re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

This is an interesting article that argues now is the time for Ukraine to hit military targets deep in Russia. It would further erode Putin's perceived legitimately and prevent Russia from converting surface to air rockets into surface to surface offensive weapons.

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A Ukrainian airstrike that successfully penetrates Russian air defenses, would be a direct challenge to Putin’s naïve assumption of security against air raids. The shock would, first, provoke Russia to misdirect resources and at best marginally intensify retaliation against civilian targets in Ukraine, and second, would cause a significant diversion of resources into air defense.

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Even a few raids by Ukraine’s handful of Su-24 bombers and drones, would oblige Putin to keep in reserve his 8,000 S-300 air defense rockets, rather than have them repurposed to strike civilian and military targets in Ukraine.

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Despite severe damage to Ukraine’s electrical and water purification infrastructure, Russia expended the majority of its non-strategic missiles and inflicted less than 1,000 Ukrainian fatalities, all the while failing to stop Ukraine’s advances on the ground.

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Putin’s regimes is instrumentally contractual with Russian citizens, offering explicit material payoffs and promises of stability, in exchange for acquiescence, rendering their support for the regime far more fragile than in democracies. Their suffering from economic sanctions and burden of reserve mobilization has violated that social pact. A Ukrainian bombing attack deep within Russia would profoundly shatter that sense of invulnerability brought about by decades of strategic nuclear deterrence.

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19fortyfive

Does it matter if he is getting paid specifically for this?
To hear others, including Trump tell it, nobody on the planet has benefitted more from gov't subsidies than Musk and the amounts are in billions.

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Does it matter if he is getting paid specifically for this?

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Of course not. He should be paid for what his company provides. But he was acting like he was giving the service and stations away which was categorically not true. He allowed access to the system. He may have given a discount, although I haven't seen anything that actually verifies that. But sure, Starlink is entitled to be paid for the service it provides.

So, he gets no subsidies for Space -X?

from everyone who has reported getting the hardware, they had to pay full price and delivery to Poland. Even military units.

Additionally, it was never a spur of the moment decision by Musk. Ukrainian government had been in negotiations with Starlink beginning mid/late 2021, not after Feb 24th. Ukraine has a thriving digital business sector and its government saw the potential for use of Starlink.

Some great observations by @DefMon3 in his daily update twitter thread:

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14 day weather for the Kreminna area show sub 0 temperatures both day and night for the next two weeks. I believe this will be enough to freeze the ground enough to allow for easier movement in terrain.

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The offensive units from Kherson have not made an appearance on the battlefield yet. It does not seems like the Donetsk-Bakhmut area as gotten significant reinforcements. This makes me draw the conclusions the AFU is accumulating forces for further offensive actions.

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I see two options for the AFU.

1. Svatove-Kreminna front, high risk and high reward. Try to advance enough to get within HIMARS range of Luhansk and RU railway logistics

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Polohy-Tokmak, lower risk and lower reward. Try to capture Polohy and surroundings and get barrel artillery range on the Railroad. This would leave 200km of frontline without a railroad connection for the Russians and more or less divide the southern front with HIMARS control.

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So, starting now, the temperature in the Svatove area stays below freezing, and the ground will freeze, and Ukraine has lot of troops that were fighting in the Kherson front which have not yet been redeployed, and there's tremendous value in breaking through near Svatove and disrupting rail lines in the Luhansk Oblast and to the city of Luhansk itself.

Hmm ...

No they don’t lol

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No they don’t lol

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Dude nearly everyone believes that Ukraine needs a couple months to regroup and restockpile munitions before another offensive. This isn’t some secret crazy made up nonsense. It doesn’t mean Russia is winning. It’s just the reality of the situation.

There is a big difference between needing to regroup and stockpile ammo and being totally exhausted as the new Russian bot is saying.

To date, the only combatant's army that has collapsed on any front is Russia's, and they have multiple times now.

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The vast majority of analyst believe pretty much exactly what he’s saying. Not sure why your being so hostile about it

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Please provide some links to back this statement up. I follow this war closer than most and I haven't seen anyone (much less a vast majority) make this statement.