Russia's War Against Ukraine

[Dammit Carl!]

Russia has put forward the narrative that 'Ukraine is not a thing...just a part of Russia'. And this narrative has been repeated in certain circles in the West.

The "Great War" team has put together a very good mini-documentary on the history of Ukraine as a sovereign nation. Anyone who has seen any of the "Great War" team's stuff, knows these guys are pretty even-keeled.

The bottom-line is that Ukraine was an independent sovereign nation-state after the Russian Empire broke apart over 100 years ago. The Russian Bolshevik armies forcibly took it over after the 1920 Russo-Polish War.

The video is a little long and the history itself meanders, but worth the time if you have interest. As a side-note, I highly recommend the Great War channel...some really good stuff there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gwuu7TXPwI

Seconded!

[Gusington]

Thirded! The Great War channel on YouTube is excellent, one of my favorites.

[SirAndrewD]

And just like that, the Grogheads get an inside man.   

(I kid, DoD background checkers, I kid...)

Probably nothing so significant.  I'll mostly be researching/writing for a guy that's the real inside man.  He's been my source for some of the stuff I posted here that wasn't too much info, and he's the reason I've largely been bullish on the Ukrainians successes.

He's a bit chuffed right now because he's one of the few guys that predicted the current state of the war, and I was one of his sounding boards on that.

I will need to get a Security Clearance though so I guess I should keep my nose clean(er).

[al_infierno]

Some of you guys may know Perun from his informative Dominions 5 videos.  Well, looks like he's shifted over to discussing the Ukraine war.  In this video, he presents as fairly compelling argument debunking the "Russia is just sending in their conscripts/outdated equipment" idea, relying purely on data gathered from confirmed photographs of destroyed equipment.  I thought he did a pretty good job with it.

[SirAndrewD]

Some of you guys may know Perun from his informative Dominions 5 videos.  Well, looks like he's shifted over to discussing the Ukraine war.  In this video, he presents as fairly compelling argument debunking the "Russia is just sending in their conscripts/outdated equipment" idea, relying purely on data gathered from confirmed photographs of destroyed equipment.  I thought he did a pretty good job with it.

I'm going to watch that.  This is also a good video, this guy is a history dude and lots of good insights..

[al_infierno]

[GDS_Starfury]

this is literally a map right out of Close Combat.
Russia has deployed tanks and armor in the treelines south of Izyum, 70 miles from Kharkiv.

[ArizonaTank]

  This just gets stranger and stranger.  Okay, at first glance the Donbas as a reasonable target makes better sense than overrunning all of Ukraine, but this still leaves the huge problem that
the war has no workable endpoint if Ukraine can't get some guarantees that the Russians won't just attack them again next time they get a metaphysical itch.  An obvious deal would be:
Russia gets some territory in the Donbas and Ukraine joins NATO.  Of course, that's never going to happen so switching targets to no more than occupying the Donbas actually probably will only
prolong the war as Russia pulverizes the Donbas -- because -- well now it seems that is what they want and that will apparently satisfy the current metaphysical itchiness.  Of course it might take
years to sufficiently level everything in the Donbas, but at least it is a smaller target area.

  ooops... I guess it might take 40 years according to Russian estimates:

Today, it can be clearly predicted that we will have to remain in Ukraine for 30-40 years.

Ability to survive sanctions aside, the Russians may be able to just dig in, sit tight and lob missiles, dumb bombs and arty at the Ukrainians for years.

But the Ukrainians have the bit in their teeth, and maybe they can actually kick the Russians out of prepared defenses.

[GDS_Starfury]

the soviets absolutely cannot sped years doing that.  they simply dont have the money even without sanctions.

[SirAndrewD]

the soviets

I see what you did there!

[Gusington]

The Red Dawn meme is pretty hilarious.

[FarAway Sooner]

So, it sounds like NATO and the US are getting a treasure trove of hardware intelligence from this latest conflict.  That, or the Ukrainians are really good at Photoshopping things on social media to make it look like they're capturing a lot of stuff.

The Ukrainians now have intact copies of new Russian missile systems, the Command Module for the Krasukh-4 EW platform, the Pancsyr-S1 air defense vehicle, they've captured a very recent release of the Russian self-propelled 203-mm howitzer, etc.  I don't know how many of these platforms the West had already, but I have to assume that some of them are new. 

I wonder, when the Ukrainians capture them, what happens to them?  The US has to have the techs to make sense of them and relay info back to NATO allies and the Ukrainians.  It's not like the Ukrainians would just share these with the West out of the goodness of their hearts. 

If the Ukrainians are sharing captured Russian hardware with the West, it's unthinkable that there hasn't been some quid pro quo that's been agreed to with the Ukrainians.

[bobarossa]

Well, the west has given them many millions of dollars in gear so far so it's not like it's an uncompensated gift.  I do think the west could sneak a few MIG-29's to them as replacements that may not be noticed as a giant leap in capability.  Or maybe just an exchange of recently maintained ones for their worn out ones. 

[FarAway Sooner]

Yeah, my understanding is that the three primary snags in just flying them into Ukrainian air space are that

• The avionics would need to be modified (which only takes some time)
• NATO is concerned about flying Ukrainian planes from NATO bases (e.g., Ramstein) into contested Ukrainian air space in the midst of a shooting war
• The Ukrainian pilots would need a little flight time for training purposes (I've heard it estimated at 6 hours from at least one former fighter/multi-role pilot), as the Polish jets are similar but not identical to what the Ukrainians have trained on.

I think the obvious answer to #2 is to have the planes fly from NATO airspace over the Black Sea and then enter Ukraine from that neutral air space (seems much easier than trying to ship them in, disassembled, on trains, and then reassemble them there).  I don't know enough to understand how truly complicated #1 and #3 are.

On a recent podcast I heard, one of the commentators was citing a 6:1 to 10:1 superiority in the volume of Russian sorties as compared to Ukrainian sorties.  The presence of robust (and perhaps improving) AA platforms on the Ukrainian side--along with a likely lack of training for diverse mission types among Russian pilots--seem to have neutralized Russian close air support.  So now the Russians are just launching artillery, rockets, and stand-off cruise missiles at Ukrainian cities and occasionally military targets (the latter particularly in the Western Ukraine, near the Polish border).

I do wonder whether Ukraine's military needs as they seek to take the offensive might differ from what they've been doing to date.  It's clear that their small unit tactics are giving the Russians fits, especially around Kyiv.  But, if they want to start saving the lives of Ukrainian civilians, I'm wondering how they might go after

[MengJiao]

  This just gets stranger and stranger.  Okay, at first glance the Donbas as a reasonable target makes better sense than overrunning all of Ukraine, but this still leaves the huge problem that
the war has no workable endpoint if Ukraine can't get some guarantees that the Russians won't just attack them again next time they get a metaphysical itch.  An obvious deal would be:
Russia gets some territory in the Donbas and Ukraine joins NATO.  Of course, that's never going to happen so switching targets to no more than occupying the Donbas actually probably will only
prolong the war as Russia pulverizes the Donbas -- because -- well now it seems that is what they want and that will apparently satisfy the current metaphysical itchiness.  Of course it might take
years to sufficiently level everything in the Donbas, but at least it is a smaller target area.

  ooops... I guess it might take 40 years according to Russian estimates:

Today, it can be clearly predicted that we will have to remain in Ukraine for 30-40 years.

Ability to survive sanctions aside, the Russians may be able to just dig in, sit tight and lob missiles, dumb bombs and arty at the Ukrainians for years.

But the Ukrainians have the bit in their teeth, and maybe they can actually kick the Russians out of prepared defenses.

  The neutrality thing (but with guarantors) :

What does Zelensky mean when he talks about neutrality?
From CNN's Nathan Hodge

In an interview Sunday with Russian journalists, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke at length about an important point in potential peace negotiations: the possibility of neutrality for Ukraine.

"We are ready to accept this," Zelensky said. "This is the most important point." 

Zelensky and Ukrainian officials have long said they are willing to talk about neutrality for Ukraine if NATO is not ready to accept the country as a member of the alliance.

That, in theory, would meet one of the demands of Russian President Vladimir Putin: that Ukraine gives up its NATO aspirations.

But it's not as simple as that. Zelensky has also made it clear that Ukraine would reject "neutrality" without legally binding security guarantees. And with Ukraine under invasion by Russia, the Ukrainian leader has said he isn't interested in empty promises.

"I'm interested in making sure it's not just another piece of paper a la the Budapest Memorandum," he said.

Zelensky was referring to a little-remembered moment in post-Cold War history. With the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine – on paper at least – came into possession of the world's third-largest nuclear stockpile.

Russia did maintain operational control of those weapons, but Ukraine signed an agreement in 1994 to give up the nuclear weapons stationed on its territory in exchange for security guarantees, including the protection of the territorial integrity and political independence of Ukraine. That's something Russia, a signatory to the Budapest Memorandum, decisively trampled on with the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of Ukraine in February.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Zelensky, has said that security guarantees must, in essence, include a commitment from guarantors to assist Ukraine in the event of aggression. 

And it's important to add that neutrality – of a sort that Putin might find palatable – is not something Zelensky can simply offer up. Aspiration to NATO membership is enshrined in Ukraine's constitution.

That's where Zelensky gave Russian interviewers a bit of a lesson in Ukraine's democratic processes. Security guarantees, he explained, would have to be followed by a referendum in Ukraine. 

"Why? Because we have a law about referendums," Zelensky said. "We have passed it. Changes of this or that status... And security guarantees presuppose constitutional changes. You understand, don't you? Constitutional changes."

And therein lies the difference. Russia has a political system built around one man — Putin — and Zelensky is the head of a democratic state. Even if neutrality is on the negotiating table, the Ukrainian people will have to have their say.