This is ridiculous. You don't "give something" when you are invaded without provocation. You push the invader back to your borders and tell them to kick rocks.
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
An interesting Russian soldier interview on Youtube
Summary: He has a Ukrainian girlfriend and did not want to fight and gives examples of Russian army corruption and lies.
Summary: He has a Ukrainian girlfriend and did not want to fight and gives examples of Russian army corruption and lies.
Depends on whether Ukraine wants out of the war or not. If they want to sue for peace and end the war, than Putin will have to be given something. If on the other hand they want to grind the Russian army to dust and take back their land, then the Russians might be desperate to end the war and might be willing to give back land taken in 2014.
Ending a war depends on how much pain you can endure, both just managing to keep an army in the field as well as other costs like public sentiment and money. WW II was an unusual war's end where the losers were pretty much ground down to a point where it was impossible to fight any longer.
Most wars end with some sort of negotiated settlement with the aggressor leaving with their tail between their legs or the defenders losing something to the aggressors.
Ukraine appears much more able to keep an army in the field than Russia. They went to full mobilization on the first day of the war and grew their army to larger than Russia's within a few weeks. They also have a lot of allies giving them weapons and other aid to keep them in the fight. Public sentiment and the attitude of the Ukrainian troops seems to be pretty much unanimous that this bullying by Russia must end and it will end with this war.
Russia committed a vastly too small force for the war, with poorly trained troops who were completely unprepared, their equipment was mostly poor quality with only a few modern weapons, and they got hit with a massive wave of sanctions from the start of the war. They are in way over their heads and are only staying in the fight because of one stubborn guy at the top.
One of Perun's early videos he talked about a country builds a military for the kind of fight they plan to fight. Finland and Switzerland can mobilize a large force fairly quickly, but it is a completely defensive force with only one goal, protecting their country.
The US has the advantage of a large economy and a very peaceful continent. The US knows that any war it gets into will likely be on another continent, so it has built a massive lift force and logistics mechanism to put troops on another continent and keep their supplied.
Russia's military is built around their railroad network. It's highly mobile within Russia, but it really struggles to operate outside the borders of Russia. Outside of their rail system, they are vastly lighter on logistics units than any other larger army in the world. That was one of their bottlenecks from day 1 in the invasion.
Russia also has a largely conscript army. Almost 100% of their contract soldiers are conscripts who were bullied or conned into enlisting, they didn't walk into a recruitment office and volunteer like all enlisted personnel in the US today. A conscript army can be encouraged to fight, and they will fight hard if they are defending their home territory, but take non-volunteer troops outside your home territory and they are not going to want to fight if the going gets rough. They will probably be happy to stand around with guns if there isn't any fighting, but if someone is shooting at them, they will find an excuse to be somewhere else or cower behind something until the fight is over.
A study on US troops in Vietnam found this to be true of conscript US troops. In a fire fight for a squad of 10 mostly conscripts only 2 or 3 would actually be firing back and the rest would mostly be trying to avoid getting shot.
Ukraine knows all this better than any of us. They know they can bleed Russia dry, or trigger so much unrest in Russia that Russia pulls out of the war to deal with their internal problems. So Ukraine is taking a hardline to negotiations because they can.
Tiger
Active Member
First, I was surprised by this:
But then I had a look at who owns New York Times. A big chunk of it is BlackRock Fund Advisors which is trying to play nice with Russia since they are still conducting business there.
But then I had a look at who owns New York Times. A big chunk of it is BlackRock Fund Advisors which is trying to play nice with Russia since they are still conducting business there.
Tiger
Active Member
Wonder how much of mentality in Russia can be explained by the conformity effect:
Wonder how social media amplifies this.... QAnon etc.
Wonder how social media amplifies this.... QAnon etc.
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
Maybe now we'll see some action on Putin at the highest levels of global finance. Seems we're definitely gonna let this debt exception expire and Russia will "default".
I'm sure Jamie Dimon and his ilk have now snapped to attention and will put the force of global finance begins an effort to end this mess.
I'm sure Jamie Dimon and his ilk have now snapped to attention and will put the force of global finance begins an effort to end this mess.
Tiger
Active Member
Russians admit sanctions are working, now press hard and don't release sanctions until rebuilding Ukraine and war crimes are paid for.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Even if the West considering removing sanctions (which they should not), Russia can't be trusted. Even with simple things like letting civilians escape conflict zones, they have lied.
No, sanctions need to be cranked up to 11 and simply crush the Russian economy. I feel sorry for their citizens, but they know how to stop this (or they will - overthrow not just Putin, but all the corrupt officials).
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
From Kaja Kallas, the Democratically Elected Prime Minister of Estonia through her own Twitter account some 2 hours ago:
"
I warned about premature calls for a ceasefire and peace. We cannot give anything to the aggressor that it didn’t have before – or the aggression will sooner or later return. 1/4
No sign Russia has changed its calculus. I don't believe in goodwill by an outright aggressor and a cold-blooded war criminal. We must avoid a bad peace. A badly negotiated peace for Ukraine would mean a bad peace for us all. 2/4
We need to focus on pushing back the aggressor and drying up his war machine.
What Ukraine needs today are weapons to fight back the aggressor and liberate its territories. We need to help Ukraine win. And we need to make a leap forward in our own defence. 3/4
What is victory? This is solely up to Ukraine to define. But we must help them to reach the best position for any negotiations with the aggressor.
The Russian threat will not go away tomorrow. We mustn't get tired. After all, Ukrainians are not tired. 4/4 [My underline.]
"
Source:
"
I warned about premature calls for a ceasefire and peace. We cannot give anything to the aggressor that it didn’t have before – or the aggression will sooner or later return. 1/4
No sign Russia has changed its calculus. I don't believe in goodwill by an outright aggressor and a cold-blooded war criminal. We must avoid a bad peace. A badly negotiated peace for Ukraine would mean a bad peace for us all. 2/4
We need to focus on pushing back the aggressor and drying up his war machine.
What Ukraine needs today are weapons to fight back the aggressor and liberate its territories. We need to help Ukraine win. And we need to make a leap forward in our own defence. 3/4
What is victory? This is solely up to Ukraine to define. But we must help them to reach the best position for any negotiations with the aggressor.
The Russian threat will not go away tomorrow. We mustn't get tired. After all, Ukrainians are not tired. 4/4 [My underline.]
"
Source:
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petit_bateau
Active Member
Various rumours, perhaps related
- Ukraine now has MQ9 in-country, maybe not yet operating
- Russia has moved an S400 battery into northern Crimea
- Russia now generating BTGs using T62's, i.e. cupboard is bare ! (and different shell size and 4-man crew ....)
- DNR and LPR troops protesting openly
and Orban declares state of emergency in Hungary (for those that don't get it, he is a Putin stooge*)
* The oil assets in Hungary are Russian/Warpac/Comecon assets that were stolen (er sold, at mates rates) by the oligarchs back in the 1990s, then given mates rates on cheap inputs as a way of legally stealing $billions from Russian people into oligarch pockets. This is how you buy elections, buy the press, then rewrite the laws to legitimise it all. This is the alt-R playbook that Putin is playing via all his stooges. Don't be an apologist for Putin.
- Ukraine now has MQ9 in-country, maybe not yet operating
- Russia has moved an S400 battery into northern Crimea
- Russia now generating BTGs using T62's, i.e. cupboard is bare ! (and different shell size and 4-man crew ....)
- DNR and LPR troops protesting openly
and Orban declares state of emergency in Hungary (for those that don't get it, he is a Putin stooge*)
* The oil assets in Hungary are Russian/Warpac/Comecon assets that were stolen (er sold, at mates rates) by the oligarchs back in the 1990s, then given mates rates on cheap inputs as a way of legally stealing $billions from Russian people into oligarch pockets. This is how you buy elections, buy the press, then rewrite the laws to legitimise it all. This is the alt-R playbook that Putin is playing via all his stooges. Don't be an apologist for Putin.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
S400, that's their top-end. Would LOVE to see that bad boy destroyed by a $50,000 drone. Just saying. 
Tiger
Active Member
What happens if the rate of increase exceeds the incarceration capacity (both personnel and facilities)?
There is a web app where you can text a random Russian with a message. Many of the messages say the Russians are war criminals, etc. What people should really be saying there is that if they want sanctions lifted, they need to get rid of Putin and stop the war. Appeal to their interests rather than call them names.
As Robert Heinlein said: "never appeal to a person's better nature, they may not have one."
I've never trusted Putin and he hasn't demonstrated anything to be trusted for since the war began. The Russians will only keep promises if they get something out of it.
The question arises what condition those T-62s are in. They have been sitting outside in the Russian winter for 50+ years. An analysis of duds and shell fragments found in Ukraine determined that a fair bit of the ammunition the Russians are using dates back to the Soviet era. It's why the dud rate is so high, the stuff would have been recycled in a western army 20 years ago.
Since the Russians are hoarders, they probably have ammunition for the T-62s, but will it work? And none of it is going to be the stuff designed to punch through modern armor. On the upside the T-62 doesn't have an auto-loader which helps with crew survival if hit, but the Russians are already running two man crews in many of their 3 man crewed tanks (forcing the commander to be both gunner and commander), how many of those T-62s will go into combat with the commander doing three jobs?
This is a sign of an army in serious trouble.
Putin has set up a police state in Russia. He has been much more concerned about internal strife than foreign aggression.
He has elite police units trained to put down riots. These are made up of only Putin loyalists. They look like an infinite force, but in reality they only have enough police to put down riots in one city during peacetime. They sent at least some of those police to Ukraine where they were either lost or are bogged down in combat situations.
The protests against the war so far have been scattershot and small which allows local police to deal with them. If more widespread protests break out they won't have the police to put them down and that could spin out of control.
Russia is facing the same demographic shift the US is, but culturally it's playing out differently. In the US non-whites have struggled to get equal treatment with the white population, but large strides in that direction have happened in the last 55 years. The white population is declining due to low birthrates combined with immigration of non-whites (more of the former than the latter, but those freaking out about it assume it's more of the latter).
In Russia, the white Russians have ruled over an empire of non-whites for 500 years. The southern parts of the country have a lot of people ethnically related to Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, and other Muslim cultures. In the east the people are of Mongolian descent. The birthrate among white Russians is one of the lowest in the world. The birthrate among the non-white Russians is not huge, but it's bigger than the white Russians.
As a result there is a shortage of white Russian overlords to control the non-white Russians. A common pattern is any company making things or extracting wealth out in the non-white parts of the country get a white manager from Moscow. The manager is paid well enough to send his wife and children to Europe. The manager earns enough to emigrate permanently and is replaced by another white manager.
This system has been going on since the Soviet Union broke up and a similar system of white overlords existing in the USSR, though those people didn't get to emigrate when they were done. As the white population declines, fewer and fewer white managers are available and they need to dig deeper into the white population to find managers. Of course the solution would be to find competent non-whites and train them up, but the Russian leadership is too racist for that.
The war has set in motion a white flight in Russia. Many white Russians who can leave the country did leaving even fewer white managers around. Russia is also a very top down culture. People are trained to learned helplessness and will do nothing if not told to do something. As a result, their war production is probably less efficient than it was before the war.
On another note, the world is running out to grain for the poorest countries
This will probably trigger unrest in many countries. Arab Spring and the Syrian civil war happened because grain prices went up and there was a shortage that wasn't as bad as what the world is facing this year. Net exporters of grain probably won't notice the shortage much, but the developing world is going to take it in the shorts.
X Fan
Active Member
I served during that period. Yea, there was that major incident but overall incidents were not out of line with other major wars (do some research on ww2 and you’ll find there were incidents (although not wide scale) by British, USA & French soldiers in addition to the wide scale brutally reprehensible acts by the Germans, Russians and the Japanese
There is a difference between individuals acting out or low level commands giving illegal orders, but it's another thing when it's national policy.
X Fan
Active Member
Yes that’s right. It was German Russian, and Japanese policy BUT not USA policy in either WW2 or Vietnam.
petit_bateau
Active Member
Unfortunately whilst the s400 is in its new position it anchors the eastern end if the Russian naval blockade, and solidifies Russian control of airspace extending out to Snake Island, which is still in Russian control and also being re equipped etc So this s400 is as much a naval asset as an air defence asset. It would be great if it could be targeted, but that is a big if.S400, that's their top-end. Would LOVE to see that bad boy destroyed by a $50,000 drone. Just saying.
Only 40% of Russian missiles fired during this war have hit their targets, 20-30% have failed to launch or crashed in flight. An analysis of why
Thread by @TrentTelenko on Thread Reader App
Trent Telenko concluded in an essay a few weeks ago that he thought only about 25% of Russian nukes were viable. Considering how bad their maintenance is and how old many of their missiles are, I think it might be much lower. 2/3 of the nuclear triad require missiles and most air dropped weapons now are missiles too.
Most of Russia's tactical missiles like the Iskander use solid fuel which is more stable, but most of the larger missiles are liquid fueled and one component of the fuel degrades the tanks over time. Solid fuel can go bad too. So can many other components of a missile that has probably not been stored in the most optimal environment.
On top of that there are the components of the nuclear weapons themselves. The radiation from decaying fuel breaks down the metals and electronics in the warhead. Hydrogen bombs use tritium which has a half life of 12.3 years, but it's still a tiny atom. The atom is the same size as a helium atom. Both hydrogen and helium will leak out of any container over time and hydrogen breaks down metal containers while it's escaping.
The smaller the nuclear warhead, the shorter its shelf life. The physics of being able to achieve a fission reaction gets trickier with a smaller core and it breaks down past the point where it will fission quicker. Meaning most tactical nuclear weapons need more frequent maintenance to stay viable.
The US maintains only a small number of tactical nuclear weapons (compared to the strategic stockpile), probably because they are such a pain to keep viable.
With so many bad missiles and a questionable nuclear stockpile Russia may not realistically be able to deploy a tactical nuke if they wanted to.
As I've said before, it's not something I want to find out to be true or not. The cost of being wrong is very high, and a bad nuke would still turn into a dirty bomb if it made it to its target.
Thread by @TrentTelenko on Thread Reader App
Trent Telenko concluded in an essay a few weeks ago that he thought only about 25% of Russian nukes were viable. Considering how bad their maintenance is and how old many of their missiles are, I think it might be much lower. 2/3 of the nuclear triad require missiles and most air dropped weapons now are missiles too.
Most of Russia's tactical missiles like the Iskander use solid fuel which is more stable, but most of the larger missiles are liquid fueled and one component of the fuel degrades the tanks over time. Solid fuel can go bad too. So can many other components of a missile that has probably not been stored in the most optimal environment.
On top of that there are the components of the nuclear weapons themselves. The radiation from decaying fuel breaks down the metals and electronics in the warhead. Hydrogen bombs use tritium which has a half life of 12.3 years, but it's still a tiny atom. The atom is the same size as a helium atom. Both hydrogen and helium will leak out of any container over time and hydrogen breaks down metal containers while it's escaping.
The smaller the nuclear warhead, the shorter its shelf life. The physics of being able to achieve a fission reaction gets trickier with a smaller core and it breaks down past the point where it will fission quicker. Meaning most tactical nuclear weapons need more frequent maintenance to stay viable.
The US maintains only a small number of tactical nuclear weapons (compared to the strategic stockpile), probably because they are such a pain to keep viable.
With so many bad missiles and a questionable nuclear stockpile Russia may not realistically be able to deploy a tactical nuke if they wanted to.
As I've said before, it's not something I want to find out to be true or not. The cost of being wrong is very high, and a bad nuke would still turn into a dirty bomb if it made it to its target.
petit_bateau
Active Member
Some Germans I was chatting with the other day are utterly bemused as to whether they have, or have not, any military kit at all. They are astounded by the constantly changing answers as to what exists and in what state, even leaving aside whether there is political desire to send any anywhere. (They are very happy to see the Greens adding some spinal reinforcement btw). Some more links show similar thoughts, including France, Italy and of course Hungary ...
www.politico.eu
threadreaderapp.com
If you read those links and the various comments you will also find various rebuttals, some of which appear to be factually valid. There's a lot of smoke and mirrors here.
Polish president accuses Germany of breaking promises on tanks for Ukraine
Andrzej Duda says Berlin failed to deliver modern Leopard tanks to Warsaw in exchange for Polish tanks sent to Ukraine.
www.politico.eu
Thread by @akoz33 on Thread Reader App
@akoz33: According to Arestovych: the “Old Europe” block (France, Germany, Italy) + Hungary (which has its own separate interest) is now trying to slow down the necessary heavy arms supplies to Ukraine deliberately t...…
threadreaderapp.com
If you read those links and the various comments you will also find various rebuttals, some of which appear to be factually valid. There's a lot of smoke and mirrors here.
MontyFloyd
Member
More than only poor quality, would you drive a 50 year old car?
The T-72 tanks which is by far the most common tank in the war was put in production in 1968.
1968!
Even the latest updates are still decades old.
They are not just poor quality, they are obsolete.
PS, the T-90 is a version of the T-72, and the T-80 is based on older T-64 with T-72 features.
(granted the US M1 Abrams tank is developed in the 1980's, not much newer. Other nations do have more recent designs).
