G.I. Joe

True on capacity/capability, however, this war is two years old.  Even if Russia was in denial for the first year, why did they not go for an overmatch mobilization a year ago?
I think Russia lacks the cohesive will to mass mobilize and Putin knows it.  This is why he is pulling wasters, criminals and merchs.  He cannot mobilize 2 million men without hitting the Russian people where they live.  He can’t do that without convincing them that they must fight or Russia is lost.  Even the most nationalistic twit in Russia can see that this is a discretionary expeditionary war.  Ukraine is not central to the survival of Russia as a nation state.  It is central to survival of Putin, but that only goes so far.
So back to western involvement - this is a tricky and slippery slope.  We know Putin is already saying we have divisions in Ukraine, but he also knows large swaths of the Russian people don’t believe the state information apparatus.  If we go and give them hard proof the costs could be significant, and I am not talking about nukes.  If Russia buys into this war fully we could see significant mobilization.  Given how fragile western support is, that could be a serious problem.
The horrible truth is that Ukraine is important, but not that important to a significant swath of the West.  The political levels in the West have been managing this pretty much from day 1.  The Russian invasion is an attack to global order but many westerners ask “ok, but what has the global order really done for me?”  And given the wing nut drive bys we have seen here on the forum trying to explain that to them is tilting at windmills.
So the western powers have been slowly leaning in and pushing envelopes.  Pushing hard enough to slowly boil Russia but not so hard as to get them unified.  And Russia has been doing the exact opposite - drag this thing out until we change the channel.  Make it look like Iraq or Afghanistan, even if it costs Russia another problem 100k dead.  And it will all come down to who gives out first.  In the West it will end with a whimper as we run back to NATO lines and shore up a new Iron Curtain.  For Russia it could be a brutal collapse with a lot of nuclear weapons in the wind (the other awkward reality those who want to see Russia collapse never seem to answer).
Down the middle of this entire mess is a very small window of “just enough, just in time” which I suspect we are really aiming at.

This is the best article on the A-50 situation I saw (it was written after the mid-January downing of one) - https://breakingdefense.com/2024/01/after-historic-shoot-down-why-russia-will-struggle-to-replace-its-a-50-aewc-plane/
According to it, the loss of the specialist personnel could be as significant as the loss of the plane.

@Grigb is one of the best contributors to this thread. Just sayin'.
****
VERIFICATION REQUEST. Is it true Russia only has one more A50 AWACS?  Or is this yet another Sushko disinfo special?
 

Gentleman. You can't fight here, this is the war room.
(Sorry I had celebratory drink.)

Meanwhile, the BSF will be going glub-glub again pretty soon (ie 3-5months)... 
 

I'll just leave this here, think of it as a cherry on top of the A-50 cake.
Happy Friday boys. 😎

Shades of the Battle of Hampton Roads.

There's going to be another "Mud, Blood and Poppycock" written for this era...

Hopefully they'll be sending live ones.

Shades of the Battle of Hampton Roads.

Sounds good. 🇨🇦

not sure why you posted as it doesn't support your statement of life.  It says "up to 10 years".  What do you suppose the penalty for actually derailing a train would be?  These folks are taking a serious risk, taking the step to move to actual sabotage is not a small thing.  Now you are looking at life for sure and in Russia maybe worse.  Not only for you but everyone you know is now under the optics as they look for the organization that would be implied by that level of action.  You are talking just average folks, not trained military.
Am I disappointed that the Russian people have behaved so horribly supporting a genocidal war against their neighbors? yeah.  However I do understand the psychological effort it takes to hold to a position on your principles without knowing for sure what the cost will be.  I did 7 1/2 months in a much more lenient state with the potential to have done several years more.
The downside for Putin is when you make it illegal to do anything without serious consequences, you drive people to do more serious stuff.  Enacting this law also reflects fear on Russia's part.  They wouldn't take this step if they didn't think there was potential for more protests.  We keep wondering just where Russia's breaking point is.  This seems to indicate Putin is also concerned about that.
 

I am curious about the tally. Lets see, Avdiivka was the most one sided battle in terms of vehicle losses.

224 tanks, more than twice the total Ukrainian losses. Best Case scenario, a 10-1 ratio.
Using the Swedish FOI as a source, russia builds/refurbishes ~44 tanks/m. So they are short about a month, or gained 2 months if all the abandoned vehicles can be recovered.

With a production rate of close to 0.
And foreign aid (pledged or delivered) as of my knowledge: 0.
Loss of 21, that will likely not be replaced within.. half a year, full year? Unknown.
You can draw it parallel for IFVs and the rest, although I think those are more likely to be replenished by the West albeit in insufficient numbers.

I am hearing that the Russians lost something on the order of 1100 vehicles of various types attacking Avdiivka. If correct, Russia is fighting a war of attrition...against itself.

You also watch the news. That's enough to make anyone touchy these days.

And This why we can't have nice things. 

You also watch the news. That's enough to make anyone touchy these days.

I feel the frustration expressed today. When you look back the opportunities through mid-2022 until now it is pretty easy to get upset at the seeming lack of urgency to outright defeat the russian invasion on the battlefield, likely out of an overabundance of caution. 
 
This being said, here we are, and it could have gone so much worse. The only thing that matters is what we do next. 

Good ol' canadians coming in voice of calm reason.  😀

You also watch the news. That's enough to make anyone touchy these days.

I agree M. Johnson is a poor representative of and for the US public. I also think he owes his current speakership to the  Freedom (for only people like us) Caucus. But deep down, I have a hunch he and many like him feel about the Orange one like that line in the Night Moves- that is "I used her, she used me and neither one cared," and will dump him and do the right thing on Ukraine once he becomes irrelevant, which I'm thinking may be well before the November election. Johnson  has to appear just reluctant enough to for now keep his job (though like McCarthy he'll probably lose it anyway) .

He's frustrated, understandably.  No reason to accuse him of right-wing talking points as if he is spouting Tuckerisms. 
This thread tends to get way over dramatic too often.

Narp. There's a long way to go before Russia "wins". A long, long way, and that's a very subjective, malleable endpoint. I don't see how Russia can have won if doesn't dominate the Black Sea and UKR is handling that fight just fine with little foreign aid.

$75 billion in aid and the coordination of another $54 billion or so from our allies but hey, what have you done for me lately? 
https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-aid-has-us-sent-ukraine-here-are-six-charts
Which is another way to say that if you are concentrating on particular weapons systems  instead of aggregate economic/military/diplomatic aid than I think you are doing it wrong. 
And on that note, I'm going to head out to a very excellent dive bar of my acquaintance with some friends and drink to the $450 million or so that some old pro-Putin bastard lost in court in NY today. 
Cheers.