Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Oryxslayer]

Even mass conscription won't save the Russian war effort in Ukraine:

https://twitter.com/daxe/status/1572343200534171648

Mobilization could make military service compulsory for millions of Russians who, at present, easily can avoid the armed forces’ twice-a-year draft. In theory, mobilization could swell the Russian army’s ranks by millions.

In practice, those throngs of new troops would lack instructors to train them, units to absorb them, commanders to lead them, noncommissioned officers to mentor them and equipment to give them useful combat power.

The main effects of mobilization would be to clog up the army’s fragile home garrisons, undermine the legitimacy of Putin and his regime, deplete the federal treasury and—in the best case—feed into Ukraine a lot of untrained, under-equipped and poorly led men who, more likely that not, quickly would surrender, desert or die.

"We have reserves" has basically been the Russian military motto for as long as Russia has existed, and if we've reached the point where that is no longer viable, well, that definitely changes what kind of military power they can be.

Which shows another thing, its easier to "support" the war when it won't be you or those close to you fighting it. Full mobilisation has the potential, at least, to be a fiasco.

I'm going to be honest here: what Industrial war has Russia won principally through her larger numbers, with the exception of WWII? All other examples seem to point to losses that eventually force the regime to bend or break because they poured in so many men and made the politics of the war unavoidable. Crimea, Manchuria, WWI, Finland, Afghanistan/(Chernobyl?)...the list isn't that favorable. Because the masses don't like being thrown into the meat grinder with little support.

WWII of course looms large in the state mythology, which is why everything about it looms large in everyone's mind. But in many ways it is the exception rather than the rule.

[Torie]

Russians scramble to get the f**k out of their country. One could say that they are now... mobilized.


https://mobile.twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1572531586649960448

"Some routes with stopovers, including those from Moscow to Tbilisi, were also unavailable, while the cheapest flights from the capital to Dubai were costing more than 300,000 roubles ($5,000) - about five times the average monthly wage."

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Even mass conscription won't save the Russian war effort in Ukraine:

https://twitter.com/daxe/status/1572343200534171648

Mobilization could make military service compulsory for millions of Russians who, at present, easily can avoid the armed forces’ twice-a-year draft. In theory, mobilization could swell the Russian army’s ranks by millions.

In practice, those throngs of new troops would lack instructors to train them, units to absorb them, commanders to lead them, noncommissioned officers to mentor them and equipment to give them useful combat power.

The main effects of mobilization would be to clog up the army’s fragile home garrisons, undermine the legitimacy of Putin and his regime, deplete the federal treasury and—in the best case—feed into Ukraine a lot of untrained, under-equipped and poorly led men who, more likely that not, quickly would surrender, desert or die.

"We have reserves" has basically been the Russian military motto for as long as Russia has existed, and if we've reached the point where that is no longer viable, well, that definitely changes what kind of military power they can be.

Which shows another thing, its easier to "support" the war when it won't be you or those close to you fighting it. Full mobilisation has the potential, at least, to be a fiasco.

I'm going to be honest here: what Industrial war has Russia won principally through her larger numbers, with the exception of WWII? All other examples seem to point to losses that eventually force the regime to bend or break because they poured in so many men and made the politics of the war unavoidable. Crimea, Manchuria, WWI, Finland, Afghanistan/(Chernobyl?)...the list isn't that favorable. Because the masses don't like being thrown into the meat grinder with little support.

WWII of course looms large in the state mythology, which is why everything about it looms large in everyone's mind. But in many ways it is the exception rather than the rule.

Transnistria, Chechnya II, arguably Georgia.

[Woody]

https://twitter.com/WhereisRussia/status/1572541548423942148
https://twitter.com/protasm19751/status/1572558321508548615
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1572526280675045378

[afleitch]

I think anecdotally (and we've seen this coming out of pre 2022 occupied Ukraine) is that there is a generational divide in how willing people are to send 'Russian sons' off to die this winter.

Even though the optics of this will be really bad and would be for any country that wasn't at heel, Putin is counting on it not breaking Russian civilian resolve and I fear he's correct.

As for the nuclear threat, it's a clear bluff. He's cornered and it's clear there's been some genuine criticism from his allies as well as the obvious military retreats.

[Woody]

https://twitter.com/Igsdelija1398/status/1572574043462832128

[Person Man]

The partial mobilisation (which seems pretty close to a full mobilisation) vindicates what I postulated months ago with regards to escalatory concerns: most “escalation” would be contingent on the extent of Ukrainian success rather than the specific tools they were given to achieve it. Consequently, many of the restrictions and delays in the supply of materiel, training etc. to the Ukrainian Army only served to draw out the conflict and cause more Ukrainian casualties prior to Russia being forced to raise or fold in the face of Ukrainian success.

This should be kept in mind when supplying future aid. Either we prefer to see Ukraine lose rather than risk further Russian escalation against it, or we reduce the restrictions on what we supply to help it win. I’d rather let Ukraine judge the risk, as it’s their country - but the global ramifications of potential Russian nuclear use in anger may mean total Ukrainian loss is preferable. I don’t think we can fine-tune aid to keep front lines stable forever.

The global ramifications of ceding to nuclear blackmail fundamentally guarantee nuclear war in the long run. The only way to maybe avoid it is to consistently call Putin's bluff and never give any signal that we're cowed by his threats.

I will go further and predict that there will be a nuclear exchange within 15 years of the date the Russian flag is hoisted over Kiev or Odessa.

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/samramani2/status/1572516288018403330?s=46&t=c7Xd8CGqZL7...

[Sir Mohamed]

Which shows another thing, its easier to "support" the war when it won't be you or those close to you fighting it. Full mobilisation has the potential, at least, to be a fiasco.

A major issue with general mobilization is that a large number of potentially drafted men are not trained. Training requires several months and even training units themselves are already in battle as we speak. This practically leaves these new forces as cannon fodder, potentially causing more backlash when many more thousands come back home in body bags. And another factor is when drafted men are taken out of regular, but important jobs while Russia's economy is already crumbling.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Which shows another thing, its easier to "support" the war when it won't be you or those close to you fighting it. Full mobilisation has the potential, at least, to be a fiasco.

A major issue with general mobilization is that a large number of potentially drafted men are not trained. Training requires several months and even training units themselves are already in battle as we speak. This practically leaves these new forces as cannon fodder, potentially causing more backlash when many more thousands come back home in body bags. And another factor is when drafted men are taken out of regular, but important jobs while Russia's economy is already crumbling.

Especially for basic defensive roles, commanders on both sides seem to think they can get away with a month or two’s training, if not less, prior to deployment. The whole point of this very open-ended partial mobilisation is that Russia will try to pick and choose the most experienced/fit veterans and specialists first - these people will probably need less training. The conscripts, if they are sent, have nominally had months of training already.

There will be issues with morale, logistics, training, equipment and so on, but it’s not as if the only reserves are would-be infantrymen who’ve never picked up a gun before. There are bound to be retired officers, pilots, tank commanders and so on. If the numbers are small, they may prove to be a bottleneck on the overall size of the reinforcement group, but we already know the numbers are not zero.

For what it’s worth, Kofman thinks the anti-refusenik policy (outlined in the Duma law I mentioned) is the most important of the mobilisation measures:

https://mobile.twitter.com/KofmanMichael/status/1572573095734685702

The refuseniks may form a substantial portion of the current Russian Army and they are probably as well-trained as your average Russian contract soldier.

[Woody]

A lot of revision and mindless "ASIATIC HORDES BEING SENT TO THE SLAUGHTER" which was a common German trope during WWII.

Ukraine has been in mobilization since the conflict started, and it has shown to be hugely effective. There has been no indication Russia can't do this yet, so spare your conclusion for the war already.

[YPestis25]

A lot of revision and mindless "ASIATIC HORDES BEING SENT TO THE SLAUGHTER" which was a common German trope during WWII.

Ukraine has been in mobilization since the conflict started, and it has shown to be hugely effective. There has been no indication Russia can't do this yet, so spare your conclusion for the war already.

lol - Russia has been unable to properly supply or equip their smaller "professional force", so it stands to reason that they will not be able to supply or equip conscripts.

As for your Ukraine comment, it should be evident why a nation mobilizing for national defense would tend to be much more effective than a nation mobilizing for a foreign adventure.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Shoigu says Russia lost around 6K KIA and said that Ukraine lost 61K KIA.  Note that Shoigu's number does not include various auxiliary unit losses (Donsesk republics militias, Wagner group, and other various nonformal Russian military units).  It seems reasonable if you take Shoigu at his word, the total KIA on the Russian side should be tripled since the Donsesk republics militias are taking the brunt of a lot of the fighting and losses and man-for-man are just less effective than formal Russian units.

HHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

If you take Shoigu at his word, then I have bridge to sell you. It's a real nice one, just some holes from HIMARS impacts. Now, you also obviously shouldn't take sources like Ukrinform, UATV, or even the UK intelligence assessments at their word either, as they have bias in the other direction. At the very least it stands to reason that the Russian MoD would be similarly biased.

Shoigu's number on Ukraine KIA of 61K looks funny since he also claims Ukraine lost 40K wounded.  I would expect the ratio of these two numbers (wounded vs KIA) to be more like 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 and not .66 to 1.

My sense is that Shoigu's estimates of Russian KIA are most likely accurate (if you triple the number to take into account other auxiliary unit losses) but his Ukraine numbers are most likely bogus and would overesimate Ukraine KIA.

There is no way the Russian armed forces (again even not counting Spearatist, Rogvardia, Wagner, Chechens, or other paramilitary and irregular forces) only have 6K KIA.

Lets start with vehicle losses visually confirmed by Oryx:
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html. He lists 3,844 destroyed Russian vehicles. If we assume 1 KIA per vehicle (it's likely much higher, since Russian tanks are known to have poor survivability, and the chance of a crewman surviving a catastrophic ammo explosion and turret launch is essentially 0, but let's be as generous as possible to Russia for this exercise). Let's further assume that only half the vehicles were crewed by RF regular forces (an obviously incorrect and overly generous assumption, but let's go with it). Let's further assume that damaged and abandoned vehicles yielded 0 KIA. Even with this extremely generous set of assumptions, we still get 1,722 KIA just from destroyed vehicles, with the real total likely being at least 3-6 times higher because of the generous assumptions above. But even with the 1.7K absolute minimum figure, that's already nearly a third of the figure given by Shoigu, and we all know infantry do most of the dying in most wars.

We also know that the VDV (who are all regulars) suffered very high losses, with many being killed due to the nature of their operations and training. So at least several hundred KIA from those operations.

We also need to count:
- Very deadly urban fighting in Mariupol and other cities, even if mostly done by separatists and Wagner, at least some of the dead have to be infantry or artillerymen not already accounted for above
- Personnel aboard the Moskva. Of course the Russian navy still lists most of them as "missing" (probably to avoid counting them in figures like the one Shoigu gave), but anyone still listed as "missing" has to be presumed dead at this point.
- Soldiers killed huge explosions from HIMARS & artillery strikes on ammo dumps: again, these would likely be listed as "missing" since in many cases no remains could be recovered because the powerful explosions would literally vaporize them. Even if these were mostly private contractors or separatists, many would still be regular soldiers, especially since these are non-combat roles where Russia could more easily use conscripts.

[The Dowager Mod]

Give this a read.
https://twitter.com/MarkHertling/status/1572571676524838915

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1572564392948170752?s=20&t=1ijMFHaY6...

[Middle-aged Europe]

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1572533176853213185?s=20&t=J8ia7w7O...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Russian_citizens#Visa_requirements_map

I'm guessing most of the people leaving Russia are heading for the Caucasus, Turkey, Moldova, or Serbia.

[rc18]

https://twitter.com/ABarbashin/status/1572578647919464449?s=20&t=_WPaaaCs0wH...

This raises a point though. Thanks to the presidential decree it is clearly specified that receiving a prison sentence will result in dismissal from the army.

So why bother protesting and getting a heavy sentence? Go commit some petty crime that results in a short custodial sentence, deliberately get caught, and then you're safe.

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/sotiridi/status/1572568782748680194

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1572533176853213185?s=20&t=J8ia7w7O...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Russian_citizens#Visa_requirements_map

I'm guessing most of the people leaving Russia are heading for the Caucasus, Turkey, Moldova, or Serbia.

Yep: https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1572535012494544896?s=20&t=J8ia7w7OUDB7...

[Storr]

Important points about the "partial" mobilization:

https://twitter.com/Andrew__Roth/status/1572473782241218566?s=20&t=J8ia7w7OU...

https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1572565618657996807?s=20&t=J8ia7w7O...

https://twitter.com/DrRadchenko/status/1572486143198756868?s=20&t=J8ia7w7OUD...

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/sotiridi/status/1572568782748680194

It's Russian mobilization.

[Stranger in a strange land]

A lot of revision and mindless "ASIATIC HORDES BEING SENT TO THE SLAUGHTER" which was a common German trope during WWII.

"The invincible Aryan Wehrmacht only lost to the Asiatic hordes because Stalin had more men than Hitler had bullets" is a totally different argument from "Russia can't even properly supply the army it's deployed to Ukraine, what makes you think they can supply an even bigger one?"

Ukraine has been in mobilization since the conflict started, and it has shown to be hugely effective. There has been no indication Russia can't do this yet, so spare your conclusion for the war already.

Tons of indications:
- Huge supply problems: troops being issued expired MREs, rotting low-quality tires, 65 km convoys because the rail networks were snarled up, huge amounts of rolling stock being captured along with weapons and vehicles during the Kharkiv offensive, etc......
- HIMARS hitting ammo dumps forcing them to be dispersed and distributed less efficiently

Some of you probably know about the History Youtuber TIK. And while yes, he's a bit of a crank when it comes to politics and macroeconomics, his analysis of campaigns and logistics is spot-on. Here's his answer to a question asking if so many German soldiers being tied up garrisoning occupied Western Europe during World War II hindered their operations on the Eastern Front: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQoPDNPhwF4. I encourage everyone to watch the video in its entirety because it's both helpful for understanding World War II history and has a lot of lessons that can be applied to the current war. The long and the short of it is that even if the forces in Western Europe had been deployed against the USSR, it wouldn't have helped because Germany couldn't even supply the forces that it had deployed. Russia is in the same situation. It thinks it's re-fighting World War II as the Soviet Union, but it's actually fighting as Nazi Germany.

[Middle-aged Europe]

https://twitter.com/sotiridi/status/1572568782748680194

It's Russian mobilization.

It seems like a pretty dumb decision by EU countries to deny Russian citizes visas right now.

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1572598206579740673?s=20&t=J8ia7w7...