How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[asurob]

6 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Igor Girkin is calling it.

 

He needs to avoid 3rd story windows....

[mosuri]

13 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

If you think you're doing such a hot job, why are you talking about surrender?

Steve

Translation table Russian to English:

"We are not going to do X" = "We've already done X or are actively considering doing it"

"You are doing X" = "We are doing X (but haven't been caught doing it yet and are muddying the waters in preparation)"

[Huba]

They finally surrendered I think, question is on what terms.

[kraze]

31 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

What the poster meant was "separated in the minds of the DLPR population", not the reality of it being or not being part of Ukraine.

What do you know about the mentality of the people who remain in DPLR today?  Are they all brainwashed into thinking Russia is their savior and the rest of Ukraine is full of Nazis?

Steve

Pretty sure most of those that are left there do feel stockholm-syndrome "sympathy" towards russians, but only in that they don't mind living under the occupation. "It's good enough". Of course they don't feel actual loyalty to Russia as evidenced by absolutely cannon fodder performance and zero morale of "conscripts".

Edited May 16, 2022 by kraze

[Battlefront.com]

29 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Igor Girkin is calling it.

 

Not surprising, honestly, because he has been calling things fairly well lately.  Though it was very clear weeks ago that failure was the likely result.  Somewhere around the first week or so I concluded the offensive would fail because of two three things. 

1. the scope of the battle was likely in excess of Russia's resources
2. Russia had not suddenly learned how to wage war
3. I think Girkin put it really well so I'll just quote him:

Quote

And I cannot say that this result is unexpected for me. Quite the opposite. The art of war demands its adherents to strike in places where the enemy least expects it. In our case - the intention of the Russian command was so obvious, the terrain so beneficial for the defending side, and the balance of forces nearly identical for both sides, that… only our General Staff could count on a decisive success. 

If you combine these three things together with a defender that is shown itself to be an extremely difficult foe, the outcome was pretty much predetermined before the Donbas centric offensive started.

The smart thing for Russia would have been to go on the defensive.  Harbor it's existing resources and properly rebuild its burnt out units.  Shorten the front in a few places too.  Then dig in and try to figure out some well thought out strategic plan for continuing the war or ending it.

Of course Putin enforced his political will and now Russia is forced to stick remains of regular units with the remains of VDV, conscript women, and shoot anybody that refuses to fight.  Nice going Mr. Putin.

Steve

[FancyCat]

3 minutes ago, Huba said:

They finally surrendered I think, question is on what terms.

Obviously, I'm not ukrainian, but I think they did their duty and beyond, they deserve every chance at survival. 

I never got the Russians boasting about the Snake Island defenders surrendering instead of dying to the last person, don't you want your fellow citizens living (maybe to fight another day) or just simply living instead of dead? 

[Battlefront.com]

15 minutes ago, mosuri said:

Translation table Russian to English:

"We are not going to do X" = "We've already done X or are actively considering doing it"

"You are doing X" = "We are doing X (but haven't been caught doing it yet and are muddying the waters in preparation)"

Yup, Russian doublespeak is like a very common element in comedy.  Something like this...

"Where were you last night?"

"I wasn't murdering my neighbor."

"What?  Why did you say that, I never thought you were!  Wait, were you murdering your neighbor?"

"No, I already said I wasn't.  I don't now what's wrong with you.  Next you'll ask what I used to burn my clothes with when I got home."

Steve

[dan/california]

Azovstal deserves to echo down the ages as long as the Spartans at Thermopile have. As strong a stand as any in human history.  

[Vanir Ausf B]

8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The smart thing for Russia would have been to go on the defensive.  Harbor it's existing resources and properly rebuild its burnt out units.  Shorten the front in a few places too.  Then dig in and try to figure out some well thought out strategic plan for continuing the war or ending it.

Of course Putin enforced his political will and now Russia is forced to stick remains of regular units with the remains of VDV, conscript women, and shoot anybody that refuses to fight.  Nice going Mr. Putin.

The salient question remaining is how far can Putin kick the can down the road before he runs out of road.

 

[keas66]

I imagine we don't know the exact circumstances or mindset of the crew in the second BMP but  apart from Sheer Panic  - the behavior of these  Russians seems quite baffling at times :

 

 

[kraze]

21 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Obviously, I'm not ukrainian, but I think they did their duty and beyond, they deserve every chance at survival. 

I never got the Russians boasting about the Snake Island defenders surrendering instead of dying to the last person, don't you want your fellow citizens living (maybe to fight another day) or just simply living instead of dead? 

Because to russians surrendering equals high treason. Not because it is some kind of disgrace, but because it shows weakness. You can't be weak in underdeveloped barbaric societies like Russia is. During WW2 russians were killing POWs released from German captivity, "lucky" ones went to Gulag

Edited May 16, 2022 by kraze

[Huba]

It turns out that is is OK to pay for Russian gas in rubles after all - European Commission, France and Germany got it wrong at the first time. All is fine, nothing to see here. No English source yet, but the link below is Polish gov news agency, as credible as you get in Poland.

Unless this is some kine of a deal to get Hungary to accept oil sanctions, this is absolutely outrageous.

https://www.pap.pl/aktualnosci/news%2C1210313%2Czrodla-pap-ke-informuje-kraje-ue-jak-maja-placic-w-rublach-za-rosyjski-gaz

[womble]

39 minutes ago, mosuri said:

Translation table Russian to English:

"We are not going to do X" = "We've already done X or are actively considering doing it"

"You are doing X" = "We are doing X (but haven't been caught doing it yet and are muddying the waters in preparation)"

Add:

"We are doing X." == "We want to do X, but have screwed the pooch so badly that it's never going to happen now."

[dan/california]

Given Russian performance so far blind panic is a given. I also think they didn't realize it was a mine, maybe thought is was an ATGM, and decided to sprint for what they perceived as cover. It went about as well as the whole Russian campaign, and I don't think we can ask them for an AAR...

[Markus86]

2 minutes ago, Huba said:

It turns out that is is OK to pay for Russian gas in rubles after all - European Commission, France and Germany got it wrong at the first time. All is fine, nothing to see here. No English source yet, but the link below is Polish gov news agency, as credible as you get in Poland.

Unless this is some kine of a deal to get Hungary to accept oil sanctions, this is absolutely outrageous.

https://www.pap.pl/aktualnosci/news%2C1210313%2Czrodla-pap-ke-informuje-kraje-ue-jak-maja-placic-w-rublach-za-rosyjski-gaz

Perfectly fits Mr. Erdogan stating that Turkey refuses Sweden and Finland joining Nato. What a day ... 

https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-05-16-22/h_cdf7ee1ea688fc1bd97c27046dc02c14

[Armorgunner]

@kraze @Haiduk What the hell is happening at Azovstal? Is it a prisoner exchange? Are they shipping away their wounded to the russians, for treatment ( They all died of their wounds). Or whats happening?

Edit: Slava Ukraini

Edited May 16, 2022 by Armorgunner

[dan/california]

 

11 minutes ago, Armorgunner said:

@kraze What the hell is happening at Azovstal? Is it a prisoner exchange? Are they shipping away their wounded to the russians, for treatment ( They all died of their wounds). Or whats happening?

Edit: Slava Ukraini

I have a VERY fragmentary impression that their is an attempt to exchange some or all of the Azovstal wounded for Rusian POWs. Again based on Very fragmentary information, and it is in process, and who the bleep knows if it will work, ect. They are all heroes, just hope they live to have lots of grandkids.

[Armorgunner]

Just now, dan/california said:

 

I have a VERY fragmentary impression that their is an attempt to exchange some or all of the Azovstal wounded for Rusian POWs. Again based on Very fragmentary information, and it is in process, and who the bleep knows if it will work, ect. They are all heroes, just hope they live to have lots of grandkids.

Really hope you are right!! Or even better, that there is a big prisoner exchange. Where all in azovstal can go back behind Ukraine lines. Get food, and treatment! Russia wants to call out a victory, so its not impossible, right?

[kraze]

21 minutes ago, Armorgunner said:

@kraze @Haiduk What the hell is happening at Azovstal? Is it a prisoner exchange? Are they shipping away their wounded to the russians, for treatment ( They all died of their wounds). Or whats happening?

Edit: Slava Ukraini

Exchanging heavily wounded soldiers for russian POWs most likely. But let's wait for an official statement.

[FancyCat]

Not too concerned about Germany, Italy, France being cowardly at this time, dunno about France or Italy, but Germany's coalition government is divided, Ukraine can pull public opinion levers in the same manner it did for the heavy weaponry, the Greens and opposition look like they are willing to hit Scholz in the face for political gain. Eastern Europe holds firm behind Ukraine, the UK, the U.S the same.  

But this does underscore, Ukraine does not have all day to pursue the liberation of all Ukrainian territory. A stalemate will have Ukraine win eventually but. Nobody likes supporting a stalemate. Everybody can support a winner. But I have no doubt there are still doubters who think Russia can hold and cause a repeat of the Donbas. If Germany, France and Italy think Russia can still cause a stalemate, they don't want to be forced away from Russian gas and oil forever. 

The longer that war continues, the more likely the states cannot back off a ban, which has not yet occurred. Therefore, a ceasefire that in their minds was always going to occur due to a stalemate happens sooner, "saves lives" and avoids the difficult problem of supporting Ukraine further and having to ban energy imports from Russia.

I think Ukraine needs to finish this war by the end of the year. Ukraine must pursue offensives despite costing lives earlier than later, than let Russia regain initiative diplomatically and argue for ceasefire and solidification of the lines. 

[Armorgunner]

2 minutes ago, kraze said:

Exchanging heavily wounded soldiers for russian POWs most likely. But let's wait for an official statement.

Thanks! We wait, for official statement then

[Battlefront.com]

Great numbers run through by Kofman:

As more and more evidence has come out that Russia went in way under strength, the estimates that Ukraine has made for Russian lost is either too high (if it is just KIA) or too low (if it is KIA+WIA+MIA).

It seems that Russia's initial force entering Ukraine was significantly smaller than intel estimates because they also overestimated effective strength of those units.  Basically, incorrectly counting how many BTGs and then incorrectly estimating what their starting strength was produces an overall force number that isn't accurate.  Then there's the whole probably of factoring in DLPR and Rosgvardia to consider.

Roughly speaking, it looks like the nearly 200k estimated starting force was really more like 150k for just regular Russian military.  The reinforcements scraped from all over Russia as BTGs or single replacements might be around 15k in total because they, like the already committed forces, were very understrength.  Add in roughly 20k for DLPR and maybe another 5k for Rosgvardia and we get a total force of around 190k committed to the ground war so far.

If we use Kofman's 12k KIA figure and his 3.5 WIA ratio, then we get the following:

190k starting force
6% KIA
22% WIA
--------
28% overall casualty rate

Given that roughly half of the invasion force likely didn't get exposed to combat, then combat units might be around 50% casualties with some portion coming back after light wounds/injuries treated.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

But this does underscore, Ukraine does not have all day to pursue the liberation of all Ukrainian territory. A stalemate will have Ukraine win eventually but. Nobody likes supporting a stalemate. Everybody can support a winner. But I have no doubt there are still doubters who think Russia can hold and cause a repeat of the Donbas. If Germany, France and Italy think Russia can still cause a stalemate, they don't want to be forced away from Russian gas and oil forever. 

The longer that war continues, the more likely the states cannot back off a ban, which has not yet occurred. Therefore, a ceasefire that in their minds was always going to occur due to a stalemate happens sooner, "saves lives" and avoids the difficult problem of supporting Ukraine further and having to ban energy imports from Russia.

This is where Russia is coming to Ukraine's rescue!  If Russia had tried to do a proper refit and reassessment after pulling out of northern Ukraine, then there would be a lot more Russians to defeat going into the Summer.  But nope, Vlad wanted his trophy for Most Valuable Leader and they half assed the second part of the war as badly as the first.

The way I see it, the West could keep buying Russian energy at prewar levels, in whatever currency Russia requires, and it won't matter one bit at the front.  Russia's primary problem right now is its military has been worn out and they have no effective way to rebuild it.  I don't see Western sanctions on Russia's defense industry loosening up no matter what.

What I'm saying here is that I think Ukraine is already out of the danger zone of having Western support falter enough to give Russia any hope of stalemate.

Presuming there is no systemic Russian military collapse (which I still say is very possible, even more so today than several months ago):

I think Ukraine is well on track to retake all the ground lost since the start of the war except maybe the bit north of Luhansk as it's contiguous to LPR and right up against the Russian border.  Should be pretty easy to keep that reinforced.

Retaking Crimea was pretty much never on the table unless Russia fell into a civil war, and even then it would be tough.  Retaking the rest of the Donbas was off the table in my view, however Russia's insistence on wasting the DLPR forces might open up some doors for Ukraine.

Steve

[sburke]

damn.  That's no way to treat your goddaughter.

Putin brands his own goddaughter as a ‘foreign agent’ for ‘working with his enemies’ throughout the Ukraine war (msn.com)

[womble]

Currently, I'm optimistic that the Russians have done such a bang-up job of being the baddies (invading their neighbouring sovereign nation by force of arms, atrocities, threats of armageddon and broadening the conflict, atrocities, being lying liars, atrocities, oppressing their own press and people, atrocities on the ground, war crimes, effective nationalisation of international corporation assets and more atrocities) that "Europe" is belatedly remembering what happened last time an autocrat got spicy with their neighbours in Europe and everyone made excuses in order to carry on "business as usual".

The flight from Russian energy is likely permanent, or at least the reliance upon that energy will be gone for good (so, at best, Russia will be competing in a more open market, as the supply issues from other locales will be "solved problems") and everyone will know just how scary it is to be reliant on the goodwill of a homicidal maniac. And, as Steve said, no one is going to be keen on handing said maniac a replacement gun for the one that the heroes of Ukraine have so ably taken off him.