Soldato
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Russia can't win this war of attrition so at some point they have to either escalate or call it quits, it's simply not sustainable
Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar
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Defended by an effective force who've had time to prepare on paper attacking Kyiv would need 100s of thousands of Russian troops. When Russian forces were advancing from the north they had just over 30K soldiers + some support while Ukraine had over 40K regular forces they could bring to that fight and more irregular/volunteer forces in the area...
Some say it was a diversionary effort but with that convoy I'm not convinced - I think it was kicked off under the notion that once Ukraine faced a military force the majority of their forces would be intimidated into putting down their weapons and there was too much inertia to change course once that didn't happen (they were still shipping in riot/public disobedience control gear, etc. when their soldiers were begging for fuel and ammo).
I don't think it is going to be enough of a reduction - within 6 months Russia is still going to have to make some serious decisions on how to proceed. If they can't control the skies over those areas they are going to come under serious pressure in the longer run.
Soldato
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Russia thinks long term, they know the West have very short memories and enthusiasm and commitment fades quickly as terms/parties/leaders wax and wane. Hold down what they gained, rebuild their forces and move forward at their own pace. A war of attrition meanwhile the West loses interest and moves on to the next big thing.
Russians have a different mentality huge losses are historically the norm for them they don't value life and freedom in the same way we do squaddies are just cannon fodder dying for the motherland there'll be parades to celebrate their glorious sacrifice in future.
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Let's pray it's not Taiwan...
Yup - once the initial memories of why this kicked off, etc. start to fade those in the West are going to start voting with their feet against the inconveniences to their daily lives while Russia will be set more for the longer run.
I keep seeing the same easily debunked claims being made on this thread. The west are nothing like you just described and were in Afghanistan longer than the Russians. Not to mention a very long time in Iraq and Vietnam. The west have absolutely no qualms fighting a long proxy way in Ukraine, that will bleed the Russians dry both financially and in equipment.
The other thing I keep reading is the "wow that Russian stuff sucks, I bet India and China are sorry they bought theirs". Yet they constantly forget or wilfully ignore that UKraine also uses the very same equipment. They have just trained to use it better and have been using combined arms tactics.
It so often seems that the best advert for Autocracy is the impermanence of Western morality.
We were in Afghanistan with an even more vague mission at immense cost with NATO-member soldiers dying constantly for over 20 years. I do not believe it will matter much at all if the public become disinterested when politicians will be more than happy to continue pleasing defence contractors without any of the bad news of losing soldiers.
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A big difference though - those wars didn't involved wide reaching sanctions which will be felt significantly at home, this war is rapidly going to be felt as a burden by society at large.
Unlike with Afghanistan though society generally is going to feel the pain of this one much more widely as shortages and prices increase, etc.
Soldato
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It's all going to get messy stability wise in the world, lots of financial hardship from this and issue of food supplies as well
Which is in the gutter. He built an all powerful Russia....who can barely take on Ukraine and are getting embarrassed on a daily basis.
He would have been better keeping up the charade that Russia's military is in anyway capable/to be feared.
He's been unable to curry any real influence to win back the Ex -Soviet states, so he has had to resort to an ill advised invasion which has gone disastrously for him.
Soldato
The west also fought the cold war with the soviet Union for about 45 years without getting fed up and deciding to stop wasting money on rockets, spycraft, proxy wars, assisting friendly states become friendlier.
We are in this for the long haul and countries that backslide will feel the wrath of the rest. Russia has bit off more than it can digest this time. The western world may have some inconvenience but nothing to what the populace of Russia and it's remaining satellites will go through. Having already lost lives and treasure to Russia over the last decade, Europe and the USA should be in no mind to back away now.
This is a lot more complicated - Putin is paranoid about committing from the main Russian forces (which aren't in great shape but better than the picture emerging from Ukraine might suggest). Where people are seeing desperation rolling out old hardware this is often trying to avoid depleting active good stock.
Not helped by the deteriorating situation in Ukraine has seen "good money" thrown after bad piecemeal to try and prop up the war.
People/organisations including those who should know better often subtract what Russia has committed to Ukraine from the long standing scale of Russia's forces but that isn't accurate - for instance between 2017 and 2021 Russia brought dozens of 2S7 Pion/Malka and 2S4 Tyulpan back into service from mothballed stock as part of a modernisation program which completed in December 2021 - one of the reasons why I suspected the build up at the end of 21 and early 22 might be leading up to actual conflict this time. They also brought 1000s of T-80 tanks out of storage so as to avoid using newer stock in Ukraine rotating out older T-72s from other regions to use in Ukraine, etc. although this war has exposed problems there where reserve stock has been raided to upgrade the even older stock causing problems when they turned to the reserve stock to replace losses in Ukraine...
Many of the shot down and/or crashed attack helis have been in late 1970s config without modernisation features seen in use in Syria, etc. and appear to have been sitting around since about that.
I would say if Russia had drawn the forces used for this war exclusively from the cream of their established main forces things would have been very different for Ukraine and a much harder fight - but I've heard from reliable sources for instance that one of the reasons they put so many T-80s back into service was because their latest and greatest T-90s weren't proving as reliable as they were cracked up to be.
IMO that is also different because the generations of that era hadn't seen 30-40 years of relative peace and got used to a certain standard of living, etc. large segments of that society had seen WW2 or some of the wars immediately after first hand for themselves.
It's being reported that Russia is going to turn off electricity to Finland tomorrow.
So far from proving NATO wrong and Russia isn't a threat to either Finland or Sweden, 'Mad Vlad' as gone in to blackmail mode.
I agree about Turkey, that they like to play both sides. They are probably trying to get some deal going for something.
So far from proving NATO wrong and Russia isn't a threat to either Finland or Sweden, 'Mad Vlad' as gone in to blackmail mode.
I agree about Turkey, that they like to play both sides. They are probably trying to get some deal going for something.
All that proves is that Finland is justified in joining NATO and should go much further by completely disconnecting itself from Russia's supply chain.
You contradicted point 1, with point 2.
If they are trying to avoid depleting good stock, what exactly is the good stock if the latest T90's are not up to scratch? and they don't have the T14 Armata available. Exposing fundamental issues within Russian armed forces of cannibalising older equipment to make new stuff run doesn't mean Ukraine is being "let off the hook". The Russians have sent themselves down that path.
Even if Russia uses its supposed cream, its shown to have such logistical and tactical inadequacies in using any of its forces that Russian military power is seen as a complete joke. If it wasn't for the fact Russia is a nuclear equipped state any of the belligerent statements and threats it has been making would be toothless and quite frankly comedic.
I think things are tenser with Finland than the media/official statements tend to show, albeit some stuff is just normal routine testing/exercises which just happen to coincide with current events or normal precautions given the situation. There is some serious rejigging of the posture in that region ongoing, US is running some logistic flights over less normal routes into Finland and carrying out other training for combat flight operations such as operating from roads and fields rather than established facilities.
On the other hand there doesn't seem to be much in the way of Russia forces opposed to Finland aside from a token increase in missile forces and bolstered air-defences, though a lot of the OSINT types are looking closer at other areas. I've also not seen anything other than marginal increase in Russian military transport flights in and out of the region. Many of the major military bases seem to have barely changed in years - a few more light trucks but doesn't appear to be any build up of armour.
As I said it is complicated - but I think we'd have seen a somewhat different situation if they'd committed from their best stuff exclusively rather than eating into it piecemeal as things have fallen apart - that doesn't mean the underlying issues aren't there but they may not have been as exposed.
On the other hand there doesn't seem to be much in the way of Russia forces opposed to Finland aside from a token increase in missile forces and bolstered air-defences, though a lot of the OSINT types are looking closer at other areas. I've also not seen anything other than marginal increase in Russian military transport flights in and out of the region. Many of the major military bases seem to have barely changed in years - a few more light trucks but doesn't appear to be any build up of armour.
As I said it is complicated - but I think we'd have seen a somewhat different situation if they'd committed from their best stuff exclusively rather than eating into it piecemeal as things have fallen apart - that doesn't mean the underlying issues aren't there but they may not have been as exposed.
According to reports from Finland they've had and continued to keep in readiness a contingency plan for it since forever - something a lot of the world hasn't seen the value in for a long time now.
You have been saying this for a few months now with nothing to back it up, it’s been shot down several times now about Russia apparently “not using there best forces” in Ukraine, Russia has deployed all of the “cream” that it can without leaving itself vulnerable in other areas of the country.
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