re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Russia. Iran. North Korea. Poliboard.

February 24, 2023

Keep an eye on that date.

I've been lurking this thread a lot, but I gotta ask (well, ask all y'all genuine TDers, i.e., everyone except the obvious Russian trolls):

* Don't you think that there can be a lot of corruption in Ukraine, even significant theft from whatever aid the U.S. and other countries send, but that aid could still be, even in selfish terms, a good financial investment for the U.S.?

* Don't you think that sending large amounts of U.S. and other western second-line and even semi-retired military equipment (whatever semi-theoretical pricetag you put on it) to Ukraine--where it will be used against Putin and his stooges--brings far more military benefit to us, than does letting it slip further and further from military usefulness as time goes on, ultimately to rust away (or get given to some third-world country that lets it rust away)?

* Don't you think that whatever political corruption and genuine internal political disagreement there was as of January 2022 regarding getting closer to western Europe versus getting close to Russia fell far short of justifying, or even explaining on reasonable terms, the February 2022 Russian invasion?

I'm not saying you should trust how Ukraine handles money. I'm not saying you should trust Ukraine with political fairness and honesty. But I am saying that in geopolitical and probably even financial terms, they've given the U.S. a very good return-on-investment for what we've sent them, that will pay very nice military and geopolitical dividends for decades to come--and a return that will be even that much greater if they can expel the Russians and/or cause reasonable Russians to rise up take down Putin and his cronies.

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* Don't you think that there can be a lot of corruption in Ukraine, even significant theft from whatever aid the U.S. and other countries send, but that aid could still be, even in selfish terms, a good financial investment for the U.S.?

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Seems that Ukraine has been rooting out corruption since Feb 24th. The vast majority of corruption was affiliated with Russia. Theft would be of hard goods such as weapons and ammo. We are not sending pallets of cash from the USA. European nations have been helping Ukraine prop up its government due loss of revenue.

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* Don't you think that sending large amounts of U.S. and other western second-line and even semi-retired military equipment (whatever semi-theoretical pricetag you put on it) to Ukraine--where it will be used against Putin and his stooges--brings far more military benefit to us, than does letting it slip further and further from military usefulness as time goes on, ultimately to rust away (or get given to some third-world country that lets it rust away)?

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It costs real money to maintain all that Desert Storm Era equipment which we no longer use. One domestic use is to dump them in the sea for artificial fishing reefs. That costs real money to completely degrease, remove drive trains. While I don't know how things are painted now, they used to have lead based paint for radar reasons to absorb rays. In the 70's crews were given touchup lead paint for any nicks and scratches. If still lead then they have to be have all of that removed before being dumped in the sea. That especially costs real money.

Ukraine provides the highest ROI maybe in the History of the USA on military expenditures (using inflated full replacement values)

Well, and we're also spending $10 million to put our own accountants in Kyiv to carefully count every single bean. Everything we send to Ukraine is now very closely tracked. There's no question that we know exactly where our tax dollars are going.

ISW Update

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ISW is publishing an abbreviated campaign update today, February 5. This report focuses on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s cautious approach to risk-taking after having thrown the dice on launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, an act he likely did not see as a risk. Putin’s hesitant wartime decision making demonstrates his desire to avoid risky decisions that could threaten his rule or international escalation—despite the fact his maximalist and unrealistic objective, the full conquest of Ukraine, likely requires the assumption of further risk to have any hope of success.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decisions regarding Ukraine since his initial flawed invasion on February 24, 2022, indicate a likely disconnect between his maximalist objectives and his willingness to take the likely high-risk decisions necessary to achieve them. Putin likely operated under the flawed assumption that Russian forces could force Kyiv to capitulate without any significant military sacrifices and saw Russia’s invasion as a limited and acceptable risk. Captured Russian military plans, for example, revealed that the Kremlin expected Russian forces to capture Kyiv in days, Russian intelligence services reportedly expected the Ukrainian military to collapse, and Kremlin propagandists preemptively published a prewritten article extolling Russia’s “victory” on February 26, 2022

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Putin has consistently ignored, delayed, or only partially implemented several likely necessary pragmatic decisions concerning his invasion. Putin was reluctant to order full mobilization following the costly capture of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in June-July 2022 and several unsuccessful offensives that depleted much of his conventional military. Putin ignored repeated calls from the Russian nationalist community in May 2022 to mobilize reservists, declare war on Ukraine, implement martial law in Russia, and modernize the military call-up system.[3] Putin likely feared antagonizing Russian society and instead prioritized recruiting and committing relatively ineffective irregular armed formations over the summer.[4] Putin also attempted to maintain the façade of a limited war to shield much of Russian society from the scale and cost of the Russian war in Ukraine.[

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Putin continued to select comparatively less risky options even when faced with spiraling military failures in fall 2022. Putin only began to accept domestically unpopular—and potentially risky—policies such as the declaration of partial mobilization or the expansion of martial law far after the dire situation on the front lines following Ukrainian successes made clear the Kremlin required additional combat power.[8] Putin could have announced a larger mobilization effort than the reported 300,000 servicemen but likely feared that the already unpopular prospect of mobilization would further damage his appeal within Russian society. Putin additionally made a significant rhetorical effort to downplay mobilization by defining it as the mobilization of select reservists, despite the realities of Russian military recruitment centers being unable to implement such a targeted campaign.[9] Putin also did not formally declare martial law outside of Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts, but instead directed areas outside Ukraine to build out the legal framework necessary to support Russian mobilization

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ISW assesses the Kremlin and Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) is belatedly implementing large-scale-military reforms and treating Ukraine as a protracted and major war—yet Putin is continuing a similar pattern of reserved decision-making. ISW assessed on January 15 that the Kremlin is belatedly taking the personnel mobilization, reorganization, and industrial actions it realistically should have before launching its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.[12] However, Putin is evidently reticent to announce a second wave of mobilization, with US and Western officials noting that Putin is again leaning towards conducting “silent mobilization” due to the concerns over the extreme unpopularity of the first wave of mobilization.[13] Putin is additionally reportedly conducting surveys to gauge Russians’ perception of mobilization and has not made up his mind on when to start further mobilization, despite Defense Minister Shoigu announcing wide-ranging reforms to increase the manpower of the Russian Armed Forces on January 17

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Putin notably relies on a group of scapegoats to publicly take risks in his place and shoulder the blame for Russian military failures and unpopular policies. Putin allows and at times has contributed to Russian milblogger criticism of the Russian MoD to deflect blame from himself.[16] Putin, for example, positioned Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and the MoD to be the face of his most domestically unpopular decision to date—ordering partial mobilization—by having Shoigu explain mobilization provisions in a televised interview.[17] Putin has also repeatedly blamed the Russian MoD for every problem relating to the execution of partial mobilization and even publicly rebuked the MoD and called on it to listen to criticism.[18] Putin has repeatedly reshuffled the Russian command structure throughout the war and allowed successive commanders to take blame, blaming overall Russian military failures on individual commanders rather than his unrealistic and maximalist objective of seizing all of Ukraine

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Putin’s reluctance to take risks directly related to his conventional war in Ukraine indicates that he remains highly unlikely to pursue nuclear escalation or war with NATO. ISW previously assessed that Russian conventional war threats against NATO do not correspond with Russia’s capabilities and that Russia uses nuclear threats primarily to intimidate the West.[23] Putin evidently values his domestic status quo and seeks to avoid risky and controversial policies to support his own aims. Putin also continues to demonstrate that he remains a calculated individual who places considerable emphasis on eliminating risks—even while his perception of the situation he faces diverges from reality. Putin has thus repeatedly placed himself in the position of articulating maximalist and unrealistic objectives, calling on his government and military to achieve them—yet refraining from making the costly decisions the large-scale and protracted conventional war he has embarked on likely requires.

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My original post of this was deleted. Does anyone know why? I think that's the only post I've ever had deleted from on TD. Seems like a pretty tame post so not sure why it would be deleted.

I just want to know if I violated a rule so I don't do it again.

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My original post of this was deleted. Does anyone know why? I think that's the only post I've ever had deleted from on TD. Seems like a pretty tame post so not sure why it would be deleted.

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When BKR comes and shite post they do a sweep of posts and responses and delete them. Hence why the whole ban bet he made is now gone as well as my questioning him on how a country could be made accidentally

Good thread from Michael Kofman: Director, Russia Studies at CNA. Senior Adjunct Fellow, CNAS.
https://twitter.com/KofmanMichael/status/1622602875338629120

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A few thoughts on the current course of the war. Although winter has proven a transitional phase, with both sides focusing on force reconstitution and positional fighting. The outlines of the coming months & likely offensive operations are steadily becoming clearer. Thread. 1/

After Kharkiv & Kherson, the Russian military was at its most vulnerable going into the winter. Mobilization helped stabilize Russian lines, raise manning levels, and establish reserves. Consequently, Ukraine no longer enjoys a significant manpower advantage. 2/

RU adopted a largely defensive strategy under Surovikin focused on force reconstitution, entrenchment, and a strike campaign against UA critical infrastructure. Bakhmut was not an exception, largely fought by Wagner PMCs from RU prison system. 3/

When mobilization was launched I was wary of the uncertainty it introduced, and its potential to significantly extend the war. At the time, a reasonable timeline to assess what RU could make of mobilized personnel was 3-4 months. 4/

It’s fair to say since October RU has likely doubled the force deployed in Ukraine, and significantly reduced the length of the front being defended after retreating from Kherson. Force density has therefore increased relative to territory being occupied. 5/

The UA official figure on RU forces (320k) strikes me as a bit high, but 250k+ is probably fair. RU may have another 150,000 mobilized personnel still in Russia, not deployed. However, readiness level and quality of these units remains unclear. 6/

washingtonpost.com/world/2023/01/…

How strong the Russian defensive lines are in practice has yet to be truly tested. RU has manpower in quantity now & continues to pull equipment out of storage, but force quality appears relatively low. This limits offensive potential & force employment options. 7/

In brief, mobilized units in aggregate do not appear as poor as anecdotes might lead one to believe, and RU can likely offer a stubborn defense, but are less liable to be suitable for offensive operations and represent weak replacements for lost regulars. 8/

RU still depends on airborne and naval infantry at key points along the front as the reserve, for counter attacks, and the main assault force. These units backstop mobilized personnel, but seem to have lost some of their offensive edge due to replacements. 9/

After Soledar, the situation around Bakhmut increasingly looks precarious for UA, and I wouldn't be surprised if they ultimately withdraw from the city. However, UA has strong defensive lines outside Slovyansk/Kramatorsk while RU looks ill positioned to sustain momentum. 10/

Bakhmut is geographically important, but has developed a degree of sunk cost mentality for both sides. A fair bit of UA defense there seems to consist of TDF, NG, and foreign legion units suggesting UA is trying to manage the impact of attrition on its force availability. 11/

Having lost Izyum and Lyman, RU has no supporting axis of attack into Donetsk from the north, nor have their forces been able to make breakthroughs in the south of Donetsk. Hence gaining Bakhmut, in my view, offers opportunities for RU that they're not positioned to exploit. 12/

Since June I've been skeptical that RU could make break through to Slovyansk/Kramatorsk. They're still at Bakhmut 7 months later. That said, UA has ceded much of the initiative since October in Donetsk, and recently Luhansk. 13/

UA had made progress at Kreminna and Svatove, though now under counter-attack by the VDV's 76th GAAD. Kreminna is a gateway to Rubizhne. For UA, a breakthrough the Svatove-Kreminna line can eventually lead to the RU logistical hub of Starobilsk. 14/

Hence the battle for Kreminna is arguably more significant than Bakhmut. That said there’s been a fair amount of reorganization in RU logistics, and adaptation. I think the conversation on RU logistical problems in general suffers from too much anecdotalism & received wisdom. 15/

In my view Donbas remains the primary goal of RU mil operations, hence RU offensives are likely to focus on seizing this territory. I’m skeptical of claims that Russian forces will attempt a much larger scope offensive involving the cities of Kharkiv, Sumy, Kyiv, etc. 16/

I would consider a Russian attempt to advance Kreminna -> Lyman as likely, also Kupyansk, along with attacks across southern Donetsk, i.e. at Vuhledar. The fighting for Vuhledar, along with attacks elsewhere, suggest that this offensive has already begun in practice. 17/

RU’s better forces and kit, VDV and NI, have been trying to unsuccessfully press UA forces out of Vuhledar. The 155th couldn’t do it under Surovikin at Pavlivka in November, so its unsurprising Gerasimov taking over has done nothing to improve RU offensive performance. 18/

With respect to Belarus, a repeat assault on Kyiv makes little sense. An operation to sever supply lines in the west, or to seize the nuclear powerplant by Rivne, may be more feasible, but this would require a much larger force than what RU currently has deployed in Belarus. 19/

How large of a RU offensive to expect is unclear, but I suspect it may prove underwhelming, focused largely on the Donbas. RU may not need another large mobilization wave, and instead could keep mobilization quietly rolling at a sustainable rate. 20/

Arguably, UA is better served absorbing the RU attack & exhausting RU offensive potential, then taking the initiative later this spring. Having expended ammunition, better troops, and equipment it could leave RU defense overall weaker. 21/

But, I suspect Kyiv does not believe that time is on Ukraine's side. Wary of Russian entrenchment and seeking to avoid the perception of a stalemate, UA is likely to move sooner than later. That's been the trend thus far. 22/

Western equipment may not arrive in time to be relevant for a UA offensive, but more significant in that it will allow UA to launch operations this spring knowing they have replacements secured. Hence the likely losses entailed won't leave UA vulnerable later this year. 23/

In general UA is still advantaged going into 2023, backed by countries with much greater GDP and defense industrial capacity. However, that depends on sustainability of external material support, and in the end potential is not predictive of outcomes. 24/

The challenge is providing Ukraine with sufficient relative advantage to enable offensive operations under changed conditions in 2023. Unlikely to be solved by any single capability, but through a combination of means, organizational adaptations, and changes in force employment.

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