How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Beleg85]

3 hours ago, paxromana said:

I'd guess, based on first hand experience, that probably no more than 5% of my students were competent/confident with Computers ... so, about the same as the number of teachers.

VPNs? They wouldn't have had a clue. How to refine Google searches? Likewise, no clue.

I'd suggest that the Russian population is the same, no more than 5% would have the basic understanding to use a VPN - and, of course, how many read a non-Russian language? Very few I would expect ... and even fewer with any proficiency.

This include IPhones ans Smartphones that almost everybody under 35y possess, even in rural areas? Add that Russia was largest VPN user in the world before the war, and center of international piracy for everything electronic software; just look at he amount of servers and websites with .ru endings. Numbers of TG, VK and other massmedia users goes in heavy millions, they are very popular there, even more than in the western world. Btw. Ukraine was similar in this regard.

About language issue-  at least knowledge of latin script and very basic english is common, simply necessary from sole reason of living in XXI century global civilization (mind, Moskow itself has 12 mln people+more in the immediate are). And there are autotranslators nowadays.

3 hours ago, paxromana said:

SO that's why so few Russians have any idea what is actually going on in ouside the Russki Mir echo chamber ... and a lot of those who are tech competent/confident and can read a foreign language have ... left.

Worthy point, but I think you underestimate various cultural and political factors here. Majority knows very well what is happening. They simply like it or don't care, as long as it does not touch them. This is not about lack of knowledge, but but how knowledge is translated into society. You need long-established civic culture, public opinion and similar phenomena to even start viewing world as reality-based. Or view truth as value worthy pursuing by itself. Altruism for Others is precious commodity even in our societies, let alone Russian one.

Also worth to remember that many people who left Russia are already back or stay in "close neighourhoods" like Georgia or Kazakhstan- it was one-time massive escape before mobilization, not long emigration.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-many-russians-have-fled/

All inteviews made with them point also that they were simply fearing conscription, not escaping cause some luxurious empathy for Ukrainians.

3 hours ago, paxromana said:

Someone mentioned something along the lines of them not being understand why the West as a whole hasn't been making a major effort to penetrate the Russosphere ... think Soldatensender from the BBC in WW2 which was listened to assiduously by German troops even though they almost always knew it was an Allied propaganda station. Why? Since 95% of the news they broadcast was true - and more accurate and truthful than Goebbels' stations spew ... and they had the latest German popular music. 

That's how you get through to them ...

Another interesting issue...what was exactly effect of WWII external propaganda directed for your eneny population that many states put a lot of effort in? Close to zero. Ofc. everybody on both sides of the frontline loved Great Garbo or Marlene Dietrich and even occassionally some jazz, but it did not stopped German military from fighting till its Valhalla end on the streets of Berlin.

Edited January 7, 2023 by Beleg85

[JonS]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Human analysts are not able to do it with high levels of accuracy but they are the best we have and highly trained/experienced ones can create advantage.

In an honest system we can also assess which way the needle is likely to move. We don't know where the needle is pointing  but we do know where we want it to point, and the kinds of things that help to get it there.

Sophisticated propaganda? Needle moves right.

Naive propaganda full of obvious lies and exaggerations? Needle moves left.

More troops? Needle moves right.

Better trained troops? Right again

Holds the initiative and snowballing victories? Way to the right

Culminated and overextended? Probably neutral, but about to rocket to the left

Own side committing war crimes? Left, a lot

New kit: right we go

So much new kit that it can't be integrated and creates logistical nightmares? Oh, hello leftward trajectory

You can't min-max any of this other than  to say "more of this, less of that, and don't do too much of the other or it'll start to become a liability"

[Kraft]

Bakhmut, failed Russian assault.

[The_MonkeyKing]

in bullet points:

- airborne moved to mobile reserve or QRF role
- Bakhmut has culminated after the UKR rotation and counterattacks. for now...
- Wagner has lost lots of its internal power with the failure of Bakmut
- Internal power shifting back towards the RU MoD
- tactics moving towards using more bodies than vehicles or ammo -> Recon by light high casualty infantry assaults to expose UKR positions for artillery and future assaults.
- at the start of the war, RUS was sort of manpower but had ammo and equipment. Now the situation has reversed with the mobilization. 180 turn here in tactics.

 

- Ukraine still generating new units and even corps
- Ukraine failed to achieve the best outcome in operations after Kherson. This prevented RUS from reconstituting its forces and "chasing them out". Instead, Russia has managed to drag UKR into a grinding long fight in Bakhmut, Luhansk area.
- Russia has managed to stabilize the fronts with the mobilization efforts.
- UKR is building toward a major new offensive. The question is again the state of the UKR forces.
- Current phase is transitional and we are waiting for the next major UKR offensive operation. Michael is quessing it is going to look a lot more like Kherson than what we saw at Harkiv. This time RUS is not going to be on the wrong side of a river.
- This has been an attrition war. Even the Harkiv movement was enabled by attrition.

 

- RUS strategic strike infrastructure campaign is one of the most effective and dangerous things RUS has done. The situation is similar to spring 2022 when UKR had to transition to western artillery systems but now it is air defense systems.
- Strike campaign imposes a dilemma of AA on the front or in the rear. Also, it is to wear down UKR state capacity as a whole.
- US strategic strike infrastructure campaign is staring to get limited more and more by ammo, meaning the strikes are going to get spaced out more over time
- How much AA ammo does UKR have? How bad is the UKR grid situation? How fast can west supply AA systems?

- UKR taking RUS mobilization way more seriously than the west
- RUS is clearly now seriously trying to take Dombass. (maybe the deal was to allow Kherson to retreat to take Dombass)
- Russia has defensive capacity but only limited localized offensive ability
- Belarus attack does not seem likely at all atm (maybe a localized attack for example on Rivne nuclear power plant but the operation would have a long noticeable lead time with build-up)

- RUS system really seems to embrace loyalty, not competence
- Major leaders have messed up badly but have stayed loyal
- No major heads have fallen on the RUS leadership
- If the RUS higher-ups would start worrying about whose head falls next might lead to disaster. Fractures and defections.
- about "people fall out of windows". Lots of people die in Russia and not everything is connected to politics. Also, not every fire in Russia is sabotage. There needs to be actual evidence to make a case here.
- Analysts and Russians themselves were surprised by how strong support Russians have managed to build for this war internally.

Edited January 7, 2023 by The_MonkeyKing

[pintere]

2 hours ago, Kraft said:

Bakhmut, failed Russian assault.

"We don’t leave our own behind" became "We don’t leave our weapons/gear behind"

[NamEndedAllen]

1 hour ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

in bullet points:

Thanks for this summary. Nice work!

[Kinophile]

4 hours ago, Kraft said:

Bakhmut, failed Russian assault.

Good God. Actual human wave attempt. 

[danfrodo]

3 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

- Russia has managed to stabilize the fronts with the mobilization efforts.

Maybe, maybe not.  There's two main factors that can explain current stalemate:  mobilization and mud.  IMO mud is bigger factor for last two months.  Mobilization helps but I'm still not convinced they will not fold up in lots of local sectors once pressured, leading to cascading crises along bigger sectors.  Mobiks w massive arty support probably are good enough.  But w the increasing shell shortage?

[Beleg85]

Video of action of the Tanks from 17th Armoured Bg. Krasna Hora near Bakhmut, probably rather new. If one looks closely small figures of Russian soldiers visible in the field try to escape the tanks.

13 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Good God. Actual human wave attempt. 

I think nobody successfully geolocated this palce so far (no reason why...) but some people suggested it could be staging place for this company, slightly behind the front. Also a lot of speculations what killed them, as they seem surprised- candidates were 155mm salvo, Grads, captured termobarics or even concentrated granade launchers fire (least possible). Perhaps our Ukrainian friends can tell more about this episode.

Edited January 7, 2023 by Beleg85

[Kinophile]

Ref Leo 2 coalition,  what can Scholz do to stymied it? I assume there are some export/sales restrictions? What are the penalties? 

Could the Leo coalition use legal slipperiness and beaurocratic maneuvering to reduce member exposure to penalties, for transferring Leo2's without permission?

Eg by offloading/concentrating legal exposure on 1-2 members and pooling resources to cover the financial penalties occurred by them? While the transfer marches ahead... 

There's a point where Poland et al are just going to say "GTFOOTW,  Scholz, there's a war on. " They'll start ignoring legal squawking and do what they need to do,  no matter what the Germans say.

Which gets quite tricky within a cooperative military alliance...

[Kinophile]

7 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Video of action of the Tanks from 17th Armoured Bg. Krasna Hora near Bakhmut, probably rather new. If one looks closely small figures of Russian soldiers visible in the field try to escape the tanks.

I think nobody successfully geolocated this palce so far (no reason why...) but some people suggested it could be staging place for this company, slightly behind the front. Also a lot of speculations what killed them, as they seem surprised- candidates were 155mm salvo, Grads, captured termobarics or even concentrated granade launchers fire (least possible). Perhaps our Ukrainian friends can tell more about this episode.

Staging area in a wide open area,  zero cover or visual obstructions? 

[dan/california]

The EW evolution never stops, looks like the Ukrainians have made an advance of some sort.

[dan/california]

7 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So I suggest that humans at war are a 3rd order chaotic system.  Harari posed that there are 1st and 2nd order chaotic systems:  1st order are built on a lattice of non-linear variables which all have a possibility effect at a macro level - eg the weather.  2nd order are 1st order chaotic systems that can react to predictions, they are self aware - eg economics.

I put forward that humans at war are another order of chaos beyond 2nd in that in warfare we can and will react to imagined stimuli before they actually occur.  We remember future.  In this the input (stimuli) variables are not only non-linear, self-aware and adaptive, generation is also done in the virtual space of human imagination.

So this goes beyond being able to predict how an opponent will react to a prediction, it is being able to predict with accuracy how an opponent will generate and react to internal predictions and then react again to when those self-generated predictions collide with reality.

In CM playing against a human, we do this all the time.  Bil H knows The_Capt always overreaches so he is going to react to that stimulus before The_Capt even hits the start button.  But Bil H knows The_Capt knows he knows and will factor that into this battle as well. The_Capt meanwhile thinks “Ah this time I will overreach, Bil will never expect it because I always do it!  Ah crap!!”

So trying to build a Predicto2000tm to take into account all that and sustain any level of accuracy is impossible right now. Instead we rely on subjective assessment based on how well the assessor understands the opponent.  “Getting inside their heads” is not just a cute term, it is literally what we are trying to do.  Once we do that analysts are then looking for behavioural cues that verify or shift their framework of the opponents framework, and they are doing this constantly.  This goes beyond “what are they doing?”  It goes into “what are they thinking?  And “what do they think we are thinking?”  Here things like cultural boxes and background on doctrine and training are important as it gives some lines of the box your opponent is within.

Finally, behavioural analytics are getting better at predicting what a single person will do based on historical data.  Cambridge Analytica and the OCEAN model and all that.  But we are not talking one person, we are talking thousands to millions of people reacting to what each other is doing and thinking while trying not to get killed.  Anyone of which may have a real impact on outcomes - the sniper who decided not to kill Washington at Brandywine or all of Harry Turtledove. That problem set is way outside the abilities of artificial intelligence or machine learning or whatever.  Human analysts are not able to do it with high levels of accuracy but they are the best we have and highly trained/experienced ones can create advantage.

I suspect if we ever develop a computer able to conduct accurate hi resolution predictive analytics in warfare, we will have already broken economics, democracy and dating, at which point war as we understand it may not even matter as we will have to redesign the entire human social enterprise.

 

In many ways the stock market is the best analogy. Even if your trading scheme works brilliantly today, a lot of VERY smart people are going to try and make it work less well, by tomorrow, and not at all by next week. 

[Beleg85]

10 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Staging area in a wide open area,  zero cover or visual obstructions? 

Russians. They ordered to gather, so they gathered...

There seemed to be some kind of shrubs or low trees here. At least initially. A lot of area around Bakhmut is these fields on very gentle hills that give little cover beyond the roads shadowed with trees. So even low vegetation give some sense of security. False, as it happenned.

Edited January 7, 2023 by Beleg85

[kevinkin]

10 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

mobilization and mud.

Let's hope personnel shortage is not a factor as well. Trained troops take a long time to replace. Troop numbers are highly guarded from what I can tell. Even if UA army troop numbers are OK, there is no reason using them in the face of the other factors like RA conscripts (human shields) and the weather.  Now the west is loosening up on AFVs to some extent. Time to re-supply, train and let the conscripts dream of a hot bowl of steam. Meanwhile, use your ISR and spy interwork to strike the RA supply chain in low risk high reward economy of force missions. Prepared the battlefield for war ending maneuvers. 

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

This is not about lack of knowledge, but but how knowledge is translated into society.

Human Behavior 101, unfortunately.  The people who were lying on their home loans in the US knew damned well what they were doing.  They knew very well what would happen if they didn't make payments.  They might have even understood the risks from the market declining.  And they still did it.  Why?  Because Humans are biologically tailored towards short term thinking.  In fact, just heard a small talk about that on the radio while plowing snow this afternoon.

In the context of Russia, this means a large portion of society knows the war is going horribly and that it will have negative impacts on their lives and Russia's "greatness" over time.  But right now?  Well, it's not so bad and it could be a lot worse if the FSB takes an interest in them, therefore the calculation is to do nothing because short term that's the best course of action.

Russia, however, has systemic cultural problems that encourages this sort of short term thinking that mature democracies have less of as a proportion of its population.  Which means Russians, on the whole, act slower and with less confidence then the populations of democratic societies.  IMHO the western democracy's ability to deal with long term problems effectively sucks, so it's not surprising to me that Russia's sucks even worse.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, JonS said:

In an honest system we can also assess which way the needle is likely to move. We don't know where the needle is pointing  but we do know where we want it to point, and the kinds of things that help to get it there.

Yup.  Those of us who correctly predicted that Russia would lose this war could list dozens of reasons why, but for many of them we didn't know where the needle started.  The biggest example being where the Russian population was on February 22nd in terms of being fed up with life under Putin.  We know the sorts of things that can make people shift their opinion in either direction, but not knowing where the needle starts is a huge problem.  The other problem is nobody knows what the meter looks like   Which is why I said Ukraine's main goal is to kill as many Russians as possible, but had absolutely no idea of what the magic number is or what sort of timeframe it needs to happen in.  Pretty damned vague, but it does give some indication of what needs to be done to get that needle to move in the right direction.

Steve

[FancyCat]

Real nice of Greece to do this.

 

[kevinkin]

Operation Trojan Horses. Just have to gift them to Vlad with a surprise inside. 

[MikeyD]

I'm re-(re-re-) reading  my dog-eared old copy of Sun  Tzu's 'The Art of War' and everything in it seem to be a reference to the Ukraine war now. Pithy little aphorisms like "... a skilled commander seeks victory from the situation and does not demand it of his subordinates". That could have been written for a certain someone named Vladimir P.

[Beleg85]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

In the context of Russia, this means a large portion of society knows the war is going horribly and that it will have negative impacts on their lives and Russia's "greatness" over time.  But right now?  Well, it's not so bad and it could be a lot worse if the FSB takes an interest in them, therefore the calculation is to do nothing because short term that's the best course of action.

Russia, however, has systemic cultural problems that encourages this sort of short term thinking that mature democracies have less of as a proportion of its population.  Which means Russians, on the whole, act slower and with less confidence then the populations of democratic societies.  IMHO the western democracy's ability to deal with long term problems effectively sucks, so it's not surprising to me that Russia's sucks even worse.

Steve

Yup, and that's why unfortunatelly current sanctions that are not designed to bait average Russian and his lifestyle will not have an societal effect they theoretically could. At least in shorter term.

12 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

I'm re-(re-re-) reading  my dog-eared old copy of Sun  Tzu's 'The Art of War' and everything in it seem to be a reference to the Ukraine war now. Pithy little aphorisms like "... a skilled commander seeks victory from the situation and does not demand it of his subordinates". That could have been written for a certain someone named Vladimir P.

The only lessons Kremlin drew from ancient Chinese seems to be how to use convicts as assault soldiers. This is a phenomenon we did not see for long time in Europe on this scale.

Edited January 8, 2023 by Beleg85

[sburke]

Wagner’s Desensitized Prison Fighters Keep Staggering Into Bakhmut Like This Is a Zombie Apocalypse (yahoo.com)

[The_Capt]

7 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

RUS strategic strike infrastructure campaign is one of the most effective and dangerous things RUS has done. The situation is similar to spring 2022 when UKR had to transition to western artillery systems but now it is air defense systems.

This one I challenge.  How exactly?  It has definitely made people’s lives harder but what military or political objectives has it achieved?  Is Ukrainian morale about to collapse?  Has it hindered or damaged the UAs warfighting capability?  Has it slowed or stopped the flow of western support to the UA?  Has it set operational conditions in any sector for the RA to take back the offensive initiative?  Has it dislocated or disrupted a planned UA offensive?

What has this infrastructure campaign actually achieved? And based on numbers being thrown around it maybe Russia’s last.  If Russia had concentrated all its operational and strategic strike on electricity, communications and transportation in the first month of the war, specifically targeting the UAs ability to operationally project and sustain - that is effective and dangerous.  Instead they have been wasting thousands of missiles on terror strikes, and now they finally land on electricity but it is too late and too disconnected.  There opponent has already hardened and dug in both physically and mentally.  This last campaign still lacks any linkages to military objectives as far as I can tell, and it is at cost the RA will be unable to recover from.

It is stuff like this that really makes me wonder where some of these guys are coming from.

[Offshoot]

27 minutes ago, sburke said:

Wagner’s Desensitized Prison Fighters Keep Staggering Into Bakhmut Like This Is a Zombie Apocalypse (yahoo.com)

The Kyiv Independent had an article on the Skala Battalion a few days ago too, with a bit more tactical info and a more sober take on how Bakhmut is doing - https://kyivindependent.com/national/hell-in-high-definition-inside-front-line-aerial-unit-surveilling-battle-of-bakhmut

This also went together with a thread by NOËL in association with the Yahoo author featuring video footage - 

 

[FancyCat]

15 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

This one I challenge.  How exactly?  It has definitely made people’s lives harder but what military or political objectives has it achieved?  Is Ukrainian morale about to collapse?  Has it hindered or damaged the UAs warfighting capability?  Has it slowed or stopped the flow of western support to the UA?  Has it set operational conditions in any sector for the RA to take back the offensive initiative?  Has it dislocated or disrupted a planned UA offensive?

What has this infrastructure campaign actually achieved? And based on numbers being thrown around it maybe Russia’s last.  If Russia had concentrated all its operational and strategic strike on electricity, communications and transportation in the first month of the war, specifically targeting the UAs ability to operationally project and sustain - that is effective and dangerous.  Instead they have been wasting thousands of missiles on terror strikes, and now they finally land on electricity but it is too late and too disconnected.  There opponent has already hardened and dug in both physically and mentally.  This last campaign still lacks any linkages to military objectives as far as I can tell, and it is at cost the RA will be unable to recover from.

It is stuff like this that really makes me wonder where some of these guys are coming from.

Fog of war is a pain. we don't know what targets Russia is hitting that aren't terror bombing that are affecting the ability of the UKR government and industry focused on the war, and Ukraine isn't likely to say anything, and has penalized any independent information within Ukraine and with the amount of Russian lies, it can be hard to find the truth kernels with them. 

Certainly, we know that Ukraine has continued production of various war materials and equipment, what we don't know is if Russia has knowledge and capability to strike them, and if they have, but we can probably guess they do on either count due to prior history of Russian internal infiltration into Ukraine.

Edited January 8, 2023 by FancyCat