The Russian Invasion of Ukraine Part 4

[theprestige]

You know, I had a colleague who used that particular cliché about Islamic State. I asked about the Yazidi sex slaves, and he excused that too.
Are you actually saying ISIS are freedom fighters?

I'm saying every movement has its bad apples, and nobody is perfect. It's not like America doesn't have its own share of problematic types. Why would Turkey want to be in a mutual defense alliance with nations that provide aid and comfort to enemies of the Turkish state?

 

[SpitfireIX]

Perun has a great new video about the hows and whys of corruption in the Russian military.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9i47sgi-V4

 

[jimbob]

Perun has a great new video about the hows and whys of corruption in the Russian military.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9i47sgi-V4

Ha, I was about to post that.

if you prefer the embedded version



From the comments, and something that a couple of posters in this thread might like in particular - the rest will need the subtitles as it's in Finnish.

A Finnish Intelligence colonel describing his views (in 2018) why Russia does things the way it does and looking at "strategic culture"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF9KretXqJw
or embedded

 

[Aridas]

To poke at two things that may be of potential interest -

First, I've seen the claim that hospitals in Crimea are no longer accepting civilian patients because they're too overloaded with wounded Russian military forces. I obviously can't confirm such, but I can't really say that it's implausible.

Second, apparently many of the military contracts for the Russians will end in about 2 days. How this will actually affect Russia's forces in practice is hard to say, of course, but we can hope that a large portion of that group will be able to use the opportunity to get out of there.

 

[sackett]

I would never encourage a time-expired soldier, or large groups of such soldiers, to shoot their officers and skedaddle. The Mother and Father Land would weep tears of grief -- yes, and honk snot of sorrow -- at the ingratitude of its children.

 

[a_unique_person]

But Russia has solved its supply problems and is advancing inexorably now! /s

They didn't solve anything. They are just shorter and away from raiders.

The logistics of getting artillery shells to artillery that is behind the lines is much simpler.

Russia also had the advantage that Ukraine isn't randomly leveling Russian cities while Russia is quite happy to level anything Ukrainian, even cities it is supposedly taking for it's separatist allies.

It can also moved materiel around safely in Russian territory.

The Ukrainians don't have that luxury.

 

[a_unique_person]

To poke at two things that may be of potential interest -

First, I've seen the claim that hospitals in Crimea are no longer accepting civilian patients because they're too overloaded with wounded Russian military forces. I obviously can't confirm such, but I can't really say that it's implausible.

Second, apparently many of the military contracts for the Russians will end in about 2 days. How this will actually affect Russia's forces in practice is hard to say, of course, but we can hope that a large portion of that group will be able to use the opportunity to get out of there.

Apparently a lot of conscripts found they were required to sign contracts. Hence the lie about no conscripts fighting.

 

[shemp]

To poke at two things that may be of potential interest -

First, I've seen the claim that hospitals in Crimea are no longer accepting civilian patients because they're too overloaded with wounded Russian military forces. I obviously can't confirm such, but I can't really say that it's implausible.

Second, apparently many of the military contracts for the Russians will end in about 2 days. How this will actually affect Russia's forces in practice is hard to say, of course, but we can hope that a large portion of that group will be able to use the opportunity to get out of there.

I have a feeling that when they try to leave, they will find that they've already signed a new contract.

 

[Mike!]

I have a feeling that when they try to leave, they will find that they've already signed a new contract.

Yeah, like some kind of 'auto-renew clause' buried deep in the fine print.

 

[tyr_13]

I'm saying every movement has its bad apples, and nobody is perfect. It's not like America doesn't have its own share of problematic types. Why would Turkey want to be in a mutual defense alliance with nations that provide aid and comfort to enemies of the Turkish state?

To constrain and gain additional protection from other enemies.

 

[Ziggurat]

They didn't solve anything. They are just shorter and away from raiders.

That is a solution.

But I wouldn't depend on that being the only improvement. One of the claims I've seen about their logistics problems in the north is that a lot of units sent to Belarus for "exercises" sold off a bunch of their diesel fuel, because that's just the sort of corruption that's endemic, and besides, they're only in Belarus for exercises. Just leave the tank parked, claim you drove it around in circles, and nobody will care where the fuel went. They didn't actually need it anyways.

Until they did, and they didn't have it, but it was too late at that point.

Well, now that they KNOW they're in a war, selling off fuel that's supposed to be sent to the front is probably harder to get away with.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I very much liked the Finnish Lecture about Russia's strategic culture.

It's a clear authoritarian feature, very much in evidence in the US Right, that lying for the Cause is what you DO, and that your supporters will admire you for getting away with lying and cheating in the furtherance of the cause.

 

[The Don]

But Russia has solved its supply problems and is advancing inexorably now! /s

They didn't solve anything. They are just shorter and away from raiders.

The logistics of getting artillery shells to artillery that is behind the lines is much simpler.

Russia also had the advantage that Ukraine isn't randomly leveling Russian cities while Russia is quite happy to level anything Ukrainian, even cities it is supposedly taking for it's separatist allies.

It can also moved materiel around safely in Russian territory.

The Ukrainians don't have that luxury.

Yes, this are exactly the points I was trying to make when I said that the Russians seemed to have addressed their logistics issues.

The Russians seem to have learned that they are incapable of fighting a mobile, "intelligent", war on multiple fronts and have completely changed their tactics and switched to an attritional war on a single front.

As you point out, Russia have no qualms about turning towns and cities into rubble and killing thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of civilians. It's not pretty, it's not clever, but it is brutally effective - and more importantly, it's very difficult to stop.

 

[The Don]

The UKs MoD assessment is that Russia is sustaining devastating losses:

Russia has likely suffered devastating losses amongst its mid and junior ranking officers in the conflict.

https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1531143716840284161

Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be stopping Russian forces from levelling cities, slaughtering civilians and slowly taking over the rubble.

Describing the Russian tactics, Haidai says: “They would be shelling for three, four, five hours and then advance. Those who are attacking are being killed, and then shelling starts again, and then another attack. And this would be happening until they are able to break through our positions somewhere.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/wor...94629b4259031cb5a25920&pinned_post_type=share

 

[Aridas]

To poke at some changes...

Ukrainian forces might be beginning to withdraw from Severodonetsk. Doesn't mean that they're actually giving up the city yet, of course. Russia's still trying to focus on taking it, or at least the rubble of it. The caution that Russia's apparently employing when it comes to their vehicles there now suggests that Russia's running out of vehicles, though, too, much as forces are likely continuing to be diverted towards the city, such as from Lyman.

Ukraine's counteroffensive east of Kherson apparently continues, supposedly mostly with gains that have driven Russians back to areas that are much less defensible, but Russia may also have successfully counterattacked and retaken a couple settlements. Still, that counterattack might have cost them Snihurivka? Maybe? Fog of war is very much still in play on that front and the forces involved seem to be smaller and more mobile to my understanding, so newly reported changes in territory should be taken with notable caution in multiple ways.

Ukraine's counteroffensive near Izyum continues as well and might have taken back a settlement to the south.

Russia's advances from Popasna seem to have stalled on all fronts. A little to the north of that on the eastern front, Ukraine's apparently claiming to have retaken Toshkivka.

 

[jimbob]

To poke at some changes...

Ukrainian forces might be beginning to withdraw from Severodonetsk. Doesn't mean that they're actually giving up the city yet, of course. Russia's still trying to focus on taking it, or at least the rubble of it. The caution that Russia's apparently employing when it comes to their vehicles there now suggests that Russia's running out of vehicles, though, too, much as forces are likely continuing to be diverted towards the city, such as from Lyman.

Ukraine's counteroffensive east of Kherson apparently continues, supposedly mostly with gains that have driven Russians back to areas that are much less defensible, but Russia may also have successfully counterattacked and retaken a couple settlements. Still, that counterattack might have cost them Snihurivka? Maybe? Fog of war is very much still in play on that front and the forces involved seem to be smaller and more mobile to my understanding, so newly reported changes in territory should be taken with notable caution in multiple ways.

Ukraine's counteroffensive near Izyum continues as well and might have taken back a settlement to the south.

Russia's advances from Popasna seem to have stalled on all fronts. A little to the north of that on the eastern front, Ukraine's apparently claiming to have retaken Toshkivka.

Similar theme to your post and riffing on some of the comments about Russia's ability to advance behind artillery


Part of a thread with far more reasoning in the others - this is just a key takeaway.

https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1530828731417239552?s=20&t=aVTvMBamSmgWaaHnaZZrKw

Phillips P. OBrien
@PhillipsPOBrien


That you would assault a city before surrounding it, starving its defenders of supplies and even bombarding it more is a sign that they believe that they cant do this. My guess is that they cant do this as they dont have the vehicles to encircle the town soon.
9:29 AM · May 29, 2022·Twitter Web App

If you don't envision resistance, then a direct assault on a city might be part of the plan. But that's definitely not the case

 

[Tero]

If Russia is going to dig in and spend the winter in Ukraine, do they have the supply lines to keep that number of men fed and taken care of?

 

[The Don]

If Russia is going to dig in and spend the winter in Ukraine, do they have the supply lines to keep that number of men fed and taken care of?

If they keep to the areas they currently have under control - maybe - the supply lines are comparatively short and aren't exposed to Ukrainian attack.

If you were looking it in a bleakly comic way, every day there are fewer Russian mouths to feed, which makes the logistical challenge smaller.


In other news:

The Russians are reportedly planning to commit a further 70 BTGs primarily consisting of newly trained recruits with around 30 days worth of training. These BTGs are due to arrive on the front line in by the end of June.

 

[Ian Osborne]

I wonder what more could the world do to help Ukraine? Long-range missiles would be useful. They could be used against installations inside Russia, taking the war to the invader. But what would be the effect of such an escalation?

Maybe it's time to take a risk. Appeasing a tyrant like Putin never ends well.

 

[BobTheCoward]

I wonder what more could the world do to help Ukraine? Long-range missiles would be useful. They could be used against installations inside Russia, taking the war to the invader. But what would be the effect of such an escalation?

Maybe it's time to take a risk. Appeasing a tyrant like Putin never ends well.

Maybe just accepting that if Russia wins, it wins?