[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.

ISW states that Putin is faking peace talks in order to divide Europe and give folks in Germany cover for being complete cowards. Same goes double for the French surrender monkey macron.

I don’t think we should wait for history to judge them. We should call them out for their cowardice now.

Neo-Nazi Russian militia appeals for intelligence on Nato member states

A neo-Nazi paramilitary group linked to the Kremlin has asked its members to submit intelligence on border and military activity in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, raising concerns over whether far-right Russian groups are planning an attack on Nato countries.

The official Telegram channel for “Task Force Rusich” – currently fighting in Ukraine on behalf of the Kremlin and linked to the notorious Wagner Group – last week requested members to forward details relating to border posts and military movements in the three Baltic states, which were formerly part of the Soviet Union.

The news has prompted questions over who has overall command over the far-right pro-Kremlin groups fighting in Ukraine.

Rusich is closely aligned to the Wagner Group, a military outfit run by a close ally of Vladimir Putin and now leading the Russian offensive to capture the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, currently the most fiercely contested battle of the conflict.

Sources speaking on condition of anonymity said the “extraordinary” move by Rusich could point to disenchantment with the Kremlin and frustration with how Putin’s war in Ukraine is going.

They added that the Kremlin could lose control of its far-right Russian paramilitary organisations, which may exploit more extreme methods to pursue the Ukrainian war, raising fears of escalation if a Nato state were attacked.

Prederick wrote:

Neo-Nazi Russian militia appeals for intelligence on Nato member states

A neo-Nazi paramilitary group linked to the Kremlin has asked its members to submit intelligence on border and military activity in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, raising concerns over whether far-right Russian groups are planning an attack on Nato countries.

The official Telegram channel for “Task Force Rusich” – currently fighting in Ukraine on behalf of the Kremlin and linked to the notorious Wagner Group – last week requested members to forward details relating to border posts and military movements in the three Baltic states, which were formerly part of the Soviet Union.

The news has prompted questions over who has overall command over the far-right pro-Kremlin groups fighting in Ukraine.

Rusich is closely aligned to the Wagner Group, a military outfit run by a close ally of Vladimir Putin and now leading the Russian offensive to capture the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, currently the most fiercely contested battle of the conflict.

Sources speaking on condition of anonymity said the “extraordinary” move by Rusich could point to disenchantment with the Kremlin and frustration with how Putin’s war in Ukraine is going.

They added that the Kremlin could lose control of its far-right Russian paramilitary organisations, which may exploit more extreme methods to pursue the Ukrainian war, raising fears of escalation if a Nato state were attacked.

How do you say "I wish a motherf*cker would" in Polish?

There's part of me that is laughing at the JV team gunning for a game with an NFL team.

There's another part of me that thinks that even if 50 guys with AK-74's decided to shoot across the border, nobody in NATO is going to overreact and start nuking Russia.

And there's a final part of me that knows how risky it is when non-state actors get emboldened to do something that causes outsize consequences.

This breakup of the Russian (lol) 'empire' is going to get out of control.

I had to respond to a bunch of assholes on my FB feed:

On Bout for Griner.

There are a lot of amateur hostage negotiators coming out of the woodwork lately screaming about how not getting Paul Whelan back was somehow "unpatriotic" or "weak". STFU. Seriously. Just STFU.

The Russians made it clear that they regard Whelan as a spy and that the only way we were getting him back was in a "spy for spy" trade. We are not giving up someone who could seriously impact American national security. And before you say so, Bout does not.

So given the givens, when you say sh*t like "we should have waited until we got Whelan", what are you really saying? Are you insisting that we should have let Griner rot in a Russian penal colony because you think she didn't "deserve" freedom more than Whelan?

Think through your positions.

And STFU.

Numerous news outlets are reporting that the Ukrainians managed to strike a barracks in Melitopol last night killing as many as 250 Russian soldiers. Some of the videos show the buildings struck to include some luxury villas that were being used by high ranking officers. Other videos show the wounded being evacuated to Crimea as the area hospitals are swamped and unable to accommodate such a high volume of wounded.

This is notable because the base hit was thought to be well outside of the range of Ukrainian HIMARS leading to speculation that they are now armed with previously unreported capabilities.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember strikes on Melitopol having occurred a few times in the past months.

AUs_TBirD wrote:

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember strikes on Melitopol having occurred a few times in the past months.

There was suspected partisan and sabotage activity as well as some strikes in the northern suburbs, but not this.

Paleocon wrote:

This is notable because the base hit was thought to be well outside of the range of Ukrainian HIMARS leading to speculation that they are now armed with previously unreported capabilities.

It's rumored to be the Ukrianian Vilkha, a domestically developed variant of BM-30 Smerch. It has a 130 km range.

OG_slinger wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

This is notable because the base hit was thought to be well outside of the range of Ukrainian HIMARS leading to speculation that they are now armed with previously unreported capabilities.

It's rumored to be the Ukrianian Vilkha, a domestically developed variant of BM-30 Smerch. It has a 130 km range.

That is some really nice shooting for a Smerch. Not impossible, but like I said, really nice shooting.

I get the sense we might be helping Ukraine integrate some of our GPS tech in their weapons on the sly.

Paleocon wrote:

How do you say "I wish a motherf*cker would" in Polish?

Ty arogancki dupie. Zabiłeś nas.

It looks like the Ukrainians found out that the Wagner wankers were using a hotel in Lugansk as their headquarters and decided to do some redecorating. It is now a fancy smoking hole in the ground. No idea how many casualties.

A Russian Telegram channel recently posted about what Ukrainian GLMRS did in and around Nova Kakhovka over the summer. In short, the dramatic videos of big bada booms were only the tip of the iceberg. Ukrainians used them to systematically delete any and all military resources and infrastructure in the region over time.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/egh2mBP.png)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/FpY5SUU.png)

OG_slinger wrote:

I get the sense we might be helping Ukraine integrate some of our GPS tech in their weapons on the sly.

I do not remember where, but I'm fairly sure the West has pretty much admitted we're Trying Out Some New sh*t on the battlefields of Ukraine.

Prederick wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

I get the sense we might be helping Ukraine integrate some of our GPS tech in their weapons on the sly.

I do not remember where, but I'm fairly sure the West has pretty much admitted we're Trying Out Some New sh*t on the battlefields of Ukraine.

Like I have said before, I am pretty sure that the Russians can't move a box of MREs without US and British intelligence knowing about it and providing the targeting data to the Ukrainians.

I heard one analyst mention that part of the outsized effectiveness of Ukrainian HIMARS and artillery when compared with that of the Russian counterparts (aside from superior crews and targeting) is that the Russians are particularly vulnerable to precision artillery because their doctrine requires large concentrations of manpower and their lack of NCO's and unit discipline precludes their dispersing their units for fear of desertion, dereliction, and intoxication. Russian units pretty much have to be housed 60+ in a garage or warehouse just so a lieutenant can keep an eye on his wards. Ukrainians apparently just show up and do their jobs like psychopaths even when the coffee machine isn't working.

Viktor Bout was on CPAC pop tart Maria Butina's show yesterday talking about how American school children were forced to learn about the "72 genders".

I wish I was making this sh*t up.

A bridge on the M-14 highway in eastern Melitopil was heavily damaged earlier today. TASS reported that Ukrainian saboteurs blew up the pillars supporting the road deck.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/EzkpWPA.png)

The M-14 highway is the only major east-west road running into the rest of Kherson Oblast. A little further west of the bridge the M-14 connects with the M-18 highway which is the only major north-south road that leads to the front line near Zaporizhzhia in the north and Russian-controlled Crimea in the south.

Now the real question is was this a random attack by Ukrainian partisans or the start of shaping operations for another Ukrainian counter-offensive?

IMAGE(https://new-cdn.mamamia.com.au/mamamia-pwa.appspot.com/cms_images/variations/596x397.3333333333333-789086803473.jpg)

I just figured it was another smoking accident.

WizKid wrote:

I just figured it was another smoking accident.

Maybe Trump did have something to fear from the democrats smocking guns

Nick Moran (The Chieftain) gave the hot take that the Ukrainian military is "good enough", but still not "good" when measured against a NATO standard. This is not just a statement about equipment or logistical readiness, but by organization, leadership, and coordination. I found myself agreeing with nearly all of it.

It is much easier to create functional squads and platoons ... or even battalions than it is to manage integration of divided responsibilities across organizations larger than 600 ppl. It's why the phone company can't send you an accurate bill or why it takes 8 days for a return credit to clear.

I don't know if 600 is some kind of magic number, but it really seems to be. Anything larger than that and you really need some sort of organizational transformation in order to significantly affect the speed and efficacy of decision making. The Russians, intuitively, seemed to understand that before the war which seems to be why they concentrated their reform attempts around the failed BTG concept. Even that, though, resulted in spectacular failure because it turns out you can't have your corrupt cake and eat it too.

The Ukrainians appear to be borrowing a lot of organizational competence from the UK and US, particularly in the area of artillery and air defense coordination, but in the end, their military still has very Soviet bones. After victory, completing the transformation into a true NATO standard military (and a true civil society) will go a long way toward putting the Russian authoritarian model in a long overdue grave.

They are not borrowing. They’ve been trained in NATO tactics and C4i by NATO countries since 2014 for regular troops, and 2009 or so for Special Ops folks. They were a sort of hybrid force. Or in transition. But the whole idea was to get them ready to retake their country, and they worked that from all angles, military, political, publicity, intel (which was positively riddled with Russian agents and may still be after huge purges), logistical planning and implementation… They even crowd-source innovation, which is how “last mile” supply delivery and small-unit tactical support are provided by cheap UK farm vehicles (all-terrain and tough). Turns out if you expect left hand drive and fire at a right hand drive vehicle whose windows are camoflaged, you end up sniping the passenger seat, alerting the driver and allowing them to escape from the sniper.

Amazing.

Robear wrote:

They are not borrowing. They’ve been trained in NATO tactics and C4i by NATO countries since 2014 for regular troops, and 2009 or so for Special Ops folks. They were a sort of hybrid force. Or in transition. But the whole idea was to get them ready to retake their country, and they worked that from all angles, military, political, publicity, intel (which was positively riddled with Russian agents and may still be after huge purges), logistical planning and implementation… They even crowd-source innovation, which is how “last mile” supply delivery and small-unit tactical support are provided by cheap UK farm vehicles (all-terrain and tough). Turns out if you expect left hand drive and fire at a right hand drive vehicle whose windows are camoflaged, you end up sniping the passenger seat, alerting the driver and allowing them to escape from the sniper.

Amazing.

They have definitely gone a long way in 8 years. I think it was General Valerii Zaluzhnyi who said that a "small Soviet army cannot defeat a large Soviet army". That said, the difference in capabilities between the Ukrainian hybrid armed forces and a truly NATO standard military is really hard to overestimate.

edit: I was just talking about this to a coworker of mine who was with 3B/1st Marines at 2nd Falluja. He said that month and a half of fighting was the bloodiest, most intense fight of the war and it was against a dug-in, well prepared opponent who knew his terrain, had fanatical morale, and was well equipped. He stated that the Marines were unable to bring much of their heavy firepower to bear for fear of unnecessarily putting the civilian population at risk. In all aspects, this was the ground of the enemy's choosing and it was really good ground for them. Even still, the result was decisive. The Marines suffered 97 killed to some estimated 2000 dead insurgents. This was the knife fight in a phone booth that was purpose designed to kill Marines and that was the best they could manage.

This is the capability of a NATO trained military.

The Russians are losing 4-500 soldiers per day.

Paleocon wrote:

I don't know if 600 is some kind of magic number, but it really seems to be. Anything larger than that and you really need some sort of organizational transformation in order to significantly affect the speed and efficacy of decision making. The Russians, intuitively, seemed to understand that before the war which seems to be why they concentrated their reform attempts around the failed BTG concept. Even that, though, resulted in spectacular failure because it turns out you can't have your corrupt cake and eat it too.

Russia adopted BTGs because they were the smallest, fully capable task force that could independently function and be quickly deployed as an expeditionary force. They were what the Russian military needed for operations in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, etc.

They were also what the Russian military needed after it became a hybrid contract-conscript military force with a shorter, one-year conscription.

But the Russian BTGs were supposed to have well over 600 soldiers in them. On the books they were supposed to consist of upwards of 900 soldiers or more. But the Russian military just kept forming new BTGs and not increasing its number of contract troops, meaning each BTG became understrength. Toss in a side of corruption and you ended up with what invaded Ukraine: BTGs that were, at best, staffed at about two-thirds of the level their table of organization said they should be at.

And the invasion of Ukraine exposed the real weakness of BTGs: they aren't designed for continuous operation. They barely have enough troops, especially infantry, to function from the get go and their effectiveness dramatically drops as they take causalities and there's no easy way to replenish those losses. Additionally, the effectiveness of individual BTGs is dependent the quality of its officers and there haven't been many Russian officers distinguishing themselves.

That's why, according to the British Ministry of Defense, the Russians have essentially stopped deploying BTGs in Ukraine over the past couple of months.

Paleocon wrote:

The Russians are losing 4-500 soldiers per day.

The Russians aren't losing 4-500 soldiers per day.

They're losing several hundred convicts and poorly equipped and completely untrained mobiks per day.

Their losses of professional soldiers are much less, but still significant because there's honestly not many of them left and the ones that are have pretty much been fighting continuously for 10 months.

OG_slinger wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

The Russians are losing 4-500 soldiers per day.

The Russians aren't losing 4-500 soldiers per day.

They're losing several hundred convicts and poorly equipped and completely untrained mobiks per day.

Their losses of professional soldiers are much less, but still significant because there's honestly not many of them left and the ones that are have pretty much been fighting continuously for 10 months.

Though there might be a marginal difference between convicts/untrained mobiks and Russian regulars, it is probably fair to say that it isn't significant enough to predict a different outcome. They "professional" army that got its genitals handed to them in Hostomel didn't fare any better than these convicts and conscripts. It reminds me, in many ways, to the performance we noticed of Saddam Hussein's vaunted "Republican Guard". In the end, they didn't acquit themselves any better than the folks who were pressganged into uniform.

In any event, the Russians aren't getting any more trained soldiers. They Versailled themselves out of trained reserves and they lack the training cadres to meaningfully mobilize their population from scratch. Meat shields is all they are getting from now until ten years after the last Russian leaves Ukraine.

The Ukrainians, in sharp contrast, are fully exploiting the aid they are getting from the UK and Poland to train up reservists and TDF folks rotated off of active duty. In a war of attrition, the winner is almost always the side who wins the mobilization race and keeps their casualties and consumables under their replacement rate. In both cases, the leader is not even in the same time zone.

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!

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.

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

Mixolyde wrote:

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

A good deal of the criticism of the global world order is warranted, but what is also clear is that the unprecedented advancement of developing nations would simply have been impossible without it. Without a global system of trade made possible by the much maligned "new world order", developing nations would all be relying on indigenous subsistence agriculture and limited to only the energy resources they could secure locally or, if lucky, regionally. They would have no access to global markets for capital generation.

I will leave it up to you to decide if folks were better off in the early 20th century when death by starvation and preventable disease was too common to be considered a tragedy, but for me, I am glad that the "globalization" that folks demonize as some sort of demonic Jewish conspiracy allowed my Korean family to be more than dirt farmers.