Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Logical]

The psychological dam has been broken and UK takes the credit.

https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/1614226470162808832

[lfromnj]

Yeah Challenger is purely for breaking a barrier. IIRC only 300 were ever produced so at max the UK will spare a few dozen. Leopards and Abrams will need to be sent to actually support the war.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Russia launched a new wave of missile strikes today and in typical fashion they showed their military incompetence combined with their cruelty by firing these said missiles at civilian targets  
https://mobile.twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1614262799365980161

[Torie]

The story of trade for Russia in 2022 was that Russia was able to sell energy at higher prices (although below market) and was able to take that money and massively crank up imports from PRC (and some from Türkiye) to make up for the loss of imports from the collective West (especially Germany.)

Yeah, it is only a matter of time until a serious trade war with China ensues, and sooner rather than later (China in addition to underwriting Putin has managed to scare the heck out of its neighbors, each and every one of them), and India needs to figure out which way the wind is blowing.

Maybe China can still end up ruling the world from an economic autarkic perch powered by Russian energy and intellectual property theft, and maybe it can't. Fortunately, I will not be around to find out.

[Torie]

Yeah Challenger is purely for breaking a barrier. IIRC only 300 were ever produced so at max the UK will spare a few dozen. Leopards and Abrams will need to be sent to actually support the war.

The always articulate and fascinating Michael Clarke says this year will see the red lines crossed at at much faster pace than last year,  making the war ever more dangerous, as Ukraine infrastructure is destroyed and vast swaths of its land depopulated, and Putin gets ever more desperate as he runs low on inventory, and the means to replace it. So bigger and better tanks today, more serious and lethal aviation killing machines tomorrow, rockets more accurate and deadly and long range, hitting Russian targets deeply behind the lines, maybe naval blockades in the Black Sea, disguised Russian tankers hitting icebergs, you name it, it should be a most interesting year. Let your imagination run wild, don't fence it in.

Some of the items above came out of my synapses, rather than Clarke's. He also makes the point, that perhaps the most dangerous thing of all, other than giving Putin his pound of flesh of course, is the war running on and on indefinitely, with each year more dangerous and sanguinary than the last.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36eIHhMcHnY

[jaichind]

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2023/01/navy-secretary-warns-if-defense-industry-cant-boost-production-arming-both-ukraine-and-us-may-become-challenging/381722/

"Navy Secretary Warns: If Defense Industry Can’t Boost Production, Arming Both Ukraine and the US May Become ‘Challenging’"

[Florida Man for Crime]

perhaps the most dangerous thing of all, other than giving Putin his pound of flesh of course, is the war running on and on indefinitely, with each year more dangerous and sanguinary than the last.

There is a countervailing force, though, which is that it is in the West's longer term interest for Russia to get bogged down into a longer term Vietnam-type experience. Every day the war goes on, the Russian military becomes more depleted and less of a potential conventional threat to NATO. And the longer it goes on, also the more anti-Russian attitudes in Ukraine will harden, and the more Ukraine will become a permanently militarized anti-Russian bulwark standing between Russia and the rest of Europe.

I suspect that part of the reason Western aid has been so pathetically lacking at least with regards to certain types of equipment (tanks etc) is that Western leaders do not necessarily want Ukraine to win too quickly and want to keep letting Russia bleed itself. So far a least, it seems like insofar as we are starting to increase aid and send tanks, it is only in small numbers and more in response to Russian escalation (mobilization) to keep the status quo stalemate and keep Ukraine standing, rather than sending sufficient aid for Ukraine to actually kick Russia out of Ukrainian territory. And this also means that Ukrainian troops continue to take unnecessarily high casualties, because we continue to withhold the good stuff that could help them destroy the Russian military while taking fairly low casualties like NATO would do if NATO were fighting directly.

[Torie]

perhaps the most dangerous thing of all, other than giving Putin his pound of flesh of course, is the war running on and on indefinitely, with each year more dangerous and sanguinary than the last.

There is a countervailing force, though, which is that it is in the West's longer term interest for Russia to get bogged down into a longer term Vietnam-type experience. Every day the war goes on, the Russian military becomes more depleted and less of a potential conventional threat to NATO. And the longer it goes on, also the more anti-Russian attitudes in Ukraine will harden, and the more Ukraine will become a permanently militarized anti-Russian bulwark standing between Russia and the rest of Europe.

I suspect that part of the reason Western aid has been so pathetically lacking at least with regards to certain types of equipment (tanks etc) is that Western leaders do not necessarily want Ukraine to win too quickly and want to keep letting Russia bleed itself. So far a least, it seems like insofar as we are starting to increase aid and send tanks, it is only in small numbers and more in response to Russian escalation (mobilization) to keep the status quo stalemate and keep Ukraine standing, rather than sending sufficient aid for Ukraine to actually kick Russia out of Ukrainian territory. And this also means that Ukrainian troops continue to take unnecessarily high casualties, because we continue to withhold the good stuff that could help them destroy the Russian military while taking fairly low casualties like NATO would do if NATO were fighting directly.

If that is the plan, to use Ukrainian blood to drain Russia into impotence while annealing Ukraine to the West, it is not only wrong headed (at some point somebody might make a bad mistake), but profoundly immoral, so I hope it has no nexus with the truth.

[Omega21]

Kyiv Power plant turbine after Russian strikes today.

This seems to be a shift from solely targeting transformers and energy transmission infrastructure.

[Frodo]

perhaps the most dangerous thing of all, other than giving Putin his pound of flesh of course, is the war running on and on indefinitely, with each year more dangerous and sanguinary than the last.

There is a countervailing force, though, which is that it is in the West's longer term interest for Russia to get bogged down into a longer term Vietnam-type experience. Every day the war goes on, the Russian military becomes more depleted and less of a potential conventional threat to NATO. And the longer it goes on, also the more anti-Russian attitudes in Ukraine will harden, and the more Ukraine will become a permanently militarized anti-Russian bulwark standing between Russia and the rest of Europe.

I suspect that part of the reason Western aid has been so pathetically lacking at least with regards to certain types of equipment (tanks etc) is that Western leaders do not necessarily want Ukraine to win too quickly and want to keep letting Russia bleed itself. So far a least, it seems like insofar as we are starting to increase aid and send tanks, it is only in small numbers and more in response to Russian escalation (mobilization) to keep the status quo stalemate and keep Ukraine standing, rather than sending sufficient aid for Ukraine to actually kick Russia out of Ukrainian territory. And this also means that Ukrainian troops continue to take unnecessarily high casualties, because we continue to withhold the good stuff that could help them destroy the Russian military while taking fairly low casualties like NATO would do if NATO were fighting directly.

If that is the plan, to use Ukrainian blood to drain Russia into impotence while annealing Ukraine to the West is not only wrong headed (at some point somebody might make a bad mistake), but profoundly immoral, so I hope it has no nexus with the truth.

Another thing is that whoever is making that cold-blooded calculation has to contend with the fact that public support in the West for Ukraine is not indefinite.  At some point, we are going to push for a quicker end to the war one way or another.  It is far preferable for western interests if we supply Ukraine with the weaponry and support it needs to end the war more quicky on its terms with as much of its territory liberated and restored to Ukranian control before we come to the peace table (and before the pipeline runs dry), than if we push for negotiations with the Russians now as some Putin apologists are calling for.  

In any event, the Russian military has been so badly damaged and exposed as a paper tiger bear that it no longer poses a conventional threat to NATO, so I think we can safely consider that mission accomplished in that sense.  All Russia has going for it now keeping it as a threat are its still-vast legacy stores of weapons of mass destruction.  

[Florida Man for Crime]

Another thing is that whoever is making that cold-blooded calculation has to contend with the fact that public support in the West for Ukraine is not indefinite.  At some point, we are going to push for a quicker end to the war one way or another.  It is far preferable for western interests if we supply Ukraine with the weaponry and support it needs to end the war more quicky on its terms with as much of its territory liberated and restored to Ukranian control before we come to the peace table (and before the pipeline runs dry)

With regards to Ukraine coming to the peace table, it takes two to tango. Even if Ukraine wants peace after taking back its territory, there is no particular reason to think Putin will want to oblige them. Based on Putin's past history and behavior, I suspect he probably views this partly through the lens of his experience dealing with Chechnya. In Chechnya, Russia was kicked out ignominiously in the first Chechen war, but then later came back again with Putin, and even though it was also a quagmire, Putin simply persisted and outlasted the Chechen resistance. He probably hopes he can do similarly here, and if that is true he won't give up easily.

With his hopes of a quick victory having been dashed in 2022, I suspect something like is Putin's plan that he has mentally "settled for" - to outlast Ukraine and outlast western support for Ukraine. There are currently rumors that Russia may mobilize another 500k men, and may announce this as soon as in the next few days. If that happens, to me that would help confirm that this is indeed Putin's plan.

Even if Ukraine pushed Russia out entirely, Putin might well try to come back a few years later if he thought it was at all possible (if he is still Russia's dictator then). The only way that would possibly eventually change would be when eventually Putin dies or is replaced by some other leadership that may (or may not) have a different attitude.

So it seems to me that the choices for the west are either abandoning Ukraine, indefinite support for Ukraine (which you indicate you don't see happening) at levels sufficient to prevent Ukrainian collapse but not sufficient for them to actually win, or giving Ukraine sufficient support to win decisively by giving providing them a substantial technological and firepower edge, so that they can basically wipe out the Russians from a distance while taking relatively few losses themselves in the manner of the 1991 gulf war. Then that advantage would need to be maintained after Russia had been kicked out of Ukraine, at least for as long as Putin is around, to deter any thought of Russia trying again. But maintaining that advantage during peace would be much less costly than maintaining it during war.

The only reason not to provide that sort of decisive support to Ukraine is if we are afraid that if we do, Putin will use nukes. But if we are deterred from helping Ukraine successfully defend itself and world leaders both current and future draw the conclusion that you can just invade and annex non-nuclear countries (democracies) as though it were the 19th century as long as you have nukes, then what is happening to Ukraine will happen in the future to other countries that don't have nukes. And that means that many more countries will start trying to get their own nukes. In my view, that sort of future is too dangerous to contemplate and I don't see any way that would end well.

[Torie]

If Russia calls up another 500K (not sure that is even possible, but maybe), that will be a signal to the West to ramp things up rapidly. I wonder if the West can do more to pinpoint targets, and do more on the cyber warfare front.

[jaichind]

I am not saying this is certainly not true but this type of story does fit a pattern of wishful thinking about Putin over this last year all of which ended up being not true.

[Frodo]

I don't want Putin to 'retire' -I want him dead.  Only then can we begin to negotiate a real peace between Ukraine and Russia.  

[Woody]

Another round of missile and air attacks earlier today, throughout the country:

https://twitter.com/DrazaM33/status/1614319015081480192
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1614322721575272448
https://twitter.com/newsistaan/status/1614180891580043264
https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1614311339786133505
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1614268791520649219
https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1614313619994411010?cxt=HHwWhIC8vebrmOc...

[HillGoose]

how long until the ppl of the free world decide its time for a coalition of the willing!

[Logical]

30!!! AS-90 is a surprise and far more significant than the Challengers. https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1614392345826557952

[Middle-aged Europe]

Today, German weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall has said that they have 88 decommissioned Leopard 1 and 22 decommissioned Leopard 2 tanks in their inventory. Downside is that according to Rheinmetall it would take about a year to refurbish and get them operational again.

Of course it would be a lot faster to just provide Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks from active Gemman Army inventory. This would limit the shipment in terms of quantity though since the Army would inadvertently say  that they need most of the tanks themselves, leading to a batch of maybe about the same size of the UK's Challenger 2 pledge, perhaps slightly bigger. This in turn brings us back to the idea that everyone in NATO/EU sends about a dozen of their own main battle tanks, leading to a quite significant pool in the process. After getting the ball rolling that way, the long-term solution could then consist of the decommissioned Leopards mentioned in the first paragraph.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Today, German weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall has said that they have 88 decommissioned Leopard 1 and 22 decommissioned Leopard 2 tanks in their inventory.

...

After getting the ball rolling that way, the long-term solution could then consist of the decommissioned Leopards mentioned in the first paragraph.

Obviously that would be better than the 0 sent so far, but let's not kid ourselves pretending that ~100 tanks is any sort of long term solution.

[lfromnj]

Also don't the later variants of Leopards 1 still have like no hull armor even if their turret armor was upgraded?

[CumbrianLefty]

how long until the ppl of the free world decide its time for a coalition of the willing!

You're not helping.

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1614408205097910273

[American2020]

https://twitter.com/wallacemick/status/1614637920455110656

[Middle-aged Europe]

https://twitter.com/wallacemick/status/1614637920455110656

Irish socialist person Mick Wallace uses social media platform of American business magnate Elon Musk.

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://twitter.com/wallacemick/status/1614637920455110656

Nothing quite says being against imperialism then wanting to cut off aid to a country that was invaded by their neighbor because said neighbor views their existence as a historical mistake. You hypocritical tankie douchebags