Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[BleedClaretAndBlue]

 

[Xann]

It would seem that Putin's commanders are still looking to land a trophy for the end of the year.

The upshot of that is a mental loss ratio as they continue to press Avdiivka.

Russia can claim that they're taking territory, but much of that has been lateral to their objective.

This guy isn't Captain Charisma, but he's conscientious and there's no flash bang theatrics or random clips to get the cast up to 8 minutes.

Crucially if something he's broadcast previously turns out to be incorrect? He makes sure the viewer knows a mistake was made.

 

[tonyh29]

wow , this thread had dropped all the way down to page 3  ....

Sky linked this today on their Blog page 

 

[bickster]

There was also news the other day that Ukraine have expanded the bridgehead across the Dniepr despite the weather supposedly being unfavourable. I think it was IWS that claimed it (fairly reliable) but it wasn't confirmed by Ukraine.

[Genie]

10 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

wow , this thread had dropped all the way down to page 3  ....

Sky linked this today on their Blog page 

 

If 50% ish are brave enough to say they support peace the real number is probably much higher. 

I assume peace for many people, including Putin, would consist of Russia keeping what they have in return for a ceasefire. The cake and eat it deal. 

[Anthony]

Ukraine blew up a rail tunnel in the Russian far East. One which connects Russia to China and North Korea.

Politico

Quote

Kyiv’s saboteurs strike deep in enemy territory, with Russian media reporting that authorities are investigating it as a terror attack.

This meant that the Russians now have to use the only other rail route. It goes over a 35m high viaduct. And we know where this is going...

Ukrainska Pravda

Quote

The Russians began to use a detour route going through the so-called Devil's Bridge to keep moving. This is what the SSU anticipated: when the train was passing along this high 35-metre bridge, they activated explosive devices that were planted in it.

 

[villa89]

On 01/12/2023 at 11:02, Genie said:

I assume peace for many people, including Putin, would consist of Russia keeping what they have in return for a ceasefire. The cake and eat it deal. 

Exactly. 

[villa89]

Quote

Outnumbered and outgunned, one front-line soldier has given a sobering account of Ukraine's struggle to cling on to its foothold on the east bank of the vast Dnipro river.

Several hundred Ukrainian soldiers have made it there as part of a counter-offensive launched six months ago. 

Under relentless Russian fire, the soldier spent several weeks on the Russian-occupied side of the river as Ukraine sought to establish a bridgehead around the village of Krynky. The BBC is not naming him to protect his identity.

BBC

Good to get a real account of what is actually going on & not the propaganda that is trotted out. 

No surprise Ukraine is running out of manpower. A few F16's isn't going to turn the tide next year. Plus slowing economic growth in major economies, elections and interest rates left too high for too long will mean war fatigue will be in full force next summer. Ukraine are screwed because I can't imagine any negotiated settlement will go down well with them. 

Edited December 4, 2023 by villa89

[BleedClaretAndBlue]

going to be catastrophic if/when Trump gets back in and follows through with his threat of pulling America out of NATO

[Genie]

Are Russia a mess or super powerful? I can’t keep up.

[Anthony]

2 hours ago, Genie said:

Are Russia a mess or super powerful? I can’t keep up.

Both. While at the same time, neither. 

Russia is a shit show that can, and does, do untold indiscriminate damage; physically in Ukraine, and sociologically all over the world. 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

3 hours ago, Genie said:

Are Russia a mess or super powerful? I can’t keep up.

They are the world's largest country with a large population and massive stocks of gas, oil, raw materials and agricultural land.  

But they squander all of that and are a third world country of you exclude Moscow and St Petersburg from the statistics. 

Moscow thinks its a super-power.  If it didn’t have nukes it wouldn't be. 

 

[chrisp65]

9 hours ago, Genie said:

Are Russia a mess or super powerful? I can’t keep up.

It’s awkward isn’t it.

From the start of the conflict there have been people briefing us that Russia will soon run out of modern weaponry, they’ll run out of fuel, of fighting age men, of money. That the economy is a basket case that might well lead to an internal coup. That they had nothing that was a match for anything of ‘ours’. They needed old men to fight, they were recommissioning 1960’s tanks and WWII helmets.

Yet here we are.

Earlier today there was a watercress farmer on radio 4 explaining why food costs were going up. They explained wages needed paying and fuel costs have risen all the usual we’ve heard before. But then she said something else. She said the world had changed and we were essentially being outbid for the best food by other countries that had more money for food than they used to. Notably, she called out Russia as a place where more and more people had the income to pay for better food and they had moved in to bidding on the same stuff as us, and demand pushes up price.

I don’t know if its true, it’s certainly not the picture that’s painted.

[magnkarl]

23 hours ago, Genie said:

Are Russia a mess or super powerful? I can’t keep up.

I think it's complex. The demographics in Russia will make it so that the economy will go into severe recession as young men are being killed by the hundreds of thousands, there is no way around that. The thing that is essentially keeping Russia afloat is that the country is a total dictatorship, people are press-ganged into moving to Siberia to work in armament-factories. In the short term that enables Russia to produce enough weapons to keep the war going, but what is still shown on the battlefield is that Russia won't be able to move further forward, they'll try but lose staggering amounts of people and kit like at Avdiivka.

The industrial base should not be a problem for Ukraine as NATO and their allies outproduce Russia by something like 180-1, but we're slow to adapt. Even if America drops out Germany has the capacity to produce more weapons than Russia, but I just don't see the US doing it as only a very few republicans are against aid to Ukraine.

The war will be long, and likely Russia will end up with over a million killed. That's a million young men in a country where young men are already a scarcity. F-16's will likely enable Ukraine to operate with more of an air-element, hopefully it'll enable them to move their AA-systems up and take out more Russians at long range rather than risking their own troops.

[chrisp65]

1 hour ago, magnkarl said:

I think it's complex. The demographics in Russia will make it so that the economy will go into severe recession as young men are being killed by the hundreds of thousands, there is no way around that. The thing that is essentially keeping Russia afloat is that the country is a total dictatorship, people are press-ganged into moving to Siberia to work in armament-factories. In the short term that enables Russia to produce enough weapons to keep the war going, but what is still shown on the battlefield is that Russia won't be able to move further forward, they'll try but lose staggering amounts of people and kit like at Avdiivka.

The industrial base should not be a problem for Ukraine as NATO and their allies outproduce Russia by something like 180-1, but we're slow to adapt. Even if America drops out Germany has the capacity to produce more weapons than Russia, but I just don't see the US doing it as only a very few republicans are against aid to Ukraine.

The war will be long, and likely Russia will end up with over a million killed. That's a million young men in a country where young men are already a scarcity. F-16's will likely enable Ukraine to operate with more of an air-element, hopefully it'll enable them to move their AA-systems up and take out more Russians at long range rather than risking their own troops.

 

It’s coming up to 2 years, this severe recession is taking a while to kick in. You’re also still looking at the massive battlefield losses as their weakness when their psyche appears to suggest they see it as a strength. That they will simply throw more and more orcs at your limited numbers with a public back home that doesn’t like body bags. 

It’s a tactic that has literally worked for them for hundreds of years. Why we expect them to use different metrics now is a mystery to me.

We can win this, and yes, Germany could produce massive amounts of weaponry. But they won’t, will they. Inflation will go up 1%, there will be less choice of varieties of chocolate in the shops and the public and politicians will think the cost is too great. Because right now, for Germany it isn’t an existential threat. It’s a thing on the news when Israel isn’t on the news.

On the news last night, Russia is building a new naval base on land seized from Georgia. You can argue they’ve had to do that to get out of drone range. You can also point out that’s not the obvious response of a nation close to collapse with a shortage of personnel or materials.

I’m nor suggesting we get fed fake news. But we certainly get selective news that fits our narrative. 

Edited December 7, 2023 by chrisp65

[limpid]

15 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

Earlier today there was a watercress farmer on radio 4 explaining why food costs were going up. They explained wages needed paying and fuel costs have risen all the usual we’ve heard before. But then she said something else. She said the world had changed and we were essentially being outbid for the best food by other countries that had more money for food than they used to. Notably, she called out Russia as a place where more and more people had the income to pay for better food and they had moved in to bidding on the same stuff as us, and demand pushes up price.

I don’t know if its true, it’s certainly not the picture that’s painted.

A watercress farmer knows about food suppliers breaking sanctions and the powers that be don't?

Hmmm.

[Genie]

2 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

I’m nor suggesting we get fed fake news. But we certainly get selective news that fits our narrative. 

That’s been my frustration from the outset, in the mainstream media and in this thread. 

I wish we had more balanced and honest reporting. 

 

[chrisp65]

1 hour ago, limpid said:

A watercress farmer knows about food suppliers breaking sanctions and the powers that be don't?

Hmmm.

No idea, I’d not heard anything like it before but they were suggesting we were in competition on international markets for the quality of food stuffs that we like buying, and that new international competition was Russia. Could have been completely misinformed, I guess.

But in that there is still trade in oil and its going on visibly in the Med just off the shores of Greece and visible to tourists, it wouldn’t be a major surprise to me if they were also trading food internationally.

[magnkarl]

2 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

 

It’s coming up to 2 years, this severe recession is taking a while to kick in. You’re also still looking at the massive battlefield losses as their weakness when their psyche appears to suggest they see it as a strength. That they will simply throw more and more orcs at your limited numbers with a public back home that doesn’t like body bags. 

It’s a tactic that has literally worked for them for hundreds of years. Why we expect them to use different metrics now is a mystery to me.

We can win this, and yes, Germany could produce massive amounts of weaponry. But they won’t, will they. Inflation will go up 1%, there will be less choice of varieties of chocolate in the shops and the public and politicians will think the cost is too great. Because right now, for Germany it isn’t an existential threat. It’s a thing on the news when Israel isn’t on the news.

On the news last night, Russia is building a new naval base on land seized from Georgia. You can argue they’ve had to do that to get out of drone range. You can also point out that’s not the obvious response of a nation close to collapse with a shortage of personnel or materials.

I’m nor suggesting we get fed fake news. But we certainly get selective news that fits our narrative. 

There is a shortage of personell though, that is why Vlad has introduced three waves of mobilisation. If there wasn't he would not need these as they cause support for his war to go down. Russia's economy is also in tatters by pretty much all metrics. That doesn't mean that Vlad can't churn out weapons though, and I guess it'll take long before the population is fed up enough to do anything about it.

I think NATO and the West need to get a reality check in place, there are very few wars (even if we attack) that last for less than 3 years. Take the Yugoslavian wars as an example where even with NATO planes and aircraft-carriers outside Croatia hammering Serbian targets it took another year before the war was over.

I also think everyone apart from Iran/North Korea and China agrees that Russia can't just invade countries and do as they please, so we're likely going to give Ukraine just enough to wear Russia into the ground slowly on the defensive.

[villa89]

2 hours ago, Genie said:

I wish we had more balanced and honest reporting. 

I think the problem is that you can't get any reliable information about Russia or China or any other dictatorship. So it's not possible for the media here to tell us the truth about Russia because nobody knows.