How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[cesmonkey]

 

[cesmonkey]

 

[kimbosbread]

2 hours ago, billbindc said:

It is also a canard that Putin was holding back on Ukraine before Trump left office.

Please, Putin straight up did his previous land grab in 2014 under the current guy’s old boss (both of whom I think are decent people and have done decent jobs). I think Trump absolutely gave people pause just due to sheer uncertainty and capriciousness of his presidency. And then, just as Trump leaves office, Spring 2020 rolls around with a giant kick to everybody’s collective nutsack. And then maybe Putin, sensing his own mortality, decides to roll the dice again, since the US just backed out Afghanistan, and the guys who let 2014 happen are back in town.

And it’s not just the US. Look at France, where the traditional political parties collapsed over the last decade. Or England.

[dan/california]

1 minute ago, kimbosbread said:

Please, Putin straight up did his previous land grab in 2014 under the current guy’s old boss (both of whom I think are decent people and have done decent jobs). I think Trump absolutely gave people pause just due to sheer uncertainty and capriciousness of his presidency. And then, just as Trump leaves office, Spring 2020 rolls around with a giant kick to everybody’s collective nutsack. And then maybe Putin, sensing his own mortality, decides to roll the dice again, since the US just backed out Afghanistan, and the guys who let 2014 happen are back in town.

And it’s not just the US. Look at France, where the traditional political parties collapsed over the last decade. Or England.

The thing is, Putin could almost certainly done a smaller, less ambitious, version of the "SMO" and more or less gotten away with it. His epic mistake was to make a great show of his intentions to burn down Kyiv and crucify, or worse, anybody who looked at him sideways. This made it impossible for the West to ignore what was going on and continue business as usual. He really did execute the worst plan since at least Napoleon's march on Moscow with a complete absence of competence. 

As I have said a number of time a smart autocrat would have declared victory May 1st of 2022, and memory holed the whole thing. Putin is not very smart, he just a psychopath who very unfortunately snuck into the top job.

[Aragorn2002]

Is there any truth in the news about a Russian breakthrough near Ocheretyne?

[billbindc]

6 hours ago, kimbosbread said:

Please, Putin straight up did his previous land grab in 2014 under the current guy’s old boss (both of whom I think are decent people and have done decent jobs). I think Trump absolutely gave people pause just due to sheer uncertainty and capriciousness of his presidency. And then, just as Trump leaves office, Spring 2020 rolls around with a giant kick to everybody’s collective nutsack. And then maybe Putin, sensing his own mortality, decides to roll the dice again, since the US just backed out Afghanistan, and the guys who let 2014 happen are back in town.

And it’s not just the US. Look at France, where the traditional political parties collapsed over the last decade. Or England.

That Vladimir Putin makes bad decisions from our perspective is not the same thing as him making irrational decisions.

In that light, I think you should ask yourself whether or not the Russians would have preferred the US to be still mired in Afghanistan while also trying to support Ukraine. And you should ask yourself whether or not Putin would have preferred a safely pliant Ukrainian government (being coerced not just by the Kremlin but also the White House) over the risks associated with going en banc with a full attempt at conquest. Finally, please come up with a single evidenced example of Trump giving Russia or China pause in their foreign policy behavior. This claim is often made yet nobody can point to one…though moments of pause and dismay abound among American allies during the same time period. 

Putin’s timing wasn’t about losing the restraining hand of what we are supposed to imaging was an intimidating Trump administration vis a vis Moscow…it was the recognition that a window of opportunity was closing. Indeed, events have shown Putin didn’t realize it already had.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

6 hours ago, kimbosbread said:

Please, Putin straight up did his previous land grab in 2014 under the current guy’s old boss (both of whom I think are decent people and have done decent jobs).

Come on, Obama's policy vs Russia was disastrous. It's hard not to see the harebrained "reset", setting various "red lines", e.g. use of gas in Syria which have come and passed ineffectually, the 2014 invasion and finally open warfare by Russian army as steps which inexorably followed from one another because of lack of any meaningful US response at the previous step. Talking hard and then not producing any stick whatsoever, big or otherwise, suggests that either the stick is so rotten that it will fall to pieces or the wrists are too limp to wield it. 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

12 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I think Ukraine has already done this [stabilising the front - MZ].  There is an army's worth of scrap metal all over south-eastern Ukraine right now and at least 50k dead (likely more) and times 3-4 wounded.

I am not sure. Yesterday and the day before there were reports talking about RUS breakthrough in Ocheretyne and the need to abandon the hitherto defence line. Tone of the reports very similar to the post-Severodonetsk reports. Today's  Tom Cooper's  substack also in this line of thinking.

https://xxtomcooperxx.substack.com/p/ukraine-war-26-april-2024

[The_Capt]

20 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

I am not sure. Yesterday and the day before there were reports talking about RUS breakthrough in Ocheretyne and the need to abandon the hitherto defence line. Tone of the reports very similar to the post-Severodonetsk reports. Today's  Tom Cooper's  substack also in this line of thinking.

https://xxtomcooperxx.substack.com/p/ukraine-war-26-april-2024

I was speaking more of demonstrating the high cost of this war.  As to this, well first the situation is not clear but a 10-15 km advance is going to sting but it very much matters which 10-15 kms.  A lot of these Russian advances have had very little operational significance. They have not fundamentally provided Russia positional advantages that can be translated into operational success.  Imagine for a moment if the roles were reversed: the UA was making incremental advances at great costs…oh wait, we already did that last summer.  The hue and cry of “lost summer offensive” was echoing across the infosphere last summer while the UA was basically doing the same thing the RA is doing now.  But with the RA it is “Ukraine cannot stabilize the front!”

From a military viewpoint, objectively, both sides have been conducting small tactical actions and taking bites of what is essentially wasteland.  Neither side has been able to create the conditions for operational breakthroughs or collapse since Fall of ‘22.  From an operational and strategic point of view this conflict has been pretty static.  With this surge of new support we might see Ukraine re-take a few kms etc but unless these turn into something more it won’t mean anymore than costly Russian gains this winter.

 

[The_Capt]

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/i-just-want-to-be-safe-ukrainian-man-in-canada-faces-limbo-amid-consular-freeze-1.6862816

I am sure every war has had individuals like this…but this does not sit well.

[Offshoot]

The story of how the Ukrainians stole the EW tank - Cirque du Soleil acrobat steals T-72

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytWVaueLozs

[Holien]

9 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

but this does not sit well.

In what way? 

FWIIW if my country was facing an existential threat at that age I would hope to be fighting not hiding abroad.

But of course that is very easy to say as I approach my 60's about to have my afternoon nap...

As for comments about Obama and his attempt to reset it is easy to say in hindsight that it was a failure. At the time there was hope to try and bring Russia back from the edge...

As for the failure to use a big stick on Russia what do you suggest should have been done? Easy to throw stones at someone's else when you don't have to offer concrete proposals on what to do differently.

People are currently blaming Biden for being too weak and not giving Ukraine more, conveniently ignoring the environment he has to operate in.

[Kraft]

22 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

The hue and cry of “lost summer offensive” was echoing across the infosphere last summer while the UA was basically doing the same thing the RA is doing now.  But with the RA it is “Ukraine cannot stabilize the front!”

There is a somewhat large risk of further breakthroughs in the Avdiivka direction from recent days and the "fortifications" are miles behind the current frontline, while russia was sitting in a tunnel/trench network that made any exploitation impossible. 

Had the first line been breached there would've been 3 more hurdles before just touching Tokmak.

The line south of Ocheretyne and Soloviove will likely be abandoned if the current advances north of it continue and cant be stopped with new US aid. As of today it appears in the rumor mill that the russians are successfull there. 

It may be a 7km wide frontline withdrawl by ~6kms, what that does to the whole of the front I dont know but it surely isnt an improvement and may cause issues nearby

Edited April 26 by Kraft

[The_Capt]

33 minutes ago, Holien said:

In what way?

On more than a few levels to be honest.  The fact that this young (assuming healthy) man “wants to return to Ukraine” once the war is over is particularly irksome.  Essentially the young man is saying that as soon as “others fight and die for his own nation”, he is eager to return home.  Now this is one individual that Canadian overly-liberal media have glommed onto because “if it cries it leads” these days.  However, this sentiment cannot be entirely isolated given the significant number of fighting aged people who have simply run away from Ukraine while the nation fights for its life.

Meanwhile foreigners, many without any Ukrainian connections, fight and die for that nation.  Nope, does not sit well at all.

Edited April 26 by The_Capt

[The_Capt]

11 minutes ago, Kraft said:

There is a somewhat large risk of further breakthroughs in the Avdiivka direction from recent days and the "fortifications" are miles behind the current frontline, while russia was sitting in a tunnel/trench network that made any exploitation impossible. 

Had the first line been breached there would've been 3 more hurdles before just touching Tokmak.

The line south of Ocheretyne and Soloviove will likely be abandoned if the current advances north of it continue and cant be stopped with new US aid. As of today it appears in the rumor mill that the russians are successfull there. 

It may be a 7km wide frontline withdrawl by ~6kms, what that does to the whole of the front I dont know but it surely isnt an improvement.

I assume we are talking about this:

Gotta be honest, I see a lot of potential dangerous salients forming up, which was how the Germans made life miserable for the Soviets.  The RA lacks the logistics to really support a major drive unless conditions have changed there.  I get the concerns but until the RA can take a major operational objective - which based on this map looks like Povrovsk - we have death by a thousand nibbles.

However, I do share the concern that the UA is fully capable of collapse as well.  If that happens things could shift quickly, albeit likely slower than in Fall ‘22 re: Russian logistics.  We need a Deep Battle here to get corrosive warfare happening again.  My sense is that this war has recently shifted to front edge attrition which is not what we want.  This plays to Russian strengths.  The key Russian weakness is systems-fragility and for that we need deep deliberate corrosive warfare approaches.

[fireship4]

10 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Essentially the young man is saying that as soon as “others fight and die for his own nation”, he is eager to return home.

Before we comdemn him from afar, let's remember he is 18, would he have somewhere to live? Where is his family home, is it still standing, is it in occupied territory? Would he be given a job in the army immediately?  Would it help support the rest of his family (in Germany)?  Can he help Ukraine in other ways?  Maybe he should have help abroad to renew his passport maybe not, but surely we can commend bravery of some without handing out white feathers to the rest.

[The_Capt]

46 minutes ago, fireship4 said:

Before we comdemn him from afar, let's remember he is 18, would he have somewhere to live? Where is his family home, is it still standing, is it in occupied territory? Would he be given a job in the army immediately?  Would it help support the rest of his family (in Germany)?  Can he help Ukraine in other ways?  Maybe he should have help abroad to renew his passport maybe not, but surely we can commend bravery of some without handing out white feathers to the rest.

So the story really does not get into his motivations for not fighting.  “I want to be safe” is what we get.  Of course to “be safe” in Ukraine right now means fighting for that safety.  We do not know if the young man has religious grounds or even ideological ones.

White feathers is a poor analogy.  They were used in the British Empire to shame young men to go and fight in a mainland European war.  Many of these young men were in far flung nations such as Canada or Australia.  The peer pressure for them was to go to fight and die in what could be considered an imperial war.

Ukraine is in an existential war. The Russians have left pretty much zero doubt of this based on both their plans and actions.  If anyone wants to “go home to safe Ukraine” as a Ukrainian they are going to have to either be willing to fight for this..or let someone else do it for them.  This young man definitely would have somewhere to live…likely a trench on the front.  Based on how desperate the UA is for manpower he would likely have a job…killing Russians.  

Now it is his personal choice as to whether or not he wishes to do that but this reads a lot like the “cake and eat it too” generations we have right now.  I want all the healthcare safeties but no vaccines.  I want peace and security but not to fight for it.  I want cheap products and lifestyles but no climate change.  If this young man wants to live in a free and safe Ukraine he needs to be willing to do what generations before have done…be willing to fight and die to make that happen. Because it simply won’t be delivered like DoorDash or streaming entertainment.  Don’t want to kill?  Become a medic.  

My fundamental question back to this kid is “if you want to go home to Ukraine one day then what are you still doing here?” 

Edited April 26 by The_Capt

[cesmonkey]

 

[Aragorn2002]

8 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

So the story really does not get into his motivations for not fighting.  “I want to be safe” is what we get.  Of course to “be safe” in Ukraine right now means fighting for that safety.  We do not know if the young man has religious grounds or even ideological ones.

White feathers is a poor analogy.  They were used in the British Empire to shame young men to go and fight in a mainland European war.  Many of these young men were in far flung nations such as Canada or Australia.  The peer pressure for them was to go to fight and die in what could be considered an imperial war.

Ukraine is in an existential war. The Russians have left pretty much zero doubt of this based on both their plans and actions.  If anyone wants to “go home to safe Ukraine” as a Ukrainian they are going to have to either be willing to fight for this..or let someone else do it for them.  This young man definitely would have somewhere to live…likely a trench on the front.  Based on how desperate the UA is for manpower he would likely have a job…killing Russians.  

Now it is his personal choice as to whether or not he wishes to do that but this reads a lot like the “cake and eat it too” generations we have right now.  I want all the healthcare safeties but no vaccines.  I want peace and security but not to fight for it.  I want cheap products and lifestyles but no climate change.  If this you man wants to live in a free and safe Ukraine he needs to be willing to do what generations before have done…be willing to fight and die to make that happen. Because it simply won’t be delivered like DoorDash or streaming entertainment.  Don’t want to kill?  Become a medic.  

My fundamental question back to this kids is “if you want to go home to Ukraine one day then what are you still doing here?” 

A man who can serve his country in time of war, but choses to go abroad is a deserter. Unless he's Russian of course. 

[danfrodo]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

I assume we are talking about this:

Gotta be honest, I see a lot of potential dangerous salients forming up, which was how the Germans made life miserable for the Soviets.  The RA lacks the logistics to really support a major drive unless conditions have changed there.  I get the concerns but until the RA can take a major operational objective - which based on this map looks like Povrovsk - we have death by a thousand nibbles.

However, I do share the concern that the UA is fully capable of collapse as well.  If that happens things could shift quickly, albeit likely slower than in Fall ‘22 re: Russian logistics.  We need a Deep Battle here to get corrosive warfare happening again.  My sense is that this war has recently shifted to front edge attrition which is not what we want.  This plays to Russian strengths.  The key Russian weakness is systems-fragility and for that we need deep deliberate corrosive warfare approaches.

We expect UKR to exploit these vulnerable salients, and sometimes they do make attacks on them.  But in general we don't see UKR choosing to do this in any meaningful way.  These are new, unfortified flanks, yet UKR hasn't the will or strength to contest them as strongly as one might hope.  

Is this due to lack of artillery (thanks to the US delays)?  Is it RU FPVs/arty making cutting those flanks too costly?  Is UKR simply too weak or too casualty averse?  Is it UKR just wanting to play the delay/attrit card and is willing to lose the territory?  Is UKR building up for something else?   

Every time I see these salients I hope to see it cut off and right now it's just not happening, for whatever reason.

[kimbosbread]

49 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

Every time I see these salients I hope to see it cut off and right now it's just not happening, for whatever reason.

Exhausted soldiers, not enough of them, and not enough heavy weaponry. Meanwhile, Russia has gone all in.

That said, I too have my doubts whether Russia can sustain multiple advances for several months and not just end up in the same situation as earlier in the war. They have much worse equipment (other than drones), worse soldiers (but many more of them), less good communications etc. And I have to wonder about their logistics for supporting an offense.

[Anthony P.]

2 hours ago, fireship4 said:

Before we comdemn him from afar, let's remember he is 18, would he have somewhere to live? Where is his family home, is it still standing, is it in occupied territory? Would he be given a job in the army immediately?  Would it help support the rest of his family (in Germany)?  Can he help Ukraine in other ways?  Maybe he should have help abroad to renew his passport maybe not, but surely we can commend bravery of some without handing out white feathers to the rest.

He is a grown man after all, finding a place to live is frankly something that's expected of any functioning adult in almost any society you'd find. His family isn't depentent on him for survival.

Granted, it is a human right to seek to avoid having to serve in a war... but it is also not a breach of human rights for a state to oblige its fighting aged population with the duty to fight, and to punish them if they if they refuse to comply.

I can genuinely imagine and appreciate that having made it out of the war zone his country became, that it would feel very difficult to voluntarily return there: returning to a war zone once you're comfortably residing in a peaceful country with substantially higher living standards must be a very unpleasant idea. But nonetheless, he's not being asked to fight an unjust war on the behalf of some despotic regime headed by a megalomaniac dictator.

I attended a debate on the war here, where the panel included another young Ukrainian man who'd fled the war. Again, understandable, but when he started whining about "all my friends back home are in the army now and they hate me for refusing to return! I want to stay here, I'm sure I can help my country more over here", more than a few attendees visibly cringed in their seats.

 

To put it bluntly: it doesn't take making the wrong decision in a simple question devoid of any risk to become a coward.

Edited April 26 by Anthony P.

[Nastypastie]

Hang on, this kid is 18. The conscription age was just lowered to 25. He has 7 years to make a few kids and basically be exempt until he's in his 40's.

This whole thing looks like a complete nothing story. What is he even complaining about? He can cross the desertion bridge if Ukraine drop their conscription age down to 18.

[Holien]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

White feathers is a poor analogy.  They were used in the British Empire to shame young men to go and fight in a mainland European war.

My Grandad was white feathered during WW2.

He was castigated by quite a few folk in Doncaster a northern industrial town in Yorkshire.

But what those doing it didn't know was he was an electrician and he was refused when trying to join up and had to serve maintaining the electrics in the vital factories in the area. My grandmother never forgave those that attacked him and spat at him, they had their son's dying and saw him as a draft Dodger.

That young lad you mentioned could better serve his country being back home. He can serve behind the front lines...

In fact Ukraine should be looking at what was done by the UK to encourage folk to fight during WW2, it was as vital as any fighting done as if you don't have the recruits you can't fight...

 

 

[FancyCat]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Meanwhile foreigners, many without any Ukrainian connections, fight and die for that nation.  Nope, does not sit well at all.

Let’s not overstate the foreign numbers, while certainly there are foreigners serving in the Ukrainian military, the vast majority of personnel are Ukrainian. Quick google search brought up 20k foreigners, with 200k total on the low side of personnel on the frontlines, that’s still just 10 percent of the soldiers defending Ukraine are foreigners. No need to be hyperbolic, end of the day it is Ukrainian blood spilled to defend Ukraine.