re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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But the artillery pieces, IFVs, and tanks are all items that Russia is losing much, much faster than it can replace them. As I said, we should expect to start seeing critical shortages in these areas sometime in the next 6-9 months. So any day with losses of 9 artillery pieces, 17 tanks, 22 IFVs, and 8 APCs is just nuts.

I really don't understand what the Russian military leadership is thinking right now.

The current Russian offensive made sense months ago, when there was hope that the US would abandon Ukraine, and they could eventually overrun Ukrainian positions. But now that US weapons and shells are flooding into Ukraine? Russian forces aren't going to achieve any kind of strategic breakthrough in this offensive, and they are losing ridiculous numbers of things that they cannot afford to lose ridiculous numbers of. I really don't get it. The (bad) logic behind the decision to continue with this must be political in some way.

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It's been a long time since I read the daily ISW reports in full, but I decided to look more carefully at yesterday's report about Putin's speech at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. There are some important elements in it that we didn't really discuss. Yesterday's report is well worth reading in full, as opposed to the key takeaways that Stormy publishes.

Here's the opening, though:

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Russian President Vladimir Putin articulated a theory of victory in Ukraine on June 7 that assumes that Russian forces will be able to continue gradual creeping advances indefinitely, prevent Ukraine from conducting successful operationally significant counteroffensive operations, and win a war of attrition against Ukrainian forces. Putin stated following his speech at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) that Russia does not need to conduct another call-up of reservists similar to Russia‘s September 2022 partial mobilization because Russia is not trying to rapidly achieve its military objectives in Ukraine.[1] Putin acknowledged that the current Russian military contingent committed to the war in Ukraine (reportedly the Russian military’s entire combat-capable ground force as of January 2024) would be insufficient for a rapid victory but suggested that Russian forces are instead pursuing a more gradual approach.[2] Putin stated that Russian forces aim to "squeeze" Ukrainian forces out "of those territories that should be under Russian control" and therefore Russia does not need to conduct another mobilization wave.[3] Putin asserted that Russian crypto-mobilization efforts are sufficient for this approach and that Russia has recruited 160,000 new personnel so far in 2024 (a figure consistent with reports that the Russian military recruits between 20,000-30,000 recruits per month).[4]

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Again, this doesn't make any sense. Russia cannot indefinitely continue to "squeeze" Ukraine with an ongoing, gradual offensive -- they will burn through their remaining stocks of artillery, IFVs, and tanks.

The only way that I can make sense of it is a political decision related to the US presidential election. Trump has lately been relatively quiet about Russia and Ukraine (as far as I've seen -- please correct me if I'm wrong about that).

I believe that Trump is keeping his options open right now. The only thing that I feel certain about is that, immediately upon taking office, he will reject the status quo and the Biden approach of slowly bleeding Russia out to force them to the negotiating table. Trump could decide to try to force peace talks, or he could decide to help Ukraine win quickly and decisively.

My own opinion is that Putin may be trying to influence the US perception of the conflict -- and especially Trump's perception of it -- by continuing to capture territory (even at enormous cost), so that Trump concludes that Russia is "winning" the war and that further military aid to Ukraine would be a mistake.

I'm open to other ideas, but nothing else makes sense to me right now.

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How about the pilots? How fast are are they turning out experienced ones?

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Faster than Ukraine. One of the frustrating things about the whole F-16 saga has been that NATO is collectively training only a few pilots to fly them, and there are no plans to change that.

That's why Macron's plan to give Ukraine some Mirage 2000 fighters and rapidly train pilots is so important. Yes, those planes are inferior to F-16s, but Ukraine needs more volume of planes in the air.

IMO. Trump will first try to get a peace settlement. When Russia shows no interest he will then take the restrictions off the arms and will give what they need to win. Then force Russia back to talks.

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I think Trump is going to abandon Ukraine

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It's certainly possible, but there are a number of good reasons why he would not do that.

1) If Trump wins, the GOP is also likely to control both houses of Congress, but the Speaker and the new Senate Majority Leader will both be very strongly pro-Ukraine.

2) If Trump were committed to abandoning Ukraine, he could have opposed aid passed in April, instead of giving Speaker Johnson permission to go ahead with it.

3) The American public is still very much in favor of Ukraine, and abandoning it would be unpopular.

4) Part of Trump's prior disapproval of aid to Ukraine was based on the idea that Europe was not doing its share. Our European allies are now very much doing their share -- indeed, they are doing more than their share. Most of those allies have also rapidly increased their own defense spending.

5) When Biden seemed strong in support of Ukraine, it hardly made political sense for Trump to agree, but Biden now appears weak on Ukraine and is regularly getting attacked by GOP leaders for the restrictions he's placed on Ukrainian use of US-donated weapons. Trump enjoys portraying himself as strong in contrast to a weak Biden, so a stronger posture vs Russia would make sense.


Again, none of this is dispositive. As I said, I believe that Trump is keeping his options open for now. I just think that there are very good reasons (besides the strategic interests of the United States) that Trump would not abandon Ukraine.

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2) If Trump were committed to abandoning Ukraine, he could have opposed aid passed in April, instead of giving Speaker Johnson permission to go ahead with it.

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I think he had to be really pushed with "this is going to hurt you and us in the election..."

Of course, I really do not trust Trump... not with anything to do with Russia and Putin, so I can't overcome that... I don't trust Orban, either. Better to be pleasantly surprised to be wrong than disappointed.

Russia delivered 27 new jets in 2023

yeah, eye-opening vid

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Turbeauxdog

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Thank you for your continued great contributions to this thread. Riveting deep thoughts that can't be found anywhere else.
Keep up the intelligent work and don't hurt yourself trying to hard.

Nearly half of the 31 Abrams tanks sent from the US to Ukraine have already been destroyed by Russia.

$11,000,000 x 14 tanks

$154,000,000 million dollar loss

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Were we going to use these tanks?

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Nope. Would have been sitting in a storage yard. He thinks it was such a good gotcha though