The Russian Invasion of the Ukraine.

[theprestige]

Is it possible they are saying things to get better treatment?

Of course they're saying things to get better treatment. But they're not saying, "you better treat me well, because reinforcements will be here within the hour, and by tonight you'll have a lot to answer for if there's even a scratch on me."

 

[theprestige]

Quite. If your plan doesn't involve the as-soon-as-possible elimination of power and communications, you suck at war.

The fact that there's still footage coming out of Ukraine of the president talking big tells you how sideways the Russian "plan" has gone. That's a huge morale freebie that Russia handed to Ukraine by not going after comms and power on Day 0.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Ukraine claims to have killed 3500 Russian soldiers.

If that's true, or anywhere near true, that's insane.

In comparison, on the worst day of the Vietnam war, the Americans lost under 250 soldiers.

Link? Obviously, that's nonsense.

Remember in the Vietnam war the US always claimed they killed thousands of Vietcong and a handful of US soldiers died?

 

[trustbutverify]

I think we can all safely assume, from the recent deranged rantings from Putin himself, that things are not going as he'd hoped they would.

It does seem that way.

 

[theprestige]

Remember in the Vietnam war the US always claimed they killed thousands of Vietcong and a handful of US soldiers died?

Sorry, Vietnam was largely before my time. I don't remember that at all. But I would not be even a little bit surprised if casualties throughout the war were indeed that lopsided.

 

[Wudang]

It doesn't matter what the plan was if you don't have the logistics in place to enable it.

 

[Venom]

wish France would help Ukraine. Macron has spent the last four years trying to appease Putin.

 

[Ryokan]

Germany will send weapons to the Ukraine.
This is pretty significent, since Germany has always been considered "soft" on Russia. Maybe they have decided you just can't trust Putin.

500 Stinger missiles!

Looks like that has changed our PMs mind on giving military aid to Ukraine as well.

Norwegian laws forbid sending weapons to countries in conflict, but the government will scour the list the Ukrainians sent us of things they need, looking for things that are not technically weapons.

 

[Oystein]

There are claims that the 3500 number was first put out by TASS - Russian govvie news organization. Then withdrawn. Given the imagery of convoys destroyed, failed airborne attacks on airports, failed amphibious assault on Mariupol, I find the number plausible.

That said, Russia is still advancing and gaining ground, and I expect Ukrainian casualties might be just as high, if not higher. There were some crazy big rocket barrages in the east, some huge airstrikes there (near Kharkiv) in the beginning of all this.

Its still to early to call this a failure, or anywhere close to that. Russia is having a harder time than anticipated, but it is still only day three. For reference, it took the U.S. six weeks to recapture Falluja in Iraq, four weeks to recapture Hue after the Tet offensive.

It's really just a question of how many casualties Russia can tolerate - and they have a history of tolerating insane casualties among their own troops.

Thanks for your well.rounded assessment.

Interesting that the number should come from TASS - it's a news agency and still Russian-owned, i.e. under state control. It should be first nature to any TASS employee to know that you never, under no circumstance, reveal true casualty numbers of your own side.

Russia could take huge losses - when they were actually attacked by foreigners out to reduce them to a farm state to be held in abject poverty.
Sure, state media are controlled, but it should dawn on enough Russians that fighting a war in Ukraine is not plausibly a defense against enemies when the theory is that Ukraine does not exist and is populated by Russians only. I.e. that this is a war Russians wage on Russians.
Yes, the civil war a hundred years ago also saw extreme losses on all sides, but I am not sure that the majority of victims were actually "tolerating" this, much less they'd tolerate it today.

It's a good sign that at least some Russian sports persons outside Russia (I heard of tennis and football players so far) have come out in clear opposition to the war, some even in support for Ukraine. Those voices exist, they will be heard inside Russia.

 

[Oystein]

It turns out that the way I know Ukraine is winning is that r/publicfreakout is full of phone videos showing Ukrainians fighting the good fight, and completely lacking in phone videos taken by Russian troops kicking Ukrainian ass.

Have you considered that maybe the audience in r/publicfreakout may not represent Russians and Ukrainians evenly? I ask because I don't know that reddit.

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

wish France would help Ukraine. Macron has spent the last four years trying to appease Putin.

they did just impound some Russian freighter. And afaik most EU countries are gearing up to both receive refugees and give aid in the form of money and weapons.
No mention of France not doing that.

 

[Jimbo07]

The fact that there's still footage coming out of Ukraine of the president talking big tells you how sideways the Russian "plan" has gone. That's a huge morale freebie that Russia handed to Ukraine by not going after comms and power on Day 0.

Talk about my abilities as an armchair general without using the letter E:

Uh... ok... I... am not a good... war plan guy...

Anyway, I have no special skill, nor experience, in determining Putin's intentions. For anything military, I can only use what's in the public domain. There are 2 things I'd like to say:

1) If sales info for the expensive weapons that we, the taxpayer, are expected to buy have any merit, the West expects to gain air superiority within 3 days of the start of open hostilities. Take the F-35. It has a day-3 beast mode. In essence, the idea is that they have to be stealthy on the first two days to take out air defenses. By the third day, they can spoil their stealthy signature by carrying external stores, because Western air and naval air forces are expected to have gained total air superiority and created a permissive environment.

2) If nothing else, this is going to provide NATO with a treasure-trove of data on the readiness of Russian conventional forces. The U.S. estimates that over 50% of assembled Russian forces are now committed in Ukraine.

 

[Oystein]

Have the rest sobered up yet?

The analyst didn't talk about that, sorry.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

What is important, is that the Ukranians have become heros to much of the world, and now the political pressure to help them short of boots on the ground is going to pretty intense.
BTW I now think that Biden's No boots on the ground statment back in December was a mistake. Eveni if we had no intention of sending in Ground troops, we could have kept Putin guessing. That is the policy we have adapted in reference to Taiwan.

That was a message to potential voters in 2022, and especially to the GOP ad developers who would have ran with Biden leaving one war and taking us into another one.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

But at Antietam, on Sep 17,1862 3300 Americans died .

Funny how those are both round numbers.

 

[trustbutverify]

I wonder how far it can degrade before he seriously considers the use of a Nuke or 2 in Ukraine just to show who's boss.

Hopefully, too far. If the stories of Putin ranting wildly at his inner circle are true (and that's a big if) things could begin to get eerie. An enraged, paranoid kingpin sitting atop a massive nuclear arsenal is not a safe situation.

 

[Planigale]

They weren't prepared for a near peer opponent. Ukraine had the same structure, doctrine and equipment as Russia

There was an interview with a military analyst on the BBC who said that the Russians were being restrained! He pointed out that the Russians had experience from Syria and elsewhere of urban warfare and could be very aggressive.

 

[theprestige]

Have you considered that maybe the audience in r/publicfreakout may not represent Russians and Ukrainians evenly? I ask because I don't know that reddit.

I have indeed considered it. If you know of a social media outlet where all the phone video being taken by Russian troops, showing them kicking Ukrainian ass, is being posted, please share.

 

[jimbob]

Sorry, Vietnam was largely before my time. I don't remember that at all. But I would not be even a little bit surprised if casualties throughout the war were indeed that lopsided.

Indeed.

 

[Oystein]

Germany will send weapons to the Ukraine.
This is pretty significent, since Germany has always been considered "soft" on Russia. Maybe they have decided you just can't trust Putin.

To put a bit of perspective on this from Germany, a couple of thoughts from me. Subjective, personal, take it how you like it.

Germany still has a substantial weapons industry and is an exporter of weaponry. That's good business, and everybody likes good business, and FSM knows Germany looooves exports.

But.

A little known fact is that Germany had the bad taste to invade Russia (and Ukraine; it wasn't commonly called "Ukraine" the first time around) twice in the last century, and especially the second time resulted in slaughter on a scale never seen before, never seen after (outside China, I should say).
An example. Perhaps you saw my post in another thread the other day where I talked about a friend born in and today living again in Rivne, North-Western Ukraine. In my possession are WWI aerial reconnaissance photos (from taken from balloons) of Rivne, and other places in that area. It was heavily fought over in WW1. But WW2 took the cake: Germans abducted and shot half the population of Rivne - they were Jews.
Germans of course also invaded, raped, plundered and subjected to genocide much of the rest of Ukraine - and not just the Jews of Ukraine, also the "Intelligentija" (Soviet military command and civil administration), and plenty of POW.
Russia and Belarus further East and North of course were also not spared.

We killed millions and millions of them.

So I hope it is understandable that Germany, despite its industries' lust for selling weapons abroad, is extremely hesitant to do anything that could be construed as supporting the killing of Russians or Ukrainians.

In fact, we have been MADE this hesitant not least of all by instruction from the US and UK.

Abandoning this stance is a HUGE step.
(Although the steps actually taken are still pretty minor.)