How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Beleg85]

10 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

I saw a projection of the nuclear plume that would come from the nuke plant, going N/NE and into Poland.  I hope Poland is warning Putin that he will be facing the Polish military in Ukraine if he decides to poison them. 

Putin is desperate already and will become increasingly so as he tries to find his way out of the mess he made.  So we could be in for a wild ride.  Hopefully he is being warned that escalation on his end will bring escalation from those affected.  And he will only escalate if he thinks it can help, so knowing it will make things worse will hopefully work.

Not gonna happen; we work as a team in NATO and all reactions of this level are made collectively. Btw. today another wannabe agent who tried to spy for Russians data about weapons transfer was reportedly arrested.

I sincerely hope Putin is just blackmailing with nuclear PP; however, the scale of provocations unpleasantly remind me of provocations he run just before 24 February.

Edited August 18, 2022 by Beleg85

[Haiduk]

19 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Ok, today's night harvest so far:

Stary Oskol airfield, Belgorod- ammo depot or something more.

Timonovo depot, Belgorod- exploded.

AA working around Kerch (for first time?), reportedly drone shot down. Possible Ukrainains are probing defences.

Unconfirmed Balbek airfield explosions.

Further Nova Kakhovka strikes

Something exploding close to Enerhodar (Russian provocations?)

 

A busy night. Ukrianians social media accounts seem to have a festival.

Add to this night strike on 17-18th Aug on Amvrossivka, Donetsk oblast - 72 km from nearest part of frontline and 44 km SE from Donetsk

 

 

 And Stakhanov (Kaddivka), Luhansk oblast

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Haiduk

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Beleg85 said:

Yup two-ways learning is very interesting topic for future, especially regarding specialists who saw combat at Ukraine, like tankers, ATGM operators, pilots etc. There are apparantly at least several decorated "panzer Aces" in ZSU with 10+ kills; I recall interview with one such guy by Mateusz Lachowski. 1.60 m high, rather shy tanker of maybe 20 years old who reportedly decimated entire Russian BTG near Mikolaiev. Now such guy has probably more armoured combat experience  than 95% of living NATO tank veterans of any conflict after Gulf War. Discussions about tactics and tricks may be very interesting for them.

US Army trainers repeatedly stated how impressed they were with their Ukrainian trainees and felt that, in the end, they might have learned as much from them as they taught the Ukrainians.

The major focus of the training I've read about is on junior leadership, cohesion, and other things which differentiate professional soldiers from ordinary soldiers.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

I never fault people for taking some time off from this thread, but I do hope Grigb comes back to give us a survey of the RU Nats' opinion on all these strikes.  Surely the "they are just a nuisance" excuse is long since worn out.

I agree the drone over Kerch was likely to probe defenses there.  Based on the video it was a fairly high altitude drone.  I think that indicates that Ukraine has some long range drone capability that we haven't seen officially acknowledged.

Steve

[Harmon Rabb]

24 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

US Army trainers repeatedly stated how impressed they were with their Ukrainian trainees and felt that, in the end, they might have learned as much from them as they taught the Ukrainians.

The major focus of the training I've read about is on junior leadership, cohesion, and other things which differentiate professional soldiers from ordinary soldiers.

Steve

 I'm confident when the time is right Ukraine will make a great addition to the NATO alliance.

Edited August 18, 2022 by Harmon Rabb

[Huba]

1 hour ago, Beleg85 said:

Yup two-ways learning is very interesting topic for future, especially regarding specialists who saw combat at Ukraine, like tankers, ATGM operators, pilots etc. There are apparantly at least several decorated "panzer Aces" in ZSU with 10+ kills; I recall interview with one such guy by Mateusz Lachowski. 1.60 m high, rather shy tanker of maybe 20 years old who reportedly decimated entire Russian BTG near Mikolaiev. Now such guy has probably more armoured combat experience  than 95% of living NATO tank veterans of any conflict after Gulf War. Discussions about tactics and tricks may be very interesting for them.

I read that US was the most interested about experiences of CB radar operators - some of these guys, having used the US supplied radars since AFAIR 2015 have to be absolutely top notch, compared to anybody in the world.

[danfrodo]

14 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I never fault people for taking some time off from this thread, but I do hope Grigb comes back to give us a survey of the RU Nats' opinion on all these strikes.  Surely the "they are just a nuisance" excuse is long since worn out.

I agree the drone over Kerch was likely to probe defenses there.  Based on the video it was a fairly high altitude drone.  I think that indicates that Ukraine has some long range drone capability that we haven't seen officially acknowledged.

Steve

hopefully it will make every AD battery in crimea trigger-happy and lots of RU air assets will become ground assets 

[Huba]

Cracked me up real good:

Also, a Soviet joke that is unrelated but also made me laugh today:

- Why bees have a queen and not a first secretary?
- Cause they want to make honey, not s**t.

Edited August 18, 2022 by Huba

[Letter from Prague]

19 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I never fault people for taking some time off from this thread, but I do hope Grigb comes back to give us a survey of the RU Nats' opinion on all these strikes.  Surely the "they are just a nuisance" excuse is long since worn out.

I agree the drone over Kerch was likely to probe defenses there.  Based on the video it was a fairly high altitude drone.  I think that indicates that Ukraine has some long range drone capability that we haven't seen officially acknowledged.

Steve

I just thought about that as well. Hope all is well with Grigb.

As for the drone, TB2 definitely has the range, the ground station for "online control" has range limits but you can preprogram it to path that takes it out of that control. No idea about altitude.

It seems kinda expensive to sacrifice TB2 for a probe, though. Maybe they have some decoy drones available?

[Ultradave]

Here's a link to the latest IAEA statement on the nuclear power plant situation. Concern. Good that all the safeguards data is being received, but that's not really the major concern. 

For review, when they discuss safeguards, they aren't talking about the safety of the plant. What they are talking about is monitoring facilities to ensure that nuclear material (for example, spent fuel) is not diverted for "other" uses. All nuclear plants have them. Saying that, new fuel is a poor material for say, a dirty bomb, and impossible for a nuclear weapon. Spent fuel is so highly radioactive that while it might make material for a dirty bomb, handling it to do so would be incredibly difficult and dangerous, requiring a lot of special equipment and shielding. And while there is Pu in spent fuel, the processes to extract it are only owned by a few countries. 

The bigger danger by far is significant damage to the plant, which could cause a radiation leak. Breaching both the containment and the reactor vessel is not too probable. More likely disabling safety systems that control spent fuel pool cooling (a la Fukushima), leading to the breakdown of the fuel and radiation release.

https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-91-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine

Dave

[Battlefront.com]

1 minute ago, Letter from Prague said:

I just thought about that as well. Hope all is well with Grigb.

As for the drone, TB2 definitely has the range, the ground station for "online control" has range limits but you can preprogram it to path that takes it out of that control. No idea about altitude.

It seems kinda expensive to sacrifice TB2 for a probe, though. Maybe they have some decoy drones available?

That was my thinking.  If it was a TB2 then they must have written it off before launch, which is possible.  But now that I think about it some more, a TB2 is more likely than a new long range drone they would not have used it on a (probably) suicidal mission.

Steve

[quakerparrot67]

15 hours ago, Blazing 88's said:

Ouch, did I touch a nerve? Bunch of Biden bashing going on,thought I'd help the fella out a bit... you know throw one trump cow pie into it. Just for prosperity. Nothing more.

 i think the word you're looking for is 'posterity' but otherwise i agree with you 100%, blazing.

 

cheers,

rob

 

[Huba]

21 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

That was my thinking.  If it was a TB2 then they must have written it off before launch, which is possible.  But now that I think about it some more, a TB2 is more likely than a new long range drone they would not have used it on a (probably) suicidal mission.

Steve

My thoughts exactly. I wonder though, what would be gathering the data, given the distance from UA lines? There has to be a NATO bird(s) over the Black Sea now.

Edit:

Infographic approved by Henry Schlottman. According to it, RU will run out of major artillery ammunition at the beginning of 2023:

Edit2:

I think it wasn't brought up here yet, but UA purchased it's own SAR satellite:

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Huba

[acrashb]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

It costs a lot more to train Ukrainian soldiers in the UK than it does in Ukraine.  It seems the Russian attacks on Ukrainian training centers are significant enough that relocation was deemed necessary.

On top of what everyone else has mentioned (e.g., safeguarding trainers, two-way information flow, relationship building, etc.), there are also facilities.

Training, for example, unit cohesion is both theory and practice, and practice is better done with good facilities than an open field.  CQB is a lot better with 360-degree shoot houses (not that CQB is decisive in this conflict) vs. a 180-degree outdoor range, urban fight a lot better with a fake city vs. whatever the UA has for training.

And this type of embedment creates long-lasting ties, personal, military, and societal.  When this is all over, UA will be much better positioned to integrate with Western forces / NATO, which is the obvious end game.

Worth every penny.

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by acrashb

[Vet 0369]

23 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yeah, I know this isn't how Russians think and there's no way they will any time soon.  Their critical thinking has been conditioned to be in the "off" position to a much larger extent than in Western countries.  It's going to take a couple of generations of better leadership to change that.  Hopefully the start time for it isn't that far off.

Steve

I’m sorry Steve, I usually agree with your historical insights, but as an Historian myself, I don’t agree with this assessment. The majority of Russian population was emancipated from Serfdom (basically slavery bound to the land with no more “rights than other chattel such as livestock) just 160 years ago by Tsar Alexander II, as the last of the “European” countries to ban Serfdom. Just over 50 years later, they effectively became “chattel” again under Lenin until just 32 years-ago when the Soviet Union dissolved . How long in total have the majority of the Russian populations, with the exception of the “intelligencia” and criminals been allowed to practice free-thought and free-speech without fear of punishment by those who rule them? I contend that the Russian people are so ingrained psychologically to think and act as the Serfs they have been for literally thousands of years that we can’t compare the majority of Russian people to those of the U.S. Even the existing Western Democracies such as The UK, France, Germany, and others that had Serfdom are much more inclined psychologically to accept decisions of their leaders than those troublemaking “Yankees!” (Notice I didn’t say “Americans” or “North Americans” as I consider all residents of the Continents of North and South America to be “Americans.”)

[Huba]

3 minutes ago, acrashb said:

On top of what everyone else has mentioned (e.g., safeguarding trainers, two-way information flow, relationship building, etc.), there are also facilities.

Training, for example, unit cohesion is both theory and practice, and practice is better done with good facilities than an open field.  CQB is a lot better with 360-degree shoot houses (not that CQB is decisive in this conflict) vs. a 180-degree outdoor range, urban fight a lot better with a fake city vs. whatever the UA has for training.

And this type of embedment creates long-lasting ties, personal, military, and societal.  When this is all over, UA will be much better positioned to integrate with Western forces / NATO, which is the obvious end game.

Worth every penny.

And the most obvious thing that somehow was not mentioned: while it is expensive to train UA troops in the UK, deploying NATO trainers in Ukraine in numbers is simply politically not possible at this point. Every soldier trained in UK adds to UA own training capacity.

[Battlefront.com]

Washington Post article on The Wagner Group.  Some interesting background info, but most here probably know as much as was reported.  Good to see this in the mainstream press.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/17/ukraine-russia-wagner-group-mercenaries/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F37af112%2F62fe60de1930ae1d20548bb3%2F5b6a1f5bade4e277958a3cb5%2F12%2F72%2F62fe60de1930ae1d20548bb3&wp_cu=e17d566bfc90044414eb36edd5675ce3|72E0F70E3B4B42CEE0530100007F2E01

[danfrodo]

47 minutes ago, Huba said:

My thoughts exactly. I wonder though, what would be gathering the data, given the distance from UA lines? There has to be a NATO bird(s) over the Black Sea now.

Edit:

Infographic approved by Henry Schlottman. According to it, RU will run out of major artillery ammunition at the beginning of 2023:

Edit2:

I think it wasn't brought up here yet, but UA purchased it's own SAR satellite:

 

Huba bringing the goods, thanks for sharing this.  So it might not be our imagination that RU simply cannot keep up its only current advantage, which is WW1 style arty destruction.  They are losing LOCs, depots, barrels, and don't have the manufacturing to keep up.  With RU arty levels already down ~50% of peak of 12k per day, this is looking good.

 

[Beleg85]

53 minutes ago, Huba said:

Infographic approved by Henry Schlottman. According to it, RU will run out of major artillery ammunition at the beginning of 2023:

I think those calculations say it will last 23 months, so they will not run out till next fall - 2023. Not very heartworming, I need to admitt; however is does not take into account ammo quality, effects of corruption, calibre and dozens other factors. By that time Russians can also run several ammo production facilities extra.

 

A thread about Russians hiding at power plant:

https://twitter.com/trbrtc/status/1560380984255717378

 

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Beleg85 said:

Not gonna happen; we work as a team in NATO and all reactions of this level are made collectively.

Well yes and no.  NATO is a defensive alliance that is designed around the idea of collective response to an attack.  NATO has played a role in UNSCR Ch VII missions, which were essentially military interventions; however, this was done under UN mandate and UNSC blessing.

As the US demonstrated very aptly in 2001-2003, a NATO nation may act independently in its own defence - there is nothing in NATO restraining a nation from defensive action.  But here is where it gets trickier as diplomatic pressure is normally applied to try and keep a nation in line - this just happened with Turkey and the whole Sweden/Finland thing.

Further all of the weapons and training support to Ukraine has been done bilaterally, or multilaterally (I.e. 5 EYES), there is no named NATO mission in that country (plenty around them in the Baltics).

So what?  If Poland decides that it is directly threatened by Russia, it can 1) go independently or with a “coalition of the willing” outside of the NATO framework and engage in direct military operations in it defence against Russia, or 2) declare and article 5, and we are likely looking at WW3.  The level of pressure to prevent Poland from doing either of those things will be very high because neither are going help keep the war contained.

 A release of radioactive material, which is basically weaponization of nuclear power, would likely cross that threshold.  My fear here is that Russia has demonstrated a baffling level of lack of awareness of the situation.  In the old hybrid warfare mentality the release of radioactive fallout against your opponent and then creating enough doubt around it (see: The Capt’s rants on null decision space), that one’s opponents become paralyzed is straight out of the play book.  Problem is that Russia does not realize that it is no longer in Kansas anymore and basically if I stub my toe getting a glass of water in Europe right now, I am going to blame the Russians.

This is where miscalculations can get out of hand very quickly.  Normally a self-aware nation would see that in Russias position escalation is not in their favour.  For example a massive radioactive release could easily lead to Ukraine receiving an order of magnitude more HIMARs and ATACMS along with the “fill your boots lads” blessing from the US to start hitting Moscow….whoops.  Or a nuclear power plant in Russia suddenly experiencing a workplace “cigarette” accident.

Normally I would assume that saner heads will prevail and the grown ups in Russia would put the kibosh on this whole idea, but Russia has displayed the strategic acumen of a spoiled teenager so far in this war.

We shall see.

[Battlefront.com]

56 minutes ago, Huba said:

My thoughts exactly. I wonder though, what would be gathering the data, given the distance from UA lines? There has to be a NATO bird(s) over the Black Sea now.

Edit:

Infographic approved by Henry Schlottman. According to it, RU will run out of major artillery ammunition at the beginning of 2023:

 

 

That was a good read.  If his starting data is roughly accurate, this confirms what we've speculated on here... Russia's not running out of artillery shells for quite some time.  However, I think the analysis didn't address some of the topics raised here:

• what percentage of the stored ammo is no longer useful (duds or unstable)?  Certainly some portion of that 15m starting figure falls into that category
• different calibers are at play and are unlikely to be stored in quantities proportionally equal to their use.  This could cause some systems to run out sooner than others or add additional logistics challenges.  We saw this with DLRP's 122mm artillery
• I'd bet a wheelbarrow full of Rubles that the 15m count includes shells for outdated weapons systems, such as 100mm or perhaps even 76mm
• does this 15m count include rocket rounds?  Bean counters are notoriously sloppy about how they categorize artillery, so it's possible this further complicates the supply calculation

These factors reduce the theoretical artillery shell supply for by some amount that we can't possibly calculate.  Cumulatively, though, it is likely to be significant.  This could mean that effective artillery support for Russian forces isn't 11 months from ending, it could be... 9 months?  Again, impossible to say, but it would be hard to argue that the points I've raised are rounding errors.  For all we know half of what remains might not be usable for one or more reasons.

I think he also undersells the difficulty getting to the bottom of the pile of ammo crates.  A lot of it is likely to be in remote areas and in a state that doesn't lend itself to easy transport.  From some pictures I've seen the wooden crates are completely rotted out.  This is going to slow down removal from places that are already a long distance from the front.  The poor condition also increases the chances of an accidental explosion, which could result in thousands or tens of thousands of shells going BOOM.  This might be a rounding error today, but in 5 or 6 months it could be a significant percentage of whatever remains.

The author raised a bunch of other good points, though I disagree about the importance of armored fighting vehicles for Ukraine's victory.  I think they should get more and better AFVs sent to them, but I think they can win without them.  The war Ukraine is successfully waging doesn't require them for their victory.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

11 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

I think those calculations say it will last 23 months, so they will not run out till next fall - 2023. Not very heartworming, I need to admitt; however is does not take into account ammo quality, effects of corruption, calibre and dozens other factors. By that time Russians can also run several ammo production facilities extra.

 

Heh... nicely posted while I slaved away on my post

About the production lines, let's keep in mind that as sanctions really sink their teeth into the Russian economy there's going to be less available for things like increasing ammunition production capacity.  Making new machinery takes time and resources.  I doubt they have the time and resources, even for common things like steel, are going to start suffering due to compounding maintenance and support problems. 

Putin can keep prioritizing war needs over the population's for only so long.  Commercial activities increase government revenue, wartime activities mostly decrease it.

Steve

[The_Capt]

51 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

I’m sorry Steve, I usually agree with your historical insights, but as an Historian myself, I don’t agree with this assessment. The majority of Russian population was emancipated from Serfdom (basically slavery bound to the land with no more “rights than other chattel such as livestock) just 160 years ago by Tsar Alexander II, as the last of the “European” countries to ban Serfdom. Just over 50 years later, they effectively became “chattel” again under Lenin until just 32 years-ago when the Soviet Union dissolved . How long in total have the majority of the Russian populations, with the exception of the “intelligencia” and criminals been allowed to practice free-thought and free-speech without fear of punishment by those who rule them? I contend that the Russian people are so ingrained psychologically to think and act as the Serfs they have been for literally thousands of years that we can’t compare the majority of Russian people to those of the U.S. Even the existing Western Democracies such as The UK, France, Germany, and others that had Serfdom are much more inclined psychologically to accept decisions of their leaders than those troublemaking “Yankees!” (Notice I didn’t say “Americans” or “North Americans” as I consider all residents of the Continents of North and South America to be “Americans.”)

Hmm, not sure this matches observed history to be honest.  We had a conversation awhile back on Russia culture and it influence on this war and obviously there are some very strong opinions.

I don’t think it is easy to paint any culture in one monotone colour, internal divisions and stressors exist in far more closed cultures that Russia (eg NK), it is human nature.  We in North America have a proud tradition of lemming [I know it is a myth but just put that aside: insert Marlin Perkins meme] behaviours.  Ours come from religion and sub-cultures - we convinced ourselves that slavery was a good idea and that God supported it- that have been just as restrictive as any autocratic government.  In fact these “norms” can be more tyrannical than any one leader - plenty of evidence of that.  Also there is the fact that Russia has had 2 major revolutions and a pretty nasty Civil War in 20th century, so I am not all onboard that they are “sheeple”.

I do believe that Russia appears to have a bit of an addiction to autocrats, democracy has never really stuck in that nation.  We discussed this previously and I don’t think there was a consensus as to why.  I suspect Russians are a product of their environment, so a weird collection of outsiders who have been invaded repeatedly likely has a role to play in them embracing strongmen leaders.

Regardless, based on history the Russians can definitely “awaken” and pretty violently.  The real question is “what will it take for that to happen?”, followed by “does this insane war qualify?”.  And then finally, “do we need to help that happen sooner than later?”

[Huba]

28 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

That was a good read.  If his starting data is roughly accurate, this confirms what we've speculated on here... Russia's not running out of artillery shells for quite some time.  However, I think the analysis didn't address some of the topics raised here:

• what percentage of the stored ammo is no longer useful (duds or unstable)?  Certainly some portion of that 15m starting figure falls into that category
• different calibers are at play and are unlikely to be stored in quantities proportionally equal to their use.  This could cause some systems to run out sooner than others or add additional logistics challenges.  We saw this with DLRP's 122mm artillery
• I'd bet a wheelbarrow full of Rubles that the 15m count includes shells for outdated weapons systems, such as 100mm or perhaps even 76mm
• does this 15m count include rocket rounds?  Bean counters are notoriously sloppy about how they categorize artillery, so it's possible this further complicates the supply calculation

These factors reduce the theoretical artillery shell supply for by some amount that we can't possibly calculate.  Cumulatively, though, it is likely to be significant.  This could mean that effective artillery support for Russian forces isn't 11 months from ending, it could be... 9 months?  Again, impossible to say, but it would be hard to argue that the points I've raised are rounding errors.  For all we know half of what remains might not be usable for one or more reasons.

I think he also undersells the difficulty getting to the bottom of the pile of ammo crates.  A lot of it is likely to be in remote areas and in a state that doesn't lend itself to easy transport.  From some pictures I've seen the wooden crates are completely rotted out.  This is going to slow down removal from places that are already a long distance from the front.  The poor condition also increases the chances of an accidental explosion, which could result in thousands or tens of thousands of shells going BOOM.  This might be a rounding error today, but in 5 or 6 months it could be a significant percentage of whatever remains.

The author raised a bunch of other good points, though I disagree about the importance of armored fighting vehicles for Ukraine's victory.  I think they should get more and better AFVs sent to them, but I think they can win without them.  The war Ukraine is successfully waging doesn't require them for their victory.

Steve

I just finished going through the whole thread now, but I see all the comments were made already

If the war lasts for say 1 more year, it can easily get to the industrial competition between countries supporting UA and Russia, which the latter will undoubtedly loose. As @Beleg85 mentioned, the math points to end of 2023, but that is for general lack of shells. As you wrote, some stuff will run out much earlier, depriving RU of some crucial capabilities. Apart from Iskanders and Tochkas ( about which we already aren't hearing much lately...) I'd be looking at BM-30 especially, the only real 50+ km system at RU disposal. In contrast, comparably simplistic math tells US that us has about 13 months worth of GMLRS supply with expenditure of 100/ day, not counting the ongoing manufacturing (with UA expenditure being considerably lower than that in my opinion). This looks really hopeless for RU in the long term.

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Huba

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Vet 0369 said:

I’m sorry Steve, I usually agree with your historical insights, but as an Historian myself, I don’t agree with this assessment. The majority of Russian population was emancipated from Serfdom (basically slavery bound to the land with no more “rights than other chattel such as livestock) just 160 years ago by Tsar Alexander II, as the last of the “European” countries to ban Serfdom. Just over 50 years later, they effectively became “chattel” again under Lenin until just 32 years-ago when the Soviet Union dissolved . How long in total have the majority of the Russian populations, with the exception of the “intelligencia” and criminals been allowed to practice free-thought and free-speech without fear of punishment by those who rule them? I contend that the Russian people are so ingrained psychologically to think and act as the Serfs they have been for literally thousands of years that we can’t compare the majority of Russian people to those of the U.S. Even the existing Western Democracies such as The UK, France, Germany, and others that had Serfdom are much more inclined psychologically to accept decisions of their leaders than those troublemaking “Yankees!” (Notice I didn’t say “Americans” or “North Americans” as I consider all residents of the Continents of North and South America to be “Americans.”)

I'm fine with you disagreeing with me when we disagree, but I'm not seeing it

There's always a percentage of Humans that are wired to value straight forward, simple answers to even the most complex questions.  That is what autocrats promise to provide, therefore there's always a percentage that is actively seeking an autocrat to be in charge of their lives.  The cultural experience with democracy can reduce the number of people that fall prey to this thinking and minimize how likely they are to act on their impulses, but it will never go down to zero.  Gut calculations put it at about 15% minimum in even the most advanced democratic society.  Anything less than that and the number goes up.

What we've seen in Eastern Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union is that nations can shift their populations' thinking within a couple of generations.  Including the Baltics, which basically have been slaves of the Russian state for hundreds of years.  So it could happen in Russia as well, but it can't even start down that road until they get at least a dysfunctional representative system of government that lasts more than a few years before going back into the sewer.

Steve