re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

A question for anyone itt who has studied military doctrine or likes war games:

Some of the cities to the east (Sumy, Chernihiv in the NE) look to be close to being encircled according to the maps floating around our there. The Russians are pushing on Odessa as well.

So the question is would it be better for the Ukrainian units to pull out of these cities and fall back doing a fighting retreat, or rear guard, back to the outskirts of Kyiv (it looks dangerously close to being encircled too). Or do you make the call and tell those units to disperse and blend in and fight a guerilla campaign? Or do they just haul arse to Kyiv and let that be the last stand? In any of the scenarios, I assume the biggest priority would be to keep supply lines open to keep the troops in equipment and ammo.

Once these places to the south and east are encircled, there is no resupply coming. But if Kyiv is encircled, that's pretty much a wrap, right? Well, besides the intense insurgency the Russians will have to try and put down after Kyiv falls.

Anyways, I'm not all that familiar with the strategy of battle, so that seems like it would be a tough decision to make. But maybe it isnt and someone can explain why certain decisions could prove more beneficial.

There is speculation that the second Russian general killed MAY be the nephew of the Russian army chief Valery Gerasimov. TRT World article

Anyone recall any estimates of how many tanks Russia had pre-staged for this war?

Read a pretty sad story about people that live in Ukraine who are trying to tell their loved ones in Russia what's happening and can't break through the decades of propaganda that has brainwashed them.

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"When I heard the first explosions, I ran out of the house to get my dogs from their enclosures outside. People were panicking, abandoning their cars. I was so scared," she says.

The 25-year-old has been speaking regularly to her mother, who lives in Moscow. But in these conversations, and even after sending videos from her heavily bombarded hometown, Oleksandra is unable to convince her mother about the danger she is in.

"I didn't want to scare my parents, but I started telling them directly that civilians and children are dying," she says.

"But even though they worry about me, they still say it probably happens only by accident, that the Russian army would never target civilians. That it's Ukrainians who're killing their own people."

Oleksandra says her mother just repeats the narratives of what she hears on Russian state TV channels.

"It really scared me when my mum exactly quoted Russian TV. They are just brainwashing people. And people trust them," says Oleksandra.

"My parents understand that some military action is happening here. But they say: 'Russians came to liberate you. They won't ruin anything, they won't touch you. They're only targeting military bases'."

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Mykhailo said he felt he knew the power of Russian propaganda, but when he heard it from his father, he was devastated.

"My own father does not believe me, knowing that I'm here and see everything with my own eyes. And my mum, his ex-wife, is going through this too," he says.

"She is hiding with my grandmother in the bathroom, because of the bombardment."

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So when on 24 February, Anastasiya woke up in Kyiv to the sound of sirens, she knew how her parents would react.

'My mum was the first person I called when I jumped out of bed at five, disoriented. She was surprised I called and sounded really calm, almost casual," she says.

Anastasiya, a BBC Ukrainian correspondent who moved to Kyiv 10 years ago, heard bombs exploding after waking and was worried about where would be hit next.

"I called my mum again. I told her I was scared. 'Don't worry', she said, reassuringly. 'They [Russia] will never bomb Kyiv'."

But they are already doing it, Anastasiya replied.

"I told her there were casualties among civilians. 'But that's what we had too when Ukraine attacked Donbas!', she said, laughing. For a moment I couldn't breathe. Hearing my mum say this with such cruelty just broke my heart."

"There are a lot of thoughts in my head now. What will happen to us all? Where is this going? Will I ever come back? Will I ever see my parents again? I still love them deeply, but something inside me has broken and I don't think it can ever be fixed."

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LINK

And 1 more

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It is the second week of war in Eastern Europe. The Russians have been making no appreciable gains in the north where their logistics train remains snarled up. They are in the process of changing tactics to cope with the insurgency they so blandly dismissed. Unfortunately that means more indiscriminate artillery and air strikes. We are seeing terrible news coming out of the warzone of families being killed wholesale by casual Russian barbarity. There are images I never want to see again, but I probably will because all war is hell... and this one is no exception. To appreciate the full scope of the human tragedy I am witnessing, I have to face the elephant that is war's brutal reality.

There are an estimated 1.5m refugees from this war so far. Ukrainian cities in the warzone are depopulating, while brave Ukrainian men are moving in to fortify them. They are forcing Putin to spend every ounce of Russian blood to triumph. Russian casualty estimates vary from 4,000 KIA to 11,000 KIA. Either number is remarkable for just a couple days of war. The Ukrainians are doing their part for the free world. They are sending Russians home in body bags by the bushel. The Russians are also beginning to lose officers with Ukrainian special ops killing the Russian deputy commander of the 41st Army.

Hacker group Anonymous has been hacking into Russian media and posting images and videos of the war... bombed out buildings, weeping civilians, dejected Russian captives, destroyed Russian equipment. Russia is losing the cyber and information war badly. It seems like Ukrainian drones are beginning to reap a fruitful harvest. Turkish military cargo aircraft landing in Poland are presumed to be supplying the Ukrainians with Turkey's wildly successful TB2 Barayktar drones. They are hitting fuel trucks, surface-to-air missile systems and artillery emplacements. The snarled up convoy NW if Kyiv is still there, and the Ukrainians seem to be muscling in on the enemy rear. The fighting west and northwest of Kyiv is extremely fluid with Ukrainian territorial defense and special ops regularly penetrating the enemy's security barriers, such as they are.

In the South the Russians continue to make gains, though more slowly. Several key cities continue to hold out, notably Mariupol which remains under siege and bombardment. Until Mariupol is taken, the Russian advance will continue only slowly in the south. The Chernihiv and Sumy pockets have been holding out since day one, threatening the long, thin Russian advances towards Kyiv from the east. Zelensky is still broadcasting in the clear from Kyiv, rallying his people and inciting his soldiers to superhuman efforts in defending their nation. This war has its Churchill as well as its Hitler.

Expect the ground and air war to continue intensifying. More bombed out buildings, more streams of refugees, more horrific reports of families destroyed. Find it in your heart to provide succor and relief to the Ukrainian people. They are on the front lines defending the freedoms all people cherish the world over... especially the freedom from fear.

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Can Russia afford to do that?

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My best guess is: Yes. Russia is at war with only Ukraine and there is no threat of any nation intervening to help Ukraine. None.

Ukraine cannot defeat Russia in a one-on-one war.

i thought this headline was pretty funny

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Remorseful Shell abandons Russian oil

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Russian oligarchs donated to … gasp, the Clinton Foundation!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/03/07/russian-oligarchs-donate-american-charities/

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Viktor Vekselberg, an energy tycoon aligned with the Kremlin, who has donated more than $100,000 in his own name or through his company to an array of groups, including the Clinton Foundation, the Museum of Modern Art and MIT,

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Can’t wait to see how the PB spins this one

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Say the Ukrainians did decide to fall back to the capital, would they do a fighting retreat or just make a run for it and get defenses in place? Which would decrease their chances of being cut off?

Could the entire force get to Kyiv then fall back west to somewhere east of Lyiv and hopefully get more supplies from western nations to make a counter attack eastward?

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The more detailed the questions become, the more unknown factors you introduce into the equation. There's no way to know the answer to your question right now. All we can do is take a wild guess, and your wild guess is as good as mine.