Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[The Mikado]

I must say that the situation is terrible. But so far I'm fine. At the moment, I am taking my family out of my city to the village where I have a house. Details will be announced later, if possible

Reiterating what I said a few days ago: if you set up a Go Fund Me, we will donate. A lot of us want to show our support for a Ukrainian in our little community here, so if that's needed, do not hesitate to act.

[The Mikado]

I cannot see how Ukraine can resist this invasion.

But I didn't think Bosnians had a chance against the Serbs (Chetniks) in the 1990's either.

Putin does risk a lot here, so he will want this over short and sharp.

This has never been about repelling the initial invasion. Russia will overrun Ukraine if it really wants to.

The question is what happens after that.

[The Mikado]

Vladimir Putin, meet the sunk-cost fallacy. That's what the war has seemingly become for Russia at this point.

https://twitter.com/NotWoofers/status/1520167137507221506?s=20&t=3wX55ctURgt...

https://twitter.com/NotWoofers/status/1520170795112280067?s=20&t=3wX55ctURgt...

One thing I keep noting that this guy clearly gets but a lot of people don't is that people dramatically overestimate the size of Russia's population.

Fun comparison (both rounded to the nearest 5 million):

Population of Russia: ~145 million
Population of Mexico: ~130 million

Think about that for a second. Would you be saying "Mexico has unlimited manpower, it can keep sending wave and wave of people into Guatemala, Guatemala has no chance here?" in the event that war was taking place? No, of course not. Russia is basically Mexico X 1.1 in terms of people. It's a way way smaller country than people think it is.

[The Mikado]

I cannot see how Ukraine can resist this invasion.

But I didn't think Bosnians had a chance against the Serbs (Chetniks) in the 1990's either.

Putin does risk a lot here, so he will want this over short and sharp.

This has never been about repelling the initial invasion. Russia will overrun Ukraine if it really wants to.

The question is what happens after that.

So...anyone want to dunk on me for this? Worst take of mine in years. Never been happier to be wrong.

[The Mikado]

This is starting to feel like the battle for Kyiv all over again. I don’t see how Russia can pull anything off with the slow place/little gains, the causality rate they are sustaining, and Ukraine successfully counterattacks around Kharkiv. It’s more of a question of do they pick up a flee like they did in Kyiv to avoid a devastating loss or push forward and risk their Izium forces getting encircled from the rear by the Kharkiv forces?

People are impatient. The very fact that Ukraine is confident enough to make movements around Kharkiv and advance in that direction during the middle of the Russian offensive is a clear sign that the Ukrainians are confident they are in no danger of their lines breaking. If they were, they wouldn't do the luxury of this push north.

Anyway, I think the Russians probably have another 10 days or so of offensive in them before they grind to a halt this time, for all the little good pushing Ukrainian lines 5 miles back or so will do them (none, really). The question is what Ukraine ends up doing once this offensive winds down and Ukraine has the initative.

[The Mikado]

https://mobile.twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1520686567001673728
Russia is losing like 10 tanks a day. My god how many tanks did we lose in either Iraq or Afghanistan?

Is it even true? Let's face it, this information comes from the Ukrainians. Not the most reliable of sources.

Manpower loss is probably within range of possibilities but the number of equipment losses are way way overestimated. For a good baseline of equipment losses go to Oryx's blog.

First off, Ukraine has done a very good job being accurate with Russian losses in accordance with Western Intelligence own assessments of the situation so I think it’s very unfair to be acting like Ukraine is unreliable on this regard. Second, Oryx is awesome but he can be a little too conservative with some of his estimates. For example, he put Russia tank losses at around 600 but we have visual confirmation of 600 Russian tanks lost and I have a hard time believing that every single Russian tank loss has been successfully visual documented. So tank losses of 1k+ for Russia doesn’t seem that unreasonable

Oryx's numbers are a solid lowball, an "AT LEAST" X amount. And they do establish that the Ukrainian numbers are out to lunch in some respects, especially fixed wing aircraft. Oryx has 26 confirmed downed Russian planes. Say he's off by 50% (39) or even 100% (52), though it's a bit hard to miss a plane getting shot down so I doubt it's that many.

The Ukrainians claim to have downed 190(!) Russian aircraft.

[The Mikado]

Russian television knows Britain has nukes too, right?

https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1520846423629213699?s=20&t=_c7CE-mC...

At least these empty threats are eminently memeable:
https://twitter.com/NotWoofers/status/1520870567729147904?s=20&t=_c7CE-mCsmh...

More to the point, they do know that Britain's (especially) nukes are literally all on submarines and don't care whether or not the UK homeland has been blown to smithereens because they're a second strike force? The fact that Sarmat is an incredibly fast missile just means that (even ignoring the USA for a second) the Russians can devastate Britain and spend about 6 or 7 minutes celebrating before the British counterattack hits.

Also, Sarmat carries 10 warheads, which is far far far from enough to wipe out the UK with one missile, but that's just quibbling and clearly nothing in this changes if he'd said like three or four missiles instead of one.

[The Mikado]

Putin: spends the pandemic going ahead and writes a f**king 15 page long essay titled "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" as a sitting head of state who presumably has other things to do than write essays. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181 Gives a big hour long speech in which he spends most of it talking about Soviet nationalities policies of the 1920s and very little of it talking about NATO. Has a victory statement released prematurely two days into the invasion boasting about uniting the three East Slavic peoples, Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians, under the same roof again.

Tim Turner: "Is this about NATO?"

No, it's about Russian desire to subjugate and assimilate Ukraine! How f**king hard is this to understand? Putin is saying it in blatant terms and you just run off to this insane conspiracy theory about NATO expansion rather than accept that this is a war about imperial expansion, which is what Putin's been saying it was for literal years now.

[The Mikado]

Seriously, why do people ask "why did Putin start the war" when Putin has a really long and detailed essay up ON HIS WEBSITE conveniently translated into English that lays out his thoughts that Russian and Ukrainian distinction is the product of Polish and Austrian imperial influence as a sinister Western plot to de-Orthodox part of the Rus and that Vladimir Lenin's creation of a Ukrainian SSR with permission to secede prompted a great tragedy where Ukraine didn't fully "reintegrate" back into Russian culture?

Putin's thought process is out there for everyone to see. This isn't about NATO as much as some people want to make it about it.

It's weird to me how people will be like "Why didn't people know what Hitler wanted to do? They could've just read Mein Kampf" and then be like "Why would I read Putin's essay? That's not what he really wants." This dude spent months writing this as sitting President of Russia in a pandemic isolation in which he spent imbibing hardline Russian nationalist rhetoric nonstop. It's a great sign of where he's coming from, and where he's coming from is that Belarusians and Ukrainians are Polonized Russians who are at risk of leaving the Rus fold for good and it's his job to re"Gather the Russians Lands" like Catherine the Great (his favorite Russian leader, fwiw) and fully Russify the Belarusians and Ukrainians.

Putin does not keep his agenda secret and it's really really dumb how so many people act like it is some big mystery and has to be all about NATO and "Great Power Politics" rather than Russian nationalism and imperial conquest.

[The Mikado]

I am seeing rumblings on Twitter that Ukraine is shifting into a phase of their war plan that is focused on offensive action. Some of the initial reports posted above seems to confirm this. It is my hope that if they are making this shift now, they are confident that they will be successful in clearing a fair amount of land of their Russian occupiers. With that said, we've been hearing about the impending liberation of Kherson for some time now so, who knows?

If true, how long of a window does Ukraine have until the effects of Russian general mobilization kick in?

This is a REALLY good question. You can't just snap your fingers and have the army just appear. It might well take 2-3 months before anyone gained from mobilization actually shows up in Ukraine.

[The Mikado]

https://mobile.twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1524055423279583232

What would happen if Ukraine started to raid the Russian border?

Unwise because the Ukrainians would be giving up all sorts of advantages (shorter supply lines, friendly populace, familiar territory) and putting forces they can't afford to lose in significant danger if they counterattack all the way into Russia. I tend to doubt that propaganda or PR reasons are too important to the decision not to vs simple practical ones that it'd be a really bad idea.

[The Mikado]

So they are kidnapping Ukrainians and sending them all over Russia while moving Russians into stolen Ukrainian property to Russify the areas? What true liberators!

At any rate, seems a bit premature given the general state of the war, even if most of their losses and attrition were/are in the north and east.

This is definitely premature, but it's also what the USSR did in territories it annexed in WWII (officers especially literally going "I like this house" and confiscating it in occupied areas facing annexation).

It's a sign of deep overconfidence. Will Kherson be in Russian hands a month from now? Probably. Will it be in Russian hands three months from now? Maybe. Will it be in Russian hands six months from now??? I don't think I'd be buying real estate on that premise.

[The Mikado]

Russians may be entering Sieverodonetsk, but they've not proven good at all at actually thriving in urban combat. Given how long it took them to almost completely subdue Mariupol, which is way way way behind their lines, I'm not betting on them having an easy time with Sieverodonetsk, a city that's literally right on the front lines and easily resuppliable for the Ukrainians.

Entering does not equal "is about to fall," far from it. Probably just means we're gonna be spending two months hearing about the battle of Sieverodonetsk.

Also worth pointing out that this is literally, like, basically a stones throw westwards of where the offensive started from three weeks ago.

[The Mikado]

Is it an acceptable viewpoint to you all to think that what Russia is doing is wrong and that Ukraine's allies have the right to support their efforts, but to oppose US membership in NATO?

Not sure what "acceptable" means here. I do think that it's really weird that all of you right wing nationalists are opposed to NATO, arguably the biggest force multiplier of US strength in existence.  

One thing Trump was right on that neither he nor Biden could fix but apparently Vladimir Putin could is that most European countries have been free-riding on their NATO commitments for years and years. The massive upswing in military spending in European allies and other non-NATO allies (Japan is DOUBLING its military spending) is a really, really good sign long term for the US and makes those allies significantly more worthwhile to the US. Thanks, Putin, for scaring everyone into paying their fair share!

Russia's military could only look potent in a world in which Western Europe free rides. A Germany that spends 2% GDP on their military as they've vowed to do now is going to be spending MORE than Russia spends on their military at 4% GDP because the German economy is just that big.

[The Mikado]

I assume it’s just milking concessions from Turkey.

For all the Eurasianist nonsense ont he ground, I assume the Turks remember that the last time we had a war mongering Russian Emperor Constantinople was on the wish list.
Or more seriously that NATO is effectively blocking them from screwing with the Black Sea.

Hungary, or rather Orban scares me though.

How so? Turkey can wield the Montreux Convention all by itself.

Do you think Russia would respect it if Turkey didn’t have NATO at it’s back or do you think they would be demanding ‘renegotiation’.

...I wouldn't bet on Russia in an attempted invasion of Turkey, ESPECIALLY given Russia's lackluster naval strength. Turkey actually has a really impressive and large military, and the land invasion route through the Caucasus (assuming they went through Abkhazia) takes you right into the Pontic Mountains.

Turkey has remarkably defensible geography, especially if we're assuming Romania and Bulgaria don't let a Russian army walk through.

Did I mention the Turkish Air Force has over 200 F-16s? I'm really, really not betting on the Russian Air Force here. (Not to mention over a hundred Bayraktar TB-2 drones) And that Turkey has the second-largest military in NATO at present, behind only the USA? And that Turkey's population of ~85 million is twice that of pre-war Ukraine's and will require twice as much to occupy?

So yeah, I really doubt even in the "Turkey is expelled from NATO" world that Russia wants anything to do with picking that fight.

[The Mikado]

https://mobile.twitter.com/MrKovalenko/status/1530595518639915008

Interesting.  Hopefully they have intentionally prioritized this over the Donbas, moving troops, etc. in a way that could explain the recent difficulties in the east?

I think it's kind of the reverse: that Russia going ALL IN on the Severodonetsk attack like we've been hearing, by definition, means that they're, well, ALL IN and that that just leaves attacking them somewhere else, if you can do it, a very tempting option.

Actually TAKING BACK Kherson is a massively optimistic goal, though. Taking a major city without leveling it is complicated at best.

That said, even if they can push significantly closer to it and seriously threaten it, it might draw the Russians away from their current push in Severodonetsk and force them to send forces back to hold Kherson, taking some pressure off.

[The Mikado]

As for pre-Feb 24th territory, all I'll say is that Crimea always has been a logistical nightmare to invade by land from the north. You have to push through and absolutely tiny chokepoint. Your forces are exposed to naval bombardment on all sides. It's just really, really difficult.

THAT SAID, pre-Feb-24th Donetsk and Luhansk are a massively different story if (big if) we ever get to the point where Russian lines break. There's basically no terrain defense there, just a bunch of geographically large old industrial towns that are now down to like a third of their original population tops.

An 800k person city like Donetsk was is hard to take. A city designed for 800k with <250k living in it like Donetsk is now? That's a bit of a different story. Giant expanse of deserted hollowed out emptiness.

[The Mikado]

Re:  Replacing  Russian tanks.  Well, if they're breaking out the T-62s.  It's a 4 man crew (rather than 3)  different ammo, and really a whole different supply chain as you need different parts to keep those going.

All that is true, but most people seem to think those are going to be going into garrison duty in areas the Russians are already occupying so the T-72 and betters that are currently doing that can be relieved to go to the front lines. A T-64 sitting around occupying Berdyansk or Melitopol will presumably not be using that much ammo but still be a plausible enough threat to keep the locals from getting any ideas.

[The Mikado]

Omega: I think there's a difference between saying Ukraine is very unlikely to retake Crimea in the war and saying Ukraine should recognize that. They should maintain the threat of invading Crimea even if it's unlikely they ever are in a position to actually carry it out. Unilaterally taking things off the table, even things that aren't likely to actually happen, is foolish.

[The Mikado]

Neat:

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1605270295350222873?s=20&t=9B1xc4...

That's interesting. I know the Romans controlled Crimea but didn't know they had outpostings on the mainland. (Crimea isn't an island but you know what I mean) Trading hubs to deal with the Scythians, I guess?

[The Mikado]

That's a supermajority for Right Amount or Not Enough, fwiw.

[The Mikado]

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

That looks like...30 people?

And lol at pretending that PSL represents "the people." It's maybe 10-20k weird Communist cultists.

[The Mikado]

This really feels like June/July, with Russia making small incremental gains at giant cost, except these gains are far less significant than the fall of Sieverodonetsk and Lysychansk. The Russians have been "on the verge of" capturing Bakhmut for half a year now. It may actually happen soon-ish (as in two-three weeks). Was Bakhmut remotely worth the insane losses Russia and the Wagner Group paid for it? There's barely a Bakhmut left now.

Anyway, we probably won't see another big Ukrainian push for another 3-4 months (big as in distinguished from crawling towards Svatove and Kreminna). And waiting can be demoralizing for Ukraine's supporters, but remember that offensives are way more costly than defensive warfare and the massive bleeding of Russian forces back in June/July allowed the success of the August/September Kharkiv offensive. Same's true here. When Ukraine goes for a big Zaporozhzhia offensive in April or May it'll have been made possible by this period of grinding attrition.

[The Mikado]

https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/01/13/696259/Russia-sanctions-monetary-control-US-imperial-system-

"‘US monetary control of world will collapse’ due to Ukraine war: French expert"

In an interview with Le Figaro on Friday, French historian and anthropologist Emmanuel Todd said, “If the Russian economy offers long-term resistance to sanctions and manages to bleed the European economy white and manages to survive with Chinese support, US monetary control of the world will collapse and with it, the US’ ability to finance its mammoth trade deficit for next to nothing.”

Ah yes the world is just dying to make RMB the new reserve currency is this serious?

[The Mikado]

The poll details. The last two options are pretty odd. Is anyone actually considering those seriously? Why Lithuania? Ukraine doesn't even border Lithuania.

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1617531862309810185?s=20&t=VM8kjD...

A. No one is taking this seriously, but

B. Poland + Lithuania + Belarus + Ukraine is a pretty close analogue of the borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a state every Ukrainian would remember as the last time most of Ukraine wasn't part of Russia (except for the eastern and southern parts which were with the Crimean Khanate and went directly into Russia).