Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Draco-Onis]

I'll out on a limb and say that Ukraine will get back to where it was before this war started sooner than Russia does. That's even with all the rebuilding that's required.

I don't think rebuilding is going to be the major issue for Ukraine, you have a country right now flooded with weapons that means a lot of very bad people have their hands on military grade weapons. It's not a problem now because all the guns are pointed at the Russians but when things come down these groups are not going to simply hand over their guns because the fight is over.

A lot of countries have suffered very bad fates in the same situation. When there is no longer a big bad to kill people turn their weapons on each other for their own causes.

[Afrospinach]

An ammo depot in Belgorod a Russian city close to the Ukrainian border just went up in flames with a lot of explosions. So far little is known about what caused it. Some claim Ukrainian artillery hit the depot. Could also be sabotage or just an accident.

The Ukrainians have some kind of intermediate range missile system, it is what they sunk that landing ship with and they have apparently been attacking Russian airfields with it for some time.

Seems like a possible candidate.

[Zaydin]

Well, it's about 5-8 km inside the border so it could be hit I guess. I guess a ammo depot/temporary army base is a valid target though?

As for admitting? Yeah they would, if it served their purposes.

An ammo depot absolutely is a valid military target given, you know, it's an ammo depot. Same with military installations like army bases or airbases.

Russia is going to be very reluctant to admit Ukraine managed to hit a target inside Russia, even if it was just across the border, because if Ukraine is starting to shoot back at Russia in that manner it's going to be bringing the war right onto the Russian peoples doorsteps for the first time in a month, experiencing just a fraction of the hell that Putler has been putting the Ukrainian people through for the past month.

[PhaelixWW]

The Ukrainians have some kind of intermediate range missile system, it is what they sunk that landing ship with and they have apparently been attacking Russian airfields with it for some time.

Seems like a possible candidate.

They also have an awful lot of intelligence being fed to them by outside countries.

[Vorkreist]

Any peace treaty that doesn't include some severe limitations on Russia and guarantees of a Ukraine-West defense treaty is simply a way to give Russia time to regroup, rearm and invade again.

The no Nato only EU membership talk is exactly that. Putin knows it would take quite a few years for Ukraine to be admitted in EU in the best scenarios and even then it won't provide much defense while a Nato membership could be ramped up faster with immediate effects in case of conflict.

[No Kings Voter]

Ongoing in: They've got vast stockpiles of replacements and components ... seriously!

Elements of Russia’s Elite 1st Guards Tank Army Withdrawn From Ukraine
The 1st Guards Tank Army is one of the most elite formations of the Russian Armed Forces. The 2nd Guards Motor Rifle ‘Tamanskaya’ Division and 4th Guards Tank ‘Kantemirovskaya’ Division are considered to be the best equipped, trained, and have the greatest offensive capability out of all of Russia’s armored formations. The majority of the 1st Guards Tank Army is equipped with modern T-80U main battle tanks (MBT) that some suggest are on par with Western MBTs. However, the performance of the 1st Guards Tank Army in Ukraine has been somewhat underwhelming.

Somewhat confirms observations from the first week. The first echelon of the invasion were not prepared. There was no plan for 2nd or 3rd echelons. This paragraph really jumps out.

According to Ukrainian military intelligence, the 1st Guards Tank Army began setting up a repair base near the village of Klimove, in the Bryansk region (35 km from the border of Ukraine), in order to restore tanks from the reserve stockpiles. However, many of these tanks are lacking crucial components such as optics, radios, or even engine parts. Of the stockpile tanks allotted to the 4th Guards Tank Division only one out of ten is relatively operational. The commander of the 13th Tank Regiment, 4th GTD reportedly shot himself after receiving this news, thought this has not been independently verified.

[Magnagarde]

To their benefit, probably.

The Ukrainian aviation, rocket, nuclear and overall military industry were a lot better than the ones many EU and NATO states have. Ukraine won't be better off when the dust is settled, even if they take up Western equipment.

[Breccia]

An ammo depot in Belgorod a Russian city close to the Ukrainian border just went up in flames with a lot of explosions. So far little is known about what caused it. Some claim Ukrainian artillery hit the depot. Could also be sabotage or just an accident.

Wait, what?

Shell hits military camp in Russia, most likely from Ukrainian side

A shell hit a temporary Russian military camp near the border with Ukraine late on Tuesday, Tass news agency said and cited a source as saying preliminary data showed it had been fired from the Ukrainian side.

Tass issued the report shortly after a senior local official reported a series of explosions outside the city of Belgorod, close to the border with Ukraine.

Video posted online from two local Belgorod news outlets appeared to show ammunition blowing up in the distance but Reuters was not immediately able to confirm this was the case.

Tass cited an emergency services source as saying four people had been injured in the blast.

Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov earlier said in an online post that the blasts occurred near the village of Krasny Oktyabr, about 30 km (19 miles) southwest of Belgorod. He did not give a reason for the blasts and promised an update later.

Belgorod is 80 km (50 miles) north of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which Russian forces have bombarded heavily in recent weeks.

There are several possibilities. "It wasn't a shell" doesn't change the options much.

1) It was a Ukrainian counter-attack, designed to keep Russian troops from re-arming.
2) It was a Russian shell, they are really that poor shots.
3) It was a false flag attack (Russian or ally) This includes "Tass is lying". Tass is Russian media.
4) It was a third party helping out the Ukrainians.

I think most people assume it's #1. Normally I'd be concerned that a Ukrainian counter-attack would get Russia to escalate, but four weeks into this quagmire I don't know that they can. I guess they could use gas or nukes, but they could do that anyhow.

I don't think #2 is all that realistic. You'd have to be a Stormtrooper trained by Zapp Brannigan, and drunk, to hit the wrong fucking country by accident, let along an explosive part of it.

#3 I'm willing to entertain, but I think it's unlikely. If Putin wanted to drum up support for his failure of a war and escalation, I honestly think he would blow up his own civilians. An ammo dump is a military target and in theory he wanted those bullets to be safely stored in Ukrainian children.

#4 I think is only really feasable if it wasn't actually shelling, and the video suggests it was. But I can totally see some conveniently rogue operators planting some bombs in an ammo dump. I'm guessing it was guarded by the same crack military team Putin's using to invade a country a third his size and losing to mud. I rather hope this isn't the case, if caught, it's an excuse for Putin to strike back at other countries covertly.

[Forogil]

A simple question about geography.

When dividing Ukraine why are people discussing it in terms of Korea and their North/South division, and not the more obvious German East/West division during the cold war?
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/...io-for-ukraine

Or is that too soon for Putin?

[PhaelixWW]

The Ukrainian aviation, rocket, nuclear and overall military industry were a lot better than the ones many EU and NATO states have. Ukraine won't be better off when the dust is settled, even if they take up Western equipment.

How much of that "better" relied specifically on Russian equipment and not on Ukrainian skill and effort, though?

Economically and militarily, integrating with Western equipment and Western partners has a much higher ceiling than with their Russian counterparts.

Especially if trade between Russia and Ukraine is going to be pretty much non-existent for a while.

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A simple question about geography.

When dividing Ukraine why are people discussing it in terms of Korea and their North/South division, and not the more obvious German East/West division during the cold war?

Because then there'd have to be a wall.

Duh.

[Forogil]

Because then there'd have to be a wall.

Oh didn't think of that! But that was only around West-Berlin and not really along the entire border as I recall.

[Edge-]

Because then there'd have to be a wall.

Duh.

Careful now, you'll get Republicans all hot and bothered.

[Magnagarde]

How much of that "better" relied specifically on Russian equipment and not on Ukrainian skill and effort, though?

Economically and militarily, integrating with Western equipment and Western partners has a much higher ceiling than with their Russian counterparts.

Especially if trade between Russia and Ukraine is going to be pretty much non-existent for a while.

I agree that it will be better for Ukraine if they integrate with the West technologically and militarily, but I don't see that happening within any peace agreement's framework because any and all peace agreements that they're discussing seem to be specifically excluding said technological integration. If they can't integrate themselves with the West militarily, despite seemingly having to concede certain territories to Russia in order for peace to take effect in the first place, then Ukraine will only stagnate.

While a lot of Ukrainian technology depended on certain levels of Russian contribution, it had a lot of sectors that were self-sufficient to an extent that would satisfy their own needs and beyond. I'm certain that, had Russia not started this aggression on Ukraine, they would've taken whatever technology they inherited to higher levels, especially considering they were increasing their ties to the West since 2014. The modernization of a number of industries would obviously happen much faster if it happens under partnership with the West.

[PhaelixWW]

I agree that it will be better for Ukraine if they integrate with the West technologically and militarily, but I don't see that happening within any peace agreement's framework because any and all peace agreements that they're discussing seem to be specifically excluding said technological integration. If they can't integrate themselves with the West militarily, despite seemingly having to concede certain territories to Russia in order for peace to take effect in the first place, then Ukraine will only stagnate.

Yeah, that negotiation stipulation would seem to be a non-starter, for the exact reason you mentioned. If they can't integrate with Western equipment, then they'll essentially be forced to be an unwilling vassal state to Russia anyway. There's no way Ukraine would agree to that kind of deal.

While a lot of Ukrainian technology depended on certain levels of Russian contribution, it had a lot of sectors that were self-sufficient to an extent that would satisfy their own needs and beyond. I'm certain that, had Russia not started this aggression on Ukraine, they would've taken whatever technology they inherited to higher levels, especially considering they were increasing their ties to the West since 2014. The modernization of a number of industries would obviously happen much faster if it happens under partnership with the West.

Yeah, but it a very morbid sense, losing the bulk of their legacy Soviet-era systems and starting fresh with an all Western (or a combination of original/Western) framework will be a beneficial thing... in the long run. But obviously not so much in the short run.

[Kaleredar]

The Ukrainian aviation, rocket, nuclear and overall military industry were a lot better than the ones many EU and NATO states have. Ukraine won't be better off when the dust is settled, even if they take up Western equipment.

The US spends half of Russia’s entire GDP on the military every year.

I think “the West” is the safer bet here. Especially considering “the west” also didn’t try to invade them.

[Rasulis]

I don't think rebuilding is going to be the major issue for Ukraine, you have a country right now flooded with weapons that means a lot of very bad people have their hands on military grade weapons. It's not a problem now because all the guns are pointed at the Russians but when things come down these groups are not going to simply hand over their guns because the fight is over.

A lot of countries have suffered very bad fates in the same situation. When there is no longer a big bad to kill people turn their weapons on each other for their own causes.

I think the west will feel obligated to help Ukraine rebuild the country. It will be up to Ukrainians to take advantage of the help and make something out of it. We have seen successful countries that in the past had received substantial US fundings, such as Japan, Germany, Israel and South Korea. At the other end of the spectrum, we have Afghanistan and Iraq.

[PhaelixWW]

For anyone who hasn't been paying attention to Twitter, this account is a goldmine:

[Kaleredar]

I think the west will feel obligated to help Ukraine rebuild the country. It will be up to Ukrainians to take advantage of the help and make something out of it. We have seen successful countries that in the past had received substantial US fundings, such as Japan, Germany, Israel and South Korea. At the other end of the spectrum, we have Afghanistan and Iraq.

I think it more likely that Ukraine would fall into the former camp of rebuilding success stories, rather than the latter failures.

The complicated regional situation in Iraq and Afghanistan predate the US’ involvement and have many more ideological, theological and historical layers than a country “simply” ravaged by a war, as the former countries were.

The only issue is that the proximity to Russia and the kremlin’s insistence in meddling with bad faith candidates in the US could mean that aid might not be applied as directly or consistently as needed.

[Corvus]

Ukraine doesn't seem to be buying Russian claims of withdrawals around Kyiv and Chernihiv. They are of the opinion that any movements are rotation of individual units and the claims are simply ruses. Given past Russia history I can't say that I blame them for that belief.

And despite the ammo dump explosion not really being that near to Belgorod, people are reporting the war suddenly became a little too real for the people living their and they started to panic on social media, that the city was being evacuated, that the Ukrainians were coming, that they had cut off the roads and were shooting people trying to get out. You know, the stuff they no doubt know their troops are doing.

Also reports of Russian forces looking like they were planting explosives at the base of the bridge out of Kherson. Blowing bridges is kind of what you do if you are thinking that you may have to pull out given that Kherson is on the west side of the river.

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Good lord, if this one is true - Anonymous has claimed that they hacked Russia's Federal Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) infrastructure on Saturday morning and erased all documents, files, aircraft registration data and mails from the servers. In total, about 65 terabytes of data was erased.

The best part? Russia blamed it on a malfunction of the electronic document flow system of Rosaviatsia and that they have switch over to a pen and paper system. Including snail mail. Oh, and apparently no back up of the data exists because they didn't have the funding for it.

[Breccia]

And despite the ammo dump explosion not really being that near to Belgorod, people are reporting the war suddenly became a little too real for the people living their and they started to panic on social media, that the city was being evacuated, that the Ukrainians were coming, that they had cut off the roads and were shooting people trying to get out. You know, the stuff they no doubt know their troops are doing.

I do hope this doesn't play into Putin's hands, giving him something to increase support. I don't think it's realistic Ukrainian forces, official or not, are really in Russia.