How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[dan/california]

20 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Who the hell is Fukuyama?  American IPA is just fine for children and those recovering from surgery but not grown men.

[Edit: ok, looked him up.  So what is the deal here?  He was all “end of history” and ideological conflict?  What was the misread? I feel like I have walked into a foreign country and am being ticketed for not giving proper respect to ducks]

Or Bill is out of beer and thought he would attempt some wavium in pursuit of same.

[Beleg85]

Very interesting news; Grey Zone was linked in this topic numerous times, albeit if I recall correctly they had several admins.

Event if Mali is not per se about Ukraine, but it is linked indirectly. Muscovites complain about incompetent officers in Wagner, lack of proper recon and overal deteriorated quality of mercs. I don't know how Tuareg locals did it to Wagner but this scene of slaughter rivals ones we see in UA. They seem to be caught in relatively open field, possibly camping in close proximity to each other.

Edited July 27 by Beleg85

[dan/california]

3 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Very interesting news; Grey Zone was linked in this topic numerous times, albeit if I recall correctly they had several admins.

Event if Mali is not per se about Ukraine, but it is linked indirectly. Muscovites complain about incompetent officers in Wagner, lack of proper recon and overal deteriorated quality of Wagner. I don't know how Tuareg locals did it to Wagner but this scene of slaughter rivals ones we see in UA. They seem to be caught in relatively open field, possibly camping in close proximity to each other.

The other fascinating question is did the Tuareg perhaps receive a bit of help from some interested party or another. Russia has been running the table in Africa for a year, maybe someone decided to at least make it more expensive.

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, chrisl said:

Moving between sensors isn't a problem so much as their props running at variable speed.

For an ICE that's running at constant speed you can do what amounts to Shazam to match signals across sensors (which is how you do MLAT in the first place).  

But electric motors are much quieter to start with, and then when you start varying the prop speed it gets harder to keep track of a single acoustic source (but probably not impossible).

It would probably make more sense, at least for now, to add SDR dongles to some fraction of the phones and use RF for tracking drones.  When I got mine for ADS-B it was ~$90. I think they're about $30 retail now.  It would probably be a "custom" one for Ukraine, but not all that custom, and they wouldn't have to put one on every phone the effective range for RF detection is much farther than acoustic, and if the drone is being controlled from the other side of the lines, it's going to have enough RF output to be easy to detect as it comes in.  Once they're all AI, you're out of luck, unless they're sending RT video but not receiving commands.

My thought is you can't reliably count on X drone being picked up consistently from one sensor to the next.  And because they can't be relied upon to fly in a predictable vector with consistent speed, if something appears on Sensor 1 and a few minutes later appears on Sensor 5, you can't be sure that it is the same drone because you have no data for Sensors 2-4.  Then you get the complications that there are multiple sensors picking up signals concurrently and with the gaps in tracking you wouldn't know for sure if the drone detected by Sensor 1 is now detected by Sensor 5, or if the one detected by Sensor 5 originated from Sensor 15's position.

It's like any other tracking system.  The more consistent your target is, the easier to reliably track it.  The fewer things there are to track, the easier it is to track any one thing.  And vice versa.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I am not sure I buy into the initial interpretation to be honest.  It is not one or the other, it is the combination of both.  Hammering logistics prevents sustainment of large concentrations of troops and offensive exploitations, while strikes (which only work with ubiquitous ISR) are forcing dispersion.  At the same time ISR and strike are allowing fewer forces to effectively cover frontages in defence and denial.

We basically have two operational systems that can sustain denial with very low troops densities, while the offensive requirements are too high for both sustainment and strike issues.  Offensively we see penny packet small tactical surges almost happening in a pulse echelon to try and move forward.  The costs are enormous and chances for full breakout almost nil. Corrosive warfare may still work but it is not attriting fast enough to break already low energy systems. We almost need a form of Sanitization warfare to regain forward movement but the strike/fires packages to do that have not appeared on the battlefield. 

So other than strategic collapse….we are stuck…for now.

Yeah, I don't think it is easy to sort this out.  Personally, I think what we're seeing is in some sectors the troop density is low because there isn't as much available as needed.  However, I also think it is true that in some sectors the pressure on logistics is such that what troops are there aren't being properly supplied.

Also, who here thinks Russia would keep troops out of combat positions because it couldn't logistically support them?  Now before any of you raise your hands, even tentatively, then be prepared to explain the initial invasion and pretty much anything since then.  Because the instances of Russian frontline forces being overextended and not adjusted for it are abundant.

Steve

[chrisl]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

My thought is you can't reliably count on X drone being picked up consistently from one sensor to the next.  And because they can't be relied upon to fly in a predictable vector with consistent speed, if something appears on Sensor 1 and a few minutes later appears on Sensor 5, you can't be sure that it is the same drone because you have no data for Sensors 2-4.  Then you get the complications that there are multiple sensors picking up signals concurrently and with the gaps in tracking you wouldn't know for sure if the drone detected by Sensor 1 is now detected by Sensor 5, or if the one detected by Sensor 5 originated from Sensor 15's position.

It's like any other tracking system.  The more consistent your target is, the easier to reliably track it.  The fewer things there are to track, the easier it is to track any one thing.  And vice versa.

Steve

I suspect you'll be lucky to pick up one electric drone most of the time, since they're so much quieter than ICE engines.  The sensor density would have to go way up to reliably detect them.  That's why I lean toward using RF and focusing on ISR transmissions.  If they're fully autonomous you're out of luck, but even just sending back periodic snippets likely means being able to identify the same drone across multiple detections, and you generally want at least three sensors to be detecting it at all times to be able to localize it.

[billbindc]

7 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Who the hell is Fukuyama?  American IPA is just fine for children and those recovering from surgery but not grown men.

[Edit: ok, looked him up.  So what is the deal here?  He was all “end of history” and ideological conflict?  What was the misread? I feel like I have walked into a foreign country and am being ticketed for not giving proper respect to ducks]

“But supposing the world has become “filled up”, so to speak, with liberal democracies, such as there exist no tyranny and oppression worthy of the name against which to struggle? Experience suggests that if men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle. And if the greater part of the world in which they live is characterized by peaceful and prosperous liberal democracy, then they will struggle against that peace and prosperity, and against democracy.”
― Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man

Also American beer is, with some salient exceptions (aka Saison Dupont) pretty much the best in the world and obviously that can only be decided by a proper drinking session. Consider the gauntlet dropped. Happy to buy to educate.

 

[billbindc]

6 hours ago, dan/california said:

Or Bill is out of beer and thought he would attempt some wavium in pursuit of same.

I am a well paid apparatchik of the American imperial project in a city full of delightful breweries. So no...just reacting to the normal rhetorical violence applied to Fukuyama's thesis. 

[sburke]

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

Also American beer is, with some salient exceptions (aka Saison Dupont) pretty much the best in the world and obviously that can only be decided by a proper drinking session. Consider the gauntlet dropped. Happy to buy to educate.

How dare you?!  One word- Guinness.  Now go drink your piss beer somewhere else.  

Edited July 28 by sburke

[fireship4]

9 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Who the hell is Fukuyama?

Well, I've certainly learned something from @billbindc's quote and the cited legislation regarding him being mis-understood, but in popular culture at least, he has been lambasted for the last few decades or so: accused of declaring the end of history, that liberal democracy won out and that from here on it would be a matter of adjustment.  No more revolutions to change the basic framework (individual rights, free markets, social safety net, international institutions, trade and diplomacy I suppose), or something like that.

EDIT:

Quote

From the introduction to The End of History and the Last Man:

The distant origins of the present volume lie in an article entitled "The End of History?" which I wrote for the journal The National Interest in the summer of 1989. 1 In it, I argued that a remarkable consensus concerning the legitimacy of liberal democracy as a system of government had emerged throughout the world over the past few years, as it conquered rival ideologies like hereditary monarchy, fascism, and most recently communism. More than that, however, I argued that liberal democracy may constitute the "end point of mankind's ideological evolution" and the "final form of human government," and as such constituted the "end of his­tory." That is, while earlier forms of government were character­ized by grave defects and irrationalities that led to their eventual collapse, liberal democracy was arguably free from such funda­mental internal contradictions. This was not to say that today's stable democracies, like the United States, France, or Switzerland, were not without injustice or serious social problems. But these problems were ones of incomplete implementation of the twin principles of liberty and equality on which modern democracy is founded, rather than of flaws in the principles themselves. While some present-day countries might fail to achieve stable liberal democracy, and others might lapse back into other, more primi­tive forms of rule like theocracy or military dictatorship, the ideal of liberal democracy could not be improved on...

...For [Hegel and Marx], there was a coherent development of human societies from simple tribal ones based on slavery and subsistence agriculture, through various theocracies, monarchies, and feudal aristocracies, up through modern liberal democracy and technologically driven capitalism. This evolutionary process was neither random nor unintelligible, even if it did not proceed in a straight line, and even if it was possible to question whether man was happier or better off as a result of historical "progress."...

...The most remarkable develop­ment of the last quarter of the twentieth century has been the revelation of enormous weaknesses at the core of the world's seemingly strong dictatorships, whether they be of the military­ authoritarian Right, or the communist-totalitarian Left. From Latin America to Eastern Europe, from the Soviet Union to the Middle East and Asia, strong governments have been failing over the last two decades. And while they have not given way in all cases to stable liberal democracies, liberal democracy remains the only coherent political aspiration that spans different regions and cultures around the globe. In addition, liberal principles in economics-the "free market"-have spread, and have succeeded in producing unprecedented levels of material prosperity, both in industrially developed countries and in countries that had been, at the close of World War II, part of the impoverished Third World. A liberal revolution in economic thinking has sometimes preceded, sometimes followed, the move toward political freedom around the globe.

All of these developments, so much at odds with the terrible history of the first half of the century when totalitarian govern­ ments of the Right and Left were on the march, suggest the need to look again at the question of whether there is some deeper connecting thread underlying them, or whether they are merely accidental instances of good luck. By raising once again the ques­tion of whether there is such a thing as a Universal History of mankind, I am resuming a discussion that was begun in the early nineteenth century, but more or less abandoned in our time be­cause of the enormity of events that mankind has experienced
since then. While drawing on the ideas of philosophers like Kant and Hegel who have addressed this question before, I hope that the arguments presented here will stand on their own...

 

12 hours ago, billbindc said:

non-fruit forward

Damn I tire of that citrus taste.  Give me Czech beer all day long.

Edited July 28 by fireship4

[Grigb]

13 hours ago, dan/california said:

Many thanks for the full rundown! A couple of more questions since you seem to following this particular situation. Did he receive the payout he was promised? And is there any indication his minor celebrity status will be sufficient to get him a job as a traffic cop or similar? I am just really curious if the Russian system will completely bleep the guy even though he is internet famous, at least by mobik standards.

 

• I do not have exact information about the payoff, but given his status, he most likely received some immediate payment. At the same time he unlikely to receive any significant life long payments (stipulated by the law). These payments supposed to come from local authorities who do not have much money themselves. He will get some small pension to buy some vodka and bread. And that's about it. 
• Unlikely. He is not that popular and too crippled. You must be very close to Guardian propagandists to get anything of real value. 
• Except for some local vet groups, which will arrange for his visits to schools on remembrance days, he will largely be forgotten.

[Carolus]

 

Haven't seen this clip posted here. I find it significant because the drone went into a building and chased a RU soldier there. Might be just a subjective impression but there seems to be a loss of video fidelity (signal loss) when the drone goes through the window and is now inside the structure. But it still works (probably enough windows blown out)

Reminds of the complaints of RU troops from the Kharkiv direction that certain Ukrainian FPV drones just don't seem to lose signal no matter where they hide. And this shows that in this case, not even being deep inside a building is safe for infantry.

 

Edited July 28 by Carolus

[Grigb]

13 hours ago, Tux said:

It would be interesting to understand how far back the combat sustainment bottleneck has been pushed on either side.  A few days ago @Grigb noted that battlefield strikes, not OTH logistical attacks, were what has forced both sides to such historically low force densities at the frontline.  To be fair, I think Grigb was talking about attacks on storage depots and the like when he spoke about "OTH", but the source quoted above is not the first I've seen claiming that the border of "advanced logistics" has been pushed back 8-10km from the front.  What's more, it suggests that this is approaching the point where sustainment of even the current, hollowed out frontline force structure is a problem.

Kharchenko talks about UKR battlefield drones that recently (few months ago) got sufficient numbers and range (due to extensive modifications) to perform Free Hunt missions (akin to armed reconnaissance missions of Allied Air Forces in Normandy) at significant (up to 25 km) range hitting any vehicle that dare to come within range.

So, we may say that the 5 km Grey zone (I was taking about) has increased to 25 kilometers, but I prefer not to because it is a gimmick due to RU's incapacity to fight drones at the required scale. It's FPV drones on Free Hunt. With appropriate counter-drone defenses, you can push them back.

 

13 hours ago, Tux said:

What is the meaningful difference (if any) between low force densities caused by frontline strikes and those caused by (enforced) logistical constraints?  One results in spare logistical capacity sat idle and the other in spare combat capability likewise, right?

Low densities are cause by drone adjusted artillery and strike drones within 5 km of frontline (actual range depends). Effect of beyond battlefield strikes at logistics is vastly exaggerated. They are very useful at imposing various delays but do not prevent both sides from maneuvering regiments or even brigades. 

 

13 hours ago, Tux said:

Is it just a coincidence that we seem to be in a situation whereby low force densities are apparently working at the limit imposed both by units' survivability at the front and by the capacity of at least Russia's logistics to support them?  I mean those are two different variables, defined by different constraining factors.  What are the odds that Ukraine's frontline and OTH strike capabilities just happen to constrain both Russia's frontline presence and the logistics required to support that presence at exactly the right ratio, so that neither have any room for expansion?  Why is it not 'we could field a higher density of forces if only we could supply them' or 'we could supply a higher density if only they would survive any length of time at the front'?

We do not have any evidence that strike on RU logistics cause anything but temporal disruption. The disruption is important. But beyond that the effect is limited.

Important thing the many analyst forget about RU army - Doctrinally they are Rommel followers - Drive forward, logistics be damned. Let Quartermaster sort it out [or he will be nullified]. 

 

13 hours ago, Tux said:

Where do we think the defining logistical constraints are biting, if it's not as far back as supply depots?  Is it 8-10km from the frontline, behind which there's loads of (or at least some) fat?  How much further back does it need realistically to be pushed in order to render any meaningful frontline presence impractical?

The critical bottle neck is 5 to 25 km from front line. Drones forces you to rely on man carry which is slow and limited. Basically you cannot timely resuply your forward units making them extremely susceptible to retreat due to lack of ammo. This is why M113 is critical for UKR. It is sufficiently agile, sufficiently survivable, can carry a lot while being cheap with just to 2 man to lose in worse case. You get in, bring supply/take wounded, you get out. 

[Tux]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yeah, I don't think it is easy to sort this out.  Personally, I think what we're seeing is in some sectors the troop density is low because there isn't as much available as needed.  However, I also think it is true that in some sectors the pressure on logistics is such that what troops are there aren't being properly supplied.

Also, who here thinks Russia would keep troops out of combat positions because it couldn't logistically support them?  Now before any of you raise your hands, even tentatively, then be prepared to explain the initial invasion and pretty much anything since then.  Because the instances of Russian frontline forces being overextended and not adjusted for it are abundant.

Steve

Right.  It really is the operational war that is at stalemate here then, as the_Capt mentioned, and the tactical stalemate we observe is actually a very finely balanced and localised manifestation of the former.  Each side is committing just as much as they think they need to hold the line/ can afford to lose at the front while the real war is being fought trying to evade or erode enemy ISR.  And neither side has enough to cover the whole front if they lose their ‘ubiquitous ISR’ crutch.

So much so ‘already discussed many times over the last 3k pages’.

There’s something else in there, relating to the pages and pages of tank death debates and drone wars discussion. It’s itching my brain but I can’t grasp it yet.  I have that feeling I might be the only one who hasn’t yet, though, so will leave it there!

[Holien]

5 minutes ago, Tux said:

Each side is committing just as much as they think they need to hold the line/ can afford to lose at the front while the real war is being fought trying to evade or erode enemy ISR.  And neither side has enough to cover the whole front if they lose their ‘ubiquitous ISR’ crutch

I like the neat summary but I think it really only fits Ukraine at the moment. Well unless we are saying Russia has truly stopped attempting to break the lines.

Russia certainly until maybe now was expending as much manpower as it could to break through and push Ukraine over the edge.

A bit like a gambler at the penny slots tipping point / coin pusher machine.

The whole front line being a long pile of coins and you keep throwing more at different points thinking it will be enough to topple it and get the payout.

There's a UK TV show called Tipping Point for those who have no idea what I have just said...

Tipping Point https://g.co/kgs/9P9SZFb

[Haiduk]

13 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Wagner had a VERY bad time in Malia today. 

Reportedly was eliminated 13th assault detachment of "African corps". For this time claimed 80 KIA and at least 15 captured. Most of them were veterans of Soledar/Bakhmut battle. Also reportedly 10 Malian troops were killed. One Wagner's Mi-24 was shot down. Russian milbloggers already search "Ukrainian trail" it this ambush and some bloggers closed to Wagner believed Taureg rebels were trained by GUR instructors (because usual "flip-floppers" just incapable to organize so proper ambush) and threaten to "catch and crusify khokol instructors"

In the network is sharing a tweet of Taureg combat group, where they expressed admiration for Ukrainan fighting with Russia and claim they ready to give captured Wagners to Ukranian side. There are no confirmation is this real Taureg post or just a fake.

PS. Reportedly except Grey Zone admin, the commander of Wagner troops Anton Yelizarov ("Lotos") was killed

And of course a meme - Freemen have defeated Kharkonens %)

 

Edited July 28 by Haiduk

[Tux]

1 hour ago, Grigb said:

Kharchenko talks about UKR battlefield drones that recently (few months ago) got sufficient numbers and range (due to extensive modifications) to perform Free Hunt missions (akin to armed reconnaissance missions of Allied Air Forces in Normandy) at significant (up to 25 km) range hitting any vehicle that dare to come within range.

So, we may say that the 5 km Grey zone (I was taking about) has increased to 25 kilometers, but I prefer not to because it is a gimmick due to RU's incapacity to fight drones at the required scale. It's FPV drones on Free Hunt. With appropriate counter-drone defenses, you can push them back.

 

Low densities are cause by drone adjusted artillery and strike drones within 5 km of frontline (actual range depends). Effect of beyond battlefield strikes at logistics is vastly exaggerated. They are very useful at imposing various delays but do not prevent both sides from maneuvering regiments or even brigades. 

 

We do not have any evidence that strike on RU logistics cause anything but temporal disruption. The disruption is important. But beyond that the effect is limited.

Important thing the many analyst forget about RU army - Doctrinally they are Rommel followers - Drive forward, logistics be damned. Let Quartermaster sort it out [or he will be nullified]. 

 

The critical bottle neck is 5 to 25 km from front line. Drones forces you to rely on man carry which is slow and limited. Basically you cannot timely resuply your forward units making them extremely susceptible to retreat due to lack of ammo. This is why M113 is critical for UKR. It is sufficiently agile, sufficiently survivable, can carry a lot while being cheap with just to 2 man to lose in worse case. You get in, bring supply/take wounded, you get out. 

Thanks for the clarification and yes, I follow.

[The_Capt]

5 hours ago, billbindc said:

“But supposing the world has become “filled up”, so to speak, with liberal democracies, such as there exist no tyranny and oppression worthy of the name against which to struggle? Experience suggests that if men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle. And if the greater part of the world in which they live is characterized by peaceful and prosperous liberal democracy, then they will struggle against that peace and prosperity, and against democracy.”
― Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man

Also American beer is, with some salient exceptions (aka Saison Dupont) pretty much the best in the world and obviously that can only be decided by a proper drinking session. Consider the gauntlet dropped. Happy to buy to educate.

 

So at the End of History…there is another History.  I like that. I think the human beings are built for struggle and conflict.  It is the foundation of our species. Darwinian pressure on us was high.  We were a niche species that could not mass produce, nor were we apex predators with all their advantages.  We had an overheated brainpan and the ability of complex communication.  In such a state we were constantly hunted and hunting to stay alive. Such a creature does not give up that impulse just because we invent the Thigh Master.

As to the beer challenge…you sir…are very much on.  Canadian beers is the finest on the planet - and this after surviving centuries under the tyranny of English p#sswater.

[Tux]

12 minutes ago, Holien said:

I like the neat summary but I think it really only fits Ukraine at the moment. Well unless we are saying Russia has truly stopped attempting to break the lines.

Russia certainly until maybe now was expending as much manpower as it could to break through and push Ukraine over the edge.

A bit like a gambler at the penny slots tipping point / coin pusher machine.

The whole front line being a long pile of coins and you keep throwing more at different points thinking it will be enough to topple it and get the payout.

There's a UK TV show called Tipping Point for those who have no idea what I have just said...

Tipping Point https://g.co/kgs/9P9SZFb

At which point it does become… ‘problematic’ for Russia, right?  I mean if we can prove they are throwing in more than they think they can afford to lose then, by definition, the best they can hope for is a pyrrhic victory (autocorrect did its best to make me write “pyrrhic biscuit” but I do think they can hope for more than that).

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, fireship4 said:

Well, I've certainly learned something from @billbindc's quote and the cited legislation regarding him being mis-understood, but in popular culture at least, he has been lambasted for the last few decades or so: accused of declaring the end of history, that liberal democracy won out and that from here on it would be a matter of adjustment.  No more revolutions to change the basic framework (individual rights, free markets, social safety net, international institutions, trade and diplomacy I suppose), or something like that.

EDIT:

 

Damn I tire of that citrus taste.  Give me Czech beer all day long.

Ok, now I need to read this guy. I like where his heads at but totally independent of this I have a working theory that democracy is in fact cyclical as a social impulse.  It is dependent on equity and information…contamination of either of those two factors leads directly to democratic abandonment.  And right now we are contaminating the hell out of both in the West.

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Grigb said:

So, we may say that the 5 km Grey zone (I was taking about) has increased to 25 kilometers, but I prefer not to because it is a gimmick due to RU's incapacity to fight drones at the required scale. It's FPV drones on Free Hunt. With appropriate counter-drone defenses, you can push them back.

We are talking about a 25km deep strip of airspace 100s of kms long.  The threat is hundreds, maybe thousands of bird sized targets that can fly at treetop level in and around 60+ kph.  Soon many of those threats are going to be fully autonomous for portions of their missions.

No one has “appropriate counter-drone defences” for that.  We know the solution already, it is very low altitude micro-air superiority of unmanned systems.  This is not a defensive battle, it is an offensive one.  We need swarms of unmanned systems that hunt other unmanned systems and their operators. We need a new form of SEAD in the hands of infantrymen.  And then that need to translate into our own unmanned superiority that they cannot deal with so we can do deep strikes.

[Baneman]

5 hours ago, billbindc said:

Also American beer is, with some salient exceptions (aka Saison Dupont) pretty much the best in the world and obviously that can only be decided by a proper drinking session. Consider the gauntlet dropped. Happy to buy to educate.

 

20 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

...  Canadian beers is the finest on the planet - and this after surviving centuries under the tyranny of English p#sswater.

I know it's off-topic but I cannot let this pass. 

Clearly neither of you have been to Germany, Austria, Belgium or other European countries where taste and flavour is a real thing. Personally I would back Kaiser Doppelmalz ( Austrian) against any beer in the world, but each to their own tastebuds - there may be contenders in the countries mentioned that I don't know.

[Tux]

23 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

As to the beer challenge…you sir…are very much on.  Canadian beers is the finest on the planet - and this after surviving centuries under the tyranny of English p#sswater.

You guys realise we have people from Czechia and Germany on the thread, right?

[Holien]

15 minutes ago, Tux said:

At which point it does become… ‘problematic’ for Russia, right?  I mean if we can prove they are throwing in more than they think they can afford to lose then, by definition, the best they can hope for is a pyrrhic victory

I think it became problematic for Russia in 2022.

Not sure if I can pin it down to exact date in 2022 but the absolute best Russia can achieve is a pyrrhic victory by warping reality and logic for internal consumption.

Putin can't win what he originally wanted and even if he can "persuade" Ukraine to stop killing Russians the damage done to Russia is immense. 

Alas he has more pennies to gamble and is a true addict who doesn't know when to stop.

BTW The murder of the elderly lady economist says more about the internal economic state of Russia than we know.

Why kill an old lady by pushing her through a window?

They couldn't get the courts involved as she was too high profile. The truth would come out.

She was too much of an expert and knew what is happening to Russia. Too old to be silenced by the threat of loss of her job.

Something will snap in Russia, time is not on their side.

Ukraine just needs to hold on and generate just enough force to keep in the fight. Manpower is key...

[The_Capt]

7 minutes ago, Baneman said:

 

I know it's off-topic but I cannot let this pass. 

Clearly neither of you have been to Germany, Austria, Belgium or other European countries where taste and flavour is a real thing. Personally I would back Kaiser Doppelmalz ( Austrian) against any beer in the world, but each to their own tastebuds - there may be contenders in the countries mentioned that I don't know.

And the Euro crowd speaks up.  I have travelled many lands and am forever grateful we here on this blessed hemisphere were able to shed our European baggage decades ago.  Now I will give you that a Belgian dark is adequate, and German wheat is better than dying of thirst.

But the clear glacial carved and fed springs of the True North lead to the finest craft brews ever to grace this dirty blue ball.  Whilst Europe embraces the same beers they were drinking a millennia ago, we have moved onto greater things.

Don’t worry we are used to the antiquated scorn…followed by Euro humiliation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Paris_(wine)