Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[Genie]

45 minutes ago, villa89 said:

Unlike Russia who've learnt nothing from all their disastrous attempts at war. 

To be fair they’ve successfully claimed a huge swathe of the land they wanted and are now defending it pretty well.

[BleedClaretAndBlue]

Well put..

 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

Russian sources are reporting that the rail lines onto the Kerch Bridge has been hit. 

Some think it's a railway sidings and cargo depot. 

We'll know more tomorrow but its good news.   

 

[Delphinho123]

On 27/09/2023 at 12:10, Genie said:

To be fair they’ve successfully claimed a huge swathe of the land they wanted and are now defending it pretty well.

They wanted the entire country. 

[Genie]

3 hours ago, Delphinho123 said:

They wanted the entire country. 

They didn’t, they wanted the East (which they have) and had a stab at getting Kyiv / tried to scare Kyiv into rolling over and not fighting back.

The narrative that they are completely clueless is just propaganda for the Western audience. The status quo of the last 12 months suggests otherwise.

 

[LondonLax]

5 minutes ago, Genie said:

They didn’t, they wanted the East (which they have) and had a stab at getting Kyiv / tried to scare Kyiv into rolling over and not fighting back.

The narrative that they are completely clueless is just propaganda for the Western audience. The status quo of the last 12 months suggests otherwise.

 

I think they misunderstood the situation they were getting into, overestimating their abilities and underestimating the strength of the resistance, so have been forced to reevaluate on the fly and fall back to operating on their traditional strengths. 

[Genie]

29 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

I think they misunderstood the situation they were getting into, overestimating their abilities and underestimating the strength of the resistance, so have been forced to reevaluate on the fly and fall back to operating on their traditional strengths. 

I’d agree with that, I don’t think taking and holding the entire country was ever part of the plan.

They have the bit they wanted, and Ukraine have been struggling for a number of months to find a weakness in the hundreds of miles of defensive lines that have been created.

[Mandy Lifeboats]

25 minutes ago, Genie said:

 

The narrative that they are completely clueless is just propaganda for the Western audience. The status quo of the last 12 months suggests otherwise.

 

They had Ukraine surrounded on 3 sides. The Russian Army was much bigger and much better equipped.  Russia had inital success.  But since Ukraine has been equipped with modern weapons the Russian Army has been a disaster.  

Estimates place Russian losses at 200,000 - 250,000  Wagner admitted to losing 20,000 in Bakhmut alone. They have lost their flagship to a country with no navy.  They cannot gain air superiority over a country with no air superiority fighters.   

All Russia has shown since June 2022 is that they are good at WW1 tactics.  They can dig trenches and take small amounts of land with massive casualties. 

The stated aims of the SMO were - 

Stop NATO expansion.  NATO is bigger then ever. 

Demilitarise Ukraine.  Ukraine's forces are bigger and better armed than 2 years ago. 

Stop westernisation of Ukraine.  Ukraine is more western than ever. 

Protect Russian speakers in east Ukraine.  They can't protect Russian speakers in west Russia. 

I am not sure how any of that is propaganda?  Russia isn't clueless. Its corrupt, inept and genocidal. 

 

 

 

[Genie]

1 minute ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

They had Ukraine surrounded on 3 sides. The Russian Army was much bigger and much better equipped.  Russia had inital success.  But since Ukraine has been equipped with modern weapons the Russian Army has been a disaster.  

Estimates place Russian losses at 200,000 - 250,000  Wagner admitted to losing 20,000 in Bakhmut alone. They have lost their flagship to a country with no navy.  They cannot gain air superiority over a country with no air superiority fighters.   

All Russia has shown since June 2022 is that they are good at WW1 tactics.  They can dig trenches and take small amounts of land with massive casualties. 

The stated aims of the SMO were - 

Stop NATO expansion.  NATO is bigger then ever. 

Demilitarise Ukraine.  Ukraine's forces are bigger and better armed than 2 years ago. 

Stop westernisation of Ukraine.  Ukraine is more western than ever. 

Protect Russian speakers in east Ukraine.  They can't protect Russian speakers in west Russia. 

I am not sure how any of that is propaganda?  Russia isn't clueless. Its corrupt, inept and genocidal. 

 

 

 

Most of that lot was just bullshit to somehow justify the land grab. The Putin project to flex some muscle. They took what they wanted and still hold it.

Yes they’ve lost a huge amount of men and ruined their economy doing it, but the initial comment was in response to the line “Russia have learned nothing from their disastrous attempts at war”.

They took the land they wanted and continue to hold it (at a cost). It’s not been a complete disaster from that point of view (it’s not been a complete success either obviously).

[LondonLax]

4 minutes ago, Genie said:

I’d agree with that, I don’t think taking and holding the entire country was ever part of the plan.

They have the bit they wanted, and Ukraine have been struggling for a number of months to find a weakness in the hundreds of miles of defensive lines that have been created.

We may never know what they planned to achieve in January 2022 but right at the start of the war Lukashenko had a map in the background of a Belarus security council meeting that showed Russian forces taking a much larger share of Ukraine including Kiev and all of the north east as well as the whole coast line to in the south connecting Donbas to the Russian separatists stationed in the eastern part of Moldova (Transnistria). 

I think it’s reasonable to assume that was their expectation for the war. 

[bickster]

57 minutes ago, Genie said:

They didn’t, they wanted the East (which they have) and had a stab at getting Kyiv / tried to scare Kyiv into rolling over and not fighting back.

The narrative that they are completely clueless is just propaganda for the Western audience. The status quo of the last 12 months suggests otherwise.

 

This is obviously  not true, they were literally on the outskirts of Kyiv in no time at all, had all kinds of plants in national and local government ready to take control of the entire country

[Genie]

5 minutes ago, bickster said:

This is obviously  not true, they were literally on the outskirts of Kyiv in no time at all, had all kinds of plants in national and local government ready to take control of the entire country

In the post you quoted I said they had a stab at taking Kyiv, what’s not true about that?

[bickster]

8 minutes ago, Genie said:

In the post you quoted I said they had a stab at taking Kyiv, what’s not true about that?

You’re claiming they only wanted “the east”, this is absolutely nonsense. Half of their main thrust came through Belarus to take Kyiv and the entire country. They failed in this task chiefly because of hilariously bad Russian military problems 

[Genie]

21 minutes ago, bickster said:

You’re claiming they only wanted “the east”, this is absolutely nonsense.

Apart from that not being what I said, it’s bang on  

[brommy]

1 hour ago, Genie said:

I’d agree with that, I don’t think taking and holding the entire country was ever part of the plan.

They have the bit they wanted, and Ukraine have been struggling for a number of months to find a weakness in the hundreds of miles of defensive lines that have been created.

If they 'have the bit they wanted' why did they amass huge resources through Belarus and attempt to take Kyiv? Why do you think the area they currently occupy happens to be only what they wanted and isn't curtailed by the opposition they face?

Perhaps Russia are the bloke who buys a woman a drink but ends a rejected evening by saying I didn't fancy her anyway.

[Genie]

3 minutes ago, brommy said:

If they 'have the bit they wanted' why did they amass huge resources through Belarus and attempt to take Kyiv?

They attempted to take Kyiv right at the start and abandoned it very quickly choosing to focus on capturing and retaining the East of Ukraine. If they had succeeded in taking Kyiv it would have made formally reclaiming the Donbas region much easier and quicker. 

8 minutes ago, brommy said:

Why do you think the area they currently occupy happens to be only what they wanted and isn't curtailed by the opposition they face?

Because this has been the area Russia has been fighting to claim (officially and unofficially) since at least 2014. There are many Russians and Russian speaking citizens there. The full scale invasion in 2022 was a significant escalation of what they were already doing.

[brommy]

5 hours ago, Genie said:

They attempted to take Kyiv right at the start and abandoned it very quickly choosing to focus on capturing and retaining the East of Ukraine. If they had succeeded in taking Kyiv it would have made formally reclaiming the Donbas region much easier and quicker. 

Because this has been the area Russia has been fighting to claim (officially and unofficially) since at least 2014. There are many Russians and Russian speaking citizens there. The full scale invasion in 2022 was a significant escalation of what they were already doing.

Attempting to capture a heavily defended large capital city against it's will, just to make 'formally reclaiming' a distant region easier seems nonsensically stupid so perhaps they did want to occupy a whole lot more land than they currently do.

[bickster]

Reports of a Russian SU-35S being downed over Zaporizhzhia today. Also reportedly a friendly fire incident

[Panto_Villan]

Yeah, it seems bizarre to claim that Russia only ever wanted the 20% of Ukraine that it currently has.

The Russians clearly aren’t completely clueless, and if present trends continue they’ll probably get more out of the war than Ukraine and the West want them to - but it’s still a lot less than Russia was expecting to conquer at the start of the war.

[Mozzavfc]

1 hour ago, brommy said:

Attempting to capture a heavily defended large capital city against it's will, just to make 'formally reclaiming' a distant region easier seems nonsensically stupid so perhaps they did want to occupy a whole lot more land than they currently do.

I assume they were hoping Zelensky would flee the capital (seeing as his background is in the entertainment industry), and they could install a friendly 'interim' government who would give up the territory. I'm sure there are a few ex-ukrainian presidents living in Russia they could use.