How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

So if anyone wants to take a break from this entire Poland missile thing - 

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/war-not-an-excuse-ukraine-rail-boss-keeps-trains-running-1.6155075

So this is the kind of thing that I look for with respect to metrics.  If you are in the process of invading a nation it is normally a really good idea to directly attack and degrade its ability to defend itself.  Russia has clearly demonstrated the intent and capability, what it appears to lack is expertise, or perhaps the ability to unify that expertise - but my big question since this started is "why"?  The general answer has been a lot of eye-rolling "well Russia is just dumb" but how they are "dumb" is important to my mind - what is their epistemological failure-engine being driven by?

In this war Russia has expended a LOT of high priced long range missile hardware - https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2022/october/lessons-russian-missile-performance-ukraine.  It is noted that they are likely having very high failure rates; however, this is further compounded by shortfalls in Russian ISR that allows for precise targeting even assuming all the missiles work.  

But there is more.  We have been bouncing a hypothesis around this forum on how a lot of this war is about Russian identity and its place in the world - that internal political dimension definitely plays a role, at least in Putin's calculus.  Further it is about Russian identity relative to Ukraine - this would be akin to the US invading Canada and losing (again, *ahem 1813*), the collective identity impacts would be severe.  However, we have also suspected that those "identity biased assumptions" have been driving the progress of this war - from the wildly overambitious opening moves, to the re-set of objectives and responses.  In fact it was demonstrated that poor strategic assumptions were a factor for Russia, even back in 2014.

So what?  Well the complete failure to effectively degrade Ukrainian rail is another potential peice of evidence that support that central hypothesis.  Russia has focused its limited long range fires capability on terror strikes, and now it finally appears to be focusing on civilian power infrastructure to keep the heat and lights out.  The central Russian premise appears to be that Ukrainian collective will is vulnerable and all they need to do is keep hitting it towards failure.  Somehow just one more hard push and the Ukrainian resolve will falter - this is nuts at this point in the war.  I have brought up relative rationality before and Russia clearly is suffering from it.  To the point that it is driving their military targeting enterprise.  Russia should theoretically be able to cripple the Ukrainian rail infrastructure.  Railways do not move, their supporting infrastructure is impossible to hide - one can see it from Google Earth.  If Russia had done that, the ability of Ukraine to conduct two simultaneous operational offensives separated by over 400 kms would have been severely challenged. Ukraine having a rail system able to sustain an "85% success rate" (something I know the UK would find impossible to do right now in peacetime, having just suffered their rail system) should not be possible at this point in a war this large - especially when their opponent has the ability to hit the full range of their nation. 

So, so what?  This is less about Russian targeting "sucking" - although their missile failure rates definitely point to that, this is about Russian decision making being 1) rigid well past the point of general rationality, and 2) built on flawed assumptions more about them than the reality on the ground.  For those who have been following this thread throughout the war I understand that this is not really news, but it does lead to a series of indicators and warnings we should be watching out for in case Russia actually figures out that its assumptions are completely broken.  However, I also suspect that they are well past the point of return regardless - too many losses and failures along with the continued corrosion of the RA means that even if they did figure it out now, it is likely already too late to change the trajectory of this war. 

I already have a book title in mind - "A warm, dark, smelly, but safe place - How Russia went to War with Its Head Up its Own Bum."

[Beleg85]

23 minutes ago, kraze said:

russian missiles were mass flying right in that area. An area which has power lines coming from Poland, severing which would be very in line with russian goals. So c and d are doubtful considering other variables.

We know where was closest Russian missile get landing/shot down? These lines are not crucial and of auxiliary use in case energy get disrupted, one expert had a detailed thread about it.

23 minutes ago, kraze said:

shooting down Kaczynskyi's plane.

Case is investigated thoroughly for 10 years already. Zero evidence for this except sick theories of his brother, even more level-headed PiS followers admitt it now.

Edited November 16, 2022 by Beleg85

[Huba]

39 minutes ago, kraze said:

russian missiles were mass flying right in that area. An area which has power lines coming from Poland, severing which would be very in line with russian goals. So c and d are doubtful considering other variables.

Now if it was a russian missile there will be no response, just like there's no response for russian terrorist act in UK that resulted in deaths of two British citizens or killing 300 people in MH17 or shooting down Kaczynskyi's plane. Anything short of russian invasion will be downplayed for the sake of avoiding bigger war and that's exactly what happened today.

I mean russians have been doing things that couldn't be written off as accidents should the victim decided not to do it, all 3 examples above were very deliberate and a lot worse than what happened yesterday.

Nord stream attack wasn't accidental either.

With all due respect kraze, this one thing is not about Ukraine, and taking this position only harms your cause at the moment. What happened, happened, nobody will hold it against you, but avoiding responsibility and hiding behind a conspiracy is 100% counterproductive, and can quickly lead to a diplomatic crisis with far going consequences.

[FancyCat]

It's important to ensure complete review of the incident. Ukraine requesting info and providing it's info is part of that process.

[Beleg85]

3 minutes ago, Huba said:

With all due respect kraze, this one thing is not about Ukraine, and taking this position only harms your cause at the moment. What happened, happened, nobody will hold it against you, but avoiding responsibility and hiding behind a conspiracy is 100% counterproductive, and can quickly lead to a diplomatic crisis with far going consequences.

Exactly, I already see coldening attitude to Ukraine among some persons here that were rock solid before. Not because rocket hit, but because of failure of communication of Ukrainian officials. Probably all trolls from Russian farms are already working in this direction too, it's like a Christmas shopping spree for them.

 

First confirmation of CAESAR being hit:

 

[Billy Ringo]

Those that significantly change their support for Ukraine over Ukraine's reaction to this single situation were just waiting for an excuse to do so.   From my perspective, Ukraine has been pretty forthcoming and transparent in their comments and approach throughout this war.  And if Russian bloggers/press try to hammer Ukraine for this single instance they should look in the f'ing mirror as Russia lies and deflects about everything---even when it's blatantly obvious they are lying.

 

[Huba]

1 minute ago, Billy Ringo said:

Those that significantly change their support for Ukraine over Ukraine's reaction to this single situation were just waiting for an excuse to do so.   From my perspective, Ukraine has been pretty forthcoming and transparent in their comments and approach throughout this war.  And if Russian bloggers/press try to hammer Ukraine for this single instance they should look in the f'ing mirror as Russia lies and deflects about everything---even when it's blatantly obvious they are lying.

 

It won't affect the overall stance of course, but at the moment, when emotions are still high, it's easy to annoy people by saying stupid things. Yesterday's super quick jumping to conclusions by Kuleba and Zelensky was a clear and unnecessary mistake, and everything seems to suggest that they will have to backtrack from it. Which hopefully they will after their people get access to the evidence. It's in everyone's interest to resolve this as fast as possible and get back to hating the russkies together.

[Butschi]

5 minutes ago, Billy Ringo said:

Those that significantly change their support for Ukraine over Ukraine's reaction to this single situation were just waiting for an excuse to do so.  

Even if that was true - and for my taste that sounds a bit too much black and white, we are not in church here, this is not about faith - why provide them with such a cheap excuse?

[danfrodo]

7 minutes ago, Billy Ringo said:

Those that significantly change their support for Ukraine over Ukraine's reaction to this single situation were just waiting for an excuse to do so.   From my perspective, Ukraine has been pretty forthcoming and transparent in their comments and approach throughout this war.  And if Russian bloggers/press try to hammer Ukraine for this single instance they should look in the f'ing mirror as Russia lies and deflects about everything---even when it's blatantly obvious they are lying.

 

I suspect that in a week this will be nearly forgotten.  Except for the two dead & their families, tragically.  These Poles died because RU launched terror attacks via missile on civilians & civilian infrastructure and UKR tried to shoot those missiles down in self defense.  Doesn't change anything.  A couple days good PR for RU, which sucks because headlines should've been "RU conducts mass terror attacks".

Any news from the fronts?

[Taranis]

31 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Exactly, I already see coldening attitude to Ukraine among some persons here that were rock solid before. Not because rocket hit, but because of failure of communication of Ukrainian officials. Probably all trolls from Russian farms are already working in this direction too, it's like a Christmas shopping spree for them.

 

First confirmation of CAESAR being hit:

 

I only see 2 crew members leaving. The ammunition or at least the containers release smoke. That said, where they hit isn't the best place for me to do heavy damage. They attacked where the vehicle is most protected... In principle, there is a way to redo a CAESAR quite easily with what's left of that one.

[Seedorf81]

37 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

 

First confirmation of CAESAR being hit:

 

Merde!

[Beleg85]

37 minutes ago, Taranis said:

I only see 2 crew members leaving. The ammunition or at least the containers release smoke. That said, where they hit isn't the best place for me to do heavy damage. They attacked where the vehicle is most protected... In principle, there is a way to redo a CAESAR quite easily with what's left of that one.

Unfortunatelly amount of Lancet strikes suggest they may be effective weapons that has some impact on the battlefield. Let's hope Russians will not invest too heavily in them instead of ****ty Shaheed.

55 minutes ago, Billy Ringo said:

Those that significantly change their support for Ukraine over Ukraine's reaction to this single situation were just waiting for an excuse to do so.

Not how these things work here. There is well understood realpolitik interest in helping UA, but also genuine hurraoptimistic emotional response among population that stayed for surprisingly long time, despite historical greviances. First will ofc stay, but second will be targeted by muscovite PsyOps and it can be very feeble. It's like taking off the drugs- emotions that raised high have tendency to move backwards and hit the bottom.

So I don't agree that this event will be forgotten within a week. Russians psyops dwell on shadows and doubts, so the clearer situation- the better. That's why it is best for UA to admitt as early as possible ; murking only make matters worse with time.

 

Edited November 16, 2022 by Beleg85

[Blazing 88's]

57 minutes ago, Billy Ringo said:

Those that significantly change their support for Ukraine over Ukraine's reaction to this single situation were just waiting for an excuse to do so.   From my perspective, Ukraine has been pretty forthcoming and transparent in their comments and approach throughout this war.  And if Russian bloggers/press try to hammer Ukraine for this single instance they should look in the f'ing mirror as Russia lies and deflects about everything---even when it's blatantly obvious they are lying.

 

Bingo Ringo!

[Butschi]

9 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

First will ofc stay, but second will be targeted by muscovite PsyOps and it can be very feeble. It's like taking off the drugs- emotions that raised high have tendency to move backwards and hit the bottom.

And at this point realpolitik is affected, too. With inflation and all that it is hard for politicians to keep supporting Ukraine if public opinion turns against Ukraine.

The trouble here is that Ukraine took the moral high ground and with the help of western politicians spun the narrative that Ukraine is not just defending itself but the West and western values as a whole. That worked amazingly well too gain support at the start of the war. The problem with taking the moral high ground is that you are held to higher standards. I don't know enough about how Poland thinks about this but I guess it is a bit similar to when Steinmeiers was "un-invited". By itself not enough to end support but a crack that has the potential to grow once the weather gets colder.

[Astrophel]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So if anyone wants to take a break from this entire Poland missile thing - 

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/war-not-an-excuse-ukraine-rail-boss-keeps-trains-running-1.6155075

So this is the kind of thing that I look for with respect to metrics.  If you are in the process of invading a nation it is normally a really good idea to directly attack and degrade its ability to defend itself.  Russia has clearly demonstrated the intent and capability, what it appears to lack is expertise, or perhaps the ability to unify that expertise - but my big question since this started is "why"?  The general answer has been a lot of eye-rolling "well Russia is just dumb" but how they are "dumb" is important to my mind - what is their epistemological failure-engine being driven by?

In this war Russia has expended a LOT of high priced long range missile hardware - https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2022/october/lessons-russian-missile-performance-ukraine.  It is noted that they are likely having very high failure rates; however, this is further compounded by shortfalls in Russian ISR that allows for precise targeting even assuming all the missiles work.  

But there is more.  We have been bouncing a hypothesis around this forum on how a lot of this war is about Russian identity and its place in the world - that internal political dimension definitely plays a role, at least in Putin's calculus.  Further it is about Russian identity relative to Ukraine - this would be akin to the US invading Canada and losing (again, *ahem 1813*), the collective identity impacts would be severe.  However, we have also suspected that those "identity biased assumptions" have been driving the progress of this war - from the wildly overambitious opening moves, to the re-set of objectives and responses.  In fact it was demonstrated that poor strategic assumptions were a factor for Russia, even back in 2014.

So what?  Well the complete failure to effectively degrade Ukrainian rail is another potential peice of evidence that support that central hypothesis.  Russia has focused its limited long range fires capability on terror strikes, and now it finally appears to be focusing on civilian power infrastructure to keep the heat and lights out.  The central Russian premise appears to be that Ukrainian collective will is vulnerable and all they need to do is keep hitting it towards failure.  Somehow just one more hard push and the Ukrainian resolve will falter - this is nuts at this point in the war.  I have brought up relative rationality before and Russia clearly is suffering from it.  To the point that it is driving their military targeting enterprise.  Russia should theoretically be able to cripple the Ukrainian rail infrastructure.  Railways do not move, their supporting infrastructure is impossible to hide - one can see it from Google Earth.  If Russia had done that, the ability of Ukraine to conduct two simultaneous operational offensives separated by over 400 kms would have been severely challenged. Ukraine having a rail system able to sustain an "85% success rate" (something I know the UK would find impossible to do right now in peacetime, having just suffered their rail system) should not be possible at this point in a war this large - especially when their opponent has the ability to hit the full range of their nation. 

So, so what?  This is less about Russian targeting "sucking" - although their missile failure rates definitely point to that, this is about Russian decision making being 1) rigid well past the point of general rationality, and 2) built on flawed assumptions more about them than the reality on the ground.  For those who have been following this thread throughout the war I understand that this is not really news, but it does lead to a series of indicators and warnings we should be watching out for in case Russia actually figures out that its assumptions are completely broken.  However, I also suspect that they are well past the point of return regardless - too many losses and failures along with the continued corrosion of the RA means that even if they did figure it out now, it is likely already too late to change the trajectory of this war. 

I already have a book title in mind - "A warm, dark, smelly, but safe place - How Russia went to War with Its Head Up its Own Bum."

This is my first post so forgive me taking a moment to thank you all for your insights into this war.  This is my go-to site whenever anything happens.

The failure of the Russians to destroy the railway network in Ukraine is indeed remarkable as The_Capt says.  Early on my assumption was that Russia intends to use the railway network for their own logistics as they carry the attack further West.  Now my feeling is that Russia is in denial about the failure of their venture - as evidenced by the ongoing sacrifice of thousands of "soldiers" in Donetsk.  Somewhere in the Kremlin they still hope to use the railway to attack Poland and the Baltic States.  The Russians still hope for the big win of conquering the old Soviet Empire.  The day they turn their attention to the railways we will know they know they have lost - for now.

Chris

[dan/california]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/magazine/ukraine-trains.html

Great article!

[kevinkin]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

"A warm, dark, smelly, but safe place - How Russia went to War with Its Head Up its Own Bum."

Great title, but you forgot to add the copywrite symbol. 

Russia underestimated where it should have overestimated and overestimated where it should have underestimated. Even with that, a God awful performance. Reminds me of that commercial where the kids sit to play classical music and it then sounds like a barnyard at feeding time. 

[Beleg85]

30 minutes ago, Butschi said:

And at this point realpolitik is affected, too. With inflation and all that it is hard for politicians to keep supporting Ukraine if public opinion turns against Ukraine.

The trouble here is that Ukraine took the moral high ground and with the help of western politicians spun the narrative that Ukraine is not just defending itself but the West and western values as a whole. That worked amazingly well too gain support at the start of the war. The problem with taking the moral high ground is that you are held to higher standards. I don't know enough about how Poland thinks about this but I guess it is a bit similar to when Steinmeiers was "un-invited". By itself not enough to end support but a crack that has the potential to grow once the weather gets colder.

State support will not be affected for sure. Also most people will understand the rationale and will still empathize with murdered neighours. But those who were more sceptical we should emotionally invest so much in this conflict will now have perfect excuse. There are also millions of emigrants here which naturally generate some issues like housing, petty criminality etc. Amount of fallout after this incident depends a lot on official Ukrainian reactions; perhaps I am wrong and it will not be that significant all in all. Let's hope so.

Well, Steinmeier is separate issue here, as nobody was harmed by diplomatic crank and frankly lot of people around the world (correctly) partially blamed him for catastrophy that was ostpolitik. This is entirely different level of poblems now.

Edited November 16, 2022 by Beleg85

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Zeleban said:

Chernobaevka airport after release

What a mess.  Towards the end you can see they neatly placed a bunch of intact, but obviously non-functional, vehicles while generally leaving the place a complete chaotic mess.  Maybe they intended this to tempt Ukraine to target that area and not the base.

Steve

[dan/california]

The Ukrainians have made some mistakes related to this accident at the Polish border. I do not believe they are significant mistakes, but they are perhaps revealing. First and foremost they reveal how stressed the Ukrainian leadership is. Zelensky and his government are fighting an existential war with just barely enough support. The just barely part is because NATO is chicken$##&& and unwilling to further provoke Russia, or other than Poland and the Baltics, take the slightest strategic risk in terms of stock depletion. When something went bang in Poland, in the middle of an attack that was intended to utterly cripple Ukraine's power grid, Ukraine reacted emotionally just this once, instead of playing the rock steady good soldier. Given the possibility of finally getting FULL support instead of the carefully calculated flow they have been given. That careful calculation let's remember guarantees many more months of grinding, brutal war. And a butcher's bill for every day of it. Getting ahead of themselves with a flare of hope we might pull our heads out of our A&%$, and or consider dead and tortured Ukrainians as important as Poles or Frenchmen, was a mistake. But bleep me it was an understandable one.

Ukraine needs more support, it needs five billion a month in financial support without a desperate daily scramble to round it up. It needs two hundred more tubes of 155, and perhaps every round of 155 ammo in Europe. IT NEEDS ATACAMS, and permission to strike rail infrastructure in Russia. It needs several hundred top tier IFVs even more than it needs Leopard/Abrams. Or NATO can start firing cruise missiles in quantity and end this in three days. Or we can keep being chicken$^$# and letting Ukrainians die and freeze.

Opinion is worth what you paid, but I stand by it.

[asurob]

It's war.  Unexpected consequences occur in war all the time.  This is one.  It's sad, but I wouldn't expect anyone with half a brain to jump off the Ukraine side in terms of full support who wasn't already looking for excuses (Hungary) to do that.  

Most countries will remember that Ukraine was trying to defend itself from a missile attack by Russia.

This, while unfortunate, will be looked at that way by all of Ukraine's allies.

[Huba]

Zelensky seems to be back on the right track already:

 

Edited November 16, 2022 by Huba

[danfrodo]

3 minutes ago, Huba said:

Zelensky seems to be back on the right track already:

 

WHOA!  wants to live in an evidence-based reality???  and willing to change his beliefs based on evidence?  Excellent example to those who live in a belief-based reality, where when evidence/reality conflicts w belief one simply denies reality.  

[Beleg85]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

In this war Russia has expended a LOT of high priced long range missile hardware - https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2022/october/lessons-russian-missile-performance-ukraine.  It is noted that they are likely having very high failure rates; however, this is further compounded by shortfalls in Russian ISR that allows for precise targeting even assuming all the missiles work.  

But there is more.  We have been bouncing a hypothesis around this forum on how a lot of this war is about Russian identity and its place in the world - that internal political dimension definitely plays a role, at least in Putin's calculus.  Further it is about Russian identity relative to Ukraine - this would be akin to the US invading Canada and losing (again, *ahem 1813*), the collective identity impacts would be severe.  However, we have also suspected that those "identity biased assumptions" have been driving the progress of this war - from the wildly overambitious opening moves, to the re-set of objectives and responses.  In fact it was demonstrated that poor strategic assumptions were a factor for Russia, even back in 2014.

So what?  Well the complete failure to effectively degrade Ukrainian rail is another potential peice of evidence that support that central hypothesis.  Russia has focused its limited long range fires capability on terror strikes, and now it finally appears to be focusing on civilian power infrastructure to keep the heat and lights out.  The central Russian premise appears to be that Ukrainian collective will is vulnerable and all they need to do is keep hitting it towards failure.  Somehow just one more hard push and the Ukrainian resolve will falter - this is nuts at this point in the war.  I have brought up relative rationality before and Russia clearly is suffering from it.  To the point that it is driving their military targeting enterprise.  Russia should theoretically be able to cripple the Ukrainian rail infrastructure.  Railways do not move, their supporting infrastructure is impossible to hide - one can see it from Google Earth.  If Russia had done that, the ability of Ukraine to conduct two simultaneous operational offensives separated by over 400 kms would have been severely challenged. Ukraine having a rail system able to sustain an "85% success rate" (something I know the UK would find impossible to do right now in peacetime, having just suffered their rail system) should not be possible at this point in a war this large - especially when their opponent has the ability to hit the full range of their nation. 

So, so what?  This is less about Russian targeting "sucking" - although their missile failure rates definitely point to that, this is about Russian decision making being 1) rigid well past the point of general rationality, and 2) built on flawed assumptions more about them than the reality on the ground.  For those who have been following this thread throughout the war I understand that this is not really news, but it does lead to a series of indicators and warnings we should be watching out for in case Russia actually figures out that its assumptions are completely broken.  However, I also suspect that they are well past the point of return regardless - too many losses and failures along with the continued corrosion of the RA means that even if they did figure it out now, it is likely already too late to change the trajectory of this war. 

I already have a book title in mind - "A warm, dark, smelly, but safe place - How Russia went to War with Its Head Up its Own Bum."

True. Of course internal russian consideratons also plays its increasingly significant role in this war. I am not sure if Putin can even afford to loose at this point. We should always bore in mind Putin, let alone rest of his bootlickers, probably even in his darkest dreams did not expected war on this scale, so everything is more or less improvization on his side. I am still buffled that so many military analysts around the world seem to forget that. Btw. in December European Union sanctions on oil transport should start working.

37 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

What a mess.  Towards the end you can see they neatly placed a bunch of intact, but obviously non-functional, vehicles while generally leaving the place a complete chaotic mess.  Maybe they intended this to tempt Ukraine to target that area and not the base.

Steve

Curious if they already on the Onyx list.

Edited November 16, 2022 by Beleg85

[Butschi]

41 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Well, Steinmeier is separate issue here, as nobody was harmed by diplomatic crank

Ok, I agree, flawed comparison.