Russia-Ukraine War

[mr.WHO]

Well there's a chance the governments will auction off the property and turn over the funds. There's a crazy amount of money going into Ukraine so I guess it really doesn't matter where it comes from but I would personally enjoy the irony of selling Russian property to fund Ukraine's liberation.

Oligarchs kept Putin in power and benefited from his reign, so it's hard to find a better group to punish for this war.
Stripping oligarchs of their wealth would actually be a first step towards some kind of de-putinization of Russia.

While this doesn't change the fact that there will be hard years to come for average Russians, taking out on oligarchs might actually be taken positively by Russians as well.
There will be huge problem for diplomats for years to come not to turn Russia into continent size North Korea (China must be salivating right now).
Taking out oligarchs will be crucial in it.

[clakclak]

Well there's a chance the governments will auction off the property and turn over the funds. There's a crazy amount of money going into Ukraine so I guess it really doesn't matter where it comes from but I would personally enjoy the irony of selling Russian property to fund Ukraine's liberation.

Oligarchs kept Putin in power and benefited from his reign, so it's hard to find a better group to punish for this war.
Stripping oligarchs of their wealth would actually be a first step towards some kind of de-putinization of Russia.

While this doesn't change the fact that there will be hard years to come for average Russians, taking out on oligarchs might actually be taken positively by Russians as well.
There will be huge problem for diplomats for years to come not to turn Russia into continent size North Korea (China must be salivating right now).
Taking out oligarchs will be crucial in it.

I think I have heard this before somewhere... ah right. A certain French dude 200+ years ago:

Five or six hundred [aristocratic] heads lopped off would have assured you repose and happiness; a false humanity has restrained your arm and suspended your blows; it will cost the lives of millions of your brothers.

- L'Ami du peuple, vol. 2, p. 1121 (using the Wikiquotes translations because my French sucks)

[notaterran]

If Ukraine will hold for one more week, it will hold for good.

I thought Russia had more soldiers and hardware, and they were slowly advancing?

[fiksal]

joke of the day from inside of Russia:


- what is the latest model of iphone?

- the one in your pocket

[Vertigo 7]

If Ukraine will hold for one more week, it will hold for good.

I thought Russia had more soldiers and hardware, and they were slowly advancing?

They're advancing in some places, falling back in others, and completely halted in some. One of the big problems that Putin is facing is feeding and fueling his troops. He may have ammo, but he's short on food and fuel and can't maintain supply lines.

[Vertigo 7]

btw, if you guys didn't catch this, Russian Maj. Gen. Andrei Sukhovetsky was killed Thursday in Ukraine. He was the commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army.

Not that it will change much for the fighting but it's a serious blow to Putin and his inner circle.

[Sovereign01]

If Ukraine will hold for one more week, it will hold for good.

I thought Russia had more soldiers and hardware, and they were slowly advancing?

They're advancing in some places, falling back in others, and completely halted in some. One of the big problems that Putin is facing is feeding and fueling his troops. He may have ammo, but he's short on food and fuel and can't maintain supply lines.

It's like the Russians have no concept of military logistics...

[mr.WHO]

It's like the Russians have no concept of military logistics...

It seem Russians have great concept of logistics, but good old corruption made it impossible to execute.

Take a look at this analysis:
https://youtu.be/g4ql6fxzuQM?t=218


In short - due to corruption, they failed to do proper maintenance of something so trivial, as military truck tires.
Add to this that 30-50% of invasion force is conscripts, who have no idea how to handle the equipment, it might be that most of Russian logistic convoys loose tires on first bumb on the road.

Now imagine that the truck is something basic, entry level and add something WAAAAAAY more compliciated like a Tank, Plane or Warship.
Russia can have thousands tanks and planes on paper, but if they are unable to leave garage, they are as good as useless.
One fully operational tank is much better than 10-20 barelly operational tanks.

This actually make Ukrainian Armed Forces in advantage, they have home-territory advantage, their army is smaller but more focused, well maintained and Russia seem to be unable to muster and introduce their numeric superirity.

Last, but not least, Russia is huge and have several other border conflicts that must have some standing forces to guard, whatever equipment is still operational also need to cover these theaters:
- Chechenya
- Syria
- Georgia
- keeping Belarus in check
- Kaliningrad/Baltics staring contest with NATO
- saber rattling towards Sweden/Finland
- Kuril islands with Japan
- lack of trust on Russian-China border (despite declared friendship, they do have some feuds and bad blood as much as with NATO).


Russia is literally overstreached.

Edit: After the war end, I think it's very likely there will be an attempt for huge Stalin-like purge in Russian military, so it's another reason why it's likely Putin won't survive this war.

[Warenwolf]

It's like the Russians have no concept of military logistics...

It seem Russians have great concept of logistics, but good old corruption made it impossible to execute.

1)
That youtube channels is merely commenting a twitter - go there directly and save yourself 17 minutes of your life hearing commentary from guys who obviously partly understand what they are seeing: https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status ... 5250002944

2)
Now, I am not saying corruption is not endemic in Russia (because it is) but it can't explain everything that goes wrong. This is some epic ineptness we are witnessing here.

Right now they are stopped in the north due to a bridge being taken out - go back in this thread and read one of my replies to you when I was talking about artillery cratering road as one possibility of slowing down the column because the Russians probably do not have engineering troops with them. Well, one of traditional tools of trade such troops have is bridging equipment.
Now they are stuck, according Ukrainians, due to a destroyed bridge for an entire day. Which btw is the among the most common eng problem to happen during a war where an army advances along roads or railroads.

And one can easily make an argument that this is an example of not being able to properly predict logistical requirements of an operation.

And as counterargument - if officers get their assignments and promotions due to corruption, lack of skill is to be expected.

[mr.WHO]

Now, I am not saying corruption is not endemic in Russia (because it is) but it can't explain everything that goes wrong. This is some epic ineptness we are witnessing here.

You're right, there is no single explenation, but there are mulitple systemic failures on many things.
Together they greatly stack together into one big FUBAR.

The video also had other example, like soldiers in that big convoy NOT switching off their phones, making it vissible in google maps, or paratrooper planes not switching off public transponder (Ukraine claimed they shot down several planes full of paratroopers - it wouldn't be suprise if it was these planes).


There was also one interesting twitter note that I can't find now, that 53% of current Russian mid level officer cadre has some Ukrainian origins (as Ukraine was major officer training hub during USSR).
While this is only a guess, but it's not unlikely that many of them might be hesitant to fight Ukraine, or even silently sabotaging the invasion - e.g. many units movements make no sence or are otright bad, liek sending unit to make huge flanking move only to get flanked and cut out itself.


As I said there is no single explenation, but I think we'll have some very interesting books about this war, 10 years in future.

[mr.WHO]

Ukrainian Azov brigade...

Before you claim moral high ground, didn't Russia send their Chechen units into conflict as well?
It's hard to see Russia as good guy when they do this.

Don't get me wrong, no one would shed a tear if Azov and Chechen killed eachother somewhere in open field, but unfortunately we are not in good old style medieval battle.
Both Azov and Chechen are very tiny percentile of Ukraine/Russian forces.

[CBJ]

I have removed the conspiracy theory discussions from this thread. Stick to discussing the current Ukraine situation; it is complicated and emotive enough as it is.

[Vertigo 7]

In Zelenskyy's latest announcement, he's already talking about reconstruction and refugees returning home. He must see the end of this conflict is coming fairly soon. Russia has already lost more than 10k troops, hundreds of tanks and apcs, close to 50 jets and helicopters, and more than 1k small transport vehicles. Putin's army is shrinking while Ukraine's is growing. Eventually, Ukraine is going to stop playing defensively and start going on the offence en masse.

[Chips]

In Zelenskyy's latest announcement, he's already talking about reconstruction and refugees returning home. He must see the end of this conflict is coming fairly soon. Russia has already lost more than 10k troops, hundreds of tanks and apcs, close to 50 jets and helicopters, and more than 1k small transport vehicles. Putin's army is shrinking while Ukraine's is growing. Eventually, Ukraine is going to stop playing defensively and start going on the offence en masse.

We don't actually know what Russia has lost... there's two different sides claiming different things. The latest maps seem to show rapid advances by Russia in various areas.

E.g. MoD (UK) assessement on 3rd March
https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/14 ... 21/photo/1

4th March
https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/14 ... 74/photo/1

[Warenwolf]

Russia has already lost more than 10k troops, hundreds of tanks and apcs, close to 50 jets and helicopters, and more than 1k small transport vehicles. Putin's army is shrinking while Ukraine's is growing. Eventually, Ukraine is going to stop playing defensively and start going on the offence en masse.

Well I am firmly on Ukrainian side on this one but I call BS on the numbers coming from their defense department.

Body counts have historically always been inflated and establishing accurate losses in a conflict has sometimes taken decades.
Especially body counts is highly unreliable because the situation on a modern battlefield is not such that you can actually go out and count the dead and wounded.
Same applies to armored vehicles - unless you end up in control of the battlefield and control of the wreck, there is no way of knowing if the vehicle you hit was really disabled or damaged then towed and repaired behind the enemy lines. Even some of the videos where we can see Bayraktar drone strikes vehicle don't necessarily mean that this particular vehicle is not repairable.

All in all - take losses numbers with grain of salt.

PS:
If Zelenskyy does not strap on for long fight, he heading into a nasty surprise.

[Warenwolf]

We don't actually know what Russia has lost... there's two different sides claiming different things. The latest maps seem to show rapid advances by Russia in various areas.

Yeah but they are overly exposed in North along some of the axes of advance and have diverging lines of attack in south.

And when we are talking about south, Putin's forces are trying to secure on west of crimea black sea coastline up to Donetsk that is blocked anyway to Ukraine and trying to link up with Donetsk area that is anyway bordering Russia.

Both in North and South, I question how effective is their control of the land since they have entered entire affair with too few soldiers to control the land which 2.5 times bigger than UK.

[mr.WHO]

And when we are talking about south, Putin's forces are trying to secure on west of crimea black sea coastline up to Donetsk that is blocked anyway to Ukraine and trying to link up with Donetsk area that is anyway bordering Russia.

In the South-East, the road to Odessa is blocked with dozens rivers and canals - it's a deathtrap for Russian advance.

The only direction where Russian might have free reign is in South-East and all the territory East of Dniper is vulnerable.

It's unfortunate, but at some point Ukraine will have to withdraw from East to preserve the core of their professional army.
The withdrawal would be temporary, so that Russians extend their logistic lines, hit by guerilla tactics and become vulnerable to counter-attack.

Poland did the same in 1920 in Russo-Polish war.
Russian army took half the country (which BTW they claimed was ethnically Russian and would welcome them as liberators) and was knocking at Warsaw doorstep.
We smashed them and counterattacked, retaking most of territory and forced them to negotiate truce.

[Vertigo 7]

In Zelenskyy's latest announcement, he's already talking about reconstruction and refugees returning home. He must see the end of this conflict is coming fairly soon. Russia has already lost more than 10k troops, hundreds of tanks and apcs, close to 50 jets and helicopters, and more than 1k small transport vehicles. Putin's army is shrinking while Ukraine's is growing. Eventually, Ukraine is going to stop playing defensively and start going on the offence en masse.

We don't actually know what Russia has lost... there's two different sides claiming different things. The latest maps seem to show rapid advances by Russia in various areas.

E.g. MoD (UK) assessement on 3rd March
https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/14 ... 21/photo/1

4th March
https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/14 ... 74/photo/1

Ehh, I dunno that'd I'd call that rapid advances. The only area that shows Russia moving is out of Sumy through Romny. It's true, though, Russia is gaining in some areas but they're also losing in others.

For example, there's unconfirmed reports that the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant is back under Ukrainian control. Russian forces have withdrawn from Kherson. Ukraine has launched a counter-offensive to retake Kharkiv. And farmers continue to jack Russian tanks all over the place - hilarious, btw

Russia has already lost more than 10k troops, hundreds of tanks and apcs, close to 50 jets and helicopters, and more than 1k small transport vehicles. Putin's army is shrinking while Ukraine's is growing. Eventually, Ukraine is going to stop playing defensively and start going on the offence en masse.

Well I am firmly on Ukrainian side on this one but I call BS on the numbers coming from their defense department.

Body counts have historically been inflated and establishing accurate losses in a conflict has sometimes taken decades. Especially body counts is highly unreliable because the situation on a modern battlefield is not such that you can actually go out and count the dead and wounded.
Same applies to armored vehicles - unless you end up in control of the battlefield and control of the wreck, there is no way of knowing if the vehicle you hit was really disabled or damaged then towed and repaired behind the enemy lines. Even some of the videos where Bayraktar drone strikes vehicle don't necessarily mean that this particular vehicle is not repairable.

All in all - take losses numbers with grain of salt.

If they are exaggerated, they wouldn't be by much. There's enough video evidence of Russian jets, helicopters, tanks, etc. being destroyed to give it credence. Even just a few hours ago, there were another 3 or 4 helos shot down in the southern region near Mykolaiv and another 2 or 3 fixed wings shot down near Chernihiv. A few of the pilots that ejected had been captured or killed with one of them being ID'd as Mayor Krivolapov, suspected of bombings in Syria.

While it's entirely possible for damaged equipment to be towed back into Russia for repairs, I have a hard time believing much of that is going on, especially the deeper into Ukraine they are. They're having a hard enough time keeping fuel in their active equipment.

[Warenwolf]

If they are exaggerated, they wouldn't be by much. There's enough video evidence of Russian jets, helicopters, tanks, etc. being destroyed to give it credence. Even just a few hours ago, there were another 3 or 4 helos shot down in the southern region near Mykolaiv and another 2 or 3 fixed wings shot down near Chernihiv. A few of the pilots that ejected had been captured or killed with one of them being ID'd as Mayor Krivolapov, suspected of bombings in Syria.

While it's entirely possible for damaged equipment to be towed back into Russia for repairs, I have a hard time believing much of that is going on, especially the deeper into Ukraine they are. They're having a hard enough time keeping fuel in their active equipment.

And if every day was like today (provided that all reported shutdowns were indeed confirmed from today and real), I would be inclined to believe that at least when it comes to hardware Ukrainian's estimates were realistic.

But UKR estimates of casualties in manpower are taken out of their posterior. These kinda of things is not something you can reliably estimate immediately post battle. WW2 losses in certain battles are still discussed today, almost 80 years post-fact.

Historically with manpower one should multiply reported own side losses through media with 2-3 and likewise divide with 2-3 reported enemy losses.
So when Russians report 500 dead and 1500 wounder few days ago, probably they lost 1000-1500 killed and have 3000-4500 wounded. So total casualties are, according to this highly unscientific* guesstimate, between 4000 to 6000 soldiers.



*Multiplier of 2 or 3 is just taken out of sample data of two wars so when I write "should", don't take it as scientifically proven fact.

But let us go to the meat of the matter - every such report in media is PR exercise and should not be used to predict how things will go from here. Right now, Ukrainians are still largely reacting to Russian maneuvers and not forcing invasion force to react instead.

[mr.WHO]

There is also a site that track confirmed equipment losses based on footage analytics, geolocation and several other things to make sure it's not overbloated:
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/a ... pment.html

Note that most of the footage is from Ukraine controlled territory.
As far as anybody know, there could be far more destroyed Ukrainian equipment, undocumented, lying around Russian controlled territory.

Still, given that defender has an advantage it wouldn't be suprising for Russians to have bigger losses than Ukraine.