re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Most of us who follow it think it will end this year. The upcoming spring/summer offensives are what to keep your eye on.

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Finland has now joined NATO.

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TigerOnTheMountain

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What would we do if China sets up a defense treaty with Mexico, Canada and Cuba?

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Link the defense treaty we set up with Ukraine prior to Russia invading Ukraine last year since you are suggesting this was part of Russia's impetus.

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is there any reasonable forecast as to when this conflict will end?

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Forecast? No. It could end as early as this fall. Or, it could go on for years.

The forecast depends on what happens, and war is inherently unpredictable. And there are just too many things that we don't know:

- What will happen if and when Russia essentially runs out of artillery shells?
- What other things might Russia run out of?
- If Russia struggles, would China change its mind and decide to provide military aid to Russia?
- Now that Ukraine is out of volunteers and relying on the draft, how many more men can Ukraine draft in a long war?
- Russia's economy is suffering, but Ukraine's economy is a disaster. How long will the US and EU prop up Ukraine's ability to stay afloat financially?
- As Ukraine develops better long-range drones that can hit deep in Russia, what will be the impact on the Russian people?
- Similarly, how would Russia cope with a significant defeat this spring?
- If Ukraine's spring offensive is unsuccessful, what kind of pressure will Macron/Scholz put on Ukraine to sue for peace?


Those are just some of the questions to which I do not know the answer.

No one can predict how the war will end. All wars are only fought because both sides think that they can win. If a country did not think that they could win, they would sue for peace.

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So how long do you think this should go on and what is the metric by which you would declare a victory?

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Neither side is going to get all they want when this is finally over, whether they are even able to pretend it is a victory is still hard to say.

This like every other war will go on until both sides come to the general conclusion that their own cause can not advance further by actions on the battlefield. Once war starts there is no peace until the sword is considered no longer useful.

LINK

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Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on March 30 authorizing Russia’s semiannual spring conscription which will induct 147,000 Russians between April 1 and July 15.[1] Russia conducts two conscription cycles per year with the spring conscription cycle usually conscripting 134,000 Russian men.[2] Russia may use Belarus’ training capacity to support the increase of 13,000 conscripts from previous years. A Ukrainian military official reported on March 4 that Russian personnel training in Belarus do not exceed 9,000 to 10,000 at a time, and ISW previously observed Russian forces training up to 12,000 troops in Belarus

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Putin remains unlikely to deploy newly conscripted troops to participate in combat in Ukraine due to concerns for the stability of his regime. Chairman of the Russian State Duma Defense Committee Andrey Kartapolov stated on March 30 that spring conscripts will not deploy to Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine during the spring 2023 conscription cycle.[5] Kartapolov also noted that Russian forces will not conscript men from occupied territories. Kartapolov‘s statements may be true given that ISW has not observed the Russian military use conscripts on any significant scale on the frontlines since the first months of the war and especially since the sinking of the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s flagship, the Moskva, which had some conscripted sailors aboard.[6] Putin’s use of conscripts during the winter-spring period of 2022 sparked social tensions in Russia, and Putin is unlikely to risk his regime’s stability by deploying newly conscripted servicemen to the frontlines.[7] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and Putin even publicly instructed Russian authorities to investigate alleged incidents of Russian conscript deployments to Ukraine on March 9, 2022 (which were technically illegal at that time).[8] Putin likely perceives the political cost of deploying conscripts to the frontlines as being higher than that of Russia’s September 2022 mobilization. Putin did not deploy conscripts from the spring 2022 conscription cycles in response to Ukraine’s September 2022 counteroffensive in Kharkiv Oblast but instead mobilized reservists to stabilize collapsing frontlines. This decision indicated Putin’s policy preference for mobilizing reservists rather than committing conscripts to battle — likely for political reasons — even though conscripts entering the final months of their annual service obligation might fight more effectively than civilian reservists. A prominent Russian news aggregator criticized the Russian conscription system, noting that Russia’s current staffing levels for contract servicemen are insufficient even though Russia has 250,000 available conscripts.[9] The aggregator added that it is “unacceptable” that “half of the Russian army is fighting with all its strength, while the other part is sitting in the barracks.”

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The start of the new conscription period, even with a slightly increased number of conscripts, may actually reduce Russian training capacity for reservists and other personnel recruited via crypto-mobilization campaigns. Russia has limited training capacity and allocating it to training conscripts who will not fight in 2023 deprives the Kremlin of the opportunity to train reservists and volunteers who would. The Kremlin may seek to increase its combat personnel in Ukraine by coercing spring 2022 conscripts who are finishing their one-year service into signing military contracts, since these freshly discharged conscriptions would need less additional training before deploying to Ukraine. It is far from clear how successful such an effort will be.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed a prominent milblogger and Russian proxy battalion commander as a regional Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) official for occupied Donetsk Oblast, advancing several Kremlin efforts. Multiple Russian milbloggers reported on March 30 that Putin signed a decree appointing former Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Security Minister and current Vostok Battalion commander Alexander Khodakovsky as deputy head of the Main Directorate of Rosgvardia in occupied Donetsk Oblast, making him responsible for Rosgvardia’s special rapid response and riot police (OMON and SOBR) in the region.[10] Khodakovsky announced on March 30 that he received this appointment in early February 2023 and posted a public recruiting ad for Rosgvardia OMON and SOBR units now under his command.[11] Khodakovsky publicly praises Putin and has been a loyal pro-Russian Ukrainian separatist since March 2014.[12] (Khodorkovsky was a Ukrainian SPETSNAZ commander for the Donetsk Oblast Alpha Group under the Ukrainian State Security Service before participating in Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine in 2014.[13]) Khodakovsky’s appointment is analytically significant for several of ISW’s running assessments:

Khodakovsky’s appointment indicates a Russian effort to generate more forces from occupied Donetsk Oblast. Putin passed a bill on March 27 removing the upper age limit and other barriers to entry for Rosgvardia recruits from occupied Ukraine.[14] Khodakovsky - a native of Donetsk City - is well connected with Donetsk People‘s Republic militia fighters, veterans, and pro-Russian patriot groups in Donbas, and can help facilitate recruitment drives.[15]

The appointment advances a Kremlin effort to formalize legacy irregular Russian proxy forces in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and subordinate them to Kremlin-controlled structures.[16]

Putin may use Khodakovsky’s appointment to ensure that Putin maintains reliable control over new Rosgvardia elements in Donetsk Oblast. ISW assessed that Russian authorities may be conducting a sweeping corruption probe within Rosgvardia, possibly to weed out actors who are perceived to be unreliable to Putin.[17]

The appointment could help Putin divide and conquer influential communities that the Kremlin does not fully control. Mixed reactions to Khodakovsky’s appointment from various Russian milbloggers’ — notably among Russian military veterans — indicate a significant fracture within the Russian nationalist veteran community.[18] ISW has previously assessed the Russian nationalist veteran community within the blogosphere to be more or less unified.
Khodakovsky’s appointment also indicates that Putin continues to prioritize loyalty over competence in his subordinates. One Russian milblogger criticized Khodakovsky’s appointment and stated that Khodakovsky’s incompetence as the Vostok Battalion commander in 2014 resulted in an especially bad friendly fire incident in which Khodakovsky’s troops destroyed a Russian volunteer detachment, killing 42

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Western officials reported that Wagner Group and conventional Russian forces have likely lost a substantial amount of manpower in the Bakhmut area, which will further constrain Russia’s offensive on Bakhmut.

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Whatever gains Wagner makes in Bakhmut are meaningless, as they will abandon the city completely over the next month or so.

I missed this due to the brigade yesterday.

RE: beavers in the trenches

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I don’t know why they even wasted time getting rid of it. If you’ve ever had them frick with your land you’d have no problem just putting a bullet in it.

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The Ukes like beavers, last year they built dams and made several areas impassable on the Belarus border. Beavers are pro-Ukraine.

RDI does a ~30 minute interview with General David Petraeus.

Lots of insights and one that struck me is the tag line of the video: "You actually can feel this battlefield." He talks about how with the OSINT info et al available he gets similar info to what he got on the battlefield. Which perfectly flies in the face of the bizarre "fake war" narrative.



YT