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Putin’s Worsening Problems

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Re: Putin’s Worsening Problems

#11

Post by smitty1e »

melling wrote: post #2

Hmmmm… I think people are overlooking the fact that Putin is willing to simply lay siege and use artillery to shell the Ukrainians into submission.

To what effect? So that Ukraine can join Vietnam and Afghanistan and form a "Do Not Do This" triefecta for military history?

If this were the only concern, should we just tacitly support Ukraine until Russia implodes? There are nuclear weapons rattling around in there. Politics is all about managing uncertainties. I should think a calmer, less dictatorial outcome would be everyone's interests.

Or is it? Because Ukraine/Russia, while tragic for those involved, is hors d'oeuvres for the real discussion: Taiwan. Anyone paying much attention these last years knows what's going down as soon as the Ukraine situation is escalated to a full-on regional conflict.

May Fortune lay peace and wisdom upon the heads of all the leaders involved.

Re: Putin’s Worsening Problems

#12

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

pm90 wrote: post #6
melling wrote: post #2

Hmmmm… I think people are overlooking the fact that Putin is willing to simply lay siege and use artillery to shell the Ukrainians into submission.

Not really. Artillery needs to be constantly resupplied. UA has been pretty great at disrupting those lines, and there are pretty good indicators that the Russian military is simply not logistically prepared to execute on such a long term operation.

Someone clued me in to the magnitude of the problem recently -- a former fire control sergeant in the Israeli army. He told me that a whole flatbed truck can only resupply one or two MLRSes. And apparently logistics is the big weakness of the Russian military, so this is apparently a big problem for them.

Re: Putin’s Worsening Problems

#13

Post by melling »

khyryk wrote: post #8
melling wrote: post #2

Hmmmm… I think people are overlooking the fact that Putin is willing to simply lay siege and use artillery to shell the Ukrainians into submission.

1. This was done every single day and night of the war. 2. Rubble still makes for surprisingly good cover in urban combat.

No, the convoy near Kyiv was only recently deployed. The artillery can strike from 18-20 miles away.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/satellite-images-sho...

Re: Putin’s Worsening Problems

#14

Post by dane-pgp »

melling wrote: post #2

Hmmmm… I think people are overlooking the fact that Putin is willing to simply lay siege and use artillery to shell the Ukrainians into submission.

Even if millions of civilians flee or die, Putin still has to maintain an expensive occupation force (with its stretched supply lines) while the Ukrainians fight on as an insurgency amidst the rubble of their cities.

The question is, once the war becomes too expensive for Putin, will Ukraine be in a position to take back Crimea and Donbas, and will the EU send peace-keepers to help protect Ukraine's borders like it has in Bosnia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Althea

Re: Putin’s Worsening Problems

#16

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

smitty1e wrote: post #11
melling wrote: post #2

Hmmmm… I think people are overlooking the fact that Putin is willing to simply lay siege and use artillery to shell the Ukrainians into submission.

To what effect? So that Ukraine can join Vietnam and Afghanistan and form a "Do Not Do This" triefecta for military history? If this were the only concern, should we just tacitly support Ukraine until Russia implodes? There are nuclear weapons rattling around in there. Politics is all about managing uncertainties. I should think a calmer, less dictatorial outcome would be everyone's interests. Or is it? Because Ukrai…

If anything, this has made me doubt that Taiwan's eventual takeover will be via a hot war. The country is smaller, but its military is actually slightly larger than Ukraine's was, and they have better technology than the Ukrainians did. And the Chinese would need to cross 180km of water to get there. And the only point of taking over Taiwan is for what's already there -- the people, the technology. Shelling it would be counterproductive to say the least.

I would imagine some sort of interdiction/economic approach would be much more efficient for China. Or just wait until an amenable political group takes power on the island and reintegrate at that point.

Re: Putin’s Worsening Problems

#17

Post by ggm »

iab wrote: post #5
andrewclunn wrote: post #4

If the Ukrainians are allowed to protest, then Russia is fighting this while trying to minimize overt civilian casualties (most likely to avoid video of such acts becoming galvanizing propaganda tools against them). If things go poorly, then what? If Russia then starts fighting to destroy rather than conquer Ukraine intact, then it's a whole different story. This piece reads of wishful thinking.

Way too much hopeful rationalization

It's certainly not blitzkrieg, more blyatzkreig. The western belief was 72 hours to complete. He didn't even make 400 hours, it lost momentum. The materiel by volume and age does not speak well of supply chain logistics. There is no rational plan of battle which puts your weakest armour first.

He's lost the media war facing westward, India and China are temporising friends at best. Inward media is paper thin maintaining "the Ukrainian nazi" story, it's leaking like a sieve. Mobile crematorium won't bring conscripts home any better than body bags, so belief in a victory worth winning is dying on the vine.

Other articles have spoken to systematic corruption in petrol and tyres: these ones haven't been rotated and checked in storage, are cheap import knockoffs and look like a huge mistake.

I still think a repression/occupation is going to materialise in at least part of Ukraine but the outcome is not net advantageous to Putin medium to long term.

It's at best stalemate with adjusted borders.

Re: Putin’s Worsening Problems

#18

Post by epistasis »

andrewclunn wrote: post #4

If the Ukrainians are allowed to protest, then Russia is fighting this while trying to minimize overt civilian casualties (most likely to avoid video of such acts becoming galvanizing propaganda tools against them). If things go poorly, then what? If Russia then starts fighting to destroy rather than conquer Ukraine intact, then it's a whole different story. This piece reads of wishful thinking.

Russia is doing nothing to minimize civilian casualties. I've made three trips to Ukraine, spent about three weeks total in Eastern Kharkiv in a residential neighborhood with nothing but apartment buildings, shopping, schools, and restaurants, and the utter destruction I have seen of sights I have known has been heartbreaking.

Russia's internal propaganda controls are so good that in the early days, two mothers we know refused to believe their sons' reports of being bombed in Kharkiv. Since then, this has become a wider reported story. Our Russian friends in the US have come over to video chat with their relatives back in Russia to convince them of the indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas. And they have not believed. Or at least they are too embarrassed to admit that they have been fooled by propaganda.

Russia will likely deploy chemical weapons in Ukraine as they lose, just as they have elsewhere. There is no humanity, no rules, among their commanders and Putin. And they have suffered zero consequences for their war crimes in the past.

Re: Putin’s Worsening Problems

#19

Post by throwmeariver1 »

pm90 wrote: post #6
melling wrote: post #2

Hmmmm… I think people are overlooking the fact that Putin is willing to simply lay siege and use artillery to shell the Ukrainians into submission.

Not really. Artillery needs to be constantly resupplied. UA has been pretty great at disrupting those lines, and there are pretty good indicators that the Russian military is simply not logistically prepared to execute on such a long term operation.

It’s not only logistics it’s also maintenance and medical assistance. While rudimentary maintenance can be done in the field providing medical assistance is a lot harder especially in a -20 Celsius cold snap and if you can’t supply it the moral of your fighting force goes even lower because they know what’s coming for them.

Re: Putin’s Worsening Problems

#20

Post by [deleted] »

smitty1e wrote: post #11
melling wrote: post #2

Hmmmm… I think people are overlooking the fact that Putin is willing to simply lay siege and use artillery to shell the Ukrainians into submission.

To what effect? So that Ukraine can join Vietnam and Afghanistan and form a "Do Not Do This" triefecta for military history? If this were the only concern, should we just tacitly support Ukraine until Russia implodes? There are nuclear weapons rattling around in there. Politics is all about managing uncertainties. I should think a calmer, less dictatorial outcome would be everyone's interests. Or is it? Because Ukrai…

[deleted]
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