Those calls are all cherry picked , only 2 a day and the Ukraine military picks which to release.
They are interesting but don’t believe that is the whole story. Very savvy by UAF but it is purposeful.
I've seen more than 2 in a day, but they are probably cherry picked. The fact that there are enough calls with the complaints heard in them are indicative of an army in trouble. The lack of Russian success on the ground the last few months dovetails with the content of the calls.
Didn't you say Russia would be out of ammunition in March / April? Get off this the sky is falling schtick. The way you guys are eating up Ukrainian propaganda is hilarious considering how quickly you call ANY report / statement from Russia "deceiving".
You have been preaching the end of Russia "is imminent" for almost 1 year now. I think it is time to hang up being an international strategic warfare advisor and admit you're throwing sht at the wall and hoping it sticks.
The nature of a Lanchester Square Collapse it's difficult to predict exactly when it happens and how it exactly play out, but when the precursors are there, they always happen. A force can continue fighting though badly for quite a while after a collapse. Japanese air power was present in large numbers from the collapse in 1943 to the end of the war, but its effectiveness was very poor. Kamikazes helped achieve some limited success and forced the Allies to dedicate a lot of resources to stop them, but it was a dying gasp.
A force fighting on after a Lanchester Square collapse is like trying to run with a torn tendon in your leg. It's going to hurt like hell and almost certainly do more serious damage, but it can be done. That's the state of the Russian army right now. They are keeping a force in the field, but they are in very poor condition and they are doing long lasting damage to themselves. They are losing equipment they can't really replace, destroying their reputation on the world stage (they keep their defense industry going through international sales and the poor performance in this war isn't helping the reputation for their equipment), and they are getting a lot of young men killed.
There are a number of videos produced by conscripts showing the poor conditions they are living under and talking about how terrible everything is. Way beyond "the food is terrible", more like "we have little to eat and we're sleeping outside with no camping gear" type complaints. Those are the sort of morale problems that could trigger mutiny.
Ukraine is on the offensive, though moving slowly. Both Kherson and northern Luhansk are falling apart for the Russians. The Ukrainians may be held back by not enough vehicles. The weather isn't helping either. The ground will start to freeze within a month and at least tracked vehicles will be able to get around better. We'll see if the offense picks up steam.
I expect Ukraine to be able to take back most of the territory the Russians took, but Crimea will be difficult. Crimea being a peninsula it's fairly easy to defend the land border with Ukraine. Though if Ukraine is able to shut down the Kerch bridges completely and interdict all traffic on the Azoz Sea with anti shipping missiles on the northern shore (once they get there), Crimea will become very difficult to keep supplied.
I see the war ending one of the following ways:
1) Mutiny within the Russian army similar to what happened in 1917 probably with subsequent unrest in Russia itself.
2) Something happening in Russia that dramatically changes the politics of the war. This could be unrest in Russia that destabilizes the country or Putin being removed in one way or another and the new leader blaming it all on Putin and withdrawing.
3) Ukraine continues to take territory back until the last Russian unit is out of Ukraine and the Russians make a lot of noise about coming back and re-invading, but never do because they physically can't.
4) Russia uses a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb (also possible if Putin is removed and a hard liner replaces him thinks nuclear weapons are the answer). This will trigger a NATO response that will result in a major air campaign that will take out Russian assets across the region. This may then trigger a full scale nuclear war or the Russians may slink off back to Russia grumbling about the US forcing them to do it.
There are possibilities for combinations of the above too. Russia could have unrest or a civil war under any scenario where they lose in Ukraine. Russia does not fare very well when they lose a war. After the Crimean War in the 1860s the turmoil after the war forced the freeing of the serfs and a number of other reforms. The lass to the Japanese in 1904 and 1905 caused an uprising that almost overthrew the Czar in 1906. The disaster of WWI led to the Russian Revolution and the failure in Afghanistan contributed to the fall of the USSR.
Most western countries would have quit at this point. Western militaries and their people are more sensitive to losses than the Russians. But there comes a point where flogging the dying horse is not going to make it move any further.
A broken force can fight a defense, though usually not a very effective one. The US/Philippine army at Corregidor held out into early 1942, but it was pretty much broken months before. In numerous island battles the Japanese were able to hold some ground even after the back was broken on their defenses. There are many other examples, but in each case the inevitable outcome is certain before resistance ends.
Winning so hard they’re conscripting prisoners.
(Not confirmed but probably)
I think there is pretty solid evidence they are recruiting prisoners, though it's mostly Wagner. The Russian news has said they are recruiting from prisons, there are stories from within Russia of it going on, and the Ukrainians have captured people who go into detail about having been prisoners and what they were in prison for.
I don't know. Something is clearly going on, if only by looking at the evidence in the daily loss statistics to the extent that they can be depended on. What exactly is happening is unclear.
We will know eventually, but in the meantime all we can do is tease out that something is happening.
It is not often said, but UK home morale was negatively impacted by both the WW1 and WW2 bombing campaigns. That fact was suppressed and closely monitored, and measures put in place to counter it. So it should not be taken for granted that bombing campaigns are counterproductive. Especially when - as now - there can be relatively precise strikes on infrastructure targets that cause substantial degradation of quality of life for the civilian population. Such deliberate targetting of civilian infrastructure is of course a war crime.
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True. I have read that if the handwriting wasn't on the wall already it may have force Britain out of the war.
Ukraine's history the last few hundred years have been more difficult than Britain's. Stalin tried to starve them in the 1930s followed by a brutal German occupation in WW II. The Ukrainians have often been treated as inferior by the Muscovites with periodic brutality.
This war has driven those old ideas home to a new generation of Ukrainians. Many Ukrainians feel that this war is make or break: either break the back of the Russians at all costs or Ukraine dies. When the threat feels existential, people will fight harder and will put up with more pain to get there.
en.wikipedia.org
Yes the Lancet drones the Russians are using are a problem. Let us hope that Russian production rates remain low.
The Lancet does seem like a nasty piece of kit. I suspect their supply is limited. We'll see what plays out.
I have read that Russian TV is citing NATO bombing of Serbian power plants/electricity grid during the Yugoslav breakup wars as precedent and justification.
Of course NATO was trying to stop Serbian genocide of Bosniaks/Albanians. Not engaging in genocide.
The NATO bombing campaign also took place in the spring. Nobody was at high risk of freezing.
I still think the campaign in Serbia was a dubious use of the NATO alliance, but it was effective in ending the war and the subsequent peace keeper troops did help the region gain some degree of stability. There have been some minor dust ups since the war, but it's mostly peaceful now.
As a result I have mixed feeling about the NATO campaign there. I think it was a wrong use of the alliance, but the result worked. The next time they tried it, things didn't turn out as well. Libya today is pretty much a failed state.
