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Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

Russian soldiers are apparently refusing to fight, knowing that they can't be prosecuted because the war's still not official.

Along with eight others, Dmitri told his commanders that he refused to rejoin the invasion. “They were furious. But they eventually calmed down because there wasn’t much they could do,” he said.
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Under Russian military rules, troops who refuse to fight in Ukraine can face dismissal but cannot be prosecuted, said Mikhail Benyash, a lawyer who has been advising soldiers who choose that option.

Benyash said “hundreds and hundreds” of soldiers had been in touch with his team for advice on how they could avoid being sent to fight. Among them were 12 national guardsmen from Russia’s southern city of Krasnodar who were fired after refusing to go to Ukraine.

“Commanders try to threaten their soldiers with prison time if they dissent, but we tell the soldiers that they can simply say no,” Benyash said, adding that he was not aware of any criminal cases against soldiers who refused to fight.
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‘They were furious’: the Russian soldiers refusing to fight in Ukraine
 
spitfire said:
Not all NATO, the UA have plenty of tricks up their sleeve. IIRC it was one of their missiles that sank the Moskva and if this thread is anything to go by then they have other very effective home grown weapons systems, (there are people in the comments that say it isn't, would be interested in kk's view if he has the time, it's long. Main point of contention seems to be his comparison between US etc. firing in anti insurgent ops hence less appetite for collateral damage leading to longer fire times.).

Summary, UA have developed uber for artillery and instead of a battery of guns firing from one field they can vector in lots of different artillery pieces from various fields to targets.

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I seem to have found my way to this tweeto via some other route. the whole thing is interesting but I can't speak to the accuracy of it

 
This update from the Institute for the Study of War paints a bit of a mixed picture, but overall the Russians seem to be struggling despite the reinforcements from the north.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive around the north-eastern city of Kharkiv is “starting to look very similar to the counteroffensive that ultimately drove Russian troops away from Kyiv and out of western Ukraine entirely,” the Institute for the Study of War has said in its latest assessment of the conflict.

It was “forcing the Russian command to make hard choices,” including by making Russian units focus their bombardments on attacking Ukrainian troops rather than the city, the US-based think tank continued.

Meanwhile, Russian forces may be abandoning their efforts to encircle Ukrainian troops along the Izyum-Slovyansk-Debaltseve line in eastern Ukraine in favour of shallower encirclements of the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in Luhansk.

However it was “unclear if Russian forces can encircle, let alone capture, Severodonetsk and Lysychansk even if they focus their efforts on that much-reduced objective,” the institute said.

"Russian offensives have bogged down every time they hit a built-up area throughout this war, and these areas are unlikely to be different.

Continued and expanding reports of demoralization and refusals to fight among Russian units suggest that the effective combat power of Russian troops in the east continues to be low and may drop further.

If the Russians abandon efforts to advance from Izyum, moreover, Ukrainian forces would be able to concentrate their efforts on defending Severodonetsk-Lysychansk or, in the worst case, breaking a Russian encirclement before those settlements fall."

However, the think tank also noted Russian forces likely control almost all of the city of Rubizhne as of 12 May and have likely seized the town of Voevodivka, north of Severodonetsk.

"They will likely launch a ground offensive on or around Severodonetsk in the coming days. The relative success of Russian operations in this area combined with their failure to advance from Izyum and the notable decline in the energy of that attempted advance suggest that they may be giving up on the Izyum axis."

The report also noted that Russian forces were strengthening their position on Snake Island, in the Black Sea, in a bid to block Ukrainian maritime communications near they key port city of Odesa.

LINK
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frogwoman said:
In that Umland interview he also discusses the fact that the non proliferation principle has been undermined, not only because countries without nukes are thinking of getting them, but because countries with nukes also see that they can invade a country without them with relatively few consequences.
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There also seems to be.a 50% rate of countries that had nukes and gave them up getting invaded. Which may have harmed the unilateralist case a tad...
 
I'm pretty certain that there will be a lot of governments seriously thinking about getting themselves nukes over the next decade or so, Not all countries that might want them are likely capable of building them but I would imagine that Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Germany could acquire them in a very short timescale if they put their minds to it.
 
MickiQ said:
I'm pretty certain that there will be a lot of governments seriously thinking about getting themselves nukes over the next decade or so, Not all countries that might want them are likely capable of building them but I would imagine that Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Germany could acquire them in a very short timescale if they put their minds to it.
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It's Vatican City you've got to watch.
 
frogwoman said:
Yep, and the more Hiroshima and Nagasaki fade out of memory the more likely that nukes could be used again. (Not only by Russia)
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India still scares the shit out of me in this respect. Very common viewpoint in India seems to be that they would win in an exchange with Pakistan. That combined with a Hindu fundamentalist mindset of the current government that fire is a holy cleanser :(
 
The Russians repeatedly getting blown to shit trying to cross the river is very telling. As someone pointed out upthread - its smacks of top down organisation with terrible communication - so the poor grunts on the ground are repeatedly told to carry out the same operation even though its a guaranteed to be a suicidal disaster because the orders are being passed down from on high and there's no mechanism for someone to say "are you fucking mental?". Its like the very worst examples of WW1 military incompetence. No surprise that their soldiers are deserting and/or refusing to carry out orders.
 
Kaka Tim said:
The Russians repeatedly getting blown to shit trying to cross the river is very telling. As someone pointed out upthread - its smacks of top down organisation with terrible communication - so the poor grunts on the ground are repeatedly told to carry out the same operation even though its a guaranteed to be a suicidal disaster because the orders are being passed down from on high and there's no mechanism for someone to say "are you fucking mental?". Its like the very worst examples of WW1 military incompetence. No surprise that their soldiers are deserting and/or refusing to carry out orders.
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Strangely all armies are top down organisations which pass orders down and I don't suppose there are many mechanisms in either the British or American armies by which the basis of orders can be questioned by a junior without fear of repercussions. That's how Churchillian disasters like Gallipoli, Arnhem and Dieppe occur. I don't think it's something unique to the Russian army, this hierarchy you find so baffling
 
Kaka Tim said:
The Russians repeatedly getting blown to shit trying to cross the river is very telling. As someone pointed out upthread - its smacks of top down organisation with terrible communication - so the poor grunts on the ground are repeatedly told to carry out the same operation even though its a guaranteed to be a suicidal disaster because the orders are being passed down from on high and there's no mechanism for someone to say "are you fucking mental?". Its like the very worst examples of WW1 military incompetence. No surprise that their soldiers are deserting and/or refusing to carry out orders.
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I thought of the WW1 analogy too. Lions led by donkeys, General Melchett repetitive tactics leading to massacre :(
 
Pickman's model said:
Strangely all armies are top down organisations which pass orders down and I don't suppose there are many mechanisms in either the British or American armies by which the basis of orders can be questioned by a junior without fear of repercussions. That's how Churchillian disasters like Gallipoli, Arnhem and Dieppe occur. I don't think it's something unique to the Russian army, this hierarchy you find so baffling
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There's an article I saw on twitter (can't find it atm) saying that the US army may be more like the Russian one than they want to think
 
frogwoman said:
There's an article I saw on twitter (can't find it atm) saying that the US army may be more like the Russian one than they want to think
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The armed forces of any nation are capable of absolute incompetent fuckery at any time but from my experiences the US (and British) forces are far better trained, equipped and led than the Russians appear to be.
 
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