Russo-Ukrainian War Thread - Page 704

On August 09 2024 16:22 Falling wrote:
People are fools if this impacts Ukraine's 'good guys' image. + Show Spoiler +

On August 09 2024 17:32 GreenHorizons wrote:

I don't think it's so much about "good guy image" but plausible deniability for making targets in western nations legitimate.

The West doesn't want Russia responding to weapons from their countries attacking targets in Russia by attacking targets in the weapon's country of origin, and Russia doesn't want to be pressured to respond to such attacks in such a way.

It's basically in both sides (not so much actual Ukrainians) interest to limit the conflict to Ukraine.

On August 09 2024 18:09 KwarK wrote:
Russian Telegram seems to think that the Russian tanks which were destroyed in transit on day 1 in Kursk were destroyed by a KA52. This is one of the upsides of this kind of attack, Russian command and control has been extremely poor throughout the war with large amounts of blue on blue.

Russia has performed relatively well in set piece attritional battles in which they can reliably level an area without worrying about who is there. They can schedule air attacks weeks in advance knowing the front is basically static etc. But once you introduce variables it all falls apart for them, half the time they’re instructed not to shoot at any aircraft on the assumption that whatever lock they get is friendly and the other half they’re shooting at every aircraft with predictable results.

Regardless of whether Ukraine entrenches or retreats after a successful raid I think this has shown a critical weakness of Russia. And there’s a thousand miles of front to pick from if Ukraine wants to do more of the same. I doubt we’ll see any more frontal attacks into concentrated minefields like we did last year until Ukraine gains air superiority, this more mobile strategy is more effective.

On August 09 2024 19:07 Manit0u wrote:


Yes. Russia has really nailed down the large scale attritional warfare where they can just pour more shells and bodies on the problem. Rapid response to distant parts of the front is definitely not their forte.

This video sums it up nicely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np3s8VZsKXc

Also touches on the big problem for the RU propaganda streams and media. They've got a big headache and people are really confused. They did report the incursion but said it was small and quickly stopped so nothing to worry about. This directly contradicts the fact that people can see UA soldiers outside their windows and calls to evacuate whole towns.

I'm seriously interested in how they're going to try and spin this (and continue calling this "special operation" instead of war).

On August 09 2024 19:04 0x64 wrote:
Now is the time where we would be extremely interested in A_CH's opinions. When the propaganda has no coherence formed yet.

Also reports of Youtube being blocked in Russia, is it still blocked?

On August 09 2024 19:31 KwarK wrote:
Another relevant point is that this situation scuppers any chance of an imposed ceasefire on current lines.

After the failure to conquer Ukraine outright and the failure of subsequent attempts to destroy the economy and infrastructure of Ukraine it has been hard to see any realistic exit ramp for Putin. He hoped to simply conquer Ukraine militarily. Then he hoped to destroy the power and gas infrastructure and let winter destroy them. Then he hoped to destroy the export and economic infrastructure. Then he hoped to wear them down with attrition.

That has all failed and the pool of remaining resources for Russia is rapidly drying up. Cash reserves are depleted and the Russian government is now rotating payday loans at increasingly bad interest rates. Soviet legacy stocks are scraping the 1950s bottom of the barrel. Payments to volunteers are 10x what they were at the start of the war as the number of new people interested in dying in Ukraine fails to keep up with casualties.

There is now no real path to an outright Russian victory, only a freezing of the conflict which Putin could still somehow spin as a victory. If the lines cease to move, the minefields become denser, and the west loses interest then there was a chance of a world in which they keep what they’ve stolen. It’s undermined somewhat by the legal annexations of land they don’t actually occupy but they could quietly undo that. Russians are used to flexible truth, they’d be able to accept that Kherson is both constitutionally and an intrinsic part of Russia and remaining part of Ukraine in any ceasefire. But
Kursk would be trickier.

Selling Russians on the glorious victory of the new borders along the contact line doesn’t work as well anymore. A frozen conflict is no longer acceptable to Russian people and won’t be unless Russian territorial integrity is preserved. They’ll need to retake every inch of Kursk before playing for a frozen conflict which makes the path to any kind of Russian victory that much further away.

On August 09 2024 19:04 0x64 wrote:
Now is the time where we would be extremely interested in A_CH's opinions. When the propaganda has no coherence formed yet.

Also reports of Youtube being blocked in Russia, is it still blocked?

On August 09 2024 19:04 0x64 wrote:
Now is the time where we would be extremely interested in A_CH's opinions. When the propaganda has no coherence formed yet.

Also reports of Youtube being blocked in Russia, is it still blocked?

On August 09 2024 23:47 Sermokala wrote:
More valuable than any land taken is the propaganda victory to the people in Russia. The long long lines of people evacuating in the rumor of a Ukrainian breakthrough isn't something putin could hold off addressing for a day. Those people who left are right now spreading the word of the Ukrainian armys assult in every gas station hotel parking lot store train station.

How do you spin that as a strongman? If you start saying the Ukrainians are committing war crimes then how are you protecting them from this? If you pushed them back so fast why are these people still here and not able to go back?

If Ukrainian forces get near the kursk nuclear power plant how can you respond? Best case Ukrainian engineers scram the plant by engaging safety measures cutting off power for a lot of people before leaving.

On August 09 2024 19:42 a_ch wrote:
If they plan to to fortify and hold the territories - then they'll need to at least take Sudzha, since the other territories are mostly lowlands which would be difficult to defend.

Here, in a bold move, Russian forces launched a massive wave of attacks on Chasiv Yar's northern flank, aiming to cross the canal and establish a critical bridgehead. Despite their relentless efforts and heavy use of mechanized infantry, the operation faced fierce Ukrainian resistance, leading to a decisive confrontation.

With such intense, yet casualty-heavy operations, the Russian command achieved limited success in accumulating forces at Zhovtnevyi district. The Russian survival rate throughout the operation was low because there were three to four survivors from a dismounted squad of eight carried by a BMP during the assault. Ukrainian fighters reported that they did not have enough time to locate and destroy surviving Russian fighters from the first BMP assault because Russians kept sending one squad after another with less than 60 minutes between the attacks. The surviving three to four stormtroopers of each assault unit would thus gradually accumulate for further assaults to expand the bridgehead.

This tactic worked for as long as the Russians had reserves to deploy for reinforcements and replacement of losses. However, as the Russian command soon ran out of additional troops and equipment to deploy, the intensity of the assault gradually decreased, leading to its halt. This situation gave the Ukrainian fighters time to locate and destroy the isolated Russian survivors of the assaults...