sidcow Posted March 22, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted March 22, 2022 The Russians truly are behaving like psychopaths. A complete disconnect with the fact that what they are doing is at all wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foreveryoung Posted March 22, 2022 Share Posted March 22, 2022 Just now, sidcow said: The Russians truly are behaving like psychopaths. A complete disconnect with the fact that what they are doing is at all wrong. Was thinking this, what the hell's the matter with them?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jareth Posted March 22, 2022 Share Posted March 22, 2022 Nuclear weapons are the only thing giving Russia any standing of importance in the world. Without them they're just a shit North Korea. **** haven't got anything else to offer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted March 22, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted March 22, 2022 14 minutes ago, Jareth said: Nuclear weapons are the only thing giving Russia any standing of importance in the world. Without them they're just a shit North Korea. **** haven't got anything else to offer. Thing is they COULD if they hadn't allowed such corruption for so long and obsessed about The West. It's such an unimaginably vast country spreading from Ukraine to Japan, almost joining Alaska. Stretching from China to The Arctic Circle. It's got immense natural resources, huge population which could be substantially bigger, massive food production potential. Serious manufacturing clout, the World's best hackers. It could be so much, such huge potential but they piss it all away with corruption and out of control xenophobia. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted March 22, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted March 22, 2022 2 hours ago, Awol said: The Ukrainians have a bigger problem in that they are running short of ammunition, particularly for artillery. As Zelensky himself said a few days ago, what the west is a supplying for seven days lasts for 20 hours. Logistics, logistics, logistics. It wins and loses wars. We need to be running the equivalent of the Berlin airlift to bases in Poland, but one consequence of cutting defence budgets was to dispense with strategic stocks of ammunition - who needs it when the political orthodoxy rules out inter-state warfare as obsolete? Giving Ukraine what it really needs means leaving NATO’s own warehouses bare, and reliant on weapon production lines that are more artisan than industrial in capacity. Could this even be the wider Russian strategy? Use the Ukraine war to drain NATO's ammo supplies, and then strike West? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foreveryoung Posted March 22, 2022 Share Posted March 22, 2022 20 minutes ago, mjmooney said: Could this even be the wider Russian strategy? Use the Ukraine war to drain NATO's ammo supplies, and then strike West? They've got plenty of stock, they just cannot get it to the Ukraine troops quick enough. Anyway, if Nato get involved, they will be using a different type of ammo. Like the stuff that would fill a B2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted March 22, 2022 Share Posted March 22, 2022 39 minutes ago, mjmooney said: Could this even be the wider Russian strategy? Use the Ukraine war to drain NATO's ammo supplies, and then strike West? No Mike, they’ve just really screwed the pooch in their assumptions leading to a god-awful initial strategy, (the perils of fearing a dictator’s wrath when told the bald truth) and are in a really horrible position to try and dig themselves out of. If we end up with an extended operational pause then Russia will likely focus resources on building up one front to make a decisive breakthrough. But war is an act of reciprocity, and Ukraine will have its own ideas about what happens next. FWIW I think Putin is inadvertently giving us a chance to fix the errors of the post-Cold War engagement with Russia, but it’ll take some very brave western politicians to get us there. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KAZZAM Posted March 23, 2022 Share Posted March 23, 2022 4 hours ago, sidcow said: Thing is they COULD if they hadn't allowed such corruption for so long and obsessed about The West. It's such an unimaginably vast country spreading from Ukraine to Japan, almost joining Alaska. Stretching from China to The Arctic Circle. It's got immense natural resources, huge population which could be substantially bigger, massive food production potential. Serious manufacturing clout, the World's best hackers. It could be so much, such huge potential but they piss it all away with corruption and out of control xenophobia. You lost me at 'best hackers' that's just waffle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BleedClaretAndBlue Posted March 23, 2022 Share Posted March 23, 2022 6 hours ago, foreveryoung said: Was thinking this, what the hell's the matter with them?? They seem hell bent on widescale destruction. This video is outrageous Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnkarl Posted March 23, 2022 Share Posted March 23, 2022 UA's army is trying to compound the damage done to the communication lines by taking out Russia's rear command posts. It seems to be working. There doesn't seem to be one person left in Ukraine that isn't helping out with information, fighting in the TDF or cooking meals for the army. I'm already sure that this war will be talked about for hundreds of years, a bit like when Finland held the USSR for months on end in the Winter War. @Awol do you think Russia can actually manage to dig itself out of this hole that they're in? Do you think they've got the logistical capability to fix this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterw Posted March 23, 2022 Share Posted March 23, 2022 Well that's why mariupol is so important to them. Establish a southern corridor berween crimea and the breakaway regions and they have a foothold that they will then be able to use as either a springboard to further attacks; or the start a a foothold that allows them to justify an exit strategy in that they have now protected the Russian speaking people's being sugjugated by Ukraine. Once they gain it you'll see them pushing strongly for negotiations and holding Ukraine to ransom for their demands. The longer it goes on the more damoging it is for them and Putin is just going to keep going at any costs (in lives) until he gets Mariupol (which you would guess is inevitable. What is still an unkown though is guerilla tactics employed by Ukrianians in these regions and something that i think as caught Putin off-guard in other Russian speaking areas. that they would automatically lay down their arms and welcome Russia - which just hasn't happened. The next monbth or two are critical for Putin. If he gets bogged down then it'll be more difficult to extricate himself and try and present it as mission accomplished. it will also leave him extremely vulnerable at home which to date he is not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted March 23, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted March 23, 2022 6 hours ago, KAZZAM said: You lost me at 'best hackers' that's just waffle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desensitized43 Posted March 23, 2022 Share Posted March 23, 2022 12 hours ago, foreveryoung said: Was thinking this, what the hell's the matter with them?? A century of state sponsored brainwashing telling the people that the west is evil should explain it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amsterdam_Neil_D Posted March 23, 2022 Share Posted March 23, 2022 6 minutes ago, desensitized43 said: A century of state sponsored brainwashing telling the people that the west is evil should explain it. I think there is a bit of them believing there own lies and genuinely thinking they are bigger and better than they actually are. They think they are Tyson Fury but they are actually Ricky Hatton which is a dangerous place to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post chrisp65 Posted March 23, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted March 23, 2022 In the UK, with access to pretty much any news and any information you want, the awareness of politics is quite poor. I don’t mean whether you are tory or not, just people’s awareness of historical fact around ‘who won world war II, or what’s happening in Moldova, or who was Prime Minister before Theresa May. Just the whole wide expanse of ‘information’. People are disinterested. You take that to a country that hasn’t ever had access to the truth, then there is a very limited culture of expecting or seeking truth and that is multi generational. People are more interested in the damp in their flat, their son’s job prospects, food. Plus of course, even if people do seek the truth, why would they look to the UK or USA for a genuine unbiased truth? Could they equally be looking at China or Pakistan, India, Syria. They are not giving the same narrative on these events as we are. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ender4 Posted March 23, 2022 Share Posted March 23, 2022 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/23/estonia-nato-tripwire-eastern-europe-ukraine-russia Quote Nato needs permanent force in eastern Europe to deter Russia, says Estonia Estonia is calling for Nato to abandon its current “tripwire” posture in eastern Europe and build up a permanent force in the region capable of stopping a Russian offensive. Ahead of Thursday’s Nato summit, Jonatan Vseviov, the permanent secretary of the Estonian foreign ministry, said the Europe and the North Atlantic alliance could never return to the world it knew before the 24 February Russian invasion of Ukraine. “We will be in a totally new security environment. There will be a new Ukraine. There will be a new Russia. There will be a new Europe. There is no going back to February 23,” Vseviov told the Guardian in an interview in Washington. More than 20,000 Nato troops, the overwhelming majority of them US forces, have been deployed to the Baltic states, Poland and the rest of eastern Europe in the aftermath of the invasion. “The tripwire– based approach is dependent upon an assumption that the one that is being deterred understands the link between the tripwire and reinforcing forces,” he said. “Knowing this and understanding that we need to now build Nato’s defense and deterrence, and European security in general, for the long haul,” Vseviov said. “We need to move from a tripwire-based deterrence towards a forward defence-based deterrence, or a deterrence by denial, if you will.” He said the amount of troops and equipment needed would depend on military planners and on different situations in different countries. The force did not have to be big enough to stop Russia making any territorial gains, but sufficient to put up stiff resistance. “We need to be less reliant on reinforcements, and we need to have more of the defensive forces in the frontline states on day one,” Vseviov said. “I think there will be wide political consensus in Nato on the need to move that way, and the exact details are being worked out.” The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, confirmed that long-term changes in Nato’s posture in Europe would be discussed this week. “Right now, our secretary of defence and the supreme allied commander in Europe believe that they have an effective posture today for what’s necessary today,” Sullivan said. “The second [question] is what is the longer-term force posture, not just for this contingency, this emergency, this invasion, but over the course of time? That is something the president will discuss with his allies at the Nato summit on Thursday.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KentVillan Posted March 23, 2022 Share Posted March 23, 2022 For those of you looking to understand the military strategy & tactics, I really recommend the War on the Rocks podcast. The last 4 episodes are with a guy called Michael Kofman, basically giving a weekly assessment of where things are, and so far he seems to have called everything pretty accurately. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted March 23, 2022 Share Posted March 23, 2022 2 hours ago, magnkarl said: @Awol do you think Russia can actually manage to dig itself out of this hole that they're in? Do you think they've got the logistical capability to fix this? The hole is the political objective Russia is pursuing, i.e. extinguishing Ukraine as an independent political entity - something Putin has spelled out plainly. Subsequent military activity is therefore geared to achieving that objective but the forces to do so are insufficient. To dig themselves out means switching from an unlimited political objective (regime change) to a limited one (biting off a chunk of territory). That involves a huge loss of face for Putin but has nearly been achieved already from a military perspective - Mariupol being the last obstacle. Russia could then unilaterally declare victory and their objectives achieved, but that only flies if the Ukrainians agree to cede the territory (and France particularly would likely resume pressure on Zelensky to concede) but I doubt they would. Lots of if’s, buts, and don’t knows there, but right now Russia is reinforcing failure so needs to redefine its objectives to something that’s in its own power to achieve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterw Posted March 23, 2022 Share Posted March 23, 2022 10 minutes ago, KentVillan said: For those of you looking to understand the military strategy & tactics, I really recommend the War on the Rocks podcast. The last 4 episodes are with a guy called Michael Kofman, basically giving a weekly assessment of where things are, and so far he seems to have called everything pretty accurately. To be fair you can't go far wrong with dipping in to 'The Art of War' from Sun Tzu, even though its around 5000 years old. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted March 23, 2022 Share Posted March 23, 2022 (edited) 41 minutes ago, Awol said: but that only flies if the Ukrainians agree to cede the territory ( they kinda did back in 2016 with the Steinmeier formula .. but that also resulted in quite a loss of popularity for Zelensky ... Ukranian public opinion may now change of course given the alternative , but it was circa 80% that didn't' want Ukraine to cede any territory back then ... Edited March 23, 2022 by tonyh29 fixed the date :) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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