Ukraine 15 - Si vis pacem, para bellum

[Werthead]

Interesting stuff here. The Russians do seem to be adopting a "muddle through" approach and hoping for breakthroughs, maybe relying on the Ukrainian defence faltering in Donbas. That seems to be a bit of a hope and a prayer though, especially with the Russian front faltering harder near Kharkiv.

The problem is that Russia still feels like it is going for maximal goals - some reports that they have significant reserves behind Kherson and may renew offensive operations to seize the rest of Kherson Oblast soon - but their material and manpower issues are still ongoing. If they were solely focusing on Donbas, giving up on Odesa and planning to declare victory and threatening to mobilise against Ukraine if it counter-attacks after that point, it would be understandable. But they still seem to be contemplating Odesa and possibly a later offensive again in the Kyiv region (although that might be a bluff). They haven't got the forces to spread that widely.

[Loge]

Looks like the troops can't be forced to go to Ukraine as long as war hasn't been declared. Most of them probably don't know that but if word spreads the army has a problem.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/12/they-were-furious-the-russian-soldiers-refusing-to-fight-in-ukraine

[SeanF]

WRT Ukraine, it's plain that both the "realists" (Russia is too powerful to resist in its own sphere of influence) and the Chomskyist left (wringing their hands about how the NATO will make things worse by intervening) have had a bad war.

[Werthead]

The Russians are grinding on. It looks like Severodontesk is now surrounded on three sides. If it falls, that gives them reasonable - if minimal - grounds to declare victory in Donbas. However, it looks like Russia has pulled back from trying to attack the Izium-Slovyansk-Debaltseve line. Some indications that fighting remains ongoing near and maybe in Izium, and along the Kharkiv front, where Russian units appear to be redeploying for defence.

The Russians have now lost 100 T-72B3 tanks, the most heavily upgraded version of the T-72 in their inventory. A landing craft has also been destroyed just off Snake Island.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

1 minute ago, Werthead said:

The Russians are grinding on. It looks like Severodontesk is now surrounded on three sides. If it falls, that gives them reasonable - if minimal - grounds to declare victory in Donbas. However, it looks like Russia has pulled back from trying to attack the Izium-Slovyansk-Debaltseve line. Some indications that fighting remains ongoing near and maybe in Izium, and along the Kharkiv front, where Russian units appear to be redeploying for defence.

Mission Accomplished 

Or not. As if that would stop the Ukrainians. 

[Werthead]

16 minutes ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

Mission Accomplished 

Or not. As if that would stop the Ukrainians. 

I wonder if that's the trap Russia is setting.

Russia declares victory, planning to call a ceasefire and then bogs everyone down in peace talks for x years. Ukraine counter-attacks, Russia declares a ceasefire violation and says that they are being reasonable, have stopped attacking, no-one's dying, but Ukraine wants to fight on and invade Russian-speaking areas. Russia then has the excuse for mobilisation (partial or full).

[broken one]

30 minutes ago, Werthead said:

 If it falls, that gives them reasonable - if minimal - grounds to declare victory in Donbas.

9th May has already passed. As Kuleba said in his last interview for Die Welt - everyone tried to give Putin something he could save his face with, while it looks like he is not interested in saving his face but in destruction of Ukraine.

[Gorn]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

The Russians are grinding on. It looks like Severodontesk is now surrounded on three sides. If it falls, that gives them reasonable - if minimal - grounds to declare victory in Donbas. However, it looks like Russia has pulled back from trying to attack the Izium-Slovyansk-Debaltseve line. Some indications that fighting remains ongoing near and maybe in Izium, and along the Kharkiv front, where Russian units appear to be redeploying for defence.

The Russians have now lost 100 T-72B3 tanks, the most heavily upgraded version of the T-72 in their inventory. A landing craft has also been destroyed just off Snake Island.

I don't think they can declare a victory in Donbas until they control all the cities in it - Severodonetsk, Lisichansk, Kramatorsk, Slovyansk, Pokrovsk. All of these places have the population of 50k+, and they haven't even completed their takeover of Mariupol yet.

Capturing cities is a long, grinding process, and time doesn't work in Russia's favor right now.

[broken one]

5 minutes ago, Gorn said:

 

Capturing cities is a long, grinding process, and time doesn't work in Russia's favor right now.

Some say that in several weeks they will have to dig for PPSh-41 and T55.

[Maithanet]

It would warm my heart if we got a t-34 sighting.  One final hurrah for the tank that saved the world.

[Heartofice]

Interesting listening to Russian UN diplomat Dmitry Polyanskiy put across the Russian position on the war. No massive surprises or shocks but always fascinating to see how ‘alternative facts’ are put across.

main points being 

- There is no war. It’s a special military operation..  not a war. Very different apparently.

- Only objective has been to protect the Donbass region from Ukrainian shelling and imminen invasion. ( and maybe even invasion of Russia)
 

All that stuff about encircling Kiev was just a distraction to tie up Ukranian forces. Sure. Seemed unaware of any objectives such as gaining a corridor in the south of Ukraine.

- This whole thing is being fuelled by the Wests continued arming of Ukraine ( notice left wing talking point) which means the ‘war’ cannot end. 
 

I’m sure a lot of Russians are buying this narrative.

[Werthead]

The Ukrainian defence minister and some other commentators have outlined what they saw as the decisive moment of the war, when the mobilisation it began on the day of the invasion will start to really take effect (so far Ukraine's military efforts have been undertaken entirely by their standing military and immediate reserves). By the end of the full mobilisation effort, which we should hit between now and the end of June, Ukraine should have around a million troops available for combat with a minimum of three months' training, but around half that number will have had prior combat experience after being rotated through Donbas at some point in the last eight years.

However, it may still be several weeks before this force starts to enter the war in force, and of course it will need to be steadied and become battle-hardened as it mounts counter-offensives. So it sounds like maybe the rest of May and into early June will be the time when Russia will need to - and may be most capable of - achieving a military victory. Otherwise the Russian highwater mark of its potential military effort with its current resources will pass and Ukraine should then become considerably and incrementally stronger through the rest of the summer. Russia can of course offset that by mobilising or partially mobilising, but you're looking at a minimum timeframe of 3-6 months before those troops could enter the battle.

On top the million, Ukraine could mobilise maybe the same number again (with a population of 40 million in-theatre, that would be about 5% of the population), although whether it could arm them is another question. Russia could raise as many troops to fight, but I'm not sure there'd be much left of either military afterwards.

On the diplomatic front, the first direct US-Russia talks took place today since the invasion, with the US requesting a ceasefire. The Russians only agreed to the importance of maintaining lines of dialogue, however.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

So… will Turkey derail NATO membership for Sweden and Finland?
 

 

 

[Zorral]

Russia says its cutting electricity supply to Finland.

 

[Werthead]

3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So… will Turkey derail NATO membership for Sweden and Finland?

Difficult to say. This could be Erdogan looking for some concessions for Turkey from NATO (maybe those F-35s he's still annoyed about losing), or it could be maybe part of a peace initiative. If you want a huge climbdown from Putin - withdrawing completely from Ukraine - the only political settlement he might consider for that might be a joint Ukraine-Sweden-Finland neutrality pact. He launched military action hoping to keep one country out of NATO and ends up with three. That's a pretty big win domestically, even if it's effectively a sop to disguise a climbdown.

However, I get the impression Sweden and Finland are past considering that, with the mass civilian casualties being the final straw.

Turkey is also in a bind in that it wants freedom of action to do its own thing - its NATO membership has always been an awkward fit given its willingness to engage in military action in the Middle East - but it also quite likes being under NATO's protective umbrella. Erdogan is walking a tightrope there.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

18 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Difficult to say. This could be Erdogan looking for some concessions for Turkey from NATO (maybe those F-35s he's still annoyed about losing), or it could be maybe part of a peace initiative. If you want a huge climbdown from Putin - withdrawing completely from Ukraine - the only political settlement he might consider for that might be a joint Ukraine-Sweden-Finland neutrality pact. He launched military action hoping to keep one country out of NATO and ends up with three. That's a pretty big win domestically, even if it's effectively a sop to disguise a climbdown.

However, I get the impression Sweden and Finland are past considering that, with the mass civilian casualties being the final straw.

Turkey is also in a bind in that it wants freedom of action to do its own thing - its NATO membership has always been an awkward fit given its willingness to engage in military action in the Middle East - but it also quite likes being under NATO's protective umbrella. Erdogan is walking a tightrope there.

I'd add hoping for something from the EU in some horse trade to give up his opposition. Sweden is kinda tricky for him. They have rather large Kurdish minority (even a handful of MPs are Kurdish iirc), so that's where the home for terrorists nonsense comes from.

[broken one]

Maybe Erdogan is trying to gain something. He did similar thing with Graduated Response Plan for the Eastern Flank in 2019. Turkey blocked the act and wanted some sort of NATO's assistance against Kurds. After long diplomatic scramble they withdrew the objection. Maybe now its about Kurds again.

[Toth]

I remember someone else already posted a previous video of this series, but here the next one:

The Bundeswehr chief strategist Gunter Schneider about the current state of the Ukraine war. I must say, while you get the feeling that the interviewees in this series of discussions with high ranking generals try to dance around telling too much concrete details, it's still a pretty impressive information campaign to get an insight into how the German military is watching things unfold.

For the non-German speakers here a brief:

- they start out with his impressions of Putin's speech on Monday. Schneider points out that Putin had always the option to use the NATO-Russia Council to cooperate with NATO but never chose to do it in any of their military endeavors since 2008, so he finds it ridiculous to blame NATO for his own actions. Same with the accusation of NATO wanting to station nukes in Ukraine to attack Russia, it's all nonsensical propaganda aimed at the domestic audience.

- the second question is whether the Bundeswehr has a plan in some drawer about how to proceed in the case of Germany getting invaded by Russia. Amusingly, Schneider says we don't, though there are a couple the NATO has and in the worst case we will just focus on doing our part together with everyone else.

- the third question is whether Germany has enough forces to deter from an attack, especially with the current talk about how we got nothing to spare for Ukraine. Schneider says that Germany doubling down its efforts in reinforcing the Eastern European countries might be in no small part responsible for our reluctance to share equipment. He admits there are massive shortcomings right now, but with the additional funds he is confident we can grow our capabilities beyond just showing presence to our allies.

- after that they do an explanation of the rotating exchange to get old Warsow pact equipment to Ukraine and how every piece of equipment sent to Ukraine is an investment into Europe's security.

- Schneider is then asked whether he thought it possible Ukraine would do this well in resisting the invasion and he admits that he absolutely expected a defeat, but now in hindsight and looking at the tactical situation of the engagements, he should have seen the massive advantages that the Ukrainians have. Most of all their utter refusal to get defeated, which makes the quick victory Putin expected totally impossible. So this isn't just a victory of the Ukrainian army, but of Ukrainian society as a whole. Aside that, it is clear that they made the best out of having 8 years to prepare for this, but also because the environment forces the Russians to funnel their troops onto the roads, making it impossible to steamroll the Ukrainians with higher numbers on a wide front line. With things being as they are, the Russians are still getting torn apart piecemeal, even in the east.

- he notes that the Russians have switched to trying to wear the Ukrainians down with artillery and dumb-fire air-strikes, learning their lessons from the opening weeks, but pointedly phrases it rather vaguely, giving the impression that the Russians may not always stick to this. He then proceeds to note the abysmal morale of the Russians where the individual soldier started with "What am I even doing here?" and with the catastrophic losses only went downhill from there.

- Schneider is then asked what the artillery strikes against civilian structures mean. He notes grimly that he personally severely doubts that the Russians are just bad shots and that he's fairly certain it's a purposeful attempt to break Ukrainian morale done in the hope of that somehow helping to speed up a successful advance. It's just pure terror.

- the question is then what lessons have been taken away from the war. Schneider says that it reinforces the necessity of combined arms in war, given the ongoing failure of the Russians to pull those off. He finds it also very interesting to see high-ranking generals micromanaging the Russians from the front (and exposing themselves to danger doing it), illustrating the lack of autonomy of the individual officers and their units which in turn causes them to be highly inflexible when in a pinch. This ends with an explanation of the difference between "Auftragstaktik" (Mission-type tactics) employed by the German and most other western armies in which the individual units are free to go about their missions as circumstances allow it, unlike the Russian doctrine that seems to favor sticking to a highly micro-managed plan until it becomes utterly impossible and then asking for new orders.

- the last question is what effect the Ukraine war has on German military presence in other countries like Mali. He says that with the focus currently being on supporting allies, the war in Ukraine will not make us having to pull out elsewhere.

[ThinkerX]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Interesting listening to Russian UN diplomat Dmitry Polyanskiy put across the Russian position on the war. No massive surprises or shocks but always fascinating to see how ‘alternative facts’ are put across.

main points being 

- There is no war. It’s a special military operation..  not a war. Very different apparently.

- Only objective has been to protect the Donbass region from Ukrainian shelling and imminen invasion. ( and maybe even invasion of Russia)
 

All that stuff about encircling Kiev was just a distraction to tie up Ukranian forces. Sure. Seemed unaware of any objectives such as gaining a corridor in the south of Ukraine.

- This whole thing is being fuelled by the Wests continued arming of Ukraine ( notice left wing talking point) which means the ‘war’ cannot end. 
 

I’m sure a lot of Russians are buying this narrative.

There are some far-right types on my Facebook that sort of buy into all this.

They regard arming Ukraine as benefiting the military industrial complex more than anything else and go so far as to say Putin is justified in striving against NATO.  They are also ant-vaccine advocates and regard charges of Russia influencing Trump promoting divisive memes on social media as ludicrous - all the while spouting conspiracy theories centered on the evils of the 'radical left.'

[ThinkerX]

This article gets into something I have speculated about here before: the increasing possibility that Russia itself will fragment, likely stemming in part from this war.

Prepare for the disappearance of Russia (msn.com)

The Soviet collapse was both a surprise and an annoyance for much of the West. Few government leaders expected a superpower to disappear overnight and even fewer greeted the prospect with enthusiasm. President George H. W. Bush’s infamous “Chicken Kiev” speech, in which he warned Ukrainians against pursuing “suicidal nationalism” and thereby risking undermining the Soviet state, became emblematic of Western fears of a Soviet collapse. The speech was also testimony to the belief that Western policy could prevent such an outcome.

A similar inability to imagine the unimaginable appears evident today. Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer typifies this inability to think beyond Russia: “Gone are the days when Russia’s war aims consisted solely of ‘de-Nazifying and demilitarizing’ Ukraine. Also gone are the days when U.S. and allied governments limited their involvement to helping Ukraine defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he writes. “… The result is a new Cold War between Russia and its opponents — one that promises to be less global than its 20th-century counterpart but also less stable and predictable.” Despite all the portentous changes that Bremmer foresees, Russia’s collapse as a state is not one of them.

And yet, it’s perfectly possible, possibly even probable. And the sooner the West starts thinking about what a Russian collapse will look like, the better — not because there is much we can do to stop it, but because it will have earth-shattering consequences for the world.