How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Rokko]

57 minutes ago, Carolus said:

Russian government announced a mobilisation for 150k men this weekend.

Unless that was an April's Fools joke, they might reach 500k with that.

 

This was the usual annual (or biannual?) draft for mandatory military service in Russia. These don't end up in Ukraine. The same happened in 2022 and 2023, btw.

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, sburke said:

yeah, I've been avoiding this thread while sfhand is monopolizing its subject matter.  For a guy that was gonna post just once, he's sure proven to be long winded.

Talk to the @SFHand.

[Tux]

6 hours ago, Erwin said:

Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer got it right, saying, “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

The thing is all falsehood goes through the first two stages, as well.  Unfortunately some even makes it to the third, even if only to a minority of people…

Come to think of it, the reason we value the scientific method and rational argument is because it forcibly applies the first two stages to information and so we hope that only truth makes it to the third.

Perhaps Schopenhauer should have added the word “thankfully” in there, somewhere.

[Carolus]

2 hours ago, Rokko said:

This was the usual annual (or biannual?) draft for mandatory military service in Russia. These don't end up in Ukraine. The same happened in 2022 and 2023, btw.

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

[Kinophile]

 

Always nice to see javelin kicking ***. 

Edited April 2 by Kinophile

[Kinophile]

Shahed plant go boom. 1000km from front. 

 

Edited April 2 by Kinophile

[Kraft]

Ukrainian manufactured Aeroprakt a22 ultra light aircraft being used as a kamikaze drone on Shahed factory. Range to target ~ 1200km.

Supposedly this one didnt hit the factory but a building (dormitory) infront of it, but there was another explosion, maybe that one hit the production facility 

 

Maybe instead of scrapping A-10s, they should be converted to well armored drones? This plane survived 8 hours in russian airspace

Edited April 2 by Kraft

[Kraft]

Supposedly russia broke their record with confirmed vehicle losses in a single day. 

Edited April 2 by Kraft

[Kinophile]

Here you go @sfhand, this is who you are a useful idiot for.

But I'm sure they're just crisis actors to you. 

And onto the ignore list you go. 

Edited April 2 by Kinophile

[Kraft]

Quote

Valeriy Chaika, a member of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic’s Parliament. The RIA Novosti has confirmed the death of a collaborator.

Collaborator blown up and killed.

[The_Capt]

On victory and defeat - because it is the basis of so much “proof” on the opposing sides of this thing.  In warfare victory and defeat are very slippery concepts.  One can win a war by all metrics and wind up losing in the long run (see European Allies after WW1 and 2).  The vice versa is also possible (see Japan).  So whenever someone jumps in with the “Ukraine is obviously losing, Russia is winning” or vice versa, without clearly defining what that means, I get suspicious.

For now the best way to try and determine what victory/defeat means in this war, one needs to come to a common understanding of what the initial political and strategic goals of this war for each side were and were not.

When I am looking at the “winning/losing” equation I am using the following objectives.

For Ukraine:

- the survival of the state as independent and sovereign.

- the creation of a narrative of effective resolve and resistance that draws in international support.

- shape and set the conditions for enduring security integrity at wars end (this one is key to effective reconstruction and recovery).

For Russia:

- the complete political absorption control of Ukraine as a vassal state or sub-state.

- a clear demonstration of Russian power within its Near Abroad designed to push back on Western encroachment and reinforce the notion that other states within this region need to “stay in line”.  This one plays to both external and internal audiences.

- any and all erosion of NATO unity and resolve, as well as a draw back of US influence in the region.

For the West (we often forget we have a win/lose calculus here as well):

- A clear demonstration of the western rules based international order.  Russia must be forced to get back in line and face punitive measures for an illegal invasion that violates the rules we constructed.  To this end we support Ukraines objectives; however, we do not need all of them in full to achieve ours. We do need a clear demonstration of western unity and resolve as a foundational underpinning for that western rules based order.

- Any opportunities to expand western influence and control - see Sweden and Finland.

- the reduction of Russia as a security threat to Europe and globally.

- Avoid a catastrophic collapse of Russia at all costs as it would make the overall regional situation, and possibly global one much worse.

You will note that for me none of these are tied directly to lines on the ground.  I do not believe that where this war ends drive those strategic objectives (within reason of course - if Russia takes Kyiv the viability of Ukrainian state is greatly diminished).  

By my metrics, Russia has already pretty much “lost” this thing.  They can hold onto to what they have now but none of their strategic objectives are accomplished.  They end the war in worse position than when they started it.  Their only Hail Mary is that western support and attention dries up over time and they can exploit that to try and pull this one out of the dumpster.  The odds of full Russian control over Ukraine by this point are pretty damn low.  Much worse than at wars beginning.

Ukraine has two out of three, that last one of setting conditions for enduring security has not been accomplished. Ukraines long game is to enter into western economic and security mechanisms.  They definitely have earned that but we have the thorny issue of Russia still able to make trouble and project that into Ukraine.  We can live with a level of this a la South Korea, but I suspect we will need this thing to hold more water to work.

The West is doing well but we are not there yet, and things could still go bad quickly.  We definitely have shored up influence, control and unity. And we have managed to reduce Russian threats pretty significantly as the Russian military has been shattered. What we do not have are the conditions for long term stabilization. Russia is neither a zero-threat nor stable in the long term.

So to summarize…on victory/defeat so far:

Russia - nope.

Ukraine - OK, but not there yet.

West - meh, so long as we don’t blow the whole thing up.

I hope this is useful for the next time someone rolls through here with “well obviously Russia is winning” due to some headline about a tactical twitch somewhere.  They likely are not using the same metrics I do and in many cases have ulterior motives for painting this war in a certain light.

Edited April 2 by The_Capt

[Carolus]

A new, directed EW system financed by Poroshenko is claimed to be effective against Lancet and Zala drones.

 

 

[akd]

3 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Shahed plant go boom. 1000km from front. 

 

 

Dear eurofriends, do you perhaps have a recreational light aircraft you aren’t currently using on hand?

[cesmonkey]

 

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Carolus said:

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

Don't feel bad... every single time this gets announced people on Twitter freak out

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Shahed plant go boom. 1000km from front. 

 

Excellent.  And I agree with Special Kherson Cat's summary about the look of this new drone.  It does resemble an aircraft rather than a traditional long range drone.  Certainly is BIG, which it would need to be to go that far with a significant explosives payload.

The damage at the factory looks extensive.  That should disrupt production for quite some time, I should think.  I don't remember the last time I saw anybody guessing at how Russia produces these (i.e. how many primary assembly factories, sub contractors, etc.)

Steve

[alison]

13 hours ago, Harmon Rabb said:

The reality is going by the fact that he registered on this forum before 9/11 even happened, he is likely a grown man who has accepted the Kremlin's propaganda as truth.

This is a scary thought but not surprising for me given how many seemingly normal people I've seen on social media who are now parroting the Kremlin's line.

While Russia's military machine leaves a lot to be desired for the Russians, I think their psychological operations like the infamous troll factories are maybe more effective than we care to think about.

A good reminder of how important it is to counter the Kremlin's lies with the truth no matter how we can.

This is the key point to take away from the rather tedious past couple days on this thread.

The challenging part is that propagandists can come up with reams and reams of verbose, officious-sounding nonsense much faster than anyone can challenge it. This was already the case before large language models made it trivial to create pages of vaguely reasonable-sounding claptrap at the push of a button. Now it is worse. And when those propagandists are also working for authoritarian states that exercise near-totalitarian controls over the media landscape within their borders, they are also able to capture plenty of real-life stories that support the views they want to shape, while suppressing the spread of content that does not.

Out here in the actually-free world, the propaganda coming from these authoritarian government mouthpieces seems laughably ineffective. How could anyone believe something that is such unabashed, unadulterated, full-blown propaganda? They're not even pretending it's otherwise! And yet, people believe it. "Free thinkers" with chips on their shoulders about their own government get bamboozled into believing that they are the ones living in an authoritarian state, actually. And then the "news" coming out of other authoritarian states can surely be no more fake than their own news, and, by the way, what is news other than propaganda, at the core? There are no facts, only interpretations, you see. This is why I don't mind you doubting. What is truth, anyway? Does anybody love anybody anyway?

It is depressing how many people fall into this hole.

This is not only why it is important to counter the Kremlin's lies, but also to consistently push back against the same kind of democracy-eroding rhetoric coming from media and political figures in parts of the world where there still is freedom of expression and freedom of association and so on. The people pushing it tend to either be useful idiots, or privileged enough (through age, wealth or power) to be insulated from the consequences. In both cases, not the best folks to be looking toward to inform your view of the world.

[hcrof]

6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Excellent.  And I agree with Special Kherson Cat's summary about the look of this new drone.  It does resemble an aircraft rather than a traditional long range drone.  Certainly is BIG, which it would need to be to go that far with a significant explosives payload.

The damage at the factory looks extensive.  That should disrupt production for quite some time, I should think.  I don't remember the last time I saw anybody guessing at how Russia produces these (i.e. how many primary assembly factories, sub contractors, etc.)

Steve

I'm not sure actually, I don't think production of those things requires much sophisticated equipment so I imagine production could begin again fairly soon (6 weeks?) unfortunately. But as a cheap demonstration it is still a valuable strike.

[dan/california]

7 minutes ago, hcrof said:

I'm not sure actually, I don't think production of those things requires much sophisticated equipment so I imagine production could begin again fairly soon (6 weeks?) unfortunately. But as a cheap demonstration it is still a valuable strike.

Every week matters at this point, when it is a race between Russian Shaheed production, and Ukrainian SAM procurement. 

31 minutes ago, akd said:

 

Dear eurofriends, do you perhaps have a recreational light aircraft you aren’t currently using on hand?

Related question, how much light aircraft traffic is there in Russia normally? How big of an inconvenience would it impose on the Russian regime and economy if they had to ban all non-military light aircraft, just to simplify the threat picture?

 

[danfrodo]

27 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

 

Once again I feel like a member of the german general staff, circa 1941-42.  "look at these losses, they can't possibly sustain.....".   Yet now, like then, somehow they are still shelling UKR positions, every day all day.  Be nice if we could UKR some more shells & tubes for firing back.....

 

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

You will note that for me none of these are tied directly to lines on the ground.  I do not believe that where this war ends drive those strategic objectives (within reason of course - if Russia takes Kyiv the viability of Ukrainian state is greatly diminished). 

Yes, the simple metrics of win/loss that most people use most of the time aren't very useful.  Terrain, personnel losses, equipment losses... all important in some way, but not in trying to figure out who is winning or losing.  Russia lost a massive quantity of men and material in the first month of the war, but if Ukraine had totally surrendered in the second month many of the things in Russia's current "loss" column would not be there or at least to the same extent (e.g. I don't think Finland or Sweden would, today, be NATO members).

The obvious historical example is Nazi Germany.  It had almost all of Europe under it's boot, along with a massive amount of European Soviet Union, and even a chunk of North Africa.  To be glib about it, "how'd that work out for you, Adolf?"

Still, tracking things like territorial possession, losses, industrial capacity, allied strength, etc. are useful to keep track of because it gives us trend lines to follow.  Trends are useful, even if imperfect.

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

By my metrics, Russia has already pretty much “lost” this thing.

Absolutely.  There's also another method for evaluating success/failure, and that is to compare against realistic options that Russia could have pursued instead of this war or things it might have been realistically able to do after starting it.  You then look at what those scenarios would likely have yielded in order to put the current war in proper context.

I've cited two examples throughout this thread and I'll recap both now:

1.  Pre Invasion - Russia could have concentrated its forces on a limited offensive to secure a land bridge.  As we saw, the land bridge portion of Russia's invasion worked pretty well with relatively light losses.  Had that been a limited, first phase attack Ukraine would be screwed and Russia would be vastly better off than it is today.  Alternatively focusing on the Donbas might have produced a better result, especially if combined with the land bridge offensive.

2.  Post Invasion - if Russia had realized how much it's initial gamble had failed by mid March, it is highly probable that Ukraine would have entertained a negotiated ceasefire on terms quite favorable to Russia.  This would not have undone a lot of the pain to Russia (sanctions, for example), but it Russia would have more territory than it does now and at a fraction of the cost of resources.  I also don't think Finland or Sweden would be in NATO, Germany might still be buying Russian gas, etc.

 

What we don't know is if any of the alternatives would have achieved what Putin wanted.  I suspect not because it seems what he wanted was 100% erasure of Ukraine as a viable state and he wanted it now, not in bites over a decade.  This makes the gamble of this war not as dumb as it might look from the outside.

Analogy... you have $50,000 to your name and your house is $250,000 in debt with the lender about to foreclose.  You go to Las Vegas and gamble.  You lose the $50,000 and the house.  Was going to Vegas stupid?  If the goal was to save your house and all other realistic alternatives to Vegas didn't achieve that (there's only so much you can make from selling your worn out, out of shape body!), then it's not stupid.  Unrealistic?  Sure, but still rational and logical.

Steve

[Haiduk]

4 hours ago, Kraft said:

Supposedly this one didnt hit the factory but a building (dormitory) infront of it, but there was another explosion, maybe that one hit the production facility 

Dormitories and factory are part os single "special economical zone "Alabuga" - students involved into works on the factory. And reportedly this is not "forced labor" - they gain experience in high-techology branch, get reservation from conscription and get payment. So, most of theese young people willing to work there. And the srike on dormitories, as write some our sources was deliberate - to make panic and "uncertainity" among young enginners, IT, managers etc.

Of course, many of them may tell "I am for peace and I don't do anything bad - just write a code"

26 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Excellent.  And I agree with Special Kherson Cat's summary about the look of this new drone.  It does resemble an aircraft rather than a traditional long range drone.  Certainly is BIG, which it would need to be to go that far with a significant explosives payload.

The damage at the factory looks extensive.  That should disrupt production for quite some time, I should think.  I don't remember the last time I saw anybody guessing at how Russia produces these (i.e. how many primary assembly factories, sub contractors, etc.)

Steve

Russians claimed refinery didn't get serious damages, because drone "hit the fence", Well, we can see what a "fence" was really hit, but likely about results we will know later. Reportedly rectifical column on 8 mln.tons/year was hit

Today Russian sources reported "Severstal" company officially claimed the halted biggest blast furnace in Russian afetr drone attack about months ago. Investigations showed it will need several months of repair with 37 billion rubles cost.

[Carolus]

UGV groundstrike against bridge.

 

 

[The_Capt]

5 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Still, tracking things like territorial possession, losses, industrial capacity, allied strength, etc. are useful to keep track of because it gives us trend lines to follow.  Trends are useful, even if imperfect.

And also “absolutely”.  We should track loses, terrain etc as exactly that, indicators.  In sums they can signal trends, which are extremely important for telling wind directions.

Where things get weird is when people take these trends as actually metrics of victory and/or defeat.  Adiivka was a long brutal tactical offensive that really has not yielded an operational consequence, at least not yet.  It is a data point within the war.  Not a fundamental sign any one side is “winning or losing”.  Ironically, those using Russian advances over the winter as an indicator that “The Hot Thread Has No Clothes” are using “heuristics”.  Which we have been all schooled upon as our own original “sin.”

The reality is that we need to see operational level decisions that change strategic options before we can say the tide is shifting.  If Russia could have translated Adiivka into an operational manoeuvre and was at the gates of Kharkiv right now, with a view to splitting Ukraine in half…well then we are definitely into “uh, ok something has really shifted here” territory.  Ukraines strategic options would be collapsing in this scenario, which to my eyes is a real metric.

Taking Adiivka or Bakhmut as signs of Russian winning, resolve or invincibility, only demonstrates a serious lack of understanding how war actually works.  And strangely, where were these people when Ukraine was making similar small limited tactical gains last summer?  Oh wait, they were here crowing about how “Ukraine is done!”

There is a clear double standard in some western political circles.  And this part really makes me angry.  Real people are suffering and dying in the largest conventional war we have seen in a long time.  And the first thing some people are doing is viewing it through the “I will do the opposite of what the other political party is doing because they cannot win.”  Not what is morally right or wrong.  What is best for their personal political calculus.  That is what really makes me react to these trolls.  They do not have the best interests of anyone at heart, but their own.  It is an extremely selfish way to approach something as brutal and unjust as this war.

[Battlefront.com]

35 minutes ago, hcrof said:

I'm not sure actually, I don't think production of those things requires much sophisticated equipment so I imagine production could begin again fairly soon (6 weeks?) unfortunately. But as a cheap demonstration it is still a valuable strike.

I agree, I don't think this will disrupt production for very long.  And if this was only 1 of 3 factories it won't disrupt it at all, though the number used per attack may be reduced.  All of that is good and well worth the expense of one long range drone.  Still, it's not an answer on its own.

The thing about all these attacks is that no single attack has much impact on how the war is going today.  Even sinking a ship doesn't.  However, cumulative and over time they matter.

Earlier in the war we had Ukraine blowing up railroad bridges and switching stations.  Everybody cheered, but they were quickly repaired.  The next hope was that Ukraine could knock them out faster than Russia's repair capacity could fix them.  This seemed a long shot and it is probably why Ukraine has switched to other targets. Something with inherently more concentrated and more difficult to replace/repair.  More costly too.

The attacks on the oil/gas industry are not yet having a noticeable impact on the war, but they are a great thing to concentrate on.  There are a limited number of targets, they don't move, due to size and vertical nature they are easy to hit, they are insanely expensive to repair, some components are difficult for Russia to replace, and there's only so many qualified construction crews and engineers to fix things at any given time.

Steve