The Invasion of Ukraine

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dyqik
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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by dyqik » Thu Sep 22, 2022 4:35 pm

shpalman wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 4:31 pm
temptar wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 3:58 pm
Herainestold wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 3:27 pm
Maybe Russia cant win out right, but they can hold onto large parts of ukraine, kill lots of people and make everybody miserable. That might be a win in their books.
They have already failed. Now it is a question of admitting it...
Well yes, either Putin has to admit it, or someone willing to admit it has to force Putin out. I am not sure how likely the first is, unless Putin can spin a complete failure as somehow being his plan all along.
"Good news everybody! Ukraine is now de-Nazified, so we can withdraw"

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by shpalman » Thu Sep 22, 2022 4:36 pm

dyqik wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 4:35 pm
shpalman wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 4:31 pm
temptar wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 3:58 pm


They have already failed. Now it is a question of admitting it...
Well yes, either Putin has to admit it, or someone willing to admit it has to force Putin out. I am not sure how likely the first is, unless Putin can spin a complete failure as somehow being his plan all along.
"Good news everybody! Ukraine is now de-Nazified, so we can withdraw"
Which is actually "Good news everybody! We withdrew from Ukraine, so it is now de-Nazified"
having that swing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it meaning a thing
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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Woodchopper » Thu Sep 22, 2022 4:42 pm

Looks like the Russian mobilisation will involve a million men: https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1 ... pXP7tldMcg

But to repeat what has been mentioned already, no way is Russia going to be able to field a million strong army anytime soon, if at all.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Woodchopper » Thu Sep 22, 2022 4:44 pm

For example:
The Russian Ministry of Energy issues notes to national energy, metal and mineral companies requesting 100% of employees to show up at military recruitment offices.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/indus ... men-go-war

They’ll be registered but I think it’s very unlikely that they’ll be sent off to military units.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by jimbob » Thu Sep 22, 2022 4:49 pm

What economy doing?
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by EACLucifer » Thu Sep 22, 2022 4:50 pm

shpalman wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 4:36 pm
dyqik wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 4:35 pm
shpalman wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 4:31 pm

Well yes, either Putin has to admit it, or someone willing to admit it has to force Putin out. I am not sure how likely the first is, unless Putin can spin a complete failure as somehow being his plan all along.
"Good news everybody! Ukraine is now de-Nazified, so we can withdraw"
Which is actually "Good news everybody! We withdrew from Ukraine, so it is now de-Nazified"
"You're being mobilised for the war?"

"So who are we fighting with?"

"The Nazis"

"Yes, but against whom?"

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by EACLucifer » Thu Sep 22, 2022 5:03 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 4:44 pm
For example:
The Russian Ministry of Energy issues notes to national energy, metal and mineral companies requesting 100% of employees to show up at military recruitment offices.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/indus ... men-go-war

They’ll be registered but I think it’s very unlikely that they’ll be sent off to military units.
That assumes decent communication between different organisations. a..eh.le "recruiters" with a quota to fill are unlikely to care if the men they nab are fit to fight or needed elsewhere.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Herainestold » Thu Sep 22, 2022 9:20 pm

temptar wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 3:58 pm
Herainestold wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 3:27 pm
Maybe Russia cant win out right, but they can hold onto large parts of ukraine, kill lots of people and make everybody miserable. That might be a win in their books.
They have already failed. Now it is a question of admitting it. And the sooner they admit it, the fewer people wind up dead. If reduced numbers of war dead were what you truly wanted, you would be screaming for him to withdraw.

But that is not the impression I am getting.
Oh, I think Russia should withdraw. Putin shows no signs of even considering the option. He needs to be either enticed or forced to do so.
A total victory for Ukraine is not in the cards. Russia can pour men and materiel into the grinder for a long time. Russians are more used to suffering than the West.
Putin has to see a way out than can be spun as, if not a total victory, at least not an ignominious defeat. I don't see anybody looking at that.
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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by EACLucifer » Thu Sep 22, 2022 9:35 pm

Herainestold wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 9:20 pm
temptar wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 3:58 pm
Herainestold wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 3:27 pm
Maybe Russia cant win out right, but they can hold onto large parts of ukraine, kill lots of people and make everybody miserable. That might be a win in their books.
They have already failed. Now it is a question of admitting it. And the sooner they admit it, the fewer people wind up dead. If reduced numbers of war dead were what you truly wanted, you would be screaming for him to withdraw.

But that is not the impression I am getting.
Oh, I think Russia should withdraw. Putin shows no signs of even considering the option. He needs to be either enticed or forced to do so.
A total victory for Ukraine is not in the cards.
Please pay the slightest attention to the military situation before spouting stuff like this.

They are slowly grinding their way through their irreplaceable material. It's not just fighing equipment - though a couple of hundred tanks in the last few week's a big deal - it's also things like all-wheel drive trucks. Visually verified losses in that category are in excess of fifteen hundred, and at the the start of the war, they didn't have enough to properly support a small army away from railheads.

Aside from the initial surprise attacks, there's only one way the Russians have been able to advance - massed artillery. Mobilisation doesn't fix that. And massed artillery needs massive supply of ammunition. That's not been possible since GMLRS has been supplied.

I want more western support because I want the war over sooner because that will save lives, but the support pledged should be sufficient to enable victory. Human wave attacks don't work, they haven't worked for centuries.

And there's nothing more dangerous than allowing Putin and his regime any sort of victory here. If they hold on to parts of Ukraine, they'll build up their strength and try it again. If, devil forbid, they achieve more significant results, it will be Moldova next, or Bosnia. Then Poland, the Baltic States, Finland. We cannot allow this. It is safer to remain steadfast and accept some risk in the name of facing down a greater risk.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by jimbob » Thu Sep 22, 2022 9:52 pm

EACLucifer wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 9:35 pm
Herainestold wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 9:20 pm
temptar wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 3:58 pm


They have already failed. Now it is a question of admitting it. And the sooner they admit it, the fewer people wind up dead. If reduced numbers of war dead were what you truly wanted, you would be screaming for him to withdraw.

But that is not the impression I am getting.
Oh, I think Russia should withdraw. Putin shows no signs of even considering the option. He needs to be either enticed or forced to do so.
A total victory for Ukraine is not in the cards.
Please pay the slightest attention to the military situation before spouting stuff like this.

They are slowly grinding their way through their irreplaceable material. It's not just fighing equipment - though a couple of hundred tanks in the last few week's a big deal - it's also things like all-wheel drive trucks. Visually verified losses in that category are in excess of fifteen hundred, and at the the start of the war, they didn't have enough to properly support a small army away from railheads.

Aside from the initial surprise attacks, there's only one way the Russians have been able to advance - massed artillery. Mobilisation doesn't fix that. And massed artillery needs massive supply of ammunition. That's not been possible since GMLRS has been supplied.

I want more western support because I want the war over sooner because that will save lives, but the support pledged should be sufficient to enable victory. Human wave attacks don't work, they haven't worked for centuries.

And there's nothing more dangerous than allowing Putin and his regime any sort of victory here. If they hold on to parts of Ukraine, they'll build up their strength and try it again. If, devil forbid, they achieve more significant results, it will be Moldova next, or Bosnia. Then Poland, the Baltic States, Finland. We cannot allow this. It is safer to remain steadfast and accept some risk in the name of facing down a greater risk.
For example


Ukraine has captured at least one Russian T62. That means Russia is sending tanks whose production stopped in 1975.

That is not the actions of a superpower that is winning.
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by dyqik » Thu Sep 22, 2022 9:59 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 4:44 pm
For example:
The Russian Ministry of Energy issues notes to national energy, metal and mineral companies requesting 100% of employees to show up at military recruitment offices.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/indus ... men-go-war

They’ll be registered but I think it’s very unlikely that they’ll be sent off to military units.
Shutting down Russia's supplies of oil and steel will definitely help them win the war...

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by EACLucifer » Thu Sep 22, 2022 10:00 pm

jimbob wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 9:52 pm
Ukraine has captured at least one Russian T62. That means Russia is sending tanks whose production stopped in 1975.

That is not the actions of a superpower that is winning.
Today, a train loaded with T-62s was seen rolling into a station in occupied Ukraine. Moments later, the station exploded.

Without a counter to GMLRS's range and precision, Russia will find it very hard to achieve the kind of concentrations of firepower in space and in time that they need.

While I generally aim to leave the details of why the military situation is what it is over on the Blyatskrieg thread, it's important to know what they are on this thread. Putin's call for mobilisation was a desparate one, because he was so short of troops they couldn't hold part of the frontline strongly enough, and thus in a war typified by world war one rates of advance, Ukraine pushed >60km in three days and captured hundreds of personnel and the better part of a hundred tanks, further weakening Putin's position.

And mass call-ups of random drunks or Buryat college students isn't going to fix things for him anytime soon. The massed light infantry defence of Kyiv only worked because a) they were strictly on the defensive b) the Russians made dreadful mistakes and left their flanks open, c) the Russians lacked precision strike capabilities Ukraine is now receiving from the west and d) simple, easy to use and lethally effective weapons like the NLAW were provided, that meant that with a few days training, anyone could ambush and kill a tank. Russia has no equivalents.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by EACLucifer » Thu Sep 22, 2022 10:03 pm

dyqik wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 9:59 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 4:44 pm
For example:
The Russian Ministry of Energy issues notes to national energy, metal and mineral companies requesting 100% of employees to show up at military recruitment offices.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/indus ... men-go-war

They’ll be registered but I think it’s very unlikely that they’ll be sent off to military units.
Shutting down Russia's supplies of oil and steel will definitely help them win the war...
Exactly. Wars of mass mobilisation are won as much in the factory as they are on the battlefield. The west is finally stepping up production of key weapons. With many key components under sanction and workers pulled away for the frontline by draft officials who don't care how much damage they do as long as they hit their quota, Russia's in deep trouble. They're already struggling to keep the production lines going at Uralvagonzavod, and as well as the T-62 Jimbob mentioned, they've also captured at least one truck so old it was basically a copy of a wartime lend-lease Studebaker. Those will not do so well in the thick, sticky mud Ukraine is so notorious for in military history circles.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by jimbob » Thu Sep 22, 2022 10:21 pm

Interesting thread on the implications of the prisoner exchange.

https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/statu ... gfXqghl9kg

It was one I can understand Ukraine liking but not Russia, unless it is a face-saving way to not execute the foreign fighters*, and the Azov fighters came with them.

*Judging that would harden Western public opinion against Russia and provide more incentive to supply heavier weapons
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by lpm » Thu Sep 22, 2022 11:35 pm

EACLucifer wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 10:03 pm
Wars of mass mobilisation are won as much in the factory as they are on the battlefield.
Time is a crucial factor as well. Traditionally, wars of mass mobilisation are won with patience as well as factories. Going backwards on the battlefield isn't a problem when you are winning in the factory and will recapture next year.

But those where times when we cared less about civilian murders etc.

In Ukraine we can't let it be a patient victory over crappy Russian factories. Ensuring a quick win now is the only ethical answer for the west.
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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by lpm » Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:48 am

Some interesting speculation that the FSB is deliberately sabotaging the mobilisation.

It course cock up is more common than conspiracy. But it's marvellously incompetent. Calling up missile factory workers is pretty funny, if true.

https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status ... 7649077248
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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by jimbob » Fri Sep 23, 2022 6:31 am

lpm wrote:
Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:48 am
Some interesting speculation that the FSB is deliberately sabotaging the mobilisation.

It course cock up is more common than conspiracy. But it's marvellously incompetent. Calling up missile factory workers is pretty funny, if true.

https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status ... 7649077248
I couldn't see that explicitly stated in your link thread, just the general points
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by TimW » Fri Sep 23, 2022 10:32 am

And the voting begins. I was going to set up a poll here (in the Russian language only, of course) asking you to guess how many of the four regions will vote to join Russia. But the forum software wouldn't allow it, saying You must enter at least two poll options.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by EACLucifer » Fri Sep 23, 2022 10:43 am

TimW wrote:
Fri Sep 23, 2022 10:32 am
And the voting begins. I was going to set up a poll here (in the Russian language only, of course) asking you to guess how many of the four regions will vote to join Russia. But the forum software wouldn't allow it, saying You must enter at least two poll options.
Unlike the polls in the occupied territories, of course.

And FFS if the media would stop talking about "Pro-Russian Separatists" or "Russian Backed Separatists" that would be f.cking great. It was just Russians in 2014, and even more so in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, it's the Russian occupation and a few figurehead quislings in position only because of the Russian occupation.

It's basic stuff, yet major outlets including the BBC and the Grauniad, and I suspect many more, are still getting it wrong.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by FlammableFlower » Fri Sep 23, 2022 11:38 am

Looks like the Russian partial mobilisation is running to usual Russian lines. They put limits on who was going to get called up, but have completely thrown them (ha!) out of the window. I suspect those further down the recruiting structure have received quotas and they knew they'd never fill them according to the rules.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by EACLucifer » Fri Sep 23, 2022 2:19 pm


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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Woodchopper » Fri Sep 23, 2022 3:21 pm

Michael Kofman suggests that the initial mobilisation wave will get two weeks training.
https://twitter.com/kofmanmichael/statu ... Sl4mJHlbNA

Which isn’t very much.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by lpm » Fri Sep 23, 2022 3:25 pm

Who throws the best parties?

- Boris Johnson's Number 10 team with their suitcases
- Conscripted Russians getting drunk before being herded off to Ukraine
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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by TopBadger » Fri Sep 23, 2022 4:13 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Fri Sep 23, 2022 3:21 pm
Michael Kofman suggests that the initial mobilisation wave will get two weeks training.
https://twitter.com/kofmanmichael/statu ... Sl4mJHlbNA

Which isn’t very much.
It's more than you need to be KIA... or utterly shafted by your own commanders and lack of equipment before surrendering.

The lack of Russian training is good for Ukraine.
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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Herainestold » Fri Sep 23, 2022 4:48 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 11:35 pm
EACLucifer wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 10:03 pm
Wars of mass mobilisation are won as much in the factory as they are on the battlefield.
Time is a crucial factor as well. Traditionally, wars of mass mobilisation are won with patience as well as factories. Going backwards on the battlefield isn't a problem when you are winning in the factory and will recapture next year.

But those where times when we cared less about civilian murders etc.

In Ukraine we can't let it be a patient victory over crappy Russian factories. Ensuring a quick win now is the only ethical answer for the west.
A long war favours Russia. Russia has enormous resources, but it will take a long time to marshall them. Look at the Second World War. After German armies were on the out skirts of Moscow, the tide turned and the Russian war machine churned out tanks and soldiers, culminating in Marshal Zhukov
and the battle for Berlin, destroying everything in its path. That is the fate awaiting Ukraine, if it cannot finish this thing in six months.
It cannot finish the war in six months without massive NATO aid, which will surely trigger a nuclear response. We are about to see Putin's cornered rat moment.
Putin is the man clinging to the precipice. Somebody has to talk him down and give him a reason to live. Nobody is doing that.
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