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On February 08 2023 23:55 Magic Powers wrote:
So that means Bakhmut is likely going to fall earlier than was hoped or even anticipated. Is it a bad sign of things to come? Bakhmut is quite important after all.
Bakhmut was expected to fall months ago. The entire Kharkiv offensive was done to remove the threat that losing bakhmut was to Ukranian forces. They have their next major defensive line set up for months now and if Russia decides to push past bakhmut they'll be flanked to the north.
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So it appears Ukraine will be getting fighter jets.
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On February 09 2023 01:43 Nezgar wrote:
The question is always how much they are willing to pay for that progress, and whether it leaves them with enough strength to withstand the counteroffensives that will come.
And the answer to that is: We'll see.
Historically there are 2 cases when Russia concedes in a war:
1. Change of political regime (typically a bloody affair).
2. Loss of 0.5 million men.
We're not close to either of those scenarios. Coup d'etat against Putin seems unlikely and as far as losses in manpower go we're only about halfway there if estimates are to be believed.
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On February 09 2023 02:56 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2023 01:43 Nezgar wrote:
The question is always how much they are willing to pay for that progress, and whether it leaves them with enough strength to withstand the counteroffensives that will come.
And the answer to that is: We'll see. Historically there are 2 cases when Russia concedes in a war: 1. Change of political regime (typically a bloody affair). 2. Loss of 0.5 million men. We're not close to either of those scenarios. Coup d'etat against Putin seems unlikely and as far as losses in manpower go we're only about halfway there if estimates are to be believed.
Arguably as long as they are gaining ground not even loss of a half a milion men will be enough.
As things stand they know they can grind down Ukraine in the long term.
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On February 09 2023 03:10 pmp10 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2023 02:56 Manit0u wrote:On February 09 2023 01:43 Nezgar wrote:
The question is always how much they are willing to pay for that progress, and whether it leaves them with enough strength to withstand the counteroffensives that will come.
And the answer to that is: We'll see. Historically there are 2 cases when Russia concedes in a war: 1. Change of political regime (typically a bloody affair). 2. Loss of 0.5 million men. We're not close to either of those scenarios. Coup d'etat against Putin seems unlikely and as far as losses in manpower go we're only about halfway there if estimates are to be believed. Arguably as long as they are gaining ground not even loss of a half a milion men will be enough. As things stand they know they can grind down Ukraine in the long term.
I don't think that is true at all. And it's likely that the Russian leadership knows as well that the longer this war drags on, the worse it will be for them.
For now they are able to draw equipment from their stockpiles to make up the losses, but those stockpiles are not infinite. The quality of stuff they pull from storage decreased over the last half year or so, and the same can be noted among a lot of different categories. Their cruise missiles become less and less sophisticated. They aren't firing Iskandar anymore, it's mostly Onyx and S300 missiles along with older stocks of cruise missiles that are, quite frankly, pretty bad at hitting their intended targets.
The severity of their artillery has greatly diminished and so, too, did their use of helicopters and aircraft.
They can keep up the supply of manpower, sure, but how well soldiers without equipment are doing can be seen in those endless probing attacks both by Wagner and the regular Russian army. That is to say, they are getting absolutely obliterated.
As long as the West is supplying Ukraine, the worse it will become for Russia in the long term. In almost all categories of ground equipment, Ukraine has gained more material than they have lost. In some of those categories significantly so.
Russia is not close to the breaking point, but it's only going to get worse for them over time. And keep in mind that they withdrew from Afghanistan after suffering less than 100k casualties, dead or wounded, over a 10 year period. They have blown way past that number in less than a year.
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On February 09 2023 03:10 pmp10 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2023 02:56 Manit0u wrote:On February 09 2023 01:43 Nezgar wrote:
The question is always how much they are willing to pay for that progress, and whether it leaves them with enough strength to withstand the counteroffensives that will come.
And the answer to that is: We'll see. Historically there are 2 cases when Russia concedes in a war: 1. Change of political regime (typically a bloody affair). 2. Loss of 0.5 million men. We're not close to either of those scenarios. Coup d'etat against Putin seems unlikely and as far as losses in manpower go we're only about halfway there if estimates are to be believed. Arguably as long as they are gaining ground not even loss of a half a milion men will be enough. As things stand they know they can grind down Ukraine in the long term.
How? Ukraine has 7 million people fit for military service. As long as they get equipment supplies from the west they can outgrind Russia. Especially that they're using pretty much all of their strength to fight Russia why Russia can't use most of its forces (navy, having to man A LOT of border etc.). At the start of this war the size of UA vs RU militaries was not that disparate personnel-wise (700k UA vs 1.1m RU active military).
You have to remember that Ukraine is in a state of total war, where basically the entirety of the nation is involved in the war effort. This is not the kind of war that Russia is prepared for.
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On February 09 2023 03:29 Nezgar wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2023 03:10 pmp10 wrote:On February 09 2023 02:56 Manit0u wrote:On February 09 2023 01:43 Nezgar wrote:
The question is always how much they are willing to pay for that progress, and whether it leaves them with enough strength to withstand the counteroffensives that will come.
And the answer to that is: We'll see. Historically there are 2 cases when Russia concedes in a war: 1. Change of political regime (typically a bloody affair). 2. Loss of 0.5 million men. We're not close to either of those scenarios. Coup d'etat against Putin seems unlikely and as far as losses in manpower go we're only about halfway there if estimates are to be believed. Arguably as long as they are gaining ground not even loss of a half a milion men will be enough. As things stand they know they can grind down Ukraine in the long term. I don't think that is true at all. And it's likely that the Russian leadership knows as well that the longer this war drags on, the worse it will be for them. For now they are able to draw equipment from their stockpiles to make up the losses, but those stockpiles are not infinite. The quality of stuff they pull from storage decreased over the last half year or so, and the same can be noted among a lot of different categories. Their cruise missiles become less and less sophisticated. They aren't firing Iskandar anymore, it's mostly Onyx and S300 missiles along with older stocks of cruise missiles that are, quite frankly, pretty bad at hitting their intended targets. The severity of their artillery has greatly diminished and so, too, did their use of helicopters and aircraft. They can keep up the supply of manpower, sure, but how well soldiers without equipment are doing can be seen in those endless probing attacks both by Wagner and the regular Russian army. That is to say, they are getting absolutely obliterated. As long as the West is supplying Ukraine, the worse it will become for Russia in the long term. In almost all categories of ground equipment, Ukraine has gained more material than they have lost. In some of those categories significantly so. Russia is not close to the breaking point, but it's only going to get worse for them over time. And keep in mind that they withdrew from Afghanistan after suffering less than 100k casualties, dead or wounded, over a 10 year period. They have blown way past that number in less than a year.
Recently there has been a good assessment on Russian pov by Estonians.
In short - they are certain much greater resources will win in sufficiently long run.
And unfortunately chances are they are not wrong.
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But Russia has less resources? NATO has access to like 100x more resources than Russia and they're the ones supplying Ukraine.
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I think you know that Ukraine won't get to use all these NATO resources.
We already know that in heavy equipment they are going to be outnumbered and outgunned if they are not already.
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They don't need all the NATO resources. Home ground advantage counts for a lot. You need 3-4x the numbers as an attacker to be able to win. In highly fortified areas this becomes more like 5-7x ratio. So, for every 10k UA soldiers RU needs to send 30-70k of their own if they want to advance.
This war is and will remain a grueling experience for Russia. I wonder if they can achieve enough before their economy collapses completely, because it seems right now like they're on a time limit which isn't really good for their overall strategy and current rate of advancement.
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So one of the top stories in Swedish news right now is
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream
Basically a Pulitzer price winning journalist (whom I for the record have never heard of) whose credentials include breaking the stories of the Mai Lai massacre and the Abu Ghraib prison torture (those 2 I have heard of -.-), is claiming that American and Norwegian special ops blew up Nordstream 1 and 2.
The idea that the US (and Norway) would carry out a military attack on a Nato ally sounds like a Russian fever dream. But this guy has evidently broken stories before that the US military very much did not want him to break. What would even the motivation be though, the pipeline wasnt running anyone. There really was never any danger of Germany leaving the pro-ukraine coalition, so meh. Still seems more likely that it was Putin.
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Not to mention the fact that the sanctioned NS2 was damaged much less severely and Russia immediately called for the sanctions to be lifted so that they could supply Europe with gas (while deliberately limiting transit through their southern pipes). I find the US being behind this highly unlikely. Extremely high risk for very little benefit.
Has he broken any stories that would incriminate Russia before? Maybe it's another Assange or Snowden.
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On February 09 2023 06:06 KlaCkoN wrote:So one of the top stories in Swedish news right now is https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-streamBasically a Pulitzer price winning journalist (whom I for the record have never heard of) whose credentials include breaking the stories of the Mai Lai massacre and the Abu Ghraib prison torture (those 2 I have heard of -.-), is claiming that American and Norwegian special ops blew up Nordstream 1 and 2. The idea that the US (and Norway) would carry out a military attack on a Nato ally sounds like a Russian fever dream. But this guy has evidently broken stories before that the US military very much did not want him to break. What would even the motivation be though, the pipeline wasnt running anyone. There really was never any danger of Germany leaving the pro-ukraine coalition, so meh. Still seems more likely that it was Putin.
Just read the story, it seems retarded.
Norway blew up Nordstream? Really. Norway? For what, being a good boy and for selling more gas? Seems like a pretty big risk to take for very little gain seeing that the pipeline was basically offline.
Also Sweden has a magnetic and sonar system that we successfully use to force Russian subs to surface. When has this happened except for the time when the sub literally ran itself aground? And what does sub hunting in the archipelago have to do with Nordstream?
But hey I guess if it's true Norway just declared war against Germany. I guess they can invoke the European defence act and we can go annex Norway together after the war in Ukraine has finished. Article 5 is not in effect since they declared. :D
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Norway28796 Posts
I mean yeah Norway was probably one actor that stood to benefit but it would by a very wide and significant margin be the most ludicrously surprising thing of my life if Norwegian special ops was involved in that. 'Somewhat more money' isn't really something that motivates us when compared with 'not being considered a rogue state' or whatever.
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If anything I think the primary motivation for blowing up the NS was the equivalent of forcibly cutting the umbilical connecting Russia and Germany. It could be done by either side really. On one hand this forced Germany to make a stand as they didn't really have to tip-toe around their deals with Russia any more. On the other hand in the long run this is probably going to kill German industry for a very long time as it's heavily dependent on gas and metals coming out of Russia and there's simply no substitute for that currently.
Russian gas amounted to 40% of Germany's needs if not more. It's not a gap that you can plug easily and sourcing it from other places will probably be way more expensive which in turn will rise the prices of everything and so on and on.
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On February 09 2023 03:58 Manit0u wrote:
But Russia has less resources? NATO has access to like 100x more resources than Russia and they're the ones supplying Ukraine.
Maybe he means Russia has more natural resources which may be true. However, Russia already lost the technological battle. They cannot use more modern weapons than they currently do. So Ukraine's weapons will only improve from here. I think NATO willing to escalate support will lead to either collapse of Russia or Putin trying to save his face with modest gains in territory if at all possible. We'll see. Upcoming offensive and Ukraine's plan to re-take Crimea will probably decide the tide of war in the short-term. 
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On February 09 2023 06:34 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I mean yeah Norway was probably one actor that stood to benefit but it would by a very wide and significant margin be the most ludicrously surprising thing of my life if Norwegian special ops was involved in that. 'Somewhat more money' isn't really something that motivates us when compared with 'not being considered a rogue state' or whatever.
Just so you know the terms for avoiding war (or surrender if you choose to fight) has to be harsh.
I'm thinking
1) Not allowed to compete in international skiing competitons.
2) Leederhosen is the new national dress.
3) All automated messeges like subways, elevators etc have to be in Swedish (German would make more sense but Swedish will piss them off more).
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EPT
