Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Barrister]

So I first saw the Moskva stories a couple hours ago on Twitter, but the source linked to was the FB page of some guy living in Kyiv.  His profile didn't look made up, and he seemed to be linked to the military, but it set my "fake news" detector off.  So I thought "nah...".

Turns out the story was true. Huh.

[Sheilbh]

I guess in that scenario they would still be getting some logistical support from Poland etc.

And in that type of scenario I'd hope the UK, Canada, other Nordics, Netherlands etc would still provide support, which isn't nothing. Economically that's a vastly richer bloc than Russia (economies about 4-5 times the size) - while they might not be able to inflict huge costs on the Russian economy, they can ceertainly leverage that to provide support

As you say providing that into countries with probably more reformed militaries than Ukraine, plus morale with a fairly motivated force.

Plus, the lesson I've taken from the last five weeks is not that Russian aggression is wildly irresistable.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I guess in that scenario they would still be getting some logistical support from Poland etc.

And in that type of scenario I'd hope the UK, Canada, other Nordics, Netherlands etc would still provide support, which isn't nothing. Economically that's a vastly richer bloc than Russia (economies about 4-5 times the size) - while they might not be able to inflict huge costs on the Russian economy, they can ceertainly leverage that to provide support

As you say providing that into countries with probably more reformed militaries than Ukraine, plus morale with a fairly motivated force.

Plus, the lesson I've taken from the last five weeks is not that Russian aggression is wildly irresistable.

I'd wager that in the scenario the Ukrainian situation would be quite a bit worse. Don't think the country would have fallen in the first strike but Kiev would still be under siege probably.

Unlike now there would be no hope for actual victory, something that does exist now.
But the worst is yet to come

[Malthus]

I guess in that scenario they would still be getting some logistical support from Poland etc.

And in that type of scenario I'd hope the UK, Canada, other Nordics, Netherlands etc would still provide support, which isn't nothing. Economically that's a vastly richer bloc than Russia (economies about 4-5 times the size) - while they might not be able to inflict huge costs on the Russian economy, they can ceertainly leverage that to provide support

As you say providing that into countries with probably more reformed militaries than Ukraine, plus morale with a fairly motivated force.

Plus, the lesson I've taken from the last five weeks is not that Russian aggression is wildly irresistable.

The wild card in the calculation is the value of US military intelligence being fed to the Ukrainians. I do not doubt this has been very valuable indeed, but I have no way to rate it - by its nature it is secret, and though the fact they have been doing it has been strongly suspected since the beginning, they only publicly announced they were doing it recently.

My guess is that the US totally owns the Russians in such intelligence, but I have no way to verify that.

[Sheilbh]

I'd wager that in the scenario the Ukrainian situation would be quite a bit worse. Don't think the country would have fallen in the first strike but Kiev would still be under siege probably.

Unlike now there would be no hope for actual victory, something that does exist now.
But the worst is yet to come

No doubt - and I was still thinking more of Funk's comments. But I just think we overestimated Russia before this war and I think there's something a little similar there.

I don't think there's any reason based on the last 5 weeks to think Russia could roll over - more or less any other of its neighbours. International support has been essential (although it wouldn't entirely disappear in a Le Pen/Trump world), but I think the core has been Ukraine and of the states on Russia's frontier I think Ukraine was the most vulnerable to an attack, but that could be very wrong.

In a way it's like the conversation over European strategic autonomy. I think the size of an economy and how it can leverage that into force is key - Europe's largest threat in its neighbourhood has an economy the size of Benelux. That is something that the rest of the vastly rich continent should be able to address and contain without really needing to rely on the US. European strategic autonomy or security is absolutely attainable with some spending.

The wild card in the calculation is the value of US military intelligence being fed to the Ukrainians. I do not doubt this has been very valuable indeed, but I have no way to rate it - by its nature it is secret, and though the fact they have been doing it has been strongly suspected since the beginning, they only publicly announced they were doing it recently.

My guess is that the US totally owns the Russians in such intelligence, but I have no way to verify that.

Yeah absolutely it's the unknowable bit. I mean even away from actual intelligence, I've mentioned before how little social media or other content there is of Ukrainian forces. There's loads of open source guys all over Russian movements - no-one on Ukraine. In part, I think that's a solid "loose lips sink ships" approach by the Ukrainian people - but I also suspect Ukraine are getting a lot of help from Western agencies in scrubbing it.

[Admiral Yi]

I don't know if it's a dominant factor, but I've been very surprised by the accuracy of Ukrainian artillery strikes, at least in the video clips that are being released to the wild. 

My hunch is Ukraine has some super accurate guidance system or super accurate shells that no one is talking about.

[Barrister]

I don't know if it's a dominant factor, but I've been very surprised by the accuracy of Ukrainian artillery strikes, at least in the video clips that are being released to the wild. 

My hunch is Ukraine has some super accurate guidance system or super accurate shells that no one is talking about.

Or drones.

[Sheilbh]

Or drones.

Bayraktar! (Which I imagine every country around Russia is stocking up on )

[Admiral Yi]

I realize it could be imprecise Ukrainian translation, but I have seen a number of precision strikes that specified artillery.

[viper37]

Do they even make the bulk of prostitutes here in the West? Eastern Europeans in general were in demand for porn and most likely prostitution after the fall of the Communist bloc because they were often very poor and worked for cheap.  Nowadays, is that still the case?

This tangent is not where I was going when I used the word "chill" quite ironically. 

The nonchalant inhumanity on display from "innocent" Russian citizens is something I grasp intellectually, but can't grasp emotionally.  So many fucked up things in that one conversation.

Look at Nazi Germany.  Look at how many "normal" people ended up carrying atrocious acts with basically no remorse.

I do not look at Russian citizens as innocent, globally.  Individually, there are some good people.  Collectively, they enabled Putin and they were pretty happy with him.  Look at GaijindeMoscou here, willing to close his eyes on everything, lauding Putin for stopping the secession of the Republics.  Russia didn't accomplish this by charming them.  Most Russians, even some of Putin opponents, were pretty much ok with the crimes committed in Chechnya.

[viper37]

I don't know if it's a dominant factor, but I've been very surprised by the accuracy of Ukrainian artillery strikes, at least in the video clips that are being released to the wild. 

My hunch is Ukraine has some super accurate guidance system or super accurate shells that no one is talking about.

Grumbler talked about it a few pages back, when someone else asked the question.

Basically, we don't get to see the first few shots where they might gage their distance.  They also have forward spotters giving them precise coordinates.

And the Russian tanks are advancing without any kind of support, all alone.  Easy targets.

[Sheilbh]

So I first saw the Moskva stories a couple hours ago on Twitter, but the source linked to was the FB page of some guy living in Kyiv.  His profile didn't look made up, and he seemed to be linked to the military, but it set my "fake news" detector off.  So I thought "nah...".

Turns out the story was true. Huh.

RIA Novosti reporting that ammunition detonated on the ship because of a fire. So it sounds like the Russians are as close to confirming it as we can expect. Wonder what caused the fire? Wonder whose ammunition?

[DGuller]

So I first saw the Moskva stories a couple hours ago on Twitter, but the source linked to was the FB page of some guy living in Kyiv.  His profile didn't look made up, and he seemed to be linked to the military, but it set my "fake news" detector off.  So I thought "nah...".

Turns out the story was true. Huh.

RIA Novosti reporting that ammunition detonated on the ship because of a fire. So it sounds like the Russians are as close to confirming it as we can expect. Wonder what caused the fire? Wonder whose ammunition?

I really hope it wasn't Ukrainian ammunition that detonated on that ship.

[Admiral Yi]

I hope it was.

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yrOzfNtGeo

Maybe Putin doesn't see the KGB as trustworthy as Biscuit thinks.