod from the fight in Ukraine.

So, it looks like it is a combination of #2 and #6:

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

Good question!

All the Russian smokers have been kicked out of the ammo warehouses, command centers, weapons labs, government buildings, etc. due to “smoking accidents”, so they all decided to go smoke on the strategically critical bridge. Lordy, I hope there wasn’t an “accident”!

 

[kuririn]

so they all decided to go smoke on the strategically critical bridge

Huff and puff

Seems like you're both in agreement.