#16 Ukraine the brave, the whole World is watching!

[Werthead]

9 hours ago, Zorral said:

However, in this related news, this is good, right? that Turkey has stopped blocking Sweden and Finland from joining NATO?

Yup. As expected, it was all horse trading to get them to lift their arms embargo. In fact, Turkey seems to have gone further by signing a more comprehensive security pact with them. Given that people were expecting Turkey to keep Putin sweet by blocking the move, it's impressive that Turkey's gone so far.

NATO is also increasing the size of its rapid reaction force from 40,000 to 300,000. They seem to have accepted the Baltic States' argument that the previous military plan to defend them (let Russia overrun them and then win them back in a long attritional campaign) was bullshit and the new idea is to have a force large enough to defeat a Russian invasion on the field, if not at the border. A lot of NATO countries are also increasing defence spending: the UK is looking to increase its own by more than 20% to 2.5% of GDP.

[Zorral]

Yes -- listening to Biden's announcement on the morning news cruise this morning -- more than about time, one might think. Perhaps the delays were connected to Turkey's step down Sweden and Finland, etc. NATO and general security.  Though, per usual, I know nothing.

[Maithanet]

This war has pretty unequivocally been a strategic disaster for Russia.  Their economy is shrinking, NATO is reinvigorated in opposition to Russia.  Sweden and Finland have joined the alliance, which means Russia now has hundreds of additional miles of NATO borders, and two additional nations with powerful (if small) militaries arrayed against them.  Russia's economy is shrinking, the brain drain is as bad as ever, its military is decrepit, and its soft power is being ignored. 

IF this was happening as a result of Russia conquering Ukraine and installing a puppet government, perhaps you could say that the juice is worth the squeeze.  But that has not happened, instead the fighting in Ukraine has been costly and inconclusive.  Ukraine's national identity has been forged in opposition to Russia above all else.  Russia controls 20% of Ukraine, but most of the captured cities are either destroyed, depopulated or both.  Russia is already trying to sell Ukrainian grain, but that is hardly going to make up for 10-15% of Russia's economy lost to sanctions. 

In terms of real strategic objectives that Russia has achieved, the list is basically

1.  Secure a land bridge to Crimea.

2. Set back Ukraine's economy and standard of living. 

And while #2 is assured, Russia must continue to fight for #1, lest Ukraine take it back.  And arrayed against the strategic losses Russia has suffered, that is very small potatoes.  But Putin lacks any good options, so he continues down the path he's been going, in the vain hope that things will start getting better on the battlefield.  Perhaps he will have greater leverage over Germany/the EU around February when Russian gas is needed the most.  But even that is still seven months away, and Ukraine's military may be getting stronger in that time. 

Imagine Russia's optimistic scenario, where Ukraine's military is exhausted, Russia gradually conquers most of the Donbas over the summer, and the EU proves feckless in the face of winter energy shortages.  Perhaps Russia can negotiate a peace where it can keep all the territory it has and the war goes quiet.  But then what?  Gradually rebuild the Russian military to try and capture Odessa/Kyiv in another generation?  Sanctions will continue to impoverish the country and the Russian economy will be ever more reliant on fossil fuels (and prices will fall eventually).  The Russian military has already been surpassed by China, and is likely to fall behind other rising nations like India in coming decades.  Even in the "good" scenario, the future is bleak. 

[Maithanet]

Russia's reliance on massed artillery means that their arty barrels are about worn out.  Artillery barrels have rifling to get the shells to fire accurately, and without that the shells can be off by a wide margin (hundreds of meters).  Even if you assume that the barrels were in great shape to start the campaign (unlikely), then the amount of shells fired divided by the number of artillery pieces, you get to about 125% of what the US would consider the end of life for the barrels RIGHT NOW.  That will only get worse as time goes on.

I don't know if Russia has a bunch of spare artillery barrels lying around, but even if they do, it takes some time to take them on the line and attach those.  If they don't and they need to make them, that's going to be a much bigger problem.  And everything we've seen from the Russian military thus far has been that Russian maintenance practices are poor. 

It is quite likely that the Russians will be fighting future artillery duels with guns that are less and less accurate, just as Ukraine is getting new and better NATO artillery for counterbattery fire. 

[Werthead]

The question is basically "Is Russia going to get out of this what it thought it was going to?" and the answer is obviously no. Not in their worst projections did Russia think this would go the way it has.

Their best hope at the moment is trying to grind out something that looks like victory if you squint at it, but if they overextend and Ukraine is able to start retaking territory, they could end up in a considerably worse position than when they started.

Of course, Ukraine has been very badly impacted by the war as well, and the amount of support it will need to pull through and achieve an outright win is very high. It's critical that support remains in place for them.

[Maithanet]

8 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The question is basically "Is Russia going to get out of this what it thought it was going to?" and the answer is obviously no. Not in their worst projections did Russia think this would go the way it has.

Their best hope at the moment is trying to grind out something that looks like victory if you squint at it, but if they overextend and Ukraine is able to start retaking territory, they could end up in a considerably worse position than when they started.

Of course, Ukraine has been very badly impacted by the war as well, and the amount of support it will need to pull through and achieve an outright win is very high. It's critical that support remains in place for them.

It feels vitally important that Ukraine retakes a meaningful amount of territory between now and the onset of winter.  If they are not able to do that, I do think that Russia will use its energy leverage over Europe to make things very difficult for the continent.  I don't see anyone strongarming Ukraine into surrender, but Ukraine needs support, and that support might start getting delayed or cut off entirely if things get bad enough.  Russia's energy leverage isn't an irresistible force, but it is another card Putin can play, and he doesn't have a lot of cards left that don't risk WW3. 

[JGP]

Fuck this.

 

 

[Loge]

Looks like Russia has withdrawn from Snake Island.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/30/ukraine-forces-reportedly-recapture-snake-island-in-strategic-win 

[Werthead]

Ukraine and Russia have swapped 144 prisoners each. Apparently two-thirds of the Ukrainian POWs were from Mariupol.

[SeanF]

5 hours ago, Loge said:

Looks like Russia has withdrawn from Snake Island.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/30/ukraine-forces-reportedly-recapture-snake-island-in-strategic-win 

As a gesture of goodwill 

[Werthead]

12 minutes ago, SeanF said:

As a gesture of goodwill 

I believe the Russians were expressing genuine concern about the impact on marine biodiversity from their ships constantly sinking around Snake Island for wholly mysterious reasons, so removed them from the immediate environs.

[kiko]

So put those Neptunes on snake island now where they can guard the Ukrainian harbor of Sevastopol - it's apparently in range from there. Just in case there are some enemy ships around 

[Derfel Cadarn]

12 minutes ago, kiko said:

So put those Neptunes on snake island now where they can guard the Ukrainian harbor of Sevastopol - it's apparently in range from there. Just in case there are some enemy ships around 

Danger is Russian cruise missiles taking them out 

[Wilbur]

Sure, Putin can go to Jakarta for the G20.

But at what price?

The length of the table he will demand have the result of him sitting in the suburbs of Bandung.

Putin's preposterously long table at Kremlin dwarfed by gigantic table at a summit he attended in Turkmenistan (yahoo.com)

 

[Wilbur]

Good news for Ukraine - they are getting GPS-guided Excalibur shells for their artillery.

Ukrainian Artillery Is About To Get A Lot More Accurate (forbes.com)

[Gorn]

10 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Danger is Russian cruise missiles taking them out 

It can still be done, but it requires speed and getting off the island quickly. So far, Russian over-centralized decision-making process has been pretty slow.

I'm guessing that Ukrainians would have at least a day or two to operate freely between Russian satellites spotting activity on the island, and cruise missiles hitting it. I don't know how long it takes to set up Neptunes to operate, but there should be plenty of time to "shoot and scoot".

[Maithanet]

15 hours ago, Wilbur said:

Putin's preposterously long table at Kremlin dwarfed by gigantic table at a summit he attended in Turkmenistan

Are they mocking him?  This feels like mockery. 

[Werthead]

Russia has reported a stunning military victory in shooting down it's 1,000th Bayraktar TB2 drone over Ukraine, which is ~550 more Bayraktars than has ever actually been built and between 900 and 930 more Bayraktars than Ukraine has ever fielded.

[Toth]

There has been general confusion in another forum about how the media barely acknowledges Biden's NATO summit closing speech: https://nitter.it/visegrad24/status/1542533803113054208

Is it will receive or has received? It seems rather confusingly worded. I don't think Ukraine has gotten 600 tanks and 500 artillery pieces, except if we count Russia among the donors.

[Werthead]

8 minutes ago, Toth said:

There has been general confusion in another forum about how the media barely acknowledges Biden's NATO summit closing speech: https://nitter.it/visegrad24/status/1542533803113054208

Is it will receive or has received? It seems rather confusingly worded. I don't think Ukraine has gotten 600 tanks and 500 artillery pieces, except if we count Russia among the donors.

Going by Oryx, Ukraine has captured and restored to operation 272 Russian tanks, 133 armoured fighting vehicles, 246 infantry fighting vehicles, 58 APCs, 8 MRAPs (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles), 34 Infantry Mobility Vehicles, 37 mobile command vehicles, 69 engineering vehicles and equipment, 8 antitank guns, 8 heavy mortars, 39 towed artillery, 45 self-propelled artillery, 29 multiple rocket launchers, 5 AA guns, 6 self-propelled AA guns, 21 SAM systems, 6 mobile radars, 3 EW systems, 44 drones, 1 helicopter and 287 trucks and jeeps.

So yeah, certainly the tanks could include captured Russian pieces, since that's almost half the number and Poland has sent 240 Soviet-era tanks to Ukraine by itself.