Russia's War Against Ukraine

[GDS_Starfury]

I see that happen in world of tanks all the time.  looking one way and driving another way while shells are flying all over the place.

[Gusington]

^'That old chestnut, Russian idiocy.' 

[GDS_Starfury]

I wouldnt even say that. I can post tons of pics of tanks driving where they shouldnt.

Israel:


American:


British:

[Gusington]

I didn't say that, the narrator of the video did. I just enjoyed it.

[Sigwolf]

First video shows the incredible degree that modern warfare has changed in recent years.  The second seems off, like some serious CGI manipulation, but I could be mistaken.

[JasonPratt]

I think the front line north of the Azov is still going to my general expectations. They don't HAVE TO reach the Azov sea cities by winter. They only have to keep pressure on the lateral supply lines, especially insofar as those supply the Crimea, and minimize their own casualties.

Winter plays into Ukraine's hands: Russians on the southern fronts will degrade much more than Ukraine will, and Russia overall has a very small variability in their absolute strategic limit for supporting troops -- a limit slowly but steadily growing smaller all the time.

It's sort of a reverse version of boiling the frog slowly, I suppose. You can't eject Russia from Ukrainian contested territory (especially the Crimea) in an outright slug match (yet?), so you make it a little harder for them to stay in the area all the time, steadily degrading their ability to do so, and watch Russian morale dump itself.

This is why Russia badly needed to do something useful in messing with Ukraine in their countery-counter-attack toward Kharkiv. Russia has to find a way to get that pressure off the arteries going south, or they're gonna pass out and withdraw. Winter won't help Russia on this.

Sure, if Ukraine can find a way to pressure a major line collapse already in progress, who knows how far they could go? But they don't have to do that. This is why Putin has started holding grain shipments hostage in exchange for political pressure. He lacks the forces and equipment and leadership to win now, as long as Ukraine can keep its will and ability to fight; and he lacks the backfield capability to increase his forces for pushing anymore. He can send reinforcements, but they're increasingly more green than they already were, and his ability to support even green troops is steadily dwindling, thousand by thousand. Penny-parceling his massive population advantage won't work for him, but it's the only way to keep the fight going and hope for Western political will to elect out of supporting Ukraine's resistance.

Bonus: slowly trickle-withdrawing Russians from contested areas, even begrudgingly, doesn't move the nuclear seismograph's needle very much. Putin can just declare he's saving the world from catastrophe one day by refusing to nuke Ukraine or anywhere else, and it's all the US/NATO's fault not his, but Russia needs hands and backs to feed its people and he won't throw any more lives into the mouths of Nazi whatevers BUT IF NATO STEPS ONE FOOT OVER THE LINE OF THEIR NEW FORTIFIED SECTOR HE'LL BLOW US ALL TO KINGDOM COME YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT! (Because he knows NATO never had that intention, that was his invasion intention, and now he's too old for this crap. But he can bluster about it to save face and spin things to save some propaganda honor.)

[JasonPratt]

Nine hours ago, update from Denys Davydov, who says an "Army Group" got mulched at Urozhanie...

...so... in terms of Russian organization right now, a few thousand troops? 

[FarAway Sooner]

Going two posts back up...  I hope you're right, Jason.  The "Make the Russian Army so miserable that they eventually give up" approach has not exactly been historically successful.

I worry about how election outcomes might affect NATO allies' willingness to continue funding Ukraine indefinitely.  I don't fault the Ukrainians for not wanting to embrace any of the other alternatives at the moment. 

[Sir Slash]

I look at Deny's videos regularly. He's clearly one of the most pro-Ukrainian bloggers but that doesn't mean he's not accurate as well. Watch the pro-Ukes and the pro-Russkies and the truth is somewhere in the middle. Unless they're all feeding us stuff they make-up just to satisfy our insatiable appetite for info which, if true, kind of makes it our own fault doesn't it? 

[GDS_Starfury]

ever. so. slowly......

https://twitter.com/i/status/1691127070586294274

[GDS_Starfury]

https://twitter.com/i/status/1690788961268977664

[Windigo]

Now why would they go through all that risk???? Just to back off as quickly as they came?

The Ruskie arty looked nasty as shit too.

[ArizonaTank]

Going two posts back up...  I hope you're right, Jason.  The "Make the Russian Army so miserable that they eventually give up" approach has not exactly been historically successful.

I worry about how election outcomes might affect NATO allies' willingness to continue funding Ukraine indefinitely.  I don't fault the Ukrainians for not wanting to embrace any of the other alternatives at the moment. 

You've got Denys Davidov praising the Ukrainian Army for a 3 square Km. advance in one day. That is WWI level acreage.

I think this war will reflect WWI in another way...it will not end until one or both sides are completely exhausted. I don't really know of course, but it seems like both sides are not close to exhaustion yet.

Even if NATO gets fatigued and starts pulling back support, say late next year, it is not clear that Russia's army would be able to exploit that. So we may be pretty far from seeing the end of this.

[GDS_Starfury]

3km in a day is a lot considering the density on mine fields.
I know that sounds fanboyish but it seems to be the reality on the ground.

[SirAndrewD]

3km in a day is a lot considering the density on mine fields.
I know that sounds fanboyish but it seems to be the reality on the ground.

The number of mines that are deployed in the south right now are dense enough to cover the entire state of Florida and make it virtually impassable. 

The Russians are also now actually expanding their mine deployment operations, especially after the fall of Urozhaine, which was the last major obstacle before the thinnest points of the Russian works.  The solution to halting a potential breakthrough there is, well, more mines. 

Western mine clearing tech has proven woefully inadequate to deal with the fields that are now measured at millions of mines. 

Worse, the Russians can deploy more far faster than can be cleared, and they're cheap to produce.