The end?

Red_is_best said:
For all the military, logistical, and political insight on here that is guardedly optimistic about the outcome of this devastating and horrific Russian aggression, I find the kind of stories here to be utterly depressing:

Ukraine war: Belgorod locals live in fear but won't blame Putin https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64543618

I am sure this blinkered view is wide-spread throughout Russia. I can’t see any easy way to counter it and fear that, unless a way can be found, nothing will ever change long-term.

We need this generation of ex- KGB colonels, with their USSR rebirth fervency to be gone, enabling a different mind set to prevail.

Does any of the current western strategic thinking include how to win this battle of hearts and minds?

By the way, has anyone watched BBC’ s ‘Putin v The West’? From it I took that, whatever we else we might think about the evil Putin, he played the western powers brilliantly.
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Yes he did, but, like Hitler up to September 1939, his successes led to overconfidence and overreach in the end. Both thought the West corrupt, weak and not up for a fight, both did not realise the breaking point. It was a surprise to Hitler and his cronies that Poland led to war (credit French PM Eduoard Daladier for holding Chamberlain to this by the way) and it was a surprise to Putin the response to Ukraine.
 
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Lefty said:
Yes he did, but, like Hitler up to September 1939, his successes led to overconfidence and overreach in the end. Both thought the West corrupt, weak and not up for a fight, both did not realise the breaking point. It was a surprise to Hitler and his cronies that Poland led to war (credit French PM Eduoard Daladier for holding Chamberlain to this by the way) and it was as surprise to Putin the response to Ukraine.
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Yes, absolutely
 
TheOccasionalSpectator said:
I very rarely read books but about 20 years ago (to kill my commute) I read Stalingrad by Antony Beevor. Other than watching war films as a kid I have no real interest in such conflicts, but It was totally gripping such that I missed my stop at London Bridge a few times! From memory it feels a bit like role reversal for Russia this time...
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I read Stalingrad a few years back and it was a brutal read where day upon day the death toll and sacrifice of the ordinary soldier was just staggering.

But one thing you realise when reading it is the deep resilience of the Russian people and their ability to tough things out.

You are seeing this on both sides of this Ukraine/Russia conflict, the people in this part of the world are tough.

The western politicians are right not to underestimate them.
 
Another object shot down by USA over Alaska second time in a week that fighters have been sent to shoot down objects. This one by what I have seen on the news was at 40000ft so around the same height as regular planes. Also described as the size of a small car.
Pure speculation on my part but I have a feeling this is a small unmanned drone aircraft.
Could it of came from Russia this time especially with it being over Alaska?
Right now the world feels like a person smoking in a dry corn field and just waiting for one spark to fall wrong to cause complete mayhem. Scary time to be alive right now IMO.
 
Druss_The_Legend said:
Another object shot down by USA over Alaska second time in a week that fighters have been sent to shoot down objects. This one by what I have seen on the news was at 40000ft so around the same height as regular planes. Also described as the size of a small car.
Pure speculation on my part but I have a feeling this is a small unmanned drone aircraft.
Could it of came from Russia this time especially with it being over Alaska?
Right now the world feels like a person smoking in a dry corn field and just waiting for one spark to fall wrong to cause complete mayhem. Scary time to be alive right now IMO.
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Just be thankful you're not being sent to the front as an untrained Russian recruit.

Abridged version of post just in.

"Zombies
Even though nothing dramatic has changed the Russians are continuing their attacks, and as expected each wave is slightly larger than the previous one. Especially in Vuhledar.
Why Russian high command believe that increasing the number with 10 percent for each attack would get them somewhere is beyond me, especially since they are shuffling forth exclaiming "must eat brain" along the same forrested path each time.

In Kreminna Russia is still moving forward to the lakes due West at a rate of 200-300 meters per day. The idea is to cut off the northern Units, but Russia has forgotten that the river to the north is fairly small, and that Ukraine is good at bridging.
Currently this is where Russia is making most headway.

Soledar, here Russia has been more or less forced into a standstill due to ferocious Ukrainian artillery fire.

Bakhmut, here Russia are bravely offensing backward to the North and East. The Ukrainian gains are not big, but they are still there.
There are two reasons for Ukraine taking back the initiative here.
The first is that PMC Wagner is no more as an effective fighting force, it is now almost completely subsumed into the Russian regular army.
The second is that Ukraine has pushed in a lot of new fresh units to stabilise the front.
Obviously Ukraine will not go on a full on offensive here, just take some areas to stabilise things, and then go back to just holding the line.
Expect Ukraine to also take the initiative to the south in the next couple of days to push back the pincer arm there.

Vuhledar, well heck... what should I say?
I see in front of me every single great general throughout history sitting drinking beer laughing their arses off in your favourite afterlife. This is probably the closest I will ever come to having a religious vision. 🙂
At the going rate Russia is loosing a battalion per every two days here.
Must... eat... brain...

Zhaporizhzhia, here Russia are doing small little skirmishes each day, nothing more.
So, it seems like I was correct and that this is just to pin down Ukrainian forces for now.
Ukraine is though not forgetting that there is a sizeable force down in Melitopol waiting to take advantage if they move out troops to other areas.
So, the army in waiting is sticking around, waiting for their order to push forward.

Depressed Russians
Strelkov has stated that Russia will not be able to take Donbass at all.
Prigozhin is ever so slightly more optimistic, he is stating that Russia can take it in 18 to 24 months, and that they can reach the Dnipro River in 36 months.
Gone are the days of 3 day war...

Anyone noticed that the rate of defenestrations went down 5 weeks ago and is still much lower?
I find this interesting, especially the temporal correlation is notable.

Money
As Konstantin noted yesterday, Russia is now 300 million USD into the Red each day.
At the going rate, without west doing anything, Russia will run out of monetary reserves sometime late summer.
And this is the optimistic version assuming that the G7 + EU does not fiddle some with the Price Cap and lower it another 5USD per barrel.

Khodorkovsky
Everyone asks why Russians do not rise up.
I find this a rather lame assumption since they would end up in prisson until the time is right.
Khodorkovsky seem to believe that the 24th is the date to kick off a mass protest, and has called for Russians across the globe to go out in force and protest.
I mostly see it as an interesting experiment that will yield research data.

Tatarstan
The Bashkir and Tatars are in ever larger numbers refusing to fight and are dropping their weapons.
The Bashkirs are rounded up, but not the Tatars.
In the west people do not know that Tatarstan is a self-governing part of Russia with far reaching autonomy.
They hold separate elections to pick their own government.
It even has the right to hold a referendum to leave Russia.
According to Russian sources the Tatarstani government has sided with their refusenik soldiers and declared that they can go home if they wish.
And, since the Tatars, Bashkirs, Tuvans, and so on, are the bulk of the army in Ukraine this has sent reverberations up the food chain.
In true Russian fashion they are beating the living daylights out of every group, but the Tatars. Not even the Kadyrovites are touching them.
It is still just a gust of wind at the top of the tree... but this could quite easily grow into a storm over the coming weeks, especially since the offensive is going badly, and the Russian commanders are wasting the lives of the soldiers of the far east."

Then this just now.

"Russia set a new zombification record today.
31 BMTs and T-72s drove straight into the Ukrainian artillery barrage...
Due to depletion that is a Russian Mechanised Battalion size.
It was gone in 30 minutes flat, not a single vehicle drove out.
This means that Russia has gone from one Bat every 3 days initially, to a full Bat every day.
They are well and truly destroying their entire army..."
 
Here's an explanation of how this loss of a battalion happened and why.
This fella's channel has been a pretty solid and reliable source of information for a while. He's Ukrainian but tells it how it is when the Russians have successes. His strategic/tactical analysis is usually very good indeed.
I'm sure a few of you watch his channel already.

 
Mean while, Girkin/Strelkov has caused a massive stir among the Russian public (remember, he is very popular) by posting another video basically saying that Putin has been replaced by imposters.

Our man, happily catching up with his conjugal duties for the next week or two, did say to me yesterday that he and his colleagues are pretty sure that Putin died 5 weeks ago (when comms stopped between his Sochi palace and the Kremlin). Girkin was more or less implying as much ... not the timeframe, but the end result ... criminals in charge of the Kremlin fronted by an imposter.

That must be a bit of a mindfeck for your average Russian (it kind of is for us as well to be fair).

Anyway, Mr Conjugal thinks that Strelkov is definitely making a massive play for power now ... and that he clearly has protection/backing from one of the security services at least.

He wants the war to be over. Thinks it should be stopped. Whether he'd just give up Crimea and Donbas is hard to tell. It would make the western world very queasy to deal with a man convicted of the Malaysian Airlines murders.
 
NATO stating that a new Russian offencive has begun and they will decide on sending aircraft in the next couple of days.Looks like Ukraine will get what they want.

It just ramps up and carries on……
 
Mwelolo said:
NATO stating that a new Russian offencive has begun and they will decide on sending aircraft in the next couple of days.Looks like Ukraine will get what they want.

It just ramps up and carries on……
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I guess it is just me, but rightly or wrongly, I get wound up when see phrases about 'ramping up' in relation to Ukraine getting more weaponry to try and survive as a sovereign nation that is under attack from a completely unjustifiable invasion by a far stronger, more numerous army, intent on wholesale destruction and suffering.

Ukraine are trying to survive and need sufficient weaponry to enable them to fight to reclaim their land from the evil regime that is Russia. All the ramping up, in my opinion, has been done for years by putin culminating in this despicable war.
 
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He has taken some time out from conjugal bliss (maybe she was having a nap) to write some stuff about missiles.
Nothing Freudian about that at all. No SSirree.

"Now that finally this cat is out of the bag I can finally talk about it.

Everyone has wondered why Ukraine has not received ATACMS.
The answer is slightly awkward for the US.
They are rather expensive, 1.4 million USD give or take a few cents.

The US has a rather nice stockpile of Tomahawk cruice missiles (4200) and about 2700 air launched JASM with a range of up to 1900km.
ATACMS? Well, there are only 800 of them.
The reason for this is both budgetary, and also that they cover such a short range of excellence (120km to 300km) that the US never needed that many of them to begin with.
Up to 86km an ordinary GMLRS was perfect, and between 80-120km there is an extended range version.

Ukraine
Currently Ukraine is using 1000 GMLRS per month at 160 000USD a pop.
To be able to have the same effect Ukraine would need to launch the same amount of ATACMS per month at 1.4MUSD.
And, there is no production facility for them that can handle that load of production, currently they are handmade.
In other words, they where never a real option.

Yes, Ukraine could in the end receive about 80 of them, enough to solve the bridge problem.
But, thing is that Ukraine potentially need something radically more potent, and with a longer range.
Let me divide up what Ukraine has, will receive shortly (pledged), and what might come later.
It is also good here to know what their mission profile would be.

Now
GMLRS (1000) per month. Denial of logistics as primary mission (ammunition depots, railroads, bridges...), secondary of tactical targets (command posts, radars, etcetera).
Gungnir (4 per month), 300-500km range, large payload AI cruise missile (Hell Class). Targets are ships, reinforced bridges, etcetera... All are held back currently, last confirmed usage was Rat Island and Kersh Bridge. A few will be retained for ships, but the bulk are designated to take out the Kersh Bridge.

Pledged
GLSDBs, brand spanking new thing built by SAAB with parts from Boeing. Range 150km, medium sized warhead. This is the new GMLRS in functionality and usage. Up to 1000 of them will be delivered per month as the factory in Sweden ramp up production, first 100 delivered, and each month the number will go up with 100 more missiles. The purpose is pushing the denial of logistics up to the Russian breaking point.
Storm Shadow Cruise missile. Range from 250km up to 1200km. Big hitter against longrange tactical targets and strategic targets. Deliveries of up to 50 per month is likely.

Probable in the future
This is what could be sent if Russia goes with the "Stubborn Donkey Strategy", ie continues the war even after being completely driven out of Ukraine.
Tomahawk cruise missiles. US has a stockpile of older versions that could be sent up to 100 per month.
JASMS, up to 50 of them per month, up to 1900km range.
Both of the above would have the ability to take out factories, bases, defence installations, etcetera. This is attritional warfare weapons in Ukraines case.
Having 150 things blowing up inside of Russia each month could be sustained infinitely.
Reaper Q9 longrange drone missile platforms. 5 of these could be delivered per month with enough ordinance to perform 150 attacks per month.

Obviously Russia would at that stage move all wartime production beyond the 1900km range.
At that point ballistic missiles would come into play.
Enter the venerable Minuteman Ballistic Missile.
It is far from accurate with a CEP (probabilistic hit radius) of 2000 to 240 metres.
It is though able to carry quite a hefty bomb, and there are roughly 1500 of the buggers stockpiled that the US will never use...
And, it is possible to ugrade them with better electronics to improve the CEP down to roughly 50 meters.

Artillery shells
Once again the Punditerati has started to squeel about the lack of western artillery production.
What they are missing is the rate of expanded production on a global scale, plus the global stockpiles.
Ukraine will never run out of shells.

Moldova
It is true that Russia was planning to perform a military coup in Moldova in an attempt to destabilise things further.
It was planned to be done with Serbian and other mercenaries.
Thing is though that this was just one of their plans that would most likely never have come into fruition, or had a chance of being successful.
The Moldovan President is doing a very calculated move to strengthen the internal resolve for what is to come.
Prior to this move she held talks with the EU (6 months ago), and asked for permission (sort of) to clear out the Russians in Transnistria.
The EU position is that it is an internal affair of Moldova to solve their internal problem, but it was also said that unless it was permanently solved Moldova can't become a member of the EU. NATO stated the same.
Behind the scenes weapons started to trickle in to Moldova, and new "trainers" showed up to help train their army.

So, it is quite likely that Moldova is planning a small war of their own.
Problem is just that the Moldovan army, even with new weapons and a bit of training, is rougly only equal to the standing Transnistrian army, not even getting into the 1500 Russian "peacekeepers".

So, let me move into a bit of guesstimation here. It is well known that at the breakup of the Soviet Union there was 20 million artillery shells and grad rockets in various amounts stored in Transnistria. It was the largest ordinance storage facility in the world.
It was there to take on the entire NATO southern command including Turkey.
No EU or NATO country can get directly involved. The punditry has in their wisdom said things like that Moldova will join with Romania and that it would solve the problem.
Nope, Romania can't get involved. Neither EU, nor NATO, would ever allow that since it would violate internal laws and regulations.

Clearly Moldova needs a big, well armed friend, that is not afraid of punching Russia in the face.
Someone who sees a clear benefit in solving Moldovas problem in a friendly manner.
Thankfully Moldova has such a friend nearby, that is willing to help oust the pesky Russians.
And Moldova would then have the abillity to help their new big friend with a few million Soviet style artillery shells.

Obviously Ukraine would be happy to just have the Russians in Transnistria gone, that would then free up resources for them since they would not need to guard their Southwestern flank. They would instead have a very happy and friendly neighbour to trade with.
Even if the Russians detonate the entire storage Ukraine would think was worth it.

Ukraine could easily spare a couple of heave brigades for a couple of weeks and pound the Russians to so much pulp.
After all, the Russian troops there are not by any regard crack troops, they are mainly logistics and maintenance troops.

When it is all done EU can just sweep in and "negotiate a peace treaty" that will transfer Transnistria solidly back into Moldovan hands, perhaps with a bit of self governance on top for the moping Transnistrians as a somewhat tasty cherry on top of the iron fist.
Heck, they might even be allowed a bit of official autonomy so that they can remain the last true communist state on the planet.
According to themselves they are the Pridnestrovian SSR to this day, and for some reason nobody understands, they really want to remain a communist SSR.
If it was not a geopolitical mess it would be sort of cute and they would receive a lot of tourists who wanted oogle at Lenin statues and mosaics of Stalin, and using the old Soviet telephones etcetera. Anachronistic is an understatement.
How much do they want to remain as such?
Well, both the CIA and the EU conducted secret gallups, and got the astonishing result that 87 percent of them wanted to remain a one party SSR..."
 
BandH said:
I guess it is just me, but rightly or wrongly, I get wound up when see phrases about 'ramping up' in relation to Ukraine getting more weaponry to try and survive as a sovereign nation that is under attack from a completely unjustifiable invasion by a far stronger, more numerous army, intent on wholesale destruction and suffering.

Ukraine are trying to survive and need sufficient weaponry to enable them to fight to reclaim their land from the evil regime that is Russia. All the ramping up, in my opinion, has been done for years by putin culminating in this despicable war.
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The conflict is ramping up, simple statement of fact.
 
BandH said:
I guess it is just me, but rightly or wrongly, I get wound up when see phrases about 'ramping up' in relation to Ukraine getting more weaponry to try and survive as a sovereign nation that is under attack from a completely unjustifiable invasion by a far stronger, more numerous army, intent on wholesale destruction and suffering.

Ukraine are trying to survive and need sufficient weaponry to enable them to fight to reclaim their land from the evil regime that is Russia. All the ramping up, in my opinion, has been done for years by putin culminating in this despicable war.
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And on top of that, how sustainable is it if Russia do get cleared out of the eastern part of Ukraine?

Do the residents just sit there in fear of another invasion at some point in future?

I think there needs to be more of a long term and workable plan to ensure the ordinary people of this region can live their lives in peace.
 
Mwelolo said:
The conflict is ramping up, simple statement of fact.
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I get that mate, you are correct, it is just my perception when hear words like Ukraine have 'ramped up' and 'dangerous escalation' by the west/Ukraine that bother me when it is putin that has caused this and has been escalating this for years.
 
It is actually building back up after the winter hiatus. The Russians are trying to throw the kitchen sink at it over the next month to break the Ukrainian lines and make some gains (before the UAF assault) for political reasons. Their only real asset is manpower. Ukraine will resume where they left off after north Kherson, Kharkiv, Lyman etc, hope fully with the western tools to help them clear Russia from post 2014 territories.

The major problem is still political. None of the present group pulling the strings in Russia are of a mind to give up because, if they do, their lives are effectively over. They are, at the moment, a bit like the rats squabbling in a barrel (James Bond fans). In fact they are getting (quietly this time) even more authoritarian and are planning a major statement this time next week ... likely to be a general call to arms to "save the motherland". At the same time you have Strelkin and Khodorkovsky actually telling the Russian people some home truths ... and, in the latter's case, actively calling for rebellion.

Hopefully, some more of the frontline conscripts will start to refuse to fight. It really is only ending one way for them otherwise.

Anyway, here's the latest situation.

 
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A few bits on loss rates and the oncoming Russian offensive.

"The Russian offensive is now in full swing and will continue to increase in strength over the next few days.
Up until now it has been mainly large probing attacks, and attacks meant to pin down the Ukrainian forces.
Over the next couple of weeks the Russian offensive will culminate, and then the mud sets in.
So, let me go through a few things as the last Russian reserves are being sent into the offensive.
After that there will be a few tidbits of news and numbers.

Belarus
I quite agree with Girkin here, it is impossible for Russia to attack through the swamplands and dams here.
It would just be an insane drain on Russias resources, and would just create a 1000 kilometre new frontline that Russia would have to defend.
And on top of that, Belarus seems quite opposed to joining the fray on the loosing side.
And, even if they did that they would be crushed against the strong Ukrainian defences here.

Sumy/Kharkiv
It is rumoured that the roughly 20 000 troops in this section will attack, this is not likely, because if they are beaten the entire defence of Russia is gutted and the road to Moscow is left wide open.
But, on the other hand, it is not like Russia is intelligent.
The Ukrainian defences here are strong, and the lay of the land is not particularly suited for an offensive without a lot of artillery.
There is also a limited amount of equipment on this section, so it seems unlikely from that standpoint too.

Luhansk
It is very likely that Russia will try to retake all of Luhansk Region and push onward into the Kharkiv Oblast.
This will not be possible since the Russian forces lack the strength to do it, and that the distances are to large for them to achieve a lot before the mud sets in.

Donetsk
Here is most likely where the biggest push will come, and it will be in Bakhmut and Vuhledar.
But, Ukraine has enough forces here to hold without any larger problem, at worst they have to abandoned the eastern half of Bakhmut.
It should though be said that it is currently Ukraine that is moving forward in the Bakhmut area, and the Russians are famously just being squished at Vuhledar.

Zhaporizhzhia
There's a lot of forces near Melitopol and Tokmak, but it is believed currently that they are being in reserve for a later defence, or if they are successful in other spots that they will push later on.
It is here good to remember that Ukraine is holding an entire army in waiting from the Kakhovka dam over to Vuhledar.
Obviously Russia knows this, and that it will be a massacre moving forward unless that army is depleted as reinforcement along other segments of the frontline.

News
Someone calculated that Russia looses 2000 men for every 91 meters taken on average.
This is not something that Russia can sustain, their entire army would be gone if they pushed forward 25 kilometres, and will have lost all offensive capability in 5-10km.
I know no number that put the Russian problem into a better light.

Ukraine is slowly increasing their army size beyond the 1 million men mark as they get more and more equipment in place.
It is now believed that their ration is 2:1 against the Russian army at 1.4 to 0.7 million men.
And with Russia committing 90 percent of their entire strength inside Ukraine, it is by now a fools game from the Russian side.

Shell Pundits are once more writing about the imminent loss of Ukraine as artillery shells run dry.
So, some real figures and facts are needed.
As the war began all of NATO had roughly 10 million 155mm shells in reserve, and with a hard cutoff point of supply roughly at 8 million shells.
Ukraine is using about 5000 per day, so 1.7 million per year, in total 1.2 has been used so far.
At the beginning of the war the total production capability was around 500 000 shells per year.
If we now do some quick math we get 10-8-1.2+0.5= 1.3 million available shells for Ukraine.
This is of a single type, there are obviously other shell sizes that are used.
Now, to make it even worse for the punditry, the correct numbers of production is currently 1 million shells per year, and 2 more massive US plants just came online able to produce a further 0.5 million shells a year.
And to top that off there are 4 more plants in the making, two in the US and two in Europe.
So, what would be possible to produce without even going into a wartime production scheme?
Well, somewhere between 5 and 10 million if we really need to.
But, 2.5 million a year is enough to supply Ukraine, and even replenish the stocks a bit.
And, I expect that the stocks will be increased into more like 50 000 shells after the war... we learned again the old lesson about how much is used in a big war.
And we might need even more in the next war, there are after all an awful lot of Chinese to give a 155mm massage.
Note, I do not want another big war, but to avoid it we must be ready for it.

Russian air force, it is changing its posture and moving closer to Ukraine.
There are also a lot of unhappy Russian pilots taking to Telegram to complain about having been giver orders that will take them into Ukraine.
It is now clear that in a few days the Russian air force will try to take command of the Ukrainian skies.
This would probably have been possible at the beginning of the war, but against dozens of western air defence systems?
It will be raining Russians over Ukraine soon.
It will be interesting to watch Russia crush their own air force, currently Russia has moved in so much that only 10 percent will remain in the end if they go through with it.

Moldova
Do keep an eye out for news here.
I do think this is where Russia will have their next big loss.
All I can say.

Summary
Russia is about to go into an offensive with half the number of troops, and a technological disadvantage, aginst a well equipped well emplaced enemy.
A ratio of 1:2 instead of 3:1 is just suicide, not even counting Ukraines equipment advantage.
In pure figures Russia would need 3-5 million men to succeed, and they only have 0.7...

Will Russia have some success?
Well, it is likely that they will succeed in a few areas on a tactical level, but the strategic effect will even if they push forward be a monstrous loss.

In the next 6 weeks the Russian army will probably cease to exist as a viable force in the world.
Russia is willingly and knowingly crushing themselves against a larger army.
On the other side Ukraine will defend themselves into a very large victory, that will enable them to later on remove Russia from their country.

I must admit it is quite a compelling spectacle, watching Russia destroying themselves.
My only question now is when the former juggernaut will start to sink for real?
Will it be after the losses from the offensive?
If that happens it would be the army that does it to stop the losses and save what can be saved.
Politically the small gains will safeguard the leadership for a couple of months.
So, no really.
But, if Ukraine can rapidly swing into their own offensive and start to threaten Crimea or take Donetsk City?
Well, then Russia would clearly see that all of their losses are for naught, and that Ukraine is the winning side.
At that point there will either be a futile mobilisation wave, or the breakup will start.
Time will indeed tell.

I was famously wrong and thought Russia would give up before the new year, I did fail due to believing that logic would prevail in Russia.
Now we are at the point where true despair will soon set in. If that is enough Ukraine will win during the summer.
Next point would be late November to March 2024, but then all of Ukraine will be free.
If Russia is somehow still around by then (unlikely) and continue the war this will turn into something unheard of ... I hope note, and will not write upon it further unless it is starting to look more likely."
 
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