How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Kinophile]

For once I'm timely with a link:

https://newlinesmag.com/essays/historical-perspectives-on-russias-war-crimes-in-ukraine/

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

For once I'm timely with a link:

https://newlinesmag.com/essays/historical-perspectives-on-russias-war-crimes-in-ukraine/

I must say that does a nice job of summing up why the Poles have said never again, and MEANT it.

[The_Capt]

34 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Then what I just described counts as "a theory of success", therefore it counts as a strategy.  We can be as critical and dismissive of how good a strategy it is, but that doesn't mean it isn't a strategy.

Disagree.  What I think you describe is a Russian strategy of exhaustion without a clear path on how to accomplish it.  It has Ends, but no Ways.  For example, how does Russian plan to win a war of exhaustion against the West?  The primary proven method is to let us get bored and slip support away.  Then why work cross purposes to this and commit warcrimes at a strategic scale? A complete lack of a coherent military strategy that links political strategy to military activity is also a noted shortfall. 

Putin has not fully mobilized Russian industry or its people - likely because he cannot- so that now the UA is accelerating past them militarily on the ground. So Russian Means do not match up.

A strategy is not simply saying “we want to do this”.  There needs to be a foundational theory underneath it, and as far as I can tell beyond “keeping Putin in power one more day” Russia does not have a unifying theory in this war. They have about a half dozen unlinked ones flying out there : terrorize population until they quit, exterminate population until they quit, weird IO stuff to somehow convince the West that it is hopeless cause, freeze the conflict, attack Bakhmut!/take the Donbas, Anx everything, rattle nuclear sabre to make West back off and/or whatever pops into Putin’s head on a given day.

Of all of that, some points to an exhaustion strategy, others extermination, and still others annihilation - they are all over the place. If we assign Russia a strategy right now it is Spaghetti throwing, toss it all up on the wall and see what sticks.  

[Battlefront.com]

Two bits of news:

1.  Another high profile Russian dies under mysterious circumstances; the former PM for Dagastan hit and killed by a car:

https://www.rferl.org/a/daghestan-former-prime-minister-killed-traffic-accident/32212223.html

 

2.  Apparently Girkin posted something about the growing infighting within the Kremlin.  I would love to read what he wrote instead of relying upon a British tabloid's interpretation, but this all I have at the moment:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/putin-warned-split-in-power-is-growing-as-he-scrambles-to-regain-control/ar-AA164fxx?cvid=02f5a8689b9d4347bd236b4159e0c084

Steve

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, Shady_Side said:

Hi guys. I have been reading this forum multiple times a day since the 25th of February last year. This is the first time I have posted anything on here though. What brings me out of the shadows after all this time is some growing questions I am beginning to have.

There are almost 1900 pages showing Russian incompetence and brutalities and of course Ukrainian bravery. Those pages along with 1 working eyeball, 1 working ear, a thimble full of common sense, and a Tic Tak sized amount of human decency should be enough for anybody to know the righteous side of this war and who we all should be doing something big or small to help them win.

Here is the thing though, Why have not they won?  As much as I have read on here that Ukraine won this war in the first week, they still ain't done it yet. Large parts of their country is still occupied. Their soldiers and civilians die and get maimed everyday. God only knows what their civilians currently occupied suffer everyday and their p.o.w.s that for whatever reason the Russians decided a long time ago were not going home.

I think that this talk of a building Russian offensive should not be so flippantly dismissed. As much as we like to poke fun at the draftees that got scooped off the street handed a bolt action rifle and sent to soak up Ukrainian lead and gunpowder and bog down their offensives. They accomplished that mission and got Ukraine back in the trenches  It is clear Ukraine is winning... but they ain't won nothing yet. When you look at it from the other side, sometimes when your losing, you need to slow down the process drag it out see if circumstances change. 

Has much has we poke fun at those draftees all of them where not used has lead sponges. Those guys are coming up on what 3 months of some form of training. And to me it is impossible to think that that training has not vastly improved over what it was a year ago. Simply pulling a few vets out of the trenches and telling them how to survive and how to fight and maybe not worrying so much about if they can march a straight line. And poking fun at all those T62s and T64s being pulled out of storage to be sent into the fight. They are still tanks and there is still a lot of them. 

While I am happy Ukraine is getting 50 Bradleys and a few other modern I.F.V.s.. still though that is a Bradley battalion. Maybe add a Marder battalion to it... maybe not..... guys its gonna take lots more than that.

Before I ramble on anymore let me just ask it simply. After years of overestimating Russia, are we now underestimating them? Is that a dangerous path that this small echo chamber, like the larger western ones to be leading public opinions and expectations down? The Ukrainians have proven themselves to be as tough and brave has any army and are fighting for a righteous cause. This ain't a movie though and the good guys don't always win

 

 

 

  

We have covered a lot of this upon this thread over the last 10 months.  Your point is valid and one I have also raised - beware the echo chamber.

That said, we have been here before. Last summer we heard how Russia had shifted the war to its strengths and the UA was being ground down daily at Severodonetsk.  This grinding never really ended in the Donbas, we just got distracted by the UA retaking an area larger than Ireland from the Russian high water mark. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian-occupied_territories_of_Ukraine

My main logic for skepticism at a Russian effective offensive is fairly simple - The Russian military is broken in ways it cannot fix in the timescale of this war, even if the war lasts a few years.  Unless they have done a really good job at hiding it, the RA was at a high water mark in Feb and it has been all down hill from there.

”So why hasn’t UA won yet?” Well the kind of have, they were supposed to lose in the first 72 hours but the not only held but have pushed back hard.  Further Russia has essentially lost this war if one looks at their likely genuine strategic objectives, in many ways they made things worse for themselves and nothing is going to likely change that.  Basically Ukraine is in the process of winning - by how much? That is a good question.  Russia has lost - by how much?  Another good question.

My best guess is that Russian will make some show this winter-spring, and it will fail - for reasons we have written pages on, but not the least of which is that conventional mass as we know it does not work in this war.  Dumb, blind conventional mass is likely going to work even worse.  The UA will also conduct an offensive, where and when is unknown.  I have some hunches but we will know it when we see it.  The Bradley’s and Marders you mention are an indication in themselves. They are offensive manoeuvre equipment. Which tells me the West and Ukraine have been planning and talking about a breakout battle somewhere on a timeline.

Regardless, like the latest missile offensive, Russia will make a lot of noise and hurt good people for no reasons this Spring but they will very likely get nowhere.  Ukraine will kick in a door somewhere and we will see how far they get.  This is not about “the good guys winning” it is about the military that is learning and adapting the fastest to how this war is unfolding, and that military is Ukrainian.

[Battlefront.com]

4 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Disagree.  What I think you describe is a Russian strategy of exhaustion without a clear path on how to accomplish it.  It has Ends, but no Ways.  For example, how does Russian plan to win a war of exhaustion against the West?  The primary proven method is to let us get bored and slip support away.  Then why work cross purposes to this and commit warcrimes at a strategic scale? A complete lack of a coherent military strategy that links political strategy to military activity is also a noted shortfall. 

Again, put aside your Western thinking and step into the shoes of traditional Russian strategic thinking.  When I look at how Russia traditionally operates, and its past successes, I see a strategy in what they are doing now.  I agree with you that it's a crappy strategy that is unlikely to work, but that doesn't mean it's without structure from Russia's standpoint.

4 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Putin has not fully mobilized Russian industry or its people - likely because he cannot- so that now the UA is accelerating past them militarily on the ground. So Russian Means do not match up.

Right, which is why Russia is pinning its hopes on finding a different way to get this war to end on its terms.  The alternative is to throw in the towel, and that is not deemed a viable option any more than mobilizing 1 million men is.

4 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

A strategy is not simply saying “we want to do this”.  There needs to be a foundational theory underneath it, and as far as I can tell beyond “keeping Putin in power one more day” Russia does not have a unifying theory in this war.They have about a half dozen unlinked ones flying out there : terrorize population until they quit, exterminate population until they quit, weird IO stuff to somehow convince the West that it is hopeless cause, freeze the conflict, attack Bakhmut!/take the Donbas, Anx everything, rattle nuclear sabre to make West back off and/or whatever pops into Putin’s head on a given day.

Once again, according to your Western concept of how plans look and operate this isn't a strategy.  From a Russian perspective it is and, importantly, it's a strategy which has worked very well for it in the past.  I see a strategy akin to many that have worked for it in the past.  As I said, the reason it is failing now is that Putin ignored some of the basic rules for this system to work.  Russia traditionally half asses its implementation of strategy, but in this case it is half assing the strategy itself.

4 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Of all of that, some points to an exhaustion strategy, others extermination, and still others annihilation - they are all over the place. If we assign Russia a strategy right now it is Spaghetti throwing, toss it all up on the wall and see what sticks.  

Yup, and that is exactly what Russia views as a strategy.  It worked very well for it in 2014, it worked well for it against Georgia, it even worked well against Chechnya the second time.  It's worked well for 20+ years in co-opting and undermining the West, it's even worked in Syria.  For a long time it worked keeping NATO from expanding, basing forces eastward, keeping forces out of Ukraine, etc.

One reason this method of strategy is effective is precisely because the West doesn't think this way.  It takes a while for the West to see patterns in the spaghetti and by then Russia might have already secured enough for the moment.  Russia's campaign against Ukraine in 2014 was an eye opener for many.  Russia tried dozens of ways to undermine Ukraine's politics over the years, switching back and forth as it felt benefited them.  Chaotic from a day to day, year to year perspective, but all serving the master strategy of keeping Ukraine weak and aligned with Russia.  It did so successfully for more than 20 years, despite not having something you would recognize as a strategic plan.

Presently this method of "managed chaos" is failing Russia in a huge and catastrophic way.  Why?  Because Putin ignored the two most important elements of such a strategy; have more than one plan and be prepared to walk away if none of them are working.  And now we see him falling back on Russia's tradition of trading lives for time.  It's not our way in the West, but it sure as Hell is Russia's way.

Steve

[Vet 0369]

4 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Interesting thought, although I don't know that means it was a bad idea....I

 

I wasn't saying it was a bad idea, just that as it was intended to "try" to ensure that Germany and Japan wouldn't become a threat to world peace (and by extention the "West's" influence), and I think it worked much better than Marshall and others thought it would, and that it had unintended effects decades later. For example, I suspect it definitely affects German willingness to help one of the belligerents to defeat the other, and wonder what will happen if North Korea launches a missile into Japan. I don't know enough about the Constitution in Japan to determine what their response might be.

All that said, you sir are a joy to read and digest.

Edited January 9, 2023 by Vet 0369
Corrections

[sburke]

7 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

and wonder what will happen if North Korea launches a missile into Japan. I don't know enough about the Constitution in Japan to determine what their response might be.

All that said, you sir are a joy to read and digest.

Japanese position is changing.  The threat from China and Putin's fiasco are shifting thinking in some fundamental ways.

Pacifist Japan unveils biggest military build-up since World War Two | Reuters

Edited January 9, 2023 by sburke

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, Vet 0369 said:

I wasn't saying it was a bad idea, just that as it was intended to "try" to ensure that Germany and Japan wouldn't become a threat to world peace (and by extention the "West's" influence), and I think it worked much better than Marshall and others thought it would, and that it had unintended effects decades later. For example, I suspect it definitely affects German willingness to help one of the belligerents to defeat the other, and wonder what will happen if North Korea launches a missile into Japan. I don't know enough about the Constitution in Japan to determine what their response might be.

All that said, you sir are a joy to read and digest.

[LLF blushes modestly]

And in return, if I may bloviate the old cliche:

Thank you for your honourable service to, first your buddies and then your service and your country, but also to the shared civilisation our forefathers built, and that we are (supposed to be) striving to improve on.

...particularly in doing business peaceably (and sustainably) with those whose forefathers were not fond of ours for various reasons (often very good ones).

And that includes the kids and grandkids of VC and NVA, who are now well on their way to living about as well -- or badly -- as our own kids and grandkids.

***

Re Japan, it has long been my belief that had they only stayed out of World War 2 (which  really means *not* crossing the Marco Polo Bridge in 1937 and coming under embargo), there would have been no Communist rule in China (or Vietnam, et al.), a far more orderly and less bloody wind-down to European colonialism, and the (economic) 'Pacific Century' could have begun in about 1970, not the early 1990s.  But at this point we are straying massively OT.

Edited January 9, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[MikeyD]

It was just a couple months into the war that I (half) jokingly commented that Russian strategy appeared to be to blindly throw soldiers at the enemy until they run them out of bullets and artillery shells, then they'll win by default. My little joke proved prescient. The reason why Russia cares nothing for troop morale or living conditions or training or basic standards of humanity is because the soldiers are little more than meat range targets meant to absorb the enemy's stocks of ammo. If it weren't for the US, Western Europe and much of the rest of the world contributing to Ukraine's defense they would have very likely succeeded with that scheme. Putin's plan  to conscript another half million? It doesn't matter that they will be unarmed and untrained and unfed, as long as Ukraine expends all its artillery shells on their positions

[Maciej Zwolinski]

2 hours ago, MikeyD said:

The reason why Russia cares nothing for troop morale or living conditions or training or basic standards of humanity is because the soldiers are little more than meat range targets meant to absorb the enemy's stocks of ammo. If it weren't for the US, Western Europe and much of the rest of the world contributing to Ukraine's defense they would have very likely succeeded with that scheme.

One more thing to be taken into account is the level of Ukrainian losses and their mobilisation constraints. They are being actively downplayed by the Ukrainians, as they clearly have identified the West's giving up on the support because of perception of Russian inevitable victory to be the main risk in this conflict and have decided to portray the war as going on better than in reality. Polish military Internet, perhaps due to the lower language barrier and geographic proximity, seems to be more aware of this than the Western sources so overall there is a more sombre tone to their reports at this point in time.

E.g. Wolski (see thread below) has recently estimated that UKR are able to field 300 K troops, out of which 100 K as as light infantry, due to the weapons availablity which apparently is the bottleneck for the UKR. With RUS being able to mobilise 500 K as one mobilisation wave the strategy of just outlasting the UKR does not look unrealistic, even if they are equipped with old weapons. I know RUS do not have the facilities to train 0,5 million soldiers at a go and will have to stagger the training over time, but eventually after a couple of months delay the mobilised soldiers will make their way to the front.

)

 

 

[Bulletpoint]

10 hours ago, kuri said:

How is the view from that high horse? Against their will or not, the mobiks are still invading Ukraine as a part of an army that has been shelling civilians and committing crimes left and right. I imagine the average Ukrainian serviceman is far too desensitized at this point to care about the feelings of their enemy.

By that same logic, I could wish every single American soldier to suffer and die because of historical US war crimes, atrocities and support for repressive regimes, but that would be absurd - even though the average American combat soldier is a volunteer and has way more political say in the running of his/her country than the average Russian.

 

10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

But now?  I have no sympathy at all.  These guys being mobilized have the information they need to decide if they are going to go to Ukraine and murder innocent people or take a different course of action.  They have a choice, even if they've convinced themselves they do not.

Do they really have all this information? Where is that coming from? They live in a propaganda bubble and the ones getting mobilised are not the guys with education and wealth. They are mainly poorer guys from the countryside. The ones escaping to the West are the relatively privileged and informed, like the "fortunate sons" who could dodge the draft for Vietnam.

About motivations for going to war, I'm sure some of the Russians want to go plunder, but so do some of the international volunteers going to 'fight for Ukraine'. As we recently saw in the interview with the British volunteer.

In any army, there will be good people and bad people. There are literally hundreds of thousands of individual people with their own motivations and background. Wishing suffering and death on all of them is the wrong way to go, in my opinion. Let's instead wish that the people responsible for this war, and the soldiers who commit war crimes, get what they deserve.

 

10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

The other thing that has eroded my sympathy for Russian mobiks is all the videos and intercepted calls that are available to us.  They are not angry that they are going to Ukraine to commit warcrimes, they are angry they aren't getting the training they need to do them effectively.

If they are even real at all, these intercepted phone calls are cherry picked exactly for the reason to make us feel the Russian army is made up of subhuman brutes bent on rape and plunder.

How many intercepted calls have there been, and how many calls have Russian troops made in total? The Russian army is very large, yet we point to a handful of calls and say "Look, this proves that they are all orks".

Well, I'm 100 pct sure some of them ARE orks and deserve a bad fate. But I'm also sure not all of them are. I'm not going to sit here and look at videos of people getting blown to bits and cheer because I make myself believe I can judge them and their character from a drone view.

I know this is an unpopular and uncomfortable position to take on a military forum in the middle of a horrible war. I don't blame Ukrainians for being in mental survival mode. But when it comes to people like myself and others on this forum, who live safely away from the fighting, I think we should try to keep a sense of perspective and not forget our humanity in this, even though we see so many things done that are inhumane.

[Butschi]

36 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

If they are even real at all, these intercepted phone calls are cherry picked exactly for the reason to make us feel the Russian army is made up of subhuman brutes bent on rape and plunder.

How many intercepted calls have there been, and how many calls have Russian troops made in total? The Russian army is very large, yet we point to a handful of calls and say "Look, this proves that they are all orks".

This. And we should never forget that part of what information we get from Ukraine is propaganda. While more on the leaving out than on the straight out lie side, it is still propaganda tailored to provoke exactly this reaction. Dehumanizing the other side is propaganda 101 in every war and not only used by autocrats.

Although Ukrainians are the victims not the aggressors and of course use every tool at their disposal, from a truth-seeking point of view we shouldn't fall for this propaganda (call it "PR campaign" if you like that word better).

37 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

But when it comes to people like myself and others on this forum, who live safely away from the fighting, I think we should try to keep a sense of perspective and not forget our humanity in this, even though we see so many things done that are inhumane.

I'll go a step further, I think it is even our duty.

[Zeleban]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

international volunteers going to 'fight for Ukraine'. As we recently saw in the interview with the British volunteer.

International volunteers fighting for Ukraine staged the execution of civilians? Did I miss something. Can you share where you get your information?

It reminds me a lot of Russian propaganda. Its main goal is to put an equal sign between the victim and the aggressor. You can even make the victim the aggressor and the aggressor the victim (after all, everything is not so simple, right?)

Okay let me clarify something, what is the key difference between a hypothetical foreign volunteer shooting civilians and a Russian paratrooper from Bucha? The first was invited to participate in hostilities by the Ukrainian authorities expressing the will of the Ukrainian people, while the second crossed the border of Ukraine against the will of the Ukrainian people

Edited January 9, 2023 by Zeleban

[Aragorn2002]

7 hours ago, dan/california said:

I must say that does a nice job of summing up why the Poles have said never again, and MEANT it.

Not to mention the many Polish women raped by their Soviet 'liberators'.

[Zeleban]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

About motivations for going to war, I'm sure some of the Russians want to go plunder, but so do some of the international volunteers going to 'fight for Ukraine'. As we recently saw in the interview with the British volunteer.

And another funny question for you as a resident of a prosperous European country. What might be of interest to a hypothetical volunteer from Denmark in a broken Ukrainian house? toilet bowl, bathroom sink, washing machine, vacuum cleaner?

[Zeleban]

1 hour ago, Butschi said:

Although Ukrainians are the victims not the aggressors and of course use every tool at their disposal, from a truth-seeking point of view we shouldn't fall for this propaganda (call it "PR campaign" if you like that word better).

That's right, the next statement will be what these stubborn Ukrainians are doing near the Russian city of Kremennaya, leave immediately from there, you are provoking bloodshed

[Zeleban]

And one moment. We must consider any event in the context of our time with its concepts and customs. For example, genocide has been a common occurrence in history. Some nations as a result of the war completely destroyed others along with women and children. And then it was considered normal. In the 19th - mid-20th century, Putin would have been considered a completely reasonable and successful politician. The actions of the Russian military would not cause any resonance. But the customs of the 21st century require a different way of looking at things.

[kraze]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

Well, I'm 100 pct sure some of them ARE orks and deserve a bad fate. But I'm also sure not all of them are. I'm not going to sit here and look at videos of people getting blown to bits and cheer because I make myself believe I can judge them and their character from a drone view.

What the hell is this? Any russian soldier came to Ukraine with weapons to kill Ukrainians - but that soldier somehow may be a decent person? Are you effing serious?

[Zeleban]

The Russians are sincerely surprised by the Western reaction to their war crimes. During the war in Chechnya, executions of civilians, mass looting was a common occurrence. Even in 2008, during the war in Georgia, Russian generals were sincerely surprised when a resonance arose in society when a general appeared in a brand new SUV on the territory of Georgia. To the questions of journalists, the general answered without a shadow of a doubt that this was his honestly deserved trophy

Of course, in the 19th century, we would rejoice at the luck of a Russian general

[kraze]

23 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

And another funny question for you as a resident of a prosperous European country. What might be of interest to a hypothetical volunteer from Denmark in a broken Ukrainian house? toilet bowl, bathroom sink, washing machine, vacuum cleaner?

I mean unlike russians he can afford a car to fit that all in

[Zeleban]

7 minutes ago, kraze said:

What the hell is this? Any russian soldier came to Ukraine with weapons to kill Ukrainians - but that soldier somehow may be a decent person? Are you effing serious?

You do not understand, everything is not so clear

In general, I am amazed at the level of Russian propaganda in Europe.

At first, the Russians thought they could take over Ukraine without the help of their propaganda machine. But after their plan failed, they turned on propaganda at full capacity and, as we see, the result was not long in coming. I think the situation will only get worse in the future.

[kraze]

8 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

You do not understand, everything is not so clear

In general, I am amazed at the level of Russian propaganda in Europe.

At first, the Russians thought they could take over Ukraine without the help of their propaganda machine. But after their plan failed, they turned on propaganda at full capacity and, as we see, the result was not long in coming. I think the situation will only get worse in the future.

It must be obvious to any sane person that when somebody takes a weapon and goes to another man's house to kill him to take that house for himself - that that somebody cannot be a "decent person" by any definition.

No amount of propaganda can change this fact.

Only if the person himself thinks that somehow killing and stealing is above "decent". Propaganda may only add fuel to that world view.

And even then the fact is - there's simply no possible excuse for russian soldiers being here - therefore it's absolutely normal that they all must die since they don't want to stop killing Ukrainians.

Edited January 9, 2023 by kraze

[Beleg85]

3 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

One more thing to be taken into account is the level of Ukrainian losses and their mobilisation constraints. They are being actively downplayed by the Ukrainians, as they clearly have identified the West's giving up on the support because of perception of Russian inevitable victory to be the main risk in this conflict and have decided to portray the war as going on better than in reality. Polish military Internet, perhaps due to the lower language barrier and geographic proximity, seems to be more aware of this than the Western sources so overall there is a more sombre tone to their reports at this point in time.

E.g. Wolski (see thread below) has recently estimated that UKR are able to field 300 K troops, out of which 100 K as as light infantry, due to the weapons availablity which apparently is the bottleneck for the UKR. With RUS being able to mobilise 500 K as one mobilisation wave the strategy of just outlasting the UKR does not look unrealistic, even if they are equipped with old weapons. I know RUS do not have the facilities to train 0,5 million soldiers at a go and will have to stagger the training over time, but eventually after a couple of months delay the mobilised soldiers will make their way to the front.

Well summed up. I have my reservations as to quality of Wolski's analysis (he is still too much on the OOB formal side, not including various volunteers), but he reportedly has some internal UA sources now, or at least contact with NATO officers who coperate with AFU.

So to state of UA military and challanges they are facing, here summary of his views:

-Regular brigades are ca. 27 with nominally 150k troops.This was joined by "Reserve Corps" with 8 bgs. (ca.45k) armed partially with West-donated equipment. 10 new brigades of the second wave are being formed (55-60k), but these lacks equipment direly and are labelled as light infantry. Territorial Defence can realistically provide another 6bgs. and 40k (in theory there is 5 times more, but their existence is largely skeleton- lack even basic eqiupment).

-His summ up is 35 bgs. of ca. 300k soldiers with regular equipment complement that are main force here, from which 16bgs. of 100k seem to be light infantry with armour here and there but mostly movingat light vehicles and cars. For now [He didn't mention other troops of military and para-military background, like militarized border guards, Kords and various volunteer formation from platoon up to regiment size- here I think his numbers don't weight up].

-There are problems with quality of offcer corps (Haiduk mentioned it too), simply too many people joined the ranks in too short time. At the start foreign volunteers did good job at basic training, but now forces are too large and NATO needed to develop its own programms. They also lack divisional structure which means they have problems coordinating various units in larger operations- reportedly Severonetsk panic could be caused by this. Technical service park is also a pain with already so different vehicles in the army.

 

So if he is right, AFU capabilities are growing, but not at the rate we would expect.  If Putin indeed will draft 300-500k another troops, the ratio of forces would remain roghly the same and we will have difficult year. Add to that various claims that first Russian mobilization was a crash test of a system- it looked pathetic, but they may indentify and adress some of the problems before second one. Ofc. they may fail as well.

Edited January 9, 2023 by Beleg85

[Maciej Zwolinski]

1 hour ago, Butschi said:

This. And we should never forget that part of what information we get from Ukraine is propaganda. While more on the leaving out than on the straight out lie side, it is still propaganda tailored to provoke exactly this reaction. Dehumanizing the other side is propaganda 101 in every war and not only used by autocrats.

Let us assume that the information about Russian atrocities is part of Ukrainian propaganda. And in a sense it is, Ukrainians certainly show it in order to gain support from the West. So what?

Is it untrue? Is it exaggerated? Is it matched by equal and opposite amount of atrocities committed by the Ukrainians on Russians? 

To me, the answer to these three questions is a no, without much doubt.  Therefore, it  being propaganda is completely irrelevant. The information is factual and you may draw your own conclusions from it. Together with other facts, like:

- Russian command treating the life of its own soldiers as dirt (admitted by Russians, by some critically, by some others as a unique Russsian virtue of self-sacrifice; unlikely to be more humane to the enemy)

- Russian people in the media calling for genocide of Ukrainians (also by private Russians on social media, with fairly high frequency)

- Russian soldiers engaging in war crimes willingly or at least without protest (none have been recorded)

- Russian parliament putting up a bill to exonerate all perpetrators of war crimes "in the interest of Russsia";

- Wagner PMC being a popular institution in Russia while braining people with sledgehammers for camera;

etc.

Anyone can get his own conclusions, but to me, the evidence is sufficient to say that Russians generally are a nasty bunch and be glad that Ukrainians are killing their soldiers.