dan/california

The even bigger problem is that this kind of total information restriction CAUSES panic. It might make things slightly better in the Moscow suburbs to just not know. But in the areas that border Ukraine the feeling that you are flying completely seems like it would make people more likely to just flee. Of course there is a pretty consistent argument that the the Putin regime could give a flyin fig about anything more than hundred kilometers from Moscow or St Petersburg.

This is all true, but only if the Ukrainians have the forces, and the logistical capability to keep playing the game. If they have really have the forces, they need to start hooking towards Belgorod, or preferably just behind it. But would probably take ten times the forces they have committed so far, and I don't think they have that much, or anything close to it. I would love to be wrong, but as Steve just brought up the risk over extension are quite high. I firmly believe it will work just fine to start digging in at some point soon, and make the Russians take it back EXPENSIVELY. And they will be wrecking Russian territory while they do it, instaed of Ukrainian land.

They stuffed people into the line in less than two weeks last time. I really thought it would result in the mass failure of the Russian army, but it didn't. They managed to smother the strategic follow on of the Kharkiv offensive in the rotting corpses of dead mobiks. Of course the casualties were beyond western comprehension, but it sort of worked, by Russian standards of worked. So the real question is can they round up a second batch, when said second batch has at least some idea of what happened to the first one? And if they try and fail do we get a relatively clean elite coup, or does Russia just dissolve? I understand, or at least think I do, that a second mobilzation puts the Russian economy on a path to complete, and epic failure. I just think that failure might take slightly to long.The other possibility is that economic failure is much quicker, but I think, but that brings us back towards Russian disintegration territory. Which a lot of people seem to think will be rather bad in in own right, to put it mildly.

So we are still stuck with the unhappy trio of choices. Give Putin something he can almost sell as win, at least to people whose freedom and salary depend on pretending to believe, Collapsing the Russian regime with all the unpleasantness that entails, or WW3? Am I missing something?

Putin COULD start actual negotiations instead, try to get out of this with Crimea, and his regime intact. If he does go for a second mobilization does that bring us to a final conclusion that the war will go on until Putin falls? Or wins I suppose, but that seems ever less likely if political trends hold in the U.S.? One the bigger questions about mobilization would seem to be China's response. Will Xi supply the basic war material Putin needs to put several hundred thousand more men in the field with winter coming on? Can Russia possibly do it without that help? This seems like the next set of questions to consider, or at least some of them.

That is what I am hoping for... But I was starting from zero in terms of understanding how significant this might be. Wikipedia was just a handy place to start

Oh I understand that, the Wikipedia numbers just give vague place that we can start subtracting from, due both the Russians taking them, and simply wearing out. I mean I am sure that Belarus has excellent maintenance protocols.

So according to Wikipedia Belarus has ~500 T-72s of various types, ~300 SPGs, and ~900 BMP-2s. Almost all of it is Soviet vintage. Does anyone care to speculate what percentage of their fleet can move under its own power? I am envisioning Putins depleting Belarus's operational vehicles to the point that the Polish boy scouts can seize Minsk as a summer project by next year.

Ukraine continues to do things at the Kinburn Spit. I assume it is just to distract the Russians, well except for the ones that are actually targeted, it is significant for those poor fools. On the other hand I didn't think Ukraine was going to launch a divisional sized operation at Kursk. So maybe it is shaping instead. It is as far from from Kursk as they could go and still find Russians, so it makes a certain kind of sense.

I read science fiction book recently where the opening hook was that you could get forcibly recruited for a traffic offense. I suspect Russia is headed most of the way there. The court has a quota of mobiks to provide...

I just heard Massicot on NPRs morning news feed. Despite the positive comment above, she continues to be a nattering nebob of negativism about Ukraines situation as a whole. To the best of my knowledge she always has been. You would think after two and a half years of Russia not winning, she would acknowledge that Russia might uhm not be winning?

Russian supply trucks getting whacked by GRENADE DROPS. They are parked on the road with ZERO COVER, and no evedence of any protective measures. The video is Crystal clear among other things. Which implies little or no EW. This is what happens when the response is completely uncoordinated. Edit: In broad daylight, too.

Could Western intelligence agencies potentially subvert the commercial feeds, at least for. day or two, and show the Russians an altered picture? It might be a really effective wy to through them off balance? It would probably only REALLY work once. But it would make them doubt everything, more or less forever, which is no bad thing.

Two years late, but still fantastic if it happens. Outstanding post, can we assume that Ukraine knows about Yandex,and that it is one of the many reasons Russians keep getting hammrred as they try to move up? See below A Ukrainian advantage that we have not talked about in quite while is the fact that they have interior lines relative to the Russian forces. Due to both the fact that they are defending the inside of the broad arc that is the line of contact, and I would argue because Ukraine seems to have a more flexible system from top to bottom. They can simply move resources from southern Donestk to the Kursk front far more easily than the Russians can. Furthermore they can move them back south more quickly as. well if that becomes advantageous. This is where we will learn a lot about the overall state of Russian reserves, and the condition of the Russian army over all. If Ukraine really doesn't face any competent opposition until Russia can pull its better Units out of Donestk, and ship them around the outer edge of the arc of contact by rail, well they really are 100% committed, and that has real implications going forward. The opposite is also true.

It met an older doctrine "hit them where they ain't". Apparently if you get that one right, and their reserves consists of poor bleeped fools being hauled off of training grounds with only half of the three weeks of training. they were supposed to get, maneuver still works.

It is a time honored way to reduce the threat of overly ambitious subordinates. Of course every so often said ambitious subordinate repays the favor with a bit of window tossing. At any rate I bet someone gets to try and learn to fly relatively soon.

Ukraines transformation into a bigger Israel is proceeding apace.

Pretty much what it says, although they don't say much about how long it stayed up. Still, clearly Ukraine is at least investing some riverine special forces to be annoying at the absolute far end of the line of contact.

So much of the Russian reaction to this war is driven by the perception among most Russians that everyone else is as amoral as they are. This is of course one of the thru lines of Putin's propaganda, "Of course I am corrupt, but so is everyone else". I also think the fact the Russians know how THEY treat POWs greatly influences there resistance to surrender. So when they say things like this it is because they can see, if not themselves, then the idiots at the end of the bar doing things like this.

Due to thirty, if not eighty, years of long term trends and issues, there are a lot of things Ukraine needs that only the U.S. can do, this isn't one of them. The Europeans need to write whatever check it takes to keep the Ukrainian Governments doors open.

It will just amplify from there. On current trends, and the current part is important, Trump is on course to lose. So Russia is going to have a major crisis in the conduct of the war itself very probably followed by the crushing of the one real hope if Trump does in fact lose in the first week of November. Furthermore I think a Harris/Walz Administration will actually be somewhat stronger on Ukraine than Biden has been, doubly so if the Russians are showing real weakness on the battlefield and/or signs of a real economic breakdown. It could, and I emphasize COULD, be like having the pressure cooker start to whistle, and then someone responds by hitting it with a cutting torch. Yes this is optimistic, but I don't think it is crazy.

I love it when bad things happen to terrible people.