Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[mongers]

Meanwhile, Ukraine says they've repelled an attack on Kharkiv.

Russian results so far kinda feel like whenever I play any of the John Tiller NATO vs Warsaw Pact games as Soviets.

I think what's happening now in Ukraine might well have happened then in West Germany ca 1980, but on a much reduced scale and without the chemical and tactical nuclear weapons, so far.

There was a mockumentary in the 90s about a NATO/Warsaw Pact escelation. It's jumping off point was 1989, and a strongman taking over from Gorbachev. The democratic movements are brutally oppressed and an accidental border kerfuffle in Berlin leads to military conflict. At any rate, The WP make rapid gains while NATO gears up defenses. However, after two weeks they run out of supplies and their logistics break down. NATO manages to take out the WP operational HQ in Poland and goes on the counter offensive, eventually driving into Poland. USSR fire a warning nuke to detonate above the Atlantic, and things go downhill from there. It was oddly chilling how the presentation used footage from the Western leaders at the time (reframing their comments on Saddam and the Gulf crisis/war 1990/91 for this) and combining it with footage of WP/NATO military exercises.

At any rate, lack of supplies and basically grinding to a halt after initial gains was a major theme for the WP units in that show.

Interesting and quite plausible, possibly still relevant as you suggest.

[Tamas]

I am relieved to read the various quick opinion pieces on how Putin won't REALLY use nukes. I would be more relieved if I wasn't reading opinion pieces the last 2 weeks about how he'd never do a full invasion.

Also, it is impossible for me to tell whether it's just some grandstanding attention-seeking, but the Hungarian military has posted a big bloody post on their Facebook requesting the public NOT to share information about Hungarian troop movements they might be seeing.

[grumbler]

No way back for Putin, we can only hope for a palace revolt.

Saddam Hussein stayed in power after losing in the Gulf War.

But there was an uprising, the issue there is it was sectarian in nature.  The opposition to Putin is likely more generalized.

Yeah, I think that it would be more accurate to say that Saddam Hussein retained most of his power in most of the country.

[Syt]

There was a mockumentary in the 90s about a NATO/Warsaw Pact escelation. It's jumping off point was 1989, and a strongman taking over from Gorbachev. The democratic movements are brutally oppressed and an accidental border kerfuffle in Berlin leads to military conflict. At any rate, The WP make rapid gains while NATO gears up defenses. However, after two weeks they run out of supplies and their logistics break down. NATO manages to take out the WP operational HQ in Poland and goes on the counter offensive, eventually driving into Poland. USSR fire a warning nuke to detonate above the Atlantic, and things go downhill from there. It was oddly chilling how the presentation used footage from the Western leaders at the time (reframing their comments on Saddam and the Gulf crisis/war 1990/91 for this) and combining it with footage of WP/NATO military exercises.

At any rate, lack of supplies and basically grinding to a halt after initial gains was a major theme for the WP units in that show.

Interesting and quite plausible, possibly still relevant as you suggest.

I do seem to recall, though, that the scenario posited Soviet air superiority for the initial offensive, which strikes me as unlikely in 1989/90.

[Legbiter]

The Russians will escalate savagely now that Ukraine hasn't folded immediately. The nuclear posture is a warning to us to keep out while they go to work.

[Syt]

Also, it is impossible for me to tell whether it's just some grandstanding attention-seeking, but the Hungarian military has posted a big bloody post on their Facebook requesting the public NOT to share information about Hungarian troop movements they might be seeing.

Orban opening another front for Putin?

[Tamas]

Also, it is impossible for me to tell whether it's just some grandstanding attention-seeking, but the Hungarian military has posted a big bloody post on their Facebook requesting the public NOT to share information about Hungarian troop movements they might be seeing.

Orban opening another front for Putin?

99.5% not but I am reading that the state media has not stopped taking Russia's side, so I would not deem it entirely impossible.

[Syt]

The Russians will escalate savagely now that Ukraine hasn't folded immediately. The nuclear posture is a warning to us to keep out while they go to work.

That's how I read it for now, but it's a bit difficult to discern at this point what Putin considers "unacceptable" interference at this point. I would assume he wouldn't opt for a full strike, but rather a "warning shot", either into international waters to show how serious he is. Potentially he might authorize the use of battlefield nukes, reasoning he's already isolated, so why not?

[mongers]

Also, it is impossible for me to tell whether it's just some grandstanding attention-seeking, but the Hungarian military has posted a big bloody post on their Facebook requesting the public NOT to share information about Hungarian troop movements they might be seeing.

Orban opening another front for Putin?

99.5% not but I am reading that the state media has not stopped taking Russia's side, so I would not deem it entirely impossible.

Or a rat leaving a sinking ship?

[OttoVonBismarck]

Supposedly the Russians have agreed to peace talks on the Belarusian border. Will be interesting to see where that goes, I have to think Putin won't back down from loss of sovereignty + demilitarization, which I don't imagine Zelensky will agree to while he lives. I could see him agreeing to formally cede Crimea/Donbas/Luhansk, but if that's all Putin gets out of this this is a pretty big misadventure.

I think probably more than any other thing in the last 20 years this event has dispelled the notion of Putin the ultra-crafty 5D chess player. This war is an embarrassment to the Russian military, exposing serious logistical and operational problems. Ukraine's military has a smaller budget than the NYPD, and until about 5 years ago Ukraine had an almost non-functional military due to decades of being mismanaged by plutocrats. While they have made big strides since then, Ukraine militarily is not a strong country, and it borders Russia so logistics should not be a major hurdle. Instead, we are hearing Russia has logistical limitations already, with tanks being abandoned on the side of the road due to lack of supply.

Russia's vaunted special forces failed in many of their ambitious Day 1 goals. Russia wasn't able to immediately secure uncontested air superiority. At the end of the day Russia is too big for Ukraine to avoid a full occupation (I think), but the popular wisdom was that however difficult that occupation was going to be the war itself was going to be over with 24-48 hours and that obviously did not happen. This really exposes that Russia's military, capability wise, is immensely behind that of the United States--which while a lot of people understood that they may not have understood to what degree.

Putin was relatively savvy in how he went about war in Georgia and Ukraine previously--he basically constrained himself to areas that were genuinely majority-Russian and Russian-aligned. It really shows the Russian military is just much less capable against true opposition, which is a sort of exposure Putin absolutely did not want the world to see.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The Russians will escalate savagely now that Ukraine hasn't folded immediately. The nuclear posture is a warning to us to keep out while they go to work.

That's how I read it for now, but it's a bit difficult to discern at this point what Putin considers "unacceptable" interference at this point. I would assume he wouldn't opt for a full strike, but rather a "warning shot", either into international waters to show how serious he is. Potentially he might authorize the use of battlefield nukes, reasoning he's already isolated, so why not?

I don't really buy too much that Russia is secretly fighting with one of its hands tied behind its back. All signs point to serious logistical limitations hurting Russia's ability to sustain large scale operations over the distances involved--which is shocking considering fighting a big land war in Eastern Europe is supposed to be much of what the Russian military logistics was designed to handle.

Tactical nukes I find highly unlikely they will be used, that's a bottle not easy to close, and could lead to some real bad things.

[mongers]

... snip

Putin was relatively savvy in how he went about war in Georgia and Ukraine previously--he basically constrained himself to areas that were genuinely majority-Russian and Russian-aligned. It really shows the Russian military is just much less capable against true opposition, which is a sort of exposure Putin absolutely did not want the world to see.

Otto, I don't disagree with that, though I fear as other have said they can get a lot more brutal once they stall on the outskirts of all urban areas.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The idea that Russia isn't fighting hard because they aren't just mass targeting civilians is a bit incorrect from a military perspective. Targeting civilians can help you win an occupation/insurgency war, it isn't actually typically a good use of resources whilst engaged in a real shooting war with another military force. Like the Germans didn't intentionally spend a ton of time targeting civilians when they took Poland / Low Countries / France because they were hyper focused on destroying the military capacity of those countries. Same with the U.S. in its wars in Iraq. The fastest way to get rid of another military is to focus on destroying that military, the civilian population is not that relevant from a strictly military capacity during the phase of regular warfare. In an occupation when they are where all the insurgents live, it's a different matter. But Russia would not be doing "better" vs Ukraine if it had been killing more Ukrainian civilians right now, it would actually likely be doing worse, due to wasting resources on targets of relatively low military value.

It's also a big question mark if direct civilian targeting as a morale-war effort is smart, most cases of that usually have increased fanatical civilian dedication to resistance.

[Tamas]

Realistically it'd probably be better to the westernising part of Ukraine to shed the east and Crimea but why would they agree to that? Political suicide (and likely literal death at the hands of a far-right assassin shortly after) for the Ukrainian leaders aside, the only point to such concession would be if Russia's future non-interference could be guaranteed. Which in turn can only be done with NATO membership and I doubt NATO members would be ok with rushing into that.

[Legbiter]

The Russians will escalate savagely now that Ukraine hasn't folded immediately. The nuclear posture is a warning to us to keep out while they go to work.

That's how I read it for now, but it's a bit difficult to discern at this point what Putin considers "unacceptable" interference at this point

Closing the air space between Russia and Kaliningrad would mean certain war for instance. Any cyberattacks specifically aiming to disable Russian utilities or communication would be another. Constant, rolling, one-upmanship on sanctions preventing Russia from functioning at a bare minimum strategic level. Direct military engagement of course.

The off-ramp for Putin is he gets the eastern enclaves, Crimea and a guarantee from the US that Ukraine is now the world's largest Finland.