How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[billbindc]

Prigozhin’s pitch clearly stated that Ukraine didn’t provoke the war, that the reasons the Russian people were given for starting it were bogus and that the premises Russia went in believing were totally wrong. He also was clear that Russia was overmatched. There are no sure things in any of this but it looked an awful lot like he was setting the groundwork to call a ceasefire and end the war if that’s what he wanted. It’s certainly what a lot of Russian elites want.

[dan/california]

3 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Prigozhin’s pitch clearly stated that Ukraine didn’t provoke the war, that the reasons the Russian people were given for starting it were bogus and that the premises Russia went in believing were totally wrong. He also was clear that Russia was overmatched. There are no sure things in any of this but it looked an awful lot like he was setting the groundwork to call a ceasefire and end the war if that’s what he wanted. It’s certainly what a lot of Russian elites want.

"Peace, land , and bread" was a lot easier for the rank and file to understand.

[fireship4]

2 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Funny- still illegal under Russian law.

Mark Galleoti read out the relevant law in an episode of 'In Moscow's Shadow's', and IIRC, he made the point that it says such structures are illegal if they act against the state.

 

2 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

like cheese left on July sun...  ...perhaps it may ultimately seed doubts about aims of this war into some minds.

Either you are mixing your metaphors or I will avoid Polish cheese.  Perhaps it could ferment some ideas, or curdle some suspicions

[dan/california]

Pushing a real assault here at least implies a threat to cut the land bridge BEHIND Donestk city. Which I think would a war winner if Ukraine could pull it off.

[akd]

heh, Wagner killed at least two Lt. Colonels in a single day:

 

[dan/california]

Well, he said that perfectly.

[The_Capt]

4 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Well, he said that perfectly.

Ok so what is the plan then?  Crush Russia and hope they whatever happens all those WMDs somehow stay under a centralized control?  Think about what happens if those Chechen goons got their hands on even just chemical weapons.  You realize the Ukraine urban centres are going to be likely first-targets because Russians are generally a spiteful bunch.

The “Goldilocks Solution” is the one where we do not take massive risks with a nuclear power in complete free fall - why do those baying for Russian blood keep skipping over this little inconvenient issue?  If we do not have a theory for Russian defeat last weekend is going to look like a reminder of a simpler and gentler time.

[DesertFox]

 

 

[billbindc]

8 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ok so what is the plan then?  Crush Russia and hope they whatever happens all those WMDs somehow stay under a centralized control?  Think about what happens if those Chechen goons got their hands on even just chemical weapons.  You realize the Ukraine urban centres are going to be likely first-targets because Russians are generally a spiteful bunch.

The “Goldilocks Solution” is the one where we do not take massive risks with a nuclear power in complete free fall - why do those baying for Russian blood keep skipping over this little inconvenient issue?  If we do not have a theory for Russian defeat last weekend is going to look like a reminder of a simpler and gentler time.

It let's guys like Cohen...who can posture without fear or real world repercussion....look like tough guys. That's all it is.

[dan/california]

14 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ok so what is the plan then?  Crush Russia and hope they whatever happens all those WMDs somehow stay under a centralized control?  Think about what happens if those Chechen goons got their hands on even just chemical weapons.  You realize the Ukraine urban centres are going to be likely first-targets because Russians are generally a spiteful bunch.

The “Goldilocks Solution” is the one where we do not take massive risks with a nuclear power in complete free fall - why do those baying for Russian blood keep skipping over this little inconvenient issue?  If we do not have a theory for Russian defeat last weekend is going to look like a reminder of a simpler and gentler time.

I plead guilty to overstating the case. However Prig's little meltdown points out two thing rather strongly. We don't have all that much control over how Russia decides to lose this war, and Russia losing slower will not necessarily lead to the Russians making better decisions than Russia losing quickly. Slower just gives all sorts of bat s%^t crazy, and extremely unpleasant people time to hatch plots where the only thing worse than their failure would be their success. If Ukraine had had the the resources to drive home the success in Kharkiv last fall we would at least have been negotiating with Russian government that everyone, including most importantly the Russians, believed was in control. That assumption is gone, any guesses on how many decades it will take to get it back?

Edited June 27, 2023 by dan/california

[Battlefront.com]

36 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Pushing a real assault here at least implies a threat to cut the land bridge BEHIND Donestk city. Which I think would a war winner if Ukraine could pull it off.

Interesting that the first charge seemed very well aimed, but not used for the assault.  The second one appears to have gone off course.

This sort of thing reminds us how important it is to know where the minefields are in the first place.  Either Ukraine knew the fields were clear in that area or they got REALLY lucky.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

55 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Prigozhin’s pitch clearly stated that Ukraine didn’t provoke the war, that the reasons the Russian people were given for starting it were bogus and that the premises Russia went in believing were totally wrong. He also was clear that Russia was overmatched. There are no sure things in any of this but it looked an awful lot like he was setting the groundwork to call a ceasefire and end the war if that’s what he wanted. It’s certainly what a lot of Russian elites want.

When Prig put out those statements it raised a lot of eyebrows as it crossed MANY red lines with Russian messaging.  He even estimated how many soldiers Russia has lost, which is certainly another one (though he crossed that a few times before).  Then we had the weekend's festivities.  Obviously the two are linked, directly.  I agree he was likely putting out information to rally pragmatists to his cause.  I figured that was the goal before he moved on Rostov simply because I saw no other reason to be so bold.  We wondered how he planned on getting away with it, and soon we found out!

Steve

[kluge]

46 minutes ago, dan/california said:

"Peace, land , and bread" was a lot easier for the rank and file to understand.

I'm sure the message for the rank and file was simpler: "Wagner pays better" 

Better pay with the risk of treason charges though? That's a significantly different value proposition.

[DesertFox]

2 hours ago, sburke said:

One more reason to declare Russia a terrorist state. 

Speaking of a terrorist state - Kramatorsk, today, 19:32 local time

 

 

[sburke]

NYT article on Prig and their own perspective.  Not sure if paywalled

one area of interest is other bits of Prig’s financial empire that were being undermined  specifically his catering business to the Russian army  

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/27/world/europe/prigozhin-wagner-russia-putin.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

 

[The_Capt]

8 minutes ago, dan/california said:

We don't have all that much control over how Russia decides to lose this war, and Russia losing slower will not necessarily lead to the Russians making better decisions than Russia losing quickly.

Well you may be correct on the first count but I do not fully buy into the second.  And we are back to Uncertainty.  A slow bleeding lose allows for reorientation and adaptation which we may be able to shape somewhat.  The uncertainty is more manageable.  Of course the counter to this argument is the human ability to ignore and delude ourselves into thinking something is not happening, if it happens slowly…right up until the point it happens fast anyway, but let’s tackle on mess at a time.  Fast is a bow wave of uncertainty that becomes auto-catalytic and in humans creates panic.  When we panic we lose the capacity to effectively process information and begin to act on programming, even if it is totally misaligned with reality - this is how people in a fire manage to clog up doorways and everyone dies.

Rapid escalation of uncertainty in the Russian system will very likely see the total collapse of macro-social structures, plenty examples of this throughout human history.  Once that happens micro-social takes charge and a couple hundred people who go tribal and feral start to act in their own interests pretty quickly.  That would normally be hilarious except for the part where those couple hundred people could get their hands on some very powerful weapons.  The macro-social structures that control those weapons no longer exists so we basically have the power of gods in the hands of scared primates…what could possibly go wrong.  Micro-social exist in a state of relative rationality, which means what may look totally insane from the outside, makes perfect sense inside.  This means a level of macro-anarchy, which is just really micro-rationality.

In a slower descent theoretically the macro-social structures have time to adapt and retain a level of control - we saw this at the end of the Cold War.  People can try and downplay the problem (it won’t really happen that way, but don’t they need expertise to use those weapons?) or skew/mitigate it (well surely the Russian or Western governments will swoop in and focus on securing these systems).  But the reality is that once the macro-social structure fails pretty much everything is up for grabs and we have never had a P5 nuclear power completely fail before.  If we are going to, I would prefer for that failure to be in slow motion than fast.  It absolutely sucks and is unfair to Ukraine to have to live with this, but here we are.

[kimbosbread]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Minefield breaching has been, and will continue to be a very dangerous operation.  Right there on the “avoid if you can” shelf with amphib and water x-ings.  The problem is that it takes a lot of moving parts to pull off and in many cases if a single node fails the entire thing collapses - we saw this with the infamous minefield disaster the UA had a few weeks ago.  Add to this smart landmines or (god help us) mobile ones and minewarfare is likely going to up its game beyond “obstacle” to area denial.

What’s the difference between a mostly autonomous drone swarm and a smart and/or mobile minefield? They seem very similar in practice and employment, honestly.

[Vic4]

Looks like Prig is in his new pen...

Mercenary chief Prigozhin starts exile in Belarus as Putin praises Russian troops
Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin arrived in Belarus on Tuesday under a deal that ended a brief mutiny by his fighters, as President Vladimir Putin praised his armed forces for averting a civil war.

Read in Reuters:https://apple.news/Asio7wRJlQjamolDbuPPkTw

Edited June 27, 2023 by Vic4

[kimbosbread]

1 hour ago, Eddy said:

Interesting. 28 CBU-72s dropped from 4 Harriers (7 each) cleared a 30 metre breach to a depth of 210 metre with an 82% probability of clearing all of the mines.

I guess one obvious problem would be getting 4 Ukrainian aircraft anywhere near a minefield given the present air environment/

I wonder if an earthquake bomb would be useful for this?

[DesertFox]

6 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

I wonder if an earthquake bomb would be useful for this?

LOL. You need to drive vehicles through the breach after clearing the mines. A lunar landscape isn't very helpful with that.

[Jr Buck Private]

@The_Capt Just wondering about the Kherson bridgehead.   How many men will Ukraine need to get across the river to cause some major problems for Russia?   I'm assuming that a major assault across the river it not feasible since heavy equipment is needed.   But what if the Ukranians put a couple thousand across?   If they can push inland a ways then maybe a major assault becomes more possible.

[The_Capt]

13 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

What’s the difference between a mostly autonomous drone swarm and a smart and/or mobile minefield? They seem very similar in practice and employment, honestly.

In that they can create an autonomous kill box definitely.  The major difference is physics.  Mines with legs (a form of UGV) have different requirements than UAS - main one is that UGVs can rest just about anywhere for as long as their batteries last.  Someone is going to create a hybrid UAS that can sit in the bushes and self activate to be sure.

We went from the Age of Rifles, to the Age of Fires, to the Age of Steel, to the Age of Information in warfare…and we are entering into the Age of Unmanned: it will change everything before it is done.

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, Jr Buck Private said:

@The_Capt Just wondering about the Kherson bridgehead.   How many men will Ukraine need to get across the river to cause some major problems for Russia?   I'm assuming that a major assault across the river it not feasible since heavy equipment is needed.   But what if the Ukranians put a couple thousand across?   If they can push inland a ways then maybe a major assault becomes more possible.

So I have wondered about a crossing in the Kherson sector for most of the winter.  The issue is not really the amount of mass they need to push.  That sector is very lightly defended and we have seen light mobile infantry do a lot of damage when supported.  The issue will be sustaining them.  Any crossing must be sustained and that will be visible even for a modest sized force.  Tac aviation in any volume is out so it will be land based.

So the risk for Ukraine is getting a bunch of troops cut off and then captured, which would be a narrative disaster - hell they can’t lose a half dozen vehicles without half the internet declaring “the UA has stalled!!” (Good gawd it is hard to believe our grandfathers fought and won two bloody world wars given how jumpy we are these days).

A raid is definitely in the cards but that would likely draw more RA to that sector, which could be a plan but they do not want to do that if they are serious about using this as an major thrust.  I am pretty sure the RA figured all this out and hence why they blew the dam.

We read that water levels may drop in mid summer so maybe a major op could become viable by then?  

[The_Capt]

25 minutes ago, Vic4 said:

Looks like Prig is in his new pen...

Mercenary chief Prigozhin starts exile in Belarus as Putin praises Russian troops
Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin arrived in Belarus on Tuesday under a deal that ended a brief mutiny by his fighters, as President Vladimir Putin praised his armed forces for averting a civil war.

Read in Reuters:https://apple.news/Asio7wRJlQjamolDbuPPkTw

You can cut the sexual tension with a knife….

[kluge]

17 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

What’s the difference between a mostly autonomous drone swarm and a smart and/or mobile minefield? They seem very similar in practice and employment, honestly.

Endurance. A drone swarm can't fly indefinitely. A mobile minefield requires an energy source to move. Whereas a classic minefield can remain effective for years after it is laid.

A smart minefield would utilize electronic fuzes with advanced logic built into them. This is almost certainly guaranteed to become a thing in the near future as electronics continue to become easier and cheaper to produce.