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NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
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Oh my... this bit is just satire, right?
The Russian military has been striking Ukraine's energy infrastructure for more than three months, since October 10. [...] The Russian authorities have repeatedly stated that the military does not strike at civilian targets in Ukraine, but only at military facilities.
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Something that's important to mention is that ammunition and soldiers will never stop coming in on either side. Shortages won't be absolute, but relative to that of the enemy and to the total size of the battlefield. So even though the supplies on both sides are dwindling, what matters is how they stack up against one another.
What Russia is doing right now is extremely dangerous - to Russia. They're expending ammo and troops at an extremely high rate, presumably because some of their (non-Wagner) generals falsely believe that Ukraine's current stalling is a sign of weakness, or because they're afraid of reporting to Putin that Wagner is potentially costing them the war.
So a key question is now what Ukraine's expenditure is compared to Russia's. If it's a lot lower, then they're very likely to pull off a few major offensives this year when Russian defense lines start to open up again due to needless self-induced shortages. It's not possible to fill all these gaps just with armed soldiers sitting in tanks and trenches, as we saw in Kherson.
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United States41117 Posts
So it appears the reports were true, about the CIA meeting with Zelensky right before the invasion. Not only to warn him about an imminent invasion, but an attempt on his life at the same time. One can only imagine if the details had not been shared with him and his team. This was during the time Zelensky didn't believe the intel about Russia.
CIA Director Bill Burns met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on a secret trip to Kyiv ahead of the Russian invasion last year to share news that appeared to surprise the Ukrainian leader: the Russians were plotting to assassinate him.
At that time, in January 2022, Zelenskyy had been dismissing the idea that Russians would carry out an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and was suggesting America's public warnings were creating a "panic," noted Chris Whipple in his forthcoming book, "The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden's White House."
It was unusual for the US to publicly disclose intelligence like this, suggesting Washington was confident in its assessment of Russia's intentions. But just weeks before Russia invaded, Zelenskyy expressed concerns that such warnings would have a negative impact on the Ukrainian economy — and emphasized that Kyiv was used to facing threats from Russia.
"Burns had come to give him a reality check" and the CIA director shared that Russian Special Forces were coming for Zelenskyy, writes Whipple, adding that President Joe Biden told Burns "to share precise details of the Russian plots."
"This immediately got Zelensky's attention; he was taken aback, sobered by this news," Whipple wrote in the book, set for release on January 17.
"The intelligence was so detailed that it would help Zelensky's security forces thwart two separate Russian attempts on his life," he wrote.
As previously reported, Burns also shared a "blueprint of Putin's invasion plan" during that visit in Zelenskyy's office to help him prepare. Whipple wrote. He previewed Russian plans to attack Antonov Airport north of Kyiv and to use it as a staging area for an assault on Kyiv.
Whipple wrote that most interviews for his book were on "deep background" which meant that he could use the information but he agreed not to quote sources directly without permission.
Source
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On January 16 2023 21:15 Magic Powers wrote:
Something that's important to mention is that ammunition and soldiers will never stop coming in on either side. Shortages won't be absolute, but relative to that of the enemy and to the total size of the battlefield. So even though the supplies on both sides are dwindling, what matters is how they stack up against one another.
What Russia is doing right now is extremely dangerous - to Russia. They're expending ammo and troops at an extremely high rate, presumably because some of their (non-Wagner) generals falsely believe that Ukraine's current stalling is a sign of weakness, or because they're afraid of reporting to Putin that Wagner is potentially costing them the war.
So a key question is now what Ukraine's expenditure is compared to Russia's. If it's a lot lower, then they're very likely to pull off a few major offensives this year when Russian defense lines start to open up again due to needless self-induced shortages. It's not possible to fill all these gaps just with armed soldiers sitting in tanks and trenches, as we saw in Kherson.
Another big problem for the Russians is that their supply lines are being encrouched upon by the Ukrainians. This might lead to even bigger shortages.
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United States41117 Posts
German defense minister has officially resigned. New one to be announced tomorrow.
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TAIWAN NUMBAH WAN5956 Posts
so glad she is finally gone. She had been the wrong pick from the very beginning, only getting the job by being a long-standing female SPD member from Hesse 
Here is hoping we don't get another colossal missmatch for the job.
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On January 17 2023 02:35 plasmidghost wrote:
Am I right in being concerned about the advances Russia keeps making? It keeps looking like despite immense losses, it's not stopping them from advancing and I don't know when or if it'll stop at this rate
I don't think there's any need to be concerned about that in particular. Russia was progressing many times faster than this prior to the Ukrainian counter-offensives. The main concern is whether, how fast and at what cost Ukraine can recapture the lost territory.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if Ukrainian generals are using the current hyperfocus on small changes to draw as much attention as possible away from their next major operation.
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On January 17 2023 02:35 plasmidghost wrote:Am I right in being concerned about the advances Russia keeps making? It keeps looking like despite immense losses, it's not stopping them from advancing and I don't know when or if it'll stop at this rate https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1615037710573371418
So, Russia is taking some land, but it depends on the losses that they take in order to gain it. Ukraine is huge, and they're taking over wastelands in that area right now.
Wikipedia's got a section on the strategic value, it's decent, but not really worth the investment Russia is putting into it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bakhmut#Strategic_value
Definitely worrying, but if Ukraine can hold out for another couple months for the heavier armaments from the west, I think they can push Russia back.
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United States41117 Posts
UK to send, along with Challenger Tanks, will also be sending self propelled artillery.
Around 30 AS90s, which are large, self-propelled guns, are also expected to be delivered.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64274755
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United States44449 Posts
On January 17 2023 02:35 plasmidghost wrote:Am I right in being concerned about the advances Russia keeps making? It keeps looking like despite immense losses, it's not stopping them from advancing and I don't know when or if it'll stop at this rate https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1615037710573371418
No, they literally just moved the goalposts.
“After months of fighting in Bakhmut and thousands of lost men we’re pleased to announce that we took Soledar. A glorious victory.”
That implies they decisively lost the Battle of Bakhmut. Wagner got mauled, took some other town instead, then gave up. The rumour is that they’re out of steam, begging Putin to make the regular army give them men and equipment. They recognized they couldn’t take Bakhmut but didn’t want to just give up with nothing to show for it because that kind of failure doesn’t go down well in Russia.
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Russian Federation618 Posts
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On January 17 2023 02:35 plasmidghost wrote:Am I right in being concerned about the advances Russia keeps making? It keeps looking like despite immense losses, it's not stopping them from advancing and I don't know when or if it'll stop at this rate https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1615037710573371418
Considering it took them over 5 months to get where they are and cover what is effectively about 8-10km of land I don't think it's that concerning. You have to keep in mind that Russian forces have been storming Soledar since early August last year.
This of course doesn't change the fact that both sides are suffering horrendous casualties in Bakhmut and Soledar.
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On January 17 2023 02:35 plasmidghost wrote:Am I right in being concerned about the advances Russia keeps making? It keeps looking like despite immense losses, it's not stopping them from advancing and I don't know when or if it'll stop at this rate https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1615037710573371418
They went from "Taking Kiev will be a glorious victory" to "Taking some village with 10k inhabitants is a glorious victory"...
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United States44449 Posts
Apparently these Chal2s are surplus and basically unsupported but there will be a good amount more available for now. The UK has a few hundred from the 90s and are upgrading 1/3 and mothballing 2/3. So whichever ones haven’t been cannibalized for repairs or scheduled for upgrade are basically free to give away.
That said it’s disappointing that the UK hasn’t kept tank production on state subsidized life support the way the US does. You need to buy tanks constantly to get them to build tanks constantly and you need them to build tanks constantly to keep the factories running and the engineers employed. If you go several decades without building any tanks you find yourself completely unable to resume production in the event of a war. It’s a huge strategic blind spot, you’ve only got tanks as long as nobody ever shoots at them. If you start losing tanks then you can’t replace them (which is why the challenger3 is just a refit of 1/3 of the challenger2s).
The UK is able to provide Ukraine with money but what it can’t do is actually provide long term military hardware to sustain combat attrition losses. And that’s a disgrace because if we can’t do it for Ukraine we couldn’t do it for ourselves. If we actually had to fight Russia we’d be cold calling other countries and seeing if they had tanks they could sell us.
People criticize America’s waste in filling endless fields with hardware nobody wants or asked for but state subsidized waste is required to maintain preparedness.
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People criticize America’s waste in filling endless fields with hardware nobody wants or asked for but state subsidized waste is required to preparedness.
I think in general people criticise America's military expenditure and strategy and don't want to realize how crucial it is when Russian push comes to shove. NATO countries don't really want to spend anything but rather prosper under the eagle's wing which looks pretty dumb in situations like the one we find ourselves in at the moment
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Thinking about it, what's the next "escalation" angle from the west once Ukraine gets some mixture of armor.
Is it ATACMS?
Ukraine is taking quite a bit of damage from missile attacks that they can't retaliate against, does it make sense to give them a means to counter at least the shorter ground based systems?
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On January 17 2023 15:53 Lmui wrote:
Thinking about it, what's the next "escalation" angle from the west once Ukraine gets some mixture of armor.
Is it ATACMS?
Ukraine is taking quite a bit of damage from missile attacks that they can't retaliate against, does it make sense to give them a means to counter at least the shorter ground based systems?
Most likely aircraft, if west ever dares going that far.
For political reason these can be sold as 'defensive' as opposed to long range missiles.
That could make the biggest difference in western arsenal as Ukrainian airforce has been badly attrited away by the fighting.
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On January 17 2023 05:02 Erasme wrote:They went from "Taking Kiev will be a glorious victory" to "Taking some village with 10k inhabitants is a glorious victory"...
What was the population of Verdun in 1914?
Months of reports comming out of the Bahmut/Soledar from pro-Kiev sources of up to 400 casualties a day obviously had merit in showing the true state at the front line. Months of being at a 7 to 1 disadvantage in heavy artillery is the reason why Soledar fell and Bahmut is on the brink of encirclement even though Kiev controlled forces had a 3 to 2 advantage in commited manpower to the area.
What was the point of throwing away so many men holding onto cities of so-so strategic value? If we know only 3% of casualties in the conflict are from small arms close combat with the vast majority being from artillery was it really worth it to commit so many men to the defence at such a disatvantage?
20-25k casualties just in Soledar, which comes to around 6k dead (over the many months its been contested). Bahmut is stages worse and not yet over.
It was never about taking a 10k town or even a square meter of land. It was about destroying as much of the Ukranian military as possible before the next offensive. How much the Kiev government can replase these losses with the 8th wave of mobilisation going on remains to be seen. Though that will be easier to replace than armor.
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On January 17 2023 16:48 pmp10 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2023 15:53 Lmui wrote:
Thinking about it, what's the next "escalation" angle from the west once Ukraine gets some mixture of armor.
Is it ATACMS?
Ukraine is taking quite a bit of damage from missile attacks that they can't retaliate against, does it make sense to give them a means to counter at least the shorter ground based systems? Most likely aircraft, if west ever dares going that far. For political reason these can be sold as 'defensive' as opposed to long range missiles. That could make the biggest difference in western arsenal as Ukrainian airforce has been badly attrited away by the fighting.
You can find the explanation why the west sending jets is nonsense every couple pages in this thread.
A US supercarrier needs 2500 people just to maintain its 80-90 airplanes and helicopters. Every hour of flight requires 15-20 hours of maintenance on average by highly qualified people. The plane is not taken apart after every mission, but unless you want a mission risking flying paperweight, you gotta get the logistics together.
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EPT
