The Ukraine war thread
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This is an interesting way to look at it. What if Putin did not miscalculate all along, but the West misread his intentions?
“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill
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Interesting but thin on credible supporting sources. Referring to David Knight Legg as an expert on energy alone undermines his argument.
Putin is a KGB hood not a calculating genius to try and pull off a heist worthy of a Bond villain as the oped suggests.
Sometimes an imperialist despot is just an imperialist despot. Nothing more.
“Little by little I am learning the art of being quite content by doing very little slowly” ~ Lionel Hardcastle
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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Is Russia running out of equipment and parts?
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Is Russia’s military running out of the equipment, spare parts and supplies necessary to maintain their war in Ukraine? Some reports say so, suggesting it’s because the parts are made in Ukrainian factories.
Vladimir Putin is said to be running out of missiles, tanks and aircraft, because the parts they rely on are made in Ukraine.
The engines of Russian military helicopters and key components for warships, cruise missiles and the majority of the nation’s fighter jets are all made in Ukrainian factories, the Telegraph reports.
The factories, which also produce parts for tanks and ground to air missiles, no longer supply Mr Putin’s army.
I’ve got to take this report with several grains of salt, because I assume those same factories must have stopped supplying Russia with spare parts after the seizure of Crimea and invasion of Donbas back in March of 2014. Are we to believe that Russia has failed to find alternate manufacturing sources for key military equipment for eight years? Russia’s invasion has displayed multiple levels of manifest incompetence, but it’s hard to believe they would be that incompetent for that long. (Now, could spare parts not exist due to massive corruption? That seems plausible, but it’s not the kind of thing you can count on your opponent suffering from.)
The army is also understood to be running low on arms following five weeks of sustained bombardment of Ukrainian cities.
This, on the other hand, seems quite plausible, given the well-documented logistical difficulties, and the furious rate at which Russian forces expended munitions during the initial assault.
The T-72 battle tank is one of the Russian army’s main armoured vehicles but, parts for it are understood to be manufactured in Izyum, an eastern Ukrainian city that Mr Putin’s forces have failed to capture.
The T-72 has been around since 1969. I can believe some of the high tech components for the most modern variants are in short supply, but surely they’ve have multiple source for the vast majority of mechanical parts for a long time now. And even if not, they built some 25,000 of the things, so I can’t imagine they don’t have enough mothballed tanks to provide spares, though it’s going to take time to get cannibalized parts out to field repair centers. (I’m assuming Russia has some sort of field repair capabilities, and I know Russian tank recovery vehicles were spotted on trains en-route to the theater before the war began.)
Open-source intelligence estimates suggest that Russia has lost at least 2,000 tanks and armoured vehicles, although true figures are suspected to be higher.
This I just flat out don’t believe. And indeed, when you go to what appears to be their primary source, they’re including a whole lot of trucks in that list, which aren’t counted as “armored vehicles.” The lesson here is “don’t believe anything that sounds too good to be true” and “always check the primary sources.”
Speaking of primary sources, that Oryx blog list does look pretty useful, though the nature of the methodology (adding up all pictures of destroyed equipment) is certainly suspect to manipulation.
Their summary line for Russian equipment losses as of this post “Russia – 2360, of which: destroyed: 1190, damaged: 41, abandoned: 232, captured: 897.”...
And confidently declare “Oh, those are two destroyed 120mm 2B11/2S12 heavy mortars!” That’s some #DavesCarIDService level obsession there…)
Keep in mind that Russia only had some 2,500 tanks assigned to active units at the start of the war (though other estimates are considerably higher. But given well-documented Russian maintenance problems, I can well believe several units have sustained losses in excess of that necessary to impair combat effectiveness.
Keep in mind that the Soviet Union lost 83,500 tanks between 1941 and 1945 in World War II. Of course, that was a much broader theater, using much more widely-produced, low-tech tanks. Hell, two-way radios didn’t become standard Soviet equipment until 1944.
For high tech munitions like smart bombs and guided missiles, I can well believe that Russia is running low on stock that can’t easily be replenished under the current sanctions regime. And we see ample evidence that field resupply has been negatively impacted by severe logistical difficulties. But “T-72s lack spare parts because the original factory was in Ukraine” doesn’t pass the smell test.
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As of this AM, the blog that he cites claims 415 tanks lost.
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Hillary Clinton says 'More' can be done to hurt Putin, help Ukraine: 'Double down'
Clinton said the U.S. must 'do everything we can' to punish Vladimir Putin
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised the job that President Biden has done in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while asserting that there is more that the U.S. should be doing to make a difference in the region.
In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press," Clinton said that the U.S. is "looking at this with our eyes wide open," and seeing the threat that Russian President Vladimir Putin poses not just to Ukraine but to "Europe, to democracy, and to global stability." Still, she claimed that the sanctions imposed and assistance given to Ukraine so far are not enough.
She is preparing. It is still her turn.
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Casualties at the tipping point?
In four weeks of combat, Russia may have lost 25 percent of its initial attacking force. These casualties are not on the scale of World War II but are large compared with the relatively small size of the Russian military today. Although reinforcements and replacements can offset some of these casualties, the loss of trained troops will impair military operations and eventually have a political effect.
Russian losses to date are high. NATO estimates that Russia has lost between 7,000 and 15,000 soldiers. Wounded who cannot rapidly return to duty generally number about twice the number of dead. That would mean that Russia has lost between 21,000 and 45,000 troops in four weeks of conflict. To put that into perspective, Russia reported 14,400 killed through 10 years of war in Afghanistan.
The initial invasion force numbered about 190,000 troops. However, that included militias in the Donbas and security forces (Rosgvardiya) for occupation. Ground combat troops numbered about 140,000. Thus, Russia may have lost about a quarter of its initial combat force.
Russian forces are not large. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union maintained a military of about 3.5 million. That military is long gone. Today, Russia maintains a total military of about 900,000, of which 280,000 are in the army, according to the latest figures from the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
Russia lacks a strong reserve force. In theory, former soldiers could be recalled to service, and Russia is likely doing some of that, but these soldiers receive no training or follow-up after their active service. Russia has tried to create reserve forces like those in NATO, where reservists are organized into units that train regularly, but such efforts have not made much headway.
To put the Russian force into perspective, the United States has an active-duty force of 1.3 million and organized, trained reserves of 800,000. Thus, the United States has about twice the trained personnel that Russia does.
To further put the Russian force into perspective, the United States sent about 540,000 troops to Saudi Arabia in 1991 to liberate Kuwait from Iraq. Total coalition forces numbered about 750,000. Russia is conducting this invasion on a shoestring.
Commentators suspect that Putin is not getting objective advice about the war and thus may not fully appreciate the difficulty his forces are in. This is a common problem in authoritarian regimes where officials do not want to bring bad news to an all-powerful leader. However, eventually, battlefield realities will assert themselves. Likely a group of generals will agree among themselves that Putin must be made aware of battlefield circumstances before the army breaks from continuing casualties, physical exhaustion, dwindling supplies and munitions, and sinking morale. Bringing that message forward may be the push that convinces Putin to get serious about negotiations.
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Did Ukraine hit the missile frigate?
https://dumskaya.net/news/ukrainskie-zashchitniki-povredili-rossiyskiy-fre-162480/
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“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill
But most Germans still believe she was a good chancellor. We are still in denial about a large number of issues.
