How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[pintere]

From a Ukrainian Telegram, quoting mostly from a NYT article:

“I’ve used everything we have. Unfortunately, we don’t have anyone else in the reserves” - Budanov in an interview by the New York Times

“The situation is on the edge,” Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, said in a video call from a bunker in Kharkiv. “Every hour this situation moves toward critical.”

His bleak assessment echoed those of other Ukrainian officers in recent days, that the country’s military prospects were dimming. In addition to being outnumbered, the Ukrainians face critical shortages of weapons, especially artillery ammunition, and $60.8 billion worth of arms from the United States — approved three weeks ago after months of congressional gridlock — has barely begun to arrive.

Like most Ukrainian officials and military experts, General Budanov said he believes the Russian attacks in the northeast are intended to stretch Ukraine’s already thin reserves of soldiers and divert them from fighting elsewhere.

That is exactly what is happening now, he acknowledged. He said the Ukrainian army was trying to redirect troops from other front line areas to shore up its defenses in the northeast, but that it had been difficult to find the personnel.

“All of our forces are either here or in Chasiv Yar,” he said, referring to a Ukrainian stronghold about 120 miles farther south that Russian troops have assaulted in recent weeks. “I’ve used everything we have. Unfortunately, we don’t have anyone else in the reserves.”

General Budanov assessed that Ukrainian forces would be able to shore up their lines and stabilize the front within the next few days. But he expects Russia to launch a new attack further north of Kharkiv, in the Sumy region.

Full article here (without Paywall)

- Note: After this article was published, Budanov has stated that the expected russian attack in Sumy has not taken place as the enemy had originally planned, due to "problems" that they have experienced in Kharkiv.

You would think that admitting you have no more reserves left is something you don’t want to announce to the world, but I suppose they reckon Russia more or less knows anyways.

That aside, it’s not looking great. By all accounts it seems that Ukraine has committed most or all of its reserve troops, while Russia can still throw quite a bit more into the fight.

We talk in this thread about war exhaustion,  and unless something dramatically changes it‘s looking increasingly likely that Ukraine and not Russia will run up short first. For all of Russia‘s internal problems, it seems their government‘s crude but persistent ruthlessness is working. They may lose scores of tanks each week and their men may die like dogs, but they keep finding more.

In Ukraine there is lacking a similar kind of ruthlessness. Zaluzhny said last year he needed 500k men, by the looks of things on the frontline right now he was probably right. But it seems like the Ukrainian government and military leadership are either unwilling to accept the realities on the ground, or aren’t prepared to do something that could potentially push the country’s internal situation to potentially unstable levels.

Is there a solution to all this? Honestly it’s hard to say. The Ukrainians I know seem to be mistrustful of their government and pessimistic of the overall situation. And unless they get a lot more men, or the tactical situation swings greatly in their favour, then I’m not sure if they can ever stop the Russians from steadily munching away at their territory so long as the fighting continues.

Regardless of the outcome, it’s times like these where I’m sure every NATO country is breathing a sigh of relief to have the collective support of many other powerful countries at their back to deal with the Russian menace. Because if the war in Ukraine is proving anything, it’s that there may be not a single European country that can indefinitely hold back the Russian tide with its own reserves of manpower.

But I maintain that if every NATO country got involved in a conflict with Russia, offensive or defensive, that the latter would be wrecked as devastatingly as they deserve…

[FancyCat]

Part of this is on Ukraine in failing to mobilize, part of this is definitely on the West for failing to supply Ukraine, for wasting months and lives to engage in useless partisanship and concerns about paying non-Western countries for shells. No wonder France and the Baltics are rumbling about increasing escalation with deploying western forces to Ukraine, the idea of Russia collapsing as a result of this war is as far fetched as ever and increasingly the scenario of Ukrainian collapse and further territorial loss increases and rest assure, that image is a Western loss, no ifs or buts, if the West cannot pursue at least a stalemate (and why would Putin agree? He’s advancing) how horrid it would look globally and with regard to the Pacific in particular. 

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, pintere said:

From a Ukrainian Telegram, quoting mostly from a NYT article:

“I’ve used everything we have. Unfortunately, we don’t have anyone else in the reserves” - Budanov in an interview by the New York Times

“The situation is on the edge,” Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, said in a video call from a bunker in Kharkiv. “Every hour this situation moves toward critical.”

His bleak assessment echoed those of other Ukrainian officers in recent days, that the country’s military prospects were dimming. In addition to being outnumbered, the Ukrainians face critical shortages of weapons, especially artillery ammunition, and $60.8 billion worth of arms from the United States — approved three weeks ago after months of congressional gridlock — has barely begun to arrive.

Like most Ukrainian officials and military experts, General Budanov said he believes the Russian attacks in the northeast are intended to stretch Ukraine’s already thin reserves of soldiers and divert them from fighting elsewhere.

That is exactly what is happening now, he acknowledged. He said the Ukrainian army was trying to redirect troops from other front line areas to shore up its defenses in the northeast, but that it had been difficult to find the personnel.

“All of our forces are either here or in Chasiv Yar,” he said, referring to a Ukrainian stronghold about 120 miles farther south that Russian troops have assaulted in recent weeks. “I’ve used everything we have. Unfortunately, we don’t have anyone else in the reserves.”

General Budanov assessed that Ukrainian forces would be able to shore up their lines and stabilize the front within the next few days. But he expects Russia to launch a new attack further north of Kharkiv, in the Sumy region.

Full article here (without Paywall)

- Note: After this article was published, Budanov has stated that the expected russian attack in Sumy has not taken place as the enemy had originally planned, due to "problems" that they have experienced in Kharkiv.

You would think that admitting you have no more reserves left is something you don’t want to announce to the world, but I suppose they reckon Russia more or less knows anyways.

That aside, it’s not looking great. By all accounts it seems that Ukraine has committed most or all of its reserve troops, while Russia can still throw quite a bit more into the fight.

We talk in this thread about war exhaustion,  and unless something dramatically changes it‘s looking increasingly likely that Ukraine and not Russia will run up short first. For all of Russia‘s internal problems, it seems their government‘s crude but persistent ruthlessness is working. They may lose scores of tanks each week and their men may die like dogs, but they keep finding more.

In Ukraine there is lacking a similar kind of ruthlessness. Zaluzhny said last year he needed 500k men, by the looks of things on the frontline right now he was probably right. But it seems like the Ukrainian government and military leadership are either unwilling to accept the realities on the ground, or aren’t prepared to do something that could potentially push the country’s internal situation to potentially unstable levels.

Is there a solution to all this? Honestly it’s hard to say. The Ukrainians I know seem to be mistrustful of their government and pessimistic of the overall situation. And unless they get a lot more men, or the tactical situation swings greatly in their favour, then I’m not sure if they can ever stop the Russians from steadily munching away at their territory so long as the fighting continues.

Regardless of the outcome, it’s times like these where I’m sure every NATO country is breathing a sigh of relief to have the collective support of many other powerful countries at their back to deal with the Russian menace. Because if the war in Ukraine is proving anything, it’s that there may be not a single European country that can indefinitely hold back the Russian tide with its own reserves of manpower.

But I maintain that if every NATO country got involved in a conflict with Russia, offensive or defensive, that the latter would be wrecked as devastatingly as they deserve…

And we are back to why it is not "ok" for fighting aged males to be hanging out in other countries while Russia mauls their home nation.  Regardless, we will have to see how this develops.  What is odd is not only how the Kharkiv thing has gone off, but why there?  A major urban center is not a place to try for a break out,  There is a lot of open country side on this extremely long frontage, so why move there.  Obvious answer is to freak out the Ukrainians and force them to push resources to respond.  Straight up war-by-terror, threaten large civilian populations, get a reaction that forces resource reallocation.

So my next thought is "to what end?"  If the RA can actually pull the UA back enough they might get an operational collapse they can exploit.  But what does that look like?  The RA has not demonstrated any acumen on operational level manoeuvre since Feb '22, and "acumen" is a gross overcompliment based on how that went.  Since then they have collapsed, harassed, denied, and made minor tactical gains.  So we really do not know if they can really exploit what they are doing here.

But let's not drink the copium too deeply. This is strategic/operational shaping by the RA. The fact that they still have the initiative and are able to do this is not good news.  Now shaping is not an immediate sign of success - ask Lee at Gettysburg - but it definitely demonstrates that the Russians are still in this thing.  The UA needs to remobilize and quickly.  They have ISR but it appears to be watching the RA walk forward.  They need capability at this point to counter.

No matter how one spins it, this proxy war just took a weird turn.  So here I agree with FancyCat - West needs to stop playing grab @ss and get back into this game or things could get very bad, very quickly.

[FancyCat]

On 4/30/2024 at 8:02 AM, The_Capt said:

So this post and the one above it are what we like to call “losing the bubble”.  You have let your passion for Ukraine cloud objective strategic thinking to the point that you are proposing a denial of reality to insert one of your own that matches that passion.  In blunt terms, if you were on my staff I would be thinking you need a vacation and maybe a posting away for awhile.

1.  We cannot simply discount/avoid/wave away the risks of a full on Russian political and social collapse. 

How much I wished I was losing the bubble, for in that case Russia would be nearer to defeat than Ukraine, sadly 15 days away from your response noting that Russian collapse is possible and must be managed as a possibility, we have Ukraine essentially admitting its reserves are deployed and hard pressed with possible Russian offensives on new axes a definite possibility. 

whatever the mind games that may be ongoing, in no way does the increasing chance of victory make dents in the potential of Russian collapse, therefore the concerns about Russian collapse, on the heels of Russia continuing to signal intent for a long war are misplaced. Macron had been signaling deescalation way past other Western leaders past the early part of the invasion intent on providing deescalation and prevent Russian fears of collapse/defeat, his switch from simple support of Ukraine to potential escalation of French troops in Odesa harkens to with passage of time, the potential of Ukrainian collapse. 

You mentioned that it’s not necessarily total defeat in the event of Ukrainian collapse, a “Plan A” you mentioned envisioned a new Cold War, I think Putin would be aware of this and understanding the risk of long cold wars and the risk for Russia, I wager that the idea of initiating hybrid war with the West, dividing NATO and seizing whatever he can, understanding that his invasion of Ukraine and subsequent decision to not back out once the initial invasion failed locked him into a Cold War with the West is very much a possibility, one that drives partially the attitudes of the Baltic governments and Macron’s rhetoric. Meaning that if the goal of the West is managing to prevent nuclear war or preventing the destruction of NATO, then allowing Ukraine to fall and NATO to potentially be faced with the threat of actually activating the alliance to wage war with a Russian invasion is completely not furthering that goal. I.e the increasing rhetoric towards making Ukraine the final stop is a mirror of Russian rhetoric that drove the Russian collapse concerns partially in the first place, only its NATO beginning their ramp up. 

[The_Capt]

10 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

How much I wished I was losing the bubble, for in that case Russia would be nearer to defeat than Ukraine, sadly 15 days away from your response noting that Russian collapse is possible and must be managed as a possibility, we have Ukraine essentially admitting its reserves are deployed and hard pressed with possible Russian offensives on new axes a definite possibility. 

whatever the mind games that may be ongoing, in no way does the increasing chance of victory make dents in the potential of Russian collapse, therefore the concerns about Russian collapse, on the heels of Russia continuing to signal intent for a long war are misplaced. Macron had been signaling deescalation way past other Western leaders past the early part of the invasion intent on providing deescalation and prevent Russian fears of collapse/defeat, his switch from simple support of Ukraine to potential escalation of French troops in Odesa harkens to with passage of time, the potential of Ukrainian collapse. 

You mentioned that it’s not necessarily total defeat in the event of Ukrainian collapse, a “Plan A” you mentioned envisioned a new Cold War, I think Putin would be aware of this and understanding the risk of long cold wars and the risk for Russia, I wager that the idea of initiating hybrid war with the West, dividing NATO and seizing whatever he can, understanding that his invasion of Ukraine and subsequent decision to not back out once the initial invasion failed locked him into a Cold War with the West is very much a possibility, one that drives partially the attitudes of the Baltic governments and Macron’s rhetoric. Meaning that if the goal of the West is managing to prevent nuclear war or preventing the destruction of NATO, then allowing Ukraine to fall and NATO to potentially be faced with the threat of actually activating the alliance to wage war with a Russian invasion is completely not furthering that goal. I.e the increasing rhetoric towards making Ukraine the final stop is a mirror of Russian rhetoric that drove the Russian collapse concerns partially in the first place, only its NATO beginning their ramp up. 

Ok, ok...slow down now.  This would not be the first (or last time) that a side makes a major show in a final desperate push to pull off something...before a collapse. The fact that the RA is employing tactics from WW2 at Kharkiv (i.e. dismounted troops) could be a sign of just how bad things are, or it could be a sign that they have gotten the memo on mech...or both.

So I would not start reading our worst fears into this thing yet.  Now if Russia can suddenly make a 100km drive in the south and risk linking up with this Kharkiv effort, then we are talking a whole new ball game.  The key thing here is momentum.  Even then, the Germans in 1918 made a lot of gains in that last desperate push and we all know how that ended.

What I personally am looking for is the RA outfighting the UA, as opposed to out massing (and dying).  This could be the start of that, or something else.  You really are extrapolating here - hell you have the Russian's at the gates of Berlin.  Let's see some real collapses first before we start figuring out how to shore up a new Iron Curtain.

Edited May 14 by The_Capt

[pintere]

1 hour ago, FancyCat said:

Part of this is on Ukraine in failing to mobilize, part of this is definitely on the West for failing to supply Ukraine, for wasting months and lives to engage in useless partisanship and concerns about paying non-Western countries for shells. No wonder France and the Baltics are rumbling about increasing escalation with deploying western forces to Ukraine, the idea of Russia collapsing as a result of this war is as far fetched as ever and increasingly the scenario of Ukrainian collapse and further territorial loss increases and rest assure, that image is a Western loss, no ifs or buts, if the West cannot pursue at least a stalemate (and why would Putin agree? He’s advancing) how horrid it would look globally and with regard to the Pacific in particular. 

Indeed. Smarter people than me probably know why this hasn’t already been done, but Ukraine and the west need to stop saying their goal is the expulsion of Russians from all Ukrainian territory. Unless the US enters the war on Ukraine’s side that is not going to happen.

The stated goal should be to secure a peace that minimizes loss of Ukrainian territory while providing maximum security for Ukraine post-war. In other words, Ukraine needs to end the war similar to how Finland ended the Winter War back in 1941.

Of course, the flip side is that they’ll also need those fortifications and ongoing powerful western support to give Russia an incentive to actually stop.

[kimbosbread]

5 hours ago, hcrof said:

So I think we are coming into this with different assumptions. In my mind vehicles are small with minimal crew, so they can only support one weapon system. On the other hand you have more vehicles. 

Whether it is an APC with a single MG or my novel tank with a 40mm, there is not enough space, operators or weight allowance for a secondary RWS just for drones. 

It depends on what you think the force composition is. Is the primary killer drone swarms, and then infantry to hold ground, and the vehicles merely exist to ferry infantry around?

Maybe at the squad level an MRAP or UGV will have a 50cal coax with a few of these cheap missiles on it, but a little mortar robot won’t have room… you’ll need another robot with the fitty.

5 hours ago, hcrof said:

On the other hand we both agree on a drone CAP providing primary drone defence, and I would argue to maximum coordination between vehicles and drones to deal with incoming threats. 

To your point on pressing an assault while being attacked by drones, the majority of the offensive and defensive is being done by your own drones. The vehicles are there to mop up and I would have reserve vehicles on drone overwatch (more platforms) while others shoot up treelines. 

Yeah this 100%.

4 hours ago, hcrof said:

I wonder if it is better to have a single radar on all the shooting vehicles and have them cover one arc each rather than have a single point of failure on a dedicated AD vehicle, but I like the concept - by swarming your vehicles (which can also direct drones at incoming targets too) you can have a terrifying amount of AD Power without expensive and short ranged point defense vehicles.

The radars/EW can be on your CAP drones orbiting at 1500m; your vehicles probably just need short range sensors.

[Kraft]

2 hours ago, pintere said:

In Ukraine there is lacking a similar kind of ruthlessness. Zaluzhny said last year he needed 500k men, by the looks of things on the frontline right now he was probably right. But it seems like the Ukrainian government and military leadership are either unwilling to accept the realities on the ground, or aren’t prepared to do something that could potentially push the country’s internal situation to potentially unstable levels.

While I agree full war mobilisation of infustry and personal needs to happen (and needed to happen last year) one thing that likely contributed to this is the lack of equiptment to outfit these new units. 

There are shortages everywhere, not just tanks and IFVs but cars, ATGMs, handheld AT, AA units and missiles, artillery guns, shells, supply trucks, escavators, rifle ammo, training capacities ... Current formations cant be kept at 80% how are 500k more soldiers supposed to be equipted? They'd be one-use fodder like Sturm-Z and that helps little and costs too much

I mentioned lack of simple civilian pick up cars for medevac from the frontline a year ago, which could simply be solved by western nations giving government contracts to whatever car manufacturer there is that produces these types of vehicles. Not armored APCs or somesuch. Used civilian cars are being crowd funded to rescue soldiers.

Hell, leave out the costly electronics if you want all that is needed is 4 wheels and an engine, FPV threat or not.

The funding just is not there for such simple things, despite all the glamourous hero talk.

Edited May 14 by Kraft

[The_Capt]

8 minutes ago, Kraft said:

While I agree full war mobilisation of infustry and personal needs to happen (and needed to happen last year) one thing that likely contributed to this is the lack of equiptment to outfit these new units. 

There are shortages everywhere, not just tanks and IFVs but cars, ATGMs, handheld AT, artillery guns, shells, rifle ammo, ... Current formations cant be kept at 80% how are 500k more soldiers supposed to be equipted? 

I mentioned lack of simple civilian pick up cars for medevac from the frontline a year ago, which could simply be solved by giving government contracts to whatever car manufacturer there is that produces these types of vehicles. Not armored APCs or somesuch. Civilian cars.

The funding is not there despite all the glamourous hero talk about doing 'all it takes' to support.

Ok, so what is going on then?

Right now, Ukraine is supposed to have over 150B euro in aid in motion, while another tranche of what looks like 140B euro (if one adds in latest from US)

https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/

That is approaching 140+ billion per year of this war.  Ukraine's entire national GDP in 2021 was 200B.  It is effectively subsidized for 2/3rds of its entire economy to fight this war for the last two years.

So where did it all go?  Did it not show up?  Do we have evidence of this?  Why after coming up on 280B euro is the UA lacking equipment and vehicles?  Things are not adding up here.

[kimbosbread]

29 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

So where did it all go?  Did it not show up?  Do we have evidence of this?  Why after coming up on 280B euro is the UA lacking equipment and vehicles?  Things are not adding up here.

I assume some of it got blown up at the very least; at lot of this sort of aid is highly consumable unfortunately.

At least for munitions, we regularly see scenarios where two squads fighting run out of grenades, and I assume that extends to grenade launchers, machine guns, and fancier things as well. Radio shortages are well-known.

Sure, there will be your vanilla corruption, but I imagine that’s only a small part of it.

EDIT: Oh, and replacements for infrastructure getting blown up etc. too. We haven’t had a war like this in a while in an industrialized country, so we get to see how expensive it is.

Edited May 14 by kimbosbread

[Kraft]

48 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ok, so what is going on then?

Right now, Ukraine is supposed to have over 150B euro in aid in motion, while another tranche of what looks like 140B euro (if one adds in latest from US)

https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/

That is approaching 140+ billion per year of this war.  Ukraine's entire national GDP in 2021 was 200B.  It is effectively subsidized for 2/3rds of its entire economy to fight this war for the last two years.

So where did it all go?  Did it not show up?  Do we have evidence of this?  Why after coming up on 280B euro is the UA lacking equipment and vehicles?  Things are not adding up here.

Afghanistan peace mission cost 300mln/day. Oryx has 5700 items listed for Ukraine visually confirmed lost in 2 years.

That 300mln/day didnt involve a more than doubling of the military and their wages, equiptment, thousands of vehicles blowing up that need replacing, or shell expenditure at a level of ww2 that seemingly drained europes cold war storages, large scale daily AA / weekly cruise missile usages etc.

That doesnt account for workforce being drafted and killed and that budget didnt have to keep the economy afloat with a 30% drop in GDP while facing higher expenditures due to falling currency value and active destruction of infrastructure ///support for millions who had to flee

Also when talking about aid $$$ figures Im always cautions about the valuation of vehicles that have been sitting in storage for 50 years and are being actively scrapped for the most part.

Thats not free budget that can be spent on other vehicles, its tied to a Leo1 that'll blow up on a mine with a book value of ?? Mln €.

Edited May 14 by Kraft

[Letter from Prague]

1 hour ago, pintere said:

Indeed. Smarter people than me probably know why this hasn’t already been done, but Ukraine and the west need to stop saying their goal is the expulsion of Russians from all Ukrainian territory. Unless the US enters the war on Ukraine’s side that is not going to happen.

The stated goal should be to secure a peace that minimizes loss of Ukrainian territory while providing maximum security for Ukraine post-war. In other words, Ukraine needs to end the war similar to how Finland ended the Winter War back in 1941.

Of course, the flip side is that they’ll also need those fortifications and ongoing powerful western support to give Russia an incentive to actually stop.

That sounds like handing Russia a win for no reason.

[The_Capt]

17 minutes ago, Kraft said:

Afghanistan peace mission cost 300mln/day only in military costs.

It didnt involve a more than doubling of the military and their wages, equiptment, thousands of vehicles blowing up that need replacing, or shell expenditure at a level of ww2 that seemingly drained europes cold war storages.

That doesnt account for workforce being drafted and killed and that budget didnt have to keep the economy afloat with a 30% drop in GDP while facing higher expenditures.

No, it involved deploying over 130k western troops from over 42 countries, many on the other side of the world.  Adding up AFG costs we are at 108B per year, that is approx 40B less than was supposed to sent to Ukraine.  Different war, different intensity to be sure.

Look, I honestly want to understand what is happening here.  Are we making promises but the aid never really arrives beyond symbolic off loadings? I do know that the west is paying for a significant amount of training.  what do the Ukrainian direct losses look like? Russia was looking at around $132B through to 2024 (https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2421-1.html#:~:text=As of September 2022%2C the,Materiel amounted to %2411 billion.)  No idea if this was how it went based on what I can see easily.

The West spent or is planning to spend upwards of 280B on this war...if UA troops are out of everything...where did all that money go?  Was it burned out by the war itself (eg battlefield losses?)  Is it on the way?

Let's stop the old man grumbling and maybe spend some effort finding out?

Finally, it is a really bad idea to compare this war to Afghanistan...cause...well we all know how that went down.

Edited May 14 by The_Capt

[Eddy]

32 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

So where did it all go?  Did it not show up?  Do we have evidence of this?  Why after coming up on 280B euro is the UA lacking equipment and vehicles?  Things are not adding up here.

Briefly looking at the accompanying worksheet (called Country Summary($) if your interested), the allocations are as follows:

Financial Aid: $73.10 billion

Humanitarian: $15.21 billion

Military: $93.46 billion

AIUI, all financial goes for general Ukrainian government spending: pensions, healthcare, govt. employees salaries, roads, education, re-building bridges etc. etc. 

And to muddy the waters a bit, allocated does not mean handed over. From the pdf allocation means "are defined as aid that has already been delivered or is earmarked for delivery". 

So the military aid is at maximum $93 billion, but in terms of delivery actually less due to multi year deliveries, stuff ordered but not delivered etc.

So it's not 280 billion, but actually at maximum 93 billion. Still a huge amount ofc, but just thought I'd dive into the numbers a little bit.

Anyway, that's my understanding of the worksheet after a cursory glance at it.

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, Eddy said:

Briefly looking at the accompanying worksheet (called Country Summary($) if your interested), the allocations are as follows:

Financial Aid: $73.10 billion

Humanitarian: $15.21 billion

Military: $93.46 billion

AIUI, all financial goes for general Ukrainian government spending: pensions, healthcare, govt. employees salaries, roads, education, re-building bridges etc. etc. 

And to muddy the waters a bit, allocated does not mean handed over. From the pdf allocation means "are defined as aid that has already been delivered or is earmarked for delivery". 

So the military aid is at maximum $93 billion, but in terms of delivery actually less due to multi year deliveries, stuff ordered but not delivered etc.

So it's not 280 billion, but actually at maximum 93 billion. Still a huge amount ofc, but just thought I'd dive into the numbers a little bit.

Anyway, that's my understanding of the worksheet after a cursory glance at it.

Not sure on this math.  I think a slice of Financial aid has to go towards soldier pay/ care for dependents.  Which is a critical requirement.

Opens up a really good question: are soldiers still getting paid?

 

Edited May 14 by The_Capt

[ZellZeka]

3 hours ago, pintere said:

From a Ukrainian Telegram, quoting mostly from a NYT article:

“I’ve used everything we have. Unfortunately, we don’t have anyone else in the reserves” - Budanov in an interview by the New York Times

“The situation is on the edge,” Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, said in a video call from a bunker in Kharkiv. “Every hour this situation moves toward critical.”

His bleak assessment echoed those of other Ukrainian officers in recent days, that the country’s military prospects were dimming. In addition to being outnumbered, the Ukrainians face critical shortages of weapons, especially artillery ammunition, and $60.8 billion worth of arms from the United States — approved three weeks ago after months of congressional gridlock — has barely begun to arrive.

Like most Ukrainian officials and military experts, General Budanov said he believes the Russian attacks in the northeast are intended to stretch Ukraine’s already thin reserves of soldiers and divert them from fighting elsewhere.

That is exactly what is happening now, he acknowledged. He said the Ukrainian army was trying to redirect troops from other front line areas to shore up its defenses in the northeast, but that it had been difficult to find the personnel.

“All of our forces are either here or in Chasiv Yar,” he said, referring to a Ukrainian stronghold about 120 miles farther south that Russian troops have assaulted in recent weeks. “I’ve used everything we have. Unfortunately, we don’t have anyone else in the reserves.”

General Budanov assessed that Ukrainian forces would be able to shore up their lines and stabilize the front within the next few days. But he expects Russia to launch a new attack further north of Kharkiv, in the Sumy region.

Full article here (without Paywall)

- Note: After this article was published, Budanov has stated that the expected russian attack in Sumy has not taken place as the enemy had originally planned, due to "problems" that they have experienced in Kharkiv.

You would think that admitting you have no more reserves left is something you don’t want to announce to the world, but I suppose they reckon Russia more or less knows anyways.

That aside, it’s not looking great. By all accounts it seems that Ukraine has committed most or all of its reserve troops, while Russia can still throw quite a bit more into the fight.

We talk in this thread about war exhaustion,  and unless something dramatically changes it‘s looking increasingly likely that Ukraine and not Russia will run up short first. For all of Russia‘s internal problems, it seems their government‘s crude but persistent ruthlessness is working. They may lose scores of tanks each week and their men may die like dogs, but they keep finding more.

In Ukraine there is lacking a similar kind of ruthlessness. Zaluzhny said last year he needed 500k men, by the looks of things on the frontline right now he was probably right. But it seems like the Ukrainian government and military leadership are either unwilling to accept the realities on the ground, or aren’t prepared to do something that could potentially push the country’s internal situation to potentially unstable levels.

Is there a solution to all this? Honestly it’s hard to say. The Ukrainians I know seem to be mistrustful of their government and pessimistic of the overall situation. And unless they get a lot more men, or the tactical situation swings greatly in their favour, then I’m not sure if they can ever stop the Russians from steadily munching away at their territory so long as the fighting continues.

Regardless of the outcome, it’s times like these where I’m sure every NATO country is breathing a sigh of relief to have the collective support of many other powerful countries at their back to deal with the Russian menace. Because if the war in Ukraine is proving anything, it’s that there may be not a single European country that can indefinitely hold back the Russian tide with its own reserves of manpower.

But I maintain that if every NATO country got involved in a conflict with Russia, offensive or defensive, that the latter would be wrecked as devastatingly as they deserve…

The head of the foreign intelligence service tells a popular TV channel that his country is running out of military reserves. I hope you understand that this message does not mean that Ukraine is really running out of reserves. This is more of a message to the allies - it’s very difficult for us now, we need more help. Budanov is a media person, but don't expect him to tell you the real state of the Ukrainian armed forces

[ZellZeka]

1 hour ago, pintere said:

The stated goal should be to secure a peace that minimizes loss of Ukrainian territory while providing maximum security for Ukraine post-war. In other words, Ukraine needs to end the war similar to how Finland ended the Winter War back in 1941.

 

But why does Putin want to make peace? He has only just begun to succeed in fighting, and you invite him to stop at the most pleasant moment for him. Agree that it is stupid to stop half a step before the top

Edited May 14 by ZellZeka

[Eddy]

6 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Not sure on this math.  I think a slice of Financial aid has to go towards soldier pay/ care for dependents.  Which is a critical requirement.

Could be. Still, the figure for actual military equipment would not be affected by this, would it?

[Eddy]

7 minutes ago, ZellZeka said:

This is more of a message to the allies

Yes I was thinking that. And perhaps a message to the Russians as well.

[The_Capt]

4 minutes ago, Eddy said:

Could be. Still, the figure for actual military equipment would not be affected by this, would it?

No, that should be all military capability (if they rolled in pay then we are way under subscribed). I don't think this yet includes the latest US aid package:

https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine

Which if one subtract previous US military aid, looks like an additional $25B(ish). So maybe we are up at $125B in military aid?

Oryx losses for Ukraine are not great but no where near 90B worth of gear.  Ammo expenditures is likely the single largest drain.

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-ukrainian.html

 Or have we done the "we promise but add 6-8 weeks for shipping"?

Corruption has been tossed into the mix but that is a LOT of corruption if it has reduced the UA to these levels - like Afghan government levels of skimming. I would be surprised if it could be done without getting picked up.

[pintere]

26 minutes ago, ZellZeka said:

But why does Putin want to make peace? He has only just begun to succeed in fighting, and you invite him to stop at the most pleasant moment for him. Agree that it is stupid to stop half a step before the top

That’s why Putin has to be stopped on the battlefield first. Ukraine needs to figure out where it will make a stand, and then turn that place into a charnel house for the Russians. Make it so that the Russians shake in their boots at the mere suggestion of going within 5 km of the main battle line.

But if the goal remains to reclaim all its territory (one clearly unachievable by now) then both Allies and the Ukrainian people themselves will be demoralized by essentially being in an unwinnable situation. By making the goal realistic, but also desirable, there is an incentive to achieve something that will bring an end to the carnage in the most favourable way that can be realistically achieved.

Furthermore, it will be a lot easier to convince western publics to support aid to Ukraine if there’s a clear end state in sight that is within the capability of the Ukrainian state to bring about.

[Eddy]

We also have no idea how the values of military equipment are being calculated, which definitely muddies the water. If it is at replacement value, that would mean an old beaten up M113 would be valued at the price of an Armoured Multi-Purpose Vehicle. Which is a little bit disingenuous.

So all of a sudden that 93billion could be a lot less in actual value, not paper.

[holoween]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

This right here is the problem and you clearly will not come off your position - big loud and expensive is what you want. Fine go lobby your political representative and demand they go that way.  That company of 11 x 30mm guns will cost in the order of 90-95 million (3xSkyranger and 9 x Boxers) for the hardware alone - that buys us “not perfect but better than nothing”.

Now let’s just extrapolate what that company is going to come under on the modern battlefield.  First off the ISR elephant - size and heat signatures, 11 x 30ton vehicles are going to be very  visible well out by a multi-layered ISR suite from ground to space.  Then to compound this, an opponent will be pushing long range UAS and loitering munitions such as Spike LR and Switchblade 600 out to 40kms+ based on these ISR detections.  Many of these will have levels of autonomy that sidestep EW, but there will be significant enemy attrition on that first wave - let’s say 33 long range systems at a cost of 10k each = approx $330k spent by the enemy so far. 

Ok. Good thing space based ISR is so cheap that we can ignore its cost right here. So just to be sure lets check what it costs. 750 million for 5 satelites with the 3 replacements clocking in at 800 million. So for a constallation that hass any chance to track ground movements were already looking at a full brigade equivalent in cost. And its not exactly impossible to shoot them down.

So lets go with long range Drones instead. And were at 130 million back in 2013. And those arent survivable if there is air defense around.

So to finally go to a reasonable pricepoint lets move down to a TB2 at 5million. And hope the air defense cant get anything done like at the start of the ukraine war. Otherwise youre just getting them shot down for very little gain.

And lets handwave the initial ISR price and go to the Switchblade range and were looking at 80k each so youre down 2.5 million and they fit right into the target profile of the Skyranger system. Though here it gets very interesting. If any individual strike can be made large enough to overwhelm the defenses it will quickly be cost effective. If it cant be made large enough though its a massive waste of ammunition.Now in ukraine atm a single fpv is enough for a successful strike. With the unit were discussing thats already a whole lot more

 

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

And then they hit artillery ranges.

The guns are definitely still a thing.  Smart rounds, submunitions and well aimed dumb rounds are going to start falling on our little company at long ranges…think 15-20kms.  These won’t be barrages because they don’t need to, but PGM strikes (and note we are discounting long range rocket systems because an infantry company is not large enough a target…maybe).  At this point things are not going to go well - remember those loitering and UAS are still coming while artillery is dropping.  Skyranger space guns or even cheaper AA is doing nothing for artillery so losses will stack up.  Costs to the enemy will go up, but even if they spend 10m on artillery ammo (which is a lot but let’s roll in overhead) they are at around 11 million and half that company is very likely gone by this point.

So are we ignoring the cost of the arty systems or can we simply assume both sides have equal ammounts of them? Because yes you can cause casualties but shooting at long range against moving targets as there hasnt been anything forcing the attacking force to stop isnt something that usually nets a whole lot of hits even with smart rounds.

 

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

But that company keeps going, now down to 6 fancy 30mm guns.  Once they get within 5kms of the front ATGMs and smart mines start to kick in.  UAS drop mines or mines with legs start to position - and they have time to because we have seen this company coming for quite some time now.  ATGMs are top down, standoff son-of-Javelin so they need fewer but costs do go up.  But even at an additional $4m the enemy is at a $15m total investment to defeat a $90m dollar friendly capability.  At this point that company is pretty much stopped cold.  Being extremely generous, the company is no longer effective kms from the ranges those guns and infantry can be effective in a direct fire role.

Yea you can start laying minefields. Thats standard cold war procedure no drones required. so channeling the attacker is quite possible and if theyre not attentive and run into the mines quite deadly. Your smart mines arent really something that exists even as a concept yet outside of your head (though i might have missed it so feel free to prove me wrong)

And were in the same situation as when we first got into lointering munitions range. Basically can our aps intercept the ATGM fired at us at a high enough rate. There is no technical reason i can see why they wouldnt be able but that part is at least not proven for diving missiles yet. For direct firing atgm and rpgs gaza has shown it quite possible.

Now you still have an issue in that you still havent forced the attacker to stop. The mines force a reroute but youre not going to lay a russian 500m deep minefield along the entire front in a few hours.

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

“Well send in a Bn!” That makes it worse. Bigger is not better, it is worse.  Higher signature, more targets, more assets to try and defend.  Now before the cheap seats weigh in on “ well this is simplistic…ahem ahem.”  Well yes it is, reality is likely worse.  The problem is that countering that cheap layered defensive combination of ISR and systems is 1) impossible with today’s tech and 2) extremely expensive. To defeat the UAS (with the system you propose) we need all those big guns.  We need fancy armor.  We need EW.  We need counter-battery.  We need air superiority, which is nigh impossible.  And our opponent can take a lot of losses on cheap distributed systems before we can regain freedom of action and have any hope of that infantry company making it to the 1-2000 meter mark where it can start doing its job.

See there i fundamentally disagree.

A btl does make it better. Weve been assuming the company is spotted anyways so the extra signature doesnt hurt. But the extra capacity do defend from attacks and overwhelm enemy defenses comes into play. A single skyranger can maybe deal with 3 drones coming at the same time. Add the company around and that goes to 30.Llimit the sectors where they can come from because there are other companies like this which would shoot drones coming from there and you increase that even further.

If you have guided arty rounds that have a high chance to hit a specific target then as long as youre spread out enough to where it cant hit several at the same time you dont increase your losses to enemy arty fire but might decrease it because they wont have enough capacity to fire especially with own counterbattery included.

Now creating a unit with such a level of overmatch to where it can be successful rather than just be a waste of money isnt exactly cheap and there are absolutely some measures that arent fully realized yet. But in principle this isnt impossible to create and building such units has been historically very effective and there is nothing in principle that prevents that from continuing to be the case.

 

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Ok, ok...slow down now.  This would not be the first (or last time) that a side makes a major show in a final desperate push to pull off something...before a collapse. The fact that the RA is employing tactics from WW2 at Kharkiv (i.e. dismounted troops) could be a sign of just how bad things are, or it could be a sign that they have gotten the memo on mech...or both.

So I would not start reading our worst fears into this thing yet.  Now if Russia can suddenly make a 100km drive in the south and risk linking up with this Kharkiv effort, then we are talking a whole new ball game.  The key thing here is momentum.  Even then, the Germans in 1918 made a lot of gains in that last desperate push and we all know how that ended.

What I personally am looking for is the RA outfighting the UA, as opposed to out massing (and dying).  This could be the start of that, or something else.  You really are extrapolating here - hell you have the Russian's at the gates of Berlin.  Let's see some real collapses first before we start figuring out how to shore up a new Iron Curtain.

Ukrainian morale and recruitment are bad because no one wants to sign up for a war they suspect their side might be losing. The Ukrainians feel that way in large part because the MAGAT faction in the U.S. managed to screw up the aid flow for months. What is needed now is strong enough statement of western support to convince the Ukrainians we are not just stringing them along. And in return the Ukrainians need to mobilize several hundred thousand people. 

The fastest way convince the Ukrainians we mean it is to put people on the ground in the support roles that takes a decades training to be good at. Contract/NATO aircraft maintainers are the most obvious case but there are a lot of similar technical jobs that the crash six week course just doesn't work for. If we really want to make a splash we need to go from strongly discouraging former F-16 pilots from volunteering for Ukraine, to strongly encouraging it.

Everybody assumed that the the Russians would be the tiniest bit rational about throwing good money and lives after bad. We were wrong, we all need to take a deep breath and stay in the fight.

[FancyCat]

A lot of aid is payment for stuff not set to arrive for years. I've long been suspicious of the U.S over inflating the value of some of these aid packages, and certainly as shown via the artillery shell debate, 3rd party countries production was being taken by Russia, while the EU debated on purchasing them. If we view the EU debate and U.S debate as representing Western collective awareness of Ukraine's needs, let's be honest, it's not great. Why couldn't Ukraine order the shells and pay the supplier itself in the case of the EU or U.S? Makes sense to conclude this aid is largely not being sent in the form of cash with Ukraine able to do as it pleases.