Russo-Ukrainian War Thread - Page 408

On March 30 2023 19:06 2_2 wrote:
It doesn't matter if they have submarines, guys operating a radar in Siberia and a million soldiers on paper, what matters is how many bodies they can put on the ground in Ukraine, how many of them are in shape to fight and how well they can be supplied. And they're evidently having problems with all three. Framing this to the effect of "the army is just sitting in Russia, they only sent some expandable nobodies" is disingenuous at best.

On March 30 2023 21:11 Manit0u wrote:


I never said that. All I said is that the force sent to Ukraine was not enough and mostly comprised of under-manned units, LPR/DPR troops as well as fresh conscripts. Very few of the actually trained and veteran units were operating in this war.

“We now estimate 97% of the whole Russian army is in Ukraine,” U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told the British Broadcasting Corp.’s “Today” show on Wednesday.

In February 2022, Russian military forces invaded Ukraine as part of what President Vladimir Putin described as a “limited military operation.” This operation quickly turned into a protracted war now in its second year. For Russia, the response from the international community has been anything but favorable, consisting of sanctions, embargoes, and the termination of programs. This has been especially true for Roscosmos, which has had several cooperative agreements canceled and terminated its participation in the International Space Station (ISS).

On March 7th, 2023, Kazakhstan seized control of the Biaterek launch complex at the Baikonur Cosmodrome – Russia’s main launch site since 1955. According to statements by KZ24 News and The Moscow Times, the Kakazh government has impounded Russian assets at the Center for Utilization of Ground-based Space Infrastructure (TsENKI), a subsidiary of Roscosmos. It is also preventing Russian officials from leaving the country or liquidating Roscosmos assets. This incident is another example of how Russia’s space program is suffering collateral damage from the war in Ukraine.

According to The Moscow Times, the decision was made because the Russian state company failed to pay its debts to the Kazakh government, which are now over 13.5 billion tenges (2.258 billion rubles; $29.7 million). This debt is part of the “Baiterek” program, a Kazakh-Russian joint venture related to the development of the Soyuz-5 booster. This program was created in 2005 to speed the transition from launch vehicles that rely on highly-toxic unsymmetric dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) – aka. “heptyl” fuel (C2H8N2) – and adopting ecologically safe propellants and launch practices.

Other sources attribute this recent decision to “incorrect behavior” and harsh statements on behalf of Yuri Borisov, who became the head of Roscosmos in 2022 as part of an administrative shakeup. Last year, construction of the Soyuz-5 launch pad was pushed back by six months, leading Borisov to criticize the delay in general and Kasakhstan’s Minister of Communications (Bagdat Musin) in particular. Musin is directly engaged in Kazakhstan’s space industry and responded in kind, calling Borisov’s remarks a “diplomatic miscalculation.”

The travel ban and the hold on Roscosmos assets extend to the head of the TsENKI unit, who is under arrest pending the completion of the investigation. The purpose of Baiterek was to estimate the environmental impact of conducting regular launches with the Soyuz-5, which relies on a combination of kerosene and liquid oxygen (LOX). According to the KZ24 News report, this seizure has slowed the construction of a new launch pad at Baikonur and may jeopardize the rocket’s development.

“A ban on utilizing resources and conducting financial operations, as well as instability in negotiating positions as a whole are slowing down the priority direction of work at Baikonur, namely the construction of a new launch pad for the Soyuz-5 Booster,” says the report. So far, Russia has invested 62 billion rubles ($810 million) in the booster, the construction of the new launch pad, and related efforts. All of that could become a total loss at this point unless Russia can come to an arrangement with Kazakhstan on how to service its debts.

The Baikonur Cosmodrome was built in the 1950s as a test range for the R-7 Semyorka, the Soviet Union’s first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and the basis of the Sputnik, Vostok, Voskhod, and Soyuz launch vehicles. The test range was transformed by 1957 to service space launches and became the site where the first artificial satellite was sent into orbit (Sputnik 1) on October 4th, 1957. It was also here that the first man (Yuri Gagarin) went to space on April 12th, 1961 (Vostok 1), and the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova (Vostok 6), on June 16th, 1963.

Since 1994, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has leased the site from Kazakhstan and continued to use it as its main space complex. In 2012, Russia began constructing a new launch complex to reduce its dependence on Kazakhstan called the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the far eastern Amur region near the Chinese border. However, the planning and construction of this complex have been delayed in recent years due to reports of embezzlement and fraud, leading to the arrest of many officials involved.

While Russia still has launch facilities throughout the country – like Kapustin Yar and the Plestsk and Svobodny Cosmodromes – they are either limited in terms of launch capacity, the types of launches they can support, or are no longer operational. As a result, the seizure of Baikonur’s facilities, Roscosmos assets, and the arrest of its officials have effectively grounded Roscosmos for now.

On March 30 2023 21:58 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
So Russia's space program is effectively grounded now as Kazakhstan has taken control of the Roscosmos facility, completely. Entirely due to the not paying of bills, and sanctions, and diplomatic strong arming. Now the question is how Putin can respond; if he does so militarily then who knows. Or pays the bills. Or makes Yuri Borisov, who has been very pro war about Ukraine etc., to go there cap in hand who has burned a lot of bridges in the country and has not helped the situation at all.

The Russians personnel there are affectively under arrest.



Source

On March 30 2023 22:20 Simberto wrote:


With what military would Putin react militarily? This is another effect of the Ukraine war. Kazakhstan would never have done this two years ago. The Russian military was (apparently) scary back then. But now? They are already fighting in Ukraine and mostly losing.

A lot of Russian foreign policy was built on the implicit threat that they could just smash their neighbours if they act in a way they don't like. Now that that doesn't seem to be the case, more and more cracks are starting to show.

On March 30 2023 21:11 Manit0u wrote:


I never said that. All I said is that the force sent to Ukraine was not enough and mostly comprised of under-manned units, LPR/DPR troops as well as fresh conscripts. Very few of the actually trained and veteran units were operating in this war.

Why would Russia opt for this is anyone's guess. My assumption is that after they failed their initial plan of winning this within the first couple of days/weeks it all fell apart for them and they realized they're facing some hard resistance and won't be able to break through without heavy casualties. I guess that for political reasons they decided to send mostly troops from rural regions instead of probably better equipped and trained ones from the main cities strictly to avoid public backlash if heavy losses would be reported. It would be much harder to hide the actual number of casualties and the state of the war if the ones dying would be sons of people with more knowledge and means to seek the truth and potentially having some insider info and influence inside the apparatus.

Another thing has already been mentioned, they do need a substantial amount of personnel to man their bases and borders (Russia is a very large country after all) and some of their top equipment and personnel simply can't be used in this war (fleets, most of the airforce).

Considering that Russia has about 1.1m active personnel, of which 180k is air force and 140k is navy this leaves around 800k army. With 200k sent to Ukraine in it's initial stages it's a commitment of 25% of their land army.

Now, 220k of that are border troops which leaves around 400k left total, of which probably a substantial amount is support personnel, desk-pushers etc. so it would seem like they only have around 25% of their active personnel available and they probably want to keep it for protection rather than send them to die and leave their homeland almost defenseless.

On March 31 2023 05:22 JimmiC wrote:
A lot of people are very conserned about China giving military aid to Russia, which would really help Russia. But what about China taking back (and likely more) the parts of China that the USSR took from them? They also want to reconstruct the great empire and taking back from Russia seems a lot easier than fighting the US for Taiwan, not to mention all the natural reasources that exist their and their need for them.

Maybe China is just waiting for Russia to get weak enough to where they can attack or just have the political/economic power to put in their own puppet government.

On March 31 2023 05:22 JimmiC wrote:
A lot of people are very conserned about China giving military aid to Russia, which would really help Russia. But what about China taking back (and likely more) the parts of China that the USSR took from them? They also want to reconstruct the great empire and taking back from Russia seems a lot easier than fighting the US for Taiwan, not to mention all the natural reasources that exist their and their need for them.

Maybe China is just waiting for Russia to get weak enough to where they can attack or just have the political/economic power to put in their own puppet government.

On March 31 2023 06:32 JimmiC wrote:
Im not saying it is likely, but it is not like it is some wild thought no one has thought of and only shows up on video game forums, I quickly googled it and there is a fair bit. Russia is not the only empire buidler, two years ago suggesting Russia was going to full scale invade Ukraine, in fact most did not believe it was likely or even possible until it happened.

Heres a short opinion piece from almost a decade ago in the NYT.

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/03/where-do-borders-need-to-be-redrawn/why-china-will-reclaim-siberia

And heres a recent article explaining the opinion in more detail.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/27/xi-jinpings-plan-annex-russian-territory-see/

There is lots more out there if these two do not float your boat.

On March 31 2023 06:13 Excludos wrote:


Not too worried about this. China's eyes are all on Taiwan atm. By all accounts, if China is ever going to invades Taiwan, it's likely to be within the next 3 years. They don't have time or capacity to diddle with anyone else