re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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A lot of what's happened in Ukraine hasn't been about Russia doing anything wrong it's just that Ukraine is doing well with what they have.

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Well, "Russia" has done plenty wrong... maybe the plan and tactics were not wrong... but the Russian military is so riddled with corruption that it is non-functional, and that is why things went the way they did in the first few days of the invasion...

Stories and diaries from Russian soldiers in the first few months explained all of this from their point of view.

The biggest example being that convoy headed toward Kyiv, which was like a giant doom worm... that... hey, why did they stop? Well, the gas had been siphoned out of the tanks and sold on the black market while they trucks sat in Belarus for a couple of months so they ran out of gas... and the food rations had been stolen and sold off so there were none as those troops sat there... then Ukraine started blowing up the trucks that were sitting ducks... so the Russian troops just walked back to Belarus.

one soldier's story that I had bookmarked, I'll look for more...

BBC: The Russian Troops Refusing To Fight In Ukraine

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Do you want both sides to just fight until one can't? Thats a completely childish worldview.

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Why would you say that's a childish viewpoint?

In fact, the vast majority of wars go on exactly until one side can't fight any more. It might be the politics that bring them to that conclusion. Or it might be the military situation in the field that brings them there. But that's where most wars end up.

And that looks exactly like where this one is going.

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That's not true, the Russians are fighting like time doesn't matter. Their plan shows patience, they went on the defensive accepting what has amounted to an almost two year pause, while they expanded the army, and built up their industry. And patience is one of the defining virtues of the Russian system.

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There are no virtues of the Russian system.

I don't see the clip you posted or anything somehow now being relevant to what's going on... it actually still explains it... and it's why he got a boost when the invasion of Ukraine happened, and a lot of people couldn't understand why Putin would do it. The first thing I saw from him was a later vid of him saying Putin would invade Ukraine in early 2022 that a friend recommended when I was arguing that Putin wouldn't be that dumb.

The brain drain in Russia was very real... those good engineering students went to study abroad when they could and never returned. So many here in the petro-chem industry tell of personal experience and how bad all of their refineries/etc., are... and how dependent they are on outsiders (who the stiff on payment) to design and build them in the first place.

On the Demographic thing... okay, he is guilty of shifting the years a bit over the years, maybe... but also Russia itself stopped gathering the info on its demographics, so who knows? But kidnapping and brainwashing Ukrainian children seems to be part of this operation and that hits at something, right? Reclaiming "Russians who've forgotten they are Russians" is even something Putin mentions all the time, to "protect" them from NAZIs or something, of course...

Grabbing Crimea and building the bridge allowed Russia to control access to the Sea of Azov... who invades to conquer a vacation destination just to have it? The Donbas is the Western shore of the Sea of Azov, so again that points to a defensive reasoning. Georgia and Armenia...

He is more of an expert in History and Demographics... and a "generalist." As he says, when he worked for think-tanks that made him the guy they had who did every meeting with clients, because the experts are so focused in their area they can't answer questions outside of that, but he could give a generalized answer and then have the experts follow it up when people wanted more info. He gives a generalize overview/summation based on what those experts tell him about everything.

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In fact, the vast majority of wars go on exactly until one side can't fight any more. It might be the politics that bring them to that conclusion. Or it might be the military situation in the field that brings them there. But that's where most wars end up. And that looks exactly like where this one is going.

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Somewhere in the depths of this thread was a discussion about how wars end from an historian. It was pretty interesting, and I recall his conclusion being the opposite. Most wars over the last several centuries end with negotiation well before fighting capacity is exhausted, and/or because of a change in political leadership of one of the combatants.

The WWII end where one side’s capacity is fully exhausted and taps out with unconditional surrender is extremely rare in relatively modern terms.

This war ends by the death and replacement of one of its leaders, the conquest of Ukraine (because there is no conquest of Russia), or a negotiated settlement.

Of those, negotiated settlement still seems the most plausible to me.

Putin said in Saint Petersburg that the loss ratio is 1:5, they're losing one man for every five they kill. Which is reasonable given their conservative tactics, and their use of artillery and AirPower.

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Russia is definitely dealing with upcoming equipment concerns.

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That's not something they'll need to worry about, the physical size and production capacity of the Russian defense industry dwarfs the west.

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"For a year and a half, we have attracted about 520 thousand personnel in the defence industry, the need for 160 thousand remains - Manturov.

There are over 3.5 million people working in Russia's defence industries. To give you a comparison there is only about 147,500 working in the defence industry in UK and about 135,000 in Germany."

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LINK

Our defense sector employs 1.6 million or so people.

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There are some alarming economic factors if you're Russian leadership.

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There was an interview with the head of their central bank recently, one of the points she made is that the governments cash reserves are so large, that they're prepaying for defense orders. That's one of the reasons their industry spooled up so quickly too. They're not like the UK in WW2, they're not borrowing money for this fight.

In general, the economy is in good shape. The people I've talked to are doing well, and that includes friends who live in rural parts of the country.

I think that this is precisely right, from a British professor:

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Among the many mistakes Putin's clique has made in its misreading of EU state behaviour is its belief that thuggish threats can prevent the French from doubling-down on a course of action that plays up to France's great power aspirations.

The best way to deflect Paris from a course of action is subtle deal-making that flatters France's great power self-image. Loudly threatening the French in a way that would diminish their self-appointed role of guardians of the EU just pushes Paris into stubborn escalation.

This tendency to misread how serious the French can get in terms of playing escalation games once they think their and the EU's prestige and credibility are at stake is something Putin shares with many right wing figures in the US and UK.

If there is a state that can compete with Russia in the doing crazy shite to sustain great power status stakes it is France.

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In the early days of the war, when Biden was pushing Europe to do more to help Ukraine, Macron was still calling Putin every week. For the glory of France, Macron wanted to be the great peacemaker.

But with the Biden administration's weakness in such areas as not allowing Ukraine to hit Russian troops just over the border, Macron has seized the opportunity to lead Europe in becoming increasingly aggressive towards Russia.

Whether as a leader for peace or a leader in defending Ukraine, Macron is insisting that the world respect it as a world leader. It's so very French.

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That's not true, the Russians are fighting like time doesn't matter. Their plan shows patience, they went on the defensive accepting what has amounted to an almost two year pause, while they expanded the army, and built up their industry. And patience is one of the defining virtues of the Russian system.


You are partially correct on this and could be correct on the latter part as well.

Since trying to go for an early knockout blow and failing, Russia has settled in and been seemingly content grinding this thing out.

But, there are some conflicting pieces of evidence here.

-Russia is definitely dealing with upcoming equipment concerns.

-It appears that Russia is losing more men than Ukraine, though I'm not certain how many more. Russia also has more men to lose than Ukraine, and has fought in a "I bet you run out of men before I do" style for at least around a century now.

-There are some alarming economic factors if you're Russian leadership. But on the flip side that information isn't new, and you wouldn't commit to a long, drawn out meatgrinder style conflict if you were just going to run out of money and stuff before the other side did.

So that tells you Russia is either in better shape than the Ukraine pumpers think and are prepared to grind Ukraine down over a protracted conflict, or the initial knockout punch WAS the entire plan and the Russia pumpers who say they are just going to grind Ukraine down are wrong, and Russia is floundering while trying to pivot.

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I gave you an upvote for being right about a lot of this...

but Putin's stated tactic is that The West cannot outlast him, because Democracy is a weakness and the West is decadent and foolish and will not commit to anything that inconveniences them in the least bit... plus, he's really counting on Trump and MAGA to undercut support for Ukraine and NATO overall...

A lot of people point to the last few weeks as a turnaround, and that "Russia now realizes it is losing"... and that's why the retaliatory threats because of committed support ("we will arm people to strike the West"... a naval convoy to Cuba)...

No, the arms had not even mostly began their trip to Ukraine, yet, but Ukraine was rationing things as any sensible person would do, and they suddenly had to okay to start shelling and shooting again, and with the approval to strike Belgorod and others. There was also a giant morale boost within Ukraine... after being virtually abandoned for 7 months.

Now that Putin has to look at the West having figured out a way to support Ukraine (and in a "Trump-proof" manner that advances them funds from frozen and confiscated Russain assets, that Trump could not interfere with if he got into office) he has to face that things will grind on in their current state for years, but with Ukraine gaining more air defense system while his are being destroyed and also able to hit the sites he's launching aircraft and missiles from inside of Russia...

let's see if that brings him to the bargaining table?

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It’s the dirty secret of the Russian military: Russia’s peripheral subjects—Buryats, Dagestanis, Tuvans—are Putin’s cannon fodder.

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I thought that that would be true, but it doesn't hold up. The casualties data doesn't support that.

The Buryats are the one group that are really overrepresented, which makes sense, they're a violent people and fighting is part of their culture.