Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

https://twitter.com/Blake_Allen13/status/1510340727489892357?cxt=HHwWisC4_fa45_U...

But compucomp said Putin was justified because apparently all 2.6 billion people in China and India support him.

It's time for NATO to send in armored cars, tanks, anti ship missiles, helicopters and fighter jets. Sending in offensive weapons is the only way to prevent a genocide.

Anything that Ukraine asks for, NATO and the EU should give.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

https://twitter.com/Mariana_Betsa/status/1510966912724963328

Where Kadyrov's Chechen thugs in the area at the time? This seems like something that his thugs would excel at.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

The soft underbelly of Europe.
https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1511724733326372866

Can we (rest of NATO, US, Poland, I don't care who does it) do a quick 1968 Czechoslovakia and get rid of Orban? If we're in Hungary we might as well take out Serbia while we're at it. We didn't finish the job in 1999.

The old Warsaw Pact members such as Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Romania have all been great at helping Ukraine and supporting a tough anti Russian stance.

Hungary was a victim of Russian imperialism in the 1956 Hungarian revolution, yet their leader is autocratic and is friendly with Putin. 

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

https://mobile.twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1513277658037071872

I was worried that the Ukrainian counterattacks would be small and local, but the counteroffensive in the Mykolaiv and Kherson Oblasts is impressive. There is a good chance Kherson is liberated soon.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Heroes:

It shouldn't be held against them if they surrender. They've already lasted nearly seven times longer than the fabled "Brest Fortress" Soviet defenders of 1941.  

How many Ukrainian soldiers are risk of being captured in Mariupol?

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Maybe it will, sooner or later, dawn on at least some in Russia that making all sorts of scary threats without the ability to follow them up is actually counter productive?

This is a good point and leads neatly to a very important one: the present Russian leadership (largely comprised of people in their late 60s and early 70s: the remains of the last Komsomol cohort to reach middle management before the Collapse) act as if they had the resources available to them that Soviet leaders had forty years ago. And they just don't.

After the Soviet collapse, Russia lost half of it's population. It was a catastrophic loss for Russia to lose the breadbasket of Ukraine as well as the rest of the former USSR.

Without Ukraine, Russia is a great power, with Ukraine it is a superpower. Putin needs Ukraine to bring back the Russian empire.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

I increasingly believe we will see at least a limited nuclear exchange of some kind at some point during this war.

If it looks like he's in danger of losing the war, or losing power outright, Putin will lash out.

Putin is evil and a sociopath, but he is not insane. He is only pretending to act unstable to scare NATO and the West. Putin knows that using nuclear weapons would lead to Russia wiped off the face of the map.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

https://twitter.com/worldonalert/status/1516481166735560729?s=20&t=D2ukzJNHk...



But also have Ukraine join NATO.

Even if Ukraine does not join NATO, they will still be trained and provided with the latest technology by NATO.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Extremely uncomfortable and unnatural pose by Putin during the entire meeting with Shoygu. Suggests that reports of disability or a stroke may be credible
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1517046534113792001

Putin may have Parkinson's disease, Hitler also had it. Hitler had noticeable tremors in his last few years.

This Video Exposes Hitler's Secret Illness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w3nsAaOpq4

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

National mobilisation would take weeks, if not months, to make any appreciable impact.

Ukraine mobilized 2 months ago, I wonder how it's going. It takes many months to train and equip a new mobilized army.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Seems like Russia is trying out its blackmailing powers on one of the "weaker" NATO/EU members. When are those dumb assholes gonna learn that choosing escalation simply means that things are gonna escalate (for them too).


https://mobile.twitter.com/biannagolodryga/status/1519014631930580992

Well, seems like Bulgaria is on the menu too...


https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1519035732211417090


Kind of obvious that they're apparently trying not to mess with Germany, Italy, or France (bigger receivers of Russian gas than either Poland or Bulgaria) at this point, even though their present course of escalation might just as well make a general gas embargo more likely.

Also a bit dumb to lash out at Bulgaria of all places, considering it's still one of the most pro-Russian countries in the EU after Hungary.

Bulgaria in the Warsaw Pact era was always the most Soviet friendly regime. Bulgaria and Russians are both Slavs and Bulgaria even wanted to join the USSR back in the 1970s. There was no big protests or rebellions against the Bulgarian communist government.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1519686692596334592

Isn’t that what Russia spends on its military yearly?

Most of the US aid packages to Ukraine are in the hundreds of millions, not billions. This is a big win for Ukraine.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

The key point is this mass mobilization bit. That seems like bluster. A bunch of untrained guys who don't want to be there, with a lack of stuff to equip them with. If you are a young man in Russia, get the F out - now.

Which brings me to the question as to when, aside from his nukes that Putin keeps under his bed, when will Russia run out of missiles, and what is their logistical capacity to replace them?

Are they built in one place or all over the fruited plain?

Russia spent years trying to move their dependence on computer chips in-country, but they never got it fully done and were still importing chips from Europe and even the US. Most of what they need can be bought from China but it would require redesigns which obviously take time. Another issue is that like any large country, there is a certain share of their stock that needs to be reserved for other defense. Similar to how other countries in Europe wouldn't give up certain weapon systems without backfill from their allies. It's needed for strategic defense and would leave them vulnerable if they expended it all in the war. So there is a limit to how many PGMs Russia will use in Ukraine even if they technically have many more in their stockpiles.

Russia is going to have supply issues for the time being but eventually they will secure new supply chains and their weapons production will be mostly insulated from foreign sanctions. Who knows how long that will take. I'm sure it is of the highest priority now, though.

Taiwan is the worlds leading microchip producer, they have also imposed sanctions on Russia. Russia had to shut down one of their tank manufacturing plants due to Taiwanese sanctions.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is the worlds largest semiconductor producer in the world.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Correction there are reports of shelling near Izium and reports of Ukraine troops crossing the Donets River, so the Izium counterattack seems to be simultaneously happening with the Kharkiv one not the same event

Putin is going to be so embarrassed when Russia is losing ground near Kharkiv and the Donbass on his big 'victory' parade on May 9th.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Oh, I can see a scenario where Ukraine gives up some territory in exchange for joining NATO or defense guarantees where Russia remains blacklisted and shunned, while Europe weans itself off of Russia for anything Russia could use to coerce it. So Russia getting more real estate will still be very costly to it, and will never be recognized, and thus by no means rewarded.

That said, I am not sure the NYT is as clairvoyant about what the future holds militarily or otherwise as it may think it is.

Putin has already gotten away with an illegal aggressive war in 2014 against Ukraine. Ukraine has already lost the Crimea, parts of Luhansk and Donetsk before the war. If they give up any more territory in the peace treaty, Ukraine will become a rump state too weak to defend itself. Russia will invade again in 5-10 years.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

https://mobile.twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1527944356518322176
Ukraine has 700k in the field now according to Zelensky and added if the war continues into the fall they will hit a mil.

The Russian army is around 900 thousand. People assume that 900 thousand Russian soldiers are invading Ukraine, but is only 200 thousand. Ukraine has the numerical advantage, not Russia.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

I've been the most bullish person here on Ukraine's long-term prospects in this war. But if we see more of this week over the coming ones, I will find it hard to maintain such bullishness, probably.
Ukraine may have a numerical advantage or gain one soon, but said numerical advantage could not necessarily be as important to the outcome as I assumed.

Russia still has the air and artillery advantage. Ukraine needs to be sent hundreds of modern artillery pieces, not dozens. Artillery is still the king of the battlefield. The aid needs to be increased even more.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

As for pre-Feb 24th territory, all I'll say is that Crimea always has been a logistical nightmare to invade by land from the north. You have to push through and absolutely tiny chokepoint. Your forces are exposed to naval bombardment on all sides. It's just really, really difficult.

THAT SAID, pre-Feb-24th Donetsk and Luhansk are a massively different story if (big if) we ever get to the point where Russian lines break. There's basically no terrain defense there, just a bunch of geographically large old industrial towns that are now down to like a third of their original population tops.

An 800k person city like Donetsk was is hard to take. A city designed for 800k with <250k living in it like Donetsk is now? That's a bit of a different story. Giant expanse of deserted hollowed out emptiness.

Luhansk and Donetsk sounds like a Ukrainian West Virginia or Detroit. A dying industrial area with hollowed out abandoned buildings.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Zelensky's advisor claimed that Russian lost a BTG in Kherson

https://twitter.com/Newsweek/status/1532684272284450816

The media has been downplaying Ukrainian success in Kherson, while overhyping the minor Russians gains in the Donbass. It's hurting morale to make it seem like Ukraine is about to collapse.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1533759934868889600

All Western sanctions should be left in place until Russia returns the Crimea and the puppet states in the Donbass.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Some Nazi sh*t:
https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1535029213862023169

It’s a genocide and I prefer a large nuclear exchange to a future where this regularly happens.

Russia is a state sponsor of genocide and terrorism. Russia is a criminal state, every decent country should embargo all Russian trade, like the US embargo on Cuba.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

https://mobile.twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1536853505050300416
The Kherson counteroffensive is going to be a key to watch the next few weeks

Russians better not buy any housing in Kherson, they aren't going to be there long term.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

A long article in the NYT of interest. The US analysts think the meat grinder as Ukraine gets better weapons will grind down into a stalemate, but that Russia will take the rest of Luhansk.

"Russia is likely to end up with more territory, they said, but neither side will gain full control of the region as a depleted Russian military faces an opponent armed with increasingly sophisticated weapons."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/21/us/politics/russia-ukraine-east-war.html

Ukraine says they will start a big counteroffensive in August after the Russians have run out of steam in the Donbass. By July/August the Western military aid will really start to make a difference. A stalemate is not enough, they need to drive the Russians back to the pre war border.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

The Governor of Luhansk and various unofficial sources have implied Ukraine withdrew the last of its forces from Severodonetsk last night.

Additionally:

https://mobile.twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1540247955046912001
As always, treat the inevitable hype with caution. It’s likely that only 4 systems have arrived so far - they’re not likely to make much of a short-term difference (outside of maybe Snake Islans, if Ukraine is prepared to expend a fair number of GMLRS there).

The UK also announced the delivery of HIMARS to Ukraine at the same time as the US. The UK HIMARS should be delivered by the end of the month.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/1541603554581954560

This another act of Russian is terrorism by killing dozens of Ukrainian civilians intentionally. Russia is no different from ISIS or Al Qaeda.