How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Time is still not on Russia's side.  It is an empire built on deliberately controlled chaos.  It will not survive long term because unstable systems never do.  Ukraine is building a stable system, ergo it has much better prospects for long term survival.

The counter point to this is that Russia has somehow managed to survive as an inherently unstable imperial state (in its current size) for over 300 years. It has collapsed twice before but always has come back as an imperial state.  There are more than a few theories on how this keeps happening; my personal favourite is that Russia exists because geopolitically it has been rejected- not European, not Asian, not Persian. That rejection has become an identity in itself: Russia - the original punk-state.

Regardless of how it happened, one has to admit Russia keeps going long after it should.  That quality appears baked into the culture and identity. I also think this war may likely break the current incarnation of the Russian state.  Pressures that have been set in motion may unite a people in the short term but will very well break it in the long term. Russia is very likely going to remain isolated from the West for a long time after this war.  It will also very likely be pulled into the Chinese power sphere - although that relationship has always been weird.

Bur what is very important here is the speed of a Russian collapse.  A slow rattling decline is something we can manage.  A collapse that takes 20-30 years can be boxed up and contained.  When it hits the tipping point it will still seem dramatic but a slow motion collapse, much like the last one with the fall of the Soviet Union is always the preferred option.  It is the fast uncontrolled collapse that must be avoided.  A collapse without mitigations in place.  Too many unknowns, too much energy released too fast.  

The strategic options spaces get far too stark and frankly untenable in this scenario.  We will very likely fail to make the brutal decisions required if Russia plummets suddenly. The result risks runaway mechanisms that could wind up making the entire region (if not the globe) much worse.  And there has been far too much hand waving on this point - “Ya,ya, whatever…but Ukraine!” This reality is why we are not conducting NATO airstrikes into Russia and putting western troops on the ground.

So we take the slow road. Contain but fuel the conflict. Hoping Russia runs out of gas slowly. Hoping Putin will have a sudden “health crisis”.  It is often said in military circles that “hope is not an option”.  I always smirk at this one because historically it has very often been the only option.  We keep things rolling in the hopes a better option will emerge.  Hope is a child of uncertainty, and we are very uncertain right now.

[Monty's Mighty Moustache]

Maybe we'll see some kamikaze peacocks before too long?

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-zoo-sent-soldiers-peacocks-hoping-inspire-them-in-ukraine-2024-5

 

EDIT: realised that you need to sign up to read some articles on BI, text of the article below

Quote

A Russian zoo said it sent two peacocks to Ukraine with the aim of inspiring Russian troops fighting there — but then deleted its post after people mocked Russian President Vladimir Putin in the comments, according to reports.

The Lipetsk Zoo, in southwest Russia, announced the move on social media website VK on Tuesday.

It wrote: "For guys in difficult combat situations, the beauty of birds inspires and brings a piece of joy. This is not an advertisement for the zoo, but a gift from the heart. We hope that the beauty of these birds will brighten up soldiers' everyday life in combat," The Daily Beast reported.

It also shared a video of a masked soldier in front of an enclosure with the two birds.

The soldier said that every soldier would be able to look at the birds and get some "spiritual peace," according to The Daily Beast's translation.

He added that an aviary was being built for the birds, according to Ukrainian outlet Pravda's reporting.

It's unclear if the video was filmed in Ukraine. It's also not clear where the birds were sent, or how close to the fighting they had been.

The zoo later deleted its announcement post, according to The Daily Beast and Pravda.

It told Russian news outlet Rise that comments were left that insulted Putin.

The zoo blamed Ukrainian bots for the comments — a common excuse that Russia gives for online comments that insult Putin or criticize Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

It said that "insults against the president are unacceptable," per The Daily Beast.

Some commentators were confused by the move, with one writing, according to The Daily Beast: "What are peacocks going to do there?"

Russia has heavily restricted information that its citizens can get about the war, and has punished Russians who speak out against it, leading to little visible dissent in the country.

While some protests have taken place, with thousands of people arrested, Russian citizens have largely not been seen to oppose the invasion.

Putin has also put in place a law that effectively criminalizes any reference to the fighting in Ukraine being a "war" or "invasion."

 

Edited May 1 by Monty's Mighty Moustache

[cesmonkey]

 

Edited May 1 by cesmonkey

[panzermartin]

 

 Harry Potter couldn't save this. Is this considered an attack on western culture.

And why Russians did hit it?

 

[cesmonkey]

Let's hope these are headed for Ukraine soon:

https://www.idf.il/אתרי-יחידות/יומן-המלחמה/כל-הכתבות/כתבות-ייזומות/מערכת-הנשק-פטריוט-מסיימת-את-שירותה-בחיל-האוויר/
 

[billbindc]

An interesting analysis of Russian fighting age demographics: 

https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/02/26/the-stats-guy-what-the-numbers-are-telling-us-about-putins-russia

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, panzermartin said:

 

 Harry Potter couldn't save this. Is this considered an attack on western culture.

And why Russians did hit it?

 

Very sad.  Honestly, I've been surprised that Russia hasn't targeted Ukrainian cultural heritage sites.  Considering Russia wants to wipe Ukrainian identity off the map, and doesn't care what the world thinks about doing so, you'd think they would have terror bombed all kinds of places.  Especially in Kyiv.

My assumption is that Ukraine has quietly informed Russia that if they do that then the Kremlin won't go unscathed.  Based on Ukraine's ability to blow stuff up, Russia would take such a threat very seriously.

Soooo... why this one and why now?

Steve

[poesel]

8 hours ago, Kraft said:

Even putting losses into the equation is not really happening.

...

I guess a problem for reporting losses by respectable media outlets is that you can't really verify the numbers. Both sides lie, and they would be nuts if they didn't. So there are basically only rumors to report, and it's IMHO better that they don't.

Another problem is sources. If the news channels don't have their own teams, they have to use 'official' material. Again, that will be propaganda from both sides, some side more than the other (ahem).

We are used to watching Twitter videos. But those are all 'unverified' and you can understand them only in context. Another thing that makes them unusable for mass media.

This war is a difficult topic. Even though this is the one war since WWII where it's clearest which side are the baddies.

[Hapless]

15 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Soooo... why this one and why now?

Indiscriminate brutality vs a photogenic target?

Nothing like kicking US military aid out of the headlines and getting back to how the war is horrible and the Russian behemoth isn't going to stop.

Edited May 1 by Hapless

[FancyCat]

 

Quote

Diesel prices for Russian consumers have skyrocketed, rising almost 10 percent in the past week alone, according to the government’s figures. Petrol costs have also hit a six-month high, up more than 20 percent from the start of the year as supply tightens and more and more facilities are forced to suspend production.

As a result, Moscow has scaled back its fuel exports to near-historic lows, shipping just over 712,000 tons of diesel and gasoil last week, compared to more than 844,000 during the same week in 2023.

https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-russia-diesel-prices-skyrocket-ukraine-war-drone-strikes-oil-refineries/

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

The counter point to this is that Russia has somehow managed to survive as an inherently unstable imperial state (in its current size) for over 300 years. It has collapsed twice before but always has come back as an imperial state.

This is why I don't see Russia going away even in the event of a catastrophic internal conflict.  To paraphrase some movie I don't remember... Russia is too stubborn to die.

Russia suffered enormously from the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  And that came about because it refused to liberalize.  Russia bought itself about a decade, maybe two, by tip-toeing down the path of liberalization, but has since pulled further and further away from it.  Now Russia resembles the Soviet Union more than it doesn't.  The Soviet Union didn't survive that sort of structure, neither will Russia.

As I said, Russia is on a downward slope by all measures.  It has no viable plan to address pretty much any of that.  The war in Ukraine appears to have been an attempt to address ills by kicking them down the road a bit further.  That failed.

What I'm saying here is that Russia, as it is today, is on borrowed time.  Putin knows it.  When it collapses it will likely rise again, but weaker than it was at it's post-Soviet peak.  It will probably have less territory and more enemies, while at the same time having less influence even in the Near Abroad.

Sooooo... time is not on Russia's side as it relates to this conflict.

 

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Bur what is very important here is the speed of a Russian collapse.  A slow rattling decline is something we can manage.  A collapse that takes 20-30 years can be boxed up and contained.  When it hits the tipping point it will still seem dramatic but a slow motion collapse, much like the last one with the fall of the Soviet Union is always the preferred option.  It is the fast uncontrolled collapse that must be avoided.  A collapse without mitigations in place.  Too many unknowns, too much energy released too fast. 

My concern is that Putin has burned up the opportunities for a slow and contained collapse.  If he had continued with the direction he started c.2011 I think Russia could have gone on for many more decades under the current power structure (more than less, anyway).  But now?  I don't think so.  He's cut off too many bridges, internally and externally.  He's used up massive amounts of state resources.  The demographics problems Russia was facing were bad, now they're significantly worse.  And yet, Putin shows no sign of change of any sort.

This won't end well and I don't think it will take 20-30 years for it to happen.  I'd wager less than 10.

Steve

[panzermartin]

21 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Very sad.  Honestly, I've been surprised that Russia hasn't targeted Ukrainian cultural heritage sites.  Considering Russia wants to wipe Ukrainian identity off the map, and doesn't care what the world thinks about doing so, you'd think they would have terror bombed all kinds of places.  Especially in Kyiv.

My assumption is that Ukraine has quietly informed Russia that if they do that then the Kremlin won't go unscathed.  Based on Ukraine's ability to blow stuff up, Russia would take such a threat very seriously.

Soooo... why this one and why now?

Steve

Probably Russians are pissed with the latest ATACMS strikes and hitting in blind revenge mode 

[JonS]

16 minutes ago, poesel said:

I guess a problem for reporting losses by respectable media outlets is that you can't really verify the numbers.

There's possibly also the hangover of bodycount reporting from the Vietnam War which, among its many problematic features, showed that casualty reporting wasn't an especially useful metric.

[Battlefront.com]

Additional thought...

Many times we've talked about Putin as a gambler.  It's an apt description, so I'm going to use those terms.

We saw Putin as a card or pool shark.  Games that required skill and, if played well, could be profitable.  Especially against people who weren't all that good, were distracted, or deliberately played down in order to keep him happy.  Putin could have kept that sort of thing going for a very long time, even beyond his lifetime if he chose a successor well.

The Putin we see now is a desperate guy in a casino playing games of chance or those with minimal room for skill.  He's shooting craps, pulling slot machines, going all in on blackjack, etc.  He can still have successes, but if he doesn't cash out and walk away after scoring one then he'll likely piss it away sooner rather than later.  The house always wins.

Putin's gambling streak is a net loss and of epic proportions.  He went to the casino thinking he'd come out ahead, but he's not only lost what he went in with he's had to mortgage his house and raid the kids' higher education funds.  Now each loss he suffers puts him closer to the bring of disaster, whereas each gain is unlikely to do more than allow him to keep gambling.  But eventually he'll run out of money and be unable to keep playing.  He has no plan B for that.

The reason we've seen Putin make the switch is because the games of skill weren't enough to keep him going.  Not all is well back home and he needed to up his winnings to smooth them over. 

Analogies are never perfect, but they can be helpful.  I am hoping this one is helpful

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

37 minutes ago, JonS said:

There's possibly also the hangover of bodycount reporting from the Vietnam War which, among its many problematic features, showed that casualty reporting wasn't an especially useful metric.

Agreed. But of course, while the USMAAG bodycount metrics (e.g. 'the Five O'Clock Follies') were pants for countless reasons, the Viet Cong were indeed being steadily bled white, as everyone from Giap on down admitted after the victory.

I don't know if there's a strict correlation from buckets of blood to territorial losses; we believe that the boundary fortifications built from 2014-2022 are a lot harder to replace once lost, and that seems to make intuitive sense.

...But beyond that, who the hell knows what a square km, or a shattered hamlet, is worth militarily? As @The_Capt noted thousands of pages ago, just how valuable is 'high ground' nowadays in the FPV era?  A nice marshy streambed or wooded balka, otoh, is still tactically useful.

Edited May 1 by LongLeftFlank

[dan/california]

5 hours ago, cesmonkey said:

 

This is clearly the biggest crack the Putin regime's facade of unity that we have seen. 

6 hours ago, The_Capt said:

The counter point to this is that Russia has somehow managed to survive as an inherently unstable imperial state (in its current size) for over 300 years. It has collapsed twice before but always has come back as an imperial state.  There are more than a few theories on how this keeps happening; my personal favourite is that Russia exists because geopolitically it has been rejected- not European, not Asian, not Persian. That rejection has become an identity in itself: Russia - the original punk-state.

Regardless of how it happened, one has to admit Russia keeps going long after it should.  That quality appears baked into the culture and identity. I also think this war may likely break the current incarnation of the Russian state.  Pressures that have been set in motion may unite a people in the short term but will very well break it in the long term. Russia is very likely going to remain isolated from the West for a long time after this war.  It will also very likely be pulled into the Chinese power sphere - although that relationship has always been weird.

Bur what is very important here is the speed of a Russian collapse.  A slow rattling decline is something we can manage.  A collapse that takes 20-30 years can be boxed up and contained.  When it hits the tipping point it will still seem dramatic but a slow motion collapse, much like the last one with the fall of the Soviet Union is always the preferred option.  It is the fast uncontrolled collapse that must be avoided.  A collapse without mitigations in place.  Too many unknowns, too much energy released too fast.  

The strategic options spaces get far too stark and frankly untenable in this scenario.  We will very likely fail to make the brutal decisions required if Russia plummets suddenly. The result risks runaway mechanisms that could wind up making the entire region (if not the globe) much worse.  And there has been far too much hand waving on this point - “Ya,ya, whatever…but Ukraine!” This reality is why we are not conducting NATO airstrikes into Russia and putting western troops on the ground.

So we take the slow road. Contain but fuel the conflict. Hoping Russia runs out of gas slowly. Hoping Putin will have a sudden “health crisis”.  It is often said in military circles that “hope is not an option”.  I always smirk at this one because historically it has very often been the only option.  We keep things rolling in the hopes a better option will emerge.  Hope is a child of uncertainty, and we are very uncertain right now.

The problem with looking at the last three hundred years of history is that China was weak, almost to the point of irrelevance, that entire three hundred years. China has suddenly become very strong, this is going to effect the equilibrium that has let Russia survive being one the worst run countries on the planet.

24 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is why I don't see Russia going away even in the event of a catastrophic internal conflict.  To paraphrase some movie I don't remember... Russia is too stubborn to die.

Russia suffered enormously from the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  And that came about because it refused to liberalize.  Russia bought itself about a decade, maybe two, by tip-toeing down the path of liberalization, but has since pulled further and further away from it.  Now Russia resembles the Soviet Union more than it doesn't.  The Soviet Union didn't survive that sort of structure, neither will Russia.

As I said, Russia is on a downward slope by all measures.  It has no viable plan to address pretty much any of that.  The war in Ukraine appears to have been an attempt to address ills by kicking them down the road a bit further.  That failed.

What I'm saying here is that Russia, as it is today, is on borrowed time.  Putin knows it.  When it collapses it will likely rise again, but weaker than it was at it's post-Soviet peak.  It will probably have less territory and more enemies, while at the same time having less influence even in the Near Abroad.

Sooooo... time is not on Russia's side as it relates to this conflict.

 

My concern is that Putin has burned up the opportunities for a slow and contained collapse.  If he had continued with the direction he started c.2011 I think Russia could have gone on for many more decades under the current power structure (more than less, anyway).  But now?  I don't think so.  He's cut off too many bridges, internally and externally.  He's used up massive amounts of state resources.  The demographics problems Russia was facing were bad, now they're significantly worse.  And yet, Putin shows no sign of change of any sort.

This won't end well and I don't think it will take 20-30 years for it to happen.  I'd wager less than 10.

Steve

See below...

11 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Additional thought...

Many times we've talked about Putin as a gambler.  It's an apt description, so I'm going to use those terms.

We saw Putin as a card or pool shark.  Games that required skill and, if played well, could be profitable.  Especially against people who weren't all that good, were distracted, or deliberately played down in order to keep him happy.  Putin could have kept that sort of thing going for a very long time, even beyond his lifetime if he chose a successor well.

The Putin we see now is a desperate guy in a casino playing games of chance or those with minimal room for skill.  He's shooting craps, pulling slot machines, going all in on blackjack, etc.  He can still have successes, but if he doesn't cash out and walk away after scoring one then he'll likely piss it away sooner rather than later.  The house always wins.

Putin's gambling streak is a net loss and of epic proportions.  He went to the casino thinking he'd come out ahead, but he's not only lost what he went in with he's had to mortgage his house and raid the kids' higher education funds.  Now each loss he suffers puts him closer to the bring of disaster, whereas each gain is unlikely to do more than allow him to keep gambling.  But eventually he'll run out of money and be unable to keep playing.  He has no plan B for that.

The reason we've seen Putin make the switch is because the games of skill weren't enough to keep him going.  Not all is well back home and he needed to up his winnings to smooth them over. 

Analogies are never perfect, but they can be helpful.  I am hoping this one is helpful

Steve

Both of these posts are excellent, Putins has rejected the idea trying to manage decline well. He has committed to making a grand imperial comeback, or a crater.

[Letter from Prague]

31 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Both of these posts are excellent, Putins has rejected the idea trying to manage decline well. He has committed to making a grand imperial comeback, or a crater.

Yes. And it is pretty much part of his strategy as well - let me win or else.

[LongLeftFlank]

50 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Putin has rejected the idea trying to manage decline well. He has committed to making a grand imperial comeback, or a crater.

 

 

[poesel]

Georgia now looks like Ukraine 2013...

 

[A Canadian Cat]

On 4/27/2024 at 2:20 PM, Holien said:

And hyperbole to the Canucks

What?!?? We would never, ever stoop to that level. What a gross mischaracterization!

 

[JonS]

23 hours ago, poesel said:

Georgia now looks like Ukraine 2013...

 

Saw this on the Guardian when I woke up this morning ... I genuinely thought the reporting was about the US state, not the nation in the Caucasus. All the elements of the story - corruption, protests, right-wing wet-ons for Putin, fvckery with laws and legislation - fit either place, and for whatever reason the Caucasus didn't pop top of mind.

Edited May 2 by JonS

[dan/california]

Lets just say he is unimpressed with his commanders...

[dan/california]

Worth the watch.

[cesmonkey]

In this podcast episode, which really starts to get going about minute 9, they talk, speculate about how Ukraine can make use of their F-16s soon:

https://fromthecrowsnest.transistor.fm/episodes/so-now-what-will-ukraine-aid-make-a-difference
 

 

Quote

In this AOC member/subscriber-only episode of From the Crows’ Nest, host Ken Miller is joined once again by John Knowles, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Electromagnetic Dominance (JED), and Col. Jeffrey Fischer, USAF (Ret). They discuss recent developments in the Ukraine War, considering the recent passage of aid by the U.S. Congress. They share their thoughts on the plan to send F-16s to Ukraine, the explosive growth of unmanned aerial systems (UASs) in combat, and how electromagnetic spectrum operations (EMSO) continues to shape how we fight, whether it’s on the Eastern Front, the Middle East, or Indo-Pacific region.

 

[Fenris]

56 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Lets just say he is unimpressed with his commanders...

Here's an example posted recently (long clip of many RU corpses)

Quote

It's Stepove near Avdiivka. Russians failed to take the village for around 2 months, so there were a lot of casualties.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1785368169109942634

Edited May 1 by Fenris