Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
- Thread starter Wednesday at Stoke
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Heard or read somewhere that the Russians are, on average, firing 4 arty rounds for every 1 the Ukrainians fire. That made me take pause for a second to contemplate just how much military hardware the Soviets built / made in its last few decades of existence. It has to run out at some point, but who knows if we are close to the end or not.
I wonder how much this factors into the West’s thinking. By which I mean always being aware of the potential next war, as well as the current war. Even though we can’t possibly know the specific numbers, the longer the Russians have to keep burning through ammo, men, equipment etc, the longer it will be until they are in a position to invade another country.
Yes.
Given Shoigu has already started begging in North Korea and many reports from last weeks and months saying their artillery is much quieter than last summer, their stocks are running definitely lower than they wanted them to be.
Looks like last year's support measures didn't last long. Ruble continues to decline.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ruble-value-declines-2629f2b9c1efce62de2f414f4bb787e5
The big question is if it is their total stocks running low or just what they can get to the front? The latter could also be true and caused by the amount of Ukrainian attacks on storage sites and bridges etc.
And also it definitely is not only about ammunition, as Ukraine is quite successfully hunting and destroying artillery systems.
I guess it will be a mix of everything. We also must not forget the corruption in soviet times. They probably produced 3-5 times the numbers on paper than in reality and how many of these will be of poor quality. Putin probably gets to read the book numbers and continues to think everything is fine, while in reality his generals are searching the country for the last usable shells. I exaggerate of course, but I'm not sure by how much.
Shoigu visiting NK was indeed a hint that they might be truly running low, I agree, we just don't know for sure - running low on what exactly? We will probably never know for sure...
We've seen a lot of these "appeal to the president" videos from Russian troops. Has this been a common thing or this uniquely Russian?
Seems like Lukashenko isn't willing to feed them after all. Maybe they can drive towards Moscow again to get their salary 
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You got to wonder, how long a battle for a genuine big city will take, Ukraine and Russia has been fighting over Bakhmut for a year and a half, with no end in sight.
Melitopol is twice the size, are we talking like, a 5 year siege or something, once Ukraine actually get there?
Melitopol is twice the size, are we talking like, a 5 year siege or something, once Ukraine actually get there?
Yeah, it is hard to think about it. The key is to control and circle the city. So if they get there, they have a good chance already. But, getting there seems to be the hardest task for the UA with all the mines and obstacles around. Right now, they are struggling to even take small and empty villages.
People may bring up the capture of Kherson. But the siege of the city was way different in terms of geography, the preparedness of the RA's troops, etc. They are way different than how they were last year.
If the progress towards that city is as slow as now, Russia will have near endless time to fortify it, make it a complete death trap too though, so encirclement wont be easy.
Just give Ukraine the weapons to sink their grain ships. Russia will never stop to bring misery, if they still find ways to make money out of it.
Yup. That is the whole issue. We can keep talking about anything, but if the UA troops can't move, there is not much to accomplish there. When I thought about the UA's progress being slow, I always wondered about why UA didn't follow up on the South in late last year instead of defending Bakhmut with the amount of manpower and resources that they used for it. Of course, but that is in hindsight.
Anyone know how?
Putin's offer to send them one grain ship with 50k tons free of charge isn't enough to feed the whole of Africa? Consider me shocked!
Ukraine entered Robotyne
Drones over Moscow again
By existing? They a bit shit nowadays. I dunno, but did recently see one of their journos casually referring to foreign fighters helping in Ukraine as 'Mercenaries'. That kind of stuff isn't accidental.
I think by this stage it's clear that the decision makers in the West aren't really thinking in terms of giving Ukraine everything they need for a quick victory. The plan very much seems to be slowly escalate and provide them with just enough to gradually grind the Russians down over a long period of time. And in the course of that deplete Russian military stockpiles and shrink their economy.
I don't understand what lies behind such thinking. If people know enough history, the rather quick and severe Russian defeat to the hands of Japan in 1904-05 provided massive erosion to Russian morale, which would culminate with the end of the Russian Empire in 1917. There is no need to deplete military stockpiles not to shrink their economy because of a longer war; the current regime will not get any better because the cracks have been exposed and will not heal anytime soon.
Does anyone see Russia invading anyone as of right now? The answer is already self-explanatory after nearly 18 months of conflict.
So it ended not due to the quick defeat against Japan but due to the much longer World War 1. It did give a first nudge, but that's about it.
And it seems still possible for Russia to for example invade in Georgia again or something like that. Fighting an attrition war will effectively deplete Russian offensive potential, which a swift end would not achieve.
And apart from that I see another possible reason for the reluctant deliveries: the strategic approach Ukraine uses for this war is a weird mix between much more "Soviet style" than NATO would use while at the same time adopting new technologies like drones. And despite all that talk about NATO training I think by now it is pretty clear that they failed, Ukraine still is pretty terrible at combined arms warfare and at large scale operations.
Both command and individual soldiers just are not up to NATO standards and therefore just perform a lot worse with western material than they should - giving them equipment for that feels just like a waste.
The situation is a bit different for equipment that actually fits the existing Ukrainian doctrine. This however is mostly limited to air defense systems and artillery. These are the weapons Ukraine uses with great success and where they do really profit from western technology (like having artillery with higher range and accuracy than the Russians).
The problem here is that western militaries did not have such a big focus on these systems and therefore just don't have the stocks to give away in some cases, or become very reluctant at all because they might realize now that they are severly lacking in those areas (SPAAGs like the Gepard are an example - a lot of NATO countries expected such systems to not be valuable any more, and then the Shaheds arrived on the battlefield).
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Not sure myself but from some of the stuff I've read on the subject the thinking might be to rule Russia out as a military threat for the next few decades. Until recently the West had actually thought the Russian military was very well equipped and well trained. If not for the rampant corruption and nepotism that seems endemic of Putin's reign given their vast natural resources they might well have been under a competent leader.
So maybe the fear of them getting their act together post Putin is behind the thinking. After the break down of Western-Russian relations these last two years bringing Russia into the Western sphere of influence is off the table for the foreseeable future I'd imagine so depleting their ability to wage war in the future might not be a bad the worst idea.
Assuming a swift victory over Russia is actually possible, would a collapse in Putin's rule actually be a good outcome for the West? Bearing in mind how many Nukes they have stockpiled across the country, there is the risk that an even nuttier regime could emerge from the chaos or the nightmare scenario of militant groups geting their hands on such things.