re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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Has merit. This is what happened after russia took Lysychansk last July.


ISW report july 4 2022

"Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated the Russian seizure of Lysychansk and the Luhansk Oblast border and appeared to direct the Russian military to conduct an operational pause."

Preventing the resting of troops and restocking will increase the probability of success of a Ukrainian offensive.

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Another argument: Russia might have been planning to capture Bakhmut (and more of the Donbas) first, and then to redeploy assets to the south to better defend against the Ukrainian spring offensive.

But they may not have time to do that anymore. By the end of the month, I think Ukraine will start a heavy effort to disrupt Russian logistics in the south, hitting every road and railway to weaken the forces there before the offensive and preventing the deliveries of large amounts of equipment.

In fact, the ongoing Russian disaster at Vuhledar means that Russia has particularly hollowed out that section of the front in the south. I've seen some commentary suggesting that the main thrust from Ukraine might now take place in that area towards Mariupol, instead of towards Tokmak and Melitopol.

On that topic, here's a crazy new video from a Russian tankman in a crater in Vuhledar, not far from his smoldering tank, where he has been for two days with his tank crew (one of whom has a crushed leg): LINK

Whelp. The protests in Moldova have started.

LINK

Be interested to see what now. Especially the Romanians.

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Bakhmut now seems like a very costly contest of wills, which is not worth the cost for either side in strategic terms.
One can only assume the Kremlin sees a need for a win somewhere, anywhere for purposes of bolstering public support for the war in Moscow.
And, Kiev seems to think it is worth inflicting disproportionate losses in men and materiel while it prepares (and endures delay) for its offensive.
Gotta assume Moscow is telling Beijing the same thing Kiev tells us: "We've got a shot at winning this whole thing in the spring. It is in your best interest to give us weapons and ammo to do it."

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Bakhmut is definitely a "proof that we can win" information campaign from Russia. If their "big offensive" fails to win a single prize, then ordinary Russians will start to catch on to the depth of strategic failure that the war has been.

But the Chinese aren't dumb. They aren't going to be sucked into a losing effort just because Russia took a strategically unimportant minor city.

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Holy hell. We're those chunks of ice floating on top of the water, or paper?

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I mean, there's snow all over the ground. That water just melted and is 32 degrees F.

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Bakhmut now seems like a very costly contest of wills, which is not worth the cost for either side in strategic terms.

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One would think that loss of life is huge for both sides. Russia doesn't care how many men it marches through minefields to die an possibly win. Ukraine plays smarter than that.

As for resources, there is plenty of tight shale natural gas reserves to develop in Ukraine to cut the nuts off of Russia completely and prosper post denutting of Putin and Russia. There were agreements signed JUST BEFORE Russia first invaded in 2014

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Wrong, we will have boots on the ground if Russia wins and ends up invading a NATO nation. It won't happen immediately after but a few years down the road.

FTR, we never promised that NATO would not expand. Gorby himself said that the only promise was that the US would not put bases in former East Germany. Those former Soviet satellites joined NATO as soon as possible because Russia always does what Russia has done for a few hundred years.

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What if Russia loses and does so? What if Russia does so now? Ukraine winning doesn't necessarily preclude this nor does Ukraine losing necessarily mean that conflict with a NATO state is likely. This Hitler 1939 stuff is silly.

He's clearly trying to put the US in the same boat as Ukraine and saying if we go down you're eventually going down (relatively) with us. He's bargaining for both his personal future, his role as leader and that of his country, so I'm willing to tolerate a lot of annoying rhetoric. But you can't expect this messaging not to rub Americans the wrong way, many of whom believe (fairly) that this is not our problem to begin with and have watched us meddle our way into conflicts repeatedly in our lifetimes.

And this is all in the context of confirming we're going to add a NATO nation that will be yet another leech on the US (Ukraine), assessing we'll have to demilitarize Crimea, etc.

The Ukrainians have to hold the line somewhere while they prepare for their next offensive. It may as well be Bahkmut. If they retreat from there they’ll just have to set up a defensive line somewhere else. That’s the way I see it.

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FTR, we never promised that NATO would not expand. Gorby himself said that the only promise was that the US would not put bases in former East Germany. Those former Soviet satellites joined NATO as soon as possible because Russia always does what Russia has done for a few hundred years.

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What many are sloughing off is the behavior of Sweden and Finland; two very independent countries. Neither country was wanting into NATO. Sweden especially has a history of being neutral.

Look at what they are doing now. They know Russia. They are all joining in to help. It’s not just the US, Poland and the others. Europe is uniting against Russia because they don’t want this to happen to them.

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If the characterization is "Either you help us win or eventually your sons and daughters will be over here" - that's completely fair and still quite obnoxious in the eyes of many

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I think he's making a valid point that uncontested, Russia would continue its publically articulated desire to reconstitute the former USSR which at some point would draw NATO into a war. Our support to Ukraine is putting a severe dent in Russia's ability to do that.

I don't get the outrage, he is just pointing out the obvious.

ETA: History provides us with a perfect example not even 100 years in the past. Had the world stood up to Hitler early, it might have avoided millions of casualties. If the world hadn't pussed out during Putin's efforts in Georgia, Crimea, and Ukraine, we probably wouldn't have a war with Ukraine today. Seems to me to be directly analogous to Germany's early aggressions prior to their invasion of Poland.

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1. He's obviously fearmongering US citizens to get more support for Ukraine.

2. If Russia touched a NATO country, their shite would be pushed in so quickly that there would be minimal US troops losses.

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I can see your position. I counter with the fact that his response was based on a question from a US reporter asking about US support for the war.

The problem I see with it is that it simply isn't true anymore. Russia's territorial ambitions are over at this point. They don't have and won't have for years, the combat strength left to support trying to take on any NATO country.

The probability of Russia attacking a NATO country at this point is 0%.

The "we have to stop Russia in Ukraine" narrative is very out of date now.