Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

[Artaxerxes]

A military thing that's a political thing...

You'll have heard by now that only between 30-50% of the Russian force on Ukraine's borders have actually crossed them - well, it's now pretty clear that it's not just a numbers thing, it's a capabilities thing: Vlad has not used his most capable Armoured units, he's using his 'B' units - decent stuff, but not the stuff with the latest upgrades, the best exercises, the Officers with the best reports.

The obvious question is why, and perhaps we should look to Vlad himself - he rambles on about the NATO threat, and perhaps he actually believes it? Perhaps he's keeping his most capable units in Belarus because he fears that while his B units are dealing with the Ukrainians, NATO is going to roll across from Poland?

He's making his problems worse: by using his B, and eventually C units, and them being less effective than his A units might, he's giving the Ukr time, and each day, as Russian units stagnate or advance, the Ukrainians get more effective, and his units less as the Ukr gets better at hitting the logistics tail and cutting - it's an unholy vortex, the longer it goes on, the worse it gets, but he may be unable to do the thing that might work, sending his most capable formations in, because his deranged paranoia is tell him that he needs them to keep NATO out.

(A units are regular units that are the best equipped, best trained, best lead, B units are regular units with old(er) equipment, less well trained, less well lead, and C units are reservist and conscript units that are equipped with obsolete gear, get very little training, half their stuff will break down and they'll have no protective gear like jammers, reactive armour, and their Comms gear will probably be crap. Last on the list for fuel, food and ammunition).

Source?

 

[nogojones]

In a lot of these videos of Ukrainians encountering Russian soldiers the soldiers' body language is more of embarrassment and discomfort than aggression. It does appear that a lot of them don't really seem to know why they're there

Well there's that, or maybe they're concerned about how it would be viewed back home or by their commanders.

I know we're only getting snapshots and those through the lens of propaganda. One of my concerns is that so far the Russian troops seem a bit, erm... not first rate. I hope there ain't better ones in reserve, held back in the hope the more naive ones can take the country before they are committed.

 

[JimW]

As with kicking out a Tory prime minister theres always another one ready to take the place - this is all structural. Removing Putin doesnt solve anything

Well, there will be a few personal factors, maybe that ageing thing, arrogance of long power etc. New candidate might be bit more cautious and circumspect for a while if grand ambition did for predecessor.

 

[Bingoman]

Sky News are live in Dnipro and showing citizens making molotovs

 

[A380]

Just been reading a bit about the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 (the one that led to my dad being a refugee here). Their leadership told them not to fight, and so casualties were fairly low. Wonder what would have happened if they had resisted. Nobody internationally seems to have given much of a shit back then, other than allowing people asylum without much fuss.

My dad went there just after the invasion as part of some doomed Euro-communist plan * to shame the USSR into allowing reform of communism ( that ended really well). Apparently the first soviet elements, Ethnic Russians and East Germans mostly, made good initial progres but then it all stalled a bit when the troops actually started talking to the Czechs ( in Russian and German) and it got a little wobbly. They then pulled those people back and replaced them allmost entirely with Mongolians, most of whom apart from the officers didn’t speak Russian. Showing that they might have been an evil authoritarian dictatorship, but they weren’t idiots. I’m not sure modern Russia has the demographics to do this.

Sadly though, I worry this time if Putin can’t take the cities with motorised and light infrantry they will just flatten them from a distance and you can’t really talk to an artillery barrage or carpet bombing raid.

(* I wasn’t even one at that point. One of the reasons I am fucking reformist wanker not a rugged revolutionary….)

 

[RileyOBlimey]

British Airways computer systems seem to be having trouble today but they're telling us it's not due to a cyber attack. Would they tell us the truth if it was?

British Airways short-haul flights from Heathrow cancelled

Airline says its systems are running again after cancelling some short-haul flights from Heathrow.

www.bbc.co.uk

It was a fuck up from attempting to tighten their security and an admin misconfigured a key system. Nowt to freak out about.

 

[RileyOBlimey]

Putin is now restricting Russians from accessing Twitter.

 

[elbows]

Vladimir Putin threatens more countries as Russia invasion of Ukraine continues

Putin is understood to have attacked Ukraine after western nations examined the idea of the country joining NATO.

www.irishmirror.ie

Putin has threarened Sweden and Finland if they join NATO.

"Finland's accession to NATO would have serious military and political repercussions."

As far as I know this is a dramatic restating of a position that has been true for a very long time, which is why those countries arent in NATO in the first place.

Obviously saying it again during the present conflict adds more serious overtones to matters, but I dont think of it as a brand new thing.

 

[a_chap]

Sky News are live in Dnipro and showing citizens making molotovs

 

[elbows]

It may be that the original plan was to sweep in quickly , knock out the Urkanian state and then negotiate a ceasefire on their terms - looks like they might not happen any time soon. This means they will probably start bombing and the shelling the fuck out of Kiev and other cities and the conflict will drag on- with the wolrd screaming for it to halt. Popular opinion does matter - russians have the internet, they have friends and relatives all over the world - not least in Ukraine. Putin's Russia is not North Korea - he does not have the totalitarian power of a Stalin. Are other senior regime members and military really prepared for Russia to become a Pariah state for the sake of Putins vanity/hubris/insantiy?

One of the problems I have in trying to determine the truth of this side of things is not being being aware of how long the Russian planning estimated the main phase of this war would take in the first place.

So I am taking note of this bit that I've put in bold from the BBC live updates today. I will not treat it as a reliable guide on its own, but it gives me a starting point with which to consider timing and when I can seriously consider there to have been severe setbacks to Russias plan.

Now an adviser to the Kremlin - Andrey Kortunov, Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) - has told the BBC his advice was that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was not justifiable.

He said many of his colleagues in the foreign ministry were also “very surprised, shocked and even devastated” to see what was happening.

The decision to invade was made in the Kremlin, he believes.

"If it is an operation which will have limited casualties and it will be regarded as a success, the popularity of the leadership will not drop," he said.

Putin’s initial plan was to complete the operation in two weeks, he said.

“If he does that maybe the damage will be limited, if he fails to do that then his popularity is likely to plummet.”

From the 10:07 entry of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-60517447

 

[platinumsage]

One of the problems I have in trying to determine the truth of this side of things is not being being aware of how long the Russian planning estimated the main phase of this war would take in the first place.

So I am taking note of this bit that I've put in bold from the BBC live updates today. I will not treat it as a reliable guide on its own, but it gives me a starting point with which to consider timing and when I can seriously consider there to have been severe setbacks to Russias plan.





From the 10:07 entry of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-60517447

You don't need to know how long they planned for, in order to determine that their plan to sweep in quickly is not going to plan - you can simply look at what they have attempted on the ground and failed, at Antonov airport for example.

 

[JimW]

Just reading about security council vote and UAE's surprise abstention. Anyone got any informed speculation as to why?

 

[A380]

You don't need to know how long they planned for, in order to determine that their plan to sweep in quickly is not going to plan - you can simply look at what they have attempted on the ground and failed, at Antonov airport for example.

Bahnhof Strasse whats your professional view of the BA system failure?

Assuming you can read this and your IT assets haven’t been fried on the personal orders of Putin…

 

[RileyOBlimey]

 

[elbows]

You don't need to know how long they planned for, in order to determine that their plan to sweep in quickly is not going to plan - you can simply look at what they have attempted on the ground and failed, at Antonov airport for example.

Its not that simple, because planning will likely involve a lot of scenarios including optimistic ones, and those are always likely to involve 'testing the waters' by seeing how far advanced parties and raids can get before being repelled. So evidence that Russias most optimistic scenarios have not come to pass is not the same as being able to claim that their entire plan has gone pear shaped. Especially not in the first few days. Give it a bit more time and my position will be able to shift more on this.

I have to take this sort of stance because the bulk of information we get from all sides is a good fit for entirely standard war propaganda templates, its what we'd expect each side to claim, and I'm not keen to parrot such claims, especially not this early.

 

[Diamond]

Even if they don't decide "fuck this", it's a lot harder to go one-on-one against people who aren't that different from you...

I'd imagine, though, that the Russian military hierarchy will be looking over its shoulders a lot, and it'd be a brave general who decided to break ranks. It was very difficult for any kind of plot to happen within the German military under Hitler, because you just don't quite know who's going to dob you in, and the consequences then, as now, would be pretty grim for anyone suspected of not keeping the faith.

Question for Russian military experts - does the Russian army still maintain an equivalent to the old zampolit/political commissar framework?

I saw an interesting analysis that someone posted on Twitter the other day (some but not all of it is at this link - The Russian Generals' Funeral March (Statistics and Infographics 2.0) - InformNapalm.org (English)) of the propensity of Russian generals to die in large numbers in clusters from time-to-time. The idea being that Putin, like Stalin, is, in a much quieter way, repeatedly purging his top staff. Insane behaviour really.

 

[platinumsage]

Its not that simple, because planning will likely involve a lot of scenarios including optimistic ones, and those are always likely to involve 'testing the waters' by seeing how far advanced parties and raids can get before being repelled.

If you think Russian failures are accepted losses as part of some optimistic probing scenario you're in cloud cuckoo land.

 

[brogdale]

Putin is now restricting Russians from accessing Twitter.

Not really a sign of things going well, is it?

 

[bimble]

Uk Ministry of defence has put out this update, for reporting or influencing events idk, saying that Putin is having a worse time than he expected.

 

[Pickman's model]

I saw an interesting analysis that someone posted on Twitter the other day (some but not all of it is at this link - The Russian Generals' Funeral March (Statistics and Infographics 2.0) - InformNapalm.org (English)) of the propensity of Russian generals to die in large numbers in clusters from time-to-time. The idea being that Putin, like Stalin, is, in a much quieter way, repeatedly purging his top staff. Insane behaviour really.

yeh which is obviously why the chief of the general staff, gerasimov, has been in post since 2012

 

[editor]

Are any Urbs planning to go and pick up an AK?

What's your take on this situation? Armchair sneering while people are dying?

 

[2hats]

I suspect that there are a lot of intelligence back channels open. I'd assume that there's a fair few AWACS planes flying around at a suitable distance from the conflict zone.

You would assume correctly.

Not just AWACS but a lot of SIGINT platforms too plus rotating 24/7 tanker packages up with armed CAP, B52s. Then of course there are Mentor/Orion, Trumpet, ...

 

[Pickman's model]

Are any Urbs planning to go and pick up an AK?

wouldn't be surprised if there's a few people we know either out there or on their way, a few people we know went to libya (and fortunately came back) and i'm sure you know one or two who've been to syria. no urbs afaik tho

 

[Idris2002]

The only person to blame here is Putin.

The person with absolute criminal responsiblity for this is Putin, and solely Putin. But there are a lot of other people to blame, going back to Clinton and Bush 1.

 

[elbows]

It was a fuck up from attempting to tighten their security and an admin misconfigured a key system. Nowt to freak out about.

How about linking to an article that actually says what you've said there?

My stance on this is to keep an open mind for now. Because coincidences happen, cover stories happen, mistakes can happen when improving resilience, and BA is an obvious target. I cannot be expected to determine which of those things is at the heart of the matter at this stage.

 

[Pickman's model]

What's your take on this situation? Armchair sneering while people are dying?

perfectly reasonable question to ask considering i'm sure a lot of people on this site know people who've been to other wars.

 

[Pickman's model]

Its not that simple, because planning will likely involve a lot of scenarios including optimistic ones, and those are always likely to involve 'testing the waters' by seeing how far advanced parties and raids can get before being repelled. So evidence that Russias most optimistic scenarios have not come to pass is not the same as being able to claim that their entire plan has gone pear shaped. Especially not in the first few days. Give it a bit more time and my position will be able to shift more on this.

I have to take this sort of stance because the bulk of information we get from all sides is a good fit for entirely standard war propaganda templates, its what we'd expect each side to claim, and I'm not keen to parrot such claims, especially not this early.

i think we know now why the americans always precede their invasions with a spot of shock and awe. i wonder how much special recon's been going on, whether russia managed to infiltrate special forces to act as forward observers and guide attacks etc

 

[platinumsage]

How about linking to an article that actually says what you've said there?

My stance on this is to keep an open mind for now. Because coincidences happen, cover stories happen, mistakes can happen when improving resilience, and BA is an obvious target. I cannot be expected to determine which of those things is at the heart of the matter at this stage.

BA's IT frequently fails in this fashion, it's totally business as usual, and is linked to their outsouring of it to India. Keep an "open mind" if you want, but don't expect to gain anything by doing so.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Bahnhof Strasse whats your professional view of the BA system failure?

Assuming you can read this and your IT assets haven’t been fried on the personal orders of Putin…

Their systems have failed a number of times before in a similar manner, if not quite so catastrophically. So am minded to believe their IT is shite rather than anything more sinister.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Hungary has now joined Cyprus in calling for Russia being shut off from the Swift payment system.