Russia's War Against Ukraine

[al_infierno]

Civilians with rifles during a drill:

[SirAndrewD]

  Well, Mariupol is holding and supposedly the Russians have lost a lot of tanks there even after probably the most massive artillery barrages in the war so far.  Has Odessa even been attacked?
The Offensive (or thrust?) around Kharkov seems either kind of tentative or poorly supported or to suffer from "hubris" anyway it doesn't seem to have gotten anywhere.  I'm not sure what is happening to rht Thrust out of the Crimea, but it doesn't seem to be developing.  That leaves the attack on Kiev as the only drive that's going anywhere at the moment that we have any information about and it looks like the Russians will have Kiev isolated pretty soon.  And then what?  The war just goes on for however long it takes to get Odessa, Maripol and Kharkov?  Then it stops?  And then the remainder of the Ukraine joins NATO?

You get the whole no plan surviving contact with the enemy thing.   I'm sure this looked great on paper with the idea that the Ukrainians would offer limited to no resistance.

After they're done, no one has a clue what the plan is. 

If they have the country all the way to the Dneiper, whatever's left in the west won't really be economically viable as a sustainable nation.  I'm sure they would expect it to collapse and have to rely on Russia for its survival long term. 

As to the east?  They could set up a rump state, or try to occupy it.  Or both.  None of those scenarios work out well in the long term. 

The end result is that this plan was far more risk than reward, and if it doesn't go just perfectly it could be a quagmire that drags Russia down with it.  That seems to be the analysis of more than a few of what the end will be. 

Only seen one article, in Newsweek of all places, this morning that said Putin will come out on top on this.  It smelled of a "Hot take" kind of contrarian article to me. 

So...not saying the plan is smart, but they seem to have one. 

Custer had a plan too.

[JasonPratt]

I hadn't thought of that orange glow outside Kiev being their first thermobaric drop. But if it isn't, then it's a strike against one of the major civilian oilfields nearby in that direction.

Oh, wait, did Vlad say he wouldn't be attacking civilians or their infrastructure directly? Opps!  ::)

[GDS_Starfury]

[JasonPratt]

Meanwhile, on a completely trivial geeky question: was that T-72, in the thumbnail for that video several posts upthread, carrying a spare cannon barrel crossways on the back of its turret?!  ???

Clearly, whatever it is (big undeployed mortar??), I haven't kept up with Soviet-ish land vehicles in a long time.

[JasonPratt]

What's Putin's end game?

Here's some theories.

That was a pretty good video!

The finale with the endgame theories reminded me again of (what I was dubbing) the Dumbledore Gambit: have a bunch of plots going at once, to confuse your enemies, and to create opportunities for completing some of those plots successfully.

Ref also the exchange between MengJiao and SirAndrew!  8)

[ArizonaTank]

Civilians with rifles during a drill:

The girls look the most ferocious.

[Uberhaus]

Meanwhile, on a completely trivial geeky question: was that T-72, in the thumbnail for that video several posts upthread, carrying a spare cannon barrel crossways on the back of its turret?!  ???

Clearly, whatever it is (big undeployed mortar??), I haven't kept up with Soviet-ish land vehicles in a long time.

It's a snorkel for fording waterways.  T-72s can ford to 5m depth for 1000m. 

[GDS_Starfury]

Meanwhile, on a completely trivial geeky question: was that T-72, in the thumbnail for that video several posts upthread, carrying a spare cannon barrel crossways on the back of its turret?!  ???

Clearly, whatever it is (big undeployed mortar??), I haven't kept up with Soviet-ish land vehicles in a long time.

snorkel for crossing rivers.  good luck with the water seals...

[ArizonaTank]

Meanwhile, on a completely trivial geeky question: was that T-72, in the thumbnail for that video several posts upthread, carrying a spare cannon barrel crossways on the back of its turret?!  ???

Clearly, whatever it is (big undeployed mortar??), I haven't kept up with Soviet-ish land vehicles in a long time.

Most likely a snorkel tube.

The document link below has some good pictures and great discussion about it.

https://mcoe.azurewebsites.us/Armor/eARMOR/content/issues/2019/Fall/4Grau19.pdf

[MengJiao]

I hadn't thought of that orange glow outside Kiev being their first thermobaric drop. But if it isn't, then it's a strike against one of the major civilian oilfields nearby in that direction.

Oh, wait, did Vlad say he wouldn't be attacking civilians or their infrastructure directly? Opps!  ::)

   I thought it was near a position where the Ukrainians might have dug in after they blocked an earlier thrust...So hit the entrenchments with a big thermobaric bomb and then push through and i think that pretty much cuts off Kiev.  On the other hand maybe its just some burning fuel storage tanks.

   I did see a pretty marvelous video (its on the NY times site) where a guy with a NLAW AT weapon near Kiev basically walks up a road completely packed with around a dozen burning armored vehicles cursing all the way about how much he hates the Russians and how they are all going to die.  The note on the video says "two burning armored vehicles"...but it looks like a lot more stretching in two directions. 

[Uberhaus]

The women should put their hair in tight braids and remove any makeup that highlights their faces like their lipstick if they can't cover their skin.  At least they're all wearing dark clothing but buttons, zips can be blackened to reduce shine.

[GDS_Starfury]

russia fucked with the wrong country. 

[MengJiao]

russia fucked with the wrong country. 

   Well, its kind of big, moderately urbanized, big river barriers.  The ports and airports with the industrial landscapes around them seem to have worked like traps for tanks and helicopters.
What else? well it does have an army and lots of reservists and more operational T-80s than Russia does (since T-80s were built in the Ukraine).  The US army was training the Ukrainian army
right up to the final signal of the attack and arms are flowing in.  The urban areas have that paradoxical "fast approach" but lots of cover for defenders problem.  The defenders know a lot about
the attackers and there has been low-scale conflict since 2014...plus no surprise.  the Russians built up for quite a while.  I think also the fact that there were no forward defenses on the main axes
of the thrusts is significant.  The Ukrainians did not get trapped in forward positions on main thrust lines and they seem to have chopped up Russian columns as they went deeper.  Plus the Ukrainians
seem to have some kind of mobile defense going despite the apparent emphasis on defending Kiev and Kharkov.  the urban areas seem to act something like traps in that they focus the Russian
thrusts while the mobile Ukrainians (I postulate) hit them in detail and almost at will.  So the Ukrainians are not just brave, but have some good counter-moves up their sleeves I think.  Pure speculation of course.

[Gusington]

I definitely think Russia f'd with the wrong country. Pictures of barely trained civilians don't make me feel good, though. This is clearly not going how the Russians want it to but will it matter if 200,000 Russian troops just pour into Ukraine? The fighting could conceivably go on for years that way. Really have to wonder what Putin's endgame is.