Livdoc44

Some humour:

Darth Putin @DarthPutinKGB If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, denies it’s a duck, demands you prove it's a duck, accuses you of being a duck, says your dog is a duck, that your friend's cat is a duck & that all 3 'ducks' are Russophobic ducks paid to be crisis actors, it’s a Kremlin duck. 

Could we maybe knock off these racist accusations? Russian is not a race. Ukranian is not a race. It's the same as saying American or British or French is a race. That's just nonsense and all it's doing is inflaming passions.
Plus it's tiresome to wade through while trying to catch up.
Dave

Granted... I know there are some Mech. forces in the fight... however there must be a pretty healthy reserve waiting in the background... I doubt the whole force, or even most of it, is currently engaged...  
...but we'll see.
Best to you and your family Haiduk.  You are an invaluable link and resource for us during this nightmare going on in your country.
Bil 

I really like this and, IMO, its one of Putin's hallmark traits as a strategist. I dont think I can remember an international crisis he started where he went 'all in' like you describe. Not in Syria, not in Ukraine or Georgia. Maybe you'd say, prestige wise, he did for Chechnya but that was early on in his career when he was less established. Since then? Putin's skill is in forcing a crisis that he can then solve. Even this war was not an 'all in' move at first, and thats part of the Russian problem. It was predicated on mistaken assumptions. But imagine the reverse situation, that Kyiv had collapsed and that Russia today was sitting on a line from Odessa to Kherson to Kyiv with a puppet government claiming the whole country. A crisis. But one which the west would have had to negotiate to solve rather than solve militarily (through the Ukrainian proxy). You could imagine the impotent outrage coming from the west at such a state of affairs, but by now after over a month media coverage would have accepted the 'new normal.'
Zelensky and Ukraine didn't collapse and now Putin is forced to overcommit to get something back from the situation. Not just militarily, but also in terms of prestige and standing as well. When you start a war to 'denazify' a country, how can you end up just negotiating a limited peace? Even if he ends up hiving off Kherson. Everyone agrees in hindsight that Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop were mistakes, so is Putin Chamberlin? 
Anyway thats just to say I like this framing.  

(She now edited the post at her IG page and disabled comments for obvious reasons)
So in case you still care - a predictable continuation of that psyop, dated yesterday.
"Russophobia is unacceptable. Russians shouldn't be collectively responsible for events in Ukraine. Only Putin is responsible.
Live at "Che Tempo che fa" (analog of our Urgant) at Italian RAI TV channel against western sanctions. Common people are suffering from them. My disabled mom can't buy medications she needs. My daughter can't pay for dinner at school with her card. We have no sugar in shops, we are running out of cooking oil and hygienic items.
it's unacceptable to kick out russian students out of international universities and forbid concerts of russian musicians and artists. Only culture can unite us in these daring times".
You tell them girl. You are not responsible in particular, being a state propagandist. So time to lift those sanctions and let russians kill Ukrainians in peace.
Bonus - turns out her husband works at Russia Today as well.

Guys,
So beyond the obvious competing narratives out there (nazis, bio-weapons, crisis actors etc) let's remember what this entire thing is, an egregious violation.  There has been no, and I mean zero, casus belli established for this invasion. 
People are pointing to the US invasion of Iraq in '03 in some weird "well two wrongs make it ok to kill thousands of civilians", however, the US did take their case to the UN, they were attacking a strongman dictator who had; invaded a neighbor for "reasons", used massive oppression on his own people, and had even employed chemical weapons against civilians.  So we are not even in the same strategic context here as Ukraine; a free democracy that had not even coming close to behaving like Saddam Hussein.
I have stayed out of a lot of these conspiracy theories floating around but even if the wildest ones are true (which I do not believe for a second) and let's say the Ukrainians were employing a combination of recovered nazi-occult and alien technology to make all Russian bears impotent...in the modern world your first response to that is not rolling in 120 BTGs!!  Worse, you cannot back that up with "well they were gently rolling in 120 BTGs"...no such reality exists.  That much metal + ammo + scared teenagers is never going to equal "gentle violation of sovereignty".
We can play the point-counter point game all day and try to gain political points but all of that is noise around the central and incontrovertible fact that Russia illegally invaded another sovereign European nation in a gross violation of sovereignty and global order...this is not "ok", this will never be "ok".
Finally, I know there are theories floating out there that the Russian Restraint can explain the slowness and stalling on the Russian side.  This is abject nonsense.  It is much, much harder to try and do a soft invasion.  The US military tried in Afghanistan and Iraq and they found it nearly impossible to avoid collateral damage and civilian deaths.  I have seen nothing to suggest that Russian ISR and Joint Targeting is so sophisticated and disciplined that they have any idea what they are hitting beyond..."hit there".  This baby hospital thing has been brought up, right sure....how exactly did Russian Joint Targeting know the hospital was empty (which it was not)?  How did Russian C2 know this when they don't even know where most of their own troops are?
So I am going to offer some simple rules that people can chose to adopt or not:
- Precision is hard, incredibly hard.  If your theory depends on greater Russian precision in anyway shape or form stop and think.
- Organization is hard.  If your theory depends on highly organized Russian capability...stop and think.
- Conspiracies are hard, in this day and age nearly impossible.  If your theory is relying on a "big secret"...stop and think.  All western governments leak like a sieve and even the autocratic ones bleed data like a stuck goat.  No government on earth, even NK, has an airtight seal on what information it leaks out.  So if you are relying on a "star chamber" or "black sites"...stop and think.
- If it looks like a Duck, stop calling it a Kitty Cat.  War is incredibly hard so the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.  It is the principle that has actually put this thread and forum out in front.  We have avoided over-analyzing (I know right?!) compared to others chasing some theories.  If Oryx has 297 open source pictures of destroyed/abandoned Russian tanks, well given the UA was outfitted with thousands of next gen ATGMs...it is not a hard squint to see the freakin quacking water fowl.  This is not some photoshop campaign for the ages, the Russians have lost a lot of tanks.  Is it 297, probably not could be more or Orxy might have some double accounting but it is a lot. 
- Assumptions, Factors and Deductions.  All this comes down to Assumptions, Factors (or Facts) and Deductions.  As I tell dead-eyed Majors, "make sure the line between these items is as straight and short as possible".  Make damn sure your Assumptions and Facts stay on speaking terms and then do not under any circumstances let the line between Factors and Deductions turn into a Pollock painting.  War is hard enough, complex enough and weird enough...it does not need your help in any of these areas. 
Go with the god of your choice grognards,  and try and stay out of trouble.
 

There it is...moving the goal post.  I have avoided getting into "well here is how the Russian's could have succeeded" discussions too deeply as there is still a real war and it is kinda disrespectful to people still fighting and dying but maybe we are far enough along to offer a few ideas.
If Russia had made the Donbas and the infamous "land bridge" to the Crimea to sole operational objectives of this war, they may have actually achieved, or at least had a better chance at their strategic and political ones.  If they had focused their main efforts to 2 main axis of advance with a limit of exploitation pretty close to what we are seeing on the maps now in the SE, along with "shock and awe" strikes across Ukraine they could theoretically have:
- Achieved their objectives much faster by concentrating their combat power and logistical capability.  This would have prevented or at least mitigated the UA build up and influx of western support.
- They could have simply dug in, took Mariupol and the land bridge and declare "mission accomplished".  Russia would have demonstrated its "immense power" to the world.  A shortened war (and I am not talking 72 hours but maybe a couple weeks) would have lessened western resolve and shaped the negotiation table.
- A short hard modest successful demonstration would have left a lot of "doubt" on the table for the West and Ukraine.  This would have made a threat of "further special actions" much more effective on the calculus on the West.  It also would have kept a lot more strategic options open as compared to where they find themselves now.
- It may have fractured the west more than fused it.  If Russia could demonstrate restraint and humanity in a "internal border dispute" it immediately call into question the economic sacrifices the rest of Europe will be making in what has become an economic war with Russia.  Further, it would play on the ever widening political divides in just about every western democracy.  It would have kept China very happy, without risking becoming one of their provinces. 
- If Putin really was a "genius", his play would be to immediately call for UN Peacekeepers in a ZOS once he had gained what he needed to.  Not western troops but Malaysians or Brazilians, a crew he could keep in his pocket.  We would have crumbled into a hot burning mess if Russia, backed by China and India, called on the global collective diplomacy and security body to intervene...it would have broken us.  If we say "no freakin way", then who are the warmongers who are pushing their agenda and supporting a massive military industrial complex?  If we say yes, we are in for years of negotiation and diplomacy, likely false but we built the system now we have to use it, all the while those sanctions start to go stale and erode.  
But here we are on the possible threshold of some really scary stuff, led by an insulated and deluded madman surrounded by yes-men, who decided that he could pull off a modern land invasion on the scale of the Fall of France with a couple hundred thousand poorly supported troops and complete failure to establish pre-conditions or align his strategies. 

Alright, enough lurking, long past time to dust off my old forum account and say "hi" and thank all of you contributing this gem of a thread, which is keeping me well ahead of the mainstream media.
 
Can we just admire the huge leap in technology? No, not ATGM or drone tech. Pah! Who cares about that? No, the all important meme-tech. It has come leaps and bounds since The Great Meme War. The other day I was in the car with my brother in law, who barely even acknowledges the existence of the internet, when my 6 y.o. nephew pipes up. "Look, a tractor!" and I decide to be a smartass and deny it is a tractor. "It cannot be a tractor, it isn't towing a Russian tank behind it" and it even got a laugh from my brother in law. The memes of Russian ineptitude, and SOF-like abilities of Ukrainian farmers even reached him. I was surprised.
 
Of course, this war isn't all fun and games. I for one deeply lament Steve deciding to put actually making games on the back burner. Not that I can blame him, his new profit making scheme sounds very lucrative:  Cold calling autocrats the world over.
"Hello Mr Maduro, I am calling to let you know we are going to be making a game set in Venezuala"
-Please don't. Here's 5 million dollars to **** off.
"For 5 million more, we will change the setting to Colombia"
 
Well done, Steve, that is now two countries you have plunged into chaos. If you ever make a game set in the modern Netherlands, I am gonna start packing.

Anyone posted this?  First if genuine this is really impressive open source work.  Second, holy crap.
 
 

finally a use for me in testing!

Curious to see what H.I. Sutton/Covert Shores and Sub Brief have to say about this. They've been following the Black Sea fleet movements. I can't believe the Ukrainians got them. 

So this was from this board on 26 Feb:
"Overall Summary:  As of the first 72 hours of the war, it appears that the Russian military has overestimated its own capabilities and/or the capabilities of Ukrainian resistance and has not likely met the timelines it had set during pre-war planning.  The assessment is that the next 24-48 hours will be critical in the outcome of this war and if Russian forces are not about to take Kyiv and inflict some serious damage to the Ukrainian people's will, their own strategic center of gravity will become more vulnerable. "
That was 2 days into the entire thing.
Since then we have heard a lot of pundits and retired military folks try and wrestle with this whole thing.  I am not surprised formal DOD, MOD assessments are showing what they are to be honest because pretty much from the start of the this war just about everyone has been using macro-quantitative calculus to try and predict/model what has been going on. 
On a CNN video just a few days ago Gen Petraeus was describing the situation in Mariupol and why it matters.   He did a pretty good job describing the drive for a "land-bridge" between Crimea and the Donbas and why the Russians are trying so hard in this area.  Then he slipped right into the old macro-quantitative thinking.  He outlined how once Mariupol was taken it would free up Russian forces to advance north and cut off great swaths of Ukrainian in the East.  I have seen various predictions of Russian "pincer moves" and the like.  This all makes perfect sense if one is applying conventional warfare metrics, all largely based on macro-quantitative calculus of force sizes/ratios and combat power.
What they are missing, and frankly it is not surprising to see it emerge on a wargaming board, is a view through a lens of micro-qualitative calculus; playing CM, in all its versions, has changed the way we see warfare.   All CM veterans see the signs of something different at a micro-level: abandoned vehicles, loss of high value assets, loss of high level commanders, videos of embarrassing Russian cluster-f#cks and evidence of UA successes just about everywhere.  A lot of these metrics are qualitative and when combined with the macro-quantitative they create a very different picture. 
Social media has allowed us to see a macro - micro-qualitative view as well; we can basically upscale our micro-view through very wide sampling.  By doing this, a lot of us have noted that the texture of this war is looking very different.  It is one, for the Russians, of extreme friction caused by the UA approach.  The Russians are fighting in an operational tar pit, the entire battlespace is sticky for them.  Some of this is by their own shortfalls, while in many places it is by design by the defending forces. I do not know who the military master-mind is on the Ukrainian side but he has clearly been reading about Finland, Giap and the Comanches.  The UA has not only stopped the Russian military, they changed the fabric of the battlespace for them.
This thing is not over yet and will likely continue to evolve.  I am not entirely onboard with the Russian collapse scenario, but we are literally a couple key indicators away.

This is wrong photo. If this not our PsyOps operation, Russian tank driver brought to us T-72A. Knowingly, Russians use robbed cell phoes, so our ELINT units of SBU or Intelligence Directorate are sending on this cell.numbers SMS with a terms of surrender. As if one Russian tank driver communicated with Ukraianian side and told he is ready to surrender with own tank. As if other two crewmens alredy deserted, their unit have lack of food, chaotic command&control etc. Their commander threat to all other to shot out if anybody else will deserted.
Our SOF gave to him a place of rendezvous and when the tank appeared, the drone was took off to make shure this is not ambush. The tanker was captured and brought to safe place. Russian trooper reportedly will be interned to the end of war in comfort room with bath and TV. After war will over, he will receive 10 000$ of award for tank and he can apply for Ukraianian citizenship. 
Here the photo of catpturing. 
 

Hello, I am Vladimir Putin and this is Jackass.

I played a quick battle, with downpour and mud. at Huge rough-water-town map. I was the defender, with a reinforced Ukrainian company. The Russians attacked with a reinforced BTG. But it became too realistic, so it was not fun to play. 2/3 of the Russian vehicles got stuck in the mud.
 
I have a picture from the game, what it looked like.
This is ingame screenshot after 25 min of play

I will leave it to Steve and BFCElvis to determine what is, or is not, acceptable on their own forum. 
I can only judge Col (or is it LCol?) Macgregor on what he presented, which was "different" to say the least.  His assessment that "Russia has already won" is definitely contrary to most mainstream military assessment, or media for that matter.  However, Col M argues that Ukrainians are "cut off" and "in cauldrons", near a total collapse tipping point.  Further he argues that the Ukrainians are only capable of "pin pricks" against the Russian offensive.   His noted reason for the slow Russian advance is based on strict ROEs from Putin to "avoid/limit damaging Ukraine" as much as possible, so humanitarian bascially .
So, ok, that is one point of view.  I am left wondering where Col M is getting his information to build this picture because it clearly does not match what we have been seeing - the "so what?" here is that clearly either he is very wrong or mainstream analysis/assessment is very wrong, not a lot of middle ground here.  Thoughts:
- We have a very bad habit of "lack of accountability" for what gets said on the internet.  Once the smoke clears on all this I can only hope that credibility of sources are held to account (faint hope).  We have politicians who have said things, pundits who have said things and that needs to be remembered and assessed after this is over.  If Col M is correct, or even just mostly correct, then we clearly missed some big signs or were totally taken astray, and by "we" I mean just about every mainstream venue.
-  Based on what we have seen on social media, a steady stream of open source information, Col M's thesis appears the total opposite to observation.  If this is all "fake news", then it merits as one of the largest and most thorough disinformation campaigns in human history.  If the Ukrainians, who are according to Col M on their last legs, have managed to create enough "fakes" to show over 1500 lost Russian vehicles, and Russian damage to civilian centers rivalling the invasion of Poland, this is an incredible feat of information warfare and I am talking one that dwarfs Chinese capability.  There is "fake news" and then there is mountains of "fake news".
- If Col Ms assessment of Russians adhering to strict ROEs to the point that they have delayed operational advances to the amount we have seen, then the Russian military is likely be best disciplined military force in human history.  They have literally violated almost every doctrinal principle of warfare in order to meet the demands of the political level.  For a professional military, in the middle of a major invasion, to delay offensive action - particularly against an opponent on their last legs - is one of the most breathtaking displays of military discipline I have ever heard of.  The military risks associated with doing this are extreme, not the least of which is allowing time and space for a western-backed resistance to arm and organize.  Many Russian soldiers will die because of this "restraint".  Problem here is that the Russian military does not appear well disciplined; egregious attacks on civilians, videos of looting, abandoned vehicles, radio intercepts and "lost" PWs point the exact opposite way - unless of course this is also "fake news", and we are back to "how the hell did the Ukrainians pull that off?!".
So these are just a few of Col Ms points that I walked away with and I gotta say that if he is correct well we know that this has been a war changing use of information warfare on the part of the Ukrainians, and the Russian military is nearing Spartan levels of control and discipline.  However, I have to quote Carl Sagan here "the weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness" and one retired Col's "say so" is not enough to go on.
Finally as to "why Ukraine matters?"  Well I am not going to get drawn into a country-specific political debate; however, the simple reasons are 1) it is inhumane; however that is a little to "hippy dippy" for some, 2) there is no more "over there" in a globalized world and 3) Russia has fundamentally challenged the global system that has made all of us in the west, rich, powerful, entitled and frankly "dumb and lazy". 
Let's explore that last one.
The global system that our grandparents/great-grandparents fought and died for and despite all its inequities -there are many- it resulted in massive and persistent stability (crazy but true) and economic, population and technological growth orders of magnitude higher and faster than any point in human history.  This did not happen because a god(s) in heaven ordained it, or weird racial theories that still float out there, it happened because we built it and defended it.  Russia's actions in Ukraine are a threat to security because they challenge that system, they got out of line and they are (or at least were) a global power.  Such actions do nothing for all that stability I mentioned, in fact they act as a global disruptor, and that is definitely a threat to us all.  If anyone is too ignorant or thinks this is some sort of political leverage issue, they frankly deserve what happens next if we let this slide. And what happens next is a new global order being written by someone else while we most likely stand around and blame each other for it.
 
 

Yes, Kamil is a fantastic strategist and historian, but is less sound on pure military stuff, so YMMV....
His tweet threads have become popular and so many get bombed midway through by the usual Twits.
So for those interested, here are links to the 'unrolled' versions (although these don't have most of the images he puts in the tweetstorms).
Not in order of posting:
Russian demographics 1: geography
https://kamilkazani2.substack.com/p/how-did-russia-get-so-big?s=w
 
Russian demographics 2: the southern 'ganglands'
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1493602653586264076.html
 
The Russian economy 1
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1501360272442896388.html
 
The Russian economy 2
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1499855858456567809.html
 
The rise of Putin
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1496711906412933121.html
 
Dormant Russian institutions
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1499048492358111235.html
 
Russia's State Security State
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1496506490202513413.html
 
Putin's elite
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1495790874235744258.html
 
Kadryov's Chechnya: Putin's warlord vassal
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1497612331953577991.html
 
Political institutions of the Mongol Golden Horde 
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1492164056962195457.html
 
Assabiyahs: Russia's autocracies over time
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1492549093771694082.html
 
Why doesn't the Russian Army rule Russia any more?
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1493968165717561346.html
 
The decay of the Russian Army
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1502673952572854278.html
 
Russia didn't launch a war, but a 'special operation'
 
 
Crisis and Jubilees: barons vs courtiers
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1503430216554795014.html
 
No, Ukraine isn't just a separatist Russian province...
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1495469553136066572.html
 
Geography shapes Ukraine's history
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1495200579919958021.html
 
Ethnopolitics in Ukraine (and Russia)
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1494334415446577153.html
 
A short background on Russian expansionism
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1492960693737463813.html
 
So who are the 'Nazis' anyway?
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1497306746330697738.html
 
"Z" Russia has gone full fascist
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1500495309595725831.html
 
Should we be 'giving Putin a way out?'
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1503053699798769666.html
 
Napoleon's 1812 error: deescalation
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1503768312236421120.html
 
How Putin 'derussified' East Ukraine
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1504103672019513345.html
 

So I gotta start by asking: are you honestly engaging in a discussion here and want to explore ideas?  Because you are coming across as a guy whose mind is made up and no amount of rational discussion is going to matter.  I am honestly going to try here, you get exactly one shot based on your tone so far:
1 - Absolutely true, plans definitely do not survive contact, as old as warfare.  However, what is important is how fast one can re-plan and pivot.  In this the Russians have not demonstrated an ability to come up with a "new plan" and re-org to it.  They have had a pregnant pause which has allowed their opponent to organize/mobilize, arm up, dig in, dominate the narrative, and access billions in military support.  And then there is the quality of that initial plan.  Failing to establish some key operational pre-conditions (e.g. why does the internet still work for Ukraine?) is also not a very good sign. So let's see the quality of the second (or third) plan and then we might now better what is going on.
2 - You said "The Russians have taken losses, but they remain free to operate combat aircraft and helicopters over most of the country." That is not true, in fact it is very not true below about 10k feet.  The fact that Russian forces did not set the basic pre-condition of gaining air superiority is a demonstration of their problem, not Ukraine's.  Plenty of evidence of Ukrainian UAV strikes online to demonstrate that we really are in more of an airpower stalemate and that is bad for an invading force.
3 - The Russian Navy is definitely still a factor.  They have sea control and are hitting with missiles but 1) like everything else the Russians are doing, there appears little integration between naval, air and land power at this point and 2) the Russian amphibious capability is in serious question. If for the sole question, "why have they not used it yet?  that said sea control will likely not be decisive, nor has it been decisive so far.
4- Evidence of defeat (https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html), so that is coming up on 24 BTGs of tanks, look at the logistics vehicle, coming up on 485...that is bad.  But even if you refuse to believe this, then one has to ask "what losing looks like".  Over to you as you asked the question.  However, it is a layered issue.  Political defeat, military defeat, economic defeat - if we are talking military defeat, well then an inability to influence or shape negotiations in the direction of national interest is near the top for me.  And as we watch the bubble slide on the Russian side of the table, it is not looking good, but I will give you that the jury is still out. 
5- Well backwards, as on a map, is kind of a one dimensional view to be honest. The primary way Russia has "gone backwards" is in the will of the Ukrainian people.  This is not about terrain, it is about their willingness to fight.  I think if Russian had one a quick and fairly clean fight that will might have stayed relatively dormant; however, that "plan did not survive" and now the entire nation is galvanized in an existential fight...that is definitely "backwards" from a Russian perspective.  Economically, narrative and just about any other non-military metric you want to apply Russia has gone backwards severely and let's not even start on the diplomatic front as it has been a complete disaster.  But if you only want to measure ground, then I guess we have to see.
So we have discussed a lot on forces and comparisons.  Right now, conservative estimate is that UA and Russian manpower is pretty near parity in theatre.  Russia does have equipment advantage but it has failed to be able to really leverage that.  Why?  Well that is a million dollar question.  What we have seen is that Russian mass is not working, if it was that map would look a lot different.  I suspect it is either because the Russian war machine simply is not setup for this complexity and has fallen under its own weight, and the Ukrainians help them along with that.
You are correct on one point, this is coming down to Will.  The Russians can keep pouring men into this fight, even if they are dismounted and have no ammo or food but if they have the Will that is an option.  What you seem to be sidestepping is the other issue, the Ukrainian Will to fight.  They see this as existential and are acting as such, so that is a problem right there for the Russians, unless they want a decades old resistance blowing up in their face but frankly I can't even seeing them getting that far as that would mean the Russians actually have to control the entire country and not about 15% of it.  Until then arms and support will flow in from the west and Russians will bleed...but we will see who blinks first.
 Lemme just close with a very important point - this is not an internet argument that anyone can "win".  I know the reflex is there to play forum games and try to "out argue each other" but that is not what is happening here.  For the most part no one really has a full picture of that is going on so we are sharing information and trying to build the best picture we can.  So the usual internet argument games do not apply here.  If you have a different assessment based on information you have, present it and we can all get a better picture.  This is a real war and people are dying in droves, so I frankly do not care who is "right or wrong" on a given Thurs because the situation is too dynamic.  But if you honestly want to contribute then do so, but this is not a contest...it is a really violent and scary puzzle.  Finally, there are people posting here who are actually in range of all those guns so let's also try and keep that in mind.

Not sure I agree with this:
- First, the average citizen is not seeing what we are, a total shambles of a Russian military operation that will ring out across the ages.  They see that Russia attacked it neighbor, blew up a lot of buildings that look like where they live and killed a lot of people that look like them.  The public have short attention spans but once something gets stuck in the collective brain-pan it is very hard to get out.  We are already seeing shifts in public opinion and that drives politicians.
- Second, it is not in any NATO nations military interest.  We need a bad guy, a boogie man in order to create political will to arm us.  We are going to play up the Russians as dangerous and a proven threat that we need to really worry about.  Assessments will get slowly ratcheted up from the obvious sh*tshow we see today, towards "the Russians have learned and teamed up with the Chinese!"  It is no secret that larger deployments to Eastern Europe a la Cold War are on the table.
- Third, no matter how badly the Russians did here...and it is bad...collective non-military deterrence failed.  We threatened sanctions, mean looks and strong language, Russia said "screw it" and went anyway.  That means hard power is back on the table one way or the other.  We have entered into a season of Mars (something most of the MENA already knew) and that is going to change the calculus (already has).  We are already getting sweaty questions on the Arctic and NORAD.
- Fourth, crazy bastards still got the bomb.  No matter how ridiculous Russian performance has been, they are sitting on enough nuclear boom-boom to re-set civilization, so we are likely going to see BMD and its like go nuts.
The only thing that makes this all go away is a total regime change in Russia that puts a moderate centrist in power, all the while embracing open liberal democracy...like by Saturday.  I think the Russian have a better chance of a Ukrainian surrender than that happening, so here we are in crazy town.    

Heard this multiple times here and elsewhere so I think it is time for us to have a Pause talk.  We pretty much know the Russians have pretty much halted operational level offensives and are stalled, that is all over the place and even mainstream media has picked it up.  So the theories on what is happening to the Russian forces now are roughly assembling around 3 possibilities:
- Stopped, cannot start so digging in for a long haul, which will see broad operational defensive operations with limited tactical offensive actions designed to terrorize the population.
- Stopped, will never re-start and are heading towards total collapse.
- Stopped, conducting an operational pause to consolidate/re-org before re-starting the massive offensive to surround major cities and begin the Russian Grind strategy. 
I am going to leave off the first two and focus on that third one.  A military war machine is a really big system built in layers, we do this for both C2/span of control and sustainment reasons.  Normally a modern military will lay itself out in echelons of some shape or size in depth, the Soviets had a really organized system for this, the Wests was a bit more fluid but we all are set up to fight in what are essentially structures waves since the Roman legions (somebody google the opening of the HBO Rome series and you can see it in action).
For arguments sake let's go with the rule of three and say the Russians are setup in three tactical layers (the West kind of does it as well with "2 up, 1 back and the last one as "Reserve", bit more of a pyramid scheme).  The first tactical layer will be given main objectives and then some stretch ones, unless they are using mission-command then it gets a bit more opportunistic, but the concept is the same; whistle blows first wave into the breach. 
That echelon/wave is expected to be able to fight for a certain period of time based on a lot of factors like attrition, distance, logistical consumption; however, the old rule is that in human based systems you can get about 72-96 hours of action (i.e. little to no sleep) before people start to break down ("beware the 5th day" by Moltke (I think)).  So that first wave can theoretically do up to 4 days of intense action before it needs to be relieved by the second wave.  This can change based on conditions but it is important to understand that it can get shorter but not longer because we are still fighting with human beings as the basis of the system.  So no matter how tough the guys might think they are, or how many chin ups they can do, after 4 days without sleep their brains start to shut down (trust me, been there and done it).
Then the second wave is supposed to conduct some sort of passage of lines and process continues for another 72-96, and then the third wave (if you have one).  While the second and third are doing their thing the first wave is supposed to be going through a tactical consolidation which include resupply/reinforcements/replacements and reorganization.  This is also when things like vehicle and weapons systems maintenance happens because vehicles will break down like people.
Now that whole system, which for arguments sake we can call the "operational system" is designed to be able to keep this up for weeks to months.  However after a certain amount of time all the losses and wear & tear start to add up and you need...wait for it...an operational pause.  [Aside: eventually, all these operational pauses add up and you see a strategic pause but that can take much longer].  This pause is basically an entire system overhaul to do all sorts of things that look like refitting a ship.  Replacements, rotations and re-organization of tactical units.  Planning and boring stuff like orders.  A lot of logistical and ISR scene setting for the next phase, and lastly...don't let your opponent know you are doing an operational pause until it is over.  So you will still see tactical action such as feints, tactical offensives but with short small gains - more jabs than actual punches - are often employed to try and make it hard for an opponent to figure out that you are in fact pausing...why?  We will come back to that.
Ok, so how does that apply to the current situation.  Let's accept that this is an operational pause for a moment and the big nasty Russian Bear is just cleaning the blood out of its fur before going back to ravaging Ukrainian bunnies.  Well first off it was not a planned pause, it happened too quickly.  Based on the big maps and overall tempo, it appears like the Russians were really advancing hard for the first 3-4 days.  We did see a likely echelon flip on the next 3-4 days as they pushed depth forward but by about day 10 of this thing everyone was starting to notice that the big red blotches on the map had stopped moving.  So let's give the Russian the benefit of the doubt and say they actually managed to use all three echelons effectively, well what likely did not happen was that 1st wave reloaded while waves 2 and 3 continued.  Remember formations are designed to be able to do this for weeks and out to months if the situation allows. So having the whole operational system come to a stop in 10 days is a very good indication that this was not in the plan.
10 days into this war was 5 March, a week and half ago.  Even the most uninformed journalist (and here I cast a baleful eye at our own CBC because it is harder to find a more uninformed bunch when it comes to warfare) is getting the drift that the Russians are not moving.  Now remember when I said "don't let your opponent know you are pausing"?  The reason for this is that you do not what them to try and grab the operational initiative, it is bad if they do because you are now on the defensive pretty much by definition.  Now if you plan for this, you can do all sorts of clever things like pull you opponent into over reaching etc, not sure I see a masterful design on the Russian side here.  But the UA has shown more offensive actions and c-attacks.  We have all been talking about a big UA operational strike, not sure if it will happen but the Russians are leaving the door open to one because of this pregnant operational pause. 
So to summarize, the Russian operational pause: 1) came much earlier than it should have, why?, 2) has lasted the length of an Old Testament reading in modern warfare timelines, and 3) is handing initiative over to their opponent.
So what?  Well if this is a Russian operational pause (at this rate, and with rumors of those other 40 BTGs it could be strategic) it is not a good one.  The conditions that led to that are very likely really poor pre-planning, ample evidence of that, and systemic failures that happened very quickly.  This speaks to a brittle operational system that they are having to almost re-tool from the ground up.  I have serious doubts that the Russians, who have lost some of their best troops, can come out of this as a new "super-force" able to mass joint effects and cut through the UA in days.  The types of planning and quality organization/preparations, from logistics to C4ISR, that a military force needs to do in order to pull off what the Russians are attempting takes years to prepare and build.
So if this is an operational pause, it is probably a master class in "how not to do this" and I doubt it will solve much for the Russian forces who are now coming up on two weeks of time they have given their opponent to prepare, supply and continue to hit them as they are pausing.

I think mistakes were made, to say the least.  In reality this is going to likely go down as a massive Russian strategic failure, possibly nation breaking but we would be remiss not to look in that mirror and recognize that it is also a western failure writ large.  We collectively run the planet (casting nervous glance at China) and as such this mess that took 20+ years to happen has to come home to roost on our decision making.
As to the NATO argument, I guess what sticks is that every former eastern bloc nation who has joined NATO did so of their own free will and for very good reasons.  What happened is akin to watching a man with three wives he abused for years beating the one who stayed behind and blaming the other two who left.  Yes, technically he might have just spread the abuse more equitably but how on earth does that equation get right?!  The US was using the same strategy that won the Cold War, enticement and Russian response with a strategy of bombing or threats of bombing, followed by more bombing cannot compete, and that is not on us.  
I think we in the West do need to take a long hard look at how we basically went past "letting it happen" to "enabling because we like cheap gas and were to busy with our own crap".  I am Canadian and frankly the lines we fed ourselves for over 30 years of a utopian liberal humanistic new world order, and kept smoking right up until Feb 24th meant we lost sight of just how nasty the world was really getting and failed to do anything about it.
I hope that some lines are re-drawn as a result of this and we try and realize that things like freedom and democracy come at costs that every generation must pay, not just the ones in the movies. 

I think the major difference between discussions here and what I have seen from a lot of the "experts" is that they seem to focusing on quantitative assessment, while we are largely focus on qualitative.  We can count up the losses and numbers as well as any right now but when linking that back to qualitative deductions one comes up with different conclusions.
I mean one can see that about 10% of the Russian invasion force of tanks has been attrited.  From a quantitative view that is not great but losses are to be expected in front line capability and it likely matches some other similar military actions.  Then if one takes the remaining 90% versus big red spaces on the map, I can see how people are coming to the conclusions that they are.  What is missing is all the weird stuff, like most of those tanks have been abandoned either out of gas or crews just left.  That is a qualitative observation on how or why those tanks were lost beyond what was lost.  
I am not surprised that a forum of avid wargamers and students of history are taking a broader qualitative system view, and frankly the real experts/analysist who work for government/military are doing the exact same thing (with better data).  In the end events will confirm or deny which viewpoint has been correct and the truth is probably somewhere in between.  What has been interesting is that we here have been about 24-48 hours ahead of mainstream in a lot of ways.  In the first couple of days we noted some odd signals and had pretty much decided that the "quick war" was a loss by the end of the first weekend.  Then experts caught up and complimented "Ukrainian resistance", when it was in fact a pretty convincing military defence, and were stating that Ukraine may hold out for a couple weeks but the end was going to be the same.  As things unfolded it became more apparent here that the Russian war machine had stalled hard - while mainstream media was pointing to the looming 64km convoy North of Kyiv - which turned out to be a parking lot and by now is likely turning into a graveyard.  We began to wonder if the Russians might even get to the siege phase.
Now most experts are still seeing a brutal siege phase and a long term guerilla war.  Here in our little bubble it is looking more likely that the Russians will have to be halting broad offensive action soon and we could see this turn into a stalemate scenario...all largely based on qualitative assessment of 1) Russian inability to establish what should have ben pre-conditions such as information and air superiority, 2) very poor Russian logistical performance, 3) Signs of eroding Russian morale, 4) Baffling Russian C2, and 5) The increasing/acceleration of Ukrainian will and capability to fight.  This is beyond the changes in strategic narrative from Russia, who went from "unconditional surrender" to "conditional surrender" in about 10 days.  As well as the growing impact of what has become the economic equivalent to a nuclear war against Russia. 
We will see how close everyone is as this thing unfolds, we could be wrong or too optimistic based on a steady stream of what may be fairly isolated events but when strung together on social media look like a trend.  The major shift I am looking for right now is signs of Russian defensive operations like minefields, major digging in and the like.  At the strategic level we might start seeing less of Putin and the identification of a new "spokesperson", this may be a sign of a shifting power dynamic at the top. 
I recall back in 2014 the Russian Foreign Minister saying "if Russia wanted to, we could be in Kyiv in two weeks" or words to that effect, well that is Thurs and so far they can't even seem to be able to cordon Kyiv, let alone control it; there are strange rattling and scraping sounds coming out of the Russian War Machine.  All the while Ukraine is waging an information war that is now the Gold Standard and a employing a hybrid operational approach that will be actively studied for a century at least. 
In another reality, if I were on the Russian Military Staff and had a golden Willie Wonka ticket to say whatever I wanted without repercussions, it would be "Get out, now.  They are not surrounded, we are." 

It's better call than call from the administrative HQ.

I too hope he is treated well (seems like it) and can go home soon, because that will mean the war is over soon

Hi everyone. Nikita here.
I'm still in Crimea. I have to be careful with every word, especially after being detained on 24th by police and FSB, so I will be brief. I am literally shaking as I type due to adrenaline, but we all need to be strong these days.
1) Ukraine will be free. The bastards will fail. I can clearly see it.
2) We witness an insane amount of heroism. Which is truly inspiring.
3) Thanks to Steve and other people from here who were kind to me in the past and took time and patience to communicate with me. It made a lot of difference in the end and made me a person who I am today.

All very interesting, Steve. Keep it coming please. Same for all of you, guys.