How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Pete Wenman]

52 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

column rolling towards Brest (belarussian - polish border)

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1502311475586686981?s=20&t=RpBM_hooIUT265By4Rf3Yw

Maybe not quite as close to Brest as first suggested

[billbindc]

 

This is a superb walk through Putin's regime. Julia knows her stuff and has a lot of contacts in the Russian government. Really quite good.

[DesertFox]

13 minutes ago, Pete Wenman said:

Maybe not quite as close to Brest as first suggested

Thanks for that find. Indeed they are south of Borisov.

Mapillary

[cyrano01]

4 hours ago, akd said:

29th CAA commander possibly killed:

 

Bill Slim observed that, 'Nothing is so good for the morale of the troops as ocassionally to see a dead general.' So Russian morrale should be through the roof right?

[LongLeftFlank]

14 minutes ago, Pete Wenman said:

Maybe not quite as close to Brest as first suggested

"Smolensk, 200 miles east of Minsk...."

[Battlefront.com]

To build upon The_Capt's analysis...

For years now it's been my informed position that Russia would win a relatively quick and decisive conventional military victory in eastern Ukraine.  They would get very bloody in the process, but would wind up with a large amount of territory under their control despite anticipated high levels of resistance by conventional Ukrainian forces.  I did not foresee the crazy notion of Russia taking over the whole country or doing a hundred "Thunder Runs" right into the teeth of very well prepared defenses. 

By the end of the first day I shifted to thinking that Russia could only, at best, win a limited amount of eastern Ukraine.  Not Kiev, not anything towards the west and probably not even Odessa.  By the first weekend I began to doubt Russia could even pull that off.  Since then it is clear they aren't capable of advancing much more than they have now.

This covers the conventional phase. 

I have always thought that Ukraine would win back all of its territory lost in the conventional phase through an unconventional war aided by non-kinetic activities of the West.  I also always thought that there would be some degree of hybrid conventional-unconventional warfare since Ukraine had already announced that was part of their strategic plan.  Since 2014 they have been placing weapons caches in the likely path of Russian attacks and organizing resistance if such an attack should come.  If anybody doubts that Ukraine actively went forward with these plans, they should note that in the first few days of the war there were some 17,000 small arms, magazines, and ammo quickly and efficiently handed out within Kiev alone.  No way that happens without preplanning.

So what now?  The worst of everything for Russia.

The conventional war is still going on and by reasonable standards Russia is losing it or, as I suspect, already lost it.  At the same time the Ukrainians, aided by Russian incompetence, are ranging around the Russian rear killing everything in sight.  And what the Ukrainians aren't killing, the Russians are abandoning.  A bit of an overstatement of course, but not an understatement.

Just think... Ukraine was preparing for a long and drawn out unconventional fight against a large, well organized Russian occupation force spread out over a huge amount of terrain.  Now they have a much smaller fight against a poorly organized Russian force that isn't even properly occupying terrain.  Better still, Ukraine retains the ability to resupply its unconventional activities with top end weaponry on a regular basis.

Russia is at risk of having tens of thousands of its soldiers surrendering if they don't dramatically change how they are fighting this war.  So far no signs of change happening.

Steve

[kraze]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

@Haiduk @Battlefront.com @kraze @The_Capt

So my impression is that:

• In the North UKR forces are in decent shape, pushing back locally and constantly fighting, but vulnerable to massed, concentrated assault (which RUS seems to be building for). They have the shortest supply lines, the political center of gravity and excellent terrain for large scale defense (large flood plains, cities, the river to break up the RUS front). This is the beating heart of Ukrainian national defense and will be the base for long-term resistance or counter-attack.

 

• In the Center East, UKR forces are holding on, but are not the center of gravity of the UKR defense - they're getting enough to hold but not push back. They MUST hold in order to evacuate the South East region forces shortly. If they collapse then the SE forces will also collapse by default, leading to mass-scramble by UKR units to escape the kettle. And that won't be pretty at all at all.

 

• In the South East UKR forces are very much on the back foot, falling back and have suffered heavy losses. They are still coherent, still have some form of regional command cohesion but have lost battalion-level initiative and are purely reactive, while still highly motivated and effective at company and below. They have the most vulnerable supply lines and are in real danger of being snipped off as a region.

How's that reading?

 

North (let's put both Kyiv and Kharkiv in here) was a priority target for russians - because in their imagination taking Kyiv or taking the "capital" of the original faux "people's republic" russians created in 1918 and bringing back Yanukovich would heavily demoralize and break whatever small pockets of resistance there would be, while mobilizing those imaginary millions of pro-russian collaborators waiting for Russia to come and save them.

Hence the North was chosen to be the most heavily defended and rightfully so - most elite russian troops died there. So because of it being the most defended - russians are regularly routed in there.

In Donbass region army was to hold off an attack, which it did generally well.

South is mostly steppe, no forests, very hard to defend and was not a top priority - mostly national guard and territorial defense was there, not so much an army - even then russians won only pyrrhic victories - as a result their push to Odessa failed and seems to be off the table atm and they ran out of breath at Mariupol as well when they encountered a veteran army for the first time (Azov) - where they hope to just break it by going fully genocidal.

Kherson thus far is the only regional center they gained any control of (out of 21, Luhansk and Donetsk being obvious excluded) - even so - the local populace refuses to accept them and it's a very "light" occupation right now, they don't have enough holding force there.

So I'd say take an overall strategic picture into consideration - was it worth taking Kherson by losing 5000-6000 men dead, 15-18k wounded, half a hundred combat planes, hundreds of tanks, more than a thousand APCs and either broken or heavily fatigued invasion force in most directions, as well as economical and political disaster?

Also going by western stats they basically lost 12%-15% of the whole invasion force in two weeks, vast majority of losses are the best units they had. Traded for a city that holds no political value.

Edited March 11, 2022 by kraze

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

"Smolensk, 200 miles east of Minsk...."

One of my favorite Monty Python episodes of all time!  Right up there with joke warfare.

Steve

[akd]

Quote

More now from the UN Security Council, where Russia's ambassador Vasily Nebenzya has been claiming that Moscow's forces have discovered evidence of attempts to cover up biological weapons research by Ukraine. 

Nebenzya claimed that Ukraine had used the coronavirus pandemic as a cover with which to advance its research, and told delegates that the country had sought to spread biological weapons by infecting migratory birds and bats. 

He also accused the US of attempting to create biological weapons that can target specific ethnic groups. 

Nebenzya did not provide any evidence for his claims, and the US ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, says the claims are an attempt to "manufacture a pretext for attack". 

"Russia is attempting to use the security council to legitimise disinformation and deceive people to justify President Putin's war of choice against the Ukrainian people," she said.

-BBC

[Chibot Mk IX]

A little OT:

I found an interesting article that has been shared couple thousands time around Chinese internet (Weibo). It is translated from a Russian newspaper opinion published on Feb 3rd 2022. The author is a Russian. He followed a more traditional Soviet military thinking and predicted the future war with UKR will be bloody long. It's not going to be an easy walk. He laughed at any idea that UKR will give up the fight in 48 hours and said "This is not going to happen." . Man, this dude is a great foreteller.

the original article is here

 

Прогнозы кровожадных политологов восторженных ястребах и торопливых кукушках

 

https://nvo.ng.ru/realty/2022-02-03/3_1175_donbass.html

[Hister]

Julia made a very good insight into why Ukraine happened and what might happen next. I worked with her some years ago - can only say the best things about her.

I wanted to post this yesterday but it seems it didn't go through. Posting (again) because it is a really good/concise piece on why Ukraine happened.

 

Also, what is the consensus of you guys - was the soviet era unmanned survaillance plane that crashed in Zagreb, Croatia, owned by Russia or Ukraine? 

 

[sburke]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Corroboration from the West, though not yet formally confirmed

 

According to one site I was looking at Russia had approx 20 officers at Major General level committed to the invasion.  That translates to 15% losses at this level in 15 days.  WTF?!  I think the highest ranking officer in the US killed in Iraq was a Colonel IIRC.

[Lethaface]

2 minutes ago, Hister said:

Julia made a very good insight into why Ukraine happened and what might happen next. I worked with her some years ago - can only say the best things about her.

I wanted to post this yesterday but it seems it didn't go through. Posting (again) because it is a really good/concise piece on why Ukraine happened.

 

Also, what is the consensus of you guys - was the soviet era unmanned survaillance plane that crashed in Zagreb, Croatia, owned by Russia or Ukraine? 

 

I did notice your post (even liked it  ) and watched it today, good video imo. Thanks

[Sgt Joch]

3 hours ago, kraze said:

It's not like western companies didn't lose all that already when they left. It's already de facto, just not de jure yet.

So what russians will be left with is a bunch of empty buildings nobody will even be able to rent, what's with one dollar already selling for 1000 rubles right now.

Not sure why I have to give everyone a course in economics, western companies have huge investments in Russia, both financial and in major natural resources sites. This article alone lists roughly U.S. $400 billion in liquid assets currently trapped in Russia which includes U.S. $120 billion that Russian companies owed to western banks and another U.S. $80 billion in corporate bonds owed to foreign investors

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/stranded-assets-how-many-billions-are-stuck-russia-2022-03-03/

It is hard to get a handle on total western investment in Russia since much of it is hidden but it could easily top U.S. $1 trillion.

This should not be a surprise to anyone, the world economy is intertwined, there are Russian assets in the west that can be seized and western assets in Russia which can be seized. That is the nature of economic warfare.

I am not saying western sanctions won't hurt Russia, but we can't expect there won't be blowback in the west.

[Chibot Mk IX]

Russian Logistics for the Invasion of Ukraine

 

Quote

At SCM Globe we’re modeling the Russian logistics supporting their invasion of Ukraine. This supply chain model will be used by students studying military logistics at the Air Force Institute of Technology. This model is available in the online library for people interested in working with it (Invasion of Ukraine Ver 3_2_Mar 6).

A recent status report on the website of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), observed: “The Russians continued to attack piecemeal, committing a few battalion tactical groups at a time rather than concentrating overwhelming force to achieve decisive effects. Russian commanders appear to prefer opening up new lines of advance for regiment-sized operations…”

 

[akd]

Claim of another Su-34 down:

 

[Sgt Joch]

4 hours ago, BeondTheGrave said:

Russia nationalizing western property would be nice for them in the short term, but the kiss of death economically in the long run.

well it is not a question of IF they will do it, they are already doing it. Russia started freezing assets as soon as western sanctions were announced.

[Lethaface]

5 minutes ago, Hister said:

Also, what is the consensus of you guys - was the soviet era unmanned survaillance plane that crashed in Zagreb, Croatia, owned by Russia or Ukraine? 

No idea. Speculative Russia of course

Lol best to wait and find out, could be Russia testing the waters could be just a drone out of control from Russia. Could technically be Ukraine's drone, for whatever reason. Haven't seen any real info on it yet.

[kraze]

6 minutes ago, Sgt Joch said:

Not sure why I have to give everyone a course in economics, western companies have huge investments in Russia, both financial and in major natural resources sites. This article alone lists roughly U.S. $400 billion in liquid assets currently trapped in Russia which includes U.S. $120 billion that Russian companies owed to western banks and another U.S. $80 billion in corporate bonds owed to foreign investors

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/stranded-assets-how-many-billions-are-stuck-russia-2022-03-03/

It is hard to get a handle on total western investment in Russia since much of it is hidden but it could easily top U.S. $1 trillion.

This should not be a surprise to anyone, the world economy is intertwined, there are Russian assets in the west that can be seized and western assets in Russia which can be seized. That is the nature of economic warfare.

I am not saying western sanctions won't hurt Russia, but we can't expect there won't be blowback in the west.

Of course western companies that invested in Russia are suffering financially - but not because Russia is going to take their stuff.

Because most of that stuff is already worthless. It is what I'm saying.

[Battlefront.com]

13 minutes ago, akd said:

-BBC

Wow.  So THAT's their best idea to put forward?  Wow.

But what does this all mean?  Obviously it is pretext argument, but they've already started the war so you'd think this would have been the sort of nonsense we'd have seen weeks ago not now.  Yet they wouldn't be putting this out there if they didn't have some specific plan for what to do next.  Short of trying to use this as a justification for using bio/chem weapons on Ukraine, I can't come up with anything. 

If some sort of use of bio/chem is their plan... who do they think will buy into this obviously made up excuse?  Even if their false cover story were true (and it is not), there is nothing in International Law that allows the proactive use of bio/chem weapons against anybody.

Steve

[Hister]

9 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

I did notice your post (even liked it  ) and watched it today, good video imo. Thanks

Ah, my apologies then for double post!

[Bearstronaut]

12 minutes ago, sburke said:

According to one site I was looking at Russia had approx 20 officers at Major General level committed to the invasion.  That translates to 15% losses at this level in 15 days.  WTF?!  I think the highest ranking officer in the US killed in Iraq was a Colonel IIRC.

The highest ranking officer the US lost in the last 20 years of war was Major General Harold Greene who was killed by an insider attack in Afghanistan in 2014.

[DesertFox]

 

 

[db_zero]

28 minutes ago, Sgt Joch said:

Not sure why I have to give everyone a course in economics, western companies have huge investments in Russia, both financial and in major natural resources sites. This article alone lists roughly U.S. $400 billion in liquid assets currently trapped in Russia which includes U.S. $120 billion that Russian companies owed to western banks and another U.S. $80 billion in corporate bonds owed to foreign investors

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/stranded-assets-how-many-billions-are-stuck-russia-2022-03-03/

It is hard to get a handle on total western investment in Russia since much of it is hidden but it could easily top U.S. $1 trillion.

This should not be a surprise to anyone, the world economy is intertwined, there are Russian assets in the west that can be seized and western assets in Russia which can be seized. That is the nature of economic warfare.

I am not saying western sanctions won't hurt Russia, but we can't expect there won't be blowback in the west.

How much use will those liquid assets be if they can't access the global financial system? No doubt companies are going to have to eat the losses and don't expect the public to bail them out. They did business in Russia at their own risk. They knew who and what they were dealing with.

Some oligarchs have stated Russia is on a path back to 1917.

If Russia defaults and go the nationalization route nobody is going to do business with Russia for a least a decade. At this point I don't even know what scenario there is to get sanctions lifted. Even if Putin gets the boot the general consensus is who ever replaces him will be of the same system.

BTW:Russia is number 1 wheat exporter and Ukraine number 5 from what I've heard. Besides oil/gas, expect a big increase in food prices. Recession is on the horizon and I'm expecting the US housing market and the sky high home prices bidded up by interest rates kept artificially low for so long and rampant speculation to come crashing down.

The Fed who has kept rate too low for too long is out of bullets. The reason why the US  is now so keen on the digital dollar is it allows for real negative rates....

As one article succinctly put it-American at home will feel the effects of this war far more than they did when we were engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Edited March 11, 2022 by db_zero

[kraze]

15 minutes ago, sburke said:

According to one site I was looking at Russia had approx 20 officers at Major General level committed to the invasion.  That translates to 15% losses at this level in 15 days.  WTF?!  I think the highest ranking officer in the US killed in Iraq was a Colonel IIRC.

As stated before - it's very much a soviet army with a soviet C2.

So basically throw bodies at the problem until it's solved and use your big guys to herd those bodies at a said problem.

Literally like orcs in most fantasy works.