How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, JonS said:

I've wondered several times how viable I would be fr the UN or the EU (/not/ NATO) to introduce a separation force (similar to the ones around Israel) along the uncontested pre-2014 borders, like the one along Belarus and - until a few weeks ago - round the corner and down past Kharkiv, and then down the river.

I was a STRONG advocate for this happening in 2014 and 2015.  Instead of sending in the toothless OSCE, put in a UN sponsored combat force like what went into Yugoslavia.  I think it's pretty clear now that Putin would have backed the f' down if it had.  But at the time pretty much nobody in the West wanted to push the issue and now we have what we have.

3 hours ago, JonS said:

Putin would likely lose his rag, since he likely views, officially at least, the whole country as 'contested' regardless of whether there's currently fighting there or not.

Exactly so, but what could he do other than get into a shooting war with NATO?

3 hours ago, JonS said:

Lot's of practical issues though - the seam between Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian forces would be /very/ fragile and delicate. Some of the non-Ukrainian forces /would/ die, even if 'only' from UXO. Putin would have a total **** about it, and Xi probably wouldn't be best pleased either. It would allow Ukraine to focus all it's forces on a smaller area, but so too would Russia. Etc.

And this is why it can't happen without something like a UN mandate.  Nobody wants to risk being put in a situation where Putin's goons kill a bunch of their citizens and they don't feel they can respond the way they should.  Even with such a mandate there's reasons to be leery.  We saw this with various countries in Somalia 1993 (aka "Black Hawk Down"), Rwanda 1994 (Belgian paras), and the risk of it in Bosnia 1995 (Dutch in Srebrenica). 

Steve

[Harmon Rabb]

Launch that bad boy and let it do its job.

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I also think that before Bucha many believed the Russians would act with some semblance of legal restraint.  The idea that they would line people up in the street and execute them, or that the level of war crimes would reach these heights was simply not believable.  It definitely is now, and we know from captured plans and documents that the Russian actually planned systematic torture and executions as a form of stabilization and control - likely thinking to get out ahead of an insurgency.

I also think most thought the most likely COA was a Russian land grab in the south as an extension of where things got left off in 2014.  A full country invasion was still an outside option.

I think it is fine to come here and criticize Ukraine when merited (I just did on the strikes on nuclear radars).  But then there is being completely upside down on the issues.  Russian occupation horrors are still to fully come to light.  We already know about children being forcibly deported and men pressed into service.  God knows what hellish stories are still out there.  For Ukraine this war is existential in just about every sense of the word.  Putin is a spiteful little dictator that was pre-planning brutality before this war.  How do people think he will react after getting pants by Ukraine and made to look the fool?  And how do people Russia is going to behave after losing 100k troops?  Ukraine cannot lose this war because what will come next will likely be medieval for them.

 

Yes, I think Russia has made it perfectly clear what its intentions are for the people of Ukraine.  The ones who aren't murdered and abducted are to be slaves.  This is what the UN defines as "genocide".  Voluntarily submitting to be victims of genocide may change the exact nature of the violence against civilians, but it sure as Hell doesn't put an end to it.

Steve

 

[Harmon Rabb]

I'll be honest I don't believe that Ukraine will be able to retake all it's land during this war anymore(one of those cases I really want to be proven wrong), and the folks who will be under Russian occupation will be in my prayers.

I just hope that when we do get that shaky ceasefire with Russia which was brought up here before, we will do the right thing and get Ukraine into NATO ASAP.

A clear message needs to be sent to Russia. If they try attacking Ukraine again they don't just mess with Ukraine, they mess with the whole transatlantic community.

Edited May 28 by Harmon Rabb

[Maciej Zwolinski]

3 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Execpt Finno-Ugric nations first Slavic victim of genocidicval "lands gathering" was Novgorod - north Rus' nobility republic, crashed by Moscow in late 15th century, because it remained single rival of Moscow hegemony in northern part of Rus' lands. Many Novgorodians were massacred or moved to other lands.

Sure. Although the massacre of Novogorod was done by Ivan the Terrible, so this could be signed up to his personal brand of homicidal craziness. On the other hand, so much of Muscovy territorial expansion was actually under Ivan the Terrible (Kazan, Astrakhan, the North) that making a distinction between his own style and the usual Russian style of conquest seems artificial. Notably, the Russian trademark move of abducting people wholesale and removing them to some abject wilderness in deep Russia was already present in the Terrible's wars - they were instances of ethnic cleansing noted by Polish and Grand Duchy chronicles

[JonS]

20 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

e there's reasons to be leery.  We saw this with various countries in Somalia 1993 (aka "Black Hawk Down"), Rwanda 1994 (Belgian paras), and the risk of it in Bosnia 1995 (Dutch in Srebrenica). 

Mmm. Good point, and good relevant examples.

Still, interventuon/separation forces *have* been shown to be successful in various contexts. This would be different in that it'd be a half-and-half (ie, "this area is peaceful so leave us alone or we'll kick you in the balls. Go be dicks to each other over there, where we aren't"), which definitely adds complexity, but not necessarily impossibility.

The big kicker, I suppose, is that intervention forces are particularly successful when *both* sides want them to be. When only one side wants them there then shenanigans tend to ensue.

Edited May 27 by JonS

[Joe982]

9 hours ago, ZellZeka said:

No, I’m just a Ukrainian very tired of this senseless war,  

Agreed it's senseless. Option:

1: Russia should not have invaded

2: Ukraine should not have resisted.

Please respond.

 

 

[The_Capt]

8 minutes ago, Joe982 said:

Agreed it's senseless. Option:

1: Russia should not have invaded

2: Ukraine should not have resisted.

Please respond.

 

 

He can’t. Steve took him out back and put him out of our misery.

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

I also think that before Bucha many believed the Russians would act with some semblance of legal restraint.  The idea that they would line people up in the street and execute them, or that the level of war crimes would reach these heights was simply not believable.  It definitely is now, and we know from captured plans and documents that the Russian actually planned systematic torture and executions as a form of stabilization and control - likely thinking to get out ahead of an insurgency.

I also think most thought the most likely COA was a Russian land grab in the south as an extension of where things got left off in 2014.  A full country invasion was still an outside option.

I think it is fine to come here and criticize Ukraine when merited (I just did on the strikes on nuclear radars).  But then there is being completely upside down on the issues.  Russian occupation horrors are still to fully come to light.  We already know about children being forcibly deported and men pressed into service.  God knows what hellish stories are still out there.  For Ukraine this war is existential in just about every sense of the word.  Putin is a spiteful little dictator that was pre-planning brutality before this war.  How do people think he will react after getting pants by Ukraine and made to look the fool?  And how do people Russia is going to behave after losing 100k troops?  Ukraine cannot lose this war because what will come next will likely be medieval for them.

 

Full Mongol Empire at the peak of its powers/Waffen SS actually. "Medieval" was ugly, but rarely genocidal. Yes there were exceptions, but usually the idea was to simply redirect the rents/profits from whatever you trying to conquer, not erase the place. Ghengis Khan on the other hand...

[The_Capt]

23 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Full Mongol Empire at the peak of its powers/Waffen SS actually. "Medieval" was ugly, but rarely genocidal. Yes there were exceptions, but usually the idea was to simply redirect the rents/profits from whatever you trying to conquer, not erase the place. Ghengis Khan on the other hand...

The Mongols were right in the middle of the medieval era.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/medieval#:~:text=With its roots medi-%2C meaning,that we call the Renaissance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_and_conquests

Unless one subscribes to a Western European-centric world. Then the term would be “Going Early Modern Era” (doesn’t have quite the same roll off the tongue).

https://www.se.edu/native-american/wp-content/uploads/sites/49/2019/09/A-NAS-2017-Proceedings-Smith.pdf

Edit: Oh and of course the nasty business of the Crusades: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(1099)

Edited May 28 by The_Capt

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Unless one subscribes to a Western European-centric world. Then the term would be “Going Early Modern Era” (doesn’t have quite the same roll off the tongue).

I freely admit that the common (edit: English) interpretation is incorrect, but in common usage it barely applies to anything east of the Rhine. As far as almost anyone who isn't a forumite level history buff is concerned all that was terra incongita before ~1750. 

Apologies in advance to our members from that part of the world.

Edited May 28 by dan/california

[The_Capt]

9 minutes ago, dan/california said:

I freely admit that the common (edit: English) interpretation is incorrect, but in common usage it barely applies to anything east of the Rhine. As far as almost anyone who isn't a forumite level history buff is concerned all that was terra incongita before ~1750. 

Apologies in advance to our members from that part of the world.

Ok, but do we have to lower the bar in here?  “East of the Rhine” is the rest of the planet, including both Ukraine and Russia. Lets not promote a Western European-centric view anymore than we are already trapped into by popular culture and skewed history books.

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, JonS said:

Mmm. Good point, and good relevant examples.

Still, interventuon/separation forces *have* been shown to be successful in various contexts. This would be different in that it'd be a half-and-half (ie, "this area is peaceful so leave us alone or we'll kick you in the balls. Go be dicks to each other over there, where we aren't"), which definitely adds complexity, but not necessarily impossibility.

The big kicker, I suppose, is that intervention forces are particularly successful when *both* sides want them to be. When only one side wants them there then shenanigans tend to ensue.

The problem lies with the peace keeping force's motivation for being where they are.  If they don't believe it's worth dying for then it doesn't take much for the other side to get them to leave.  Somalia and Rwanda just didn't have the strategic pull to keep the interests of the peace keepers there to see things through. 

Yugoslavia had way, way more strategic interests at stake for the Western peace keeping forces and even then they did a pretty spineless job of it for years.  Ukraine is more akin to Yugoslavia in that sense.  However, in the case of Yugoslavia the troublemakers were a 2 bit military dictatorship with a limited capacity for a wartime economy that had largely played out its military potential.  It's main benefactor, Russia, was not geographically connected so aid had to come in by air and that's expensive.  Very different than China and North Korea during the Korean War.

In the case of Ukraine the bad guys are Russia and, despite how weakened it might be, it still has the conventional capability of causing the West more casualties that it probably is psychologically willing to accept.  The traditional isolationist wing in US politics (currently MAGA centric) would certainly go nuts if anybody got killed in Ukraine.  In Western Europe there's any number of factions within each country that would respond similarly.

The result is the West doesn't want to have boots anywhere near the combat zone because few governments would survive a conflict scenario.  The most obvious exceptions might be Poland, the Baltics, and maybe Romania acting outside of NATO.  I'm not sure that would be enough to make a difference, but I can imagine scenarios where they would be.

Steve

[cesmonkey]

 

 

 

Edited May 28 by cesmonkey

[sburke]

 

Putin Dealt a Blow by Major Chinese Spy Cam Maker (msn.com)

Chinese surveillance industry giant Hikvision has suspended operations in Russia, joining the ranks of over 1,000 companies that have scaled back business in the country since Russian President Vladimir Putin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Hikvision's Russian website is currently offline, a development flagged by Russian security systems adviser Videoglaz on the social media platform Telegram last week. The precise date operations ceased is unclear.
The Hangzhou-based manufacturer is subject to U.S. Treasury sanctions and is on the U.S. Commerce Department's Entity List, subjecting it to export controls and licensing restrictions over the company's involvement in human rights violations against China's Muslim minorities.
The move by Hikvision, which Ukraine last year labeled a "sponsor of war" over its continued sales in Russia, comes on the heels of U.S. secondary sanctions targeting international companies in sectors deemed to support Russia's military industrial base.

Hikvision, along with its budget brand HiWatch, comprised some 30 percent of Russia's surveillance camera market in 2021, according to Russian media agency RSpectr.

"The suspension or change of supply channels may in the near future cause a shortage of Hikvision products and a number of electronic components, which will lead to an increase in their price," Videoglaz wrote in its post, adding the future of the Chinese company's technical support and cloud services in Russia were also in doubt.

[cesmonkey]

A busy day ...

 

[LongLeftFlank]

4 hours ago, sburke said:

 

Putin Dealt a Blow by Major Chinese Spy Cam Maker (msn.com)

Chinese surveillance industry giant Hikvision has suspended operations in Russia, joining the ranks of over 1,000 companies that have scaled back business in the country since Russian President Vladimir Putin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Hikvision's Russian website is currently offline, a development flagged by Russian security systems adviser Videoglaz on the social media platform Telegram last week. The precise date operations ceased is unclear.
The Hangzhou-based manufacturer is subject to U.S. Treasury sanctions and is on the U.S. Commerce Department's Entity List, subjecting it to export controls and licensing restrictions over the company's involvement in human rights violations against China's Muslim minorities.
The move by Hikvision, which Ukraine last year labeled a "sponsor of war" over its continued sales in Russia, comes on the heels of U.S. secondary sanctions targeting international companies in sectors deemed to support Russia's military industrial base.

Hikvision, along with its budget brand HiWatch, comprised some 30 percent of Russia's surveillance camera market in 2021, according to Russian media agency RSpectr.

"The suspension or change of supply channels may in the near future cause a shortage of Hikvision products and a number of electronic components, which will lead to an increase in their price," Videoglaz wrote in its post, adding the future of the Chinese company's technical support and cloud services in Russia were also in doubt.

I wouldn't get yer hopes up too high.

They'll just 'sell' it off on paper to some shell that doesn't care about Ze Sanctions and then keep selling gear (for as long as Russia has cash). 

Export channel-stuffing of EVERYTHING is what's kept China's economy afloat since late 2021. Xi has no option not to keep that treadmill going, even if Putin wasn't obligingly mortgaging Asian Russia to the Throne of Heaven piece by piece (confounding 400 years of Russian imperial policy).

Meanwhile, Chinese mainlanders -- and I mean the patriotic PMC classes -- are acting like the PMC Indians have done (the other piece of the 'Pacific Century', which is now in its 4th decade) and trying to get their families to any place on earth that isn't China. They're showing up -- with money -- everywhere, I'd expect that includes the Russian metropoles.

Edited May 28 by LongLeftFlank

[ArmouredTopHat]

Something potentially spicy was hit at Luhansk airport by ATACMS according to initial footage. 
 

 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

9 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Unless one subscribes to a Western European-centric world. Then the term would be “Going Early Modern Era” (doesn’t have quite the same roll off the tongue).

Come on, I thought we were all wargamers here .Why would anyone call the period between XIII and XV cent. anything but "High Medieval"? The age of the fully matured feudal system and on the battlefield, the ascendancy of the armoured knight. When every army was made up of Kn (S), Bow (X) and Sp (I).

Edited May 28 by Maciej Zwolinski
The reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you have heroine

[Harmon Rabb]

Reminds me of a computer RPG called Kingdom Come: Deliverance, set in the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1403.

Seriously the best computer RPG that I have ever played. The developers did a great job of conveying the feeling of living in Europe during the days of lords in castles and knights on horseback. Highly recommend it to fans of computer RPGs who like reading about this era.

A sequel is coming this year, really excited to play it.

Anyway, back on topic.

 

Edited May 28 by Harmon Rabb

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Come on, I thought we were all wargamers here.Why would anyone call the period between XIII and XV cent. anything but "High Medieval"? The age of the fully matured feudal system and on the battlefield, the ascendancy of the armoured knight. 

I could care less what we call it.  It is more the recognition that Europe was largely a global backwater in the evolution of warfare during this period. The major global powers were in Asia and Persia. It wasn’t until Europe gained superiority in maritime power that things began to shift in and around the 15th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_medieval_great_powers#:~:text=The following is a list,%3B Timurids%2C 1400–1450)

The single largest military evolution (and operations) were within the Mongol Empire as they rose to be the largest empire in human history at that time (only surpassed by the British empire in the 19th and 20th centuries).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires

The Mongol conquests killed an estimated 10% of the total human population of that day.  For reference that would equal about 800,000-1B people today - or a thermonuclear exchange essentially. The Mongols were the nuclear war of their era.  So if we are going to say “Going Medieval” it should be in reference to them and not a freakin Month Python skit.

Edited May 28 by The_Capt

[LongLeftFlank]

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Something potentially spicy was hit at Luhansk airport by ATACMS according to initial footage. 
 

 

The distant video showed what appeared to be a lot of fuel burning.  I think we're seeing more evidence of that.  Looks like multiple barrels of fuel or something were tossed and ignited.  Well, at least that's what my imagination tells me!

For sure Ukraine must have thought something big at the airport was worth targeting OR they decided to try and shut it down for a little while.  With this airport being so close to the front I wonder what Russia's been using it for over the last year.

Steve

[cesmonkey]

 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Reminds me of a computer RPG called Kingdom Come: Deliverance, set in the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1403.

Seriously the best computer RPG that I have ever played. The developers did a great job of conveying the feeling of living in Europe during the days of lords in castles and knights on horseback. Highly recommend it to fans of computer RPGs who like reading about this era.

A sequel is coming this year, really excited to play it.

Anyway, back on topic.

 

Now that is something.  85 F-16s would put Ukraine's inventory at about 1/10th of Russia's fighters of various capabilities. 

https://simpleflying.com/russia-fighter-jet-fleet-guide/

Considering Ukraine has stayed in this war for 2+ years with a similar count of less capable aircraft should indicate they can cause Russia a lot of trouble with the F-16s alone.

I wonder how many pilots they have already trained for them.

Steve