Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[GoTfan]

Word is that the Ukrainians are expecting one final all-out offensive on Kyiv.

If that happens and is a failure, might that finally cause some serious moves to talks/a ceasefire?

I expect the northern front will simply stalemate completely and the Russians will shift their main effort to the south.

If they are indeed planning an amphibious assault on Odessa, they had best hope it goes as planned. An opposed beach landing was hazardous at the best of times in WW2. The Russian Naval Infantry might have an even harder time of it because they've attempted to land twice and had to call it off twice, so the Ukranians are expecting them and are likely heavily dug in with all sorts of nasty things awaiting the Russians.

We have to consider what we mean by "win" here. Take Kiev and impose a set of borders and puppet gov't sure that is possible. But that isn't enough to avoid getting bled dry by resistance, especially in Western and South Western Ukraine.

Hell I don’t even know how that could result any type of ending for Russia that can be considered a “win” as they either put the puppet in and just leave but by the time the last Russian troopers leave the country that puppet president would be hanging upside down in center of Kyiv Mussolini style or as GoTfan mentioned they’ll have to keep anywhere from 400-500k soldiers in to prop the puppet up and result in a Iraq occupation style quagmire

Keep in mind that these days, every soldier in the field requires a minimum of 3-4 support workers to stay functional. Much of the numerical strength of any army is in administration. These people likely have some level of training, but they're not front-line calibre.

I'd venture to say that the true combat strength of the Russian army therefore is around 300,000-350,000, with the rest being command and control/admin.

[GoTfan]

I honestly don't see how Ukraine survives as a nation for much longer if it can't accept Crimea and Donbass are lost.

[GoTfan]

I genuinely don't know if Ukraine will even exist in a month. The Russians will not accept anything less than their current demands.
 

[GoTfan]

I genuinely don't know if Ukraine will even exist in a month. The Russians will not accept anything less than their current demands.
 

Well this is what you doves wanted!

A ridiculous statement like this doesn't deserve a response, but I'll respond anyway because of your previous statements.

Thank Christ you're never going to be in charge of a country.

[GoTfan]

I genuinely don't know if Ukraine will even exist in a month. The Russians will not accept anything less than their current demands.
 

Well this is what you doves wanted!

A ridiculous statement like this doesn't deserve a response, but I'll respond anyway because of your previous statements.

Thank Christ you're never going to be in charge of a country.

but you couldn't help yourself?

No, I couldn't.

Forumlurker is a troll, I get that, but it just get my back up when people make blatantly false statements with no evidence other than what they've made up in their heads.

[GoTfan]

German news sources already report that a member of Lavrov's delegation said there would be "no concessions at all." Probably this meeting is just a waste of time.

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1501654121908211715

At this point, it seems clear Russia is only conducting these meetings for propaganda purposes. Russia is using them as evidence at home that they are the side "wanting peace", as part of the brain dead narrative that the war is a defensive "special military operation". 

If I were Ukraine I'd stop playing along with Russia's games and refuse to meet (mentioning how the government is busy defending the country and doesn't have time to be lectured to) until the Russia is willing to offer significant concessions.

Russia's already laid out their red lines: DPR, LPR and Crimea recognition, as well as constitutional neutrality. That is their absolute limit; they won't accept anything less than that.

Also, I'll say it's very easy for us to say Ukraine should be aggressive in neogitations. Keep this in mind: Ukrainian forces are stuggling, and stuggling heavily. Their only way out of this is a negotiated peace.

[GoTfan]

Western intelligence is reportedly saying that there will by a massive attack on Kyiv no later than Sunday. Sounds like the Russians are going all-out this time.

[GoTfan]

Western intelligence is reportedly saying that there will by a massive attack on Kyiv no later than Sunday. Sounds like the Russians are going all-out this time.

Yes, but that's been "about to happen" several times already. They can't just wish it into being.

Yesterday they were saying it would happen anywhere beteween 24-96 hours. The Russians are setting up supply bases and forward headquarters, usually the precursor to a large attack.

[GoTfan]

Talks in Turkey have collapsed, as per The Guardian.

[GoTfan]

If nothing else, this war has proved what Tom Clancy predicted in Red Storm Rising back in 1984: the most dangerous problem for a modern tank force against another modernised army is not the enemy tanks, but the enemy missile teams.

[GoTfan]

The only thing Putin understands is strength and the only thing we have been showing is weakness.

Biden disappoints me.

Yes, yes, we get it, you and Forumlurker both want The Day After and Threads to become reality.

[GoTfan]

The only thing Putin understands is strength and the only thing we have been showing is weakness.

Biden disappoints me.

Yes, yes, we get it, you and Forumlurker both want The Day After and Threads to become reality.

Hurr durr let any country with nukes do what they want bcuz that totally won’t have consequences or set precedents later on that will stab us in the back.

I am forever grateful trolls like you will never have any political power.

The only thing Putin understands is strength and the only thing we have been showing is weakness.

Biden disappoints me.

Yes, yes, we get it, you and Forumlurker both want The Day After and Threads to become reality.

No, appeasement is what will lead to that.

I'm not sure you understand what the word appeasement actually means.

[GoTfan]

For all the keyboard warriors on this thread nonchalantly calling for actions that would pretty much directly lead to WW3, good news, you can actually go fight right now!

Oh, I get it, y'all don't want to actually sacrifice anything yourselves, but it's easy to sit an ocean away and call for escalation.

I was genuinely considering it for a few days after I saw that, but I’ve been advised against it by several due to the fact I have zero combat experience and epilepsy that requires constant medication or I go into seizures so would likely be more of a liability than an asset to the actual frontline. If you disagree with this assessment and think I actually would be helpful on the frontlines…please let me know here.
Otherwise any ideas on how I can effectively help other than donations and protests/writing to representatives? (as if that will help lmao)
And don’t worry If the US does enter into this specific war, I will enlist for whatever role possible ASAP, while I may not be even permitted into combat, I’m sure I could contribute something somewhere.

Of course our measures are not calling for WW3 by any means, but rather calling Putin’s very obvious bluff and/or forcing a coup in the Kremlin. I’ve long explained this point, but tldr Russia is only doing this because the worst they will get is sanctions they can survive, but they also aren’t willing to fully risk WW3 and nuclear war just for Ukraine. Even if you think Putin himself is…a lot of people in his inner circle already are pretty pissed with him as plenty of Russian military leaders likely are…the end result would not be the death of humanity…just the deposing of Putin.

Besides with your logic…couldn’t I demand you give up all your money to charity because you are a socialist?

Except you clearly are willing to risk World War 3 and nuclear war.

Either you're a troll, or you have a complete lack of understanding of anything.

[GoTfan]

Seems like things have stalemated slightly. Am I reading that wrong?

[GoTfan]

Obligatory big if true comment:

https://twitter.com/Sierra__Alpha/status/1504870032312094721?s=20&t=oatDIv5S...
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1504861665434779651?s=20&t=oatDIv...

Some evidence!

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1504906047810637828?s=20&t=RgApMn7...

Nice.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1504945187126132739?s=20&t=682-s-E...
Link to ISW March 18th Russian offensive campaign assessment: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-18

"The ability of Ukrainian forces to conduct a successful major counterattack indicates Russian forces attempting to encircle Mykolayiv likely overstretched, and Russian forces are unlikely to have the capability to resume offensive operations toward Odesa in the near term."

Buried in that ISW report is a refutation of the earlier US report that Russia had captured Izium: it asses that the town centre is still in Ukrainian hands. This is good new for Ukrainian defenders and I retract my earlier comments about the British MoD's assessment being too rosy.

So I was right. Things have stalemated somewhat.

[GoTfan]

How the hell do you spend 22 years and trillions of dollars 'modernising' your military only for this to happen?

I would not want to be a Russian senior officer right now.

[GoTfan]

Wow the winter war parallels continue.

It does strike me that Putin, fittingly, made the same mistakes Stalin did. In the words of Sabaton:

"He thought of the might he possessed,
And not of his foe"

[GoTfan]

Oh god Zelensky please don’t. If he gives up 1 yard of Ukraine soil he’ll just be inviting Putin to try this again in the future and would effectively kill the UN charter which forbids the seizure of land via force

It is very easy to be full of bravado when you're not being shot at.

[GoTfan]

Zelensky just sacked two of his Senior national security officials...

Wonder what the backstory was here?

He announced he had sacked two senior members of the Ukrainian national security service on the grounds they were “traitors”.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-60949706

Purely speculation here, but I wonder if it has something to do with the lead-up to the invasion when there seemed to be a lot of confusion high up in Ukraine's leadership about whether or not there would even be an invasion.

Zelensky himself was playing it down until a few days before it happened.

There's some speculation that he was preparing for it on the quiet while downplaying it publicly to try and fool the Russians, but don't quote me on that.

[GoTfan]

Ah so we are seeing it get closer and closer to the Holocaust. Wonder how much more the doves can stomach. There was no red line, they prefer appeasement at all costs.

I know you want to turn the world into a radioactive wasteland and annihilate humanity, but those of us with functioning brains do not. Thankfully, the leaders of the Western nations are far more levelheaded than you.

You're just a troll.

[GoTfan]

Reposting from elsewhere: the anti-'provocation' argument against intervention is popular because it's an easy way to weasel out of thinking too hard about our moral responsibility, not because it makes sense. It is the same argument which has been used since 2008 as an excuse to do nothing to deter Russia, and has failed every time to avoid '''provoking''' escalation from the Russian side.

Something I think has been glossed over in nuanceless 'intervention = nuclear WW3' narrative which is going around everywhere (which the Russian government loves and thanks you for, by the way) is that a NFZ (or, to take a less cliche option, a 'safe zone' enforced by Polish or Romanian troops) does NOT require shooting down Russian planes or targeting Russian SAM sites in Russia or Belarus proper. It requires it if and only if the Russian government makes the decision to contest the NFZ.

This is a functionally a similar move to the Berlin Airlift or the Cuban quarantine - it places the Russians in the position to have to choose to directly attack NATO forces. If anything, this would be a more difficult decision for them to make than those previous cases because of NATO's much greater conventional superiority and because the Russian air force is very explicitly not welcome by Ukraine's legitimate government.

The 'steel man' version of the belief that Putin would take the plunge on this is: Putin and his clique's primary goal is to remain in power, not to ensure the Russian state's best interests (true). Losing the war in Ukraine would weaken his grip on power (probably true to some degree). Therefore, winning the war in Ukraine is an existential question for him, if not for the Russian state. It is therefore plausible that he would use nuclear weapons to avoid losing.

Here is the uncomfortable problem with this argument which I think a lot of people making it want to ignore: the West has 0 control over whether World War III begins or not, or whether the Russian government uses nuclear weapons or not, or what Putin and people like him consider 'existential'. The end state of this argument is to continue rolling over every time a nuclear dictator takes a plunge like this so he won't have to take an L in front of his people. After all, if Ukraine isn't worth risking nuclear war, why would Estonia be? Or West Germany? Or France?

Maybe you think in some mathematical sense this is the best way to ensure the survival of the human race across the next few millennia of nuclear crises. Given it encourages future aggression, I think this is a naive view. Reducing the percent risk of war in each crisis doesn't help if at the same time it increases the likelihood of a crisis happening. The only way to really reduce the risk is to stop dictators from rolling the dice through reliably strong deterrence every time crises do arise.

In any case, it's no way to live.

Holy cow the level of wishful thinking in this post is insane.

Russia will contest any NFZ, which means NATO and RUssia shooting at each other, which means WW3, which means nuclear war.

This shouldn't be hard to grasp but alas, some people would rather turn Threads into reality. This is a hell of a bluff to call, and if you get it it wrong-and I suspect everyone saying we need to call it a bluff is getting it spectacularly wrong-then congrats, you've doomed the entire human race.

[GoTfan]

Meanwhile, anybody been wondering about what happened to the disgraced Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky?

Most likely not, considering the average age of the typical Atlas poster, but anyways...

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the self-exiled Russian oligarch and vocal Kremlin opponent, has called on Russian billionaires and officials who have fled Russia to publicly denounce President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine as criminal.

“Public figures cannot leave quietly and then sit quietly. If you have left, then you should publicly dissociate yourself or we should be forced to suspect that you are acting on [the Kremlin’s] behalf,” Khodorkovsky said in an interview last week in his London office. “You should step up to the microphone and say that Putin is a war criminal and that what he is doing is a crime, that the war against Ukraine is a crime. Say this, and then we’ll understand that Putin doesn’t have a hold over you.”

Khodorkovsky — who was Russia’s richest man before he was arrested in 2003 and imprisoned for 10 years while his Yukos oil company was taken over by the Russian state — was referring in particular to the high-profile Russian oligarchs Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven of Alfa Group. They were once his comrades among Russia’s seven original oligarchs of the 1990s, who then controlled much of the country’s economy. Fridman and Aven left Russia in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine only to be put under sanctions by Britain and the European Union over alleged close ties to the Putin regime.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/03/russia-oligarchs-khodorkovsky-fridman-aven/

To be honest, I don't think the oligarchs have as much influence as people believe.

[GoTfan]

It's a good thing compucomp is here because he can give us a look at what the latest CCP talking point is.

He can't. He wants the CCP to be more pro-Putin than it actually is to own the "Global North", because the Global South is supposed to be pleased about a country being violently colonised by a larger, richer powerhouse. There's definitely no parallels between Russia and other failing Western powers screwing up the invasion and occupation of various poorer and smaller countries.

I'm more than ready to criticise the West, everyone on here knows that, but I'd rather have the Americans and EU running things than the Russians or CCP.

[GoTfan]

The coward's way out?

How dare you.

I've had ancestors fought and killed at the hands of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. I had an uncle who narrowly avoided being sent to Vietnam. His friends? Not so lucky.

I get it, it's trendy to call cautious people cowards, but be careful about the words you use, because one day, you'll say them to the wrong person.

Good thing people like you didn't carry the policy wins when we were fighting Germany and Japan, or a lot more would have died.

A friend of my father's died on the front two weeks ago. Half a dozen of my classmates are on the front now, and I haven't heard from some of them in weeks. Don't come at me now with your false indignation over things which happened before you were born.  

Also, your threats come across really hollow when you've been doing nothing but hyperventilating about your own personal risk when you live literally across the world from the conflict zone. I'm actually in a former Soviet country right now and do face physical risk in the case of a NATO-Russian conflict or a Russian escalation after overrunning Ukraine. I'm not particularly worried that you're going to risk your skin to come give me your mind by means other than a keyboard.

I get it mate. It's trendy to dunk on cautious people, but wanting an NFZ set up will almost certainly lead to WW3, and no amount of wishful thinking will make that untrue.

Also, making a PM public? Wow.

[GoTfan]

From what I can see on social media, Russia has apparently retreated from Chernihiv Oblast and Sumy.

The German defence minister is also urging discussions to begin on banning Russian gas.