Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar

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Terminal_Boy said:
They might have better troops, but they don’t have any better equipment than what’s been fielded and easily countered in Ukraine.

Good luck to Russian forces directly engaging NATO forces where NATO has totally air superiority 5 minutes after it kicks off.

It doesn’t matter what number comes after the T- for Russian armour when the plane that goes “Brrrrrrrrtttt” is overhead.
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My fear would be 5 mins after kick off when Russia lies in pieces after having been smashed apart that someone's dying hands press the big red button...
 
Rroff, I think you are underestimating the cost of upkeep of yachts and mansions that ruskies have acquired abroad. Also that shed in Gelendzhik of Krasnodar region should have cost a pretty penny. Also from the stories prior to war from ruskies the conscript would clear areas of snow in winter and paint kerbs in a summer and the most important was to teach them how to march on parade. Not much left till May to see them on red square. Gonna be interesting imho.
 
Rroff said:
The answer to that is complex - Putin is far too paranoid to not leave Russia with significant forces at home, those higher up the Russian government tend to have increasing layers of yes men below them removing them from the full picture and so on. Russia initially seemed to think they could basically replay Crimea 2.0 so the initial forces were much more for show so they've ended up throwing good money after bad over time as well.

IMO seeing all these actions i.e. trotting out T-54/55 tanks and so on as purely desperation is somewhat wrong as well - Russia has tried to do this on the cheap throughout not just because of the state of their armed forces, life is cheap to the Russian government and if they can get the job done grinding with old equipment and "disposable" people they will do so.

I don't think Russia are trying to look deliberately weak - there is a tiny possibility they might be trying to bait NATO into something but I highly doubt it but neither would I conclusively dismiss the possibility.
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I would say rather cynically that getting rid of a lot of people (whilst a population worry in future) has probably solved a few political headaches depending on who has died.

Also as mentioned as can be seen through history, Russians have a peculiar view on the value of life (makes for great novels!) and I wouldn't put it past them to just see it the cannon fodder as a way of grinding down the weapons NATO provide until people get tired or fatigued by the conflict.
 
martynr said:
Rroff, I think you are underestimating the cost of upkeep of yachts and mansions that ruskies have acquired abroad. Also that shed in Gelendzhik of Krasnodar region should have cost a pretty penny. Also from the stories prior to war from ruskies the conscript would clear areas of snow in winter and paint kerbs in a summer and the most important was to teach them how to march on parade. Not much left till May to see them on red square. Gonna be interesting imho.
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I was one of the first people in this thread mentioning how much of the Russian military budget it tied up in marinas in the Med LOL.
 
Bazzards said:
Why have Russia not committed their full forces? Surley if you want to win you commit the forces that have a chance of doing this? Or do Russia want to look deliberately weak for some obscure reason.
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Probably some combination of needing to keep troops to defend their borders whilst also not having anything like the forces they claim to have.
 
RobHu said:
Probably some combination of needing to keep troops to defend their borders whilst also not having anything like the forces they claim to have.
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At the start of the war many Russian divisions which were supposed to be at 80% readiness were actually at about 50% standing size. In many cases of those groups sent to Ukraine around 30% of a division remained deployed to whatever their normal job was, around 30% remained at home base and the rest was deployed to Ukraine - over time some of those have been redeployed to replace losses.

In most cases it is "elements of" which have been deployed to Ukraine but people seem to be under the impression of army groups deployed at like 10K personnel when in reality it has been like 2-3K or so out of their standing man power.
 
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The Funktopus said:
China’s probably doing what China does, and playing both sides to their own benefit, telling Ukraine’s allies that they want to help end the war to avoid jeopardising trade with the west, while on the other hand selling Russia weapons and ammo at a mark up, while getting Russian raw materials at a discount in return.
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Not just with Russia.

They are in BRICS with India, all good new currency blah blah blah.

In the meantime they are killing each other over border disputes. These countries don't have friends, they unite for the common cause whilst waring between themselves

The enemy of my enemy as they say but this one doesn't end in is my friend
 
Rroff said:
All out war with NATO is another scenario again. Russia simply has nothing to deal with the scale of NATO advanced weaponry if fully on a war footing - ignoring nukes.

But there seems to be a misconception that the Russian army is basically decimated - there are still many fully equipped regiments and brigades which have never been utilised in Ukraine - the army groups utilised were not sent in full strength either - nominally around 30% of their standing size in the first instance though more have been sent to replace losses.
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Yea keep telling yourself that.

Russia have nothing but bluster

If they have all they overpowering reserves this war would be over by now.

Putin is humiliated, defeated and soon to be no more, you really believe that pish about overwhelming reserves

he is literary fighting for his life, there is no way he isn't all in.
 
*Macron: I Didn’t Come To China to Negotiate Peace in Ukraine, but Think China Can Help on The Matter
*Macron: It’s Not in China’s Interest to See the War In Ukraine Persist
*Macron: De-Risking Economies Doesn’t Mean Not Doing Any Business With China, Strategic Autonomy Doesn’t Mean Autarky
*Macron: Should China Arm Russia, It Would Become Complicit in Breach of International Law

*Turkish Foreign Minister: Discussed Sweden’s NATO Bid, F-16 Fighter Jets in Meeting With U.S. Blinken
*Turkish Foreign Minister: Sweden Needs to Take Further Steps for Turkey’s Ratification of Its NATO Bid
*Turkish Foreign Minister: Will Discuss Ukraine War With Russia’s Lavrov
*Turkish Foreign Minister: Problems in Grain and Fertiliser Export Continue, Working With UN on It
*Turkish Foreign Minister: Concerned About Ukraine and Russia Preparing for Renewed Attacks
 
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bris said:
Yea keep telling yourself that.

Russia have nothing but bluster

If they have all they overpowering reserves this war would be over by now.

Putin is humiliated, defeated and soon to be no more, you really believe that pish about overwhelming reserves

he is literary fighting for his life, there is no way he isn't all in.
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Telling myself what? I'm not remotely pro-Russian but I've been following this as long as anyone via a huge range of sources - I don't necessarily bother with specific names and numbers and/or able to link people to specific information I've hoovered up along the way I'm just not that organised but inevitably you will find there is something to what I'm saying even if I get some bits wrong. I don't know how many times that has to play out in this thread LOL.

(Just the last few days my browser history has 3728 entries related to stuff on Ukraine never mind trolling stuff like Discord, etc.)
 
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Rroff said:
The answer to that is complex - Putin is far too paranoid to not leave Russia with significant forces at home, those higher up the Russian government tend to have increasing layers of yes men below them removing them from the full picture and so on. Russia initially seemed to think they could basically replay Crimea 2.0 so the initial forces were much more for show so they've ended up throwing good money after bad over time as well.

IMO seeing all these actions i.e. trotting out T-54/55 tanks and so on as purely desperation is somewhat wrong as well - Russia has tried to do this on the cheap throughout not just because of the state of their armed forces, life is cheap to the Russian government and if they can get the job done grinding with old equipment and "disposable" people they will do so.

I don't think Russia are trying to look deliberately weak - there is a tiny possibility they might be trying to bait NATO into something but I highly doubt it but neither would I conclusively dismiss the possibility.
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I got the impression Russia thought they would take Ukraine quickly.

The fact that they have clearly failed to do so makes me think that Putin didn't know as much as he thought he knew about his military. (And Ukrain's military)

I understand that Putin was seen as a clever military mastermind leading up to this invasion, but we have new evidence now (and a lot of it) that contradicts that. Rather than try to make the new evidence fit into the "Putin is a military genius" belief, I think it's time we considered that maybe Russia isn't what we thought it was.
 
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Twinz said:
I got the impression Russia thought they would take Ukraine quickly.

The fact that they have clearly failed to do so makes me think that Putin didn't know as much as he thought he knew about his military. (And Ukrain's military)

I understand that Putin was seen as a clever military mastermind leading up to this invasion, but we have new evidence now (and a lot of it) that contradicts that. Rather than try to make the new evidence fit into the "Putin is a military genius" belief, I think it's time we considered that maybe Russia isn't what we thought it was.
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The thing which throws up flags for me - Russia has moved incredibly slowly to close their borders to prevent man power from leaving, moves incredibly slowly towards man power mobilisation for the war, industrial mobilisation for the war, etc. and that doesn't make a lot of sense even assuming there is an aspect there that there might be limits on how quickly they can move without the population kicking back (which increasingly the population seems split between supporting the war and incredibly passive about it).

Things like armoured vehicle production and maintenance have moved really slowly, efforts to increase ammo production and so on likewise.

If I was Putin I'd be moving pretty quickly by now to requisition civilian industry and so on towards the war effort.
 
Seeing a lot of chatter about missile carriers in the Black Sea, but not much substantial - suggests they are building up for another round of strikes and probably a bit larger than the last couple this time. There was quite a bit of maritime patrol activity this morning angled a bit further north than normal this time rather than across towards Sevastopol so don't know if that is significant.
 
Rroff said:
At the start of the war many Russian divisions which were supposed to be at 80% readiness were actually at about 50% standing size. In many cases of those groups sent to Ukraine around 30% of a division remained deployed to whatever their normal job was, around 30% remained at home base and the rest was deployed to Ukraine - over time some of those have been redeployed to replace losses.

In most cases it is "elements of" which have been deployed to Ukraine but people seem to be under the impression of army groups deployed at like 10K personnel when in reality it has been like 2-3K or so out of their standing man power.
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If I remember correctly Tom Cooper (an Austrian analyst, worth adding to your sources if you don’t read his blog already) also put the Russian military at about half, perhaps less, of its claimed strength (in manpower) prior to the war.

The question is that even if they sent only 40% or so of their actual strength to Ukraine initially, after a year of war and massive losses that need replacing, what’s left that could be spared from regular duties?

Unless they’ve been reinforcing solely with conscripts, which is a possibility I suppose. Maybe they saw how badly their regulars performed and thought it couldn’t get much worse.
 
RobHu said:
Unless they’ve been reinforcing solely with conscripts, which is a possibility I suppose. Maybe they saw how badly their regulars performed and thought it couldn’t get much worse.
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They've not been reinforcing solely with conscripts but I think people underestimate how much they've used essentially conscripts as well as militia and the likes of Wagner along with Rosgvardiya - even riot police being sent in the light infantry role. There were 2 rounds of pre-war, out of band, mobilisations which seem to have been widely missed even by the professional military analysts for some reason - I'm not sure exact numbers one was only like 4K the other in the 10s of thousands. People seem to have quickly forgotten the videos of the conscripts in the initial days running around clueless, dropping their magazines by accident from their guns, etc. and complaining they'd been sent to war with at most 3 weeks training.

I'm not saying there isn't desperation, there clearly is, but I think people mistake how much is desperation and how much is Russia churning out the **** first to grind Ukraine down as well.
 
Rroff said:
Some of this stuff is nice - but I want to see the heavier stuff - self-propelled artillery and anti-air, tanks, armoured fighting vehicles, etc. that is the stuff Ukraine needs to win.
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Hopefully there’s lots arriving that we aren’t aware of. They’ll need it for the counter offensive.
 
*Polish President Duda: We Are Trying to Get Additional Security Guarantees for Ukraine at NATO Summit
*Polish President Duda: 4 MiG-29 Jets Were Already Sent to Ukraine, 4 Are Now Being Sent and We Are Ready to Send Another 6
*Ukraine’s Zelenskiy: We Want Poland to Be Key Partner in Post-War Reconstruction
*Ukraine’s Zelenskiy: Most Difficult Situation on Front Line Is in Bakhmut
*Ukraine’s Zelenskiy: Most Important Is Not to Lose Soldiers
*Ukraine’s Zelenskiy: If There Is a Risk of Troops Being Encircled, Corresponding Decisions Will Be Taken

*Stoltenberg: NATO Allies Agree That Sweden Should Become an Ally As Quickly As Possible
*Stoltenberg: Continued Support for Ukraine Is Essential
*Stoltenberg: We Don’t Know When the War Will End but Putin Cannot Continue to Chip Away At European Security
*Stoltenberg: We Agreed to Start Work on Developing Strategic Multiyear Programme for Ukraine to Bring It Up to NATO Standards
*Stoltenberg: Ukraine’s Future Is in the Euro Atlantic Family
*Stoltenberg: We Will Continue to Support Georgia, Moldova And Bosnia
*Stoltenberg: If Putin Wins in Ukraine It Will Send a Dangerous Message to Authoritarian Countries Around The World
*Stoltenberg: Help by China to Russia Would Be a Historic Mistake
*Stoltenberg: NATO’s 2% of GDP Military Spending Has Been Seen As a Ceiling by Many in NATO, at Summit in Vilnius It Should Be Declared a Floor Rather Than Ceiling
*Stoltenberg: Germany, Netherlands Now Very Committed to Increase Spending and Reach 2% Soon
*Stoltenberg: Any Help to Russia From China Will Be a Big Mistake and Will Have Profound Consequences
*Stoltenberg: NATO Position Is That Ukraine Will Become A Member Of NATO
*Stoltenberg: This Has To Be Based On Ukraine Being Independent And Democratic, Which Is Now Challenged By The Russian Invasion
*Stoltenberg: When the War Ends and Ukraine Prevails, We Have to Have the Highest Level of Interoperability
*Stoltenberg: Announcement That They Will Deploy Tactical Weapons to Belarus Shows That Moscow Signed Empty Promises in Agreement With China

*Swedish Foreign Minister Billström: All NATO Allies Have Spoken in Favor of Membership

*Putin: Delivers Address to New Ambassadors, Including U.S. and EU, In Kremlin
*Putin: Difficult Situation in the World Prevents Normal Cooperation Between Governments
*Putin: Russia Is Open to Constructive Partnership With Every Country
*Putin: Russia Has No Prejudice Or Hostility Towards Any Country
*Putin: We Won’t Isolate Ourselves
*Putin: Russia Has No Prejudice Or Hostility Towards Any Country
*Putin Tells Danish Ambassador: We Hope Denmark Supports Our Call for Independent Investigation Into Nord Stream Attacks
*Putin: Bilateral Contacts Between Russia And Norway Have Now Been Reduced To A Minimum
*Putin: Syria Is A Reliable Partner And Ally Of Russia
*Putin: Russia Is In Favour Of Comprehensive Development Of Relations With North Macedonia
*Putin: Relations With U.S. Are in a Deep Crisis
*Putin Tells US Ambassador: US Support for 2014 Revolution in Ukraine Led to Today’s Situation
*Putin Tells US Ambassador: We Have Always Based Relations on Need to Not Interfere in Internal Affairs of Other Countries
*Putin: Relations Have Seriously Deteriorated With EU
*Putin: EU Started Geopolitical Standoff With Russia
*Putin: We Hope That Actions That Are Harming Our Relationship Will Come To An End
*Putin: Russia Will Be Happy To See African Leaders Attending The Russia-Africa Summit
 
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