chris talpas

So this post and the one above it are what we like to call “losing the bubble”.  You have let your passion for Ukraine cloud objective strategic thinking to the point that you are proposing a denial of reality to insert one of your own that matches that passion.  In blunt terms, if you were on my staff I would be thinking you need a vacation and maybe a posting away for awhile.
1.  We cannot simply discount/avoid/wave away the risks of a full on Russian political and social collapse.  First off it is not “impossible” or even improbable given we have a rigid autocratic political mechanism that has been under significant strain for some time now.  Russia has collapsed in the past (twice in the past century and a bit) and can do so again.  
2.  The consequences of a Russian collapse cannot simply be waived away either.  At best we get a stable regime quickly grabbing power so that the centralized control apparatus stays in place.  That regime will need to 1) have clean enough hands to do an honest deal with, and 2) be supportive in stopping this war.  That is a tall order. Follow on scenarios of a Russian collapse and its impacts get worse from there and we have gone into them many times.  You are essentially so gripped with the Ukrainian cause that you have simply stated “ignore them” with neither proof or logic on why to do so beyond “well it hasn’t happened yet, so it will never happen”.
3.  By your metrics Ukrainian security is not guaranteed outside of a full Russian collapse and regime change.  Nothing would stop Russia from lobbing missiles even if it was forced back to 2014 lines.  So we are back to “we need a full Russian collapse to ‘win’ but ignore the consequences of that collapse because = ‘love Ukraine’.” That makes no sense nor does it address the scenarios where a collapsed Russia poses as greater risk to Ukraine than what they are dealing with now. 
4.  There are plenty examples of frozen conflict where an enduring peace and security were guaranteed: Korea, Cyprus and Former Yugoslavia, to name a few.  Like Israel right now, there is always risk of reemergence of warfare but we can manage that.  So immediately writing off any and all other peace scenarios is not only extremist narrative, it is dangerously reductive thinking.  This is not how high levels of diplomacy, defence and security or economics think about the world, it is how college students on a campus do.
5.  Your position and thesis essentially start with a conclusion and then build a logic model theory of success that only supports that conclusion.  Ukraine must have total victory, all other outcomes are defeats.  Further the West must support Ukraine in this venture to the point that it will risk the total political and social collapse of a nuclear power.  We are to sidestep all that risk for Ukraine.  What happens if we get to 2014 lines and Russia does not quit?  Do we need to go into Russia proper?  This nearly happened in Korea/China in 1950, this was how MacArther talked himself into nuclear weapons and a massive Chinese reaction.
6. We all support Ukraine and want a victory here.  But..and you really need to sit down and think about this…Ukraine is damned important, but it is not that important.  We are not going to start WW3 over Ukraine - even as we skirt around it.  We would be talking hundreds of millions of deaths, even if the thing stayed conventional.  We have 8 billion people on this planet and keeping them all alive takes a lot of energy and resources.  We built a highly complex and integrated system to keep the whole dance going.  One war breaks out between Ukraine and Russia and we already have people starving to death in Africa. Imagine a full on conflagration that drags in NATO. Iran and possibly China.  I am sorry but we could easily go with plan A, which was likely the plan on 24 Feb 22: continue to support Ukrainian resistance, fall back to NATO lines, drop a new Iron Curtain, and fund the hell out of NATO - in fact there are likely big winners in this scenario who know it.  We won the First Cold War, we can take our chances on a Second.
So, no, total 2014 lines are not the only victory in this war by a long shot.  In fact those territorial lines might not even mean victory if they were attainable.  We are very likely looking at a stop line, like in 2014, somewhere in the middle.  Then we will get some sort of shaky ceasefire that we will need to exploit, quickly.  We need to set the conditions to strategically deny Ukraine from Russia.  We know Russia can be deterred, this is why we do not have deep strikes into Poland happening.  We will need to move that deterrence line.  We will likely have to pound Russia until it drops its ridiculous negotiating position and we can land on something more reasonable.  Whether that will take a full on collapse is unknown, we can only hope if it does that we are looking at a soft collapse of political position and not social controls within Russia.
Finally, framing the war the way you have supports Russia.  You are making this war nearly unwinnable via these maximalist rhetoric.  As such, a reader of this thread could easily walk away agreeing with you but arriving at a very different conclusion - unwinnable war = GTFO, because we have already seen this movie twice in the last 20 years.  Which is exactly what Russia wants.
You have narrowed down the acceptable narrative only to those ardent extremist viewpoints that agree with you.  By leaving no middle ground you violate a core component of war: negotiation.  There is no negotiation in your position and that immediately sets off warning bells.  We hear this everyday now coming from all sorts of corners over so many issues.  I vehemently disagree with your analysis, narrative and conclusions based on this fact alone.

Russian locomotives destroyed by partisans. Haven't seen that before.
Death by a thousand needles is a thing. 

Two Ukrainian servicemen 23 and 36 years old died in stabbing attack in Germany. Both have been underwenting rehabilitation course there after wounding. The murderer - 57 years old Russian was detained.
Germany still a country with most large pro-Russian community, consisting of migrants of several waves - from late Soviet Union to modern Russia. There are many conflicts between them and Ukrainain refugees. Russian community regularly conducts actions in support of Russian agression, demonstratively celebrating Russian  holidays. It's weird, when citizens lives in the country, enjoy all benefits, but hate it and wish to see Russian tanks here.   

Perun discussing the new US aid package
 

Perun discussing the new US aid package
 

Commander Oleksandr Syrskyi's latest update:
https://t.me/osirskiy/670
 

Freedom ain’t free.  Someone has to stop Russia from doing what it is doing which is definitely not “perfectly fine”.  In reality the kid did not run away, his family did when he was 16.  Now that he is 18 and of age; he is “staying away”.  I think every citizen has a duty to protect their nation in times of crisis.  A duty to protect each other when threatened.  If they cannot or will not do that then they really are no longer a nation.  This is one thing I think we have lost, and it will come back and bite us.  There is a solemn duty in being a citizen, and even a greater one in a free nation.  It is one that takes sacrifice for the greater good.  Now this kid could be from a pacifist ideology or religion, ok there are a lot of ways to fulfill this duty to serve.
What I disagree with is that is all fine for a young man like this to selfishly protect himself while his own people are suffering.  Running away to “embrace life” when Ukrainian children are dying back in Ukraine does not wash with me.  Personally I have been in two wars that really had not much to do with Canada.  We were really doing it for some greater global good (really did not turn out well in the end) but we all believed in it and honoured kids maybe a year older than this one who died in crappy places no one will remember in 50 years. The idea that one could “sit out” an atrocity like this invasion of Ukraine and still claim citizenship or ethnicity does not sit well with me at all.  It is shirking duty and letting others pay the price.   As we have discussed this kid does not even have to fight.  He can be in a support trade or work in industry or even humanitarian.  But his people and his country need him right now which is more important than how he gets to spend his twenties.  It is more important than him as an individual.  
Mark my words on this, we have more of this coming.  The future is likely going to demand more sacrifice for the greater good not less.  We will have to stand or kneel in the end.  And right now to my eyes, that young man is kneeling.

All solid and fair points.  If Russia could exploit this succession of tactical advances and translate into something else we could be looking at a new ball game.  However, recall that after Severodonetsk we had some more leg jumping and then an exhausted RA folded like a cheap tent at Kharkiv and Kherson - tactical success does not necessarily signal operational success.
The ability of Russia to continually plug away at this, at the loss levels they are sustaining is frankly baffling.  The losses the RA are talking, based on charts and figures that get tossed up here, are mind blowing - even halfing them to account for over-reporting.  The way to counter glide bombs is to wage a campaign against the RUAF.  Long range AD can deny but take all those ATACMs and start hitting airfields.  Then use SOF and UAS to hit them deeper.  The dangerous aspect is that the Russian may have finally found a way to make air power work for them and that has to be blunted.
As to loss ratios…no one really knows.  I have no idea what the UA losses have been in comparison to Russians for terrain taken.  They could be high or they could be moderate. The UA has likely learned to disperse and they definitely have learned to use FPVs.  I am not sure if historical ratios even can be applied here given the shift we are seeing.  I am not sure UA defence has been static in this one.  It was at Adiivka but since then there is a more mobile feel to the thing.  I would not assume massive losses on the UA side.  They definitely have happened but whether they have been enough to create conditions for a UA operational collapse have yet to be seen.  Finally, while the RA have been upping the air game, we also saw evidence of Russian guns slowing down.  We are not seeing the WW1 level of fires we saw at Severodonetsk.  Nor do we have evidence that Russian fires have gotten anymore accurate or precise.
Honestly, I am not at the doom and gloom point.  The UA is definitely straining but we do not see symptoms of breaking (mass casualties, prisoners, encirclements).  We do see high casualties for the RA but they are also still able to attack.  Until something really gives we cannot say one way or the other.  Now that US support is turned back on I suspect Russia will be forced to move off the offensive but let’s see if that unfolds.

Agreed Canada and most other NATO members could and should do more. But these guys below should show that Canada indeed was and is part of NATO.
 
Fallen Canadian Armed Forces Members - Canada in Afghanistan - Canadian Armed Forces - History - Remembrance - Veterans Affairs Canada

I mean, really Canada has already basically withdrawn from NATO hasn't it?  Can you be considered a serious NATO member when your government says that not only will they not spend 2% on defense but they will never spend 2%.
 

I think first we'd want to invade Canada & dethrone the woke socialists in Ottawa.   "First we take Hull, then we take Berlin!" as the old song goes.  

and US aid is back on track for now

Sanity is optional, you need look no further than the RFK jr campaign....

Guess it depends on point of view.  I want about 100 of these to walk over a minefield and then burn anything that resembles a Russian ATGMs in a 5km bridgehead while FPVs hammer anything that runs away from the flames.  Toss in some EW and a dash of c-bty and one might have the makings for a breaching op that goes somewhere.

Nope, no straddling involved, that's firmly on the insane side of the line.
Now, a robot dog that cleans up after your live dog, that would be genius.

So for once the Russians would be right if they said it was all the CIA‘s doing 😂

Russians gradually have been learing of Ukrainian experience of artillery fire control. If in 2022  - mid 23 we have seen typical Soviet style of whole batteries and even battalions of side-by-side standing guns simultainous work, that now Russians are more and more shifting to dispersing of artillery and work by single guns of a battery with individaual targeting for each.
Here is google-translated post about changes since 2022. "The work was carried out in areas with a low coeeficient of UAV use" - means "ineffective area fire with low UAV usage", though for summer 2022 it's not always could be true, or soldiers then reported about dozen Orlans and Zala, ajusting fire. Probably ajusting was inefefctive or come on too long command chain, which made it ineffective.

 
And addition to this post by other Russian artillerist with my translation:
I'l throw my 5 cents:
Regimental artillery tied on artillery chief (of regiment). He, sitting on command post (let's call it in such way) together with chief of recon, watch streams from UAVs (and intercepted streams of the enemy). Spotting the target chief of artillery transmits it to battery commander or senior battery officer  [he is commander of 1st artillery platoon also] and they transmit this data to the gun. 2-7 minutes for targeting of the gun, the bird [drone] in the sky. First shoot - the fire ajustment from artilelry chief directly to the gun. Or artillery chief opens the map, come into communication with gun commandr through the radio and gives the targeting (angle, azimuth, lines). The gun crew lives on position 2-5 days, further a rotation is coming. Nobody drink on position, it's taboo, else they go to "zakrep" [probably those who have to hold the ground after assault] - and this is more scary than to stormers. 
We don't work with mortars since new year. This is no longer relevant becaus of crews life preservation purposes. Drones already fly on 10 km in the rear, so they clicks them at once  

And here Russian feedback about CAESERs

Hmmm we in the UK have personal experience of this and it has cost us dearly. A very expensive mistake...
I hope for the world's sake America takes note that tearing up years of work and cooperation doesn't magically solve anything and creates problems no one was told would happen...

It is potentially worse than that.  This sort of dysfunction does nothing but feed anti-democracy sentiment.  Democracies die due to abandonment, history demonstrates this quite well.  If the system is seen as "unworkable" democracies often choose suicide.  This is the threat to the US and global stability.  Trump and Greene are symptoms of something far deeper and dangerous....apathy that leads to despair.

These fools want the power and respect of being a global superpower and absolutely none of the responsibility. I'm convinced that if Russia rolled into the Suwalki Gap tomorrow that half of the House GOP would refuse to fund the military.

I mean ... I think that's a joke? But with MT "Empty" Greene (proud veteran of the Bowling Green Massacre) it's really really hard to be sure. That is bat**** enough to have actually leaked out of her ears.
 
Edit: oh FFS. Those really were among the proposals she submitted 🥸

Some "homefront" news. Maybe we have heard of the recent fires at the American and British 155mm munitions factories?
Might be just a coincidence, but...
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/generalbundesanwalt-ermittelt-zwei-mutmassliche-russische-saboteure-in-bayern-verhaftet-a-0115bebd-195a-41fb-83be-da8d642045cd
In Germany, two Russo-Germans have been arrested for espionage and sabotage. They are accused of taking pictures of American and German military installations in Bavaria (one of which is a training facility for Ukrainians on Abrams tanks) and planning to use explosives to disrupt military support transports en route to Ukraine. 
Both of them were in contact with the FSB and one of them was member of a Russian militia unit which operated in Donetzk / Donbas 2014 to 2017. The unit is considered a terrorist group in Germany, so that Russo-German is also accused of membership in a terrorist organisation.
 
 

It was found in experiments that vertical solar panels offer basically the same energy output as an angled panel.
The reason is that although the panel receives less solar radiation energy, the generated heat can dissipate better, which results in increased efficiency, which brings them up to the same output as an angled panel.
 

Remember when Tucker Carlson was interviewing Putin who recited his boilerplate spiel about invading Ukraine to 'de-nazify' it, and Tucker looked personally offended by the remark.