The end?

What do you think of this large prisoner swap. Is it Russia trying to get some goodwill ahead of possible peace/surrender talks?
 
MVBoro said:
What do you think of this large prisoner swap. Is it Russia trying to get some goodwill ahead of possible peace/surrender talks?
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2 points I can think of:

1/ a case of the usual mafia style kidnapper behaviour so no change there

2/ Putler may just be starting to think Trump won’t win so he’s gone big on getting back a couple of his star imprisoned expats before he has to deal with a less soft touch Harris

Don’t think either of the above are to do with the war as such
 
On F16s. By heck I had to do some research for this one.

"So, they have finally officially arrived.
6 F-16 of Dutch origin, with 12 pilots flying them, hot-seating fighters is after all a thing during a war.
Inofficially they arrived about a month ago, but there was need to get the ground-crews, flying crews, rotations, etcetera up and working, and 1 month for that is awesomely fast.

I will obviously not go into where specifically they are based.
But, let us say that some sleight of hand will be going on to keep them safe and sound, plus some obvious general sneakiness... ;)

Weapons loadout, they have all the goodies that an F-16 can carry, and then some little extras, so they will not lack oompf.
And the good part is that we have oodles of air ordnance available, we will not run out of that any time soon, and more is being produced already.
In this regard we are for once ahead of the curve, a good thing with the long delivery time.


Delivery time...
So, why did it take such a long time, and why is Ukraine being drip fed F16s?
Pilots is the answer, Ukraine ran out of viable experienced pilots.
Both due to war casualties, and due to the West being to good for its own good.

As the war started the West started to look for an air solution for Ukraine basically on day one.
We need a quick. cheap and cheerful way of supplying Ukraine with aircraft.
And retraining Ukrainian pilots on the F-16 would take 9 months, so the focus was initially on finding planes that they already could fly.

Now you are probably say to yourself, "we are NATO, where the hell would we find oodles of Russian junk?".
Thing is that Russia has spread out, or sold, enough airplanes that we had more than there are dogturds in Europe.
Remember that we had the entire compliment of stuff that East-Europe had at the time of the splitup of the Soviet Union.
Many of those was westernized and in good nick.

With westernized I mean that they had western command and control systems of NATO-nick, and that they could take western weapons loadouts, at least partially.
Hence why Ukraine all of a sudden could fire western provided arms with Russian planes.

So, we trucked in planes, we flew in planes, we did things with plane transports you wouldn't believe.
We forcefed Ukraine with so many Mig-29s and SU-24s that they went "Burp", shake a Ukrainian military airport and it will fart a plane in your general direction.

As the war began Ukraine had around 100 airframes in flying condition, and roughly the same number as parts donors.
If you have been diligent and counting the number that has been shot down, or crashed, you would say that Ukraine has 39 serviceable airframes left.
This is not true, and herein lies the answer to a mystery...


Air Dominance
Air Superiority and Air Dominance is not the same thing.
If you have Air Superiority you can do whatever the heck you wish over enemy territory, and the enemy can't even dream about touching your territory from the air.
This is how the West wins wars with less troops than the enemy has, we can basically dispense as much pain as we wish upon them at a prodigious rate and at our convenience, from the air.

Air Dominance means that you dominate your own airspace.
Now, how did Ukraine achieve this against an enemy with more planes and more pilots?
The answer lies in those Migs and Sus.
We literally pushed in so many planes that Ukraine did not have pilots enough to run them.

There are cases when a pilot was shut down in the morning, and was up flying the next morning in a new airframe.
We shoved in 130 fully functional westernized airframes, plus 100 donor-aircraft.
This meant that Ukraine had no spare pilots, we furnished them to well with aircraft they needed instantly, so no experienced pilots was available to send to learn how to fly F-16s.


But planes...
Yes, there have been pilots doing training, but we had to either cut that short, or send them back after training to fly those old Soviet-westernized planes so Ukraine survived.

This means that those F-16s and Gripens that flew was manned by western crews, and they were just trial runs to see how they worked in a hot environment, think dry-run.


Pilots & Crews
So, we had to train new pilots.
Some was civilian airline pilots that we could reschool if they were young enough.
But, the bulk was people from aviation schools flying single-props, or entirely raw recruits.
This means that we needed 18 to 36 months per pilot.

Hence the delays.
The 12 pilots that just arrived are civilian airline pilots that have been "retooled" into future fighter aces.
At the end of the year 12 more will arrive with 6 more F-16.
And after that things will start to ramp up, and there's currently 89 F-16s lined up for delivery, but this will increase if needs be.
And if an F-16 is dunked, well then we can fly in another one to keep the numbers up, problem is more pilots really.

And over time we can start to pull those Mig and Su pilots and send them for a crash course on Western aircraft.
That being said, the rampup will be slow in the beginning, but in the end things will chug along at a nice high pace with no end in sight.
After all, we know how to do airwars, and we know how to set those up.


Gamechanger?
No, not really.
Or at least, not yet.

6 airframes and 12 pilots is not a heck of a lot to be honest in the perspective of scale.
If they had come in alone they would have been dunked within a few days, and that would be it.
But, they are coming in as the Russian Air Defense is highly degraded, and the Ukrainian Air Defense is stronger.
And, they are riding the tip of the wave of over 100 Ukrainian aircraft that is already existing.
That is the view we should take.

And, it also depends on two key factors.
How good are the Ukrainian pilots visavi how bad are the Russian pilots?
And how good is the F-16 visavi the Russian crapola?

We have a fairly good answer to the first answer, the Ukrainian pilots are a bit better, and a heck of a lot braver.
And being brave has a quality of its own in a high paced airwar.
The second part is trickier.

It also depends on the type of weapons attached, and the radar installed.
In the case of these F-16s they are upgraded as far as they can go, and they have the best air ordnance we can muster in the west that fit on an F-16.
This gives an edge on its own.

I'm by no means an airboffin myself, so I will go with what said airboffins have told me, and go with the lowest figures I have heard.
Conservatism in war is a virtue that wins wars
.
The good thing is though that now we have a lot of pilots that fly in the war to talk to, so that offsets a lot of unknowns.
Especially in regards of how good newer Russian aircraft are.
So, tentatively we have a multiplier scale of aircraft and pilot scale, based on Ukrainian experience and pilots that have flow both Russian and Western jets.

If we count the generation that are Mig-29, SU-24, SU-25, SU-27, then we have some pretty reliable numbers.
Remember that the SU-24 is an attack aircraft and not a fighter, so it will rate worse.
F-16 has 4:1 advantage over that generation.

If we then got to the SU-34 and SU-35 generation the numbers drop.
Once again, the SU-34 is an attack aircraft, so it will have a worse ratio than the SU-35.
F-16 here has a 2:1 ratio.
And, if we talk about the least known plane, the SU-57... well, our guesstimate is that we end up at a 1:1 ratio.

Obviously there's not a heck of a lot of hard figures here.
But, as the airwar progresses we will get more data.
And on that note.


Aircraft down
A Ukrainian F-16 is now confirmed for its first kill, and SU-34.
And as we get more datapoints this means that we will be able to refine the data against every single type of Russian aircraft there is.


Initially
Now, time to talk Force Multiplier here.
And that is not the F-16s themselves, at least not yet.

The Force Multiplier are the two SAAB GlobalEyes.
With those Ukraine can see far into Russia, and detail command all aircraft with Western Command & Control units in them, be they Western or Westernized Soviet stuff.
And they can guide missiles directly into enemy aircraft.
They are the single scariest thing that the West has given Ukraine.

And here comes the force multiplication part.
Each GlobalEye can track 10 000 targets, both friendly and enemy, in realtime.
It will then transmit that data in realtime to any piece of equipment that speaks STANAG.

This means that every single item of Western provided Air Defence tech will get early warnings up to 15 minues in advance, and get live target tracking data provided.
It can't be overstated how useful that is.

At the same time all aircraft will get the same data, enabling them to fire prior to their own radars even seeing the target.
This means that the Ukrainian aircraft can fire before any Russian aircraft can do so.
Force multiplication.
To replace a single GlobalEye Ukraine would need hundreds of radar-stations on the border or in trenches...
You see my point about how bad this is for Russia, especially since they no longer have anything operating that can perform the same service.

So, what is the drawback?
Surely there must be one after all.
And yes there is a pretty big one.

A GlobalEye is the juiciest and fattest targets in all of Ukraine.
The entirety of the Russian Aerospace Forces right now has a single goal, to down those two monsters.
After all, these are the things that transform Air Dominance into Air Superiority within a heartbeat if they are flying inside of Ukraine tracking at a specific distance from the Ukrainian borders.

This means that all Air Defense in Ukraine has protecting them as their top priority, and the same goes for the entire Ukrainian Air Force.
And we did not dare send them in until the F-16s arrived, because the first batch of those are there to protect these rare and extremely costly birds.

And the GlobalEyes can fly for a very long time. So, if one is up, 2 F-16s will be flying protection on its tail constantly, and those will rotate the entire time since they have much shorter airtime, this means that the 6 first F-16s are flying protection for the GlobalEye almost nonstop.
And, if everything fails, those F-16s must "take one for the team" and letting themselves be shot down to protect their Mother Golden Goose.

It is after all the GlobalEye that just gave Ukraine Air Superiority, not the F-16.
I say this not to belittle the F-16s that have arrived, but they will not be doing a hell of a lot until there's more of them.

I think you grasp what I am trying to say.
Airwar is about the totality of the system, not a single type of weapon.
All of it should be able to talk to, and help each other.
This is what brings Air Superiority over an enemy.
And now, finally Ukraine is starting to have all of those talkative pieces, be it on the ground, or up in the air.
Russia will learn pain, and then it will learn peace."
 
Well, this caught even Sneaky on the hop. An interesting read.
Obvs the prognosis is his own view.

"This morning a friend of mine called to congratulate me and Ukraine on the victory.
Being sort of stuck in a military mindset I started to explain that we are a bit aways, and that the war will not shift fully in our favour until November.
Cheeky sod laughed at me and said no...

"Ukraine has already won the economic war, right now it is more about how much more they can **** up Russia", and then he explained.
And when a Head of International Risk Managers at Morgan Stanley gives you a lecture, then you listen... well.

Now, let us go back to the greatest boxing match in human history, "The Rumble in the Jungle".
For round upon round George Foreman had Muhamed Ali up against the ropes pounding him, but in the end Muhamed Ali jumped away from the ropes and started to dance, and then he delivered a series of blows, the last being a left hook.

Now, let us freeze time into a standstill.
That left hook is frozen an inch away from the chin of Foreman, you can easily see that this is it, when time unfreezes it will connect, the head will whip upwards and backwards, the knees will fold, the 10 seconds will be counted, and from then on Muhamed Ali is the greatest boxer of all time.

George Foreman is Russia, Ali is Ukraine + allies, and the chin about to be hit is Gazprom (among other companies).
Russia has some spectacularly big companies, all of them are that type of cashcow that any country would give an arm and a leg to have.
The list is long, Gazprom, Lukoil, Severstahl, Severmesh, Arcticugol, Norilsk Nickel... etcetera.

All of those are backed by banks, Gazprombank is behind Gazprom, Lukoil is backed by Sberbank, and so on and so forth, and those banks are interconnected.
These companies have gushed in enormous amounts of wealth into Russia, yes 90 percent of the profit was stolen by the oligarchs with Putin taking the biggest cut, but even those 10 percent made Russia itself very wealthy with a national wealth fund almost rivaling Norway.

For 3 decades these companies have made ever larger profits going into the Russian economy.
For now, let us concentrate on Gazprom, but what I am writing is true for all of the companies on the list above.

Gazprom
It is bleading 25 million Euro per day, that is 9.125 billion Euro over a year.
It went there from a 30 billion profit in 2022, 10 billion in 2023.
Normally a company like that would have something like 50 billion in cash on hand, but this is Russia, so it was all stolen or went to the national wealth fund.

As it was hit with sanctions that was ever tightened the cashflow dropped below operation costs, and in a huge company having almost no sales abroad, and huge expenses is bothersome to say the least.
It is though not in and of itself a reason for bankruptcy, after all extremely large companies can have years with spectacular losses.
Even several years.

First such a compaany would take cash from the bank account, and then it would start to shrink operations and effectivize itself.
And if all that failed, the company would just go to the bank and borrow some tosh against the balance sheet.
After all, banks know that hydrocarbon companies are bound to make ridiculous profits again in the end as they move out from a slump.

But, who in Russia can borrow money to Gazprom?
Not the banks, they have been bled dry by the government already, so Russia itself has to keep Gazprom afloat somehow.

And, even if the banks could borrow out money theres a problem.
You borrow against your worth in assets.
Like factories, wells, pipelines, and so on.
And her comes that left hook.

As Ukraine started to blow up gas installations and pipelines (somewhat aided by a certain country) those same assets rapidly started to dwindle in fires and explosions.
And due to the cash-shortage Gazprom could not repair things, heck they can't even pay for regular maintenance.
So, ever day that asset value degrade, and that makes banks nervous, incredibly nervours.

And without loans due to lost assets, and with a negative cashflow, Gazprom is now waiting for that final hook to hit home, and it will go bankrupt.
It will in and of itself be the largest bankruptcy in human history, bigger then the Chinese Evergrande collapse.
But, it will not be alone, you will also have Lukoil at around the same time, and then the others will follow 1 by 1.

And with Gazprom goes Gazprombank, and that bank is interconnected with the other Russian banks.
Russia can absorb one of the behemoth companies, and one bank, it will be satanically painful with enormous fortunes erradicated, but the country could take it with huge pain.
Just this might end the war.

But if both Gazprom and Lukoil go under in short order, and both Gazprombank and Sberbank collapses...
Well, at that point all those connected banks would topple since they guarantee loans as consortiums.
Russia can't take that, those two banks stand for 50 percent of all banking in Russia, and as those banks fold the other companies will also fold in a stampede.

And at that point Russia will cave in on itself.
It would take decades to get back up running at that point, even if the sanctions are lifted.
And Gazprom and Lukoil would never return to glory, that train has gone forever.
First of all trust is gone, not even China want to have pipelines from Russia.
And Europe is gone forever, and anyway EU is going hydrocarbon free by 2045 anyway.


Russia
What people always forget is that Russia is not the Soviet Union.
They had generals that knew what they were doing, and they had military power as goal.
Russia is a robber state that is all about money.

Every single leader of Russia is either a businessman himself, or have some of the best economists on the planet employed.
There's not a ****** among them that can't read a balancesheet like a banker.

On the other side they can't understand a military map even if their lives depended on it.
Hence why all these bizarre decissions came from, even their generals are businessmen and robber-barons, and not military men.

I am fairly certain that Russia does not understand that they from November onwards will get an ever worse pummeling from a military standpoint.
A few of them obviously do, if they have had proper military training, or have advisors with such training, but those are not calling the shots.

No, it is the moneymen that calls the shot in Russia, and they are shiting themselves right now.
So much so that by now I would not be surprised if even Elvira Nabiulina herself would grab her handbag and jump out a window.

And with months left until the collapse of the Russian economy, they are so desperate that they are now doing the unthinkable.
Because there's still money in Russia, or well there's money in many places somewhere.
And there's heaps of big billionaires.

They are not yet going for the owners of companies, that would make things worse really.
So, at least for now the classic oligarchs are safe.
But all those who stole money?
The generals, the anti-corruption agency generals, and all of those.... they are now fair game.

Just Shoigu and his gang of merry robberers are good for around 500 billion Euro.
All of them are arrested except Shoigu, and he will also get it.
All of them except the lady that was smart enough to flee to France for asylum, are currently being wrung out in Lefortovo.
Being tortured to hand over all information of where their moneys at, and then tortured into opening said accounts and transfer the money into government hands.

Problem is that most of it is in fixed assets and not in readily available cash, and Russia needs cash more than anything else, or gold.
So, it is just enough for a few months of CPR for the Russian economy, and then they are all gone.

And the head honchos now realise that they have exactly those months to turn the tide, after that it is to late for Russia, and for them.
If they fail they will have tens of millions of unemployed Russians being somewhat unimpressed with their general existense.


Kremlin
The merry boys in Kremlin, and those less fortunate being gangraped under Lefortovo, desperately need peace.
Any peace really, there almost no terms s***y enough to not be better compared to what is coming.

It is sort of irritating that whatever we do on the battlefield will have so little meaning, after all, we have lost so many lives that we deserve some sort of glorious victory, and not something more or less decided in a bank board room.
But, still here we are.

And this is what Ukraine should push on, all we need to do is say, we will continue if you do not sign this monsterlist of conditions.
Russia is the one now risking to loose everything, not Ukraine.
Ukraine can afford to be patient a few months extra, Russia can't afford that.

Russia needs to get rid of their military and arms expenditures, they need stability to sort out their economy, they need to not have their factories bombed, they need sanctions lifted, they need foreign loans.


Personal Reasoning
I do not know what would be better.
All I could do was to send forward the assesment, and with a personal recommendation about what I believe would be best longterm for Ukraine.

There's two distinct options here.
We can call them the EU Option, and the US Option.
The US is not favouring a collapse, whereas EU dearly want a Russian Collapse, and are willing to take any risks associated with such a collapse.
US on the other hand dream some weird dream about using Russia as a weapon against China.

But, a peace is Ukraines to make, or not make.
And with the military victory solution being less important by the day, Ukraine is less depending on the US by the day.
But, it is still highly depending on EU, this since it will be EU helping out with the reconstruction, and then we have the upcoming membership on top of that.

Question is more, does Ukraine have more to gain from a Peacedeal than they have to win by just stubborn-arsing things until Russia collapses?

I sort of bet that there will be a compromise between the two opinions in the end, and the peacedeal will be monstrously expensive for Russia.

Russia will have to ceade land to Ukraine and EU.
Bilhorod, Bryansk, Ingria, Karelia, Kralovic, Kursk, Pskov, Rostov, Volgograd, Voronezh would probably be just the bare minimum in this regard.
Perhaps they will lose even Kola Peninsula.
EU does not want Russia to have any ocean acces from the Black Sea, nor the Baltic Sea.

Next over, all nuclear bombs will have to be handed over, together with everything that can carry a nuclear bomb, EU and Ukraine want Remnant Russia declawed permanently.
And, Russia will most likely not get to bring any gear out of Ukraine, and there will be limitations on numbers of airplanes in Russia.

Russia will also have to sign over all assets outside of Russia to Ukraine, private or public.
Then we come to the very long list of warcriminals.

What can Russia hope for?
A very limited number of leaders getting immunity for the time that they remain in "their chairs".
Limited lifting of sanctions, and cash loans.
Just the bare minimum to stave off a collapse, but nothing more.
This is about all that Russia can hope for, unless the US can come up with something convincing enough to satisfy EU and Ukraine.

Anyway, this is one path that could lead to victory.
But, what is most important is to not lift off the pressure on Russia on the battlefield.
Because, in November the trajectory of the war will shift into Ukraines favour.
And, then there's also diplomacy, there's way more going on than people expect, and China are now turning the screws bigly on Russia in this regard, and in regards of their own sanctions on Russia.

I recommended going for maximalist terms in any upcoming peace negotiation.
And those are set to start in September/October, and this time Russia is invited.
But, it is more of handing over the terms and conditions for a Russian surrender.

From maximalist terms, we can always throw a small candy or two Russias way to get them to b***r off permanently."
 
Something to consider. Sneaky and Tank Girl have been watching the racist marches in the UK. Sneaky says it's ultimately Putin backed. Tank Girl pointed out that when things got grim in Donetsk, the football ultras fell in with the Girkin/Putin move and were used by them and armed by them. It was Donetsk ultras who killed her husband and son, at the behest of the Russians.
 
borolad259 said:
Something to consider. Sneaky and Tank Girl have been watching the racist marches in the UK. Sneaky says it's ultimately Putin backed. Tank Girl pointed out that when things got grim in Donetsk, the football ultras fell in with the Girkin/Putin move and were used by them and armed by them. It was Donetsk ultras who killed her husband and son, at the behest of the Russians.
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No news there, mate.

Putin has been using social media for years to meddle in other countries business. It went to the extreme with Brexit and Trump being elected- this is all proven. What about Russian hackers and threats to cyber security? Russian hackers have been at it for years.
I do not know how this can be countered - anything done to prevent misinformation is censorship and has an impact on freedom of speech.
More than anything, even if something was to be done, how the hell does anybody police social media? It is huge. It would require an army of online auditors. Putin knows this.
 
MoggasDog said:
No news there, mate.

Putin has been using social media for years to meddle in other countries business. It went to the extreme with Brexit and Trump being elected- this is all proven. What about Russian hackers and threats to cyber security? Russian hackers have been at it for years.
I do not know how this can be countered - anything done to prevent misinformation is censorship and has an impact on freedom of speech.
More than anything, even if something was to be done, how the hell does anybody police social media? It is huge. It would require an army of online auditors. Putin knows this.
Click to expand...
I don't think it's THAT difficult to moderate even large forums if the political will is there to have it done properly.

People, in general, are quite precious about things they value. Just look at Reddit and how many forums are moderated by normal people volunteering time to keep their space free of rubbish.

This board manages it well despite regular attempts from people who want "freedom of speech" without consequences.

Forcing the big social media companies to moderate properly is doable - the EU have made great strides with some of this.

It might splinter some of the larger sites like twitter and facebook but that's no bad thing. Why do I get random right-wing propaganda on my facebook feed when I know every one of the friends I'm connected to personally - and none of them hold those views (that's actually not quite true as one or two old schoolmates have drifted - but not enough to explain the 'random' algorithms).

Politicians need to step up and not just throw blanket restrictions/regulations at the internet. It needs proper positive reform.
 
Scrote said:
Why do I get random right-wing propaganda on my facebook feed when I know every one of the friends I'm connected to personally - and none of them hold those views (that's actually not quite true as one or two old schoolmates have drifted - but not enough to explain the 'random' algorithms).
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Because the algorithm knows it creates a negative emotional response in you. The ratio of negative, neutral and positive emotional responses will be finely tuned to maximise your retention and engagement in the app.
 
Decent_Left said:
Ordinary Ruzzians are against the war are they?

Freed from a gulag yet still comes out with this nonsense. It’s a reason why a lot of us couldn’t give a **** about Navalny.

Where was that newsreader or a citizen taken off the street, but the “opposition” get to smell freedom

https://twitter.com/x/status/1819832262449414180
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I certainly don’t agree with all his stances but he believes, like Navalny and others, that being incarcerated in Russia holds more weight for opposition voices than out of sight in exile.
 
Smoggle said:
I certainly don’t agree with all his stances but he believes, like Navalny and others, that being incarcerated in Russia holds more weight for opposition voices than out of sight in exile.
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"being incarcerated in Russia holds more weight for opposition voices than out of sight in exile" - fine, he should stop the chat there then.

But that dying on both sides and UKR "should" sit down with Putin, nah just marginally less imperialistic than Putin the lot of them.
 
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