Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[oldtimer]

Not sure it’s been mentioned here yet, but the claims about NK sending missiles to Russia have apparently been confirmed: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hit-ukrainian-region-with-non-russian-missiles-governor-2024-01-05/

Does not surprise me. 

After

https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20231205000300315

"S. Korea indirectly supplied more 155-mm shells for Ukraine than all European countries combined: WP"

I can see a lot closer to Russia-DPRK military cooperation in response to this and DPRK getting more advanced Russian military technology.  And yes that will also mean DPRK shifting some of their missiles to Russia.

The "industrial powerhouse "of North Korea coming to Russia's rescue is a joke and a pathetic revelation about Russia's industry.

[oldtimer]

Roland Oliphant:
"On Russia's war economy - and the "f**king insane" lack of urgency in Western response (thus far).

Further reading here, with @Barnes_Joe, @JamesERothwell and @jkjourno. Bottom line: Russia's economic mobilisation might not be sustainable and is far from perfect - but it is real, rapid, and should be taken seriously.

A little more comment. Just last week I heard it remarked that Russia's power should not be over estimated because it has an economy roughly the size of Spain's.

That was interesting, partly because the stock comparison used to be Italy and partly because two years into the war that complacent notion stubbornly persists.

It fails to grasp a basic thing about modern Russia. Which is that when the state sets itself a goal, vast sums are embezzled, successes exaggerated, and ordinary people pay the price.
It also - generally - gets the job done. [Comment from me: an example that came to mind is the Crimean Bridge.]

Regardless of which Mediterranean economy you compare it to. I don't have much time for the concept of "Russophobia," but in as far as it exists this assumption/dismissal is a good place to start.

It's the kind of ignorance that led Obama to decide he didn't have to do much about the annexation of Crimea because Russia was just a "regional power" expressing its "weakness".

I personally think the same kind of thinking informs the argument that "Russia failed to capture Kyiv two years ago so it is already defeated."

That complacency began to shift in Britain with the Skripal poisonings in 2018 (belatedly). But it has a weirdly long half life.

So on the war economy: Yes, Shoigu will shamelessly inflate tank production stats. Yes, millions of rubles will disappear. Yes, they'll churn out sub-par shells and Russian soldiers will die needlessly as a result. But none of that means they won't pull it off.

Maybe “ignorance” is unfair and a bit rude, so I withdraw it. Attitude is the word I’m looking for."

What war economy ?

If Russia was on a war economy it's industrial production increase wouldn't be pathetic.

From the very start the russian government has a very relaxed attitute towards war, which is why they lost.

The next generation of russian dictators will remember that and avoid Putin's lethargy, but it's 20 years till then.

[oldtimer]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/02/02/russian-artillery-gunners-are-getting-cocky-as-ukraine-runs-out-of-ammo-russian-guns-gather-for-devastating-salvos/?sh=186554e16eb3

"Russian Artillery Gunners Are Getting Cocky. As Ukraine Runs Out Of Ammo, Russian Guns Gather For Devastating Salvos."

I consider all that as clickbait.

If any of that where true where are the russian advances ?

It's all "Ukraine weak, Russia strong" garbage.

[oldtimer]

https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1757484618385592413

I've no comment on whether it's the correct military move to make or not. But can you imagine conflicts like World Wars I or II or the Civil War with all the Twitter and TV experts commentating on it simultaneously?

"WHY HASN'T LINCOLN FIRED GRANT YET?"

You know that's exactly what happened in the civil war, Lincoln regularly fired the top commanders  and sometimes because of newspaper reports.

[oldtimer]

https://tass.com/economy/1753173

"Russia's annual GDP growth reached 4.6% in January after 4.4% in December — ministry"

Russia's Jan 2024 economic momentum continues.  These numbers look more in line with the IMF's 2.6% growth estimate for Russia in 2024.   If true then in 2024 Russia's GDP growth will exeed all G7 economies in 2024 just like in 2023.

When this war is over it'll be wise to examine the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of sanctions to see if they really worked against Russia.
These numbers are probably something of a political failure for the Western sanctions regime.

I said when this all started that sanctions being meaningless was proved out how 7 years' worth of sanctions post-Crimea resulted in nothing. Not to say examples from other conflicts.

The U.S. then took steps to completely freeze Russia out of the international financial system, which at the time I thought was a ballsy and strong move. However, with the benefit of hindsight all it did was made everywhere not West in the world seek to increase distance between their economic system and the U.S. so they could remove the potential of this threat in the future. So the U.S. actions here the end result was it darkened a line between the West and the Global South. I'm not talking Russia and China, I'm talking more benign countries geopolitically like Malaysia.

Soft power is good, but has real limits and gets beat by hard power almost all of the time. The problem with the post-Iraq War West is they think soft power can fix everything, and if your only tool is soft power you're more a paper tiger than anything. Syria should've been a giant glaring example to the West of you can't do everything with soft power as we see now that Assad is still in power and Obama said that he must leave, but did nothing to actually make that happen.

The closest analogy is the Dutch in the 16th-18th centuries.

Despite being under siege by the Spanish-Austrians-French-English most of the time, they still did very well financially.

[oldtimer]

I wonder why they even discuss troops on the ground instead of air strikes. Wouldn't that be more effective? A lack of air superiority has always been a weakspot for Ukraine. If a NATO member ever got involved, I'd launch a series of massive air strikes against Russian positions. That would also greatly limit losses, especially by using drones. I'm not a military expert, that would just make more sense to me. Of course it's theoretical as NATO would de facto become a party in the war. At latest when Russia tries to attack the bases or ships from where the drones or fighter jets are launched.

I don't think you should be personally worried about getting drafted into the war.

The german government is too weak politically and historic memories in germany too strong for that.

But if that happens you can still move to Austria, which is not yet in NATO.

Big political own goals to put the prospect of sending their own troops though, that's how anti-war movements get born, as American Presidents discovered.

It's political self-sabotage.

[oldtimer]

The French army is definitely preparing for war with Russia:

https://www.politico.eu/article/french-soldiers-under-fire-train-for-what-war-is-like/

They are going for a Combined Arms approach.

[oldtimer]

Dear people that claim to be pro-peace (like Orban), does this sound like someone ready to negotiate?

"Asked about peace talks with Ukraine, Putin indicated he won't discuss surrendering territory annexed from Ukraine and appeared confident Russia’s army could advance further. “Holding negotiations now only because they are running out of ammunition is absurd for us.”"

https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1767883770709876792?s=20

I think Russia's negotiation position today is similar to the USA's position toward the end of 1863 vis-a-vis CSA with the adjustment that CSA is still able to get a lot of external military and economic aid.  Namely a CSA offensive to regain round is very likely and in a long attritional war the USA will win but with significant cost.  So can there be a compromise deal where the USA limits its gains to remove the need for attritional losses it will have to incur in a long bloody victory?  Likewise, can CSA give up some of its maximalist positions at the beginning of the conflict to avoid an increasingly likely attritional defeat?

I've made comparisons to the Civil War a long time ago, probably at least a year.

But my comparison was to the military incompetence of Russia's civilian and military leadership being comparable to the Union side.

They still don't take war seriously enough to win, though I guess with the war lasting so long they must have learned something by now, so it would be more difficult to beat them.

[oldtimer]

https://ilkha.com/english/world/putin-signs-decree-to-conscript-150000-citizens-in-spring-military-campaign-386058

In the context of the War in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin signed a decree calling to mobilize 150,000 people over 18 to service in the Russian Army. That is another evidence that Putin is preparing a large-scale offensive in Ukraine in May or June. That’s why the U.S. and their Allie’s must accelerate the providing of military aid to Ukraine in order to counter that threat, to counter such an offensive#

More likely that 150k is their casualty number during the time from their previous mobilization.

[oldtimer]

Governing constraint for both sides in this war is manpower, neither side is going to run out of any other resource for continuing the war, hence why its in Ukraine's interest to try and win sooner rather than later, net manpower flows will eventually turn negative for the Ukrainian military at which point it will begin to contract in size which will allow Russian forces to push forward and occupy the country, only question is how many years away that point is, perhaps 3-4.

At current pace of losses vs production Russia is going to run out of equipment before that happens for Ukraine

True.

At current rates Russia should run out of weapons by the end of next year, and there is no sign of meaningfull russian production increases, both sides don't look capable of a serious offensive anymore.

There is a lot of panic and excitement over nothing but a few fields.

[oldtimer]

Can you imagine how wretched Atlas would have been during World War 1?  We'd have some guy named CrownedEagle14 who posts a dozen news articles every day about how the French and British forces are at an all-time low in morale, they're on the verge of running out of munitions, there's rumors of mutiny and suicide, and meanwhile Germany is amazing and constantly on the verge of a huge breakthrough, the German people are ecstatic and happy, their economy is booming, war production off the charts, Americans are crying and in shambles, French women are secretly writing letters to German soldiers asking them to impregnate them after the war ends, British food is still terrible, and so on and so forth.

All discussion about literally the most important event in human history would be restricted to the "Serbian nationalist negotiations and related tensions Megathread", which would be 3,945 pages long and 70% of the posts would just be CrownedEagle14 chiming in every day to dump the contents of his "the Triple Entente is doomed" RSS feed.

Don't jinx it.
Most of that was correct in WW1.

The morale was low, ammunition was short, mutinies did happen, the Germans did a breakthrough, and without America the Entente was doomed.

But the part about how great the other side is that's still hot air.

[oldtimer]

Going through Chernihiv region/oblast is the quickest and shortest route from Russia to Kyiv. Building these fortifications is obviously meant for if/when Russia once again attempts regime change by attacking the Ukrainian capital:

"Zelensky toured new Ukrainian defense fortifications in northern Chernihiv.

I wrote about these and Ukraine’s broader effort to dig in recently for @FT. More than 30bn hryvnia (about $800mn) has been allocated to building fortifications this year. Chernihiv region’s budget for defences in 2023 was $7.6mn; in 2024 it was increased to $40.7mn.

Military briefing: Ukraine digs deep as Russians advance https://on.ft.com/3TEIouv"

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1776263688095244329

What waste of time and rescources.

It's full of forests and marshes with bad roads, which is why Russia failed in 2022 even without fortifications.

You can't attack succesfully with a mechanised force through there.

[oldtimer]

"Frontelligence Insight is documenting significant movements of enemy reserves, involving hundreds of military vehicles of various types. This likely indicates that the Russians are preparing for another serious push. Russian offensive is unlikely to conclude soon"

https://x.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1797637648821166181

Russians initiating phase II of the Kharkiv offensive?

It's been as successfull as the Brusilov Offensive, a total failure which cost half a million soldiers.

[oldtimer]

So, we are saying the initial reports of a complete Ukranian collapse in the Kharkiv region were false?

Totally shocked and no mistake.

Tbh I see Russia’s recent operations there as more about forcing a diversion of Ukrainian forces from other fronts rather than a serious attempt to take Kharkiv.

Also, we shouldn’t discount the political considerations within Russia, specifically near the border with Ukraine where there’s been a lot of anger about Moscow’s inability to stop Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory. So appeasing that domestic anger is likely as much of not more a factor in the recent attacks on Kharkiv as any strictly military goals.

Appease domestic anger ?

Ukraine bombed the Kremlin last year and the Russian answer was an angry social media post.

A repeat of years long russian military incompetence is far more likely.

Lets be specific to what went wrong for Russia in their recent offensive:

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

Show

Why attack there ?
You can't take the city, you can only encircle it. Attacking at that spot doesn't create an encirclement.

If they wanted to cut off their enemy it made sence to attack on the flank over flat ground with no obstacles, instead they attacked over a river and forests with a force that was separated from their main army.

Also they needed a force that could move faster than drone fire, what they have won't do.
In 2022 Russia took those positions in 1 hour, now it stopped after 1 hour.

The random Ukrainian guy, chilling on the top of the crane watching it, knew it going to be an easy russian defeat and just enjoyed the show.
He knew, but the russian military didn't.

[oldtimer]

Weeks old article vs this week when the ruble got killed in the market lol

Not sure what you are talking about.  The latest round of sanctions means Russia has moved to use CNY as the reference currency.  The proxy RUB-USD rate is now at 89.6 which if anything is stronger than it was back in April.  The JPM CPI adjusted index for RUB is at its highest since Jun 2023 and higher than the index before the war.  This means RUB is stronger than it was before the war after taking into account CPI differentials.

Wars are determined not by currency exchange rates or CPI rates or any useless fluff.

But on the actual military production rates of aircraft, vehicles and ammunition.

Ukraine makes 100k drones a day with 100k workers on it: 1 drone per person per day.
Russia makes 20 fighter jets per year with 355k workers on it: 0.0000001 fighter per person per day.

Who do you think wins with these rates ?

[oldtimer]

But.....weren't Ukraine on the brink of total collapse barely a month ago?

We do this every time Russia launches a new attack. They capture a couple villages in the first 2 days, the pro-Russian trolls lose their minds saying that Ukraine has finally broken and the war will soon be over, and then things go back to normal and they pretend they never said anything.

The capture of a few nearly uninhabited border towns in this latest offensive towards Kharkov are a perfect example of this. In the last year the capture of both Bakhmut and Avdiivka were accompanied by predictions that Ukrainian collapse was imminent and that the whole "Donbass Cauldron" would collapse. This didn't happen. Hell, there are even posts in this thread from the beginning of the war when compucomp and co were predicting a total Ukrainian collapse and the capture of Kyiv within a week because the Russians had advanced the 20 miles to the suburbs already.

Tbf before the war started US intelligence thought that Ukraine might only last a week or two. There is rather less excuse for such thinking now, given all that has happened since.

At present rates of manpower loses Ukraine can last another 40 years.