Russia's War Against Ukraine

[al_infierno]

Interesting quotes from this article: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/war-is-my-biggest-horror-russians-brace-for-deadly-conflict-economic-hardship-as-putin-orders-invasion/ar-AAUaldT?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531

"There will be a quick war, our army is already in Ukraine," said a security guard at the square who declined to give his name out of fear of retribution for speaking to a Western media outlet. "They are going to launch a few rockets at Ukrainian military bases and storages with weapons. And all Ukrainian forces will surrender to or army. And that's it."

Hmmm... Why am I getting "over by Christmas" vibes from this statement?  :-X

[Con]

Interesting quotes from this article: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/war-is-my-biggest-horror-russians-brace-for-deadly-conflict-economic-hardship-as-putin-orders-invasion/ar-AAUaldT?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531

"There will be a quick war, our army is already in Ukraine," said a security guard at the square who declined to give his name out of fear of retribution for speaking to a Western media outlet. "They are going to launch a few rockets at Ukrainian military bases and storages with weapons. And all Ukrainian forces will surrender to or army. And that's it."

Hmmm... Why am I getting "over by Christmas" vibes from this statement?  :-X

I think one thing that has not been discussed is that the Russian army has not fought a real battle against a near peer.  The invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the Chechen wars of independence were not against first class opponents and in Georgia's case against an unprepared and poorly trained army.  I dont think the Ukrainians will win but I do think that the Russians will be very unpleasantly surprised at the casualties.  The question is can Putin keep a lid on it and prevent the ordinary Russian people from seeing the cost in blood.

[Toonces]

Maybe I've watched too many prepper videos lately, but this is pending war is a very scary development.  I'm sincerely grateful Ukraine doesn't have nukes.

It is all too easy to imagine a scenario where this escalates into a broader war very quickly.  And if China takes this opportunity to get up to hijinks...   :-\

[Uberhaus]

Thanks for the explanation Uberhaus. 

I had an uncle, who died many years ago, who emigrated from the former Soviet Union tell me that whenever you are being questioned always look your interrogator in the eye and don't break contact even for a moment. 

The explanation you provided is the science I needed to understand what street smarts had told me to do.

Your very welcome.  You may have just answered why Putin was staring straight ahead, it may still be common belief in Russia and he must do it for the cameras.  Before NLP guilt was often assumed if you couldn't look someone in the eye whereas it could just be nervousness.  Who'd be nervous during an interogation?  Reading micro-expressions is something we all have done from the beginning of time, but it is helpful to pay attention to especially in the modern world.

[Uberhaus]

Not to derail this thread but have you every looked at a picture in real life (like those pictures of armored vehicles at the Ukrainian border) and then thought, "I really want to play game "x" now"?

(sheepinshly raises hand)

I was looking for Next War: Poland on Sunday, but it's OOP and priced way too high where I can find it used.  I have The Operational Art of War 4...I wonder if there's a Ukraine scenario?

Meantime, I re-installed Combat Mission: Black Sea last weekend.  But I didn't want to admit it as it seems pretty morally wrong TBH.   :-[

This is a great game and the second edition is in pre-order at GMT, https://www.gmtgames.com/p-846-next-war-poland-2nd-edition.aspx  I'll discuss it because it can give us a good idea of how a modern war would unfold.  Don't take my word for it:  https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/how-does-the-next-great-power-conflict-play-out-lessons-from-a-wargame/  "The United States can win World War III, but it's going to be ugly and it better end quick, or everyone starts looking for the nuclear trigger.
That is the verdict of a Marine Corps War College wargame I organized that allowed students to fight a multiple great state conflict last week. "
The playthrough of Ian Sullivan a special advisor at USA TRADOC is chilling especially for the opening moves of cyberwarfare, ballistic and cruise missile and special forces attacks.  http://insidegmt.com/poland-is-not-yet-lost-playing-next-war-poland/
http://insidegmt.com/poland-is-not-yet-lost-playing-next-war-poland-part-2/
http://insidegmt.com/poland-is-not-yet-lost-playing-next-war-poland-part-2-2/

Unfortunately, the link to the designer's article on the Marine War College's playthrough is broken.
However, there is a link to all the files of the games for the entire series at Dropbox (it's legit, it's provided by GMT).  https://onedrive.live.com/?id=BAF113CFB8DCD1CD%2111206&cid=BAF113CFB8DCD1CD  Maps units, rules are there for the entire series as well as professional texts that inspired the games.

The premise is that Ukraine is mired in an intractable conflct and plays no role in the conflict.  Poland is invaded through Kaliningrad, Russia and Belarus.  The Baltic states are quickly overrun even with NATO presence.  The supplements for the entire series and are worth getting with the first supplement introducing cyberwarfare and alternate rules for air and submarine warfare.  The second supplement introduced insurgencies as well as S300/400s, Patriots and THAADS.  The game shows how dangerous the S400s and Iskanders in Kaliningrad are to NATO in real life.  I'm looking forward to the 3rd supplement with it's updates mostly for changing real world OOBS for NW Poland and updating my original ed to 2nd ed.  Mitchell Land might have to go back to the drawing board after this circus though. 

Going back to the real world and the comments of Belarus occupied, it certainly looks that way and it remains to be seen how much agency Lukashenko has in the coming days and weeks.  I'm wondering if Moldova might be targeted if Russia is very succesful but I don't want to speculate on something that I haven't read enough about.  I will say that link up with isolated forces in Transdniestra are definitely planned.

As for Next War Taiwan a massive build up of shipping, aviation and missiles will clearly be seen as PRC prepares a reverse Dunkirk.  They'll try the carrot a little while longer.

Corrected author of NW Polands name

[Toonces]

That War on the Rocks article is good.  His first article regarding wargaming in PME institutions was widely circulated when I was at Newport.

We did incorporate some wargaming - to the extent possible - in our curriculum, but as always it was time constraints and education requirements that always relegated wargaming to the backburner or "would be nice if we had more time" pile.

Our capstone event in the junior course did incorporate a wargame and leveraged the wargaming department, but it was meant more as a planning exercise than an actual wargame like Next War.  I'm a huge advocate of getting CMO into the War College as a wargaming tool, but the logistics of making that happen are probably too difficult to overcome to ever make it happen.

[thread hijack/off]

The rapidity with which each side resorts to nuclear release is what's scary about the potential of the Ukraine conflict getting out of hand.

[GDS_Starfury]

A tremendous amount of military aviation over Europe at the moment and this is only those with active transponders. Much more fighter activity than I typically see. I'm tracking F-15s, F-16s, Eurofighters, T-45s and A-104s. i even see B-52s over the North Sea and a shit-ton of transport aircraft. C-130s, C-5s, C-17s, etc. I see an E-3 Sentry over Poland and Stratotankers over Germany...and choppers, loads of choppers. I'm actually tracking MI-24s over Czechia, Apaches in the Netherlands and chinooks and merlins in the UK.  A VERY impressive show.

I really hope FedEx gets my order from Virpil into the air and out of Lithuania before the situation deteriorates further.  :hide:                                   

just to side track for a moment.  when looking after I got home from work I saw a Hawker Hunter flying around the Keys and a balloon at 65000 feet drifting away from Hawaii.

[GDS_Starfury]

Toonces:  Im not to worried about the Baltic States as they ARE a part of NATO.  And while our footprint in Europe is as light as its ever been virtually all the armies that live there have Leopard 2s of one form or another along with all the other NATO toys that I still think would wipe the floor with russia.
ya wanna make putin shit his pants, put a German tank brigade in Estonia.  :bd:

[GDS_Starfury]

I think one thing that has not been discussed is that the Russian army has not fought a real battle against a near peer

not entirely true.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/world/middleeast/american-commandos-russian-mercenaries-syria.html

I didnt work out at all for them.  8)

[Jarhead0331]

Good news! My Virpil package is out of the danger zone and has reached the FedEx hub in Belgium. It spent the better part of the day moving from Lithuania to Poland.

First world problems... <:-)

Pretty sure my packages are on this aircraft...

[Uberhaus]

Interesting quotes from this article: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/war-is-my-biggest-horror-russians-brace-for-deadly-conflict-economic-hardship-as-putin-orders-invasion/ar-AAUaldT?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531

"There will be a quick war, our army is already in Ukraine," said a security guard at the square who declined to give his name out of fear of retribution for speaking to a Western media outlet. "They are going to launch a few rockets at Ukrainian military bases and storages with weapons. And all Ukrainian forces will surrender to or army. And that's it."

Hmmm... Why am I getting "over by Christmas" vibes from this statement?  :-X

I think one thing that has not been discussed is that the Russian army has not fought a real battle against a near peer.  The invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the Chechen wars of independence were not against first class opponents and in Georgia's case against an unprepared and poorly trained army.  I dont think the Ukrainians will win but I do think that the Russians will be very unpleasantly surprised at the casualties.  The question is can Putin keep a lid on it and prevent the ordinary Russian people from seeing the cost in blood.

Here's hoping.  Unfortunately, the Russians have come along way from the conscripted tank crews driving unsupported into Grozny in 1995.  With the siege of Grozny in 1999-2000 it ended up as "the most destroyed city on earth" according to the UN.  I think the Russians will be willing to do this again, if not destroying cities and towns then laying siege to them.  They also have sabotouers and fifth columnists throughout Ukraine engaged in terrorism and terrorist threats. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ukraine-russia-sleeper-agents-bomb-threats-1.6340577  Putin will do everything to lower domestic casualties including letting proxies sustain the greatest casualties.  I think Donetsk and Luhansk may find the price of recognition very bloody.  Maybe even Belarus. There is precedent, the Soviet Army halting during the Warsaw Uprising and North Viet Nam allowing the VC cadres to be devastated during the Tet Offensive.  Both examples removed political opposition to allow communist control. 

BBC had an interview less than two weeks ago with I believe the Foreign Minister Sikorski from Poland.  I can't find a link but Sikorski stated that Ukraine needed to cause 10000 casualties, destroy 100 aircraft, and I think he said 300 afvs to stop Putin.  Hopefully they will be able to do it with the MANPADs and AT missiles.  Poland has sent a lot of Soviet calibre artillery shells and also GROM MANPADS based off of the SA18 https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/02/poland-is-sending-missiles-drones-and-thousands-of-artillery-rounds-to-ukraine/

As to the rasputista, the mud, it will limit manouevre but conditions are different.  For starters, Ukraine is much more urbanized with better roads.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roads_in_Ukraine   "The whole network of all automobile roads (roadways) consists of some 172,400 km (107,100 mi) of which 164,100 km (102,000 mi) - have hard surface or 95.19%...  For comparison, in 1940 the highway network of Ukraine consisted of 270,700 kilometers of which only 10.8% contained a paved surface."   For urbanization, Ukraine has a population now of 43.7 million with 70% urban population.  https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/ukraine/#people-and-society  In 1940 (using present boundaries)  the population was 40.6 million, with an agrarian population.  Modern urban planning and agriculture provide for better hydrology of the land through diversion and control of water.  Also, the retreating Red Army destroyed the Dnepostroi Dam in 1941 flooding the land.  https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/01/13/the-red-army-troops-dynamited-the-strategically-important-dneprostroi-dam-during-wwii-as-germany-invaded-the-soviet-union/?edg-c=1  Soviets destroying the damn in the 1940s killing thousands of Ukrainians is not surprising, but I can't see it being done today. 
Hopefully, the mud will force the Russians often into urban combat when they need a road system where the Ukrainians can inflict heavy casualties.  But that will be brutal for the civilian population.

[Gusington]

If Ukraine did not give up it's nukes when the USSR dissolved then we might not have the current situation to deal with today.

Monday morning quarterbacking yes, etc., and we might have had something worse before 2022, but you have to wonder.

[GDS_Starfury]

less nukes is a good thing and it not like russia gout them back.

[Gusington]

^Agree but like I said I can't help but wonder what Putin would do if Ukraine threatened to shove one up his arse right now, if they still had them.

Some great shots here that really show the human side of what is unfolding:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/14/world/gallery/ukraine-russia-crisis/index.html

[Uberhaus]

Ukraine would have become an international pariah if it had kept its nuclear weapons.  The country was given assurances of its territorial integrity in the Budapest Memorandum.  https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-explainer-budapest-memorandum/25280502.html 
"Under the memorandum, Ukraine promised to remove all Soviet-era nuclear weapons from its territory, send them to disarmament facilities in Russia, and sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Ukraine kept these promises.
In return, Russia and the Western signatory countries essentially consecrated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine as an independent state. They did so by applying the principles of territorial integrity and nonintervention in 1975 Helsinki Final Act -- a Cold War-era treaty signed by 35 states including the Soviet Union -- to an independent post-Soviet Ukraine."
Unfortunately, it is only a diplomatic document and not a treaty, but I don't think that distinction would make that great a difference now.

One of the scarier things Putin said in his Monday night diatribe is that Ukraine was building nuclear weapons and other WMD with aid from the West.