Leopard 1A5DK in Ukrainian service, sporting new paint and camouflage netting. pic.twitter.com/CjEMuLESww
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) September 18, 2023
***Russian - Ukraine War Tactical and Strategic Updates*** [Warning on OP]
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Last: 4 hrs ago by 74OA
I tend to agree with geopolitical analysts like Peter Zeihan who believe this invasion was inevitable and existential for Russia due to their difficult demographics and desire to expand their borders to militarily defensible geographic barriers before their prime war fighting population declines too much in numbers.
Surely Putin is starting to realize he vastly overestimated Russian military capabilities or was misled by his generals and advisors who valued their lives too much to tell him what he didn't want to hear. Very doubtful now and going forward that he admits defeat and withdraws completely from Ukraine. No way he would survive that politically so his only chance is to buy time and hope for the west to withdraw their support for Ukraine.
Surely Putin is starting to realize he vastly overestimated Russian military capabilities or was misled by his generals and advisors who valued their lives too much to tell him what he didn't want to hear. Very doubtful now and going forward that he admits defeat and withdraws completely from Ukraine. No way he would survive that politically so his only chance is to buy time and hope for the west to withdraw their support for Ukraine.
Of course, this implies that you take Putin at his word, despite the fact that his actions have proven to belie his words for the entirety of his career. This also ignores the fact that it was impossible for Ukraine to join NATO without officially ceding both Crimea and the contested portion of the Donbas region to Russia and redrawing their borders… which wasn't happening. Additionally, based on NATO protocol Ukraine had, best case scenario, no less than 10-20 years worth of work ahead of them (pre-war, before NATO's recent streamlining of the process for them due specifically to Russia's invasion) AFTER they acquiesced to Russian territorial demands, assuming Russia didn't create any other territorial disputes in the interim.
Essentially, all NATO did was refuse to allow Russia to set the precedent that an outside entity could force their hand by threat of aggression, given that the NATO charter provides that any country can petition for acceptance and, given that they meet all criteria AND are approved via unanimous vote (which Hungary would have thwarted), be admitted.
All that to say, accepting the Putin narrative on its face that this was about NATO equates to gobbling his **** with a spoon while ignoring the realities of the situation as well as the disparities between Putin's words and actions both previous and subsequent to the invasion.
You can't accept the Russian narrative without forgoing the conclusions which empirical analysis necessitate in favor of ideological preconceptions. In my opinion, of course.
Essentially, all NATO did was refuse to allow Russia to set the precedent that an outside entity could force their hand by threat of aggression, given that the NATO charter provides that any country can petition for acceptance and, given that they meet all criteria AND are approved via unanimous vote (which Hungary would have thwarted), be admitted.
All that to say, accepting the Putin narrative on its face that this was about NATO equates to gobbling his **** with a spoon while ignoring the realities of the situation as well as the disparities between Putin's words and actions both previous and subsequent to the invasion.
You can't accept the Russian narrative without forgoing the conclusions which empirical analysis necessitate in favor of ideological preconceptions. In my opinion, of course.
Sotero-Judges said:Yes, that's true.benchmark said:But then there's the 'other perspective' that NATO caused this war by not repudiating Ukraine's right to choose.Rossticus said:
The quote below about Putin's "obsession with Russian culture" is interesting considering his prior ramblings in his speeches about Russian/Ukrainian common cultural origins. The more this war plays out the more convinced I become that the foundational reasons for this invasion were wholly ideological in that Putin found a Ukraine who wasn't closely aligned with Russia, but instead with "the west" to be unacceptable and tantamount to sacrilege. Ukraine and Ukrainians must exist as Russian or cease to exist, in his mind, in my opinion. Everything Ukrainian, from resources to people to historical artifacts are Russian, therefore they belong to the motherland.WAR: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg revealed that Russia offered not to invade Ukraine if the alliance would agree to deny Zelenskyy membership. Our refusal triggered the war - we are complicit. pic.twitter.com/Rj9jbOoLVA
— @amuse (@amuse) September 18, 2023
I guess there is a question as to who is…speaking for the Ukrainians.
Whoever owns that Twitter really sucks at listening to what is said rather than hearing what he wants. It wasn't "agree to not let Ukraine join NATO or we invade", it was "Don't expand NATO, and remove all military infrastructure from countries that have joined since 1997". Yeah, that's a no from me dog.
Thank you for the clarification, much appreciated.mickeyrig06sq3 said:Sotero-Judges said:Yes, that's true.benchmark said:But then there's the 'other perspective' that NATO caused this war by not repudiating Ukraine's right to choose.Rossticus said:
The quote below about Putin's "obsession with Russian culture" is interesting considering his prior ramblings in his speeches about Russian/Ukrainian common cultural origins. The more this war plays out the more convinced I become that the foundational reasons for this invasion were wholly ideological in that Putin found a Ukraine who wasn't closely aligned with Russia, but instead with "the west" to be unacceptable and tantamount to sacrilege. Ukraine and Ukrainians must exist as Russian or cease to exist, in his mind, in my opinion. Everything Ukrainian, from resources to people to historical artifacts are Russian, therefore they belong to the motherland.WAR: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg revealed that Russia offered not to invade Ukraine if the alliance would agree to deny Zelenskyy membership. Our refusal triggered the war - we are complicit. pic.twitter.com/Rj9jbOoLVA
— @amuse (@amuse) September 18, 2023
I guess there is a question as to who is…speaking for the Ukrainians.
Whoever owns that Twitter really sucks at listening to what is said rather than hearing what he wants. It wasn't "agree to not let Ukraine join NATO or we invade", it was "Don't expand NATO, and remove all military infrastructure from countries that have joined since 1997". Yeah, that's a no from me dog.
Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep.”
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Edward Carrington, January 16, 1787
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Edward Carrington, January 16, 1787
Sotero-Judges said:Yes, that's true.benchmark said:But then there's the 'other perspective' that NATO caused this war by not repudiating Ukraine's right to choose.Rossticus said:
The quote below about Putin's "obsession with Russian culture" is interesting considering his prior ramblings in his speeches about Russian/Ukrainian common cultural origins. The more this war plays out the more convinced I become that the foundational reasons for this invasion were wholly ideological in that Putin found a Ukraine who wasn't closely aligned with Russia, but instead with "the west" to be unacceptable and tantamount to sacrilege. Ukraine and Ukrainians must exist as Russian or cease to exist, in his mind, in my opinion. Everything Ukrainian, from resources to people to historical artifacts are Russian, therefore they belong to the motherland.WAR: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg revealed that Russia offered not to invade Ukraine if the alliance would agree to deny Zelenskyy membership. Our refusal triggered the war - we are complicit. pic.twitter.com/Rj9jbOoLVA
— @amuse (@amuse) September 18, 2023
I guess there is a question as to who is…speaking for the Ukrainians.
Here's a document I know you won't sign and that I will them use your unwillingness to sign this unsignable document as a pretext for me declaring war
It's your fault!
If Russia wanted to "take over" Ukraine, why aren't they launching naval boats and securing beaches along the black sea? They have a better navy than Ukraine. Why aren't they storming the beaches?
10thYrSr said:
If Russia wanted to "take over" Ukraine, why aren't they launching naval boats and securing beaches along the black sea? They have a better navy than Ukraine. Why aren't they storming the beaches?
Because they saw the flagship of the Black Sea fleet get sent to the bottom along with the destruction of two of the ships they would use in such an amphibious landing?
I get your point, sort of, but don't pretend for a second that Russia is not putting an extraordinary effort into this. For them it is worse than Vietnam was for us. Don't pretend they are not trying by acting like they don't want to 'take over'10thYrSr said:
If Russia wanted to "take over" Ukraine, why aren't they launching naval boats and securing beaches along the black sea? They have a better navy than Ukraine. Why aren't they storming the beaches?
Really? You think Russia is capable of beach landings?
Lol
Lol
agsalaska said:I get your point, sort of, but don't pretend for a second that Russia is not putting an extraordinary effort into this. For them it is worse than Vietnam was for us. Don't pretend they are not trying by acting like they don't want to 'take over'10thYrSr said:
If Russia wanted to "take over" Ukraine, why aren't they launching naval boats and securing beaches along the black sea? They have a better navy than Ukraine. Why aren't they storming the beaches?
Vietnam was bad for us because we were crippled by police powers. This isn't comparable.
10thYrSr said:
If Russia wanted to "take over" Ukraine, why aren't they launching naval boats and securing beaches along the black sea? They have a better navy than Ukraine. Why aren't they storming the beaches?
They tried and were unsuccessful. Every time they attempted to stage landing ships for an approach on Odessa they backed off due to to the likelihood of Ukrainian defenses rendering the attempt unsuccessful. Ukraine now has modified missiles and anti-ship drones that could very well result in an embarrassing incident so it's a no-go.
Another thing to remember is that Russia doesn't have Marines in the same sense that we do. They have marine deployable infantry but not "Marines" in the sense that we think of them. Russia, particularly with the Black Sea closed off to additional naval reinforcements is ill equipped to effectively support an effective marine operation. Marine landings are incredibly complex and require tremendous support.
You've got to get past the mindset that Russia is grandly capable of doing whatever they want, and if they don't do it, it's because they're choosing not to. This is not the case. If Russia felt like they could do it successfully then they would. They wanted to hold Kherson. They really want full control of the Black Sea coastline. They weren't capable of the former, and they're not currently capable of the latter.
Agthatbuilds said:
Really? You think Russia is capable of beach landings?
Lol
So serious that it caused the US to spend trillions of dollars to counter their efforts.
winter starts in 3 weeks
Really sobering analysis of the current state of the war. I'm finding a hard time finding many faults with his arguments. He lays out the idea that the terrain and drones/satellite/technology have made the battlefield transparent. It is simply no longer possible to conduct large scale maneuvers and sneak attacks in the current state. Both armies have the capability to see formations clustering and can respond and prepare. Hence, the essential stalemate where small unit, slow grinding assaults have become the best option and any serious breakthrough is unlikely before Winter. He goes on to express concern for wavering Western support and Ukraine having increasing difficulty with recruitment (not certain how true those claims are). He's hoping for peace soon but I worry there's too much hate at this point.
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Russia is attacking a small town of Reni on the bank of the Danube River right across Romania. pic.twitter.com/j6U9h0rVis
— Giorgi Revishvili (@revishvilig) September 18, 2023
Russia must really need conscripts… yeesh…
Rollup:: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1703682544443474149.html
Rollup:: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1703682544443474149.html
1/ A pregnant woman has sentenced to six years in jail in Russia for evading mobilisation, in the first case of its kind. Despite her pregnancy, she was convicted for failing to appear when she was summoned to her unit. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/NmNTa0ZuXL
— ChrisO_wiki (@ChrisO_wiki) September 18, 2023
10thYrSr said:
If Russia wanted to "take over" Ukraine, why aren't they launching naval boats and securing beaches along the black sea? They have a better navy than Ukraine. Why aren't they storming the beaches?
Ukraine sunk some of their ships early on.. Russia knew someone from the west helped provide those weapons to sink those ships.. . they are not going to risk sinking more of their Black Sea navel fleet when their are risk that more big war ships will be sunk, that was a black eye for them to admit that they lost ships to Ukraine. Plus Russia also believes that they can win the territory with land battles (which may not be working as planned now)
Well, that and an amphibious landing is something that takes coordination, training, and practice to successfully pull off, things that's Russia is not exactly good at. They know now not to go anywhere near the Ukrainian coast with surface vessels though.
ABATTBQ11 said:
Well, that and an amphibious landing is something that takes coordination, training, and practice to successfully pull off, things that's Russia is not exactly good at. They know more not to go anywhere near the Ukrainian coast with surface vessels though.
Hey I'm in agreement .. I should not have responded to that original post. As I read on numerous posters tried to explain things to the poster asking the question .. I should have read more before posting.. it seems he's not interested in knowing why Russia is not doings landings .. at least 5 or 6 people already explained it .. my bad
No worries
And yes, I fully intend on chucking that big bitch in a bunker, cellar whatever the Russians hide in with a 3-5 second F1 fuze.
— Ryan O'Leary (@IhateTrenches) September 18, 2023
🔥🔥🔥 Guerrilla attack in the Leningrad region 🇷🇺.
— Jason Jay Smart (@officejjsmart) September 18, 2023
Two 🇷🇺 trucks with military cargos destined for Ukraine 🇺🇦, were destroyed by the partisan group “Right of Force.”
This group has committed a number of arsons against the 🇷🇺military.
Partisanship in Russia is spreading 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/VVj9DtEBM6
UKR Ground Forces Commander Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi stated that UKR forces completely destroyed the combat capabilities of elements of the 72nd Motorized Rifle Brigade, 31st Guards VDV Brigade, & 83rd Guards VDV Brigade during the liberation of Andriivka & Klishchiivka. 🧵1/7 https://t.co/qmzPT5Zk15
— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) September 19, 2023
3/ The 72nd Motorized Brigade has likely been rendered combat ineffective, although the exact level of losses among the two VDV brigades remains unclear.
— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) September 19, 2023
5/ If recent UKR advances south of Bakhmut resulted in the destruction of the 31st & 83rd VDV brigades’ combat capabilities, then Russia will likely laterally redeploy elements of another relatively elite formation to maintain critical elements of the RU defense south of Bakhmut.
— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) September 19, 2023
7/ Lateral redeployments from elsewhere in Ukraine or substantial tactical redeployments of other VDV elements in the #Bakhmut area would therefore indicate that recent Ukrainian advances have resulted in significant Russian losses.
— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) September 19, 2023
#Russian forces defending in western #Zaporizhia Oblast since the start of the counteroffensive have done so largely without operational-level unit rotations and have likely suffered compounding losses. 🧵(1/9) https://t.co/AJ3jfF8cqN https://t.co/YathPmb6ox pic.twitter.com/uxAFCAu4V4
— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) September 19, 2023
I chose to not reply to any specific post because my intent is not to pile on, but the last large, opposed amphibious landing that Russia conducted was at the tail end of World War 2 against Japan? There is a strong chance that everyone involved in that on either side is dead. The US hasn't since Inchon. The British are really the most recent and that was over 40 years ago.
Amphibious landings are hard and were hard even for the US at the end of WW2 with so much practice. And sure, you can study history, but 1945 or even 1982 is not apples to apples with 2023. And consider the fact that NATO is feeding Ukraine intelligence from dozens of satellites, something no defender has ever had.
And once you establish a beachhead, you have to supply those troops. Even if Russia could pull off a landing (which they can't), they wouldn't be able to sustain it.
I think everyone looks at Normandy and the various Pacific landings and forgets how impressive they actually were. The huge build up in Britain of men, equipment, and material over many months, the deception with Patton and Calais, the airborne component, massive air superiority, massive naval superiority, mulberries, and and and. It's easy to say look back and say Allied victory was a forgone conclusion but I think you would have been hard pressed to find anyone thinking that June 5th, 1944 (or even June 7th).
Amphibious landings are hard and were hard even for the US at the end of WW2 with so much practice. And sure, you can study history, but 1945 or even 1982 is not apples to apples with 2023. And consider the fact that NATO is feeding Ukraine intelligence from dozens of satellites, something no defender has ever had.
And once you establish a beachhead, you have to supply those troops. Even if Russia could pull off a landing (which they can't), they wouldn't be able to sustain it.
I think everyone looks at Normandy and the various Pacific landings and forgets how impressive they actually were. The huge build up in Britain of men, equipment, and material over many months, the deception with Patton and Calais, the airborne component, massive air superiority, massive naval superiority, mulberries, and and and. It's easy to say look back and say Allied victory was a forgone conclusion but I think you would have been hard pressed to find anyone thinking that June 5th, 1944 (or even June 7th).
The Russians have attempted to force at least two river crossings now and both BTGs (yall remember when those were a thing?) got butchered. If they cannot coordinate enough to do that...chickencoupe16 said:
I chose to not reply to any specific post because my intent is not to pile on, but the last large, opposed amphibious landing that Russia conducted was at the tail end of World War 2 against Japan? There is a strong chance that everyone involved in that on either side is dead. The US hasn't since Inchon. The British are really the most recent and that was over 40 years ago.
Amphibious landings are hard and were hard even for the US at the end of WW2 with so much practice. And sure, you can study history, but 1945 or even 1982 is not apples to apples with 2023. And consider the fact that NATO is feeding Ukraine intelligence from dozens of satellites, something no defender has ever had.
And once you establish a beachhead, you have to supply those troops. Even if Russia could pull off a landing (which they can't), they wouldn't be able to sustain it.
I think everyone looks at Normandy and the various Pacific landings and forgets how impressive they actually were. The huge build up in Britain of men, equipment, and material over many months, the deception with Patton and Calais, the airborne component, massive air superiority, massive naval superiority, mulberries, and and and. It's easy to say look back and say Allied victory was a forgone conclusion but I think you would have been hard pressed to find anyone thinking that June 5th, 1944 (or even June 7th).
We have also seen a degradation of combat skills among large units of Russian forces. Their Storm Z groups are devolved from the BTGs and those are really only capable of static defense and swarm attacks from what we have seen to date. It is commonly believed that that is why the BTG model of force organization went away. They can't operate at that level effectively. The VDV may have the unit cohesion and training capacity to attempt a large operation like a landing, but those guys have also suffered heavy losses since the first minutes of the war at Hostomel and are also probably significantly degraded. It was wild to see those VDV troopers laying in piles, shot to pieces in the areas surrounding Kyiv and Hostomel. Some of their best regular units just...gone. Whole squads smeared across roads and fields.
I say all that to agree with you and highlight that I doubt Russia has the command and control to do anything amphibious in a scale that would make a strategic difference. They also tend to be all or nothing.
Plus we had no choice in WW2 but to do amphibious landings. Russia has a front line several hundred miles with their country behind it and they can't even advance along that front.
Russians aren't attempting to advance, and replicate Stalin's mistakes from WW2:docb said:
Plus we had no choice in WW2 but to do amphibious landings. Russia has a front line several hundred miles with their country behind it and they can't even advance along that front.
The casualties discussion toward the end is a pertinent update/consideration, as are the claimed strike overnight on DU munitions warehouse around/about southern Kiev.Quote:
There have been numerous anecdotal reports from both sides (Donbass "rebels" and AFU) that newly recruited, untrained "conscripts" take only a matter of days to learn the ropes and become relatively seasoned troops on the frontline.
But don't get too carried away: no one's saying they'll ever be as good as a highly trained professional soldier who's been in the force for several yearsbut simply that the variance is not as great as people like to pretend, and having contract vs. conscript doesn't give you an instant "win" button.
A unit/formation of conscripts being driven hard by a merciless commander can in some ways end up being even more effective than the so-called "professional" force because the particular unit may exhibit greater fear of their command/er than even dying and will do feats of arms that professional troops would shy away from or consider crazy, like storming trenches head on, which can often lead to success simply by way of the sheer brazen boldness of the action. It's true that fortune favors the bolddespite heavier losses, sometimes such a force will actually be more effective.
There's an illustrative episode in WW2 which can be used to compare to the current conflict in showing the pitfalls of conscript forces. It was Operation Fredericus also known as the Second Battle of Kharkov in 1942. After the victories of the 1941 winter, Stalin got overly confident and thought he could overextend and continue brutally pushing the Germans back. However, many of the new Soviet recruits who took over for those who died in the Battle of Moscow, etc., were fresh conscripts with limited training.
Stalin got cocky, ignored his generals who urged him to dig in defensively instead, and made a big push around Kharkov which formed a 'salient' or bulge that Germany managed to exploit. Due to this massive blunder, three entire army groups of 250k Soviet men were wiped out. However, it was said to be a very educational moment for Stalin, who from that point on began to trust his generals, and many of the subsequent campaigns owed their success to that one tragically edifying moment.
The orc Navy did not have a large force capable of forcing and then supporting a large scale landing operation at the beginning of the war, and when they tried to stage craft for moderate scale operations, they were thwarted by coastal missile batteries and long range coastal artillery that attacked the ships before they could approach the coast. Having real time intelligence from the NATO drones flying over the Black Sea removed any element of surprise the orcs might have had. Afte the loss of the Moskva and having several landing ships damaged, the orcs never seriously considered any landing operations afterwards.chickencoupe16 said:
I chose to not reply to any specific post because my intent is not to pile on, but the last large, opposed amphibious landing that Russia conducted was at the tail end of World War 2 against Japan? There is a strong chance that everyone involved in that on either side is dead. The US hasn't since Inchon. The British are really the most recent and that was over 40 years ago.
Amphibious landings are hard and were hard even for the US at the end of WW2 with so much practice. And sure, you can study history, but 1945 or even 1982 is not apples to apples with 2023. And consider the fact that NATO is feeding Ukraine intelligence from dozens of satellites, something no defender has ever had.
And once you establish a beachhead, you have to supply those troops. Even if Russia could pull off a landing (which they can't), they wouldn't be able to sustain it.
I think everyone looks at Normandy and the various Pacific landings and forgets how impressive they actually were. The huge build up in Britain of men, equipment, and material over many months, the deception with Patton and Calais, the airborne component, massive air superiority, massive naval superiority, mulberries, and and and. It's easy to say look back and say Allied victory was a forgone conclusion but I think you would have been hard pressed to find anyone thinking that June 5th, 1944 (or even June 7th).
As others have said, landing operations are not something you learn to do under fire on the fly. You have to practice heavily and learn to use combined arms to suppress defenses or the landing troops get massacred. We practice all the time, the orcs do not. Even with our practice, landings into defended coastline have been some of the bloodiest battles in the history of our armed forces.
The Russians are not attempting to advance because they can't advance. Actually they are mustering everything they can at the front lines to keep their teeth from getting kicked in. It's going to be a good time to see some Abrams and F-16s on the battlefield.
Russian's aren't attempting to advance because it's intuitively obvious it would be suicidal. Apparently, even anoymous bloggers also agree.nortex97 said:
Russians aren't attempting to advance, and replicate Stalin's mistakes from WW2:
Their ability to advance would seem to have departed with the Wagner troops. Wagner seemed to be the only marginally effective force they had at trying to advance since the initial invasion was stopped. And they were mostly only successful because they had a bunch of prison conscripts to throw at battles like Iranian human wave attacks.benchmark said:Russian's aren't attempting to advance because it's intuitively obvious it would be suicidal. Apparently, even anoymous bloggers also agree.nortex97 said:
Russians aren't attempting to advance, and replicate Stalin's mistakes from WW2:
txags92 said:Their ability to advance would see to have departed with the Wagner troops. Wagner seemed to be the only marginally effective force they had at trying to advance since the initial invasion was stopped. And they were mostly only successful because they had a bunch of prison conscripts to throw at battles like Iranian human wave attacks.benchmark said:Russian's aren't attempting to advance because it's intuitively obvious it would be suicidal. Apparently, even anoymous bloggers also agree.nortex97 said:
Russians aren't attempting to advance, and replicate Stalin's mistakes from WW2:
They actually are doing some small local attacks around Bakhmut lately. Thinking to buy time and keep the Ukes off guard and disrupted until the snows and things can go more static. Those attacks have been largely ineffectual though with high casualties all around. Both sides claiming Russians have been using previous storm tactics again that is getting their units chopped up pretty bad. It's where the recently shifted and heavily depleted VDV forces down south came from. It's also where those recent brigades were that were claimed to be knocked combat ineffective lately by both Ukraine and Russian milbloggers. The bloggers were even saying that recently, artillerymen with no ammo for the big guns were being sent into the attack waves and the frustration of the local commanders having to corral them and their nonexistent combat skills. Not sure if that part is true but would not surprise me either given their history.
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