Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Kronik85]

Your request for sources is reasonable but my analysis is not drawn from a single source or from some official strategic outline (other than what Lloyd Austin explicitly stated at the start), but an interpretation of many tiny bits of information from many sources that builds a larger picture. You are welcome to challenge my analysis, and provide your perspective on this, please. I have not found anything other than what I wrote to fit with all the pieces on the "board" so to speak but again I am interested in your analysis of the war and our response.

The views of American officials and senators during interviews and podcasts are valuable but they often represent a part of the larger picture mainly aimed for the public to consume. It’s not a conspiracy or trying to sound important – it is how it works, simply. Otherwise there would be no need for secrecy and all plans would be readily available. The details of the strategy in a fluid and complex conflict like this are rarely laid out in black and white in public by officials. In fact, in some cases the officials talking to media might not even know the larger picture.

My post were my views (as all my posts are) based on what I can read between the lines of what is known and what facts there are. We can observe that:

1. We are slow with deliveries, even the ones we have promised. Except air defense.

2. No one among the allies have actually threatened help to Ukraine in practice that would make russia defeat them, regardless of rhetoric or actions that might suggest otherwise.

3. Despite what some think, nuclear escalation management is indeed something that officials worry about, albeit not as the main thing nor did I want that to be the sole focus of my post.

4. We want russia to never be able to do anything like this for the foreseeable future.

5. It aligns with historical patterns in international relations. Consider the Cold War:

The United States and its allies employed a strategy aimed at gradually limit the Soviet Union's influence and power. This shows how complex geopolitical strategies often plays out over time through a combination of direct actions and subtle maneuvers. However, the current conflict is a bit like this on speed, necessitating even quicker and dynamic response. Note that we’re only at the end of the beginning of a long conflict, though, and things like sanctions will wither away at russia more and more.

That said, I understand that this style of analysis doesn’t resonate with everyone. It’s definitely not the only way to look at the situation but I feel it provides another perspective that is lacking – instead of only relying on the straightforward narratives we often hear.

My only issue was that you stated this with absolute confidence, so I was assuming you would have something beyond your own analysis to be that confident.

However it's a plausible theory, I am not saying otherwise and I can't disprove it beyond pointing out that no one has openly said it. It will take me some time to research Lloyd Austin but they seem very credible so I'll try and find the time to see what their opinions are.

If I was to try and change your mind I'd point out that what you seem to be suggesting looks like a really bad strategy long term. If your opinion is that the US is pulling a Star Wars V.2 and under supplying Ukraine to maximise damage to Russia then even if we assume that Ukraine has infinite access to weapons and tech it has a very finite supply of men, it cannot fight indefinitely and any territorial gains made by Russia are unacceptable to broader US foreign policy positions, namely the "rules based order".

The Russia Ukraine conflict is important because we can't have Russia set the precedent that Nuclear Powers can just annex shit, Russia MUST lose this conflict, or we will see a global race for Nuclear armament.

This conflict isn't in a place where the US can just put it hands on the scales and roll Russia over once it thinks Russia has suffered enough, so I disagree with the premise of your analysis.

What I find more plausible is that The West isn't doing enough, quick enough is because The West is in a place where it would rather do anything other than throw money into a war with Russia. Globalisation is collapsing, European economies are stuttering and Populism is gaining momentum. It isn't an easy political landscape for governments to throw billions at anything, nevermind a foreign policy issue. Biden is posting 5% quarterly growth figures and he might still lose in 2024, this isn't a good environment for governments to go balls deep in Ukraine.

That's my 2 cents anyway, sorry that's it's not particularly sexy.

/Edit: Forgot to insert my position on Putin's long term strat and again I'm very boring and think that he's hoping the truly massive amount of elections around the EU and most importantly the US brings more sympathetic leaders into play. His biggest win condition is a Trump win and US pull out. Smaller gains would be EU right wing Populists gaining power and pulling support.

[Easo]

And what if Ukraine indeed ends up losing, doing massive crippling concessions? You will come here to laugh about genocided ukrainians, crippled, ravaged, decimated country that might never recover?

Tells more about you than us when you so desperately want to be right in this matter, cheering for a terrorist nazi Russia because "you were right".

No. I will maybe have a small sad laugh about you and others, though. It's not like you really care what exactly are my views, anyway.

.............

Well at least someone gave an actual answer, even if without an idea how to stop the stalemate.
P.S.
8. Not a replacement, but increase in size. A very different thing.

Yes the EU fucked up the response majorly and I will never forgive any of our politicians for how we nickel and dimed the support for Ukraine.

We fucked it up from day 1... in 2014.

That would be correct. The overhyped sanctions would have had a much larger impact, if nothing else. Russia spent 8 years to improve it's situation instead.

At this point, fuck it. Lets find out how many of their nukes actually work.

No.

The Russian production numbers are absolute horseshit.

Are you one of those who made grand maths on the internet which showed how they will be out of tanks by the end of 2024 (no, but feel free to check one year later), how they will be out of missiles multiple times (no) or how there are only enough Lancet drones for one month this summer (LOL)?

Stoltenberg lied, eh? I mean, he is a high ranking Western official, they do lie as well xD

[Ulmita]

The people here were seriously discussing if the meatcube was real. That alone says enough about who exactly believes in an insane propaganda and stereotypes.

Yet still the question stands - where is the discussion about recent events and "discoveries"? Nothing but the usual memeposting and cherrypicking. No, not even recent - last few months already by this point, if not more.
Where are the fucking guns? Where is the fucking ammo? Where's the damn money from the OUR GDP IS SO MUCH BIGGER countries?

Existing deliveries were not enough for the counteroffensive. So far nothing even similar in size has been announced much less delivered and even if it were why would it work second time?
How, exactly, can Ukraine win in the current situation?

You do not have to have answers but if you actually care you should at least ask the questions.

The whole thing was weird from the beginning, not just the counteroffensive. The west should had given Ukraine everything from the first 2-3 months, but instead we gradually gave more advanced weaponry and greater quantity.

My guess is that everyone is afraid of a full out RU-West war and for good reasons. Yep there are weapons that haven't been used yet, yep Russia (edit) has performed very limited mobilization (vs population that can be mobilized), yep CN most probably won't stand idle in such war and risk having RU broken up to multiple nuclear armed countries with some of them being with western appointed governments (aka have NATO on their 12)

This war is obviously turned into attrition. Time is on the side of Russia.


Also on other news, there is some public opinion massaging going on lately from high political and military figures.
https://www.politico.eu/article/nato...-from-ukraine/

[Saradain]

No. I will maybe have a small sad laugh about you and others, though. It's not like you really care what exactly are my views, anyway.

Poor me, not caring about a russian fog of war specialist's "views". Glad to hear me having a possibility of being wrong on the internet is worth the genocided adults and kidnapped kids alike

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The whole thing was weird from the beginning, not just the counteroffensive. The west should had given Ukraine everything from the first 2-3 months, but instead we gradually gave more advanced weaponry and greater quantity.

My guess is that everyone is afraid of a full out RU-West war and for good reasons. Yep there are weapons that haven't been used yet, yep Russia hasn't even mobilized yet, yep CN most probably won't stand idle in such war and risk having RU broken up to multiple nuclear armed countries with some of them being with western appointed governments (aka have NATO on their 12)

This war is obviously turned into attrition. Time is on the side of Russia.


Also on other news, there is some public opinion massaging going on lately from high political and military figures.
https://www.politico.eu/article/nato...-from-ukraine/

The clearest, most shameless propaganda from you so far.

[Ulmita]

Poor me, not caring about a russian fog of war specialist's "views". Glad to hear me having a possibility of being wrong on the internet is worth the genocided adults and kidnapped kids alike

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The clearest, most shameless propaganda from you so far.

Sorry, what i ment was a full out country wide, mandatoty 18-60 mobilization (what happens during wars). I've edited the post to reflect that.

[Corvus]

russia already has a major shortage of workers, to the point business are closing because everyone is being sucked into the war machine, either to die or to build. A mobilisation of that level would crash the economy.

[Ulmita]

russia already has a major shortage of workers, to the point business are closing because everyone is being sucked into the war machine, either to die or to build. A mobilisation of that level would crash the economy.

I am not sure about it. The only thing i could find on the matter is the following piece:

https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-d...ilization-mean

"Some have speculated that this will severely disrupt the Russian economy, but that is unlikely. Even if 300,000 troops are mobilized, that represents only .4 percent of the Russian labor force."

Mind you that this article is from 2022. However, i doubt that they have mobilized 1% of their total labour force in total.

On the previous subject. I feel that Ukraine is getting thrown under the bus. If only Europe / US had sent everything from first two months (tanks, airplanes, etc) in adequate quantities, this war would've been history. The question is why haven't we already?

[KrayZ33]

I am not sure about it. The only thing i could find on the matter is the following piece:

https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-d...ilization-mean

"Some have speculated that this will severely disrupt the Russian economy, but that is unlikely. Even if 300,000 troops are mobilized, that represents only .4 percent of the Russian labor force."

Mind you that this article is from 2022. However, i doubt that they have mobilized 1% of their total labour force in total.

On the previous subject. I feel that Ukraine is getting thrown under the bus. If only Europe / US had sent everything from first two months (tanks, airplanes, etc) in adequate quantities, this war would've been history. The question is why haven't we already?

I'm certainly not an expert, but some points in this article sound really stupid to me.


"It is important to keep in mind just how small the Russian forces are. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union maintained a military of about 3.5 million. That military is long gone. Today, Russia maintains a total military of about 900,000, of which 280,000 are in the army.

To put the Russian force into perspective, the United States has an active-duty force of 1.3 million and organized, trained reserves of 800,000. Thus, the United States has about twice the readily available trained personnel that Russia does."



That alone is stupid.
US has more than twice the population and it's known to have an extremely large force. So if Russia has half of that, it means it has %-wise, more people in the military than the US. (not to mention how freaking *poor* Russia is GDP wise compared to the US.)
And it compares Soviet Union military with Russia military?
You know, the Soviet Union which also had more than twice the amount of people in them? Does the writer of that article believe that the soviet union is todays Russia in terms of population and war effort?

It's also weird, considering that when I google Russias force, I get vastly different numbers.

Let me tell you, when any european country, *all of a sudden*, lost 100-150.000 (1/3 or 1/2 of that 300.000, because the population is 1/3 or 1/2) people you'd feel that in the economy.
And does the guy who wrote this even realize how much money this costs?
Some "advisors" are kinda weird.

[Lahis]

It's not as simple as 'Oh one day Putin suddenly has imperial ambitions and decided to invade Ukraine.'

Putin has always had imperial ambitions. He ha just gotten old enough to act on them in desperate attempt to leave his name in history books as the Great Russian Emperor he thinks he is.

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One of main points is that NATO has been continuously expanding into Eastern Europe, incorporating several countries that were once part of the USSR. This is a point of contention between the US and Russia, dating back to the 1990s when Boris Yeltsin clashed with Bill Clinton over it after USSR collapsed.

NATO doesn't forcibly recruit anyone. Former USSR countries wanted to join NATO because they didn't want to be invaded my Russia. Russia's actions has since proven their fears legit.

[Vankrys]

It's all fine and dandy to give Putin the option to save face and convince his people that victory still is within Russia's grasp, but it would yield to absolutely nothing if, under the table, away from the public eye, US diplomats wouldn't have an open dialog with to Russian diplomats.

And what needs to be said (that the public may never know) is that Russia will never win this war, that Russia needs to find an exit strategy right now, the greater the delay, the worst it's gonna be for Russia.

But the Ukraine will not lose, this has to be made crystal clear to Russian diplomats still willing to save their country, so they can convince Putin.

[Gabriel]

It's all fine and dandy to give Putin the option to save face and convince his people that victory still is within Russia's grasp, but it would yield to absolutely nothing if, under the table, away from the public eye, US diplomats wouldn't have an open dialog with to Russian diplomats.

And what needs to be said (that the public may never know) is that Russia will never win this war, that Russia needs to find an exit strategy right now, the greater the delay, the worst it's gonna be for Russia.

But the Ukraine will not lose, this has to be made crystal clear to Russian diplomats still willing to save their country, so they can convince Putin.

Hanging Putin from the Kremlin wall has always been an option for them.

[Vankrys]

This war is obviously turned into attrition. Time is on the side of Russia.

Ukraine has a 50 trillions dollars GDP alliance behind them, Russia economy is collapsing, Russian industry is dying without western imports.

Think again.

And no, China does not want to get dragged into a war it hasn't chosen.

[ringpriest]

Ukraine has a 50 trillions dollars GDP alliance behind them, Russia economy is collapsing, Russian industry is dying without western imports.

Russia is operating under soft, partial sanctions from the West. It needs Western imports and support to function, but it is getting them, just less and more indirectly that Putin's regime would like. Hard, complete sanctions would grind Russian war production (and the rest of its economy) to a standstill in weeks... which no one wants, because it would panic Putin's regime.

[PosPosPos]

And no, China does not want to get dragged into a war it hasn't chosen.

To add to this, they are already floundering from systemic mismanagement and governance leading threatening a full-blown socioeconomic collapse, they aren't in a state to actually participate even if they wanted to.

[The Stormbringer]

Anything but a total victory for Russia is a gigantic embarrassment for them. In my opinion neither side will probably win with the terms they want. There will be movements of land here and there, but the land is quite static and the cost to secure new land by brute force requires an insane cost.

Something tells me it would've been much cheaper overall, especially in lives lost, for Russia to have just asked to buy land from Ukraine instead of going to war--sorry, a three day special operation--with them.

[Vampiregenesis]

I don't follow this war anymore but I'm surprised that even the most loyal pro-ukraine trolls on the web have started to whine that Ukraine will lose because the west doesn't support it enough and even Stoltenberg had made a statement that we should wait for bad news regarding Ukraine war. Several American generals blame Ukraine for failing producing enough ammunitions. It seems that Russia's production far exceeds that of Ukraine's and the west support is starting to fade and can't keep up anymore.

Not sure how this would end up but I feel bad for the Ukrainians who believed in western lies and got betrayed and died, they were pushed into this offensive that they were never ready to complete successfully without an airforce and far more support. Unless all of these statements are lies and a mindgame, east Ukraine is lost and maybe more will soon follow.

The west has failed miserably and none will ever believe their propaganda and alliances anymore, some news sites that were pro-Russia and looked very trollish now look legit.

[Edge-]

The west has failed miserably and none will ever believe their propaganda and alliances anymore, some news sites that were pro-Russia and looked very trollish now look legit.

This is quite the unverified claim. You feel pretty confident people will just like, take your claims at face value and not ask for verification or anything?

[Vankrys]

Russia is operating under soft, partial sanctions from the West. It needs Western imports and support to function, but it is getting them, just less and more indirectly that Putin's regime would like. Hard, complete sanctions would grind Russian war production (and the rest of its economy) to a standstill in weeks... which no one wants, because it would panic Putin's regime.

yes, black market of high tech parts has developed in country in central Asia, but that also means that manufacturing costs are rising significantly. Russia's budget has a large deficit. Once Putin war chest is depleted, the Russian society will collapse. Not a lot of bank will be willing to lend money to Russia and risk western sanctions, and after all the seizing of assets Putin has done, near zero investor will be interested in capital venture in Russia.

[Vampiregenesis]

This is quite the unverified claim. You feel pretty confident people will just like, take your claims at face value and not ask for verification or anything?

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/st...81169675690116
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/st...67935040131373

I have more if you want.

[Edge-]

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/st...81169675690116
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/st...67935040131373

I have more if you want.

I'm unsure why you linked this. I'm not disagreeing with the realistic assessment that western allies might lose interest over time (which frustrates me to no end, this is one of the best investments these nations could make to counter Russian global fuckery) or that Russia has a real chance of winning - that's always been vey real.

I'm asking about the links to propaganda, and more specifically what pro-Russian news sites suddenly look legit?