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President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

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Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#151

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

TillE wrote: post #119
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia remains a nuclear power. NATO should be and is careful. I agree they know they can’t win but they now need an exit ramp. That’s what I personally read in their posture. It would probably be wise to give them one.

The "exit ramp" is that they withdraw from Ukraine, or at the very very least they withdraw to the lines that existed before 2022. I'm really not sure what else people who say this mean.

What I mean is that we need to use diplomacy to allow Russia a way to enter negotiations and stop the war while keeping a modicum of face. There is absolutely no chance Russia just leaves Ukraine on their own while saying "we have lost, we were bad and will now behave as you wish" so there would be little point insisting on that. If what we want is a come back to pre-invasion frontiers we need to give them a way to spin that as an acceptable outcome.

The alternative is escalation and that doesn’t seem to end well. It might be what the USA wants - they are unlikely to be the ones nuked after all but Europe would be bearing the most of it and that’s not something I wish.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#152

Post by piva00 »

_V_ wrote: post #48
threatofrain wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

World war? Between what systems of alliance? Does China want to stand with Russia? Esp. if nukes fly as Russia has threatened, what nation will ally themselves with Russia in a full-scale global conflict?

If I had to guess (and I'm really hoping that I'm wrong) I'd say that RUS will use small tactical nuclear weapons on UA which will trigger NATO response. Either direct on indirect but with such impact that it will not matter so RUS will escalate the conflict with NATO. China is a question but I'd say that noone is benefiting from WW3 apart from perhaps military industry. So I don't really believe China will be too ha…

> I'd say that noone is benefiting from WW3 apart from perhaps military industry.

What do you mean? If nuclear escalation happens and WW3 is triggered there is absolutely no world for the military industry to benefit from. Weapons will be required, of course, so production will continue but there would be no semblance of economy or governments as we know them now.

Nukes flying are world-ending, at least the human world and societies we currently experience. There's no profit to be made in total global mayhem.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#153

Post by pjc50 »

TheWoodsy wrote: post #12

Their main propaganda news channel has already said (incorrectly) that they are already fighting NATO and US troops in the breakaway areas. Is it time to make this a reality? I really don't see it ending without it happening. russia has shown that it has no regard for the suffering of any troops of any nationality. So purely from a population perspective, Ukraine will fail eventually unless they can effectively force…

Troops are almost irrelevant, Russia are running out of materiel. And I'm not convinced they have the power structure necessary to make a human wave approach work; this isn't 1940s USSR. Men will catch on that their guns also work on their own officers.

Not only that, an approach that doesn't have enough vehicles simply cannot work. They're limited to moving a few miles a day; how are they going to be supplied with food, let alone enough ammunition?

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#154

Post by spywaregorilla »

A few months ago analysts were warning of impending collapse of Russia's troops due to poor supplies and poor morale. Russian cheerleaders on HN were doubting it as Western propaganda saying it had been declared for months and not materialized. Well it materialized in the collapse of the Kharkiv front over a week so there's that.

In all, I don't think the mobilization is likely to matter. The Russian problem is bad supplies, bad comms, and bad morale. When the russian front in kharkiv collapsed and everyone fled, there were many units just wandering around, and even setting up defensive lines because they didn't know the rest of the force had been routed and that the enemy was already behind them. Forcing people to the front isn't going to change this. Russian strategy has been repeating idiotic assaults on bakhmut for 2 months with no gains while just trying to hold on elsewhere. Ukraine on the other hand has been maintaining a decent momentum from their offensive, taking Lyman, and on the verge of looking to retake Lysychansk and maybe Severodonetsk again. Progress will be relatively slow, but it's not crazy to imagine another wave of collapse.

It'll take a long time to get a working army together. I'd bet on Ukraine and western support every day. The only thing that could change the calculus is nuclear weapons.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#155

Post by literalAardvark »

bjourne wrote: post #103

Can someone Russian explain what on earth they are thinking? Russia appears to have 10x the casualties as Ukraine, soldiers that doesn't really want to fight, and are currently losing. Yet the leaders think it is a good idea to keep the war going? To me it seems that with the material Ukraine is receiving from the West they will easily retake all territory Russia has occupied.

Just like we're in a bubble that says "haha Russia is losing, so naive", they're in a bubble that says "haha Russia is greatest army, winning everywhere where those dirty Americans aren't cheating. Ukraine is shelling its own villages for PR".

Edit: except their bubble seems a lot harder.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#156

Post by pjc50 »

the_gipsy wrote: post #42
_ph_ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ukraine can do it, if it gets supplied with the weapons to do it. Even with the weapons they got so far, they managed to hurt the Russian military a lot - hence the mobilization. They got some very powerful weapons, but still limited in number and choice. Just delivering long-range ammunition for HIMARS in large numbers might be enough to break any Russian offensive as all supply and all fixed positions were easy…

Doesn't Ukraine have a lot more to lose over time? Russia can just flatten the terrain, or ultimately nuke. The reverse isn't possible.

It's not clear that they can "flatten" significant areas, they've already shown signs of being constrained by supply of ammunition. Especially since the US satellites can point out where the ammunition dumps are and the Ukranians can blow them up.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#157

Post by trhway »

88840-8855 wrote: post #70
MasterYoda wrote: post #28

I really hope the russian/kreml/putin war against Ukraine will end in a epic failure for them. I also hope that frozen russian assets in west can be confiscated to build up Ukraine again, russia has to be accountable and pay for all madness and horrific things they have done.

Oh yeah, super good idea. We had fantastic experience with humiliated nations before. It worked so well for Germany after WW1 /s FACT: the end of this war must be positive for the Russian people, no matter whether Russia loses or wins the military operation. Putin came to power because the West didnt help the former Soviet republics. If Russia is left alone humiliated again then we will have the next anti-western sys…

> We had fantastic experience with humiliated nations before. It worked so well for Germany after WW1 /s

The mistake was corrected after WWII by splitting the country into occupation zones. That is the only way to deal with Russia too. Pushing out of Ukraine isn't enough. Russia has to be demilitarized, most importantly - denuclearized, it should lose its place in UN Security Council. It also should be denazified - the current fascist regime must be totally dismantled, and the country must be split to avoid such regime coming back again.

>Putin came to power because the West didnt help the former Soviet republics.

Putin came to power because the "system", ie. KGB in particular wasn't dismantled, and because the further splitting up of the country was prevented. Whole world, including US, was afraid of appearance of several new smaller states, instead of just one big Russia, possessing nukes. Now, one can expect everybody learnt from that mistake made 30 years ago - this time the nukes need to be taken away completely and the country split.

> the end of this war must be positive for the Russian people

No. Only crushing humiliating defeat with the split of the country can reach into Russian brain and cure it from the "Great Russia chauvinism". Without such a process of cure, the monster will soon be back.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#158

Post by saiya-jin »

willsmith72 wrote: post #64

This is really going to screw Russia for generations. Every young Russian I know has either already left, plans to leave, or has to stay but hates their leader. You don't get your country to turn into a superpower by losing the most educated and skilled of the young generations. I only hope as things get more desperate he doesn't feel trapped lash out with the nukes.

That's beauty of being sociopathic dictator - you don't need to care about reality of those pesky humans that are under you, you can massage your massive ego with grand plans matching it. You have your billion dollar palaces and hundreds of billions stolen distributed throughout the world via thousands of cronies.

If skilled intelligent people leave? Good, more loyal and easy to manipulate remain. People are dying in wars? Who cares if something is reached, like protecting motherland from made up boogeymen.

Russian psyche relishes in suffering and misery and drinking into oblivion in vain attempt to forget about it. The worse it gets the more to blame that evil west for. This can be truly endless cycle that you can't break from outside.

Really, this clash of civilizations is coming at a seemingly good time, while Russia is obviously weak. Obviously better would be to have no conflict at all, but that's not what Russia can offer to rest of the world, only arrogance, suffering, and primitive disfunctionality of its system. Since nobody willingly wants it, clash is inevitable.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#159

Post by batmanturkey »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #121
danielheath wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nukes are a possibility, but MAD has stopped us all using them for many years so far. As far as conventional arms go: Russia has quite a few planes, tanks, and artillery; however, so long as the USA wills it, the Ukraine will have more anti-air missiles, more anti-tank munitions, and more long-range rockets. In any long-range fight, being able to locate your enemy is key; the pentagons ability to identify the locatio…

Does MAD really protect Ukraine? Edit: suppose the old man has properly lost it. If Putin drops a tactical nuke on a Ukranian military position, will Nato really respond in kind? Seems like damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

Speculation city, and Biden did clarify precisely a response to that a few days ago. The strength of the response depends upon the relative strength of the attack. Putin has been threatening nuclear holocaust for months now, and he would be wise to not do foolish things from his petulant temper tendencies. Bullies can’t accept people standing up to them, but them typically show themselves to be spineless cowards when the medicine is returned in force. It’s kind of characteristic of how bullies are formed from weak oppressed victim types who go sour and decide inflicting pain downstream is some solution to what ails their souls.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#160

Post by leshenka »

bjourne wrote: post #103

Can someone Russian explain what on earth they are thinking? Russia appears to have 10x the casualties as Ukraine, soldiers that doesn't really want to fight, and are currently losing. Yet the leaders think it is a good idea to keep the war going? To me it seems that with the material Ukraine is receiving from the West they will easily retake all territory Russia has occupied.

> what on earth they are thinking

Honestly, we don't know either.

It looks like panic? A last resort (before nuclear, god forbid)? An agony? Rejection of reality? Some kind anger/bargain, in terms of stages of grief?

This whimsical child plays with our lives and lives of Ukrainians, I've never been so ashamed to share a country with him.

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