dan/california

Kamil Galeev seems to think that Russia just can't bear to get beaten by Ukraine, it has to get beaten by US/NATO to give up. Galeev says tactical nuke is a means to achieve this. My point is we can skip that step and launch a full scale air war on the Russians in Ukraine. In three days the ones who are still alive can go home and say it was NATO, there was nothing we could do. If we do it now we don't even have to slaughter a 100,000 thousand mobiks. Edit: Maybe start by just killing every Russian vehicle in the Kherson pocket, just as a proper warning.

Maybe it will be easier to avert it by NATO getting in now? Get three brigades rolling into Ukraine right now. State explicitly and for the record that if Russia pops a nuke they have started WW3. They can go home and whine that at least they lost to NATO, or Russia can cease to exist. Putin is still screwing around thinking he has escalation dominance. It might hurt less to prove him wrong before nukes instead of after.

Shoving more men onto a logistics system that is strained to the breaking point already is going to do very little for the Russians. And as the average quality of their units decline the chances the AFU can initiate a truly mass rout even bigger than the one in Kharkiv just go up and up. And we at the beginning of winter. Mobik popsicles are going to be a thing, never mind the epidemic of trench foot I see coming. Russian failure will take a few months longer perhaps. It will also be infinitely more complete.

The demand for Ukrainian lecturers in Western staff colleges is going to be overwhelming. I suspect it will also be very important for the current management of the L/DPR. My money is that they take long walks off of short window ledges sometime soon as Russia consolidates control. South Korea has clearly looked at the German hesitation to support Ukraine properly and realized it is a huge business opportunity. It isn't like the Poles are exactly fond of the Germans anyway. I suspect this is going to be an at least medium sized reordering of the global arms business. I assume at least 75% of what Poland is receiving from the ROK is moving on to Ukraine without even slowing down and will until the Russians are beaten. Poland is 100% aware they have picked a side and have committed fully. Once Ukraine is in the EU and NATO their alliance is going to have real heft. It is just beyond infuriating the AFU is still fighting in post soviet crap. Against a Leopard 2 or Abrams those Russian tanks would have been dead before they got into the video frame. My Congressman is getting TWO letters this week.

We assume the pre 2/24 lines around Luhansk city are more or less intact, yes? Furthermore that line was basically on the Siversky Donets river. So even a force that is 80% mobiks ought to be able to hold them for a while? I also assume the artillery that used to support those original trench lines is massively depleted, and there will not be nearly as much supporting fire available in either quantity or quality? So how does that wind up looking? Will the Ukrainians settle for pushing that far? Or are they going to try and knock Luhansk clean out of the war?

Bleep me but it is tempting to give Kaliningrad the little green men treatment. Poland could just "not see" an AFU brigade or two... Complete with a "referendum" in 48 hours or so. And yes I know it would widen the war, but, but,.....

No claims about the reliability of the source, but I was expecting this soon.

We know almost nothing about what Ukraine has in reserve still, or where they are. All indications are that the line around Lyman the The AFU is finishing off as we speak is virtually the last of the Russian's decent forces in Northern Luhansk. Almost everything behind that is three day mobiks, and pieces of pieces of broken units the Russians are trying to reassemble. I don't think either kind of unit is going to do decent job of doing all the digging in two weeks that should have been worked on for the last six months. . My two cents is that the mud is a bigger drag on Ukrainian advances that the Russians at this point. The biggest question in my mind is do the Ukrainians have a third attack up their sleeve somewhere on the Southern front. I have read reports of intensified shelling in various areas down there. They may just be keeping the Russians honest, or they may decide it is too muddy up North for either side to do much more and throw the dice one more time before the mobiks can arrive and at least attempt to dig in. Or maybe they want to Himars them into bloody shreds first and attack when the ground is frozen, and the whole first wave of mobiks has trench foot. Analysis is worth what you paid for it.

This is exactly the point, though, only two hundred people were convicted at Nuremberg, and not all of them were hung. The world said let there be an end to it. For all my ranting about Scholz, that, defeat and occupation was enough to change Germany. I think there is an argument adding one zero to that number, but to do more than that is probably impossible, both physically and politically. We need to install a better government in Russia in away that gives some possibility of winning the peace. I do nominate Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for the very last hanging, she should have to watch all the other ones.

Interesting, and I think good?

Risks of riots at the border as men try to escape mobilization is a rather strong clue Russia has lost the war. A risk of riots they do not have the troops to quell. Maybe it is time to go home while there is enough of an army left to hold the far east, if they are very lucky.

Not sure I BELIEVE that, but if it is true it is an indication even the Kremlin knows the wheels are coming off. Would that also indicate that Putin has been quietly retired one way or another?

The next BIG decision point might be the pre 2/24 fortifications Just north of Luhansk. No clue if the AFU has enough reserves to push that far, no clue if the there will be any Russians to man those defenses when they get there. EDIT there was a rumor a week or two ago that Putin was abandoning Luhansk to try and holdthe land bridge to Crimea. It is looking truer by the day.

The PRIZE is taking Starobliisk and flanking the Russians right out of Siverodonetsk. No clue if they can do it. Am as worried about the mud as I am the three day mobiks the Russians seem to be down too.

Staroblisk is that way gentlemen >>>>> Do give the Russians our regards.

Think the only REAL response would be a massive exclusion zone for all Russian vessels. You would have to blockade the Baltic Sea more or less. I think that is more or less declaring war. I think giving Ukraine a 100 ATACMS to go with their new HIMARS systems is the best way to make the point short of that. The railroad side of the Kirch straight bridge falling in the water would be excellent.

All you need to know about the state of the war, and we need to get back to that. Kraze, I UNDERSTAND how you feel. It is understandable how you feel. The Russian attack on Ukraine is one of least justified wars in human history. They have behaved whatever is two degrees worse than barbaric, off the scale bad, literally. I am completely down with the entire upper layer of Putin's government being crucified with extras, on live TV. The point a number people on the forum are trying to make is that applying that to Russia, and Russian's more broadly is worse than a crime, it is a MISTAKE! There are too many Russian's to kill them all, the Germans tried and the results were poor. What we HAVE to do break the break the broader Russian populace free from its current awful government The more they feel existentially threatened the harder that is to do. Fortunately the the current *&$%$$& are so bad at it they seem to be actively trying to make our point for us in regards to the the Russian populace. What is need is to put the biggest possible chisel in that crack, and hit it as hard as we can. Calling for revenge on the broader Russian populace makes it harder to win the war and the peace. It might not be fair, but it is the truth.

Anyone still there on May 1st flunked an intelligence test rather badly. This should have been issued about then, too.

Galeotti also has an excellent podcast and several books on Russia, highly recommend. My guess is they captured ammo around Kharkiv.... As I stated yesterday, Kraze is not the Ukrainian government. The Ukrainian Government is following the U.S. WW2 playbook perfectly regarding prisoners and so on. Not a few German POWS figured out it was nice here and finagled a way to stay. A lot of the ones who went back did so with borderline fond memories of their American vacation and played a not insignificant role in reconciling Germany to what had happened. And it is a hundred times more impressive given the immediacy of very real Ukrainian grievances. There is a story floating around about a Russian cancer surgeon being mobilized as an infantryman. I will give odds he is working in a Ukrainian field hospital in a month, and then establishes a nice practice in Lviv. He would require some luck not get blown up before he ever sees a Ukrainian in person obviously.

This Jenga tower is going to fall soon. The question is will there still be a Russian empire when the bouncing stops. It seems too late Prigozhin to assume power and promise to run the war better, that ship has sailed. The question is could he go against type and negotiate a withdrawal from Ukraine and some minimal deal to get enough sanctions lifted to achieve the bare minimum of functionality. If he fails is there any central government left? Full credit to billindc for the idea of Prigozhin as the last gasp of the old regime that fails miserably.

That is a pet peeve of mine, too. It can be crazy making...

Very much like the last Czar, he appointed every single person in this excuse for a government, and military, practically down to the dog catcher on Sakhalin Island. He does own it, all of it, and it is about to land on his head. After twenty years of absolute power, and then starting this war after consulting with about six people, there simply are no excuses.

Given the repeated reports he is playing general with individual BTGs he is pretty obviously engaged, and surely even the worst general in Russia understands that the forces on the west side of the Dnipro need to be pulled back. So I am thinking it is mental decline, as opposed to disconnection. Edit: Maybe he has acquired a certain someones habit of watching Fox news, and believing it?

The war is going to provide completely new staff college curriculum. It will be THE thing that is looked at for the next forty years, unless Xi loses his mind too.

Looks like the Russians are going to get to back up at least one more river.