How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Zeleban]

 

[LongLeftFlank]

...wow, like the final scene from The Dirty Dozen.

1. While HeliosRunner has been reading our Mutha Beautiful Thread, baby!

2. Swap Bakhmut for Kreminna?

3. CM Tiny/Small scenario brought to life (in vignettes).  Thread w/video

 

4.  Not only stosstruppe tactics but a new form of 'trench mortar', made all the nastier by drone spotting.  Squads making the most of their organic weapons, high + low tech.....

 

Edited December 12, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, FancyCat said:

Certainly we won’t know what the UKR general Staff and Zelensky are thinking of using should long range missiles be provided, but every indication from prior history indicates exceeding awareness of how to best not provoke Russia or cross lines that benefit Russia and negatively affect Ukraine. Everything I’ve seen in public statements points to silencing Russian airfields, Russian airbases and missile infrastructure that so far Ukraine has no way of stopping Russia from lobbing massive missile strikes. 

As far as I can tell, those targets aren’t exactly one for one the same as your suggested targets, industrial capacity (tho military repair bases have been set afire), ISR (tho Ukraine has hit airfields and radar sites in Belarus and Russia proper with drones and missiles), SLOCs in Russia close to the border have not been heavily impacted like in Belograd, or political HVTs. Except maybe that car bombing, but I still think it was a FSB op. 

Actually, a very restricted campaign against a few targets is in my opinion well aligned with Ukrainian intentions and understanding of how to best inflict damage against the Russian government without needlessly causing rallying the flag effects. For example, a limited campaign striking the airfields where the long range missiles striking Ukraine with impunity would absolutely be worthwhile, considering the limited infrastructure for Russia to site these forces, the limited amount of aircraft, and their logistical tail, and certainly, Ukraine has already struck at these targets, both closer to the border and the recent attacks. A limited campaign to strike a tanker aircraft, or 1-4 strategic bombers, and that’s it, Russia would have to stop or risk further unsustainable damage to the strategic air fleet. It wouldn’t cause a rally the flag effect, it would be a significant boost to Ukrainian military and civilian morale, it would degrade and delay the ability for the Russian military to launch further missile attacks, and importantly, would represent a commitment to Ukraine by the West without being “needlessly” destructive and backfiring. 

Sorta like when only 4 HIMARS were provided to Ukraine at the beginning. (Later more but still) I recall people being annoyed at the fact that the US has 450 himars but only provided 4. We certainly don’t need to provide more than a few ATACMS missiles to Ukraine, this entire conflict has been characterized by quite slow and few supplies to Ukraine.

Example, U.S waits for Russia to launch another massed missile strike at Ukraine, publicly declare a few missiles were given, amid Ukraine firing them at the airfields. Russia must takes steps to prevent losses, and degrades the ability for missile strikes on Ukraine as a result.

I mean we already helped sink the Moskva. Is the Admiral Makarov off limits due to being able to fire missiles against land targets? Russia has already virtually ignored the drone attack on the Engels air base. Wiki says it’s the only base where the Tu-160 is based at so another limited strike via ATACMS could force Russia to relocate or stop using it for missile strikes, certainly a important goal worth pursuing.

So you are suggesting pulling the US more directly involved in this war so we can basically ping away at strategic targets within Russia “just a little bit more”?  The risk to opportunity costs are pretty upside down on this.  As I said before Ukraine has every right to strike legitimate military targets within Russia and obviously has a level of domestic ISR to do so. However, this is harassment fires that create uncertainty and doubt, which is not small, but Ukraine is already capable of this on its own.

Supplying longer range HIMARs without ISR support will limit their employment to what Ukraine can already prosecute or risks Ukraine leaning in and taking risks we are not comfortable with.  I have no doubt if the US supplies ATACMS today there will be people on this board screaming for “more ISR support so Ukraine can widen its target set” in another month or so.

A strategic offensive is not something one “nibbles away at” in ones or twosies - you claim to want a quick end to this war (strategic end) and that Ukraine needs long range precision fires to target in-Russia targets (Means) but they are going to do it incrementally (Ways)? - this is a flawed strategy with all the risks of escalation and none of the payoff?  You have under prescribed the risks to fit your narrative but it does not fix a fundamentally flawed strategy.

Your limited Russian airfield is a classic example of amateur military planning - ok, we execute a “limited campaign” against a single Russian airfield with strategic bombers, “1-4” was the number you quoted.  Let’s unpack this one:

We give Ukraine a few dozen ATACMS and they go ahead and do this campaign on their own - no western ISR.  Ukraine now has to validate the target and do BDA all on its own.  We have definitely escalated things by providing the weapons but can keep our hands clean from direct targeting.

Ukraine goes ahead and hits the target - you will all feel better I am sure.  They hit some infrastructure, damage the airfield and take out 4 Russian strategic bombers - huzzah!

Well this will definitely create some uncertainty for Russia which is not small, they will react and likely pull assets back lengthening flight times.  This will definitely be an escalation as it is now targeting their ability to defend themselves from NATO but it might make life harder for pounding Ukrainian cities.

Ok, now what?  Russia has over 500 TU-95s:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95 . So the actual damage to the fleet is minimal.  Airfields also take a lot to knock out so the actual damage to that airfield is going to be temporary.  Finally, we have done nothing to actually affect the Russian strategic bomber system.  It’s production, maintenance, fuelling, arming and C4ISR.  We have damaged an airfield and knocked a few platforms.  The Russians will pull back, take a little longer and burn a little more fuel (which we also did nothing about) and still hammer Ukrainian cities with abandon.

What we did do is escalate this war.  Likely reinforced Putin’s narrative that this is an existential war for Russia against NATO pretty significantly, and Russia will likely continue to escalate strikes against Ukrainian cities.

So in a month or so, you and others will be demanding a broader campaign to hit “all Russia’s airfields in ATACMS range!!”  There will be all sorts of upside down risk calculations because - once again - no one has offers any educated assessment of where the Russian escalation threshold actually is.  A larger counter AirPower campaign will require western ISR support and pull the US further into direct involvement in this war while steadily marching towards a plausible Russian escalation threshold we cannot fully define.

More bluntly put - we are breaking our opponents hands and arms right now.  It is slow and painful but working.  If you want a fast end to the war you are going to have to hit the body and head, hard and fast - no sidestepping or weasel-ing out of that reality.  Russia has nuclear strategic deterrence and a doctrine behind it:https://sgp.fas.org/crs/nuke/R45861.pdf. That is a pretty grey and broad doctrine btw.  So if we start striking it’s head and body we are on a slippery slope to someone pulling out a gun in this bar fight. 

The end to this war is not about making you feel better.  It is about negotiating with a reality nobody wants but can live with. Russia is already on the ropes within Ukraine, the operational campaigns have been brilliant and are working.  If we are going to do anything more double down on that because any “quick and easy” magic new platform/weapon solutions aren’t quick or easy.

 

[LongLeftFlank]

https://ukrainevolunteer297689472.wordpress.com/2022/12/09/one-was-whining-about-his-face-being-numb/

(marshy woodlands south or west of Kreminna, this past week) 

Obviously they were running tight recon on their flanks.... There have been several of these large probes…one might call them counterattacks, but they seem to lack the structure and cohesive movement to fit that term....

Both of our groups started moving at an angle toward the front and rear of their hide, one firing, the other moving, then switching-out.... they all started running directly away. We cut them all down within thirty yards.

This alternating freezing and thawing slush is more of a challenge.... you only do foot maintenance one foot at a time, and only one guy in the unit at a time.  

We do not sling rifles, nor even carry slings....

The group that generally prevails (depending on force size) is usually the ones who reacts quickly and with extreme violence.

[Ivans] do not set-up quickly to fight-off an ambush, they yell a lot, they run.

[The_Capt]

8 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

[Ivans] do not set-up quickly to fight-off an ambush, they yell a lot, they run.

Oh my this is setting up for a UA winter offensive.

[LongLeftFlank]

41 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Oh my this is setting up for a UA winter offensive.

That's what I have been thinking, down at the CM Tiny battles end of the combat spectrum.  Forget the Big Push that bogs down and gets blasted by arty or air: it's five thousand ambushes or envelopments, all along the front, on average yielding a RU:UK casevac ratio of, say, 3:1.

The Russians have been hugely short of combat infantry throughout this war; that was by design (career soldiers were mainly specialists, to be augmented by mobik grunts). To me, that's the essence of why the BTG failed, hard.

They've clearly learned since April that screening and patrolling around your positions and vehicles is NOT optional.

But their VDV and spetsnaz have been worn away, and it looks like Wagner is going that way now.  Where are the cadres to train the new guys in fieldcraft and get them to survive the first bumps?

 

No infantry, no army.

Edited December 12, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[kevinkin]

Washington Post today:

"Russia sends soldiers to war but ignores mental trauma they bring home"

Dog bites man

But make believe:

"Russia sends soldiers to war and provides love and caring when they come home"

Man bites dog.

i.e. the latter is a story, the former is well we sort of knew that. A real story would be to compare Russia to Ukraine and the US. That might add something. 

[Battlefront.com]

9 hours ago, Offshoot said:

Wagner taking a pounding?

Svatove

Kadiivka

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63933132

Also "The Armed Forces hit 9 enemy control points "

https://www-pravda-com-ua.translate.goog/news/2022/12/12/7380326/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Glad to see Wagner is getting some special attention.

Is Wagner in the Svatove area in significant numbers?  I didn't think so, but I might have missed a memo!

Steve

[Ultradave]

1 hour ago, kevinkin said:

Washington Post today:

"Russia sends soldiers to war but ignores mental trauma they bring home"

Wasn't that long ago we did the same, really. It's only been in the last 10 years or so that there is much more emphasis on PTSD, and veterans mental health. Before that there was a lot of "use them up and discard when then become a problem".  Soldiers were given General Discharges rather than treatment. Things have recently improved dramatically with both awareness and treatment.

Dave

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Zeleban said:

 

I think we need a new term for this sort of thing.  "Precision Placed Munition" seems about right!

Steve

[Zeleban]

 

A repair base for Ukrainian armored vehicles began to work in Slovakia

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

4.  Not only stosstruppe tactics but a new form of 'trench mortar', made all the nastier by drone spotting.  Squads making the most of their organic weapons, high + low tech.....

I think this shows the dangers that come from digging in within an exposed treeline.  The AGS appear to have been aimed at the trees, which means fragmentation down into the trenches that otherwise would be very difficult to do.

Steve

[dan/california]

10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Quote

 

The big, expensive kinetic counter drone systems out there are just not going to cut it for anything but critical fixed infrastructure.  Some whiz-kids will hopefully figure out a solution, because I'm not sure the big defense contractors are looking at small, affordable systems hard enough.

 

Wet all know this is next big area of military technology development. I just want to throw some the known unknowns out for further discussion, in the absence news from the front that materially changes the conversation.

1. Can AWACS survive in a modern peer to peer fight, at a useful distance from the FEBA. If they can, at what range, and with what resolution can they see Shaheed 136 class drones? Can they get enough of a return to vector a missile into an envelope that lets a relatively cheap seeker head finish the job? How much would that missile cost. Is it worthwhile to have a C-130 class cargo plane configured just to carry dozens of these hopefully cheaper anti drone missiles?  And on a related note, with a better tech base than Russia/Iran how much better can you make a Shaheed class drone without bleeping up the cost per piece that is one of its primary advantages.

2. Is it cheaper to make suicidal anti drone drones than than it is to make missile? Can these suicide anti drone drones cover a meaningful amount of frontage? Do they need to be suicidal? I am assuming they would not be a lot faster than the incoming drones they were trying to kill so how to distribute them to get the coverage you need for them to be the primary defense is a little complicated. They probably would not be able to move quarter of the way across Ukraine fast enough to counter a large swarm sent after a specific target. Is the data link to tie them into the air defense network so expensive you might well build more capability into the rest of it? How much these costs really matters because you are going to buy a LOT of them.

3. Lasers, their is an enormous amount of talk, system development, and even the beginnings of procurement and deployment, but I have seen ZERO public specs on how well they actually work. How fast can they engage a target, at what range, and how many targets can they engage before heat or some other technical limitation force them to take a pause. Do they have enough range it would be worth putting them on an aerial platform? If the engagement range was tens of miles, and they can engage a target every ten seconds, one plane could cover most of a city. If it is 5000 meters the airborne version is probably not worth the cost of the platform except maybe to defend the aforementioned AWACS.

I am sure I missed things, but the could be billions, or even tens of billions of dollars thrown at this problem in the next five or ten years. It would be good to throw the money at something that actually works.

 

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

More bluntly put - we are breaking our opponents hands and arms right now.  It is slow and painful but working.  If you want a fast end to the war you are going to have to hit the body and head, hard and fast - no sidestepping or weasel-ing out of that reality.  

And...

2 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

That's what I have been thinking, down at the CM Tiny battles end of the combat spectrum.  Forget the Big Push that bogs down and gets blasted by arty or air: it's five thousand ambushes or envelopments, all along the front, on average yielding a RU:UK casevac ratio of, say, 3:1.

This is why I've been saying since about Day 3 of this war that it all comes down to Ukraine killing Russians.  The more they kill, the closer Ukraine comes to ending this war on their terms.  Whether we're talking about soldiers, strategic bombers, tanks, officers, whatever... it's all the same deal.  Ukraine doesn't have to eliminate EVERYTHING in one go.  It doesn't even need to eliminate MOST of something in short period of time.  It just needs to kill off Russia's means of keeping this war going over time.  Time has always been on Ukraine's side.  Always.  And it would have been even if its conventional forces were decisively beaten in March.

Unfortunately for everybody, including Russians, this strategy does come with the downside of the war taking longer to end than it theoretically could if NATO got involved.  But that theoretical quickness comes with additional costs which, unfortunately, include the possibility of nukes.  Nobody wins if nukes get tossed around for sure, however there are conventional scenarios where the West comes out worse off than the current scenario.  So from the West's perspective, "going for the jugular" is not in its best interests.  And by extension, not in Ukraine's best interests either (especially since it would be ground zero of a nuke if that happened).

Russia lost this war long ago.  It took a while, but its navy is largely out of the war and its airforce seems to be headed in that direction as well.  The mobiks being tossed onto the battlefield have managed to keep things for completely collapsing, however we've seen 4 major collapses so far and this winter we might see 1 or 2 more.  By the end of summer we should see Ukraine back to controlling its February 2022 borders at a minimum.  Patience and pain are required to see this through to the end.  There are no shortcuts.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

24 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

Wasn't that long ago we did the same, really. It's only been in the last 10 years or so that there is much more emphasis on PTSD, and veterans mental health. Before that there was a lot of "use them up and discard when then become a problem".  Soldiers were given General Discharges rather than treatment. Things have recently improved dramatically with both awareness and treatment.

Dave

True, sadly enough.  However, society was able to make up for some of the shortcomings.  Lots and lots of NGOs operating in the US dealing with veteran mental health related issues, from psychological to jobs training to homeless shelters.  There have been some government programs which have been helpful and the rule of law in the US gave them teeth when people/entities tried to sidestep them.

Russia has nothing like this.  And the domestic NGOs Russia once had to support veterans seem to have been largely dismantled because they were deemed threats to the state or because its staff fled the country.  The weak rule of law has also cut off many obvious avenues for Russian veterans getting the help they are legally entitled to.

I'm not saying the US has provided a great safety net for our veterans, but there has been at least something in place for many decades.  It has gotten noticeably better, especially in the last 10 years.  Russia started out behind the US and it has gotten worse over the years.  Especially since this war started.

Whatever problems Russia had with its Afghan veterans is going to seem manageable compared to what is coming.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Article in NY Times about paid protestors in Moldova being funded by at least one pro-Russian criminal living in exile.  They are saying that the West is responsible for Moldovans not getting power from the Ukraine grid or gas from Russia.  One look at this protest and you can see how flipp'n obvious it is that this is a paid event:

All the signs obviously came out of the same professional sign shop.  That's not something you see in true, spontaneous protests.  So I guess the funder didn't pay protestors to make their own signs

The story is the same one we've seen time and time again... Russian money pays people to push a pro-Russian, anti-Western message.  Some of the people there are no doubt true believers, but on their own they don't have impressive numbers.  The fringe is reinforced with mercenaries, and even then apparently they aren't getting more than a few thousand at a time.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/11/world/europe/moldova-russian-ukraine-war.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20221212&instance_id=79965&nl=the-morning&regi_id=77867169&segment_id=115726&te=1&user_id=06eb42ecc9056dd32ea63af0c30707b6

Steve

[cyrano01]

3 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

That's what I have been thinking, down at the CM Tiny battles end of the combat spectrum.  Forget the Big Push that bogs down and gets blasted by arty or air: it's five thousand ambushes or envelopments, all along the front, on average yielding a RU:UK casevac ratio of, say, 3:1.

'...the essential arithmetic is that our young men will have to shoot down their young men at the rate of four to one...'

Is the phrase that springs to mind.

[sburke]

Putin it on ice: Kremlin cancels Vlad's end-of-year press conference and lavish New Year's Eve parties (msn.com)

Quote

 

The Kremlin has announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin's annual blockbuster end-of-year press conference will not take place before the new year for the first time in a decade.

Russian officials expressed optimism that Putin will find an opportunity to field questions from journalists and did not give a reason for breaching the tradition. Additionally, Putin will not host a New Year celebration, a Russian spokesperson said.

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

Take it for what it is... rumor that Putin's regime is planning where they might "retire" to if they feel staying in Russia is no longer viable.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/vladimir-putin-is-preparing-to-flee-to-venezuela-when-russia-implodes-ex-aide-abbas-gallyamov-says

Personally, I would be shocked if this hasn't been going on for years already.  Putin likes to have options and having a plan for getting out of Russia must surely been on his paranoid mind lately.  Especially now.

Steve

[akd]

Interesting discussion:

 

[FancyCat]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So you are suggesting pulling the US more directly involved in this war so we can basically ping away at strategic targets within Russia “just a little bit more”?  The risk to opportunity costs are pretty upside down on this.  As I said before Ukraine has every right to strike legitimate military targets within Russia and obviously has a level of domestic ISR to do so. However, this is harassment fires that create uncertainty and doubt, which is not small, but Ukraine is already capable of this on its own.

Supplying longer range HIMARs without ISR support will limit their employment to what Ukraine can already prosecute or risks Ukraine leaning in and taking risks we are not comfortable with.  I have no doubt if the US supplies ATACMS today there will be people on this board screaming for “more ISR support so Ukraine can widen its target set” in another month or so.

A strategic offensive is not something one “nibbles away at” in ones or twosies - you claim to want a quick end to this war (strategic end) and that Ukraine needs long range precision fires to target in-Russia targets (Means) but they are going to do it incrementally (Ways)? - this is a flawed strategy with all the risks of escalation and none of the payoff?  You have under prescribed the risks to fit your narrative but it does not fix a fundamentally flawed strategy.

Your limited Russian airfield is a classic example of amateur military planning - ok, we execute a “limited campaign” against a single Russian airfield with strategic bombers, “1-4” was the number you quoted.  Let’s unpack this one:

We give Ukraine a few dozen ATACMS and they go ahead and do this campaign on their own - no western ISR.  Ukraine now has to validate the target and do BDA all on its own.  We have definitely escalated things by providing the weapons but can keep our hands clean from direct targeting.

Ukraine goes ahead and hits the target - you will all feel better I am sure.  They hit some infrastructure, damage the airfield and take out 4 Russian strategic bombers - huzzah!

Well this will definitely create some uncertainty for Russia which is not small, they will react and likely pull assets back lengthening flight times.  This will definitely be an escalation as it is now targeting their ability to defend themselves from NATO but it might make life harder for pounding Ukrainian cities.

Ok, now what?  Russia has over 500 TU-95s:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95 . So the actual damage to the fleet is minimal.  Airfields also take a lot to knock out so the actual damage to that airfield is going to be temporary.  Finally, we have done nothing to actually affect the Russian strategic bomber system.  It’s production, maintenance, fuelling, arming and C4ISR.  We have damaged an airfield and knocked a few platforms.  The Russians will pull back, take a little longer and burn a little more fuel (which we also did nothing about) and still hammer Ukrainian cities with abandon.

What we did do is escalate this war.  Likely reinforced Putin’s narrative that this is an existential war for Russia against NATO pretty significantly, and Russia will likely continue to escalate strikes against Ukrainian cities.

So in a month or so, you and others will be demanding a broader campaign to hit “all Russia’s airfields in ATACMS range!!”  There will be all sorts of upside down risk calculations because - once again - no one has offers any educated assessment of where the Russian escalation threshold actually is.  A larger counter AirPower campaign will require western ISR support and pull the US further into direct involvement in this war while steadily marching towards a plausible Russian escalation threshold we cannot fully define.

More bluntly put - we are breaking our opponents hands and arms right now.  It is slow and painful but working.  If you want a fast end to the war you are going to have to hit the body and head, hard and fast - no sidestepping or weasel-ing out of that reality.  Russia has nuclear strategic deterrence and a doctrine behind it:https://sgp.fas.org/crs/nuke/R45861.pdf. That is a pretty grey and broad doctrine btw.  So if we start striking it’s head and body we are on a slippery slope to someone pulling out a gun in this bar fight. 

The end to this war is not about making you feel better.  It is about negotiating with a reality nobody wants but can live with. Russia is already on the ropes within Ukraine, the operational campaigns have been brilliant and are working.  If we are going to do anything more double down on that because any “quick and easy” magic new platform/weapon solutions aren’t quick or easy.

 

Other posters were advocating for “easy, quick” solutions for the end of the war. I do not think ATACMS will make the war quicker, or substantially easier. What I’m saying is historically, Ukraine has shown patience, foresight, and willingness to hit Russia where it does not gain, only loses, and where Ukraine gains and not loses. In this context, I suggest it’s not out of hand for Ukraine to be given more longer range weapons. Ukraine has its own capability but limited supply, like the Tonka missiles which were sparingly used, or the Neptune. Like Neptune, only after Ukraine showed the capability and the ability to handle the same sort of weapon, western equivalents were provided.

Ukraine entire strategic aim has been “nibbling”! It’s been incremental! Kherson, Moskva, logistical strikes! We provided like 4 HIMARS launchers, imagine if 8 were provided or 12 at the beginning! Western aid has been that limited! 

Escalation? Bah, Putin has stripped the forces aligned against NATO, https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/09/28/russia-ukraine-war-nato-eastern-flank-military-kaliningrad-baltic-finland/

Article states 80% of the 30k troops facing the Baltics and Finland are now in Ukraine. S-300 batteries defending St. Petersburg are gone. Naval personnel from the Baltic Fleet have appeared in Ukraine. Suggesting Russia will regard the forced movement of nuclear capable bombers away from NATO territory as a serious threat does not mesh with Putin stripping conventional military capability from NATO borders. It speaks the opposite, Putin has no fear of any nuclear or conventional NATO response to Russia anytime soon.

Aid to Ukraine is stuck. We are sending Marder IFVs to other countries so they can hand over freaking BMP-1s. Ukraine is adopting NATO style protection of crew and personnel but has only Soviet style armor, if Ukraine has rightly decided to try and preserve the lives of its personnel, it should be obvious that Marder IFVs, Leopard tanks, like MRAPs already in Ukraine, contribute significantly to preserving the lives of Ukrainian personnel. It is entirely within reason to classify small amounts of long range missiles to Ukraine as non-escalatory cause western aid continues to be exceeding slow, limited, and often relegated to hand me downs and less preferred equipment.

But just like with prior Russian attempts to stop the increase and sophistication of western aid to Ukraine, they are predominantly threats aimed at warning that the aid represents escalation and conflict between NATO and Russia, but we have not even seen attempts to stop the aid en route in western Ukraine due to Russian worries about striking NATO.

[Bulletpoint]

20 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Take it for what it is... rumor that Putin's regime is planning where they might "retire" to if they feel staying in Russia is no longer viable.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/vladimir-putin-is-preparing-to-flee-to-venezuela-when-russia-implodes-ex-aide-abbas-gallyamov-says

Personally, I would be shocked if this hasn't been going on for years already.  Putin likes to have options and having a plan for getting out of Russia must surely been on his paranoid mind lately.  Especially now.

Steve

Hmmm.... I doubt it actually. I think he will go down with the ship. Because he knows that there is no other country that will be safe for him.

Even if his old cronies in Venezuela can be trusted (and who is to say they can?), there's always the very real risk that they will be dethroned and suddenly there's a new government in charge.

Any new pro-western government would be quick to send Putin straight to the Hague. And I think Putin would rather die in his nest than risk that humiliation.

Edited December 12, 2022 by Bulletpoint

[Yet]

12 hours ago, Offshoot said:

kadiivka

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63933132

Also "The Armed Forces hit 9 enemy control points "

https://www-pravda-com-ua.translate.goog/news/2022/12/12/7380326/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

what everyone missed here is in my opinion the most striking. If the governor is right, and half of the wounded will die due to lack of medicare that is a huge deal! if Wagner officers dont have acces to medicare, who does? 

now thats really bad (for RU) both in numbers, for morale, and for risks people are willing to take. it really means that WIA = out of action. 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Yet

[Haiduk]

1 hour ago, akd said:

Interesting discussion:

 

"Arty Green" is a famous spotter, which during Debaltsevo battle in 2015 almost by the force of own small team could maintain effective communication of infantry and brigade-level artillery, evading top HQs, with different means - from cell phones to first versions of GISArta battlefield infosystem. His artillery call system had been worked perfrectly, targeting enemy much more fast and effective, then tradiotional Soviet-time system, used by AFU in 2014 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Haiduk

[FancyCat]

46 minutes ago, Yet said:

what everyone missed here is in my opinion the most striking. If the governor is right, and half of the wounded will die due to lack of medicare that is a huge deal! if Wagner officers dont have acces to medicare, who does? 

now thats really bad (for RU) both in numbers, for morale, and for risks people are willing to take. it really means that WIA = out of action. 

He's been known to exaggerate.