The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

[Big_Zucchini]

Thank you for the detailed research. This does clarify things a bit.



We're already past that. Kharkov, Chernigov, and Sumy are under attack. Unless they actiely retreat in the north-east, Russia will have taken a significant portion of Ukraine, far in excess of a land bridge to Crimea.



Good question. I wouldn't be surprised if Russia pushes for severe limitations on what kind of military Ukraine can have. But I also suspect there's a maximum position and a minimum position, and the minimum might just be a lot of restritions on missile tech, and a complete ban on foreign military presence, while a maximum might involve Ukraine's military being reduced like Germany's was after WWI.

So easy to legally bypass size limitations.

Example: limit - 250 MBTs.
Buy 1000 and keep 750 of them in storage. Talking shrink wraps and all.
Train enough crews to man double that, and have the crews rotate on tanks. Those on downtime do simulators and drive on empty hulls made for drivers training.
Storage limitations as well? No biggie. Convince the US to vastly expand its European WRSA and get them closer to Ukraine. Funnel funds saved from reduced defense budget to buy into those WRSA and flex by several hundred percent in size in the course of one week. Location means WRSA are immune.

Basically limiting Ukraine's army size will hardly have any effect on Russia's balance on it.
As long as Europeans are awake to the threat and investing in defense, Ukraine can be almost endlessly restocked.

If Ukraine and NATO play it right, a tactical victory in Ukraine could be a strategic one.
Once Russia withdraws, Ukraine could be admitted to NATO and then it's immunity from Russia.

 

[Vivendi]

Italy is providing weapons (Italy joins growing list of weapon donors to help Ukraine’s defense (defensenews.com)):

The Italian cabinet signed off on a measure authorizing the dispatch of Stinger surface-to-air missiles, mortars and Milan, or Panzerfaust, anti-tank weapons. Italian media had claimed Israeli-made Spike missiles would be included in the package but a defense source said that was doubtful since Israel would need to approve their use and would be unlikely to do so.

Among other weaponry on the Italian list, which will need to approved by parliament this week, were Browning heavy machine guns, MG-type light machine guns and counter-IED systems.

So is Spain Spain backtracks and will send weapons to ‘Ukraine resistance’ (thelocal.es) :

In an interview on Wednesday with Antena3 television, Defence Minister Margarita Robles said that “in this first shipment that will go aboard two planes, we expect to send 1,370 anti-tank grenade launchers, 700,000 rifle and machine-gun rounds, and light machine guns”.

Unconfirmed reports say that Germany will provide 2,700 Strela, in addition to what was previously promised: Germany to deliver more anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine (thelocal.de)

 

[Feanor]

So easy to legally bypass size limitations.

Example: limit - 250 MBTs.
Buy 1000 and keep 750 of them in storage. Talking shrink wraps and all.
Train enough crews to man double that, and have the crews rotate on tanks. Those on downtime do simulators and drive on empty hulls made for drivers training.
Storage limitations as well? No biggie. Convince the US to vastly expand its European WRSA and get them closer to Ukraine. Funnel funds saved from reduced defense budget to buy into those WRSA and flex by several hundred percent in size in the course of one week. Location means WRSA are immune.

Basically limiting Ukraine's army size will hardly have any effect on Russia's balance on it.
As long as Europeans are awake to the threat and investing in defense, Ukraine can be almost endlessly restocked.

If Ukraine and NATO play it right, a tactical victory in Ukraine could be a strategic one.
Once Russia withdraws, Ukraine could be admitted to NATO and then it's immunity from Russia.

Size limitations might also include service member numbers limitations (again like Germany post-WWI). And again this is just my speculation, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt. And a pile of US weapons in Germany or France would take time to reach Ukraine. Especially when we're talking about equipping entire units out of the box. To top it off, Ukraine hasn't exactly done well in training or structuring their force before this war. Between rampant corruption and just general inefficiency, there's no reason to think they can keep tank crews well trained on shared MBTs when they hard a hard time doing it on not-shared MBTs.

To be clear, the scenario you describe is totally possible, and if we were talking about a western military, even probable. But it's Ukraine, so who knows. It might work out that way. It might not. And it might be that Russia partitions Ukraine, when they discover that the west isn't willing to make deal that they're happy with. What starts out as a negotiating position (for example "we will stop occupying Kiev, and south-eastern Ukraine in exchange for lifting of certain sanctions, and a neutral status for all of Ukraine) could turn into a permanent stalemate if/when a "rump Ukraine" government in L'vov, with western backing, refuses the deal completely leaving Russia sitting with territory it doesn't necessarily want, sanctions that are downright crippling, no way to back down without losing, increasing costs to just sitting there, and no way to move forward without an even bigger escalation. And then there won't be any restrictions on the size of Ukraine's military, other than the resources the west is willing to pour into it, and the physical manpower available in the remaining regions under Ukrainian control.

I honestly don't know. As I said before this invasion, I don't see what Russia has to gain. I think it was a bad move, with no real way out and it's not clear how Russia intends to move forward. I don't see any possible gain that can offset the damage of sanctions and political fallout from this, even if we assume that some of the worst sanctions get lifted shortly after the war ends. And that's a pretty big assumption (going into it are considerations that Russia will leave Ukraine after some sort of settlement, that the West, Russia, and Ukraine, will all agree to a settlement, and that this settlement will be enough to lift some of the worst sanctions).

 

[Vivendi]

A very interesting article on a wargame conducted before the invasion started:

The Wargame Before the War: Russia Attacks Ukraine - War on the Rocks

Despite a few stark differences, the current Russian offensive is playing out in ways eerily similar to that simulation.

By the time the wargame ended, the overall situation appeared very much as it does on the ground in Ukraine, with only two major deviations. First, the Russians have pushed harder out of Belarus to the west of the Dneiper — north of Kyiv — to strike the city from the rear. And secondly, the Russian assault in Kherson was temporarily halted, as the axis of advance in the south for a time turned northeast toward Mariupol. Both of these actions were, however, discussed by the players in the wargame.

Another difference was in the impact of the Russian air and missile campaign. In the game, Russian operations began with a series of missile and airstrikes, aimed at eliminating Ukraine’s air force and destroying the country’s integrated air defense system. Thus, the Russian players’ primary focus, during the first few days of the campaign, was aimed at gaining freedom of maneuver in the skies — air dominance — along with destroying Ukraine’s coastal defense systems. So, although the number of actual strikes made by the Russians in the conflict’s first 24-hours tracked almost exactly to what was employed by the Russians in the wargame, the impact was substantially different. In the wargame, every strike was focused on eliminating Ukraine’s air force and air defense network. In real life, the Russian strikes appear to have been more widely spread over a range of targets. Thus, the Russians employed far fewer munitions than required to cripple Ukraine’s air defenses or to significantly degrade their ability to control forces in the field. In short, unlike in the game, the Russian attacks were damaging but insufficient to overwhelm Ukraine’s defenses.
[...]
One wonders if the Russian failure to employ their massive fires capacity to deliberately shape the battlefield over an extended period before the ground advance began will be marked by historians as a blunder. In the wargame, this constraint on fires was deliberate, based upon a strategy to compel a rapid Ukrainian surrender. An excellent case can be made that the Russians made similar calculations at the start of the current war. Putin, and those advisers who still have his ear, may have been convinced many Ukrainians would welcome them as liberators and the march to Kyiv would be an easy one. Thus, they have held back much of their overwhelming fires complex to avoid destroying significant amounts of infrastructure and killing too many of their Ukrainian “brothers.” This was the reasoning employed in the game, and most current reporting shows it was the thinking dominating the Kremlin.


Interesting read, and fascinating that the wargame was so similar to what happened in reality, with some differences as discussed in the article. I think they may be right, Russia assumed they would be able to take over Ukraine without destroying too much infrastructure, however many of their actions in the first hours failed, e.g., trying to send special troops into Kiev, in combination with saboteurs already in place. It seems Ukraine managed to repel both special forces and capture saboteurs in those very critical first hours.

 

[hauritz]

Has anyone been keeping track of the number of weapons being donated?

I have read that so far over 20 nations have been funnelling weapons and equipment in the Ukraine ... and some of these are not small donations. Must be very frustrating for the Russians to see these weapons and other aid flowing into The Ukraine. May well end up with the Ukraine being able to replace its stockpile of weapons faster than the Russians can resupply their own.

 

[Feanor]

Has anyone been keeping track of the number of weapons being donated?

I have read that so far over 20 nations have been funnelling weapons and equipment in the Ukraine ... and some of these are not small donations. Must be very frustrating for the Russians to see these weapons and other aid flowing into The Ukraine. May well end up with the Ukraine being able to replace its stockpile of weapons faster than the Russians can resupply their own.

I found a summary from CAST, I'll translate and post here later today.

 

[HelBattery]

I am afraid that it is not the lack of weapons and ammunition that is the biggest problem at the moment but rather the ability to use them effectively in the current conditions and we are talking about well-prepared, long-trained first-line units, not just deployed reservists.
Another thing is that some of the ATGMs and other weapons lost to the enemy can quickly end up in Yemen, for example.

 

[Vivendi]

Canada will supply 4,500 M72 and 7,500 hand grenades, I believe this is in addition to what was already supplied. They also put a 35% tariff on goods from Russia and Belarus. Canada raising tariffs on Russia, Belarus over ‘barbaric war’ | International Trade News | Al Jazeera

Canada also closed down Canadian airspace for all Russian planes, like Europe has done.

In other news, a large number of international companies have now pulled out, or is pulling out, or is "pausing" activities in Russia:

Shell, BP, Exxonmobil, Equnor are selling their stakes in Russia: Shell, BP and ExxonMobil have done business in Russia for decades – here's why they're leaving now (theconversation.com)

Toyota, Daimler, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Ford, etc. are pausing or pulling out: These are all the automakers that have pulled out Russian operations | TechCrunch

Apple stops selling products in Russia: Apple's decision to halt Russia sales puts pressure on Samsung (cnbc.com)

AMD stops chip sales: AMD halts chip sales to Russia | PCWorld

Russia and Airbus pull out: Airbus and Boeing pull out of Russia in major blow to country’s aviation industry | The Independent

Aeroflot removed from global reservation system: Russian airline yanked from global reservation system, a crippling blow to travel in the country | CNN Travel

As we see, the impact is much wider and deeper than just "targeting oligarchs and blocking some banks", as some seem to believe. And this is just the beginning..

 

[Rob c]

I am by no means certain, my best guess, would be:

(i) the international politics factor — avoid a start during China’s hosting of the Winter Olympics & the wait till Russia was chairman on UNSC;

(ii) the logistics system reporting failure and purchasing corruption factor — where the log tail is inadequate to meet the front, and the failure of the Russian Army to report to Putin actual logistics difficulty and the unit level preparedness problems found, when the force was staged for invasion — eg. Military trucks and 8x8s need to be turned over and moved once a month for preventative maintenance reasons. I suspect the Russians, at garrison were not doing proper and regular maintenance to begin. To compound matters, they bought cheap Chinese tyres that were not properly turned over and moved, leading to loss of off road capability; and

(iii) lastly, Putin’s over confidence, systematic intelligence failure by the Russians on the actual fighting capability of the Ukrainians.

Yes this is all possible, but it still seems to me, not the most sensible idea to attach in the Ukrainian thaw. As this may be the cause of the Russian logistical problem, which will only get worse. this will only lead to mixing of logistical units and combat units on the same roads with little ability to disperse. If they try to segregate the units then the combat units will find it hard to get their supply's and the logistical units will lack protection. I have to confess that all my time in the services was spent in the air force, so if someone more knowledgeable in ground combat can give more logical explanation, feel free to do so.

 

[GermanHerman]

Although I dont follow the general Twitter / media sentiment that russia is failing horribly in any possible way I have to say that the sheer amount of lost vehicles is painting a pretty bad picture.

Besides the vehicles lost to mud and a Lacke of logistics there are also those vehicles that get seemingly just abandoned for no reason and can just be driven off by locals...

This and the comms are something I realy cant wrap my head around. In combination with the very successfull infowar / propaganda effort from ukraine the russian army has lost some of its nimbus.

That said, the russian army is gaining valuable experience and would prepare any further invasions more effective. The question is how much can russia rebuild with the sanctions? The T-72 wont hurt them that much but losing BUK and Pantsir systems is expensive and I wonder if they are actualy able to build those systems without any imported parts?

 

[Rock the kasbah]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1498912756959006726

Interesting move by Vlad the may yet be impaled
Looks like some outside info is getting into Russia

 

[Blackshoe]

Russian Amphibious Assault Ship Armada Seen Off Crimea As Fears Of Odessa Beach Landing Grow

While the huge Russian column north of Kyiv has stalled, a major assault on the Black Sea port city of Odessa might soon begin.

www.thedrive.com

Wher are the javelins? Wouldn’t they be useful if ships are that close to shore and with landing craft coming ashore?,

Javelins are too short range to be really much use against ships; also, ATGMs just aren't going to have enough of a warhead to really bother ships. And you're going to quickly start drawing massive retaliatory fires (down to small-caliber weapons, actually).

Landing craft? Yes! But not ships.

 

[Rock the kasbah]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1498912756959006726

Interesting move by Vlad the may yet be impaled
Looks like some outside info is getting into Russia

sorry I'm using phone and messed up the linl is on the fbroef over on defense one

Meanwhile in Russia, Putin’s education ministry is conducting a nationwide online lesson all about “why the liberation mission in Ukraine was necessary.” It’s reportedly an information space where up is down and black is white, writes Ilya Lozovsky of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. He unpacks the “lesson” so far, via Twitter, here.

 

[Big_Zucchini]

Although I dont follow the general Twitter / media sentiment that russia is failing horribly in any possible way I have to say that the sheer amount of lost vehicles is painting a pretty bad picture.

Besides the vehicles lost to mud and a Lacke of logistics there are also those vehicles that get seemingly just abandoned for no reason and can just be driven off by locals...

This and the comms are something I realy cant wrap my head around. In combination with the very successfull infowar / propaganda effort from ukraine the russian army has lost some of its nimbus.

That said, the russian army is gaining valuable experience and would prepare any further invasions more effective. The question is how much can russia rebuild with the sanctions? The T-72 wont hurt them that much but losing BUK and Pantsir systems is expensive and I wonder if they are actualy able to build those systems without any imported parts?

Russia has stockpiles of platforms. Thousands of MBTs, IFVs, APCs and more. They can afford to lose a couple divisions in Ukraine. Further mitigated by the large number of AFVs either simply abandoned in Ukraine, or damaged but repairable and recoverable.

Ukraine currently (probably) can only try to demoralize Russians, hope for a revolution, and stay long enough to drain Russian war supplies.

The only hope to last long enough is to not only be a warzone feeding on European donations, but through self sufficiency in at least some things. For that Ukraine will need some strongholds, and to maintain territory they need strategic weapons as well. Not only ATGMs. They need loitering munitions, PGMs, accurate intel, and some training program.

 

[danonz]

bmpd

Фото, подтверждающее более ранние (еще от 26 февраля) сообщения, что флагман ВМС Украины фрегат "Гетьман Сагайдачный" проекта 11351 был затоплен у стенки в Николаеве, куда он был летом 2021 г. приведен в ремонт

t.me

my Russian is non existent but this looks like the flag ship that was sunk right at the start.
I take it it was scuttled on purpose by the Ukrainians ?

 

[Big_Zucchini]

If a former 4 star commander in NATO can say it, perhaps it's not a crazy idea after all:

‘It means the end of Putin’: Former NATO commander Wesley Clark explains Ukraine war

Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark gives his insights on the West’s response to Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine and what the US should do now.

nypost.com

Former commander in NATO suggests a no fly zone, and says it's on the low end of what can be done for Ukraine, and not out of the norm.
As for nukes, he says it's much more about Putin being a wildcard and inventing imaginary red lines than NATO's actions.

 

[Unric]

I just don't understand how you could possibly implement a no-fly zone without inviting WW3. Chances of Russia respecting it is very low. As soon as the first russian aircraft gets downed, the Russian air defence will open up (if not earlier) and then Nato does what? SEAD/DEAD time? Some of the AA will be in Russia/Belarus. If you go after that then Putin will pretty much have to go "all in" against Nato, even if he doesn't want to (although some are suggesting he might want to anyway if he gets desperate enough).

 

[cdxbow]

If a former 4 star commander in NATO can say it, perhaps it's not a crazy idea after all:

‘It means the end of Putin’: Former NATO commander Wesley Clark explains Ukraine war

Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark gives his insights on the West’s response to Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine and what the US should do now.

nypost.com

Former commander in NATO suggests a no fly zone, and says it's on the low end of what can be done for Ukraine, and not out of the norm.
As for nukes, he says it's much more about Putin being a wildcard and inventing imaginary red lines than NATO's actions.

Not sure how a no fly zone would work and WWIII won't improve anybody's day.
I agree Putin has monumentally stuffed up and has cornered himself. Ironically helping him find an off ramp may become important.
Russia needs it's own Zelenskyy to appear, replace the old men, remnants of a dead empire whose time has passed.

Neat way to get information into Russia. Ukraine war: The Google Maps 'guerilla war' spreading news of the invasion inside Russia | Euronews, same site has an entertaining article about the Ukraine's St Javelin.

This drone footage shows extensive destruction of Borodyanka, published by the Australian state broadcaster (I am assuming it has been checked and is real) Drone footage shows extent of Borodyanka destruction - ABC News Makes it easy to win the information war with footage like this at your disposal.

 

[ngatimozart]

bmpd

Фото, подтверждающее более ранние (еще от 26 февраля) сообщения, что флагман ВМС Украины фрегат "Гетьман Сагайдачный" проекта 11351 был затоплен у стенки в Николаеве, куда он был летом 2021 г. приведен в ремонт

t.me

my Russian is non existent but this looks like the flag ship that was sunk right at the start.
I take it it was scuttled on purpose by the Ukrainians ?

Yep, according to The Drive they suspect that it was deliberately scuttled because it was being repaired when the invasion began and probably wasn't seaworthy.

The Ukrainian Navy's Flagship Appears To Have Been Scuttled (thedrive.com)

 

[Capt. Ironpants]

If a former 4 star commander in NATO can say it, perhaps it's not a crazy idea after all:

‘It means the end of Putin’: Former NATO commander Wesley Clark explains Ukraine war

Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark gives his insights on the West’s response to Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine and what the US should do now.

nypost.com

Former commander in NATO suggests a no fly zone, and says it's on the low end of what can be done for Ukraine, and not out of the norm.
As for nukes, he says it's much more about Putin being a wildcard and inventing imaginary red lines than NATO's actions.

Can simeone please bring General Sir Michael Jackson out of retirement?

"I'm not going to start Third World War for you," Jackson told Clark

Nato supreme commander General Wesley Clark is not being allowed to fade away quietly. Days after the Clinton administration relieved him of his command two months early, Newsweek is reporting that the victor of Kosovo was blocked from sending paratroopers to Pristina airport to pre-empt an...

www.theguardian.com

BTW, I questioned the man's sanity well before this incident.