Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Zanza]

Makes me wonder why the Russian central bank held its hard currency deposits overseas.  For the interest?

Biscuit, you said you work at Treasury, any ideas?

Aren't "currency reserves" just an account at the Fed or ECB that is owned by the Russian Central Bank?

[crazy canuck]

Makes me wonder why the Russian central bank held its hard currency deposits overseas.  For the interest?

Biscuit, you said you work at Treasury, any ideas?

Aren't "currency reserves" just an account at the Fed or ECB that is owned by the Russian Central Bank?

Yeah, it's not wads of Foreign currency sitting in a vault somewhere

[The Brain]

Makes me wonder why the Russian central bank held its hard currency deposits overseas.  For the interest?

Biscuit, you said you work at Treasury, any ideas?

Aren't "currency reserves" just an account at the Fed or ECB that is owned by the Russian Central Bank?

Yeah, it's not wads of Foreign currency sitting in a vault somewhere

*sad Pablo noises*

[alfred russel]

A U.S. General has just stated he believes around 4000 Russian soldiers have died. While not as high as the Ukrainians had said it's a lot higher than I thought, I figured the 500ish in week 1 that the Kremlin disclosed seemed about right for a "bad" outcome given the relative military powers of the two countries. Four thousand in a week is a fucking disaster.

But why? A country with an economy about the size of Canada and more or less on its own straight up invaded a European country with a population of over 40 million, seemingly to militarily conquer it. The invaded country had forewarning and predictably has had a massive wave of patriotism. The international community is giving all sorts of military aid to their opponent.

Russia talks a lot of shit about how awesome it is, and our own defense industries have some incentive to echo them, but at the end of the day they invest dramatically less than we do in their military and every rouble they spend on some fancy fighter design is a rouble they aren't spending on communication equipment or military trucks or tires.

They lost 15,000 in 10 years in Afghanistan, if they lost 4000 in a week it's a disaster even relative to how poor Russia is.

4,000 US soldiers died during the entirety of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.  (31,000 injured).

Absolutely a disaster.

You guys are comparing losses to Afghanistan and Iraq which are not similar. The Russians just invaded a European country (seemingly with the intention to conquer in whole or part) with a population over 40 million, and that country is highly motivated to fight. I hate that every comparison goes back to the Nazis, but it does seem WWII is the last comparable, and maybe the best is when Germany invaded Poland.

Poland had a smaller population than Ukraine today, and probably got less international support. My crack research on the attack (looking up the summary stats on the side of the wikipedia page) shows the Germans had  17,269 KIA and it took ~5 weeks. Of course they also had help from the Soviets.

My impression is we've generally considered the invasion of Poland to be successful, and also rapid without excessive losses. Maybe by 2022 we've lost our stomach for 17k casualties, or maybe/probably Putin miscalculated how Ukrainians would react, and maybe/probably the Russian military is too small and trying to do this on the cheap versus the Germans in 1939, but the losses seem entirely predictable and expected.

[Zanza]

If you want to make that comparison, it seems relevant that Germany invaded with about 1.6 million soldiers, so a bit more than 1% KIA after five weeks. It seems likely that Russia has 1-2% KIA of their forces within two weeks. And they have so far only taken Cherson of the bigger cities, so more losses are likely.

[Tamas]

Yeah Dorsey has a point that counter-insurgency is not a valid basis of comparison but even comparing to a regular war (which this is) Russian losses are probably not great.

[alfred russel]

If you want to make that comparison, it seems relevant that Germany invaded with about 1.6 million soldiers, so a bit more than 1% KIA after five weeks. It seems likely that Russia has 1-2% KIA of their forces within two weeks. And they have so far only taken Cherson of the bigger cities, so more losses are likely.

It seems relevant to the extent that Russia is going to deplete its force faster, but if you invade with an underpowered force the expectation would be more casualties rather than less.

[The Brain]

Wiki tells me that in the Winter War the Russians lost on average about 1,500 KIA per day.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah Dorsey has a point that counter-insurgency is not a valid basis of comparison but even comparing to a regular war (which this is) Russian losses are probably not great.

Worth pointing out I think that US assessment (all of which was low confidence) also had Russian losses of material at about 5% which is not great. Casualties will definitely matter more politically but in immediate impact on the campaign I think the re-supply is going to be a bigger problem - or maybe not?

If you want to make that comparison, it seems relevant that Germany invaded with about 1.6 million soldiers, so a bit more than 1% KIA after five weeks. It seems likely that Russia has 1-2% KIA of their forces within two weeks. And they have so far only taken Cherson of the bigger cities, so more losses are likely.

Yeah - Russian forces are still moving because they bypass cities. But (and I know nothing about the military) surely that is just going to expose them to more risk of their supply lines being attacked which is more and more of an issue if they are bypassing/leaving cities under siege in order to put other, bigger cities under siege?

I get the risk of Ukrainian forces being encircled but doesn't it cut both ways if Russia is still basically fighting over Sumy, Chernihiv, Mariupol, Kharkiv and pushing to encircle Kyiv (the perimeter of which is about 100km on both sides of the river I think)?

Also given the ongoing protests in Kherson it does not yet look like a city under Russian "control" which is probably another decision they need to make.

[Tamas]

To be fair protests will stop once the Russians start shooting more than warning shots.

[Sheilbh]

To be fair protests will stop once the Russians start shooting more than warning shots.

Yes. That's my thought on all those videos - at some point it's likely the crowd stops peacefully lying in front of tanks/protesting and the Russian soldiers stop just firing warning shots

But at that point I think people in occupied cities may also escalate from protests to using the weapons/molotovs at which point the question will be whether the Russians have enough forces to occupy cities in revolt.

[alfred russel]

Also given the ongoing protests in Kherson it does not yet look like a city under Russian "control" which is probably another decision they need to make.

There used to be regular wars over territory in europe with standard ways of asserting control in places it wasn't welcomed. The problem is that if the russians try to employ these, the world is going to lose its shit. If they don't, I don't see how they get control.

This invasion was a really bad idea.

[Josquius]

Also given the ongoing protests in Kherson it does not yet look like a city under Russian "control" which is probably another decision they need to make.

There used to be regular wars over territory in europe with standard ways of asserting control in places it wasn't welcomed. The problem is that if the russians try to employ these, the world is going to lose its shit. If they don't, I don't see how they get control.

This invasion was a really bad idea.

There's the key problem that Russia hasn't even decided what they're doing.
Do they want to control the cities, they're now part of russia?
Do they want to "liberate" them and hand them over to their Ukranian puppet?
They're in a stage of not knowing why they're even there right now

[Sheilbh]

To be fair protests will stop once the Russians start shooting more than warning shots.

On this - video apparently from this morning from Kherson, a regional capital of 300,000:
https://twitter.com/Mylovanov/status/1501437172502642690?s=20&t=fi6pcgtBpwcaIVLwTdDECw

As it says the warning shots does not provoke fear or calm in the crowd - it mobilises them further. They all move forward more and are getting more angry. You're absolutely right about Russians starting to shoot - but looking at that crowd, I'm not convinced they'll be staying peaceful for long/forever.

[Tamas]

To be fair protests will stop once the Russians start shooting more than warning shots.

On this - video apparently from this morning from Kherson, a regional capital of 300,000:
https://twitter.com/Mylovanov/status/1501437172502642690?s=20&t=fi6pcgtBpwcaIVLwTdDECw

As it says the warning shots does not provoke fear or calm in the crowd - it mobilises them further. They all move forward more and are getting more angry. You're absolutely right about Russians starting to shoot - but looking at that crowd, I'm not convinced they'll be staying peaceful for long/forever.

Interesting and inspiring. I am not familiar with the terrible mathematics and psychology of half a dozen soldiers like that unloading assault rifles into that crowd. But if they did and they failed to rout everyone, I would assume they'd get lynched. But, realistically, people don't want to zerg rush people with automated weapons, I don't think I'd have the balls for it. But based on this video, Russia will need a hell of a lot more troops than they have there now to keep order.

And, what will happen once they leave? Ukraine was essentially eastern Balkans even before the 2014 mess with a fairly violent political culture by European standards, there are tons of weapons among the populace. Once Russian troops leave, the puppet regime they'll put in place will be hanging from lampposts in very short order.