How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[dan/california]

 

Quote

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-the-crows-nest/id1561252894?i=1000598699067

A long interview with the guy at the Pentagon who is more or less in charge of laser weapon development. A lot of positive energy, pun intended. What he didn't give is a single meaningful performance spec, in terms of how quickly, and at what range, they can kill various classes of missiles and UAVs. He says they are at the point of producing operational systems though, actually fielding things and counting on them to work in the next year or two. 

[sross112]

14 hours ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Well, some parts of the Russian Army may be starting to get some of their ideas right
 

I'm going to be the optimist again today. Wouldn't it be nice if the UA cut off that northern pincer and liquidated most of Wagner group? I think it was Dan that said the weather is supposed to be a good freeze for the next week. There are several salty UA formations in the area. The RA troops have got to be getting worn out from the non-stop attacking (unless fresh ones have moved up). 

Not sure if it is possible, but sure would be fun to watch!!

[Kinophile]

33 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Well the first thing is keep killing Russians.  One thing we have not really touched on is political collapse and heavy attrition could force that.  As to the RA, continued pressure/erosion, operational victories and positioning.  The RA really does not have to collapse entirely to win this thing.  They need to be put into an untenable position that forces withdrawal.  That is something that the UA can definitely do.    

This touches on my final thought, as it describes the fundamental strategic advantage of the RA - it can "hide"  behind its borders. The ZSU will never defeat the RA as an aggressor force, as the Russians can continuously and without harassment rebuild and reinforce from the safety of their own lands.

This was the true advantage of the NVA in Vietnam and the US's only option without ground forces invading the north was strategic bombing,  which failed. 

Ukraine faces the same situation,  but there is a possible solution -  prevent withdrawal. 

If the ZSU can cut off very large chunk(s) of the invading force from retreat to the border then it can destroy such quantities of RA units that force a strategic, national crisis - vice, failure of the actual invasion, abrupt loss of strategically significant quantities of men & material, political leadership loss of internal credibility and social loss of support to the regime. 

There is really only one place this cut off can happen: the Zaporizhia - Azov coast axis. 

So my thesis is this:

It's not enough for the ZSU to keep killing Russians. They must cut off as many Russians as possible from Russia proper. 

[JonS]

6 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

They must cut off as many Russians as possible from Russia proper. 

What are you proposing they do with them - mass executions? Because otherwise they're walking back across the border in a month or a year, once the war is officially over.

Releasing them doesnt solve your problem set, since they can just reform.

Not releasing them creates a different problem set.

Killing them all creates a whole other problem set.

[The_Capt]

19 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

This touches on my final thought, as it describes the fundamental strategic advantage of the RA - it can "hide"  behind its borders. The ZSU will never defeat the RA as an aggressor force, as the Russians can continuously and without harassment rebuild and reinforce from the safety of their own lands.

This was the true advantage of the NVA in Vietnam and the US's only option without ground forces invading the north was strategic bombing,  which failed. 

Ukraine faces the same situation,  but there is a possible solution -  prevent withdrawal. 

If the ZSU can cut off very large chunk(s) of the invading force from retreat to the border then it can destroy such quantities of RA units that force a strategic, national crisis - vice, failure of the actual invasion, abrupt loss of strategically significant quantities of men & material, political leadership loss of internal credibility and social loss of support to the regime. 

There is really only one place this cut off can happen: the Zaporizhia - Azov coast axis. 

So my thesis is this:

It's not enough for the ZSU to keep killing Russians. They must cut off as many Russians as possible from Russia proper. 

There is definitely an opportunity for this in Crimea - that scenario does make a bit nervous, but by then it might not matter as the current Russian regime might go into free fall with a loss that big.  And then what do you do with the PoWs?  As to denying Russia an ability to rebuild and continue to make trouble along the border, I would offer that there is no viable military solution to that problem right now.  

The answer at that point is a political, economic and diplomatic one - military options will pretty much exhausted at the Russian border unless we are talking about concerted and prolonged strikes into Russia itself…and that is a scenario that should make everyone nervous.  I mean if this were realistic the UA would have done it already (beyond largely symbolic strikes as a form of IO).  No the answer then lies in pulling Ukraine into NATO or some sort of collective defence and security agreement that takes Russian overt military action off the table.  We know these exist because they kept Russia out of the Baltics - I mean they talk a good game but they know the real score.  Try and bring Russia back to sanity with sanctions negations but reparations and warcrimes have to be on the table.

Russia will then go back to subversion, picking at internal regional scabs and generally making life hard, but I think Ukraine will become almost impossible to conduct subversive warfare within outside of the former 2014 annexed territories.  And if the loss is bad enough, maybe not even there.

Edited February 9, 2023 by The_Capt

[Kinophile]

Yeah, NATO membership is the true strategic win for Ukraine,  without a doubt. 

@JonS well,  cutting off does not imply surrender. I highly doubt Russian forces cut off between Melitopol and Crimea wouldn't fight like demons, for a good while at least. Yes there would be a lot of POWs but that's the point -  capture is as good as a kill. UKR can release back into Russia once the war is over. Rebuild all they want, but Ukraine will be in NATO. 

 

[LongLeftFlank]

3 hours ago, billbindc said:

It must be quite something for the Glavset boys to be reading this thread knowing with absolute conviction that none of the wisdom herein could possibly filter usefully through the sclerotic, corrupt, silovik sh*tshow they work for.

Yeah, a certain wistfulness and admiration definitely comes through in Girkin and Murtz, just as it did in some Vietnam commentators back in the day (we're backing the wrong umm guys). They know it isn't only Western weapons beating them up.

If I had 10 divisions of such men, our troubles here would be over here very quickly.

[FancyCat]

 

 

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, sross112 said:

I'm going to be the optimist again today. Wouldn't it be nice if the UA cut off that northern pincer and liquidated most of Wagner group? I think it was Dan that said the weather is supposed to be a good freeze for the next week. There are several salty UA formations in the area. The RA troops have got to be getting worn out from the non-stop attacking (unless fresh ones have moved up). 

Not sure if it is possible, but sure would be fun to watch!!

Nice thought but still too much Russian artillery, and probably whatever passes for CAS, would make any such backhand blow Pyrrhic. And the UA can't afford Pyrrhic at the moment.

[JonS]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

Rebuild all they want, but Ukraine will be in NATO. 

My bet is that Ukraine will not be a full NATO member a decade after the formal end of the war.

They might be close by then, and they might have a couple of bi-lat alliances, but they won't be full members of NATO. (They are already "in" NATO, as a PfP, and have been for almost 20yrs)

Edited February 9, 2023 by JonS

[dan/california]

Quote

Russian officials also likely proposed these measures in coordination with a recent decree excluding Russian officials from requirements to list income declarations and proposals to repeal federal procurement procedures. The Kremlin may be creating a system of subsidies and benefits designed to have little oversight or accounting. This lack of oversight and accounting would likely allow Russian firms to better evade international sanctions regimes targeting Russia’s military industry

Ukraine is trying to clean up its corruption issues. I think Russia is using the cover of "sanctions avoidance" to make its problems worse. ISW just mentions sanction avoidance, but what they actually described is a license to steal. Are various people in the Russian government  making one last attempt to steal the state treasury in its entirety before they flee to whatever shady excuse for a country that will have them? They could also be trying round up the resources to contest the post Putin contest for power. Of course any of the losers that survived would be back to the any shady country that would take them plan, but with less money.

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Correct,  my threshold for a RA collapse is a strategic level situation, as I view it as more than the force currently engaged, I view it as a strategic entity that must suffer strategic level effects for its nature and form to begin disintegration. 

For sure I agree with this.  However, it doesn't need to happen all at once.  The Soviet Union did not suffer a catastrophic collapse in Afghanistan, but it was a component of the Soviet Union coming to an end. 

What we want is a quick end to the current Putin regime and have it replaced by something less awful.  However, what we need is for the Putin regime to end and be replaced by something awful.  Quick is better, but the real measure isn't speed it's outcome.

4 hours ago, Kinophile said:

In theory, a strategic situation rarely pops into being (eg Nukes v Japan suddenly presented an entirely strategic problem with no possible operational response) so they are born of cumulative operational level events. 

Correct.  Even changes that appear to be linked to something specific generally are the culmination of a lot of things over time.  The protests in Iran right now did not come about just because one girl was beaten to death.  When Putin's regime falls it will be because of a very long list of things over decades, not only because of this war.

With that perspective, you should not be focused on any one big thing ending this war.  You should instead look for a series of events that may lead to an end to this war.  Homefront included.

4 hours ago, Kinophile said:

We can dicker around about the major four defeats RUS suffered (eg I view Kyiv as a precipitious retreat)  but you have not answered my main point:

Much as Russia suffered various heavy defeats and operational collapses, the force as a whole remained cohesive, maintained enough discipline and logistical structure to shift its CoG and attempt an even heavier assault from the east. It remained integrated as an institution and supplier of violence. 

Each of the defeats last year, while leading logically one to the other, were unable to compound their effects into a general defeat of the invasion as a whole.

"Yet" is the word that needs to be put right at the end of your statement.  To rephrase what you wrote above:

Russia has suffered various heavy defeats and operational collapses, the force has so far remained cohesive, maintained enough discipline and logistical structure to attempt a concentrated assault from the east at the expense of all other sectors of front.  It remained integrated as an institution and supplier of violence, but with each passing month the means of metering out that violence has been on the decline.

Navy?  Effectively out of the war.

Airforce?  Relegated to launching stand off weapons and occasionally pummeling a small piece of front.

Artillery?  It's gone from hitting Ukraine hard along the entire front, to hitting a large section of front hard, to hitting a small section of front hard.

Armor?  We used to see daily attacks up and down the front of company sized mech forces.  Then it went to frequent platoon sized attacks.  Then it went to sporadic platoon sized attacks.  Now we see a reinforced company of 30 vehicles and flagged it as a sign of a major offensive!  This from a nation that started this war with thousands of AFVs.

Infantry?  There is actually more infantry in the fight now than when the war started, but the quality is generally very low and appears possibly headed lower.  They are also increasingly attacking without other supporting arms.

Terror strikes?  Russia has gone from massive daily artillery and missile strikes on civilian targets to much smaller attacks that are spread out over a lot more time.

So yes, they do maintain a horrible ability to cause pain and misery on Ukraine, but it has been declining for most of this conflict and recently has seemingly nosedived.

4 hours ago, Kinophile said:

To effect RA collapse will take far more than a bad defeat after bad defeat, if they are separated in their effects on time and space. That happened last year and sure,  mobiks/less armor etc so maybe this time around... 

But... Not really? Ukraine has been killing a LOT of Russians for over a year and while there are small instances of discipline failure the Russian Army as a whole remains extant, intact, organised, directed and supplied. 

I don't see anything UKR can do that will affect that at a strategic level and duration to cause strategic collapse. 

They are very well along that path already.  And this year, hopefully, they will complete it.

Remember, many of Russia's defeats were suffered when Ukraine was still in shock from the invasion.  There were a lot of missed opportunities to make those defeats larger and more meaningful simply because Ukraine was still getting itself pulled together.  2023 should see Ukraine far more ready to take advantage of Russian defeats.

4 hours ago, Kinophile said:

They could effect major,  reinforcing operational defeats,  but they would need to happen very vlose together and entail far more than just ground victories. 

No.  Ukraine only has to make Russia suffer defeats faster than it can reconstitute and eventually there won't be enough to keep the war going.  So far Ukraine has been permanently degrading Russia's capabilities very successfully with the help of the idiots in the Russian MoD continuing to attack when they should be rebuilding.  All the while Ukraine is becoming stronger and even better at killing Russians.

There is no stalemate here.  Russia is going to be defeated on the battlefield sooner rather than later.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Not shocking revelation that Putin personally signed off on sending the Buk to Ukraine that shot down MH-17, but a bit surprising prosecutors see to have evidence ("strong indications") he did:

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/mh17-investigators-halt-probe-without-further-prosecutions-source-2023-02-08/

Steve

[dan/california]

29 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Not shocking that Putin is personally signed off on sending the Buk to Ukraine that shot down MH-17, but a bit surprising the prosecutors feel there's evidence of "strong indications" he did:

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/mh17-investigators-halt-probe-without-further-prosecutions-source-2023-02-08/

Steve

It isn't all that surprising. Putin is a micromanaging control freak, and some member(s) of Five eyes seem to own Russian communication completely. Of course Putin now has committed any number of other crimes that would get whatever maximum sentence the Hague can give. And for good measure he has given long speeches about those crimes on video. So charging him formally with MH-17 is in the nice but not required category. They also may want to use the lever of formal charges against Putin personally in the final negotiations to end this war.

[kevinkin]

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-no-new-ground-assault-on-kyiv-expected

I guess this is pretty close to an "official analysis" of the front today. Nothing really surprising; but confirming:

Venislavskyi’s comments also synch up with an analysis provided to The War Zone Monday by a Ukrainian advisor who asked to be referred to by his nom de guerre Vlad Dut to discuss security matters.

The Russians, he added, are amassing troops and supplies in Donbas beyond the range of the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) provided to Ukraine, which can reach targets about 43 miles away. 

Still, the “Bakhmut direction is one of the critical points of the front line, where one of the most significant infantry and artillery battles of the 21st century unfolds,” Dut wrote, adding that it has forced both sides to pour personnel and equipment into the fight.

Capturing Bakhmut would give Russia “a key transport interchange, which allows movement to the north (Slovyansk-Kramatorsk) and west (Konstantinovka-Pokrovsk) and will favorably help the occupation of the Donetsk region,” Dut wrote. “An additional factor is that after a series of failures and the loss of significant territories by the occupiers, this city is a small, but at least some kind of victory.” 

The "likely retention of Bakhmut and the surrounding area at all costs is unacceptable and should maintain a delicate balance between moving away to favorable positions or holding in the future,” he wrote.

Haven't we all had to make this type of call in our wargames over the years. In the UA, if it came down to one man's vote, who would it be? Not sure how they jive the political factors with the military ones. Kind of think it will be a military call. 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

10 hours ago, Lethaface said:

The 'only' thing UKR needs to do is convince the average soldier that 'further resistance is futile'.

Well, that is the problem. UKR has to convince the average RUS soldier, that further resistance against UKR is worse than the threat of bullet in the back from Kadyrovtsy/Wagner barrier troops and your family getting bankrupted due to the military pension being denied to them. That is a steeper challenge.

[Huba]

Looks like Wagner already chewed through all zeks willing to go fight in Ukraine. Also prison system is reportedly not happy to lose too many of its customers:

 

[cesmonkey]

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/spacex-curbed-ukraines-use-starlink-internet-drones-company-president-2023-02-09/

SpaceX curbed Ukraine's use of Starlink internet for drones -company president

Quote

WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - SpaceX has taken steps to prevent Ukraine's military from using the company's Starlink satellite internet service for controlling drones in the region during the country's war with Russia, SpaceX's president said Wednesday.

SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service, which has provided Ukraine's military with broadband communications in its defense against Russia's military, was "never never meant to be weaponized," Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president and chief operating officer, said during a conference in Washington, D.C.

 

[cesmonkey]

The mud is coming back.
 

 

[JonS]

35 minutes ago, Huba said:

Looks like Wagner already chewed through all zeks willing to go fight in Ukraine. Also prison system is reportedly not happy to lose too many of its customers:

 

Assusing that it's true that Wagner are operating two-tier units - "expendable" ex-convicts and regular mercenary - I imagine that must be corrosive to the morale and discipline of BOTH tiers. Obviously the ex-cons are going to become a bit truculent when they realise the just "volunteered" for bullet catching duties. But the regulars must, surely, be wondering about their life choices as they herd fellow Russians, who're also supposedly fellow Wagnerites, forward into the minefields.

Edited February 9, 2023 by JonS

[LongLeftFlank]

35 minutes ago, Huba said:

Looks like Wagner already chewed through all zeks willing to go fight in Ukraine. Also prison system is reportedly not happy to lose too many of its customers:

 

While moms of the immortal fallen are getting... whatever fell off the truck.

 

 

[poesel]

4 hours ago, JonS said:

My bet is that Ukraine will not be a full NATO member a decade after the formal end of the war.

They might be close by then, and they might have a couple of bi-lat alliances, but they won't be full members of NATO. (They are already "in" NATO, as a PfP, and have been for almost 20yrs)

I guess Ukraine will become full member as soon as Russia wants the sanctions lifted. The cessation of all hostilities will be a non-negotiable requirement. That in turn will allow NATO membership.

[Aragorn2002]

1 hour ago, Huba said:

Looks like Wagner already chewed through all zeks willing to go fight in Ukraine. Also prison system is reportedly not happy to lose too many of its customers:

 

In a country full of criminals that will only be a temporary problem.

[Butschi]

40 minutes ago, poesel said:

I guess Ukraine will become full member as soon as Russia wants the sanctions lifted. The cessation of all hostilities will be a non-negotiable requirement. That in turn will allow NATO membership.

Cessation of hostilities is a necessary but not sufficient condition. All NATO members have to ratify the membership application and, as we have learned with Sweden that is not just a formality.

[kraze]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

While moms of the immortal fallen are getting... whatever fell off the truck.

 

 

Admittedly they don't deserve even that.