Russia's War Against Ukraine

[JasonPratt]

MHV's channel is a favorite among many Grogs, and today he analyzes the news of T-62s being deployed:

[FarAway Sooner]

Thanks for the info, Jarhead and Pete.  I hadn't seen those announcement from the British MoD previously.  Intelligence analysis around Russia (and the USSR) has always been two parts speculation and one part guesswork, but I trust those folks to have more informed guesswork and speculation than I do...

I wonder how many NATO-affiliated interrogators are embedded somewhere in Ukraine?  That number has to be in the dozens, at least.  And I wonder if they work for the military, or groups like the CIA?

[Gusington]

^Or 'other.'

[GDS_Starfury]

https://twitter.com/JominiW/status/1531802118155296771/photo/1

[JasonPratt]

Ouch! -- looks like a lot of apparent firepower about to pull an end-around up north, going toward Proletarskiy!

Guess that depends on how many feasibly useful units those two armies (and those two corps, and those two brigade) HQs still have attached. There's only one (known) brigade back there at Sumy to protect the entire Prot/Sumy/Okhtyrka/Kharkiv supply loop.

Any serious threat could instigate a fallback (if not a rout) along the northern battlefront, depending on what supplies still remain in Kharkov for choosing to stay and Stalingrad it out.

[GDS_Starfury]

well if the soviets want to take Proletarskiy theyre welcome to it as its inside russia.  :DD
and I also wouldnt get to taken by all the unit markers, most of them are at best half strength right now.

[W8taminute]

Interesting video on lessons learned from this and past wars.
Outlandish claim?  Maybe but he does bring up some good points.

[GDS_Starfury]

some interesting points but he makes the point and then misses it with whos toys work better.
the west's hardware works and it works damn well and is combat tested.
russian and chinese toys really dont seem to live up to the hype.
so I dont think the a trench type was would develop with the US or NATO as combatants.

[JasonPratt]

Our toys not only work better (for various reasons including regular maintenance and servicing), but we demonstrably work better with our toys (via training and leadership down to the non-com level).

Re Prole-town: ah, I didn't distinguish the slightly thicker 'national' border from the 'oblast' borders (or county or whatever they are equivalently). Ironically, I might have zoomed in too much.

My basic point still stands, though: if those HQs have anything like feasible reserves, they could be threatening the supply line badly.

But my choice of term, "feasible", refers not only to sufficient numbers, but training, morale, working equipment... things Putin mostly lacks in action (or even potentially actionable from reserve). So maybe it'll be okay after all.

[FarAway Sooner]

This is a rather contrarian view to what much of the media is saying about the war in Ukraine, but it's well worth a read.  David French is a well-known conservative (but Never-Trumpian) thinker who spent several years fighting with the US in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One can debate the significance of Russia's tactical wins in the last month, but you have to concede that the war is going much better for them than it was 45 days ago.  I see little in French's historical analysis that I can dispute.  Russian cost tolerance remains extraordinarily high.

https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/the-tide-is-turning-toward-russia?s=r

[Gusington]

I don't think it's contrarian at all...it's the truth about what is going on in the East. Ukraine can't hold off Russia forever if Russia is determined to destroy Ukraine, even with Western help...short of an all out intervention. And both Putin and Zelenskyy know that.

[al_infierno]

It only took the Russians 3 months and 30,000 casualties, but eventually they remembered it's 2022 and not 1939.

[solops]

I don't think it's contrarian at all...it's the truth about what is going on in the East. Ukraine can't hold off Russia forever if Russia is determined to destroy Ukraine, even with Western help...short of an all out intervention. And both Putin and Zelenskyy know that.

Absolutely.... if this was Risk. Russia's internal dynamics and economic issues are intertwined issues that may trump Putin's efforts. No one knows. It is time to stake out a position, yea or nay on this. If you guess correctly, your future is assured....books, lecture tours, etc. One thing is certain: the stress of this disaster is not doing Putin's cancer treatments any good.

[Pete Dero]

I don't think it's contrarian at all...it's the truth about what is going on in the East. Ukraine can't hold off Russia forever if Russia is determined to destroy Ukraine, even with Western help...short of an all out intervention. And both Putin and Zelenskyy know that.

It is going better (not much better) for Russia in the Donbas region, but the concentration of their forces in that region allows Ukraine to counterattack in other locations.


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/29/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-kherson.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/05/30/ukraine-launches-major-counteroffensive-against-russian-occupiers/

But in recent weeks, Russian forces — stretched thin and taking heavy losses as they gain ground in the eastern Donbas region — have concentrated their efforts in the south on fortifying defensive positions. Satellite images have shown Russians scrambling to build fortifications in Kherson, where the shoots of an insurgency surfaced this month.

It was not clear if they were prepared for the Ukrainian counterattack.

The Ukrainian military headquarters said in a statement that its forces had broken through a Russian line of defense and pushed the Russians into less favorable terrain near the villages of Andriyivka, Lozove and Belihorka. The counteroffensive also sought to threaten Russia's supply routes on bridges over the Dnipro River.

[Gusington]

^Maybe in some twisted way this is how Putin wants to go out...in a 'blaze of glory' instead of in chemo.