[Discussion] Ukraine - Russian Invasion and Discussion

A place for aggregated discussions of a possible conflict, it’s implications and effects, news updates and personal accounts if any. If the expected conflict kicks off, I will change the title but the function will stay the same.

Paleocon wrote:
Top_Shelf wrote:

Sounds like the US is prepping to give Patriots to UKR.

That, combined with giving JPN Tomahawks (and AUS nuclear subs), gives me hope we're leaning away from short-sighted, tactical foreign policy and into more long-term planning. Good luck to all the autocrats as we tighten relationships amongst the vibrant democracies!

Indeed.

I think we all got really distracted with the misguided belief that the "market" would magically turn really sh*tty regimes into rational actors invested in the welfare of their own people and the continuation of a system that led to their prosperity. It was a nice dream, but in the end, it was simply not supported by the evidence.

The Breton Woods institutions were all about bribing the free world into joining us in the containment of Communist authoritarianism with access to a global market whose rules based system was guaranteed by the overwhelming power of the United States Navy. The world's waterways belonged to America so that South Korea could get Saudi oil and Japan could sell us compact cars and televisions.

After the fall of Communism, we lost sight of what it took to keep this system running and simply let f*ckwits like Putin and the Chinese into the global trade organizations we built despite the fact that they appear invested in its destruction. We bought the propaganda that the "market" itself would turn them into good Capitalists.

We are getting a hard lesson in geopolitics.

Good points.

Two things about the US:
1) We worship all things money and underestimate the non-monetary influences that other societies value. In no world do American leaders ever look at Baja or Sonora and say, "At last we will reveal ourselves to the Mexicans." Yet Putin has been thinking like this for 20+ years for a whole host of non-monetary reasons, including cultural and other grievances.

We are a supremely naive people, protected by two oceans, insane access to natural resources with none of the horrible experiences other countries have. As just one example, I saw POL referred to as the "Sparta" of Europe as they are about to collect a ton of ROK and Abrams tanks. Gee, I wonder why they might think that way after Soviet occupation, Molotov-Ribbentrop and many other catastrophes. All this to say, we think about making a buck and others may not want all our Baywatch and F-150's and dispensaries and Jim Nantz on Sundays.

2) As we're hitting the reset button on globalization, it's going to be really bumpy. A world where the US Navy protects the trade routes for the collective good isn't who the US really knows how to be. That's not the type of leadership cadre we've been building in this country for the last 50 years. Have we been turning out a bunch of geopolitical strategists and Big Picture types with a passion for public service like George Herbert Walker Bush? Lol, no. Our elite institutions have been giving us a bunch of SBFs, Peter Thiels, Jamie Dimons, and Jeff Bezos. Which is to say we've got a bunch of shop owners focused on quarterly earnings who idolize Gordon Gecko, not John Marshall.

That's who we are.

So as things break down, our buddies are going to have it a LOT better than our not-buddies.

Mixolyde wrote:

I hope they remember how nice we were when we're no longer a vibrant democracy.

I might be more optimistic than you. N=1, so I'm not going to overreact but last night in San Antonio, the American Taliban-types showed up to a drag show in full gun kit to protest (complete with all the tropes of Soros and Judeo-Christian God-this/that)...and they were utterly swamped by counter-protestors who also brought their guns (Texas, duh) and stood up for treating people right in a pluralistic society.

I think we'll be ok and will keep building a better society.

Interesting take, Top_Shelf. I believe that since the Randists took over Republicans and Christianity in the US, we’ve moved (in crises) more towards the behavior of the East India Company than the Marshall Plan. Hopefully now we can break that pattern, if we can fix our political and social seppuku.

I think we, as Americans, are extraordinarily lucky that we got Joe Biden -- a president old enough to remember when America and American leadership mattered and who actually gives a sh*t. As much sh*t as we give him for being a codger, just being alive long enough to remember when America wasn't dominated by the cult of market fundamentalism and educated enough to know what that means makes him the right person for this moment in time.

When folks on both the Right and the Left talk about how much better the world would be in a "multipolar world" where America isn't the unwilling superpower and places like Russia and China command regional hegemonies, I point directly at Ukraine and Putin's callous willingness to literally starve half of Africa in order to use starvation and refugees as a weapon against the West. This is the "better" alternative they propose.

f*ck that.

I get what you're saying, Paleo. I do. But I also think there are a lot of people in the southern hemisphere who would point to America and our callous willingness to f*ck up their environment and sponsor coups to install brutal dictators in service of our oligarchs. Not sure they would consider us any better than Russia (and China is working hard to build better partnerships with many of them than we did -- sure, not out of altruism, but the impact on their lives is what people care about).

Farscry wrote:

I get what you're saying, Paleo. I do. But I also think there are a lot of people in the southern hemisphere who would point to America and our callous willingness to f*ck up their environment and sponsor coups to install brutal dictators in service of our oligarchs. Not sure they would consider us any better than Russia (and China is working hard to build better partnerships with many of them than we did -- sure, not out of altruism, but the impact on their lives is what people care about).

No doubt. America's conduct in large parts of the developing world has been pretty reprehensible. Even in the areas we might consider "successful" our support of dictatorships has in itself been problematic. My own father and a number of his friends and colleagues were tortured by South Korean internal security for their positions on democracy.

All that said, Putin or Xi are not the answers to any of that. As Joe Lewis once put it ''Lots of things wrong with America, but Hitler ain't going to fix them. ''. Neither Putin or Xi have anything to offer other than a bad example.

Putin preparing major offensive in new year, Ukraine defence minister warns

Senior Ukrainian officials say Vladimir Putin is preparing for a major new offensive in the new year, despite a series of humiliating battlefield setbacks for Russia in recent months.

In an interview with the Guardian, Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said that while Ukraine was now able to successfully defend itself against Russia’s missile attacks targeting key infrastructure, including the energy grid, evidence was emerging that the Kremlin was preparing a broad new offensive.

Reznikov’s comments echoed similar remarks made to the Economist this week – including from the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the head of the armed forces, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, and the chief of ground forces, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskii.

The briefings appeared to be part of a broad, coordinated effort to warn against complacency among western allies and highlight the continuing threat Russia poses to Ukraine.

While Reznikov suggested a new offensive could happen by February, the other senior officials indicated they believed it might come as early as January.

Referring to Russia’s partial mobilisation of about 300,000 soldiers, Reznikov suggested that while half – often after receiving minimal training – were being used to reinforce Moscow’s forces after a series of battlefield setbacks, the remainder were being prepared more thoroughly for future offensives.

“The second part of the mobilisation, 150,000 approximately, started their training courses in different camps,” said Reznikov, speaking of Russia’s mobilisation drive, which started in October.

“The [draftees] do a minimum of three months to prepare. It means they are trying to start the next wave of the offensive probably in February, like last year. That’s their plan.”

The warnings come amid evidence of Putin’s continuing desires to continue the war into next year, including missile procurement efforts from Iran, and analysis by Russian commentators suggesting that the Kremlin sees no way of retreating from the conflict.

There's not going to be a winter lull or pause in operations on either side.

Russia's been pushing extremely hard around Bakhmut and that's probably going to continue until they run out of prisoners and mobiks or Ukraine is forced to give up the city. They're also having Belarus train some of their mobilized and it looks like they're at least trying to give the impression that they'll invade from the north again (possibly with Belarus) to at least tie up Ukrainian reserves.

Ukraine seems to be shaping the battlefield around Meltipol for a possible counter-offensive that would either highly threaten or essentially cut off Crimea. Of course they're also slowing grinding the Russians down in Luhansk Oblast while looking for any weakness in that line of defense that they can exploit.

The biggest factor seems to be the weather and only because everyone's waiting for it to get cold enough for the mud to freeze and allow mechanized forces to move easier.

And all the rumblings are that Russia's going to launch another round of mobilization this winter. They've been spending a lot of effort to upgrade their mobilization capabilities, especially having local officials update all the information about eligible men in their territory.

If we're going to give Patriot batteries, why aren't we unloading fixed wing aircraft UKR is going to need eventually? Just make the decision now and get going.

Given the pace we've supplied other military equipment, it's not probably not going to be batteries. It'll be a single battery.

And even at an accelerated training pace it'll be at least several months before Ukrainian crews are trained up on it and it's actually deployed and live in Ukraine.

Will Ukraine get additional batteries? Who knows. They're a billion plus dollars a pop and there's a very finite number of the systems in existence.

And the same issue exists for every heavy weapons system Ukraine wants: NATO sh*t is different than ex-Soviet sh*t and any new weapon system requires not just training crews, but training maintenance personnel to keep the sh*t running and introduces another logistics stream for ammo, spare parts, etc.

NATO fixed-wing planes will require that Ukrainian pilots learn how to fly on a new airframe, using entirely new (to them) avionics, and launching entirely new (to them) weapons. And the environment they'll first start operating in will need them to be experts in NATO-style SEAD/DEAD which normally requires months and months of additional pilot training.

And because planes require loads of maintenance to keep them in the air, we'll have to either train a lot of ground crews on how to maintain aircraft and systems they are entirely unfamiliar with or get exceptionally creative about how to offload or subcontract maintenance.

The sooner the better then.

Mixolyde wrote:

The sooner the better then.

Right?

In what ending to this conflict will UKR be able to survive without NATO weapons platforms? There's not going to be any Soviet weapons left and UKR certainly isn't going to buy from RUS.

They have to make the switch, however difficult. Might as well get started, even if it won't impact the winter or spring campaigns.

I could be wrong but reading between the lines this EU training mission of 15,000 Ukrainians very much hints at getting them up to speed on some NATO gear. I'd be interested what the more informed here think.

Really good article in this morning's Washington Post following the war experience of Russia's "elite" 200th Motor Rifle Brigade

A document detailing a mid-war inventory of its ranks shows that by late May, fewer than 900 soldiers were left in two battalion tactical groups that, according to Western officials, had departed the brigade’s garrison in Russia with more than 1,400. The brigade’s commander was badly wounded. And some of those still being counted as part of the unit were listed as hospitalized, missing or “refuseniks” unwilling to fight, according to the document, part of a trove of internal Russian military files obtained by Ukraine’s security services and provided to The Post.

Bombers probably won't show up again after the Patriot battery comes online.

Hell, we should probably give Ukraine an Arleigh Burke to park off of Snake Island.

Nevin73 wrote:

Bombers probably won't show up again after the Patriot battery comes online.

Hell, we should probably give Ukraine an Arleigh Burke to park off of Snake Island.

The Russians have been using strategic bombers pretty steadily in this conflict to launch standoff cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea. Did these bombers actually cross into Ukrainian airspace?

Top_Shelf wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

The sooner the better then.

Right?

In what ending to this conflict will UKR be able to survive without NATO weapons platforms? There's not going to be any Soviet weapons left and UKR certainly isn't going to buy from RUS.

They have to make the switch, however difficult. Might as well get started, even if it won't impact the winter or spring campaigns.

I think it is fair to say that Ukraine will need to rely on an actual Western treaty obligation for its long term survival. It is never going to have the economy necessary to support a military that can prevent future Russian f*ckery without significant support from Western allies, be they NATO or some subset. Even something like a guaranteed no fly zone backed by American F-35's and F-22's would pretty much render Russian efforts to degrade Ukrainian infrastructure pretty impotent. And the possibility of dragging NATO or member states into a direct conflict through Russian aggressive action would be enough of a deterrent to make Putin's serial line stepping a thing of the past -- at least in Ukraine.

At this point, I am near certain that Poland would be more than happy to forward deploy a tripwire force in Kharkiv with the following unit insignia.

IMAGE(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/WawAAOSwacJbJkM5/s-l500.jpg)

Paleocon wrote:
Nevin73 wrote:

Bombers probably won't show up again after the Patriot battery comes online.

Hell, we should probably give Ukraine an Arleigh Burke to park off of Snake Island.

The Russians have been using strategic bombers pretty steadily in this conflict to launch standoff cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea. Did these bombers actually cross into Ukrainian airspace?

It seems this air raid used Tu-95s that had been rebased to Engles-2 (which previously only had Tu-160s) and it was the first time the Tu-95s had attacked from that base.

The interesting bit is that Russia only has two airbases that are large enough to accommodate its strategic bombers so it certainly seems like they've decided to cram them all in one base rather than increase air defenses in both of the bases.

OG_slinger wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Nevin73 wrote:

Bombers probably won't show up again after the Patriot battery comes online.

Hell, we should probably give Ukraine an Arleigh Burke to park off of Snake Island.

The Russians have been using strategic bombers pretty steadily in this conflict to launch standoff cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea. Did these bombers actually cross into Ukrainian airspace?

It seems this air raid used Tu-95s that had been rebased to Engles-2 (which previously only had Tu-160s) and it was the first time the Tu-95s had attacked from that base.

The interesting bit is that Russia only has two airbases that are large enough to accommodate its strategic bombers so it certainly seems like they've decided to cram them all in one base rather than increase air defenses in both of the bases.

Okay, so the headline is a bit misleading. Like I said, the Russians have been using strategic bombers for a while now. The air launched cruise missiles they are using all have to be launched, well, from the air. And the platform of choice for that sort of thing is the Bear.

New Russian recruitment ad targeting middle-aged military veterans.

It tells the story of a dad who is so broke--because the factory he works at is so messed up he hasn't been paid in weeks--that he has to take the money his daughter saved for a smartphone.

He overhears his daughter tell her friend it's OK because her dad has had a rough life and had to serve "in hell" when he was younger. He got a medal, but also PTSD that the Russian government didn't help treat.

The daughter's friend says she understands because her dad is also a veteran, but he volunteered because "he couldn't sit here while our boys are there." But it's OK because he writes and calls a lot and will be home soon.

The shame-filled dad then leaves to volunteer.

Smash cut to six months later where a flag waving crowd awaits the return of their hero soldiers. A reporter notes that the soldiers are returning "from the territory where the special military operation is underway" because you totally can't mention Ukraine. Dad triumphally returns home, is greeted by his daughter, and he gives her a new smartphone (that he totally didn't loot from a Ukrainian civilian).

As I read your description, I pictured Bill Hader as the dad, Kristen Wiig as the daughter and an overly excited Chris Kattan as a flag waver.

Day 300 of Putin's three day war and Zelensky shows up in Bakhmut to talk to troops and hand out medals.

Bakhmut is the hottest part of the front right now and there's other videos of his visit where you can hear gunfire and arty rounds going off in the background.

The troops gave Zelensky a signed Ukrainian flag that he's presenting to Congress tomorrow as a thank you for America's support and aid.

Speaking of multiple US officials are now saying that JDAM kits will be included in the next round of aid to Ukraine. Ukraine will have to figure out how to integrate them with their aircraft, but they managed with HARMs so that very likely won't be an issue. It does, however, seem a bit odd to give Ukraine precision guided bombs with very limited range when the airspace is so highly contested and anything flying above nap-of-the-earth is going to get lit up by SAMs. Makes you wonder if Ukraine might have looked at the rocket-launched small diameter bombs Boeing was trying to sell a few weeks back and said "we could do that ourselves."

As far as how things are going for the Russians on Day 300 Oryx just posted that Russia has lost 8,500 vehicles so far and it looks like they'll hit 100,000 causalities well before Christmas.

There is no better motivator than "have to". I think the Ukrainians are par exemplar of that.
I would not be surprised that someone fighting to preserve their homeland picks new things up with much more urgency.

fangblackbone wrote:

There is no better motivator than "have to". I think the Ukrainians are par exemplar of that.
I would not be surprised that someone fighting to preserve their homeland picks new things up with much more urgency.

They also have a bit of a head start. Ukraine was the heart of war industry innovation for the ussr.

OG_slinger wrote:

Speaking of multiple US officials are now saying that JDAM kits will be included in the next round of aid to Ukraine. Ukraine will have to figure out how to integrate them with their aircraft, but they managed with HARMs so that very likely won't be an issue. It does, however, seem a bit odd to give Ukraine precision guided bombs with very limited range when the airspace is so highly contested and anything flying above nap-of-the-earth is going to get lit up by SAMs. Makes you wonder if Ukraine might have looked at the rocket-launched small diameter bombs Boeing was trying to sell a few weeks back and said "we could do that ourselves."

HARMs and JDAMs are a bit apples and oranges, but from what I remember reading, they used tablets to warm up the former on the planes before take off and perhaps had the lat/long coordinates of sites pre-programmed into them. Same can be done with JDAMs and they can also be lofted towards targets and a greater distance than a conventional bombing run. Real issue then would be how to provide HUD cues to the pilots.

Kremlin-backed hackers targeted a “large” petroleum refinery in a NATO nation. This to me is horribly misjudged. I seriously doubt going back to Russian sources for energy are on the cards for years now and I can only see this being viewed as an act of war, Putin's claims that he has nothing to do with it not withstanding. The EU agreeing to cap gas prices, for good or bad, this week is good proof of that.

The first of 6 new LNG terminals was also opened this week in Germany. Amazing when the political will is there what can be achieved.

Well, if there's anything we can say for the Russians (on a cultural level, I guess) it's that they're okay with things taking a long time.

And it sounds like Putin's in this for the long haul.

Speaking in Moscow at the closing session of the expanded board of the ministry of defence, Putin said there were no “funding restrictions” for the military. “The country, the government will give everything that the army asks for. Everything,” the Russian president added.

Russia is expected to dramatically increase its spending on the military in the next two years, as Putin signals that he is preparing for a prolonged and costly war with Ukraine. Earlier this month, he said the conflict could turn into a “long-term process”, and the Kremlin shows no intention of climbing down from its maximalist goals of regime change in Ukraine.

Putin’s speech on Wednesday was also an acknowledgment that the mobilisation he announced in September – the first since the second world war – had not gone smoothly.

There have been public expressions of anger from citizens over the way the mobilisation has been handled, including complaints that the conscripts were not adequately prepared and equipped.

“The partial mobilisation that was carried out revealed certain problems, as everyone well knows, which should be promptly addressed,” he said.

“I ask the ministry of defence to be attentive to all civilian initiatives, including taking into account criticism and responding correctly, in a timely manner.”

Praising Russian troops as “heroes”, Putin said that half of the 300,000 mobilised soldiers were currently stationed away from the battlefield.

“This is a sufficient reserve for conducting the special military operation,” Putin said.

Senior Ukrainian officials have said Moscow is preserving its recently mobilised troops for future offensives.

“The second part of the mobilisation, 150,000 approximately, started their training courses in different camps,” Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said last week.

“The [draftees] do a minimum of three months to prepare. It means they are trying to start the next wave of the offensive probably in February, like last year. That’s their plan.”

Mainly Putin once again defended what Moscow calls its “special military operation”, repeating his earlier claims that the west was responsible for the conflict which he said was “inevitable”.

“What is happening now in Ukraine is a common tragedy, but this is not the result of Russian policy … This conflict was inevitable – better to have it today than tomorrow.”

Zelenskyy spoke before the US Congress. This was probably the first time he was in a room with Russian assets since this whole thing got started.