2022-2024 Russo-Ukrainian War

[Officer of Engineers]

I also think you underestimate the ability of NATO and its member state to equip and sustain the Ukrainian military.

I think you over-estimated the Ukrainian military to do anything competent, at least with this batch of leaders. Anything above platoon level, they're screwed.

[Monash]

I think you over-estimated the Ukrainian military to do anything competent, at least with this batch of leaders. Anything above platoon level, they're screwed.

I don't expect them to win, just kill a few Russian before they die, get captured or retreat. Then rinse a repeat. And let Putin explain the casualties to the families of the Russian soldiers killed in a military offensive they're not particularly invested in.

[InExile]

What is Putin's goal? At a high level, it appears some sort of restoration of the the Soviet Union or the old Russian Empire. If he manages to get control of Ukraine he is mostly there. Belarus is mostly under his control. The Caucuses region is quiet too except for may holdouts in Georgia and Armenia. The Central Asian stans have pretty much moved to the Russian orbit the past 10 years. On the whole, this is something the west can live with. Russia doesn't have to be an enemy, even a restored Greater Russia is still a laggard economically and can never be a competitor or peer of the West unlike China.

The problem is given his actions over the past 10-15 years Putin cannot be trusted to ever stop his expansionist goals. Even if he doesn't challenge NATO head on, he has shown that he is willing to stir up unrest in Western nations, by spreading misinformation, funding extremist parties and other ways. It seems to me that as long as Putin is in power, the West has no choice but to follow a policy of maximum pressure, containment and severe sanctions.

[Chunder]

Not so sure. Donetsk and Luhansk were to all intents and purposes lost causes as far Ukraine is concerned. They had large ethnic Russian majorities and (logically enough) bordered Russia proper. I see no way they will ever be returned to Ukraine in the foreseeable future. Most of the country though? Russians are not in the majority apart from a few other cantonment in the north of the country. There is also clear public majority against becoming a client state of Russia's ever again in any format. Likewise seeing the Country broken up into pieces that suits Putin's geopolitical ambitions.

Whilst OSINT thinks invasion is inevitable, in my mind Ukraine being Russias prison bitch is just as viable an alternative. The costs you mention of invasion can just as easily be negated by cross spectrum subterfuge achieving the same Russian desired result for cents on the dollar. This is still Russian ambition. It's still a win.

Events like this are truly breathtaking as they are so clear cut. 'Majority' opinion is an utterly foreign theory. Putin doesn't have to worry about public opinion.

[Officer of Engineers]

I don't expect them to win, just kill a few Russian before they die, get captured or retreat. Then rinse a repeat. And let Putin explain the casualties to the families of the Russian soldiers killed in a military offensive they're not particularly invested in.

The point of Deep Battle is to not kill every single enemy but to make them irrevelent. You can put up as stubborn a fight as you want but the outcome has already been decided in your rear. Your choices are now to Die-In-Pace or to Die-On-the-Move but you will die. It will be a Russian mop up operation. They don't need to out-bleed you. All they have to do is to fix you in place and let artillery do the rest or you expose yourself to Russian infantry fire as you try to move. Either way, you're not going to be killing Russians to make a difference.

[Albany Rifles]

Germany starting with a sanction right off the bad that will hurt Russia while knowing it will have impacts in Germany.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/22/busin...sia/index.html

Germany halts Nord Stream 2 and Russia responds with a stark warning


By Charles Riley and Julia Horowitz, CNN Business


Updated 12:39 PM ET, Tue February 22, 2022


London (CNN Business)The West showed Tuesday it was ready to target Russia's huge energy industry — even at the risk of hurting itself — after Moscow ordered troops into parts of eastern Ukraine.

Germany said it was halting certification of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline following Moscow's actions in eastern Ukraine on Monday.
"With regard to the latest developments, we need to reassess the situation also with regard to Nord Stream 2. It sounds very technocratic but it is the necessary administrative step in order to stop certification of the pipeline," Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in Berlin.The 750-mile pipeline was completed in September but has not yet received final certification from German regulators. Without that, natural gas cannot flow through the Baltic Sea pipeline from Russia to Germany.The United States, the United Kingdom, Ukraine and several EU countries have opposed the pipeline since it was announced in 2015, warning the project would increase Moscow's influence in Europe.Nord Stream 2 could deliver 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year. That's more than 50% of Germany's annual consumption and could be worth as much as $15 billion to Gazprom, the Russian state owned company that controls the pipeline.

As Russia's biggest gas customer, Germany had tried to keep Nord Stream 2 out of global politics. But Berlin found it ever harder to defend the project as its allies debated how to punish Moscow should it order an invasion of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to order troops into eastern Ukraine put the German government in a difficult position. US officials have made clear that they would move to suspend Nord Stream 2 in the event of a Russian invasion, without offering specifics on how that would be accomplished.
Gazprom is the sole shareholder in Nord Stream 2 but 50% of the finance was provided by five European energy companies, including Wintershall and Uniper of Germany. The other financial backers are Britain's Shell (RDSA), Engie (EGIEY) of France and OMV (OMVJF) of Austria.Gas prices are jumping. What happens next?


Energy is a major political issue in central and eastern Europe, where gas supplies from Russia play an essential role in power generation and home heating. Natural gas prices have set new records this winter in Europe, and a conflict in Ukraine could bring more pain to consumers.
On Tuesday, the benchmark price of natural gas for delivery in Europe next month leaped to about €79 ($89.54) per megawatt hour, up from €71.50 ($81.04) at Monday's close, according to data from Independent Commodity Intelligence Services.
Prices have dropped from record highs hit just before Christmas. Still, they remain significantly above where they stood one year ago, when gas traded at €16.30 ($18.47) per megawatt hour.
Analysts said the fight over Nord Stream 2 shouldn't dramatically change the price outlook for this winter. The pipeline hadn't been expected to come online until the second half of the year, noted Tom Marzec-Manser, head of gas analytics at ICIS.
Still, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, warned after Germany's announcement that prices in Europe would skyrocket.
"Welcome to the brave new world where Europeans are very soon going to pay €2,000 for 1,000 cubic meters of natural gas," he tweeted.
Marzec-Manser said that would be equivalent to approximately €215 ($243.75) per megawatt hour, roughly 20% above the record high reached in December.
Europe is in better shape than it was a few months ago after ramping up imports of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, in January and early February, according to Henning Gloystein, director of energy, climate and resources at Eurasia Group. Weather has also been relatively mild.
Yet a lot rides on what happens next.
LNG from the United States and Qatar will help the bloc withstand any disruptions to gas flows though Ukraine, which account for about 10% of total supply to the European Union, should pipelines be damaged in fighting.
But if Moscow, which has already reduced its gas exports to Europe, decides to choke them off further in response to Western sanctions, it could dramatically escalate the situation.
"If Russia stops sending any gas to Europe, there isn't enough LNG to co

pe with that," Gloystein said.He said Russia is not expected to take such a drastic step since it would also hurt Gazprom, but it remains a possibility given Putin's recent aggression.

[tbm3fan]

By the way did anyone read the speech by Putin on the 21st? Read this part by him and recall that I said he wanted respect and here it is in the form of Imperial Russia before 1917. He is pretty much laying some "blame" (which he says he isn't) on Lenin and the Bolsheviks for what has happened to Russia today as far as her historical and rightful borders. He also lays some blame on Stalin and Khrushchev. Pre-1917 there was no Ukraine and in fact a lot of others who were not "nations" at the time but imperial protectorates.

When it comes to the historical destiny of Russia and its peoples, Lenin’s principles of state development were not just a mistake; they were worse than a mistake, as the saying goes. This became patently clear after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Of course, we cannot change past events, but we must at least admit them openly and honestly, without any reservations or politicking. Personally, I can add that no political factors, however impressive or profitable they may seem at any given moment, can or may be used as the fundamental principles of statehood.

I am not trying to put the blame on anyone. The situation in the country at that time, both before and after the Civil War, was extremely complicated; it was critical. The only thing I would like to say today is that this is exactly how it was. It is a historical fact. Actually, as I have already said, Soviet Ukraine is the result of the Bolsheviks’ policy and can be rightfully called “Vladimir Lenin’s Ukraine.” He was its creator and architect. This is fully and comprehensively corroborated by archival documents, including Lenin’s harsh instructions regarding Donbass, which was actually shoved into Ukraine. And today the “grateful progeny” has overturned monuments to Lenin in Ukraine. They call it decommunization.

So he is talking about the map that he sees below in his mind and which seems to have a slight 19th century view.

[tbm3fan]

Here is the speech which I'll link as it is fairly long. Full of Russia has been wronged by so many people and so many other powers. It is a long list of grievances and it sounds to me he wants them corrected to his satisfaction now. Why he picked now and feels now is interesting and no doubt would get some good viewpoints and I'm sure one or two worthless ones.

As for all those countries that joined NATO after the breakup of the Soviet Union was an outright expansion? I guess none of those countries had anything to fear from their now friendly giant neighbor to the east called Russia. They're just a teddy bear so what's the worry. Many are in that map above in tan under Russian Empire.

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67828

[nvishal]

Nato(expansion) ended up bringing war to Europe, in contrast to what the "experts" believed

[Officer of Engineers]

Nato(expansion) ended up bringing war to Europe, in contrast to what the "experts" believed

Name one. The only one that could possibly be considered is the Kosovo War but even then, the fighting was going on long before we got involved.

[Monash]

The point of Deep Battle is to not kill every single enemy but to make them irrelevant. You can put up as stubborn a fight as you want but the outcome has already been decided in your rear. Your choices are now to Die-In-Pace or to Die-On-the-Move but you will die. It will be a Russian mop up operation. They don't need to out-bleed you. All they have to do is to fix you in place and let artillery do the rest or you expose yourself to Russian infantry fire as you try to move. Either way, you're not going to be killing Russians to make a difference.

I totally agree, faced with a full scale invasion Ukraine faces inevitable defeat. But that wasn't my point, My point was that no matter how brilliantly executed (and there will be stuff ups) Russia's victory will come at an inevitable price in terms of casualties. Putin might not care but other Russians will, especially since this will be perceived as a war of aggression, Ukraine isn't invading Russia, Russia is invading Ukraine. You can invade or threaten Russia at your peril. But in the mind of the average Russian, attacking another nation? Why spend precious Russian blood? And the occupation that follows? That will cost Russia even more in terms of both blood and money than Iraq or Afghanistan ever cost the US.

And I mention Iraq and Afghanistan because they are examples of the type of problem I believe Russia will face when they win. (Remembering Russia, if not Putin has 'history' with Afghanistan!) And while I am aware that Putin would be perfectly willing to be more ruthless than the US and its allies would ever were during their occupation of the countries in question, even allowing for that fact Putin will effectively be committing Russian forces to a generation long occupation of Ukraine. And that means bleeding rubles (and lives) on far grander scale than the US or it's Allies ever did in Iraq or Afghanistan. And here's the thing, the Russian economy is one tenth the size of America's! Given all of that, would you want to be in charge of running that occupation?

[Officer of Engineers]

Three things. In order for such to occur, you have to lose a war first and whomever wins after, it ain't original people and I will guarrantee you that those who come after ain't going to be loving vote concious democratic upholders like those who lost the war to begin with. Strongmen don't become strongmen because they were voted in.

For the Ukrainians to do what what the Taliban did to the Americans, they have to out-bleed the Russians 150 to 1 and that's the direct combat casualties. Never mind the enviromental casualties. Russian soldiers telling civilians to get out of their homes in the middle of winter. 200,000 Chechen civilians died because of that action. And outbleeding doesn't always succeed, ISIS has been beatened back in Iraq.

The Russians ain't above making deals with those who are winning. During their withdrawl from Afghanistan, they paid the Northern Warlords who were just fighting Moscow months before to keep the peace and to secure the border. Moscow stuck to the deal until the fall of the USSR.

[tbm3fan]

Putin might not care but other Russians will, especially since this will be perceived as a war of aggression, Ukraine isn't invading Russia, Russia is invading Ukraine. You can invade or threaten Russia at your peril. But in the mind of the average Russian, attacking another nation? Why spend precious Russian blood? And the occupation that follows? That will cost Russia even more in terms of both blood and money than Iraq or Afghanistan ever cost the US.

There is no way you can be sure of this unless you happen to be inside the mind of the average Russian on the street today. First, AG was a strange foreign country and I'm sure many Russians wondered why do we bother with that place. Ukraine is not a strange foreign place. In fact, if the average Russian is learning about Russian history, they will have learned the Ukraine region was part and partial of Imperial Russia. That the region has native Russian speakers in large numbers. Russian media will have been hammering on that. Probably hammering on how it was "taken" from Russia. Maybe comparing NATO to the old British, French, and German empires of the 1800s through 1914 as threatening Russia's position in the world. I could see that given the Russian tendency to view the West suspiciously. Vlad also talks in his speech about how the Russian Orthodox Church is threatened by what is going on in Ukraine. Vlad is hitting all the deep emotional buttons of the Russian people so to say the public wouldn't go along is a bit of a stretch especially if he blitzkriegs Ukraine for early success.

[rj1]

So what's the grand take on what's next?

[TopHatter]

So what's the grand take on what's next?

Salami slicing, would be my guess.

Because a full-scale invasion of Ukraine:

• Turns Russia into a genuine international pariah, possibly even being cut off completely from the international financial networks.
• Cyberwarfare against Russia commences full tilt.
• Finland and Sweden take a long hard look at NATO membership like never before.
• Europe's skeletal armed forces are brought up to NATO spending requirements or beyond.
• The Baltic countries become fortress-states, ditto Poland.
• A new Cold War begins