Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Legbiter]

Horrendous. From FT reporter, there is footage in this thread from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence - if you want to view:

Pure horror.

Seen it. Fuck Russia.

[viper37]

It is really very grim.

Get Ukraine tanks, anti-aircraft defences, artillery, and aircraft now.

We need to get involved, despite the nuclear risks.

[Legbiter]

We need to get involved, despite the nuclear risks.

No. Putin is playing a losing hand, let the Ukrainians maul the Russians themselves, the damage to his reputation along with the sanctions will be very, very bad for the regime, possibly lethal.

[jimmy olsen]

Twitter is just awash with horror today.

Video after video of streets littered with civilian corpses lying in the streets where they were gunned down.

Russian paratroopers from the first failed assaults just heaped in piles, seemingly untouched since they were dumped there.

Streets clogged with countless burnt out Russian tanks, APCs and trucks.

Those forces who came in from Belarus were some of the best Russia had. If this is bad for the Russians now after a month imagine how things will look once May rolls around.

It's the usual Russian strategy to throw bodies at the ennemy.  There's nothing different here.  They're retreating and regrouping.  Either Ukraine attacks heavily defended position and suffers more casualties, casualities it can't replace while Russia still has a lot more room to maneouver there, or Ukraine accepts to lose 1/3 of its territory.

It's going to take several months to replace those men because the Russians have not gone to war footing. Meanwhile the Ukranians are mobilizing for total war and have mobilized hundreds of thousands of veterans in the last month.

Even if they're just light infantry, they have ATMS, manpads, drones, night vision gear, optics and most off all the will to fight. They are going to crush the Russians in the east.

[viper37]

It's going to take several months to replace those men because the Russians have not gone to war footing. Meanwhile the Ukranians are mobilizing for total war and have mobilized hundreds of thousands of veterans in the last month.

Even if they're just light infantry, they have ATMS, manpads, drones, night vision gear, optics and most off all the will to fight. They are going to crush the Russians in the east.

Up 'til mid 1943, you could have said the Germans were winning.  They kept advancing, they suffered losses, but nothing significant.  Then the Allies started catching up, with production and manpower.

Ukraine is at max mobilisation.  They can't replace their losses.  Russia can replace it within months, as you say.

It's an embarassement, it's a setback, but it's not a defeat.  they'll dig up and wait for the Ukrainians to assault fortified positions.

[viper37]

We need to get involved, despite the nuclear risks.

No. Putin is playing a losing hand, let the Ukrainians maul the Russians themselves, the damage to his reputation along with the sanctions will be very, very bad for the regime, possibly lethal.

Maybe on the first part... definately NO on the final sentance.  Zero chance of Putin being overthrown/force to step down.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Izyum fell apparently. Took the Russians a while to capture the crossroads but now they have and can threaten quite a bit of territory in the east

[Zanza]

There were several reports about Izyum falling or being held over the last weeks. Let's hope the Ukrainians can hold out again.

[OttoVonBismarck]

It's going to take several months to replace those men because the Russians have not gone to war footing. Meanwhile the Ukranians are mobilizing for total war and have mobilized hundreds of thousands of veterans in the last month.

Even if they're just light infantry, they have ATMS, manpads, drones, night vision gear, optics and most off all the will to fight. They are going to crush the Russians in the east.

Up 'til mid 1943, you could have said the Germans were winning.  They kept advancing, they suffered losses, but nothing significant.  Then the Allies started catching up, with production and manpower.

Ukraine is at max mobilisation.  They can't replace their losses.  Russia can replace it within months, as you say.

It's an embarassement, it's a setback, but it's not a defeat.  they'll dig up and wait for the Ukrainians to assault fortified positions.

Ukraine is nowhere near max mobilization, they had less than 200,000 men under arms when the invasion started. Just like Russia it obviously will take time for them to convert all 18-60 year old men who are sticking around into viable soldiers, but they haven't come anywhere close to max mobilization. Russia obviously has a manpower advantage, but in terms of like old war style "maximum mobilization" stuff, neither country is meaningfully close to that now.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I should add it is unlikely this war is going to be decided based on manpower on either side. It is fairly unusual for modern wars to be resolved by one side literally having so many guys killed they can no longer field a force, mainly because of the nature of modern warfare where you aren't putting these massive armies in the field as a % of your total population. Also, while losses have been ugly, they are nothing compared to the level of manpower losses a country can take before it starts to become a decisive issue.

Remember situations like the Afghans fighting like a 30+ year civil war, Sri Lanka doing the same etc etc.

[grumbler]

Up 'til mid 1943, you could have said the Germans were winning.  They kept advancing, they suffered losses, but nothing significant.  Then the Allies started catching up, with production and manpower.

Ukraine is at max mobilisation.  They can't replace their losses.  Russia can replace it within months, as you say.

It's an embarassement, it's a setback, but it's not a defeat.  they'll dig up and wait for the Ukrainians to assault fortified positions.

Ukraine has by no means reached maximum mobilization.  It's only been a month.  Even your example shows that it took the Allies four years to reach max mobilization. 

Ukraine doesn't need to manufacture the equipment needed to replace its losses.  It's got practically the entire world as its rear area, and the world has a practically inexhaustible supply of weapons.

If it becomes a battle of attrition, Russia loses.

[Josquius]

Yeah, Ukraine doesn't seem to be having manpower troubles. They're pretty much turning away volunteers it seems

https://www.vice.com/en/article/akv898/foreign-fighters-quit-ukraine

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, I've heard that the Ukrainians are being relatively selective over their foreign fighters, which IMO is a good sign for various reasons. There are a lot of potential issues if they let every unstable young male (or older) who is willing to fly into Poland and drive to the border get a gun and start operating along the front lines.

From the reports I've read, if you show up and you're "combat ready", which typically means "served in an active military of your home country within the last few years in a relevant role", they are doing a pretty decent job of getting you equipped and sent somewhere. If you show up and are "training ready", which generally means you've received military training at some point previously, and are in acceptable physical condition, they put you in the training system which appears to envision a 4 month training process. They're also using some of the latter type of people to staff guard posts and such in bases far in the West where there is no fighting, which kind of makes sense, since that's not a very intense role and frees up someone who can directly fight.

A lot of people are being sent away completely if they have 0 military experience and/or are in bad physical condition.

This is a far cry away from say, end war Nazi Germany which had such serious manpower issues they were sending out units with kids as young as 14 and men as old as 70 dredged out of retirement.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Also the now-famous James Vasquez (who is mentioned in the Vice article but has also been huge on Twitter etc last week or so), he got into the fight in a different way than most--he showed up in Western Ukraine and saw what the recruitment process was, and noped out of it. He then just kept going east on his own to near the front, and I think has just joined a territorial defense force or some sort of militia on an individual basis. He said he did this because he wanted directly attached to a front line unit, but he also wanted to bypass the official Ukrainian foreign recruitment process because they require you to sign an open-ended contract. His arrangement with the group he is in basically has little strings attached, he can leave at anytime (at least in theory.) He had already said he planned to try and stay for 2-3 months but would then probably have to go home to maintain his business.

[DGuller]

It does seem like there would be a lot of logistical challenges in having foreigners serve in combat, just from language difference.  If you have an all-English speaking unit, then you have a unit that knows nothing about the country they're serving in.  If you disperse the English-speakers among Ukrainian units that have some natives speaking English, you're going to have to be bilingual under fire, which I imagine is also not perfect.  I wonder how this problem was deal with in other wars.