Russia's War Against Ukraine

[ArizonaTank]

this is supposedly the concept of the wagner line.
video of some construction:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1579975702853869568

Reminds me of the Kriemhilde Stellung. The Allies cracked that one in 1918, and they didn't even have bulldozers.

Ukraine just needs some M9 ACEs (armored bulldozers)... hmmm... were any included in the NATO arms shipments?

[nelmsm]

Any supply line in range of Ukranian artillery and HIMARS isn't going to be a supply line at all.

[Pete Dero]

From an interview with a local intelligence expert:

Various media – not the least – and unnamed well-informed sources believe that Putin is seriously ill.  "It's true," says Lasoen. Putin has prostate cancer, a severe form. He's really not doing well. That's something that's known to intelligence agencies, and I got it from outside sources, which are very reliable. His days are numbered."

Whether this is good or bad news ...

[Gusington]

^My initial reaction is that is awesome news. After thinking about it for a minute, 'the devil you know' comes to mind. When Putin dies could Russia and the world end up with something worse?

[JasonPratt]

In the north they're now establishing what they're calling the "Wagner Line" that is largely being built by PMC Wagner contractors and contract engineers and will be manned by Wagner troops.

"But ve svear, ve are NOT ze Nazis!"  ::)

The good news is that Wagner troops are paid bonuses for land they take, so they'll have mercenary motivation to break their own defense to go capture areas -- which has proven to be a problem for them in the past.  O0

It's strongly looking like the Russians are going to dig in for the winter and bring more reserves online.  They probably expect that once spring rolls around, they'll have half a million or more men in position for renewed pushes in the quieter parts of the line that haven't seen a lot of action.

"Say, Comrade, does that rifle date back to the Great Patriotic War?"

"Nope." {spits} "Back to the Revolution." {/Matewanreference}

"Better than no rifle at all, eh Comrade?"

"As long as they pretend to rearm and refit us, we will pretend to fight!"

[JasonPratt]

putin and nukes:

https://www.justsecurity.org/83605/addressing-putins-nuclear-threat-thinking-like-the-cold-war-kgb-officer-that-he-was/

While I like that article, I noticed that Professor London left out one crucial factor in Putin's behavior: his deteriorating health.

Of course, maybe this is L's way of tacitly denying there's any such problem; but if so, he would have been better off mentioning that factor in order to dismiss its reality. (Unless there is something important to protect in not dismissing that factor?? Maybe source-protection...?)

Anyway, if Putin's health is a factor, that's going to affect the rest of L's otherwise (I agree) accurate analysis.

[JasonPratt]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/the-russians-are-losing-10-tanks-a-day-as-the-ukrainians-advance/ar-AA13bfYa?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=a2a7e007f1e84f2291be1c7b861ecc85

Don't worry, the UAF has only been losing 2 a day on average in the past six weeks. Up from 1 a day on average in the war period before then (mostly T-62s).

Information at the end of the article clarifies that this average Russian loss does NOT factor in the tanks Ukraine has been capturing in more-or-less working order from the Orcs -- including what looks to me like 20% of their T-90s so far!  :D

(The article's main image features a captured T-90 in Uk service btw.)

Indeed, the average loss for the Ukrainians since September 1st has been a net negative-loss, i.e. a net gain, thanks to overrunning and incorporating Russian tanks: 71 lost,  but captured 194. (About 42% of lost Russian tanks since the war started were not destroyed.)

[Sir Slash]

Bring back the T-34's!   :bd:

[FarAway Sooner]

Any supply line in range of Ukranian artillery and HIMARS isn't going to be a supply line at all.

Yeah.  Ferries seem unlikely to last very long if they come within range of artillery.  And naval supply caches adjacent to ferry landings seem even easier to target.

That's not to say that the Russians won't be able to continue to get ammunition and food across the river.  But I think they'll be limited as to how much they can get.  That will limit how many soldiers they can keep on that side of the river.  I agree that a bloody slugfest in the streets of Kherson seems to be what the Russians are hoping for. 

The Ukrainians will also have to balance the logistical demands of supplying an army versus feeding refugees and liberated civilians who refuse to leave.  I doubt that the Russians will feel similar compunctions.  Of course, the Russians seem to be having all sorts of logistical problems even before the roads turn muddy and the weather turns cold. 

Does anybody know enough about Ukrainian weather to tell us how long conditions there will make for a hard stop to fighting?  I'm an expert at speculating on that topic, but don't actually have any real info...   ;D

[SirAndrewD]

Wesley Clark weighed in on some of the Kherson situation and what the real Russian goals were.

He wasn't sure if the Russians would make an attempt to hold the city.  His impression was that the Russians have finally got it through their head that they needed to preserve some of their trained and experienced formations and hold out for the spring.  At this point the wise choice would be to take the winter to sit behind fortifications and natural obstacles while they trained their conscripts mobilized reserves for Spring Offensives.  However, he doubted the Russians ability to do this based on their extremely weak CnC and lack of a motivated officer corps and pressure from Moscow.

The darker part of his analysis was his justified doubt that the civilian evacuation from Kherson was motivated by humanitarian concerns.  He felt the entire withdrawal was a pretext for removal and resettlement/reeducation of Ukrainians from the annexed territories.  The Russians are circulating very friendly propaganda leaflets for the evacuation, promising hot food, shelter and protection but only on the pretext of "We're All Russian".  He highly doubted that in the future, Ukrainians evacuated to Russian territory would be allowed to return to their former homes in the case of a Russian victory unless they agreed with the sentiment after a period of time in Putin's "Filtration Camps".

[Gusington]

^Is a Russian winter offensive imminent?

[SirAndrewD]

^Is a Russian winter offensive imminent?

By all indications the Russians have no combat power to engage in any offensive operations outside possibly PMC Wagner.  So no.

They also stand to have a bad winter because of lack of winter gear. 

Lack of discipline among Russian troops means that there's a ton of cellphone intercepts as they're calling family and friends in the open and describing the situation on the ground.  The latest bunches of those leaked show that Russian soldiers are being ordered to entrench and await withdrawal to prepared defenses.  They also show a large issue with desertion among conscripts mobilized reservists.  One soldier said his understrength Brigade had to be merged with another to maintain operational ability, and they got 65 new mobilized troops as part of that in his battalion.  He said they were there for one day then 63 of them were simply MIA.

The only ones that seem to have the gear and motivation to go on the attack during the winter will be the UAF.   I imagine they'll take advantage of their influx of winter equipment from Canada, Estonia, and others to turn the cold to their advantage on the battlefield. 

[JasonPratt]

I for one look forward to PMC Wagner going on the offensive just as soon as they've sufficiently dug in their defensive line. Or possibly before then!  >:D

[SirAndrewD]

I for one look forward to PMC Wagner going on the offensive just as soon as they've sufficiently dug in their defensive line. Or possibly before then!  >:D

I really doubt they'll be the ones to man that line despite reports.

As you said, they're paid for ground gained, they'll likely break with any orders to stay put.   

The line's probably going to get filled with newly mobilized and refitting troops, which doesn't bode well for its defensibility.  I'm also not seeing them building the defense for much more than tank traps and straight trenches.  Those will not be fun to be in under artillery attack.

[FarAway Sooner]

^Is a Russian winter offensive imminent?

By all indications the Russians have no combat power to engage in any offensive operations outside possibly PMC Wagner.  So no.

They also stand to have a bad winter because of lack of winter gear. 

Lack of discipline among Russian troops means that there's a ton of cellphone intercepts as they're calling family and friends in the open and describing the situation on the ground.  The latest bunches of those leaked show that Russian soldiers are being ordered to entrench and await withdrawal to prepared defenses.  They also show a large issue with desertion among conscripts mobilized reservists.  One soldier said his understrength Brigade had to be merged with another to maintain operational ability, and they got 65 new mobilized troops as part of that in his battalion.  He said they were there for one day then 63 of them were simply MIA.

The only ones that seem to have the gear and motivation to go on the attack during the winter will be the UAF.   I imagine they'll take advantage of their influx of winter equipment from Canada, Estonia, and others to turn the cold to their advantage on the battlefield.

I've had the sense that bogus troop counts have been an essential part of the kleptocracy that's lubricated almost every aspect of the Russian military for the last 10 or 20 years.  So long as officers can inflate troop counts with imaginary soldiers, they can pocket the real salaries of those soldiers for themselves.  If the Russians had no idea what their troop counts were during peace time, I have no idea how they'd get much better at that during war time.

My sense is that, with the rise of winter, the Ukrainians might find themselves resorting to more small-unit tactics that they used in the early months of the war.  I have no idea how the terrain in different contested parts of Ukraine might affect the utility of such operations (e.g., it's easier for small units to sneak through woods and hills than to march across 5 miles of wide-open fields).

Given that professionals talk logistics, I do wonder if the Russian progress made during the Summer was largely because of a massive Ukrainian shift from Russian-sourced materiel (e.g., weapons, spare parts, ammo) to Western-sourced materiel.  Building out those complex logistical chains and getting soldiers trained in how to use those new weapons is a HUGE task, and I can't imagine that the Ukes have that all figured out yet, do they?  They're fighting with a mishmash of weapons systems handed to them by numerous NATO countries.

To be sure, man-portable things like Stingers, Javelins, and NLAWS proved critical in helping otherwise lightly-armed Ukrainian units fight Russian armor.  They are easy to use, require little training, and only need a fairly basic logistical chain.  Something like HIMARS packs a pretty heavy punch per pound of logistics, because it's a new and precise weapons system that can do things nothing else in the Uk arsenal can do. 

But what about dumb artillery shells?  Or ammunition and replacement parts for their tanks?  Bullets for their rifles?  Precision weaponry works best in an offensive capacity when it's accompanied by heavy firepower you can lay on front-line positions.  How well-positioned will the Ukes be in that regard by February or March?

It also occurs to me that, while the Ukrainian Army seems to be better motivated than the Russian Army, I have no idea how much of their army today had any formal training prior to February.   Are the Ukes better off to continue to press attacks this winter, or to sit back, regroup and retrain some of their units?  I don't know any of those answers, just asking...

I know that Western militaries have been providing them with more of those things