Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[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.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1506256136504184834?s=20&t=AMO2rwqUf1U2J...

Needs to be confirmed by a more unbiased source, but that fantasied pocket everyone was talking about yesterday may have actually somehow occurred.

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.

Answer: Corruption, both local and higher up. No doubt the bosses are cooking the books, but then you also have examples of common soldiers taking sh**t and reselling in. There was an image back at the start of march of a several-years long multi-sale ebay listing for Russian MREs from a St. Petersburg server.

[dead0man]

The Pentagon would give Biden a list of responses, suggest one or two of them and then do what he says.  Ideally they (Biden, the Joint Chiefs and whomever else Biden wants in the discussion) have already discussed this and other possibilities so there isn't a lot of hemming and hawing if the sh**t does hit the fan.

As to what those options are, well, they are probably what we think they are.  Everything from starting the "big one" to nothing at all, and everything in between.  The choice is Joe's, because that's who we elected.  Apparently our only other option was Trump, I saw other names on the ballot, but we've been told there are only two options and we do what we're told.  So we have Biden, and that's.....fine.

TNR addresses the question. I don’t find its musings very comforting. By the way, I read a baby nuke would destroy NYC. I am sitting about 3 miles as the crow flies from its city hall.

smallest US nuke on city hall, as you can see, you'd be fine if you were at Battery Park.

1.a baby nuke couldn't destroy Peoria
2.they wouldn't use a "baby" nuke on NYC
3.if they did, you'd be fine

https://newrepublic.com/article/165634/putin-nuclear-weapons-ukraine-us-response

Even if the unfathomable occurred and Russia used nuclear weapons in or around Ukraine, it’s unlikely the U.S. would respond in kind. “I doubt that we would reply in nuclear terms; the risks of escalation would be too great,” says Harvard University’s Joseph Nye, former assistant secretary of defense. Nye suggests that the U.S. might respond in the cyberworld, “but that has its own problems with retaliation.” Instead, the most likely response would be to try and further isolate Russia for violating the nuclear taboo, and perhaps move some troops to Europe. The U.S. could take the opportunity to reinforce the unacceptability of Russia’s extraordinary use of these weapons.

Since the West has made it clear it will not involve itself in Ukraine significantly, some experts believe that Putin is conducting his entire assault on Ukraine for domestic reasons. Putting his nuclear forces on alert could be an attempt to shore up his support at home or, at most, be a signal to the U.S. and its allies not to interfere in its war. Says Kristensen: “It’s important that NATO hasn’t taken the bait.”

I agree with that.

[CumbrianLefty]

[/quote]smallest US nuke on city hall, as you can see, you'd be fine if you were at Battery Park.

1.a baby nuke couldn't destroy Peoria
2.they wouldn't use a "baby" nuke on NYC
3.if they did, you'd be fine


[/quote]

Even a "baby nuke" dropped in that location would likely kill over 10k people, mind.

[afleitch]

Given what we know about Russian equipment and execution of the war, Russia's nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver it may not be in the most robust of health.

That doesn't mean a strike wouldn't be the most brutal single act of devastation since the end of WW2, but any counter strike, even non nuclear strikes, would probably be more devastating in it's effectiveness.

[Torie]

You agree that the US response should be to send more troops to Europe? I don't quite understand how that is proportional.

I got the NYC would be destroyed bit from the TNR article actually:

"It’s difficult to know exact details of Russia’s stockpile, given its lack of transparency. Larry Korb, with the Center for American Progress, says that any tactical weapon “is still pretty powerful.” One that was detonated over New York City, for example, would destroy the city, while a full strategic nuclear weapon would destroy the entire state."

Oh, what a fun toy you have to play with there in your basement in Omaha DeadOman. I see that it would take 25 kilotons to irradiate fireball me, and our building has no basement because it is almost at sea level, so it is a basement free zone.

[Storr]

I'm not going to lie. I'm mostly sharing this because the music used is a German drinking song from some 70s Dutch folk rock band that I've never heard of before.

https://twitter.com/NotWoofers/status/1506242226816495623?s=20&t=H8hOTSXUv7f...

https://twitter.com/JvA68518443/status/1506242723334004737?s=20&t=H8hOTSXUv7...

[afleitch]

"It’s difficult to know exact details of Russia’s stockpile, given its lack of transparency. Larry Korb, with the Center for American Progress, says that any tactical weapon “is still pretty powerful.” One that was detonated over New York City, for example, would destroy the city, while a full strategic nuclear weapon would destroy the entire state."

Two points of note.

Even during the height of the Cold War, any nuclear strike and counter strike would more than likely have devastated select targets in Europe either side of the Iron Curtain before immediate de-escalation in response. Any European alive then would have probably agreed. The USSR and the USA weren't stupid and neither were we. The same is true today.

Secondly what I was trying to hint at is that even if Russia went completely loco and lobbed a nuke at New York for the hell of it, using missiles and guidance systems that make it and don't get intercepted, I am more...confident now than a month ago that the west could effectively atomise a dozen Russian targets before the Russian missile passes the Azores. Slight exaggeration of course.

This is in no way a situation I would ever wish to happen, but we are basing Russian ability and effectiveness and weaponry on what was, as the article hints 'unknowns', prior to the Ukraine conflict. There is less fog now.

Are Russia a nuclear power as we assumed, or do they have what is effectively a series of 'dirty bombs' with the same capabilities and limitations as other countries that try to build them? That still makes them a threat, but in growling at us, they've shown a lot of missing teeth.

[Sir Mohamed]

In that situation, we could certainly make clear that Putin himself is a dead man walking. Given his widely reported fear of death, that is one thing that might just give him pause.

For sure this proves that Putin is not the great strategic mastermind as often described. Even if he somehow ends up winning militarily, there is no chance in hell he can keep Ukraine under control or manage a successful occupation. He doesn't have the ressources and personell, all while his economy is in the tank. From an objective viewpoint, Putin has been a major failure for Russia.

[Storr]

T-72A. They started production in 1979, was replaced by the T-72B in 1985. The Russians are really using 40 year old tanks in front line combat?

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1506267117410267136?s=20&t=H8hOTS...

[Sir Mohamed]

T-72A. They started production in 1979, was replaced by the T-72B in 1985. The Russians are really using 40 year old tanks in front line combat?

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1506267117410267136?s=20&t=H8hOTS...

I'm not sure how much of an issue that is, as long as it works and is properly maintained. Some of the eqipment sent to Ukraine is decades old, too. Didn't Germany send stuff from former East Germany?

[Cassius]

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.

Really it’s only 14 years or so, but that’s beside the point. Russia is the invading power attempting to advance over thousands of miles of territory against well-entrenched defenders, so it faces an inherent disadvantage there, one that has been compounded by poor logistics and a questionable overall strategy. Meanwhile, Ukraine was basically able to match the initial Russian invasion force man-for-man in terms of troops on the ground, so this was not the David vs Goliath type situation that was often assumed prior to Feb 24th (especially since the proficiency and equipment of the Ukrainian army has seen significant improvement since its fairly lamentable performance during the early stages of the War in the Donbas).

[GeorgiaModerate]

You agree that the US response should be to send more troops to Europe? I don't quite understand how that is proportional.

I got the NYC would be destroyed bit from the TNR article actually:

"It’s difficult to know exact details of Russia’s stockpile, given its lack of transparency. Larry Korb, with the Center for American Progress, says that any tactical weapon “is still pretty powerful.” One that was detonated over New York City, for example, would destroy the city, while a full strategic nuclear weapon would destroy the entire state."

This is completely unrealistic unless we're talking about a state like Rhode Island or Delaware.  There are no nuclear weapons powerful enough for a single bomb to come remotely close to destroying New York State.

Try the simulator at https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/.  You can specify ground zero and the yield in kilotons, among other options.  For reference, the Hiroshima bomb had a yield of 15 to 20 kilotons, while the largest ever tested (the Soviet "Tsar Bomba") was around 50 megatons, or 50000 kilotons.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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.

In a word, corruption. All sorts of targets and goals were set, and all sorts of methods were used to cheat, to hit the targets on paper in order to satisfy the political demands to meet them, while also not having to expand the effort required to actually meet them (and many were probably completely unrealistic without a total change in the culture of the Russian armed forces and of attitudes towards it in wider Russian society) and getting to pocket a nice share of the budget through brazen embezzlement : the senior ranks of the military grew up under Communism and know how to play that game. Similar comments apply to issues surrounding procurement. Now, military procurement is notorious for inflated estimates, questionable purchases and obvious skimming off the top in all countries, even low-corruption ones in Northern Europe, but in Russia the problem is on another scale: we're talking outright and shockingly brazen theft as well as all the usual issues (and these are all much worse than normal). Without putting too fine a point on it, even Russian writers who are very careful about contemporary politics have felt perfectly safe (well, at least up until the last month, one presumes) to crack jokes about and make arch references to corruption in the armed forces, because the military is notoriously corrupt and everyone in the country knows it.

The other issue, already mentioned in thread but it makes sense to bring it up in this post as well, is that the Ukrainian military has also undergone significant reforms in recent years. One of the big questions before the war was whether this had been successful or not, and if so to what extent: no one really knew. Some observers were quietly bullish, most were pessimistic. It is undoubtedly a massive failure of Russian military intelligence that even the possibility that Ukrainian military reforms might have borne fruit was entirely absent from pre-war strategic calculations.

One top of all this, though, one really cannot ignore the extremely poor strategy pursed by the Russian army in this war, one that reeks of excessive and hubristic political interference. Even if we put to one side the issues with supply and logistics (and we should not! These are huge issues in war), they attacked on far too many independent fronts and did so with far fewer men than required for so many fronts. Their campaign has yet to come close to recovering from this massive, ridiculous error.

[Torie]

"It’s difficult to know exact details of Russia’s stockpile, given its lack of transparency. Larry Korb, with the Center for American Progress, says that any tactical weapon “is still pretty powerful.” One that was detonated over New York City, for example, would destroy the city, while a full strategic nuclear weapon would destroy the entire state."

Two points of note.

Even during the height of the Cold War, any nuclear strike and counter strike would more than likely have devastated select targets in Europe either side of the Iron Curtain before immediate de-escalation in response. Any European alive then would have probably agreed. The USSR and the USA weren't stupid and neither were we. The same is true today.

Secondly what I was trying to hint at is that even if Russia went completely loco and lobbed a nuke at New York for the hell of it, using missiles and guidance systems that make it and don't get intercepted, I am more...confident now than a month ago that the west could effectively atomise a dozen Russian targets before the Russian missile passes the Azores. Slight exaggeration of course.

This is in no way a situation I would ever wish to happen, but we are basing Russian ability and effectiveness and weaponry on what was, as the article hints 'unknowns', prior to the Ukraine conflict. There is less fog now.

Are Russia a nuclear power as we assumed, or do they have what is effectively a series of 'dirty bombs' with the same capabilities and limitations as other countries that try to build them? That still makes them a threat, but in growling at us, they've shown a lot of missing teeth.

Just to clarify, I am not worried about Putin nuking NYC. I was shocked about how lethal tactical nukes were as claimed by the expert quoted by TNR above, but DeadOman's app suggests that just one would take out NYC was very exaggerated it seems. I was thinking of what they might do to Kiyv and the other big Ukraine cities. If Putin can't rule them, then he can at least destroy them.

It will be interesting what NATO says publically about what they decide or don't decide about what the consequences will be if Putin tries to change the war's trajectory by using tactical WMD's. I assume that what is published will be the same as what they tell Putin, but perhaps not.

[Person Man]

You agree that the US response should be to send more troops to Europe? I don't quite understand how that is proportional.

I got the NYC would be destroyed bit from the TNR article actually:

"It’s difficult to know exact details of Russia’s stockpile, given its lack of transparency. Larry Korb, with the Center for American Progress, says that any tactical weapon “is still pretty powerful.” One that was detonated over New York City, for example, would destroy the city, while a full strategic nuclear weapon would destroy the entire state."

Oh, what a fun toy you have to play with there in your basement in Omaha DeadOman. I see that it would take 25 kilotons to irradiate fireball me, and our building has no basement because it is almost at sea level, so it is a basement free zone.

The most likely attack would be from a 800 kiloton Russian ICBM. That's what I'm assuming in seeing what will happen to my place. I am assuming one nuke hits the harbor and another hits the airport in my scenario.

Do you have a place to go that won't be hit?

[Sir Mohamed]

If we reach a point where WMDs are used, be it chemical, biological or tactical nukes (not to be confused with strategic nukes), the question is how the PRC responds? In all considerations, the PRC is an important player that needs to be considered. WMDs may even be a step too far for Xi.

[Torie]

You agree that the US response should be to send more troops to Europe? I don't quite understand how that is proportional.

I got the NYC would be destroyed bit from the TNR article actually:

"It’s difficult to know exact details of Russia’s stockpile, given its lack of transparency. Larry Korb, with the Center for American Progress, says that any tactical weapon “is still pretty powerful.” One that was detonated over New York City, for example, would destroy the city, while a full strategic nuclear weapon would destroy the entire state."

Oh, what a fun toy you have to play with there in your basement in Omaha DeadOman. I see that it would take 25 kilotons to irradiate fireball me, and our building has no basement because it is almost at sea level, so it is a basement free zone.

The most likely attack would be from a 800 kiloton Russian ICBM. That's what I'm assuming in seeing what will happen to my place. I am assuming one nuke hits the harbor and another hits the airport in my scenario.

Do you have a place to go that won't be hit?

Hudson, NY about 110 miles to the north up the Hudson River from Hoboken.

[compucomp]

The other issue, already mentioned in thread but it makes sense to bring it up in this post as well, is that the Ukrainian military has also undergone significant reforms in recent years. One of the big questions before the war was whether this had been successful or not, and if so to what extent: no one really knew. Some observers were quietly bullish, most were pessimistic. It is undoubtedly a massive failure of Russian military intelligence that even the possibility that Ukrainian military reforms might have borne fruit was entirely absent from pre-war strategic calculations.

This is a very underrated point. The Ukrainian army's performance in 2014 was pathetic, it gave up Crimea without fighting a shot, with many of their forces defecting to the Russians, and they had a lot of trouble fighting against the DPR/LPR separatists, taking months to push them back towards Donetsk and Luhansk, and then promptly got rolled when the Russian "little green men" showed up. Clearly a lot has been done since then by the Ukrainians to improve that the Russians didn't account for.

[Storr]

Destroyed command vehicle and rocket anti air system.

https://twitter.com/NotWoofers/status/1506309324628545537?s=20&t=Zh7vm7nSMjp...

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/JackDetsch/status/1506287799141638150

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1506256136504184834?s=20&t=AMO2rwqUf1U2J...

Needs to be confirmed by a more unbiased source, but that fantasied pocket everyone was talking about yesterday may have actually somehow occurred.

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.

Answer: Corruption, both local and higher up. No doubt the bosses are cooking the books, but then you also have examples of common soldiers taking sh**t and reselling in. There was an image back at the start of march of a several-years long multi-sale ebay listing for Russian MREs from a St. Petersburg server.

Satellites are showing a bunch of fires in the Homostel-Bucha-Irpin area.

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1506310501650866187?s=20&t=tnjJF0Oqn...

[It’s so Joever]

Yes I know the irony of me posting this since I still believe Ukraine is going to lose short term, but if the encirclement thing is true that would be bad for the Russians.

[pppolitics]

Yes I know the irony of me posting this since I still believe Ukraine is going to lose short term, but if the encirclement thing is true that would be bad for the Russians.

Russia is not even demanding leadership change or "demilitarization" anymore, so Ukraine has already "won" that much.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Ukraine is winning in the sense that it looks much less likely now that Russia will be able to implement regime change in Kyiv. Its strategic objectives are, in the short term, in jeopardy (with the exception of establishing a land bridge to Crimea, and taking the DPR/LPR areas, where they have partially achieved their aims).

Preventing the best outcome for Russia in the face of overwhelming odds is something to be proud of and averts the total disaster of a bloody Russian occupation, but even if the advances completely stop for a time, it might not feel like V-day over there. The war takes place almost exclusively on Ukrainian land and the bombing of its infrastructure and mass killing/displacement of its citizens is way worse than anything that has happened to Russia as a result of sanctions. This has set back, and will continue to set back, the socioeconomic progress of Ukraine by decades - especially when you consider the knock-on effects like the rise of dangerous militia.

It has lost territory, and every day it fails to take that back is another day in which Russia can dig in, fortify, and enact population transfers. Ukraine's ability to conduct counteroffensives is limited and risks destroying heavy weaponry for which resupply isn't currently available, with the exception of limited domestic capacity vulnerable to airstrikes (c.f. the recent bombings of two aircraft repair facilities). Russia has a relatively unimpeded military-industrial complex, larger stores of old kit, and the possibility (according to the ISW) to bring in more reinforcements within a few months.

The ISW claims the conflict is approaching a stalemate. Even if Ukraine is armed to the point where Russia never desires to beak that stalemate again, Ukraine may be unable to take its territory back or rescue its surviving people there. The very existence of a long-term territorial gain would motivate any Russian dictatorship to have another try (with lessons learned), and the ongoing border dispute would damage Ukraine's long-term prospects of joining organisations like the EU.

Russia is losing because Ukraine has kept its gains minimal so far, and those minimal gains aren't worth the international backlash. That doesn't mean the gains don't exist, or that the international backlash will translate into the kind of support Ukraine would have been willing to give up Kherson for.

This analysis is all subject to change if the rumoured Ukrainian counteroffensives are real and if they succeed in taking back most or all of what was lost since February 24, but as the war is likely to be fought mostly on Ukrainian-held land, the feeling of victory is only going to be so strong should they win (unless they push into areas of Crimea and the Donbas that they haven't held for a long time).