The hope is this is what they expected and have planned for. Maybe a much slower creep forwards, allowing their anti air to catch up whilst starving the RA of ammo. Otherwise it just seems ridiculous they would launch a full scale assault without air support unless they were just planning to take huge losses in the hope of punching through the line somewhere.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
- Thread starter Wednesday at Stoke
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Take a bunch of murderers and give them a dose of PTSD for good measure, what could go wrong.
Their plans and scenarios will have been war-gamed for months, with western aid most people expect, if requested.
In terms of speed, as an example, the allies took almost 3 months from D-Day just to take Normandie. With years of planning and an overwhelming force, throwing everything they had into it. A committed defence takes a while to break through. I wouldn't call RuAF committed though, more like a defeated army in waiting.
The Kherson counter offensive started on August 29th, it wasn't until November 9th that the Russians retreated. Thats almost 2 and a half months and was a much easier operation considering Russia was defending the wrong side of the river.
I'm sure the Ukrainians know what to expect and plan for, they have after all been fighting Russia for almost 10 years now.
I suspect that they didn't exactly expect the RA's air capability to be that effective. And they slow down a bit now due to trying to figure out a way to counter this, as you said.
That's what I hope happened anyway.
Also, CNN/NYT/WP and their anonymous "officials" can do one.
Would you say the same if they said something more positive?
Speaking of the Kherson counteroffensive, there was some criticism of the UA high command that they didn't push more in when they had that gap in the North and could have ended the siege much earlier.
But the UA is very careful about preserving their manpower, which is the right thing to do. They may slow down more if they see the benefit of keeping their men alive. But as usual, as I said before, some people in the West would not have much patience, and I do have concern with the willingness of the GOP in the house to support the UA adequately.
Only if they saying something factual.
Citing "officials" all the time is a blank slate to print whatever they want. Everyone assumes they have access to high ranking officials, and they probably do, so they get away with it no problem.
If much about these kinds of articles turned out to be true, I wouldn't have a problem with it.
Yep, I just worry there was truth in the rumours of Western pressure to see 'results' and they let that cloud their judgement. For what it is worth, what they are doing now with slow probing attacks and slow progress seems the best option for an armchair general like me, I guess its as safe as an offensive can be compared to sending long armoured columns down narrow roads.
Yeah I've not seen anything to suggest there's any truth to rumours like that. Western rhetoric has been nothing but positive and what we've actually seen is support do nothing but consistently ramp up. The only real threat to that is a Trump presidency.
A kindred spirit.
There was a short period of time in the nascent stages of the conflict that some of the Russian war fighters could be forgiven as they were conscripted.
That period is long gone.
Aren't many Russians still being forced to the front lines against their will? The prison convicts recruited by Wagner for Bakhmut, and the more recent news of migrant workers being arrested and conscripted.
Even joining up to keep food on the table for your family hardly constitutes a choice.
There are ways to avoid mobilization including the most drastic one (as in going to prison — or staying in prison if you’re already a convict). The main issue is that most of the mobilized don’t even understand that what they’re doing is wrong but it can’t excuse them. At some point you have to take responsibility for your actions.
Yeah, I do agree that many of the Russian soldiers seem to have lost their moral compass, but I'm also pretty sure given a real choice most of them wouldn't be there in the first place. The vast majority of blame belongs to the higher ups who put them there and decided to employ these barbarian tactics.
Is this still what Putin wants to be said???
Actually, many men (in tens of thousands) are now signing up voluntarily because of the pay (3000$ a month) from poor regions, where average salary between 300-500$. They’re quite happy to take the chance because they live in complete poverty and constant abuse and men can also get away from their wifes/kids that they’re sick of, the system that the regime in Kremlin has imposed has broken most of its population.
wot
In my opinion, there are only 2 possible scenarios (if you doubt that he is insane/suicidal) for saying things out loud, that any other Russian citizen would long be in prison or dead for.
1. He isn't afraid of Putin, because he has some serious power behind him in form of intelligence or other higher up inside the Kremlin. In this case, Putin is afraid to order his execution because he risks an internal war for power and that would probably be the end of all his imperialistic ambitions. In this case, Prigozhin can start his political career without fear of open windows or tea sessions.
2. It's all agreed with Putin, because they started to realize they can't achieve any goal of their invasion and they need to prepare for the worst possible outcome, meaning to admit their failure and leave. That means important heads need to roll. So Putin uses Prigozhin to slowly, but surely warm up the public to this and put all the blame on the MoD, namely Shoigu and Gerasimov. The narrative would be being lied to by his own MoD and therefore Putin ordered the "special operation" based on false information. Putin wouldn't look good, but he could still stay in power and their propagandists could publicly crucify the MoD.
If its 2) , there are a lot of things to walk back for Putin. Including the mad "Ukraine is not really a country" speech . Unless Shoigu told him that lie too.
I was thinking that very thing just last week, hadn't slept because one of the kids was sick, the next day had to work 8 hours in extreme heat and then take the other one to football training that night. As I was standing there exhausted, sweating resenting the fact I couldn't even sit down while having to watch a load of little feckers kick the ball around like they hadn't a care in the world, I thought to myself.
''Can't be arsed with all this shit anymore, if only there was a good warzone I could get away to for a few months to relax.''
Having to tolerate your wife and kids vs being cannon fodder. Real dilemma that is.
He doesn't need to walk back on that one, because it wasn't the reason for the invasion. Kremlin's and Putin's official and main reason for their "special operation" was to protect the russian people inside Ukraine, especially the Donbas people. He can only justify all the atrocities, if he hides them behind the "protection of russian people" cloak.
Therefore it's really interesting, that Prigozhin steers into oncoming traffic by saying Ukraine never shelled Donbas civilians in the past 8 years, only military structure, nor had any plans to attack Russia. So he contradicts the Kremlin's narrative 100% and that is either very dangerous, or agreed with Putin to warm up a new story, that Russian people were never in danger in Ukraine and when they finally realized that, they can withdraw and blame the MoD for false information.
Having three kids 6 and under there has been many a day where sitting in a trench under heavy artillery fire has seemed a better way to spend a day.
Ouch, why did you do that to yourself mate?
The issue I have with blaming the soldiers: I believe that human beings are blank pages when born. Sure you have a tendency to certain character traits but chances are that the people blaming them would be the same if they were brought up under the same circumstances. If you disagree with that you're basically saying that Western people are genetically less vulnerable for propaganda/more likely to rebel against authoritarian pressure which in my book is even more troublesome.
That obviously shall not belittle the atrocities and war crimes Russian soldiers are committing. But to me that is rather a reminder of the kind of cruelty humans are capable of when exposed to intense manipulation and it makes me grateful to be born in a different part of the world.
That is a question I ask myself several times a day.
I can imagine. Good luck mate.