Russia's War Against Ukraine

[W8taminute]

^I'm a Heroes & Generals trained soldier.  Yeah, you're probably right.   ;D

[Gusington]

Armored trains can't be that far off.

[MengJiao]

Ukraine admits fight in the East is not going well...  :( :o

   The Russians are battering their way forward.  One would guess they will get to some point soon and ask for a ceasefire.  In their minds, this will put Ukraine on the spot since
at that point, it will be up to the Ukrainians to continue the war (and thus "be responsible for it")  or not.  The Ukrainians have already said they will continue and I suspect by the
time the Russians stop, the West will see that they can break the Russians and get everything without negotiating too much.  The Russians will be thinking that they can "negotiate" forever
while sitting in as much of the Ukraine as they care to take (probably not much more at this point).  However, I doubt that this will work out as the Russians hope since it is easy to
see that waiting for Russia to give up under pressure is likely to solve more problems than letting them sit in whatever territory they have.  The really crucial point -- as the Ukrainians
keep pointing out -- is that Ukraine needs massive guarantees that the Russians aren't going to just start the war all over again when they feel like it.  So crushing Russia as fast as
possible is the only reasonable answer for everyone (even the Russians really).

[JasonPratt]

^Haha!  Steel Fortress.  Would you believe I have firsthand experience in using it in urban combat?  LOL

You and me both, pal! (We teamed up together with it sometimes in H&G.)

Step 1: get more players to man the guns somehow.
Step 2: ?
Step 3: win.

[FarAway Sooner]

Ukraine admits fight in the East is not going well...  :( :o

   The Russians are battering their way forward.  One would guess they will get to some point soon and ask for a ceasefire.  In their minds, this will put Ukraine on the spot since
at that point, it will be up to the Ukrainians to continue the war (and thus "be responsible for it")  or not.  The Ukrainians have already said they will continue and I suspect by the
time the Russians stop, the West will see that they can break the Russians and get everything without negotiating too much.  The Russians will be thinking that they can "negotiate" forever
while sitting in as much of the Ukraine as they care to take (probably not much more at this point).  However, I doubt that this will work out as the Russians hope since it is easy to
see that waiting for Russia to give up under pressure is likely to solve more problems than letting them sit in whatever territory they have.  The really crucial point -- as the Ukrainians
keep pointing out -- is that Ukraine needs massive guarantees that the Russians aren't going to just start the war all over again when they feel like it.  So crushing Russia as fast as
possible is the only reasonable answer for everyone (even the Russians really).

Pretty much on target.  I'd only add one medium course that seems increasingly likely and increasingly bleak:  If Russia secures enough ground, they will be willing to negotiate (as you say), but they'll start out insisting on terms favorable to them.  In the meantime, they have the option of continuing to deploy copious firepower against Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure.  If it becomes a race between Western sanctions extinguishing the Russians' will to fight versus Russian artillery extinguishing the Ukrainian's will to fight, the humanitarian cost to the people of Ukraine will be huge, no matter how it all ends.

What will the West do when Putin demands "We'll only stop shelling Ukrainian civilians when you ease your sanctions as part of this ceasefire we're negotiating with Ukraine?"

[MengJiao]

Ukraine admits fight in the East is not going well...  :( :o

   The Russians are battering their way forward.  One would guess they will get to some point soon and ask for a ceasefire.  In their minds, this will put Ukraine on the spot since
at that point, it will be up to the Ukrainians to continue the war (and thus "be responsible for it")  or not.  The Ukrainians have already said they will continue and I suspect by the
time the Russians stop, the West will see that they can break the Russians and get everything without negotiating too much.  The Russians will be thinking that they can "negotiate" forever
while sitting in as much of the Ukraine as they care to take (probably not much more at this point).  However, I doubt that this will work out as the Russians hope since it is easy to
see that waiting for Russia to give up under pressure is likely to solve more problems than letting them sit in whatever territory they have.  The really crucial point -- as the Ukrainians
keep pointing out -- is that Ukraine needs massive guarantees that the Russians aren't going to just start the war all over again when they feel like it.  So crushing Russia as fast as
possible is the only reasonable answer for everyone (even the Russians really).

Pretty much on target.  I'd only add one medium course that seems increasingly likely and increasingly bleak:  If Russia secures enough ground, they will be willing to negotiate (as you say), but they'll start out insisting on terms favorable to them.  In the meantime, they have the option of continuing to deploy copious firepower against Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure.  If it becomes a race between Western sanctions extinguishing the Russians' will to fight versus Russian artillery extinguishing the Ukrainian's will to fight, the humanitarian cost to the people of Ukraine will be huge, no matter how it all ends.

What will the West do when Putin demands "We'll only stop shelling Ukrainian civilians when you ease your sanctions as part of this ceasefire we're negotiating with Ukraine?"

  Well, in some ways the time for Putin saying he'll stop is long gone as a negotiating point since the Ukrainians have been getting pounded on one way or another since 2014.  So Putin should have quit
while he was ahead before he attacked on Feb 24.  Now the Ukrainians feel they have no choice but to fight until the Russians leave and Ukraine gets massive guarantees that the Russians
will not be able to renew the war at a time of their own choosing.  The Russians are really counting on a stalemate such as they had before they attacked in February.  Can the Ukrainians afford a stalemate
again?  I suspect they don't see that as a workable solution.  Can the Russians afford to pretend they can restore the stalemate?  And blame the continuing war on Ukraine?  Maybe for a while...but
I suspect the scale of economic loss will be clearly much greater for Russia and they will back off surprisingly soon -- by October 2022 even.

[GDS_Starfury]

Armored trains can't be that far off.

russia has been using one since day 1 of this war.

[JasonPratt]

Most recent news about the train seems to be last Wednesday, May 18th?

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-armoured-train-blown-up-occupied-ukraine-territorial-defence-2022-05-18/

Note that the train doesn't seem to have been actually blown up, despite Ukraine's version of Pravda announcing that first.  ::)

[Gusington]

This armored Russian train has/had armament?? I thought it was just a transport train that was, you know...armored.

[JasonPratt]

Yeah, I don't know that it's meant to be used as a mobile offensive support weapon.


Meanwhile, Reuters posted a short article this morning (link via MSN), where President Zelenskiy acknowledged that although Putin doesn't seem ready for serious peace talks, the Ukrainians will have to face the reality of their situation and, as much as they don't want to do it, talk with him eventually to end the war.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-needs-to-face-reality-and-talk-to-putin-zelenskiy/ar-AAXMLZr?ocid=msedgntphdr&cvid=4046f84219f14b83b46ab177db4e325f

That article also has a video from (apparently?) the same speech, where Z says plenty of powerful nations could have shut all this down whenever they wanted but preferred to flirt with Putin instead.

[Gusington]

Damn, Zelensky really does have cajones of brass.

[MengJiao]

That article also has a video from (apparently?) the same speech, where Z says plenty of powerful nations could have shut all this down whenever they wanted but preferred to flirt with Putin instead.

    Nobody knew that the Russians were going to trap themselves into this.  It's pretty unbelievable how Russia managed to do all the wrong things at precisely the wrong time.
Their amazingly crappy timing just keeps putting an amazingly crappy icing on on all the amazingly crappy stunts they have pulled.  Given that nobody could have foreseen what an
epic shit-show the Russians have managed to get themselves trapped into -- well its no wonder it is taking a while for everybody to figure out that just absolutely defeating the Russians
may be by far the simplest answer to the whole mess (even for the Russians).  There's a little bit of tricky stuff to do to pay off Turkey and China to get this all fixed up -- but I think
total defeat for Russia is looking like the only sensible answer to whatever it is the Russians think they are doing.
   

[Gusington]

^Well that did happen with Germany after the First World War and that didn't work. And there were no nukes involved. I think it's more delicate than that.

[MengJiao]

^Well that did happen with Germany after the First World War and that didn't work. And there were no nukes involved. I think it's more delicate than that.

  It worked fine with Japan (though nukes were involved) at the end of WWII.  It worked fine with Vichy France, Finland (twice), Germany and Italy and Hungry and Bulgaria
and Roumania at the end of WWII.  I think the Russians would be happy to leave Ukraine completely and have trade go back to normal and get something democratic going.
It's likely to be Turkey and China that turn out to be negotiating some tough things with everybody -- not Russia -- they are done.

[JasonPratt]

April: Russia is marketing this war as some kind of existential crisis for its survival, bwa ha ha ha ha!  :DD

May: At this point, the best thing for Russia would be the absolute and total defeat of Russia.