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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2022 1:23 pm
by EACLucifer
TopBadger wrote:
Thu Nov 17, 2022 1:14 pm
Ukraine would do well to let this one go and not irk their supporters.
They would, I agree.

On the other hand, from the Ukrainian statements, it's not clear if the US actually shared any of the evidence with them before making their statement, which means the Ukrainians could well have thought it was a Russian strike. Remember, they may well have launched an interceptor at a missile heading in that direction to begin with.

And a 5V55 reaching Poland from Belarus is not a technical impossibility. It's beyond the range of the guidance system, but not beyond the range of the missile itself on a ballistic trajectory (long-range SAMs are fast, which translates to range on a ballistic trajectory). Likewise, while the missile is supposed to have been retired by Russia, the same is true of the T-62, especially older models like the obr. 1967

And on top of that, a stray missile can go a very long way in an unexpected direction. It's possible Ukraine hadn't fired any S-300s near the border at all. For context, a Syrian S-200 launched as an interceptor once came down in the Negev desert. If Ukraine hadn't fired anything remotely near the border, they may have been quite surprised by the idea of it being a Ukrainian missile.

I think the American/Polish position is most likely to be correct, but they absolutely have to involve the Ukrainian side properly, including sharing all available evidence. It looks like it is getting smoothed over now, which is good.

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2022 5:55 pm
by Woodchopper
Article on the explosion that took down the bridge: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... lapse.html

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2022 8:00 am
by Woodchopper
US is running low on some weapons and ammunition to transfer to Ukraine

[…]

"Someone saying uncomfortably low - that's a judgment," Doug Bush, Assistant Army Secretary for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, told reporters. "You know, that's a judgment about risk between sending munitions to an ally to use them in combat versus a hypothetical other contingency that we need to stockpile for. You know, that's a judgment call."

Colin Kahl, the Pentagon's undersecretary for policy, told reporters in a recent roundtable, "there's no question" the weapons pipeline to Ukraine has put pressure on the stockpiles and industrial base of the US as well as its allies.

"Look, we're seeing the first example in many decades of a real high intensity conventional conflict and the strain that that produces on not just the countries involved but the defense industrial bases of those supporting, in this case supporting Ukraine," Kahl said. "I will say Secretary (Lloyd) Austin has been laser-focused since the beginning in making sure that we were not taking undue risk. That is that we weren't drawing down our stockpiles so much that it would undermine our readiness and our ability to respond to another major contingency elsewhere in the world."

Kahl added that the support the US has provided to Ukraine has not put the US military "in a dangerous position as it relates to another major contingency somewhere in the world," but he said it has revealed there's more work to do to make sure the US defense industrial base is more nimble and responsive.

The questions about weapons stockpiles comes as Congress is finalizing the Pentagon budget for the current fiscal year through the annual National Defense Authorization Act as well as the government spending package Congress is expected to try to pass before government funding expires on December 16.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/17/politics ... index.html

More at the link but it’s mostly citing anonymous officials.

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2022 8:12 am
by EACLucifer
As I've said several times, supplying a greater variety of systems = not so much reliance on individual systems.

I'm pleased to see the US is contracting for increased production of GMLRS ammunition. Less pleased to see that news now - it should have been done the moment HIMARS had it's first decisive impact, back in the summer.

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2022 10:40 pm
by EACLucifer
Russia being extremely open about their plan to force Ukraine to negotiate - in this context meaning make concessions - by targetting the infrastructure needed to keep civilians alive over the winter.

And the west continues to self deter :roll:

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2022 6:33 pm
by Formerly AvP
This is a song about Ukrainian soldiers and their families.

https://twitter.com/SlavaUk30722777/sta ... 9035062273

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2022 8:25 pm
by bjn
Complexity of the whole situation just got driven home to me. We have some Russian emigres on our street and finally got to talk to them last night. She’s actually born in Kazakhstan, he was born in Ukraine. At the breakup of the USSR they were living in St Petersburg and it was easiest to just get Russian passports. They moved to the UK a while ago. His mother and family were still in the Ukraine when the war started and are now refugees in Bulgaria. He took his medical degree via the military and is nominally an officer in the Russian army. If he were still in Russia he’d be conscripted and sent to invade the place of his birth and support attacks on his immediate family. Needless to say, he’s not keen on going back to Russia. I can’t imagine it being that uncommon as story.

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 6:20 pm
by Herainestold
Interview with the realist political scientist John Mearsheimer in the New Yorker.
What do you think a Russian victory looks like to the Russians at this point?

I think their goal is to conquer and control those four oblasts that they have annexed, and to make sure that the Ukrainian rump state that is left is neutral and is not associated with NATO in any formal or informal way.
He points out that Russia's goals have escalated due to the conduct of this war. Originally they only wanted the two Donbass oblasts and Ukrainian neutrality, now they want the four oblasts as part of Russia and Ukrainian neutrality.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/ ... ths-of-war

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 6:53 pm
by TopBadger
I suspect the Russians are going to end this war with zero oblasts, having also lost Crimea, and hastened Ukraines NATO membership.

Putin is not a 3D chess grand master.

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 7:36 pm
by dyqik
TopBadger wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 6:53 pm
I suspect the Russians are going to end this war with zero oblasts, having also lost Crimea, and hastened Ukraines NATO membership.

Putin is not a 3D chess grand master.
And even if he is, this game is "global hopefully-not-thermonuclear war", not chess of any dimension.

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 7:51 pm
by jdc
Herainestold wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 6:20 pm
Interview with the realist political scientist John Mearsheimer in the New Yorker.
What do you think a Russian victory looks like to the Russians at this point?

I think their goal is to conquer and control those four oblasts that they have annexed, and to make sure that the Ukrainian rump state that is left is neutral and is not associated with NATO in any formal or informal way.
He points out that Russia's goals have escalated due to the conduct of this war. Originally they only wanted the two Donbass oblasts and Ukrainian neutrality, now they want the four oblasts as part of Russia and Ukrainian neutrality.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/ ... ths-of-war
Don't you think that Mearsheimer's realism is stuck in an outdated, inter-war paradigm though? I mean, it just feels like more of the old 'spheres of influence' b.llsh.t that's used to excuse Putin's imperialism.

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:00 pm
by jimbob
Herainestold wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 6:20 pm
Interview with the realist political scientist John Mearsheimer in the New Yorker.
What do you think a Russian victory looks like to the Russians at this point?

I think their goal is to conquer and control those four oblasts that they have annexed, and to make sure that the Ukrainian rump state that is left is neutral and is not associated with NATO in any formal or informal way.
He points out that Russia's goals have escalated due to the conduct of this war. Originally they only wanted the two Donbass oblasts and Ukrainian neutrality, now they want the four oblasts as part of Russia and Ukrainian neutrality.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/ ... ths-of-war
You know the difference between aims and stated aims?

At the start Putin was trying to install a puppet in Kyiv.

Now he is at risk of losing land he captured in 2014

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:06 pm
by TopBadger
jimbob wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:00 pm
Now he is at risk of losing land he captured in 2014
It doesn't stop there jimbob - there's more!

Post Ukraine's win he's also likely of losing his puppet regime in Belarus.

Putin really should have stuck to ambiguity... now the tiger is shown to be made of paper and boy oh boy is it raining.

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:07 pm
by jdc
jimbob wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:00 pm

At the start Putin was trying to install a puppet in Kyiv.
Pretty sure that's not what he was doing m8. I think you'll find he only sent a hit squad to kill Zelensky in order to obtain the two Donbass oblasts and Ukrainian neutrality.

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:24 pm
by Sciolus
jimbob wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:00 pm
You know the difference between aims and stated aims?
Yebbut he's written a book on politicians lying and he know when they are and when they aren't. For instance he correctly identified that time that Hitler lied about something.

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:39 pm
by dyqik
TopBadger wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:06 pm
jimbob wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:00 pm
Now he is at risk of losing land he captured in 2014
It doesn't stop there jimbob - there's more!

Post Ukraine's win he's also likely of losing his puppet regime in Belarus.

Putin really should have stuck to ambiguity... now the tiger is shown to be made of paper and boy oh boy is it raining.
Very bad taste:

Spoiler:

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 9:29 pm
by Herainestold
I think Mearsheimer is half right in his assessment. Putin is worried about NATO influence next door. He would be crazy not to.
Vladimir Vladimirovich thought he could subdue Ukraine and bring it into his empire, thus negating any NATO influence. It has not gone according to plan.
This war is far from over. Remember Operation Barbarossa and the German march on Moscow? They nearly made it. Stalin and Zhukov retrenched and readied the country for a long war of attrition. Four long years later they were occupying Berlin. We may see a repeat of that scenario.
If he doesn't push the big red button first. If Ukraine goes for Crimea, all bets are off

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 9:55 pm
by headshot
For the umpteenth FECKING TIME. There is no “Big Red Button”

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 10:09 pm
by Herainestold
headshot wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 9:55 pm
For the umpteenth FECKING TIME. There is no “Big Red Button”
Its a metaphorical big red button. When Putin feels he has nothing more to lose he will push it.

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 10:35 pm
by EACLucifer
lol. mearsheimer. lmao.

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2022 8:19 am
by EACLucifer
Woodchopper wrote:
Sat Nov 19, 2022 8:00 am
US is running low on some weapons and ammunition to transfer to Ukraine

[…]

"Someone saying uncomfortably low - that's a judgment," Doug Bush, Assistant Army Secretary for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, told reporters. "You know, that's a judgment about risk between sending munitions to an ally to use them in combat versus a hypothetical other contingency that we need to stockpile for. You know, that's a judgment call."

Colin Kahl, the Pentagon's undersecretary for policy, told reporters in a recent roundtable, "there's no question" the weapons pipeline to Ukraine has put pressure on the stockpiles and industrial base of the US as well as its allies.

"Look, we're seeing the first example in many decades of a real high intensity conventional conflict and the strain that that produces on not just the countries involved but the defense industrial bases of those supporting, in this case supporting Ukraine," Kahl said. "I will say Secretary (Lloyd) Austin has been laser-focused since the beginning in making sure that we were not taking undue risk. That is that we weren't drawing down our stockpiles so much that it would undermine our readiness and our ability to respond to another major contingency elsewhere in the world."

Kahl added that the support the US has provided to Ukraine has not put the US military "in a dangerous position as it relates to another major contingency somewhere in the world," but he said it has revealed there's more work to do to make sure the US defense industrial base is more nimble and responsive.

The questions about weapons stockpiles comes as Congress is finalizing the Pentagon budget for the current fiscal year through the annual National Defense Authorization Act as well as the government spending package Congress is expected to try to pass before government funding expires on December 16.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/17/politics ... index.html

More at the link but it’s mostly citing anonymous officials.
Given reports of TRLG-230's being supplied, perhaps part of the answer relies on being less dependant on the US to begin with - the TRLG-230 for example is manufactured by Roketsan, in Turkiye.

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2022 9:38 am
by TopBadger
Herainestold wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 9:29 pm
Putin is worried about NATO influence next door. He would be crazy not to. Vladimir Vladimirovich thought he could subdue Ukraine and bring it into his empire, thus negating any NATO influence.
No. It's not NATO he's worried about. That's the argument to his own population, that Russia is under threat from NATO, but it's bollocks. Finland are joining NATO, which I understand will be the new longest border between Russia and a NATO country, and Finland is militarily much stronger than Ukraine, yet precisely zero f.cks are being given by Putin because he knows NATO is a defensive organization with zero intention of invading Russia.

What he's worried about is having prosperous, democratic, free and fair former ex-soviet neighboring countries. Because then his own population will start to see the lives of Ukrainians (and in the future, Belarussians) improve under western style governance systems, and possibly start agitating for the same.

Democracy and fairness are toxic to dictatorships... so they try to stamp it out where they can, but other free and fair countries need to ensure dictatorships fail to do this, as the west is currently doing in Ukraine.

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2022 10:05 pm
by bob sterman
Herainestold wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 9:29 pm
This war is far from over. Remember Operation Barbarossa and the German march on Moscow? They nearly made it. Stalin and Zhukov retrenched and readied the country for a long war of attrition. Four long years later they were occupying Berlin. We may see a repeat of that scenario.
If he doesn't push the big red button first. If Ukraine goes for Crimea, all bets are off
Right now the idea of Russia successfully waging a conventional war against NATO and reaching Berlin is possibly the preposterous suggestion you've made in any thread on this forum. Many orders of magnitude less likely than global nuclear war.

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2022 6:01 am
by Herainestold
bob sterman wrote:
Tue Nov 22, 2022 10:05 pm
Herainestold wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 9:29 pm
This war is far from over. Remember Operation Barbarossa and the German march on Moscow? They nearly made it. Stalin and Zhukov retrenched and readied the country for a long war of attrition. Four long years later they were occupying Berlin. We may see a repeat of that scenario.
If he doesn't push the big red button first. If Ukraine goes for Crimea, all bets are off
Right now the idea of Russia successfully waging a conventional war against NATO and reaching Berlin is possibly the preposterous suggestion you've made in any thread on this forum. Many orders of magnitude less likely than global nuclear war.
Okay, not Berlin. Kyiv.
But I agree, nuclear war is much more likely.

Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2022 9:02 am
by EACLucifer
Instead of getting hysterical about very unlikely things, we should be focussing on what's actually happening; the Russian military trying the same approach they used in Syria, trying to target civilians and the infrastructure necessary for civilian life. This time it was a maternity hospital that was hit, killing a newborn.