Mate, you really should spend more time on research. Most of the things you say or assume are wrong, plain and simple.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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Mate, you really should spend more time on research. Most of the things you say or assume are wrong, plain and simple.
Russia in no meaningful way could invade all those countries.
He'd have to do it himself a few weeks down the road. Putin most likely had already lost the war before the first bullet was fired.
Some of you really do have a problem realizing the real strength of Russian military. There's NO way on earth they can at the same time hold Ukraine and invade a bunch of other countries. You're also totally setting aside the impact of the economic sanctions.
Putin might not like showing weakness but at one point he might decide that he can still pretend he fulfilled his mission by "neutralizing" Dombas, that could be something negociators can work with even if it would be terrible for Ukraine. There's absolutely no guarantee that Ukraine will fall, especially if the russian army needs to go further west. The can barely secure convoys to Kyiv, lets see how they do if they have to go all to way to Lviv.
It's like whack-a-mole in here!
Oh man... so many false assumptions in your post.
Currently it looks like Russia isn't able to take Ukraine by force. The amount of anti-tank weapons delivered to Ukraine and still well distributed means that they will be able to still resist. And if they keep on at the current rate, it will take 8 weeks until Russia has no armoured vehicles left. None at all. The Russian government can't allow this, as this would effectively mean that they have no options to fight a conventional war any more. Planes and helicopters don't appear to be lost at the same rate, so are not as critical, but the trend looks similar. Russia loses it's ability to protect what it conquered elsewhere. Japan already makes some noise, Georgia might also fancy retaking it's lost provinces and in the current situation Russia can't resupply their forces in Syria and might finally lose there
Will it be bloody? Yes, it will, the longer it takes, the more Ukrainians will die. But can they win the war and repel the attack? It is quite likely they will be able to.
And at the same time Russia lost it's army, it will also have lost it's economy. The only thing left would be the nuclear option, and that would mean losing everybody's live. Putin needs a way to get out of this quickly while saving his face, or he won't survive this (maybe even literally). He won't get the outcome he wants, and if the rumours about him replacing intelligence agency leaders and generals it looks like he realizes this now.
Even if Ukraine should fall, he might only take on Moldova. Sweden and Finland are protected by EU treaty, going to war with one of them means going to war with the whole EU, and this would potentially be the nuclear war nobody wants.
And overall, when do you stop madness? As early as possible. And you don't bow to terrorists, you fight them
Uncle Vlad’s polonium tea is world famous!
Time is not on his side. The Russian military attrition rate is simply unsustainable and is only likely to accelerate from here on. And there's a limit to how long you can keep troops in the field, in freezing conditions, with inadequate supplies and no rotational replacements. Putin doesn't have those replacements.
If it continues for another month I won't be surprised if Russian commanders in the field simply refuse to follow his orders, pick up sticks and withdraw. At which point Putin's goose is cooked and I don't see how he could remain in office having lost the support of the military.
It won't. The sanctions will make the economy contract, but a collapse is nowhere near. In fact most of the sanctions aren't really that big of a deal, the most damaging ones long-term will be being barred and excluded from all the cultural events. Most estimates of the contraction to the economy is around 7%, and of course in terms of the federal budget a huge % of that comes oil and gas, which even if Europe cuts down own will simply be sold to the rest of the world at slightly lower prices.
All 3 would be easier than Ukraine is.
We shall see. As much as I wish Ukraine could hold them out, I don't see how it's feasible in any way. Mariupol will fall, there's no way it won't. It's already a dead city. Kharkiv will follow, and the Russians will push inland. Holding a city isn't particularly hard once you've conquered it - you replace the police force with your own, the administration etc - there'll be no one left to resist but ordinary people, who won't want to fight against an army for nothing. It may take longer than initially thought but those cities will soon go the way Kherson has. As shown there, once you have the city, there's no more military encounters and you really don't need much man strength to hold the city.
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Either way, the sanctions will cripple the economy to where Putin won't have the resources to fight a foreign war. He's already skint on equipment, morale, and soldiers to where he's having to scramble to import Syrians from the Middle East to make up for a lack of competence of his own military. The sanctions will paralyize Russia from within very soon and that will be that.
And as a lot of much more clued in guys have already pointed out; Russia are not great at fighting local conflicts but mid to long range it will be a different story.
You’re delusional if you think russia could fight a two front war, let alone more. This isn’t CoD.
I don't think things are nearly as bad as has often been portrayed in western media. A couple of thousand soldiers dead, it's nothing really in the grand scheme of things. Having air superiority means you can do pretty much what you want, it's why pretty much every Ukrainian official quoted in the news recently mentions the need for the no fly zone.
A month or two is nothing either, the Russians lost 20 million in WW2 in battles that lasted through cold snowy winters.. The problem is when you control the media, the politicians and pretty much the whole of society, you can control whatever narrative you want. If Russia loses a 100,000 soliders? Another 100,000 will simply be told to defend the motherland against the Ukranian nazi invaders in their place.
At this point I have to wonder what planet you’ve been living on?
Russia has essentially all of its military in Ukraine at the moment and 16 days in still has no control of the country.
The economy is collapsing and when it’s reserves run out it will fall hard to the floor.
Finally there’s been plenty of open descent from state television and influential individuals from within Russia about the conflict and even more mass public protests.
The wheels are slowly falling off this. To suggest they could take and hold Ukraine THEN move on to Finland and other surrounding non NATO countries is utterly ridiculous when looking at the above facts.
For any any cities they take they are going to have to leave men behind to fight insurgents. Insurgents who look like them, can probably speak like them and who can move largely undetected and at will. It will make Vietnam and Afghanistan look like positive military operations.
The Russian army is on a hiding to nothing, much like the Russian economy.
It’s struggling in a one front war that it prepared for months in advance against a non super power.
This is costing millions to finance as it is and is in no way sustainable when you consider the collapse of the Ruble and the economy
Err, the contraction to their economy is not going to be 7%. 7% is the estimated GDP contraction, from a 2% growth expectation earlier so that's a 9 points drop. But most importantly, inflation is expected to rise between 15 and 20%. Those 2 combined are a recipe for economic disaster. And I dont think I need to explain how selling gas to other countries is basically impossible for obvious geographical reasons, except for China but they don't need Russian gas.
While a couple of thousand soldiers might not be a lot for the Russians, their lost equipment is a far bigger problem. We have already seen a wild mix of civilian vehicles and extremely old stuff transported to the Russian border (and therefore most likely to be used), as the Russians have massive logistics problems. They can't sustainably provide their troops with fuel, ammunition and basic stuff like food. And they barely moved into the country, yet are already in massive trouble in that regard.
And Russian air superiority is a myth. While it is surely true that they are stronger in the air, the Ukrainians are still operating, especially their drones. And the Russians still don't dare to use their strategic Tupolev bombers, they are still limited to low altitude attacks with their Suchois.
You do realize that the Russians don't have the resources to hold any cities/towns they "take over" yes ? Carpet bombing a city is easy. Fighting a protracted counterinsurgency is very difficult, especially when your troops don't even want to be in Ukraine.
None of those points you've listed are facts. Or even close to being true. Russia has less than a fifth of it's military in Ukraine, with many millions more as reserve personnel.
The economy isn't anywhere close to collapsing (-7% estimated contraction) and resources won't run out for a long while.
Not sure where you've got the dissent stuff from but I won't get into that argument, as how Russian society has been run under Putin for the last 20+ years is fairly common knowledge.
Also I didn't suggest they were going to move on to Moldova or Finland, I merely suggested that it'd be an option in the future given that Putin now knows that Nato won't protect non-Nato countries.
Maybe, maybe not. We'll see I guess. Unlike Vietnam and Afganistan, Ukranians don't live in the jungles or mountains. I think Mariupol is setting an example of what happens to towns that resist.. much like Grozny or Aleppo. Buildings are much easier targets than trees in the jungle are.
Also it wasn't that long ago that Ukraine fought a war against the Soviet Union, and lost.
Russians had 170ish BTGs in 2021, they’ve deployed 110ish to Ukraine. You seem to be conflating Soviet era strength with current strength.
Yay, lets send reserve personnel to ukraine on horses like it's 1915!
But...they haven't taken Mariupol. You can't bomb the shit out of a place your troops have moved into...
And are you seriously trying to talk about a war fought over 100 years ago as some kind of evidence for your theory about how the current war will go? Do you not think a few things might have changed in the intervening time?
Many millions
Have you asked the Ukrainians whether they want to fight on?
Even if the Ukrainian reports of 12,000+ Russian dead is likely an exaggeration, they've certainly lost a lot more than just "couple of thousand". U.S estimates - which are lower than European estimates - are between 5 - 6,000 dead Russians.
And for every dead soldier there are probably 3 times that many wounded. I'd reckon they have at least 20,000 killed, wounded, deserted, captured or surrendered . In another month, with higher casualty rates from trying to enter and take cities, that figure will rise to at least 80,000. And that's not to mention further loss of tanks and other vehicles.
Russia doesn't have another 100,000 spare soldiers of an adequate, properly trained, properly equipped, volunteer professional variety. Moreover, this isn't WWII when Russia actually was invaded by Nazis. This time its Russia doing the invading - hard to sell "defending the motherland against invasion", especially to an internet/social media generation.
Thats exactly what he is doing.
Anywhere between 5,000 and 10,000 soldiers reportedly lost, God knows how many AFVs and aircraft, they don't have air superiority, whilst Ukraine is being supplied with anti-tank and anti-air weapons all the time, plus they still have 56 fighters availabe if they need (or want) to use them.
Basically zero chance he takes Ukraine and even less chance he ever gets anywhere near Finland or Sweden.
A good interview that crystalises the Ukraine conflict and some of its uniqueness.
All this WWIII talk is batshit. I think the rest of the world are playing this correctly at the moment. I don't think there is one single person involved who wants a world war or to use nukes. If anyone in the UK, US, Europe or wherever felt for one minute Russia was going to fire one then they would get in first. 100%
Why on earth would anyone get involved now and risk a nuclear war (total destruction of the planet) when the signs are good. The Russian troops are in disarray, it seems they are poorly trained and have many logictical and mechaniical issues, as well as their own personal and moral disagreements.about the attack on Ukraine and reports of the lack of food, equipment, training etc
The Ukrainians are holding their own well and have a leader who is inspiring hope to his countrymen and women. It even appears that the Russian fake news and disinformation propaganda war is being lost with many speaking out against the war from inside Russia. That on top of many of the Russian speaking areas of Ukraine also showing extreme anger at the invasion.
The sanctions placed on Russia and its citizens will start to hurt badly causing more unrest from the Russian people, and the strategic support from many countries is invaluable too. As is the support of equipment and weapons and the training that had been done prior to the invasion.
With all that in mind, why on earth would anyone risk escalating things further? Implementing a no fly zone or sending troops or the like. That would be insane. I think this has been played well so far and that thankfully calmer heads are prevailing. I just hope that continues, as Putin will undoubtedly become more and more enraged.and desperate the longer things don't go his way.
All that being said though, I get how hard it is to feel like we are sitting back and doing nothing while all this is going on. I feel incredibly sad when thinking about all the lives being lost and destroyed by this. And I also feel awful for what many Russian citizens will have to endure when the sanctions really start to kick in. It will lead to much suffering of innocent people. All of it is sad and avoidable.
I just hope it can all end as quickly as possible with the least amount of casualties and suffering on all sides, and certainly without further escalation or anyone else getting involved. I would hope that's what everyone would want, but after reading some of the comments in here, I have to wonder and that's quite scary.
Why on earth would anyone get involved now and risk a nuclear war (total destruction of the planet) when the signs are good. The Russian troops are in disarray, it seems they are poorly trained and have many logictical and mechaniical issues, as well as their own personal and moral disagreements.about the attack on Ukraine and reports of the lack of food, equipment, training etc
The Ukrainians are holding their own well and have a leader who is inspiring hope to his countrymen and women. It even appears that the Russian fake news and disinformation propaganda war is being lost with many speaking out against the war from inside Russia. That on top of many of the Russian speaking areas of Ukraine also showing extreme anger at the invasion.
The sanctions placed on Russia and its citizens will start to hurt badly causing more unrest from the Russian people, and the strategic support from many countries is invaluable too. As is the support of equipment and weapons and the training that had been done prior to the invasion.
With all that in mind, why on earth would anyone risk escalating things further? Implementing a no fly zone or sending troops or the like. That would be insane. I think this has been played well so far and that thankfully calmer heads are prevailing. I just hope that continues, as Putin will undoubtedly become more and more enraged.and desperate the longer things don't go his way.
All that being said though, I get how hard it is to feel like we are sitting back and doing nothing while all this is going on. I feel incredibly sad when thinking about all the lives being lost and destroyed by this. And I also feel awful for what many Russian citizens will have to endure when the sanctions really start to kick in. It will lead to much suffering of innocent people. All of it is sad and avoidable.
I just hope it can all end as quickly as possible with the least amount of casualties and suffering on all sides, and certainly without further escalation or anyone else getting involved. I would hope that's what everyone would want, but after reading some of the comments in here, I have to wonder and that's quite scary.
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Can't say I'm terribly familiar with the Russian Instagram influencer sphere and maybe she does just really likes sharing pics of food but I do wonder if she's actually crying because she previously had a steady income and she now likely has lost that.
I wish we have a Marko Ramius in the room. He knows a thing about dealing with a Putin for tea.
Difference opinion, but I don't think any of that is truly happening.
Great interview and pretty chilling.
Savage.
Are you serious to even compare now with a war that took place in 1917? JFC.
And let's talk about extreme examples of urban combat. The Nazis already tried pounding Leningrad and Stalingrad into oblivion, and yet that was never enough to break the defenders. At Leningrad, Axis forces failed hard although the Soviets suffered a total of 3,436,066 casualties against 579,985 casualties for Axis forces. At Stalingrad, the Soviets had 1,129,619 casualties while the Axis lost between 747,300 and 868,374 combat casualties. The defenders are bound to suffer greatly, but are Russians willing to lose as many soldiers as the Nazis did if they keep on losing valuable veterans and officers until resorting to yet-to-be-trained conscripts when that is not a fight for their own existence? If you know History, I'm sure you can draw parallels between Putin's army and Nicholas II's army during WW1 in terms of very poor performance despite strong numbers.