Russian Ukraine shenanigans

[Biff_T]

Russia and this war are good for the old checking account.  Not mine, of course, but some old dudes' in control of the war machine.   

[Majestik Møøse]

Alright how many of you work for a Tennessee media company 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-tenet-media-right-wing-influencers-justice-department/

[Clayton Bigsby]

2 hours ago, Majestik Møøse said:

Alright how many of you work for a Tennessee media company 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-tenet-media-right-wing-influencers-justice-department/

I was waiting for Bashi to come up in this

[Majestik Møøse]

“Its website lists six right-wing personalities, including Dave Rubin, who has more than 2.4 million YouTube subscribers; Tim Pool, a podcast host with more than 1.3 million YouTube followers; Benny Johnson, whose YouTube channel has nearly 2.4 million subscribers; and one user on an obscure military aviation forum whose members haven’t been cool for more than a decade.”

[ClearedHot]

Western intelligence estimates over 600,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in Ukraine

Staggering numbers.

[Biff_T]

1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:

Western intelligence estimates over 600,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in Ukraine

Staggering numbers.

The plus is that there will be a lot of Russian women for us westerners to enjoy. 

In all seriousness, what a waste of human lives.  War for nothing but a few hundred square miles of territory.    At least the weapons manufacturers are getting richer.    

[uhhello]

Gotta be some talks this fall/winter for Ukraine.  No way they can sustain a numbers game this long even with full NATO support.  Gonna have to give some land no matter how painful.  Re-build and go full Uncle Ho in those disputed lands.  

[icohftb]

On 9/5/2024 at 1:39 PM, uhhello said:

Gotta be some talks this fall/winter for Ukraine.  No way they can sustain a numbers game this long even with full NATO support.  Gonna have to give some land no matter how painful.  Re-build and go full Uncle Ho in those disputed lands.  

Agree Russia may have to give up some land. Or did you mean Ukraine?

[uhhello]

1 hour ago, icohftb said:

Agree Russia may have to give up some land. Or did you mean Ukraine?

If we're being honest here.  Ukraine can't sustain the manpower required longer term.  You can give them all the equipment they want/need, the level of manpower UKR needs isn't there longer term.  Negotiate to pre-invasion (the second one) borders and start there.  

[hindsight2020]

8 hours ago, uhhello said:

If we're being honest here.  Ukraine can't sustain the manpower required longer term.  You can give them all the equipment they want/need, the level of manpower UKR needs isn't there longer term.  Negotiate to pre-invasion (the second one) borders and start there.  

TLDR version: Finland proves you can exercise deterrence against a numbers-bully. No capitulation on your sovereignty required.

Wordy version:

Russia doesn't have any incentive to negotiate back to pre-Donbas annexation, so that's not gonna happen. They'll keep throwing their expendables at the grinder, as is the way of that ghastly Russian so-called Federation, which in all honesty has always been a shaky held one at the point of many rusty, but outnumbering guns.

Ukraine could capitulate even more territory, but all it buys them is time for the next assault. Ivan will come for them again. 

The Ukranians need to read the Finnish playbook more deeply. Finland almost went the way of Ukraine historically, but managed to reach the lifeboat with NATO membership and more importantly, a very strong homeland-defense prepositioning policy. Finland is the mother of all, living-defensive line. Heck even shouldering up with the actual Nazis was necessary in order to bloody up the bear's nose, no fucks given by Finland. Life is grey, at least for us Realists. 

Fact is if Lenin hadn't been so easy on Finland the first time (1910s) they broke away from Russia, theirs would be a similar story as today's Ukraine. So people need to give Ukraine a bit more benefit here on the whole capitulation front. Remember, population wise, Finland is a piddly tiny country compared to Ukraine, yet the deterrence outcomes between the two are stark. Yes, Ukraine got saddled with the Soviet Union proper after WWII, that's of course the biggest historical obstacle.

Let's also remember that Finland too, gave up some land. But then they effected a brilliant homeland deterrence policy for a Country of such small size. Ukraine needs to go full Finn once any cease fire is afforded to it. The Finns don't forget the 11% they gave up to this day, and neither should Ukraine.

 

[ClearedHot]

11 hours ago, hindsight2020 said:

TLDR version: Finland proves you can exercise deterrence against a numbers-bully. No capitulation on your sovereignty required.

Wordy version:

Russia doesn't have any incentive to negotiate back to pre-Donbas annexation, so that's not gonna happen. They'll keep throwing their expendables at the grinder, as is the way of that ghastly Russian so-called Federation, which in all honesty has always been a shaky held one at the point of many rusty, but outnumbering guns.

Ukraine could capitulate even more territory, but all it buys them is time for the next assault. Ivan will come for them again. 

The Ukranians need to read the Finnish playbook more deeply. Finland almost went the way of Ukraine historically, but managed to reach the lifeboat with NATO membership and more importantly, a very strong homeland-defense prepositioning policy. Finland is the mother of all, living-defensive line. Heck even shouldering up with the actual Nazis was necessary in order to bloody up the bear's nose, no fucks given by Finland. Life is grey, at least for us Realists. 

Fact is if Lenin hadn't been so easy on Finland the first time (1910s) they broke away from Russia, theirs would be a similar story as today's Ukraine. So people need to give Ukraine a bit more benefit here on the whole capitulation front. Remember, population wise, Finland is a piddly tiny country compared to Ukraine, yet the deterrence outcomes between the two are stark. Yes, Ukraine got saddled with the Soviet Union proper after WWII, that's of course the biggest historical obstacle.

Let's also remember that Finland too, gave up some land. But then they effected a brilliant homeland deterrence policy for a Country of such small size. Ukraine needs to go full Finn once any cease fire is afforded to it. The Finns don't forget the 11% they gave up to this day, and neither should Ukraine.

 

Perhaps but the bear is not as strong as they try to project, Putin will continue to throw meat at the grinder but how much meat will he have?

The Russian population has been in decline, WITHOUT the war the UN is projecting that the decline that started in 2021 will continue, and if current demographic conditions persist, Russia's population will be 120 million in 50 years, a decline of about 17%.  Last August, The New York Times quoted unnamed U.S. officials as saying that up to 120,000 Russian troops had been killed and 170,000 to 180,000 wounded.  They are creating a huge gap from age 15-29 and when combined with the bubble that follows, they are going have a REAL issue in a few years.

 

[Lawman]

I think you guys are focusing on the wrong metric in the totals vs totals discussion.

What they can put in the field is not the same problem set as what they can command and maneuver. When this was started the Russians showed a complete lack of command and synchronization above the Battalion Task Group level (hence having essentially 4 axis doing 4 separate things and failing in all of them to achieve victory). The Ukrainians weren’t much better off but they only needed parity to achieve an effective defense and they had plenty of depth to surrender in the defense. That was an Army that had effective small unit weapons but lacked the thousands of armored and artillery pieces that would later be given in aid.

Last year we started seeing the effective growth of Brigade level staffs in the Ukrainian Army, starting with their pushing back and regaining territory. It was largely limited to a few specific brigades. Since then we’ve seen a wider group of effective command and staff officers gain experience and now are fielding enough combined staff effectively to start thinking about Divisional actions (exactly what just happened in Kursk). There is a deliberate force generation going on to take advantage of this capacity, but that takes time to train and field and will probably be another 6-9 months before another wave of action is attempted based off all the troop-company level training that needs to be done so you aren’t just issuing impossible orders to conscripts.

The Russians on the other hand are not really getting better, they still effectively can chew for ground by just throwing bodies at it, but it’s why they can’t present multiple dilemmas effectively across the broad front. Remember May when they were so sure they were taking Kharkiv? Yeah they don’t either. So when people say “the Russian victory is an eventuality” it’s really saying if the Russians are allowed to fight the war the only way they know how, eventually they win… at a ridiculous cost. The Ukrainians don’t have to allow them to fight that way, but they do have to be equipped and trained to change the name of the song that’s playing.


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