How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[dan/california]

It is worth noting that are really only two routes in and out of Crimea, and one of them is within standard GMLRS range of Kherson city. So if the Ukrainians could induce a real panic there is at least a chance to turn it into replay of the highway of death.

[Kinophile]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

It is worth noting that are really only two routes in and out of Crimea, and one of them is within standard GMLRS range of Kherson city. So if the Ukrainians could induce a real panic there is at least a chance to turn it into replay of the highway of death.

There would be a lot of non-combat civilians in that traffic... 

[Yskonyn]

11 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Because he is taking part in a genocidal war of aggression?

There should be accountability.  The world has supposedly moved on from its past practices.  If the US were to go off and deliberately carpet bomb civilians like it did in WW2 and Vietnam, I'd be calling for the pilots and everybody above them to be held accountable for warcrimes.  Just because that wasn't past practice doesn't excuse it.

The trials at the end of WW2 established that "just following orders" is not an adequate defense when the accused knew what he was doing was wrong.  I am perfectly fine with that standard and I do think it should be universally applied to all conflicts by all nations.  The Russian pilot should be held accountable just as much for his actions as a civilian who put C4 on a radio tower.

Steve

If I may, I wanted to come back to this post cause it triggered me, being a pilot myself.

In the civilian aviation industry we have fought hard and long to establish a pretty damn great safety track record.
‘Just Culture’ (or one of its many synonyms) is one of its pillars and means that when things go wrong, personel should feel they can report on it without having fear of being met with discliplinary actions by the company or risk of being proscecuted by law enforcement *as long as there is no intentional harmful or gross negligence* . By gaining a lot of information on what happened and not asking ourselves *who is responsible*, but rather *what can we learn to not have it happen again* is the driving factor and has proven to be successful.

Yet, the trend I’ve seen (with the rise of social media to name one big factor) is that this foundation is becoming shaky under the constant pressure of the (percieved?) importance of showing the public you (enter corporate/law/governmeny entity here) have things under control and show all those people who scream for heads to roll that its being managed and they shouldnt worry. Let’s be honest; the prime reaction of most of us will be : ‘who dunnit?!’ not ‘why did it happen’ .

Entities like D.A.’s know very well the the importance of public opinion, by there very nature they will always have an adversarial relationship with the ‘just culture’ way of thinking. And in my experience this slippery slope has angled more steeply toward easy wins by crowd control , which is something I look at with worry. 
 

Integrity is a very important thing. I believe that most people come to their job and not have the active thought to sabotage or neglect their duties willfully. On the contrary, they are doing their job to their full capacity and with good intent.

 

Now we look at the military pilot. Do you really feel he singlehandedly should be held responsible for his actions he does under order of his superiors while his country is at war? That looks to me like a cheap PR win to the hungry crowd more than a decision based on integrity. He’s the easiest target.

I fully understand an argument might be that he is a thinking individual and should have opposed to carrying out his orders, but that is from the point of view of the other side of which there always be at least 2 in a war. One side approves, the other does not. Its hardly a good point to make generalisations about for how to treat individual soldiers. Besides, don’t we have the Geneva Convention for this (if he ended up being captured)?

So, all german soldier should have been prosecuted individually after WW2? No, the people with the plans were and officers and officials propagating those plans were and then a country was put under sanctions to ‘punish the collective’.

Edited March 6, 2023 by Yskonyn

[The_MonkeyKing]

What is the status of the Swedish CV9040 donations? Do we have a timetable for it and who and where is going to be conducting the training? Is it going to be like the US Bradley training done in battalion size?

[Grigb]

17 hours ago, The_Capt said:

If true - even half of it - that is a military in the process of systemic failure. It highlight institutional level failures, nearly across the board:

Force Management - inability to conduct troop rotations, plummeting morale and pretty abysmal culture right now.

Force Development - in ability to adapt comms to environment. UAV failures.

Force Sustainment - the entire Artillery problem.

Force Generation - incredibly poor training quality of new troops.

Force Employment - well this one is pretty self evident.

I mean I do not know this source or how reliable it is but this is what military that is failing looks like.

Here is more - the description of the current RU assaults (from context this is Vuhledar direction)

Quote

Art preparation begins at about 7.00. The guns shoot at long-known [UKR] strong points, but, as a rule, 99% of the shells do not get anywhere [close to targets]. It is good if 10 percent falls into the stronghold itself, but the suppression of specific firing points does not occur.

At 9-10 o'clock, infantry begins to move out on armor [vehicles] or without armor at all. The vehicles go in a column, since there are so many mines around that it is impossible to deploy to a chain [Line formation]. UR-77, when successful, makes a small passage, but in turn it will immediately warn the enemy where the vehicle will go - If they [RU] threw "UR" there, then they will go there...

The infantry has dismounted and is slowly creeping up to the strongpoint. Tanks and BMPs having discharged their ammo, depart. Some mech drivers carelessly turn off the track and immediately blow up on a mine...

In fact, there is no counter-battery fire, so the enemy immediately bombards the attackers with a barrage of fire. The enemy's non-suppressed firing points are shooting at the infantry. Vehicles cannot suppress them due to the lack of well-established coordination, poor communication or unwillingness of crews to take risks [RU autoloaders are cool on paper but not in real battle]. As a rule, this is where most attacks end.

If the infantry has reached the enemy trenches, then everything depends on the mood of the soldiers. As a rule, 2-3 determined fighters pull off these terrible battles in the labyrinths of the trenches. God forbid, if one of them is killed or wounded, the attack may fail.

The battalion commander observes the picture of the battle from the [quadro]copter. He sees what's going on, but as a rule he can't influence anything in case something went wrong.

Unfortunately, I personally saw very few battalion commanders (or his deputy), who, seeing that the attack stalled, could themselves go to the forward lines to restore order there. But if their bosses yell into the radio, then they do run there headlong. As a rule, it ends tragically...

This pattern will repeat the next day, and then the next...

It is, in a nutshell, how we now conduct assault now.

Outside of a few elite and/or Wagnerites groups, this is the current state of the Russian army. Well, Bakhmut is currently grinding elite units and Wagnerites to the same level.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I take some of what the soldiers say with a grain of salt (I always do), but it would seem that there's a deliberate decision to not invest too heavily in the defense of Bakhmut so that future offensive plans aren't disrupted.  However, I think we're seeing that this dual strategy is starting to fail as friendly casualties are simply too large for it to be sustainable.

In Bakhmut itself there is also the issue of the city being surrounded on the three sides. If the Russians push to close the pincers and UKR from Bakhmut have to break out, the heavy equipment would be left in place. So the guns etc. have to be situated further to the West.

 

9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

What I can't understand is not figuring out a way to keep the mortars supplied with adequate quantities of shells.

As with all perspectives from the trenches, they are probably not seeing a lot of what's going on with artillery.  From what we can tell Russian forces are getting hammered by higher level assets (155s in particular) which the interviewer wasn't privy to. 

Lack of mortars is a frequent complaint on the Ukrainian side (e.g.Mashovets). It seems like they genuinely have too few mortars and too little ammunition for them and UKR themselves are saying this results from  procurement mistakes. They failed to buy enough or to ensure local production.

Re. the artillery. The reports of Russian artillery being shot up by counterbattery are from other places on the front, I believe e.g. Svatove-Kreminna sector. In the Bakhmut region the Russians have ensured a big advantage in tubes (10:1 has been quoted by a Polish journalist Lachowski) so effective counterbattery fire is unlikely. It is like Donbas in the summer, except that the Russians have only managed to replicate those conditions on a small sector of the front - which is a progress, of course.

[Butschi]

9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

If the war is illegal, then the acts committed by the people waging that war are also illegal. 

[...]

Legal principles are absurd?  Interesting concept.

I won't get involved in this discussion further as it is leaning towards whataboutism. But to be fair: The US did wage quite a few wars that violated international law. By your own admission, this would make all US soldiers who fought in one of those war criminals. I have zero problem with criticizing the US for their wars but calling each and every soldier a war criminal just for fighting in it is indeed absurd, I think. You are right, blindly following orders and getting away with it is a thing of the past, as it should be. But a judge will always weigh the severity of the what a soldier did under orders against possible consequences of refusing said order, meaning there is no automatism here.

Edited March 6, 2023 by Butschi

[Grigb]

11 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I think some of this is getting lost as the thread is currently in yet another nuclear rabbit hole

If we look at the RU Nats' rantings, there seems to be some awareness on the Russian side that its military forces are not well equipped to fight a defensive war.  However, for this to change the top level has to a) acknowledge reality, b) design a better alternative, and c) implement it.  In an autocratic system acknowledging reality is risky, so leadership tends to dance around it.  Since the systems (not just military) are deliberately designed to shield the top echelons from accountability, the people that are most needed to implement change are the ones least motivated to do so.  They are also often the least capable of doing so because ruthless political maneuvering is usually what got them into those positions, not competency.

Accountability at the top levels is generally achieved by replacement or worse (windows, heart attacks, suicide, etc) by someone higher up.  The problem is the new guy in charge faces the same exact circumstances as the guy that was just replaced.  The system is so rotten that meaningful change is unlikely. 

Each successive replacement at the senior level hopes that he can smoke & mirror his way out of the immediate crisis.  This can work pretty effectively in most situations in peacetime, but for extreme events such as war or a financial crisis, probably not.  Which means the replacement is probably going to fail and then find himself replaced or worse.  The next guy coming in faces the same situation.  So on and so forth until the situation fundamentally changes.  In this case, the hope seems to be that Ukraine and/or the West tires of the war and agrees to a ceasefire on Russia's terms.

Steve

This is pretty much it. But, there is an additional problem. Putin is the ultimate decision-maker, and everything is intertwined with him; nothing occurs without his fingerprints on it. Therefore he can't penalize anyone since everyone is merely faithfully carrying out his directions. Punishing someone faithful for his own error jeopardizes the loyalty of others.

As a result, he has done nothing except rewarding inept generals. (The general in charge of the Vuhledar debacle was recently rewarded).

[chuckdyke]

2 minutes ago, Butschi said:

But a judge

Exactly and there is a presumption of innocence till proven guilty. Who is taking the members of the security council to the Hague?

[Bulletpoint]

11 minutes ago, Butschi said:

You are right, blindly following orders and getting away with it is a thing of past, as it should be.

I don't think it's a thing of the past at all. Whether someone ends up a convicted war criminal or a decorated war hero depends entirely on which side wins.

[Grigb]

10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Although this is from the LPR standpoint (he's Luhansk, not Donetsk... right?) things have been getting worse. 

No-no-no, this is the state of whole LDPR line from Svatove to Vuhledar.  

 

10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Vehicles... well, seems that has already gone to critical.  We've certainly seen ample evidence of unsupported infantry attacks on a massive scale, so it checks out for sure.

The shortage of combat vehicles is so acute that another propagandist (affiliated with RU regulars in Svatove direction) remarked of the MT-LB mutant above:

Last year, I proposed sending Motolyga [primary MT-LB nickname] to Moscow for the May 9 parade. Real combat vehicle, basically the primary method of infantry movement (at least in some front-line sectors) [implies that in many places BMPs are no longer with us].

  

10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

The question about Agent Murz's reporting is we do not know how much of it is applicable to regular Russian units as the LDPR forces have always been their own thing and are politically less powerful in fights over resources.  It could be that we're seeing a "canary in the coalmine" situation here, where we're seeing something that will eventually be standard for the rest of the Russian forces.

The issue is, LDPR units are now part of the Russian armed forces. Cleaning has already occurred, and the high and medium LDPR command are now RU MOD command. As a result, I feel the "canary in the coalmine" applies here.

[Butschi]

3 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I don't think it's a thing of the past at all. Whether someone ends up a convicted war criminal or a decorated war hero depends entirely on which side wins.

True, although this is kind of orthogonal to the topic: Getting convicted or not heavily depends on which side wins, independent of whether you were just following orders or not.

[BletchleyGeek]

Boots on the ground...

 

[Grigb]

11 hours ago, FancyCat said:

Soldiers interviewed. Snippets taken out and quoted. Certainly not a great picture of the defense of Bakhmut. Ammo shortages, insufficient training, lack of heavy equipment and ammo, insufficient ISR.

https://kyivindependent.com/national/ukrainian-soldiers-in-bakhmut-our-troops-are-not-being-protected

 

These quotes need to be taken with a grain of salt. RU are currently throwing their most combat capable units at Bakhmut. The result is not impressive. 

So, I would say the overall picture is significantly less dramatic. 

[Grigb]

41 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Boots on the ground...

 

I disagree with Kofman.

Wagnerites, for example, had ceased taking Zek for at least one month prior. In Bakhmut, the core Wagnerites are being crushed. Prig recently asked Zelensky to leave Bakkhmut - if a Russian makes you a generous offer to quit the battle, it is an indicator that he is in deep sh*t and wishes you to leave him alone. Victorious Russian would never offer you anything.

BTW, rumors are RU MOD decided to grind Wagnerites in Bakhmut, to make Prig less dangerous. 

[Bulletpoint]

19 minutes ago, Grigb said:

These quotes need to be taken with a grain of salt. RU are currently throwing their most combat capable units at Bakhmut. The result is not impressive. 

So, I would say the overall picture is significantly less dramatic. 

 

I think there are basically two very different narratives told by Ukraine:

1: A strong and confident Ukrainian army is easily massacring hordes of completely incompetent and primitive Russians. This is the narrative of all the drone videos with their pumping music, Radio Free Europe reporting, etc.

2: A weak and desperate (but heroic) Ukrainian army is getting destroyed by Russia's superior resources, so please send more weapons. This Kyiv Independent article seems to be #2.

Ukraine needs to keep up this somewhat contraditory messaging because on the one hand, if western donors don't think the situation is really urgent, then why send more weapons?

But on the other hand, if we start to think that Ukraine is not professional and competent, then why send more weapons and simply keep the war going?

Edited March 6, 2023 by Bulletpoint

[Butschi]

8 minutes ago, Grigb said:

BTW, rumors are RU MOD decided to grind Wagnerites in Bakhmut, to make Prig less dangerous. 

There are also rumors that the moon is made of cheese. Not to ridicule your statement, I just think we shouldn't put too much stock in rumors because given this is the internet you can always find rumors that support your opinion or the exact opposite.

[chuckdyke]

If Russia lost 150000 and Ukraine lost 75000. They are not casualties Ukraine can afford. This war is a tragedy these guys should compete against each other in the Olympics not on a muddy cold battlefield. I am not holding my breath that putin will ever be tried as a war criminal. 

[hcrof]

28 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

If Russia lost 150000 and Ukraine lost 75000. They are not casualties Ukraine can afford. This war is a tragedy these guys should compete against each other in the Olympics not on a muddy cold battlefield. I am not holding my breath that putin will ever be tried as a war criminal. 

While every death is a tragedy, Ukraine has a population size similar to the UK in WW2 and is also supported by external powers (the US). We are a long way away from WW2 levels of casualties so it is probably reasonable to suggest Ukraine has a lot in the tank in terms of deaths, for better or for worse.

[Grigb]

37 minutes ago, Butschi said:

There are also rumors that the moon is made of cheese. Not to ridicule your statement, I just think we shouldn't put too much stock in rumors because given this is the internet you can always find rumors that support your opinion or the exact opposite.

There are rumors. And there are my rumors. That's two different kinds of rumors.

[EDIT] To clarify - there is specific context that confirms this rumor. Since rumor appeared Wagnerites were cut off from recruiting zeks and were cut off from generous ammo supply. Their core units were litteraly thrown at UKR with little arty support.

 

Edited March 6, 2023 by Grigb

[chuckdyke]

5 minutes ago, hcrof said:

We are a long way away from WW2 levels of casualties

They lost something like the US lost during Battle of the Bulge. Eastern Ukraine is a meatgrinder for both sides, for the Russians the present attrition may be acceptable. This is hard for us to comprehend. 

[Grigb]

11 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

 What I can't understand is not figuring out a way to keep the mortars supplied with adequate quantities of shells.

The following is my analysis and interpretation of Mashovet's posts.

Mortars are not appealing. As a result, the UKR political and military leadership did not give them adequate attention before the war. This caused a system/structural issue with UKR's manufacturing capabilities for both mortars and shells. Worst of all, the mindset remained unchanged once the war began. They don't have any stock, can't make anything, and can't take any requests.

We must remember that everyone loves the role of elite artilleryman lobbing 155 from afar. Nobody loves being a dirty infantry mortarman buried beneath the majority of RU shells.

My question is why relevant Western military agencies are not putting pressure on the UKR command to resolve the matter. It appears that relevant Western military agencies do not completely comprehend the situation, which is unfortunate because the necessity for mortars was obvious back in summer 22.

[hcrof]

21 minutes ago, Grigb said:

The following is my analysis and interpretation of Mashovet's posts.

Mortars are not appealing. As a result, the UKR political and military leadership did not give them adequate attention before the war. This caused a system/structural issue with UKR's manufacturing capabilities for both mortars and shells. Worst of all, the mindset remained unchanged once the war began. They don't have any stock, can't make anything, and can't take any requests.

We must remember that everyone loves the role of elite artilleryman lobbing 155 from afar. Nobody loves being a dirty infantry mortarman buried beneath the majority of RU shells.

My question is why relevant Western military agencies are not putting pressure on the UKR command to resolve the matter. It appears that relevant Western military agencies do not completely comprehend the situation, which is unfortunate because the necessity for mortars was obvious back in summer 22.

While I agree with the above, I will also point out that rates of fire for mortars can be extremely high so maybe they genuinely blew through all available ammo? 

Does anyone know the relative cost of a mortar bomb Vs an artillery shell? Mortars are very crude so they must be a lot cheaper?

Edited March 6, 2023 by hcrof

[Grigb]

11 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I do not know.  No one does and that is what is particularly scary.  We have not outlined a strategy in the West that includes a theory of a Russian defeat - at least not publicly.  All the O2 is taken up with “Ukraine can’t win” or “Ukraine can’t lose”, or how much support we need to push in order to make Ukraine achieve a “complete victory”.  Problem is that we have largely left the post-Russia issue up to the dice rolls.  Zelensky basically outline the Ukrainian position: “We do not care, so long as they are out.”  Which is very understandable, but the grown ups in the West can’t think that way, it is far too dangerous.  Worst case is Russia falls apart completely and descends into a violent break up.  This will immediately raise the nuclear question.  We have never had a nuclear power undergo a civil war or complete collapse.  The USSR folded but it was pretty organized, more rolling up shop - although it came within inches (https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/10/20-years-ago-russia-had-its-biggest-political-crisis-since-the-bolshevik-revolution/280237/)

So a Russia in full free fall means that nuclear risk and regional instability goes up dramatically.  I am not sure what the Russia theory of defeat is, I am pretty sure Putin does not have one considering how tightly he has boxed himself in. I can only hope some power players in the backfield have got a plan B.

The thing is that regardless of the outcome of the conflict, the collapse of the Russian Federation is on the table. Long story short - RU economists believe that pre-war RU export revenues are gone permanently. For objective reasons, RU's shift to Asia will never yield comparable revenues. Unless Russia achieves a decisive win and compels the West to assist it, the country economically is doomed (like really doomed).

Good news I don't think the majority of RU public is in the mood for violence. I sense their apathy, desire to get on with their lives. We might just head to USSR 2.0 scenario. 

[BletchleyGeek]

1 hour ago, Grigb said:

Wagnerites, for example, had ceased taking Zek for at least one month prior. In Bakhmut, the core Wagnerites are being crushed. Prig recently asked Zelensky to leave Bakkhmut - if a Russian makes you a generous offer to quit the battle, it is an indicator that he is in deep sh*t and wishes you to leave him alone. Victorious Russian would never offer you anything.

I see your point re: professionals and not "zek"/shtraf personnel taking the brunt of the fight (and casualties).

About Prigozhin's statements... well, he also announced a few weeks the immediate deployment of semi autonomous Wagner UGVs in significant numbers (the real ones that were tested in Syria with "discreet" results, not mannequins on buggies). So please excuse me if I cannot take what he says (or is reported to say) at face value.

Having sad that, I have exactly zero knowledge of the Russian language. There may be a tinge of desperation that goes unnoticed.

Edited March 6, 2023 by BletchleyGeek