Russia's War Against Ukraine

[FarAway Sooner]

On the larger topic...  I think the assumption that any decision makers in Russia are playing with a full deck of facts right now is optimistic.  Explaining somebody's motives when you don't even know how compromised their understanding of reality might be is almost impossible. 

There has been a confirmed mass shooting at a Russian school in the last 48 hours.  21 or more dead (mostly students), with another 48 injured (mostly students).  Early media reports suggest he was wearing a t-shirt with Nazi inscriptions and messaging, but the provenance of that information is unclear.  Having been all too familiar with school shootings where I live today, my heart goes out to everybody affected.  School shootings are much more traumatic for a community than almost anything else short of war.

Was this just a crazed lunatic with a gun?  Do we even know if the Kremlin isn't just taking advantage of an unexpected tragedy to layer some misinformation on top to justify its war against Ukraine?  Was it a red flag operation conducted by a really psychotic Russian faction of some sort?  Was this guy really a state-sponsored Ukrainian shooter intent on targeting Russian citizens where they were vulnerable? 

We'll never know for sure.  All I do know is that I won't trust a word out of the Russian government.  Even if you're living in a free-press community where a school shooting happened, it typically takes months for all the facts to come out.  So all we can do is speculate.

[JasonPratt]

My guess is that, with determined operators (with expertise somewhere between a Dive Instructor who'd worked construction and a US Navy Seal) it'd be easy to park a boat 5 or 10 miles away, drop guys over the side with gear in a few minutes, have them ride SCUBA sleds to the site, plant explosives on a 48- or 72-hour delay, ride SCUBA sleds to some other boat, get picked up and quickly be on their way.  I've now exhausted my knowledge on this topic, so I'll shut up.   

Come to think of it, they wouldn't even need to park a ship, strictly speaking: just drop off, go out, come back, and be picked up by someone else.


Re oxygen to burn (via Bob), good point, forgot about that.

[Windigo]

We'll never know for sure.  All I do know is that I won't trust a word out of the Russian government.  Even if you're living in a free-press community where a school shooting happened, it typically takes months for all the facts to come out.  So all we can do is speculate.

I am now fully expecting the gunman to be announced as a 'fanatic nazis Ukraine'.

[JasonPratt]

Meanwhile, Suchimimus provides video of Russia dismantling its pontoon bridge at Antonovsky:

Pretty expected.


Did we talk upthread about reports of Russians surging their Kilos out of their Crimean sub base(s)?

Also, I've seen videos purporting to be footage of inflammatories (to me it looked like repurposed flares, which didn't ignite anything on the ground) being sprinkled on at least one Ukraine city during the night (late last week) from airburst rounds. Haven't found confirmation of this yet, and don't think I've heard discussion of it upthread...?

[GDS_Starfury]

theyve been using thermite munitions on civilians since the beginning.

[ArizonaTank]

I think Putin is pretty much telling us what he is going to do...or at least what he intends to do. Annexation and nukes are part of the picture.

I think that he is prioritizing how he looks to his internal hard liners and cares less about what the world thinks at this point.

And, Putin is definitely a gambler.

[Tripoli]

I think Putin is pretty much telling us what he is going to do...or at least what he intends to do. Annexation and nukes are part of the picture.

I think that he is prioritizing how he looks to his internal hard liners and cares less about what the world thinks at this point.

And, Putin is definitely a gambler.

Related to your point, the Dupuy Institute hypothesizes this is the Russian strategy ( http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/blog/2022/09/24/a-projected-plan-for-the-russo-ukrainian-war/ ) :

o   Ride out the protests. They can probably do this is if it doesn't turn into tens of thousands of protestors on the street. Ride out winter on the battlefield. There is only three-four weeks of good campaign weather left. If Russia can ride this out without many major losses, then they are set to settle down and wait out the war in stalemate until spring. (Right now, I am guessing they will lose Lyman and then that might be the end of the Ukrainian offensive).
o   Russia can then rebuild their army in Ukraine for the spring with 400,000 troops or more.
o   Europe will go through a rough winter due to the higher gas and oil prices. This may weaken their support for Ukraine. So far, only Hungary has broken from the EU position on this. It does not appear that anyone else is planning to right now.
o   The Russian army may then have enough force to hold a successful defensive position through to next spring/summer/fall. They almost held for most of this fall, until the Ukrainian breakthrough at Balakliya.
o   Then Putin will be in position to try to negotiate a peace settlement that surrenders none of the "new Russia" that they have claimed.

[MengJiao]

I think Putin is pretty much telling us what he is going to do...or at least what he intends to do. Annexation and nukes are part of the picture.

I think that he is prioritizing how he looks to his internal hard liners and cares less about what the world thinks at this point.

And, Putin is definitely a gambler.

Related to your point, the Dupuy Institute hypothesizes this is the Russian strategy ( http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/blog/2022/09/24/a-projected-plan-for-the-russo-ukrainian-war/ ) :

o   Ride out the protests. They can probably do this is if it doesn't turn into tens of thousands of protestors on the street. Ride out winter on the battlefield. There is only three-four weeks of good campaign weather left. If Russia can ride this out without many major losses, then they are set to settle down and wait out the war in stalemate until spring. (Right now, I am guessing they will lose Lyman and then that might be the end of the Ukrainian offensive).
o   Russia can then rebuild their army in Ukraine for the spring with 400,000 troops or more.
o   Europe will go through a rough winter due to the higher gas and oil prices. This may weaken their support for Ukraine. So far, only Hungary has broken from the EU position on this. It does not appear that anyone else is planning to right now.
o   The Russian army may then have enough force to hold a successful defensive position through to next spring/summer/fall. They almost held for most of this fall, until the Ukrainian breakthrough at Balakliya.
o   Then Putin will be in position to try to negotiate a peace settlement that surrenders none of the "new Russia" that they have claimed.

  That sounds plausible.  The big problem for Putin, however, I think is no longer in Russia, but in Ukraine.  The problem there is that he has succeeded in making 40 million people really interested
in getting vengeance.  The balance of irrationality is no longer completely on his side.  Sure, he's not playing with a full deck, but the Ukrainians have an even smaller deck and every card in it says
get vengeance for what Russia has done.  That may not turn out well for anyone, but Russia is pretty high on the list of those who are not going to come out of this in good shape.

[Pete Dero]

The first polling stations closed at 3 p.m. Belgian time. More than 90 percent of voters voted "yes" according to the first preliminary results, the agencies Ria Novosti, TASS and Interfax report.
Referendums are valid if more than 50 percent of the voters showed up. In Luhansk, the turnout would be more than 92 percent, according to the authorities.

Typical Russian election results ...

[ArizonaTank]

I think Putin is pretty much telling us what he is going to do...or at least what he intends to do. Annexation and nukes are part of the picture.

I think that he is prioritizing how he looks to his internal hard liners and cares less about what the world thinks at this point.

And, Putin is definitely a gambler.

Related to your point, the Dupuy Institute hypothesizes this is the Russian strategy ( http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/blog/2022/09/24/a-projected-plan-for-the-russo-ukrainian-war/ ) :

o   Ride out the protests. They can probably do this is if it doesn't turn into tens of thousands of protestors on the street. Ride out winter on the battlefield. There is only three-four weeks of good campaign weather left. If Russia can ride this out without many major losses, then they are set to settle down and wait out the war in stalemate until spring. (Right now, I am guessing they will lose Lyman and then that might be the end of the Ukrainian offensive).
o   Russia can then rebuild their army in Ukraine for the spring with 400,000 troops or more.
o   Europe will go through a rough winter due to the higher gas and oil prices. This may weaken their support for Ukraine. So far, only Hungary has broken from the EU position on this. It does not appear that anyone else is planning to right now.
o   The Russian army may then have enough force to hold a successful defensive position through to next spring/summer/fall. They almost held for most of this fall, until the Ukrainian breakthrough at Balakliya.
o   Then Putin will be in position to try to negotiate a peace settlement that surrenders none of the "new Russia" that they have claimed.

  That sounds plausible.  The big problem for Putin, however, I think is no longer in Russia, but in Ukraine.  The problem there is that he has succeeded in making 40 million people really interested
in getting vengeance.  The balance of irrationality is no longer completely on his side.  Sure, he's not playing with a full deck, but the Ukrainians have an even smaller deck and every card in it says
get vengeance for what Russia has done.  That may not turn out well for anyone, but Russia is pretty high on the list of those who are not going to come out of this in good shape.

I really hope I am wrong, but I think that is where the nukes come in. I think Putin might bet that a few well placed low-yield nukes would shock the Ukrainians into accepting the annex line and cease fire.

But if he is really thinking that way, you are right; he would be ignoring the human element that probably is driving the war right now.

In history, governments and populations have put up with tremendous devastation and hardship, just because they still had to teach the other side a lesson, had to take back lost land, or couldn't give up hard fought gains.

I don't think the Ukrainians are going to be scared off by low yield tactical nukes or chemical attacks.

[MengJiao]

I think Putin might bet that a few well placed low-yield nukes would shock the Ukrainians into accepting the annex line and cease fire.

   Nukes are probably under serious consideration, but that's not necessarily a simple thing to work out (okay, I'm sure the Russians will blow it somehow, but still there must be some kind
of logic to it).  If you just drop a few here and there...well, you've set yourself up for some big problems and quite probably not solved any of the ones you had.  What about one sort of by accident?
Just to show you mean business (as if getting your army destroyed didn't seem very convincing)?  Same problems.  What about a big one on Kyiv?  It seems like that would just trigger something like
WWIII and with your army a wreck and your military a mess and no allies -- is that a good plan?  What about a dense set of say 20 right on the front lines of the Ukrainians?  Isn't that just going
to get you chopped up by NATO?  They aren't going to stand around while you blow up things like that are they?

  It's just hard to see how nukes would put Russia in a better situation.

[W8taminute]

On the use of nukes by the bear in the yellow and blue country^*:

I don't think he's that stupid to do that in UKR.  It would be suicide.  Just MHO though.



^*I use code words to avoid detection so please bear with me and try to understand what I'm saying.

[SirAndrewD]

It could very well be suicide. 

Modi and Xi won't stand for it.  They're supporting him and skirting sanctions, but if he uses nukes that'll force their hand.  They won't stand up and be counted with a nuclear rogue.

It'll also hurt Russia right now physically worse than Ukraine.  Battlefield nukes will spread fallout westerly, right into large Russian population centers.   Russian people in Kursk getting radiation sick won't mix well with an unpopular draft. 

It also may push the west to even more commit resources and equipment to Ukraine.  Those Leopard 2 tanks and reserve Abrams they're being denied may not be anymore. 

Does that mean Putin won't use them?  No.  He hasn't been acting rationally up until now so no reason to expect he'll change that course.

[Crossroads]

My Occam's razor for these fake referenda is that Putin's simply looking to change the narrative vis-a-vis his mobilisation. No longer it is Russia invading Ukraine, but Ukraine attacking mother Russia. Every patriot is now needed to fight for the honour of Russia. Nukes talk is just a side attraction to scare off Germans, in particular.

[Pete Dero]

From an interview with Medvedev : (google translate)

After the sharp warnings from the United States, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev reiterated that Russia has the right to use nuclear weapons "if necessary".

That is true in "settled cases" and in "strict accordance with state policy principles on nuclear deterrence," Medvedev, former president and now vice-chairman of the Russian Security Council, writes on Telegram. Medvedev mentioned the following conditions for a possible Russian nuclear attack: "If we or our allies are attacked with such weapons, or if aggression with conventional weapons threatens the very existence of our state." President Vladimir Putin recently said the same thing.

Russia will also make every effort to ensure that "enemy neighbors" such as Ukraine, "directly controlled by NATO countries", do not acquire nuclear weapons. "If the threat to Russia exceeds a certain danger threshold, we must respond," he said. "Without asking anyone's permission, without long consultation. And that is certainly not a bluff." Medvedev is known for his stern statements: he has already threatened to use nuclear weapons several times.

However, Medvedev also writes that he does not assume that NATO would intervene in the conflict in such a scenario. "After all, the security of Washington, London and Brussels is far more important to the North Atlantic Alliance than the fate of a dying Ukraine that no one needs." He said the supply of modern weapons is "pure business" for Western countries.