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Ukraine: Are ya winning yet.


Varysblackfyre321

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Vuhledar is showing up an interesting issue. Apparently the use of conscripts and convicts on that front has been terminated in the last few weeks and Russian regular forces, especially their few remaining elite marine formations, have been put into the battle.

However, they've been sent in in exactly the same way as the conscripts and convicts were, massed human-wave attacks against heavily fortified positions. Most bizarrely, they're even attacking at the same time each day. Reportedly Ukrainian artillery has zeroed their axis of advance and inflicted hideous casualties on them. And these units can't sustain those casualties, those troops have years and years of training and in some cases experience in Syria and in the previous fighting in Donbas. You can't waste them like that. Sounds like a lot of fury at the tactic on Russia media channels.

The comparison with WWII does not really stand. The USSR had a vastly greater population than modern Russia (around 200 million, probably a fair bit more than that, compared to ~141 million, given that 1-2 million Russians have apparently fled the country and more than 100,000 are dead in this conflict), it was able to mobilise a far vaster reserve of its population as combat troops than it can now (because it would completely destroy what's left of the economy if they tried) and it had the USA and UK helping supply and arm it. The USSR also did not have a massive demographic crisis (well, not until after the war, and because of it) in the same way modern Russia does. Modern Russia can't afford to throw lives away remotely like it did in WWII and really it should not have to.

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8 hours ago, Gorn said:

It's about politics, not strategy. Putin needs to go in front of cameras on February 24th on the anniversary of the "special military operation", and he needs positive developments on the front to talk about. If conquest of Bakhmut can be accomplished by that date at the cost of tens of thousands of dead, well, it's a price he's willing to pay.

It might get interesting if Putin has no victories to report on that day - especially if the Ukrainians manage a major victory between now and then, one Russian state media is forced to acknowledge.

 

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6 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

It might get interesting if Putin has no victories to report on that day - especially if the Ukrainians manage a major victory between now and then, one Russian state media is forced to acknowledge.

 

The only way the russia media would be forced to acknowledge anything is if Moscow itself was attacked. Anything else is easily obfuscated, denied or ignored.

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1 hour ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

The only way the russia media would be forced to acknowledge anything is if Moscow itself was attacked. Anything else is easily obfuscated, denied or ignored.

Yet they have acknowledged the occasional setback. (aka 'catastrophic defeat') 

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16 hours ago, Gorn said:

It's about politics, not strategy. Putin needs to go in front of cameras on February 24th on the anniversary of the "special military operation", and he needs positive developments on the front to talk about. If conquest of Bakhmut can be accomplished by that date at the cost of tens of thousands of dead, well, it's a price he's willing to pay.

Some you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make.  

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On 2/4/2023 at 4:30 PM, SeanF said:

He's died.

As Steve Gomez put it, "Burn in hell, you piece of shit!"

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41 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

 

Interesting, but I believe those guys are in Brussels. This is not a likely thing to happen in Russia.

What is startling is that those are key regions of historical Russia itself where they are claiming there is support for this. The general assumption was that the rot would start from the outside going in, from the quasi-autonomous (in name only) republics like Buryatia, maybe Chechnya again. But there's a lot of internal dissent in Russia itself which is interest. St. Petersburg seems to be a hotbed for low-level dissent against the government (as is historically traditional).

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34 minutes ago, Werthead said:

St. Petersburg seems to be a hotbed for low-level dissent against the government (as is historically traditional).

Got to upset Putin though, given his history.

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11 hours ago, Werthead said:

Interesting, but I believe those guys are in Brussels. This is not a likely thing to happen in Russia.

What is startling is that those are key regions of historical Russia itself where they are claiming there is support for this. 

With the exception of Kaliningrad of course. Although interesting that they would voice this idea at all, I don't think it there really is a genuine separatist feeling within a sufficiently large part of the population of these regions.

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Interview of Owen Matthews, author of 'Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin's War Against Ukraine'. Was pretty interesting. His hot take, which maybe is not all that hot, is that there are only bad outcomes for this war. Will be interesting if there is anyone who can thread the needle and actually not end up ruining either Ukraine, or Russia or both.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018877027

 

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Some odd messaging from Russia today. Peskov said that Russia didn't care if the west gave Ukraine modern jets as it wouldn't change anything...which is manifestly untrue. Jets like the Typhoon or F-16 would allow the Ukrainians to defend their skies, target AA and artillery systems at range and massively bombard Russian lines which have scant air cover themselves at the moment. Rather a bizarre statement.

Also immaterial. The messaging inside NATO is that whilst Ukraine will get its pilots trained, it will only get NATO aircraft after this war is effectively concluded, for the rebuilding and their later defence. They don't see it being possible to get them aircraft in the short term because you can't really just get out of the cockpit of a MiG-29 and jump into the cockpit of a Typhoon, they are markedly different systems.

I suspect a lot of this is theatre, so the Russians might get worried about aircraft but then Ukraine "only" gets better air defences, more tanks (Germany has sourced almost 200 Leopard 1s from partner states in addition to the ~200 Leopard 2s on the table, which is a massive commitment) and longer-ranged missiles instead.

Meanwhile, apparently Wagner's recruitment drive in Russian prisons has run afoul of prisoners hearing back from friends at the front what absolute hell it is and they're refusing to join up. Apparently the Wagner penal battalions have in some cases suffered 70% or more fatalities around the Bahkmut front, which oddly is not encouraging people to sign up.

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They really just need better marketing - fully almost 1/3rd of their penal battalions come back and have their debt to society fully paid off! Really folks need to watch Running Man more. 

Meanwhile, Forbes of all places has a good piece on how bad Russia's offensive is going and some of the shockingly bad tactics they're using. Apparently Russia's plan of sending all of their stuff into a small chokepoint that gets blocked by wrecked vehicles and mines is not an ideal combined arms choice.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/02/08/smashed-by-ukrainian-mines-and-artillery-russias-winter-offensive-just-ground-to-a-halt-outside-vuhledar/?sh=7bf1c8695558

 

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Everything I've read about the attacks the past two weeks on Vuhledar (and there have been a variety of different sources) depict it as an absolute debacle for Russia.  Russia is throwing its some of its best troops (paratroopers and marines) and best tanks in piecemeal frontal attacks in the exact same time and direction over and over again for weeks.  Ukraine is able to hold them off with massed artillery and comparatively few infantry. 

There are places where it looks like the Russian army is learning and improving to avoid the mistakes it made in 2022.  But then you look at Vuhledar and you see that a lot of the problems are deeply entrenched. 

 

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Split thinking on Bakhmut. Some analysts saying the Ukrainians are going to have to withdraw, the strength of Russian forces there is too strong and the defence is being held more by civil defence forces than professionals.

However, in all the recent fighting, many Ukrainian elite and heavy formations are simply missing (some are in Vuhledar, but only some), making some believe the Ukrainians themselves may launch an offensive on another front, forcing the Russians to choose between gaining territory in Donbas or losing it elsewhere. Exactly where is unclear: the Ukrainians have been threatening towards Melitopol for months, but there's some suggestion of a direct assault across the Dnipro into the rest of Kherson Oblast. It would be very bold and maybe risky, but the Ukrainians have secured a flanking line via the Kilburn peninsula and the Russians may have weakened the line there, trusting the river to hold against an assault, to reinforce the Donbas assault. Also, it would put them very close to the Crimean border, possibly enough to force the Russians to pull back troops to Crimea to defend there.

The alternative would be a direct counter-assault against this Russian advance when it runs out of steam, which would be interesting but possibly too bloody if those reinforcing tanks have not yet arrived.

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Tanks can't be there yet, can they?

The Ukrainian servicemen and women are still being trained on those. Last time I checked, they were struggling to get sufficient Leos (II) from other nations - despite Germany's pleading.

E.g. Greece has quite a few of those, but they are not giving away any of them, because they're needed for the national defense, because of Turkey. 

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