Livdoc44

Hi All,
Sorry for yet another thread sidetrack but to update re @Haiduk's laptop etc:
It's arrived here in Canada at long last. I'll post photos when my phone recharges.
The funds raised came to about $1700 so we've gotten a Laptop for Haiduk's wife and major pc part upgrades for his own PC. Those I will be buying today/tomorrow.
I'll be sending everything to Przemsyl in Poland, with a reliable family member who lives there, on this Monday coming, Aug 22nd.
They'll hand off to someone Haiduk sends to pick up during that week.
If the UKR Law is relaxed a bit then maybe he can pick it up in person, we'll see.
 
POSTSCRIPT
This process has been badly delayed on my end, due to a heavy couple of months for me, personally and work-wise. Especially the personal side. It's been...difficult...to focus outside the household for a while. But things have finally stabilised, the laptop is here beside me and the pc parts are a short walk away to buy, once Haiduk confirms his choices. Everything is moving forward again.
 

Over the last couple of years pre-Covid I had occasion to be driving a lot in different countries, new-to-me cars, and on the "wrong" side of the road.
It. Was. Exhausting.
I realised after a while that the main issue was that I didn't know what could be ignored, so my brain was trying to pay attention to everything, all the time.

Panzermartin. The constant in your posts on this subject, as far as I have seen, is that you make no firm claims that you back up with facts. You merely apply a constant pressure of “what if”, “what about”, “maybe”. When you have been called out here you have back off, graciously waving a hand - “oh I was only voicing a thought - but I do understand your opinion”. But you don’t qualify your opinion, instead you merely shift focus - sliding sideways.
Personally I am immensely grateful for this forum precisely because it is not defined by people posting half baked opinions and then just leaving them. Instead real facts, as good as we can get them, are being weighed and analysed, and informed conclusions/assumptions made from from that.
The thing is, in July 2022 we are now beyond talking nice and moral ambiguities with russia . This is full on Germany 1939 with all the bells and whistles. We see all the signs of violent authoritarianism, in what is being said and in whats is being done. That really is all there is to it. How russia, and it’s supporters, rationalises it’s actions is now irrelevant, it is merely the words of a abuser/killer in action. Talking about justice for the perpetrator in that context is to insult and co-abuse the victims.
If I may suggest, or indeed urge: Take a stand, for or against - completely. This is now, or will be, a matter of supporting or opposing the 21st century equivalent of Nazi Germany. It defines you in the eyes of others.
And by the way, showing a “generous understanding” for the opponent’s strong emotions, his/her “personal” side, is front and center in the textbook of social media tactics. I mean, we all know that “hysterics” can not possibly be correct. So lets really highlight that bit in in the mass of facts that the other party produces.
Over and out.

You guys remember that quote from the UA solider in the field early on in this thing?  "I can't believe how f#cking stupid they are?"
I keep coming back to this at a strategic level.  I have gone on at length that the Western Strategic Centre of Gravity (CoG) is unity and resolve, if that falters this could all end badly.  So, Russia being a sophisticated nation and a master of the art of strategic narrative would try and take the high road with respect to ROEs in this war. To demonstrate that they will play by the rules even if the Nazi-whatever-the-hell-Putin-was-going-on-abouts are the true villains.  This play could plant a small seed of doubt that if nurtured could erode the Allied CoG - "look this is an Eastern European border skrimish" etc
Or....
Toss missiles around like a drunken frat boy demonstrating that he can both hurl empty beer bottles and throw up on himself simultaneously.  Now maybe Russia is full-on "no body likes me, everybody hates me, so I am gonna eat worms...and commit egregious war crimes anyway."  But all of this is actually reinforcing their opponents strategic center of gravity...it is shoring up the resolve of the West.  A dead soldier is supposed to happen, a dead little girl with blue running shoes is not.  Russia's inability to "get with the program" is frankly baffling.  
Collateral damage happens, it is the tragic truth of warfare since the beginning; however, nations are judged on how hard they work to avoid it.  And as far as I can tell right now Russia hasn't tried at all.  This on top of the pretty obvious war crimes that happened already in this war is literally guaranteeing that 1) more weapons, money and munitions keep flowing from the West, and 2) there is no renormalization after this...so enjoy being a rump state of China...seriously, start teaching your kids Mandarin.  
I can't believe how f#cking stupid they are, indeed.

wtf a new level for you and by level I mean a lower level.  NOBODY here thinks the death of any child is just acceptable.  The responsibility for that death though is the aholes that started this war.

It is ridiculous that anyone would prioritize a PC wargame over the events we are seeing unfold on the ground in Ukraine.  These events have global impact - we have seen this already, and it is just the start, and merit staying informed about as much as possible.  Why?  Because if you live in a democracy in the western world, at some point you will be asked to use the phenomenal power of your vote to influence this war and it is your responsibility to understand what that means...or at least it should be.
The lack of sacrifice I am referring to is on anyone who is not willing to put aside hobbies and free time and actually devote that time to staying informed about this war as much as they are able.  Everyone on this thread is willing to put that work in, and yes, sacrifice time, in many cases money, and it at least one case volunteer for military service. These are very small sacrifices compared to what the average Ukrainian is going through (Haiduk's dedication and ability to keep us informed while his country is being torn apart is frankly humbling) but everyone here is at least willing to do that much, along with personal donations etc.  
Based on your posts, you are not even willing to sacrifice a distraction from a wargaming hobby.  Now, I do not know your personal circumstances - perhaps you are a humanitarian aid worker who has to deal with the cost of this war on a daily basis, and just want to come here to get away from it all.  I get that, but for the rest of us here this is where we go to put the time in and do our small part.
I appreciate the shout out for CMCW, we had a lot of fun doing that title and have future plans - trust me.  However, right now I would prefer you respect what is going on here as something more than a bunch of "war-porn voyeurism"; it is a communities' efforts to understand what is going on and support each other while it happens.  We did the same after 9/11, and Iraq '03, and Afghanistan, and the Crimea...and now the Russo Ukrainian War.  CM will be there after this war is over, it has survived a lot in the last 20 years, but for now this is bigger than my hobby.  If it is not based on your personal circumstances, hey we get that, however, there is no need to come here and make trouble for those that are just trying to sort through the mountains of information (good, bad, and ugly) and make sense of it.

Elvis and I are pissed- that is a Flyers goalie, and we need all the help we can get.

Absolutely.  That is why this is not about the Donbas, or sending a few more HIMARs this is about a multi-year massive effort to sustain unity of effort in that compression pressure and sanctions, while pushing hard wherever we can in the Russian backfield (I.e supporting internal resistance), without pushing Russia over the edge; this is likely our new normal.
My concern is that we are straining to get to the end of this war, and have completely missed the fact that this does not end there - we must not let it end there.  If in 2 years we are buying Russian gas and oil, sanctions are fractured and lifted, and Putin is still in power threatening everyone one and back to his A-game of subversive warfare, elections interference and assassinations, while rebuilding his military- we have definitively failed and have set the terminal decline of the Western global order in motion.

So I encourage everyone to simmer down a bit - it is not like we are going to solve it here.  We all have opinions that are influenced by current events, and the heat is understandable.  I would offer that we perhaps take a step back and maybe take a bit more pragmatic view of this whole thing.
As far as I can see many seem to be weighing in on the strategic end state for Russia; however, this cannot be viewed in glorious isolation:
Western Strategic Endstate - this is a gross oversimplification because "The West" is comprised of many nations, all with their own interests; however, we can probably sum up the western desired end-state as a "manageable version of the former status quo".  In simpler terms, the west just wants the stability and order they have enjoyed for 30+ years so we can all stay rich - while at the same time allowing that wealth to slowly distribute globally.  Kind of a weird global trickle down theory of wealth but if you crunch the numbers it actually happened, although not nearly as fast or as equitable as a lot of people wanted.  The West wants to remain top dog globally and ensure that it holds the pen that writes the global order.
Ukrainian Endstate - beyond basic survival, Ukraine will be focused on security and integrity of its state.  It needs to be secure and free from what is happening right now in all its forms, and allowed to chart its own destiny as a collective entity within the international community.  I think that Ukraine in the EU and NATO is almost a certainty as elements of that end-state. In fact being within NATO is about the only guarantor of security for any nation neighboring Russia right now.  NATO is too big to fail and even Russia recognizes that triggering an Article 5 above recognized conflict thresholds is suicide. 
Russian Endstate - Only China and its growing global power is a viable challenger to the western bloc - and Russia already knows this, Putin's pipedream of somehow re-creating a third global power pole around Russia was weak-tea for domestic consumption.  So wither goes Russia?  
Well first off, I get the heat and anger...and it is well deserved; however, the idea that the endstate is the elimination of the Russian people, as a people, is a dead end.  We would break that Western Endstate if we endorsed a war of extermination in any form - so be angry, but western support will dry up the instant we get into the "destruction of Russia" territory.  Beyond the disruption to the global order this is just a bad idea for so many reasons, all centered on the fact that Russia currently holds roughly 6000 nuclear warheads. 
Now I know some will say - "Ya but they are all under tight control in concentrated areas" - well good for them; however, if Russia fractures into several smaller states or duchies or freaking warlord centric tribes we basically have the worst parts of Africa with the power to kill millions rolling around the floor.  Make all the arguments you like, we dodged a bullet in '91 and this would be a lot worse than that because we are not talking about dissolution into already semi-functioning former vassal states, we are talking new states and non-state entities.   For example, what happens when a break away semi-state decides that a 500 year old grudge is worth firing off nuclear weapons?  What happens when a non-state group decides that Ukraine is to blame?  Or the EU?  Or the US?  Way too many factors to control and recall my rant on relative rationality, it gets more relative the smaller the social structure you are looking at.
So no, I am sorry, but the break up of Russia or total dissolution is not on the grown ups table, and likely will not be unless we are talking WW3.  Too many of our interests are threatened by this eventuality, to the point that if it did happen we would likely be talking about the largest intervention operation in history to secure those nukes, and we are highly likely to miss some. 
The contraction of Russia, however, is definitely on the table.  As I wrote previously, Russia must be punished, be seen to be punished, and know it has been punished.  In the West, I frankly suspect that we do not care what government rules Russia - so long as it is rationale, reasonable and we can rely on it for normal business.  We do business and support dictators around the world right now (e.g. Saudi Arabia) and frankly could care less if another one rules Russia with an iron fist...so long as they stay in their lane and know their place.  So regime change is also very likely on the table, the US has already signaled this.  As is, the serious reduction in the Russian economy its ability to sustain military power is definitely on the table.  This is to ensure that it cannot threaten its neighbors for some time; time to build security guarantees with any and all neighboring nations that want them...why?  Because stability.
So what is the strategic endstate for Russia?  Contracted, Compressed, Constrained, and most importantly Contained...but not Shattered.  We need a semi-functioning state in the penalty-box, cooperating in war crimes trials and paying reparations, selling off its nuclear stockpile "in kind for destruction"...all the while still selling cheap energy to us and not China.  Russia's deep cultural dysfunction needs to be in a box where it can be happy at how miserable it is and leave the rest of us alone...not thrown up all over the geopolitical dance floor with a nuclear weapon in hand and mascara running down its tear soaked face while it blames us for "wanting to sleep with every other nation in the bar!!"

1. Well pretty much all hedge fund strategies eventually seem to boil down to 'find a greater fool.'  An easy (profitable) out for them, maybe, but someone still holds the bag at the end. Often taxpayers. Kind of subverting your point lol, but I have small love for financial engineers of all stripes.... 
2. Tooze actually ends his essay on a similar note: 
... it is a fatal trap to align different notions of individuality and freedom. It may well be true that success in intense modern combat requires not just courage but a certain sort of initiative, a certain kind of freedom.
But let us not confuse those expressions of agency, and initiative, with other broader notions of freedom that we employ in political or cultural thought. The battlefield is a zone of absolute and violent constraint. As Clausewitz says the enemy gives me the law. To prevail may require a sense of super human strength or extreme self-sacrifice. Furthermore it requires one to regard the enemy as a counterpart not to be reasoned or bargained with, but to be outwitted, crushed and if necessary incapacitated or killed. 
@Beleg85, I used 'Western Way of War' deliberately and you picked up on the Hanson reference nicely, full marks.
I found his thesis interesting, if underdocumented as you say (fine, him and Gladwell and a bunch of other popularisers too -- he doesn't write for academics or wonks). Sadly, I have found Hanson himself (like Paul Krugman on the other team) a disappointingly dull reciter of partisan talking points.

And that would entirely be on us in the West.  If we do crack and fold, well we deserve what happens next and maybe we should not be holding the pen that writes the global order. 
We (the West) are the military industrial complex for the Ukraine - we committed to that pretty early on.  Ukraine has demonstrated that they will fight, we need to demonstrate that we will back them until the job is done. 
I am not sure how potentially losing a tiny berg in the Donbas is somehow shaking everyone's resolve.  I swear the online tone is as jumpy as the prettiest goat at an Afghan barn orgy right now.  "Oh no, we have lost Severdonetsk!  The war is lost!!"  Why? Because the Russians actually managed to get a very costly tactical win?  A win that is unlikely to go anywhere?
The UA is collapsing!!!!  Really?  Where is that coming from?  Based on Russian rates of advance, we in the west have clearly forgotten what an operational collapse actually looks like, which is really weird as we just saw the Russians do one in March.  Ukraine is hurting right now but there is a whole lotta country besides the Donbas and for every day the Russians are burning resources, Ukraine has an opportunity to make more.
We, in the West, are either in this to win it - which includes, at least: continuing to backstop UA force generation, building/funding a Ukraine internal military industrial complex for a long war and re-construction of the country after this is all over.  Hell we did this in spades in Afghanistan...FFS!  And the global stakes are orders of magnitude higher in this war than that "interesting adventure".
Or we get ready to accept that we have pissed away billions, fracture and withdraw support, and live what happens next.
There is no "easy out", or hedge fund strategy here...this is war.  You do not take the Last Argument of Kings option lightly and to steal from Stephen King, we will have forgotten the faces of our fathers if we fail on this one.

So for the record, calling Jomini a "little conservative" is akin to calling Billy Graham "a little religious" - the man tried to create a deterministic theory of warfare based on geometry, and Clausewitz called him on it...and frankly I think Uncle Carl was extremely conservative by modern standards.
That said, I am not sure what the story is around Severodonetsk to be honest.  I completely disagree with J of the West assessment that Severodonetsk is a "strategic decisive point for the RAF" and by taking it they gain "a pivot for operations" and a "pivot for manoeuvre".  If we look at wiki for the latest situation:

And then a G-Earth shot (I will try and do an MFSF flight later):

None of what J of W is stating as "importance" makes sense.  If this was a break out battle over the river and to take Lysynchansk, maybe.  But his argument that the "undefendable terrain of the western Donetsk Oblast" on the other side of this river, also make no sense as we know the RA advances out of Popasna have stalled.  As have the attempts coming down from the North out of Izyum...this is all the same type of rolling terrain spotty with water features.  The idea that if the RAF somehow takes the far bank town of Severodonetsk it is set up for a rolling breakout manoeuvre battle is sensationalism at best, and applying metrics from the Gulf War to this one at worst.  If the RA takes Severodonetsk, they still have a major water obstacle dominated by a very long ridge line to try and assault, then more urban area, and then rolling terrain which the UA has stopped them on along other axis.  So seriously, WTF "Jomini of the West"?
This battle is likely more along the lines of Verdun albeit what I suspect are for different reasons (I am not sure of the historical angle but Haiduk did mention this was a big fight in WW2).  This is a "I want that" and "you can't have it...jerk" type fight.  The UA is there because it is a spot they can make the RA's life miserable an pull in forces. The RA wants it...well why does the RA want anything?  Likely because Putin has been briefed and figures it is also "really important" for reasons.
This battle is interesting in 1) it is definitely attritional, and 2) it looks like it may be the one spot where the Russians have managed to create information parity (but I have a major caveat to this).  The noise about guns and UA casualties is just that "noise".  The UA is not stupid, that is one thing they have proven in this war.  They would not be holding onto a far bank defence - one they really do not need - unless there was some serious advantage attached to it.  My bet is that it comes down to two things: the concentration of arty and EW.
Lets leverage Jomini for a second and lay it out (in some ways he was not wrong):

I am going to be extremely generous here and say the RA has its guns positioned within 30km of Severodonetsk based on ranges (D-20s do about 18 and the Pions can reach out at about 37, so for arguments sake).  That is a slice of a pizza that is 188 km around.  The Russians can realistically put their guns in about 1/3 of that circle - so about a 63 km arc, which translates into about 942 sq kms.  At "900 guns" that is a density of a gun per sq km.  That is a pretty high density of gun positions - not WWI - but likely the highest of this war.  Further you have all the logistics to support all them guns.  
Finally, the RA has concentrated a lot of EW to try and make this op box go dark for the UA: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-technology-90d760f01105b9aaf1886427dbfba917  All these emitters are pumping out an ungodly amount of EM and easily visible.
So what?  Well there is a lot of talk of Ukrainian losses in this fight, and I believe them.  But war is negotiation and sacrifice.  Those lives are not being spent for the far bank town the UA really does not need.  They are likely being spent to pull in the concentration of arty and EM...so the UA can hit them - attrition, like tracers, cuts both ways.  What is missing from all this is the RA losses on key arty, EM and logistics because  they are concentrating them around and on top of this operationally near-worthless town, that when successfully taken will bring all the joy of a colicky baby because you still have to take that brutal set of ridges...on the other side of a freakin river.
We have no idea how bad the Russians are taking it right now, because "dark box"...but you know who does...the UA.   The one thing all that EW cannot turn off are the space-based ISR assets that the West (primarily the US) are beaming directly to the UA.  All those RA assets are very visible to multi-spectral space-based ISR and I have every faith are being hit regularly in this fight; it is the only thing that makes any sense - the UA are trading infantry for RA arty, EW and logistics right now.  If they wanted to trade infantry-for-infantry they would be doing it from all those ridges, which is the the obvious fallback position.
The Russians on the other hand are trading their own critical resources so that Putin can declare a "great victory" of very little military value - just like they have done throughout this war.

Sorry to disappoint but I am not Russian veteran. I was planning to become one and participated in two year study program of one of top Russian military college (Actually It was and still is top Russian military technical university) but instead of "graduation" (you would have to study technical disciplines few more years) I decided to quit because of my observation of how the system really works and what it can do.
If you study real Russian military history Bucha massacre will not come as surprise. Actually, it was not even the main event. Concentration camps with torture and execution conveyer would come later. 
After quitting I made sure that my medical records were corrected, and my mobilization level was severely restricted. Russian corruption is a feature, not a bug. Then after a couple of years I decided to leave completely. Obviously I have connections inside Russia and keeping an eye on what's going on there.

Thanks ) Just became some more of work, my wife turned back and often occupies PC because her work, also it's hard to live three months 24/7 as war news translator, so I took small vacations 

Quote - (I am also the kind of wargamer that feels bad when he losses pixel troops unnecessarily, they are my responsibility to use wisely).
Amen, brother.
When I play any of the CM games, I am really anal about keeping my casualties as low as possible.  To the point of obsession.  I play real time and I micro manage my forces to a point that most people would wonder if I am actually having fun ( I am).
Screen shot of my best accomplishment.  The point of pride is not in the kill count on the right.  For me, the satisfaction is the left hand column.  That is all that matters to me.

On the slightly off-topic of war videos and entertainment; As I have spent quite a few hours of my life providing ISR and real-time targeting I can say personally that you get used to it pretty quick. I distinctly remember watching my first strike (against ISIS in Iraq, 2015) and being filled with excitement - - finally getting to strike back at these people who were tearing open any form of civilized society and attempting to push the area back into the dark ages. I recall that it really didn't look any different than a video game, which because you are watching it through a monitor, really does make sense. Then I saw my first mass civil casualty event... I really didn't care about watching them get smacked after that. Still don't.

Personally, watching the Russians get hit brings up much the same feelings. It's not a joke, it is real, but so is the war. You want Ukraine to win it? Then they need to kill invaders, and kill them in large numbers. This is the reality of it. Nothing more, nothing less. I'd do it myself if I could, and I don't mean that lightly. Death comes to us all, and killing in war is just that, delivering death for a specific reason or desired outcome. Where I will say that I have ABSOLUTELY no time for is torture and unnecessary violence. If you are going to kill anything you kill it as cleanly and as efficiently as possible - people who enjoy torture or employ it are beyond me (death will happen in war, if you are going to kill someone do it, but to cause pain unnecessarily for your own pleasure is twisted).

All this being said, I find it difficult to watch videos of Ukrainians getting hit because I want them to survive and WIN - yet it also serves as a reminder that the cost is real - not that the cost isn't worth the fight (as much as I can say that without being there myself), but it is real. 
(I am also the kind of wargamer that feels bad when he losses pixel troops unnecessarily, they are my responsibility to use wisely)

This absolutely, various op eds are working hard to undermine the current US support for the war because of ...well reasons.  Mostly to do whatever damage they can to the current administration. 
Say what you want about the current occupant of the White House.  His handling of the Russian invasion of a European democracy and the unifying of NATO countries to oppose it has absolutely been spot on.  We all know with a certainty how this would have gone had the previous administration been in charge. 

For Steve:

Yup, that's a CM tree all right....
And yeah, Newsweak again, but, interesting info....
https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-russias-air-war-ukraine-total-failure-new-data-show-1709388
Of the 20,000 or so sorties that the Russian air force has flown so far in the Ukraine war, fewer than 3,000 have entered Ukrainian airspace, almost all of them over the battlefield.  Russia flew fewer and fewer bombing aircraft beyond its own army's front lines, just over 10 percent of the total number of sorties flown, according to U.S. intelligence numbers.
Long-range strikes on so-called "strategic targets" continued, but they were undertaken by a combination of air, sea, and ground-launched missiles. 
Over 32 years, some 2,300 Tomahawks have been used in combat... in 85 days of strikes 2,275 missiles have been successfully launched [by Russia].... Iskander missiles (630 of them) have been launched from the ground in Belarus and Russia.... A dozen Kinzhal hypersonic aero-ballistic missiles have been fired.
"Right now, we're holding Russian missile success at just below 40 percent," the DIA official says....  two to three out of every ten missiles fired fail to launch or fizzle during its flight. Two more have technical problems such as not fusing properly even if they fly to their intended range. Two to three more miss their aim-points even when they reach their intended target.
Ukraine says that it has shot down 110 Russian cruise missiles, almost 10 percent of those that make it into Ukrainian airspace.
"And then there's the question of what they [the Russians] are hitting, and what their intentions are even when they do succeed," the DIA official adds. "For a couple of days it's airfields and air defenses. Then the emphasis shifts to ammunition depots, then oil, then factories, then the transportation grid. In each case, we are not seeing effective attacks and we are seeing little if any follow-on strikes." 
****
Hey, while I'm citing Newsweak, let's go all Popular Mechanix too!
 
 

So...DOOOOOOOOOOM?
Well all war is negotiation and sacrifice, so the question will come down to both sides coming to terms with those two factors.  My pushback to the "inevitable partitioned Ukraine" is that Russia talks a good game but Ukraine has lived it.  Russia is only just starting to feel the pain and like any good nut-sack shot, that pain takes some time to build. 
Here is a dirty little inside baseball secret - professional soldiers are supposed to die, it is what we get paid for; civilians, not so much.  Every society knows this and accepts it.  We can lose people who choose this lifestyle who, like mercs, take the Queen's Coin and do the dirty work.  We have Remembrance Days and "Thank you for your service"-free coffee but in order for a society to be truly tested in war, it must be willing to feed it people who had nothing to do with warfare before it started.  The harsh calculus of regular everyday people dying in numbers is a threshold that we in the West have not crossed in a very long time (e.g. WW2 for Canada and Vietnam for the US).  Nor has Russia by this point, but it is approaching it quickly. 
However, you know who is already living in that stark land?...Ukrainians.  They have been "all in" since 24 Feb, to the point that there are no longer "regular Ukrainian civilians", the whole nation is in on this.  I see pictures of 12 year old holding a wooden AK properly and that says it all; war, has become the way of life for Ukraine.  Out of everyone talking and positioning, only Ukraine (and possibly the folks in the DPR/LPR...many involuntarily by the looks of things) has crossed that threshold.  Putin is very nervous of it, and it shows.  The US was terrified of it in Iraq, that is why they imposed all sorts of crazy things to try and keep the professional troops they had.
So before I pass judgement on the current situation with finality, I would want to see how Russia reacts when the civilian population starts bleeding heavily.  They are hurting but it has been a slow burn, and frankly I think Russia is culturally masochistic...to a point. However, despite a bunch of retired Russian warhawks barking from the cheap seats, Russia has not been tested in this trial in a very long time either.  Ukraine is the single largest hot-war they have been involved in since WW2.  History looks great in the movies and we can all get our pulses up watch Saving Private Sasha; however, watching the guy next to you get blown in half by long range arty when you were working at a now-closed Starbucks a month ago, is an entirely different experience.
So no, I do not think Russia and Ukraine or on the same wavelength when it comes to negotiation and sacrifice...at least not yet.
As to communication:
We have been over the challenge of the Russian Defence, which they need in order to "freeze" this conflict.  Right now they are keeping Ukraine busy by this very slow grinding offence, but it has been costly as hell.  At some point if they want to "freeze" they are going to need to dig in and let the UA crash upon the shores of the great Russian Steel Wall.
Problem is what it will take to build that wall.  Did some research and frankly we do not have modern troop density calcs for this sort of thing - we have lots on peacekeeping/making and COIN but basically sweet FA on modern conventional conflict.  So we are going to have to make some assumptions here and keep checking them.  In warfare the concept of "troop density" is a bit controversial.  It is a hold over of the Jomini-esque "war is math" approach.  It holds water but it is not deterministic as we already know a lot of soft non-linear factors play into this.  With this in mind, all caveats etc lets break this down a bit:
- We are talking about 800kms of frontage from the Russian western position around Kharkiv to its position ion the East near Kherson.  That is a long active front...very long.  In WW1 the Western Front was about 400 miles, or about 640 kms in comparison.
- Troop density requirements have decreased over time.  It is well documented that weapons ranges, ISR and battlefield mobility have increased the combat influence each soldier has on the battlefield over time.  Problem here is that reality cuts both ways.  In both offence and defence effectiveness and range have increased, so it is competitive. 
- Troop density in WW1 - a frozen conflict - was in and around "5000 troops for mile" or roughly 3125 per km: (https://books.google.ca/books?id=nhhlHGWCnzYC&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&dq=troop+density+western+front&source=bl&ots=WWfd6Y7VIl&sig=ACfU3U1M05Ef9GIbmBAREwu-_obJPnXEpw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi_rO_4jf33AhXvjIkEHRJEDUoQ6AF6BAg7EAM#v=onepage&q=troop density western front&f=false).  This jives with the roughly 2 million troops each side had to sustain in the trenches, in depth, replacements and rotation, in order to sustain that deadlock.  This does not count logistics and support overhead -which is likely why each side had on the order of 12-15 million troops in total.
- Based on WW1 metrics, Russia would need approximately 2.5 million men in those trenches to achieve the same deadlock...and then have the architecture behind them to sustain it, which at a very generous 1:1 (which means a very slow burn war) means roughly 5 million men to dig in and hold that front a la WW1.  But as I noted we are not in WWI - although if the Russians tried to force generate these numbers they would probably start looking like they were from that era equipment-wise. 
- Actual Russian troop numbers as of today are hard to find; however, with the 200k they brought with them and assuming they have kept that force level (big assumption), Russia currently has a troop density of 250 men per km of frontage.  This is less than ten percent than the WW1 number. But as we noted modern forces can cover more ground, which makes this a weak analogy.  The question is, "versus a very well armed attacker, how much troop density does Russia need to "freeze" this front?"  My bet is a lot more than 200k troops, but how much more?
So let's tackle this from another direction.  Things in this war are challenging a lot of our rules of thumb; however, we can go with the 1:3 ratio of defender to attacker, at least locally.  So Russia likely needs to put at least a Company per km frontage.  This forces the UA to concentrate a BG on the attack, with all the support bells and whistles in order to make an effective shot at it.  This makes sense from a force-space-time perspective for both attacker and defender but I am not sure about firepower in the least [Note: it might be a lot less if things like UAVs and precision artillery are involved.  This is one of the unknowns]. Terrain may also give them a break, particularly on the Dnipro, however, they also have urban areas so I am betting things even out.  
So a Russian Company of say 150 men per km.  They will need at least on more company behind them to create effective depth and prevent breakthrough of that UA BG, while also accounting for attrition, so now 300 men per km.  And then they will need to rotate troops in and out of those positions.  We are not designed to live in the open, under harassing artillery/Switchblade fire indefinitely.  So we are now looking at another company for rotation and sustainment.  Throw in an armored reserve to plug holes and supporting fires/assets and we are getting dangerously close to a BTG, per km.  This would bring the Russians up to about 1500 (a fat BTG) men per km, about half of WW1 troop density.  Or 1.2 million men.  And that is just the fight stuff and basic tactical logistics.  As we know from this war, the Russians like to travel light on logistics and formation-level support, so we can probably add another third of that number, say 400k to build the backbone to keep those 1.2 million men in the field = about 1.6 million men...and they have to sustain that for years, under increasingly crushing sanctions.
I have to be honest, if I was an average Russian and I saw these types of numbers I would be asking myself "how badly do we need Putin". 
Finally, checking the old CIA factbook (https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/russia/#people-and-society) Russia has roughly 37 million fighting aged men aged 15-54 (I am going to assume good old Putin male chauvinism holds and they do not a start tapping women).  You can throw out a third right off the top for all sorts of medical conditions etc that make them simply unfit for service.  So roughly 24 million men to draw from, in entirety.  To freeze this Ukrainian war, to the point that you can force Ukraine to "tap out" you need to commit at least 5 percent of all eligible fighting aged males...up front.  And you count on needing an extra 1.2 million just to sustain it over time.  Now I can hear the demographic nerds out there pointing out that over time more men come of age...well the news for Russia in that regard is not good either:

Russia is in a bit of a demographic hole right now and it is going to take what look like 3-5 years to dig its way out.  Worse the big bulges in the 35-44 range are going to age out in the same timeframe.
And finally, finally, this does not take into account the the standing military bill for the rest of the country - Russia can make all the noise it wants with Finland and Sweden, everyone is going to be fully engaged on this Ukrainian thing for a few years so you may as well shut down everything else.  
So What?  After all that it comes back to: how much does the average Russian want a bunch of new broken Republics vs how much does Ukraine want its country back? 
If I were a betting man, I would put my money on the country that has already demonstrated the commitment.  If this war goes long, we will likely need to shift from send guns and bullets (fish), to funding the creation of a Ukrainian domestic arms industry (fishing rods) and then figuring out what to do when Russia totally collapses under the weight of this thing.

There have been a few Bulat pictures (at least 3 captured/destroyed in this war), but this is the first video I've seen of the newest BM2, which was only first shown in the 2021 Independence Day Parade.

Funny, I just today, in an effort to be a bit more realistic, I swapped out the Oplots for the more ubiquitous T-64bvs in the "Dueling Shashkas" scenario. I originally was going to use Bulats but decided against it as I hadn't seen any in the conflict as yet. Good catch! Bulats here I come!
In the original play through this morning, even switched the leadership, morale, and fitness of the Russians to be a bit more - ahem - appropriate. Ha, still got smoked. 

Interesting, probably the first T-64BM2 I've seen in this war so far. It's the latest and most advanced BM Bulat model (has 1,000 hp 6TD engine, thermal gunner optics, and additional ERA on the side to cover the autoloader more completely).
 
 
Also, interesting video from the Austrian Bundesheer about Ukrainian artillery with GIS Arta and Starlink (use auto translate for English subtitles)