Huba

Baltic will soon be a NATO lake, and it looks like the Black Sea will follow, to a degree determined by the outcome of this war. No friendly shores for Russian ships on both those seas, apart from their own.

A country devastated, dead people in the tens of thousands and all you think about is to play a game? 
Are you serious?

Relink, because it's interesting. My take was more tactical- that they were only likely to get a couple of shots off and were holding out for something juicy, a by-product being the joking that most Russian vehicles didn't justify the expense of the missile.
@Huba You got the right one 👍, this is just the longer version I think.

Is this the one ? 
 

If you're not versed in Polish internal politics it might sound serious, but it isn't. PiS (the current ruling party) blamed Russia and the then ruling Civic Platform for the crash in Smoleńsk since it happened, before any investigation started, and this conspiracy theory helped it grab the power in 2015.
After PiS came to power, this "special" commission was created as a away to keep the craziest of the leaders of PiS party, Macierewicz, busy so he didn't get in Kaczynskis' way. It existed for 7 years, siphoning money from the budget and at the moment nobody except the most hardcore loons treats it seriously. The commission made a bunch of accusations while producing no evidence whatsoever. The news of it finally finishing work didn't even made it to the headlines very much.
Also, as this is  my first post on this forum: Hello everyone  This thread was recommended to me as concentrated on analysis and not pointless feces throwing, and after reading a large part of it I have to say the the level of insight it provides is really impressive. 

Contract was broken. We hadn't Dana before the war

This is what I hope for either, ideally followed by collapse of government in Russia, revolution in Belarus, Georgia and Moldova regaining their separatist territories. And everyone living happily ever after
However Russians must be quite bothered by this notion and for sure will do everything to prevent it, the upcoming operation being first step towards it. Hence me trying to put  myself in their boots.

Baltic will soon be a NATO lake, and it looks like the Black Sea will follow, to a degree determined by the outcome of this war. No friendly shores for Russian ships on both those seas, apart from their own.

And on the topic of how badly Russia has lost the "big picture".  On all this let's say that Russia somehow manages to defeat Ukraine.  Not some poncy re-definition but actually take the whole country installs a puppet government and holds victory parade in May '23 [aside: the odds of this happening are so extremely low that we are in "alien virus wipes out UA" type scenarios, but let's just play along].  So what?
- Russia gets Ukraine and all its oil, gas and wheat...all of which are a small fraction of what Russia already has, but it is technically in the plus column.  Of course to access all that you need a functioning Ukraine, so who is paying to re-build all the infrastructure the Russians blew up in order to gain all said cool stuff?
- Russian has demonstrated the exact opposite of what they need to the world.  The great Russian bear nearly bled out taking a single country in its near abroad, leaving destroyed and abandoned equipment and bodies all over the place.  It looks weaker than we thought going in even if Ukraine surrenders right now...that part is done.
- Geopolitically it has made its enemies stronger (see above). If someone told me Sweden and Finland were going to be seriously be moving to join NATO six months ago, I would have laughed them out of the room.  Hell, we heard rumours of this 6 weeks ago and were not really thinking they were serious.  So NATO is bigger, more unified and better funded - really not seeing the master plan here.
- Geopolitically, it makes Russia much weaker.  Those sanctions are not going to be forgotten in a year. In fact I doubt the investigation into the mass war crimes from this war will be over in a year.  You wanna talk stalemate, no western politician is going to even hint at "re-normalization with Russia" for maybe a decade. So that means that Russia has to pivot heavily to people who will trade with them...enter the Chinese.  The Chinese may very well send Russia support but it is a poison pill.  China wants Russian resources...cheap.  And a weakened Russia who can only trade with a narrow market is extremely vulnerable and desperate.  They will have to live with what they can get from China price-wise because they literally have no other options than "leave it in the ground and become a third world nation".  And even if it isn't China, it will be India then who sets the conditions but that gets more complicated. 
- Internally it makes Russia much weaker.  Putin is going to have to spend billions on the wave of resentment and pushback that is likely coming his way from all the Russians that do not buy off on this whole thing, and even if that is only 17 percent that is 24+ million people that are going to be extremely agitated that Putin has to deal with.  Being an autocrat and creating a closed society takes money, ask North Korea.  So all that funding to counter backlash is going away from "other things", but you cannot simply cut all social programs and infrastructure funding, or that percentage goes up.  So what takes the hit?  The Russian military is the most likely candidate.  Everything but internal security will be on shaky ground, while being run by a corrupt administration.
So here I do agree with Steve, Russia has already lost this war.  It is just a matter of determining what that loss looks like.  Worse, Russia has likely already lost its next war and does not even know it yet.

Here's my take on the impact those AShMs will make, first a question though: do we know for sure that the missiles that will be delivered are indeed Harpoons? I heard many conflicting news, mentioning basically any missile at UKs disposal, starting with sea versions of Brimstone, up to Harpoons. I don't recall any confirmation being made. Anyway, assuming those are heavy missiles able to take out major surface combatants, not only patrol boats, and are delivered in large enough quantity( like 72 mentioned here), I thing that's what gonna happen:
- the potential landing around Odessa or in Budjak is out of the question, nobody's going to even think of risking that. Not that it was a viable option earlier anyway. What changes is that Ukraine can now reassign some of the anti invasion forces to different tasks, likely operations around Kherson.
- those missiles are too short ranged unfortunately to be a threat to Russian base in Sevastopol, you'd need at least 300 km range for that. Russian fleet still rules the high (black) seas and can launch remaining Kalibrs with impunity, no big impact here.
- now for the first interesting possibility. IF at some points Ukrainians are able to fight their way back to Sea of Azov shores, it means that it as a whole is denied to Russians more or less. No more supplying it's forces by the sea. On top of this, the whole Volga- Black Sea inland route would be closed to merchant traffic. This is really huge, makes you understand a bit why Russians are so insisting on the land bridge to Crimea. The Kerch bridghe won't be at risk though in my opinion. Even it was in range, Harpoons are way too small of a weapon to damage it sufficiently.
- the biggest potential for interesting things to happen lies however in fact that with Harpoons guarding the coast, Russians won't be able to do a close blockade of Odessa and whole Ukrainian Black Sea coast. We can discuss how many Harpoons would it take to hit Slava or Krivak etc, but I don't think that Black Sea Fleet would even risk their ships at all loitering in range of those missiles all the time. They will no longer be able to stop and board ships going from Romanian to Ukrainian territorial waters. If they want to keep the blockade up, they would have to outright attack those ships with AShMs from their fleet or from airplanes. Or by submarines. They can do it technically, but this approach has strong vibes of "Unlimited Underwater Warfare" of WW2, and is horrible from PR perspective.
This is the matter of greatest importance to Ukraine, as right now their economy is strangled by inability to export it's goods. A week ago there was supposed to be 25000 train cars waiting along the UE border, full of export goods. I see them trying to run the blockade. We might soon see some actual naval warfare.
Edit: There's still the question of sea mines floating around. Ukraine might have tough time trying to sweep those already emplaced, and Russians can continue mining operations from aircraft/ submarines.

We call them assessments in the trade and yes it is possible to achieve surprise.  There will always be gaps in coverage and there is the issue of sorting out the wheat from the chaff and then getting that recognized picture to the people who need the information.  Additionally the vehicles do not necessarily have to start moving to be able to work out the Courses of Action available.  It is fairly easy to narrow down the courses of action using processes such Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB) and once you narrow those down, you can task your ISR to look into areas where they might travel and when they might travel through their areas.  Ideally you cover areas where the enemy has to make a decision, called a Decision Point in the trade and if you get it right, you end up well ahead of the enemy's' Decision-Action cycle which allows you to trigger counter actions or strikes as necessary.

If you're not versed in Polish internal politics it might sound serious, but it isn't. PiS (the current ruling party) blamed Russia and the then ruling Civic Platform for the crash in Smoleńsk since it happened, before any investigation started, and this conspiracy theory helped it grab the power in 2015.
After PiS came to power, this "special" commission was created as a away to keep the craziest of the leaders of PiS party, Macierewicz, busy so he didn't get in Kaczynskis' way. It existed for 7 years, siphoning money from the budget and at the moment nobody except the most hardcore loons treats it seriously. The commission made a bunch of accusations while producing no evidence whatsoever. The news of it finally finishing work didn't even made it to the headlines very much.
Also, as this is  my first post on this forum: Hello everyone  This thread was recommended to me as concentrated on analysis and not pointless feces throwing, and after reading a large part of it I have to say the the level of insight it provides is really impressive. 

If you're not versed in Polish internal politics it might sound serious, but it isn't. PiS (the current ruling party) blamed Russia and the then ruling Civic Platform for the crash in Smoleńsk since it happened, before any investigation started, and this conspiracy theory helped it grab the power in 2015.
After PiS came to power, this "special" commission was created as a away to keep the craziest of the leaders of PiS party, Macierewicz, busy so he didn't get in Kaczynskis' way. It existed for 7 years, siphoning money from the budget and at the moment nobody except the most hardcore loons treats it seriously. The commission made a bunch of accusations while producing no evidence whatsoever. The news of it finally finishing work didn't even made it to the headlines very much.
Also, as this is  my first post on this forum: Hello everyone  This thread was recommended to me as concentrated on analysis and not pointless feces throwing, and after reading a large part of it I have to say the the level of insight it provides is really impressive. 

Busted!  Seriously though: I have no military background, but I was always interested in history, especially of the military kind, even studied it at the Uni. After two decades of reading one can be tempted to think that he understands some basic principles. This kind of mental exercise is a way to put it to the test. I of course say this with all the humility of a layman.

If you're not versed in Polish internal politics it might sound serious, but it isn't. PiS (the current ruling party) blamed Russia and the then ruling Civic Platform for the crash in Smoleńsk since it happened, before any investigation started, and this conspiracy theory helped it grab the power in 2015.
After PiS came to power, this "special" commission was created as a away to keep the craziest of the leaders of PiS party, Macierewicz, busy so he didn't get in Kaczynskis' way. It existed for 7 years, siphoning money from the budget and at the moment nobody except the most hardcore loons treats it seriously. The commission made a bunch of accusations while producing no evidence whatsoever. The news of it finally finishing work didn't even made it to the headlines very much.
Also, as this is  my first post on this forum: Hello everyone  This thread was recommended to me as concentrated on analysis and not pointless feces throwing, and after reading a large part of it I have to say the the level of insight it provides is really impressive. 

It isn't, just highly improbable. What is impossible is that this commission would prove it, even if it was right. They didn't even have access to the wreckage, all they did was reinterpretation of evidence produced by first commission mixed with clinical tinfoilhattery . They even accused the leader of first commission of lying, lost the defamation case and had to apologize. It was a circus.

The very same, hi @Der Zeitgeist!
So, as this community takes pride in it's ability to predict the course of action in this war, I'd like to ask of your opinions/ ideas on a subject.
There seems to be more or less a consensus that in the upcoming days of weeks we'll observe Zitadelle redux in Donbas - everyone is expecting that, and both sides seem to be preparing for it. I'd think that if Russians hope to achieve some kind of success there, they'd like to achieve at least a degree of surprise when the operation finally starts. I'm thinking about some feign attack, maybe unexpected use of airforce, anything that would disrupt Ukrainian defensive plan really. How do you think they could achieve this, if this is at all possible?
 

It isn't, just highly improbable. What is impossible is that this commission would prove it, even if it was right. They didn't even have access to the wreckage, all they did was reinterpretation of evidence produced by first commission mixed with clinical tinfoilhattery . They even accused the leader of first commission of lying, lost the defamation case and had to apologize. It was a circus.

If you're not versed in Polish internal politics it might sound serious, but it isn't. PiS (the current ruling party) blamed Russia and the then ruling Civic Platform for the crash in Smoleńsk since it happened, before any investigation started, and this conspiracy theory helped it grab the power in 2015.
After PiS came to power, this "special" commission was created as a away to keep the craziest of the leaders of PiS party, Macierewicz, busy so he didn't get in Kaczynskis' way. It existed for 7 years, siphoning money from the budget and at the moment nobody except the most hardcore loons treats it seriously. The commission made a bunch of accusations while producing no evidence whatsoever. The news of it finally finishing work didn't even made it to the headlines very much.
Also, as this is  my first post on this forum: Hello everyone  This thread was recommended to me as concentrated on analysis and not pointless feces throwing, and after reading a large part of it I have to say the the level of insight it provides is really impressive. 

If you're not versed in Polish internal politics it might sound serious, but it isn't. PiS (the current ruling party) blamed Russia and the then ruling Civic Platform for the crash in Smoleńsk since it happened, before any investigation started, and this conspiracy theory helped it grab the power in 2015.
After PiS came to power, this "special" commission was created as a away to keep the craziest of the leaders of PiS party, Macierewicz, busy so he didn't get in Kaczynskis' way. It existed for 7 years, siphoning money from the budget and at the moment nobody except the most hardcore loons treats it seriously. The commission made a bunch of accusations while producing no evidence whatsoever. The news of it finally finishing work didn't even made it to the headlines very much.
Also, as this is  my first post on this forum: Hello everyone  This thread was recommended to me as concentrated on analysis and not pointless feces throwing, and after reading a large part of it I have to say the the level of insight it provides is really impressive. 

If you're not versed in Polish internal politics it might sound serious, but it isn't. PiS (the current ruling party) blamed Russia and the then ruling Civic Platform for the crash in Smoleńsk since it happened, before any investigation started, and this conspiracy theory helped it grab the power in 2015.
After PiS came to power, this "special" commission was created as a away to keep the craziest of the leaders of PiS party, Macierewicz, busy so he didn't get in Kaczynskis' way. It existed for 7 years, siphoning money from the budget and at the moment nobody except the most hardcore loons treats it seriously. The commission made a bunch of accusations while producing no evidence whatsoever. The news of it finally finishing work didn't even made it to the headlines very much.
Also, as this is  my first post on this forum: Hello everyone  This thread was recommended to me as concentrated on analysis and not pointless feces throwing, and after reading a large part of it I have to say the the level of insight it provides is really impressive. 

If you're not versed in Polish internal politics it might sound serious, but it isn't. PiS (the current ruling party) blamed Russia and the then ruling Civic Platform for the crash in Smoleńsk since it happened, before any investigation started, and this conspiracy theory helped it grab the power in 2015.
After PiS came to power, this "special" commission was created as a away to keep the craziest of the leaders of PiS party, Macierewicz, busy so he didn't get in Kaczynskis' way. It existed for 7 years, siphoning money from the budget and at the moment nobody except the most hardcore loons treats it seriously. The commission made a bunch of accusations while producing no evidence whatsoever. The news of it finally finishing work didn't even made it to the headlines very much.
Also, as this is  my first post on this forum: Hello everyone  This thread was recommended to me as concentrated on analysis and not pointless feces throwing, and after reading a large part of it I have to say the the level of insight it provides is really impressive.