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On March 16 2022 18:08 Manit0u wrote: US has updated Russian losses to be around 9k.
So, it seems that the Russians have lost 10% of their troops and 4 generals in 3 weeks. That's pretty significant losses.
War shouldn't be a funny matter, but I'm dismayed as well how Russians are doing as a "superpower". Maybe Obama was right when he called Russia just a "regional player" a few years ago. I know it was to piss Russians off, but it turns out to be true. In either case, Ukrainians fight bravely and are a true inspiration not to give up. A good lesson for all troubles caused between 1944 and 1991, which was probably avoidable if we, as eastern nations, fought back then. Oh well.. hopefully we learn now.
On March 16 2022 18:08 Manit0u wrote: US has updated Russian losses to be around 9k.
So, it seems that the Russians have lost 10% of their troops and 4 generals in 3 weeks. That's pretty significant losses.
War shouldn't be a funny matter, but I'm dismayed as well how Russians are doing as a "superpower". Maybe Obama was right when he called Russia just a "regional player" a few years ago. I know it was to piss Russians off, but it turns out to be true. In either case, Ukrainians fight bravely and are a true inspiration not to give up. A good lesson for all troubles caused between 1944 and 1991, which was probably avoidable if we, as eastern nations, fought back then. Oh well.. hopefully we learn now.
I wouldn't just discount Russia (or the USSR) through history because of this. What we are seeing now is the result of decades of corruption and neglect.
One of the breakout stars in military/political/historical analysis of the conflict is a Russian historian named Kamil Galeev who has been posting really insightful Twitter threads. He has one dedicated to explaining why Russia's military is weak, you can follow it here:
The tldr: "Russian army isn't used to fight wars against regular armies. It also holds low position in Russian dominance hierarchy. Ruling state security fears rivalry from the military and makes every effort to castrate them"
The part that most struck me was how frequently Russian/Soviet generals have been purged. The biggest one being the pre-WW2 purge that basically wiped out the entire top military structure and left the Soviet Union really vulnerable to op Barbarossa. Still today in Putin's era, generals are disappearing mysteriously after each conflict, to keep the military structure in check and make sure no superstar general with public support emerges. The ruling class does not want a strong army because it's a threat. So the massive failure of the military is a consequence of its political system.
On March 16 2022 21:04 warding wrote: One of the breakout stars in military/political/historical analysis of the conflict is a Russian historian named Kamil Galeev who has been posting really insightful Twitter threads. He has one dedicated to explaining why Russia's military is weak, you can follow it here:
The tldr: "Russian army isn't used to fight wars against regular armies. It also holds low position in Russian dominance hierarchy. Ruling state security fears rivalry from the military and makes every effort to castrate them"
The part that most struck me was how frequently Russian/Soviet generals have been purged. The biggest one being the pre-WW2 purge that basically wiped out the entire top military structure and left the Soviet Union really vulnerable to op Barbarossa. Still today in Putin's era, generals are disappearing mysteriously after each conflict, to keep the military structure in check and make sure no superstar general with public support emerges. The ruling class does not want a strong army because it's a threat. So the massive failure of the military is a consequence of its political system.
I've been reading a fair bit of his analysis and its quite interesting. His VDV (airborne troops) thread was eye-opening, the tl;dr being that these so called special forces are essentially a parade troop. Their 'combat' deployments post ww2 are into Prague '68 and Hungary in the 50s (year escapes me now). Basically they go in to intimidate civilians, not to fight a hostile military force, hence why some of the airborne ops have been such a fiasco from outside perspective.
By law, an officer previously required at least 22 years of cumulative service and a minimum of three years as a lieutenant colonel before being promoted to colonel.[1] With the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2019 (NDAA 2019), military services now have the authorization to directly commission new officers up to the rank of colonel.[2] The pay grade for colonel is O-6
Might be getting mixed up in the NATO vs US differentiations. But yea it's either a Colonel or a Brigadier General.
The comparisons seem meaningless anyway. I've not done any research on this, but from personal experience at least Colonel's don't see combat typically. In Afghanistan, he went out on patrol only to most safe areas the few times he actually left the wire. I'm curious how many of our senior officers even became causalities now.
Not available where I am from, who made that speech, what is it about? And general impressions?
Zelensky made remarks to the US Congress via video conference and urged the US to be the leader of peace by helping to implement a NFZ over Ukraine. Failing that, he asked for more systems to help defend including Surface to Air and fighter jets. Invoked a lot of American idealism right back at Congress and finished with a pretty moving video of Before/After (currently) happening in Ukraine. There were pretty graphic images of dead people (all ages) and bombings.
It was a good speech and with Biden set to speak in a few hours in Belgium, we'll see how it goes.
I found the argument in the YouTube video a few days ago about building a military for a purpose compelling.
The Ukrainian military budget and strategy was focused on winning one specific conflict, this one. They have far fewer resources but the resources concentrated into this conflict are comparable.
Russia spends an absolute fortune on its navy so that it can play at being a global power, Ukraine doesn’t need a navy for the task at hand. Russia spends an absolute fortune on satellite imagery and communications and gets a second rare system, Ukraine asks nicely and gets access the best one in the world. Russia spends an inconceivable amount on ICBMs and nuclear warheads, Ukraine doesn’t need those. Russia spends on next gen weapons generation, Ukraine asks nicely and gets access to modern NATO weapons. Russia maintains an intelligence network, Ukraine gets info from the one NATO already built. Russia maintains a series of global commitments that have very different strategic needs to this war, Ukraine focuses on self defence. Russia focuses on prestige legacy militarism like giant tank forces, Ukraine focuses on the practical objective.
In the first days of the war I was with everyone else in expressing my surprise that they were holding out against overwhelming armoured attacks launched against objectives that were a few hours drive from the border. It seemed inconceivable that the prepared Russians would be unable to seize objectives so close to their own bases of operations. I suspect the Ukrainian military command are far less surprised than everyone else about how this is going.
I was surprised to learn that in 2015 Britain recognized its failure to enforce the Budapest Memorandum (Britain guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial integrity) and deployed troops to Ukraine for training in warfare against the expected Russian invasion (Operation Orbital). I don’t want to take anything away from the Ukrainians but in 2014 there was little military resistance to Russia and the Ukrainian military was relatively inexperienced due to their praiseworthy policy of not starting wars in the Middle East. The British army were there to build skills with combined arms and the application of the resources that had not previously been available to Ukraine (javelins, MANPADS, NLAWs, real time imagery, drone weapons etc.). The British effort wasn’t the only one either. And when the Russians starting deploying on the border for their training exercises the hardware the west had been training the Ukrainian military to use flooded in.
In a lot of western countries there are a lot of military planners who have devoted a lot of time and energy to working with the Ukrainian military so that they have the tools they need today. Probably more time and energy than the Russians put in planning their side of the war. The more that I learn about the planning and resources available to each side the more I see a Ukrainian victory as likely. It wasn’t widely publicized before this conflict for obvious reasons but the Ukrainian military has in many ways been rebuilt to wield a western sword that was custom made to kill Russians.
Senior NATO officials now think it's likely that Russia will never achieve their objectives. Not very surprising anymore all things considered but quite a turnaround from expectations at the start of the war
Nato senior military officials say President Putin has clearly not achieved his military goals in Ukraine so far and "probably will not at the end of the day".
But they added that Russian forces still had the capacity to do "a lot of damage".
The defence officials said that while Russian forces had made gains in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, they had still failed to encircle Kyiv - which they said Russia had expected to do in a matter of days.
An expected Russian amphibious assault in the south near Odessa had also, so far, failed to materialise.
The Nato officials believe that Russia's original military plan had included taking all of Ukraine's Black Sea coast - right up to Moldova.
They assessed that Russia's invasion force was suffering from a lack of fuel and food as well as suffering losses. They said that President Putin was already looking for reinforcements.
One official said it was "highly likely" that would involve bringing in foreign fighters from Syria and private military contractors - such as the Wagner group - to Ukraine.
Another official added that Russia's military reserves "were not a secret weapon". He said that calling on reserve forces was "scratching the bottom of the barrel".
Nato officials say that allies and member states are continuing to send weapons to Ukraine. They said that included old Soviet weaponry, which Ukrainian forces would have been trained to use, as well as Western supplied anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.
On March 17 2022 00:37 RvB wrote: Senior NATO officials now think it's likely that Russia will never achieve their objectives. Not very surprising anymore all things considered but quite a turnaround from expectations at the start of the war
Nato senior military officials say President Putin has clearly not achieved his military goals in Ukraine so far and "probably will not at the end of the day".
But they added that Russian forces still had the capacity to do "a lot of damage".
The defence officials said that while Russian forces had made gains in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, they had still failed to encircle Kyiv - which they said Russia had expected to do in a matter of days.
An expected Russian amphibious assault in the south near Odessa had also, so far, failed to materialise.
The Nato officials believe that Russia's original military plan had included taking all of Ukraine's Black Sea coast - right up to Moldova.
They assessed that Russia's invasion force was suffering from a lack of fuel and food as well as suffering losses. They said that President Putin was already looking for reinforcements.
One official said it was "highly likely" that would involve bringing in foreign fighters from Syria and private military contractors - such as the Wagner group - to Ukraine.
Another official added that Russia's military reserves "were not a secret weapon". He said that calling on reserve forces was "scratching the bottom of the barrel".
Nato officials say that allies and member states are continuing to send weapons to Ukraine. They said that included old Soviet weaponry, which Ukrainian forces would have been trained to use, as well as Western supplied anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.
If Ukraine is 'winning' they are probably not willing to make to many territorial concessions (aka give up Crimea, and the 2 'peoples republics'. Putin is unlikely to want to just admit defeat and go home with nothing. Even a guarantee that Ukraine won't join NATO feels very much like him losing.
Russia likely won't be able to afford to just keep this going indefinitely, and with Western aid Ukraine can likely keep up the fight a lot longer.
So is the world just waiting for Putin to throw in the towel and go home dragging along the tatters of Russia's once status as a major power?
Crimea is going to be a sticking point for sure. There’s no way Putin can back down on it now, they just built a giant bridge to connect it to the rest of Russia.
On March 16 2022 07:36 Biff The Understudy wrote: It also seems to me that comparing the timeline of military campaigns today and 80 years ago doesn't make all that much sense.
I think it's better to remember it took the americans 26 days to win the conventional war in Irak.
Depends on what your definition of "win" is. We had captured Baghdad within the first week. Accomplished pretty much all of our major military objectives within the first month. (except of course for finding those WMDs that never existed but I digress) Obviously the insurgency there still exists so you could say we never officially won that war too.
As far as comparing campaigns from 80 years ago. It seems the Russians are using tactics from 80 years ago in this current invasion so the comparisons seem to remain relevant.
The hardware they use is incredibly different. The german army in 1939 was mainly unmotorized infantry, and much closer to a 1914 army than anything the russians fight with today. There were no missiles, little long range artillery, planes looked like drawings from Leonardo compared to modern jets, and much more importantly, armies were moving around in trains and by walk and had very, very little motorized hardware. Also they had extremely primitive communication systems and very little intelligence.
We are in a completely different era of warfare. It’s like trying to compare the siege of Leningrad and the siege of Constantinople.
On March 17 2022 01:24 Sent. wrote: I hope Ukraine isn't going to accept any limits on its armed forces. It's an absurd thing to do while sharing a border with Russia.
Nothing in that "source" says that Ukraine can't join the EU and and it's defense forces.
On March 17 2022 00:37 RvB wrote: Senior NATO officials now think it's likely that Russia will never achieve their objectives. Not very surprising anymore all things considered but quite a turnaround from expectations at the start of the war
Nato senior military officials say President Putin has clearly not achieved his military goals in Ukraine so far and "probably will not at the end of the day".
But they added that Russian forces still had the capacity to do "a lot of damage".
The defence officials said that while Russian forces had made gains in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, they had still failed to encircle Kyiv - which they said Russia had expected to do in a matter of days.
An expected Russian amphibious assault in the south near Odessa had also, so far, failed to materialise.
The Nato officials believe that Russia's original military plan had included taking all of Ukraine's Black Sea coast - right up to Moldova.
They assessed that Russia's invasion force was suffering from a lack of fuel and food as well as suffering losses. They said that President Putin was already looking for reinforcements.
One official said it was "highly likely" that would involve bringing in foreign fighters from Syria and private military contractors - such as the Wagner group - to Ukraine.
Another official added that Russia's military reserves "were not a secret weapon". He said that calling on reserve forces was "scratching the bottom of the barrel".
Nato officials say that allies and member states are continuing to send weapons to Ukraine. They said that included old Soviet weaponry, which Ukrainian forces would have been trained to use, as well as Western supplied anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.
If Ukraine is 'winning' they are probably not willing to make to many territorial concessions (aka give up Crimea, and the 2 'peoples republics'. Putin is unlikely to want to just admit defeat and go home with nothing. Even a guarantee that Ukraine won't join NATO feels very much like him losing.
Russia likely won't be able to afford to just keep this going indefinitely, and with Western aid Ukraine can likely keep up the fight a lot longer.
So is the world just waiting for Putin to throw in the towel and go home dragging along the tatters of Russia's once status as a major power?
Not seeing a way out really is one of the most depressing aspects of the conflict. Assuming, like you say, that Ukraine "wins" (let's define that as a military stalemate with some portions of eastern Ukraine taken), perhaps Putin declares "victory" in liberating the Don republics, then enters their trenches for some long years while waiting for Ukrainian popular opinion to shift and accept the status of the 'peoples republics'?
On March 17 2022 01:23 KwarK wrote: Crimea is going to be a sticking point for sure. There’s no way Putin can back down on it now, they just built a giant bridge to connect it to the rest of Russia.
Resource rights in the black sea and water to Crimea are both going to be hard to reconcile as well. Putin can't spend the money to maintain the region after this war but Russia can't also risk losing all of it's leverage over selling natural gas to Europe without it.
EPT
