Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

stefan92 said:
I'm pretty sure Ukraine has more modern maps of the area :lol:

However geography as such doesn't change so I wouldn't be surprised if Ukraine is now reusing Wehrmacht battle plans. After all there is not much difference, the heavy weaponry is more modern and has longer ranges, but apart from that what does it matter? The basic principles still exist.
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Especially with contested air space it's closer to WW2
 
the hea said:
So much going on right now, reports of Ukrainian breakthroughs all over the Izyum area and even as far south as Lyman. There is talk of Russian troops scattered all over the place and retreating in full panic.
This is looking more and more like another goodwill operation from the Russians, similar to Kyiv and Snake Island.
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Don't be surprised if they hit'em heavy in Kherson oblast, to exploit the confusion in the general staff fully.
 
UAF troops are entering Izyum according to a couple of Ukrainian army twitter ITKs.
 
I know I have asked something pretty much like this before, but what comes next for both sides?

My own logic tells me that Ukraine can't lose this war in any sort of scenario, because they have over 40 million people. Russia has around 150 million, but they matter little as I simply don't see how they could recruit enough people to fight for their cause. That's discarding the fact that even those of Ukrainians who aren't going to fight could still give meaningful contribution to the fight in various ways, while Russians simply can't count with that.

What I'm interested in, is there any way for Russia to turn the things upside down at the moment? Optimist in me says, no there isn't, but pessimist is still scared that they may pull off some trick.

And how long and how far-reaching is current Ukrainian offensive going to be? Is there any objective possibility of them stoping or being stoped before they take back last inch of their country back? This last question obviously is more long term based, and not connected to current offensive.
 
Bosnian_fan said:
I know I have asked something pretty much like this before, but what comes next for both sides?

My own logic tells me that Ukraine can't lose this war in any sort of scenario, because they have over 40 million people. Russia has around 150 million, but they matter little as I simply don't see how they could recruit enough people to fight for their cause. That's discarding the fact that even those of Ukrainians who aren't going to fight could still give meaningful contribution to the fight in various ways, while Russians simply can't count with that.

What I'm interested in, is there any way for Russia to turn the things upside down at the moment? Optimist in me says, no there isn't, but pessimist is still scared that they may pull off some trick.

And how long and how far-reaching is current Ukrainian offensive going to be? Is there any objective possibility of them stoping or being stoped before they take back last inch of their country back? This last question obviously is more long term based, and not connected to current offensive.
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Russia can mobilize and draft people, if they really think it's an existential crisis then they will. We'll see if they can whip people into enough of a fervor that people go along with it.

I seriously doubt this offensive will continue until Russia is expelled.
 
Bosnian_fan said:
I know I have asked something pretty much like this before, but what comes next for both sides?

My own logic tells me that Ukraine can't lose this war in any sort of scenario, because they have over 40 million people. Russia has around 150 million, but they matter little as I simply don't see how they could recruit enough people to fight for their cause. That's discarding the fact that even those of Ukrainians who aren't going to fight could still give meaningful contribution to the fight in various ways, while Russians simply can't count with that.

What I'm interested in, is there any way for Russia to turn the things upside down at the moment? Optimist in me says, no there isn't, but pessimist is still scared that they may pull off some trick.

And how long and how far-reaching is current Ukrainian offensive going to be? Is there any objective possibility of them stoping or being stoped before they take back last inch of their country back? This last question obviously is more long term based, and not connected to current offensive.
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The real danger will come as Putin begins to realize he's losing and will be incentivized to use more powerful weapons. If the Ukrainians happen to repel the Russians back to their borders, Putin will be confronted by the domestic reality of having sent over 50k Russians to their deaths and at least double that amount wounded, all the while having depleted his own conventional weapons, while getting sanctioned by the rest of the world and leaving his own economy in ruins. That is when he will be at his most dangerous.
 
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Bosnian_fan said:
I know I have asked something pretty much like this before, but what comes next for both sides?

My own logic tells me that Ukraine can't lose this war in any sort of scenario, because they have over 40 million people. Russia has around 150 million, but they matter little as I simply don't see how they could recruit enough people to fight for their cause. That's discarding the fact that even those of Ukrainians who aren't going to fight could still give meaningful contribution to the fight in various ways, while Russians simply can't count with that.

What I'm interested in, is there any way for Russia to turn the things upside down at the moment? Optimist in me says, no there isn't, but pessimist is still scared that they may pull off some trick.

And how long and how far-reaching is current Ukrainian offensive going to be? Is there any objective possibility of them stoping or being stoped before they take back last inch of their country back? This last question obviously is more long term based, and not connected to current offensive.
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They can't supply the troops they have there now properly, what will extra manpower achieve at this point.
I feel Ukraine is going to grind russians out through slow attrition, at least until pre 24th of February lines. After that it's anyone's guess what Putin will do, I guess, he will consider assaults, if not on Donbass, then I believe on Crimea, as an attack on russian soil, as he would expect the world to have accepted, that it's been legitimized into Russia proper.
Tactical nuke, perhaps, but that would be a new precedent, and a point of no return.
 
The Firestarter said:
Is this some Model plan again :lol:
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Looking at the length of the right attack arrows... they would spend less time driving through Russia by just taking Moscow :lol:

Bosnian_fan said:
I know I have asked something pretty much like this before, but what comes next for both sides?

My own logic tells me that Ukraine can't lose this war in any sort of scenario, because they have over 40 million people. Russia has around 150 million, but they matter little as I simply don't see how they could recruit enough people to fight for their cause. That's discarding the fact that even those of Ukrainians who aren't going to fight could still give meaningful contribution to the fight in various ways, while Russians simply can't count with that.

What I'm interested in, is there any way for Russia to turn the things upside down at the moment? Optimist in me says, no there isn't, but pessimist is still scared that they may pull off some trick.

And how long and how far-reaching is current Ukrainian offensive going to be? Is there any objective possibility of them stoping or being stoped before they take back last inch of their country back? This last question obviously is more long term based, and not connected to current offensive.
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Russia might be able to send more people, but they aren't able to send more equipment. They are already scraping through their junkyards to get extremely old stuff to the front. Meanwhile Ukrainian losses are replaced by a steady influx of at least well maintained equipment from NATO, partially even more modern equipment. This trend will only increase and the technological advantage Ukraine has will only grow. So the only way to truly turn things upside down would be a nuclear attack.

Ukraine should have a good chance to retake their losses since February (assuming that they have enough reserves to keep their momentum, otherwise they will have to slow down and stop the attack, which seems more probable to me, but on the other hand the speed of the current development surprised me as well). It will be a lot harder to retake Donetsk and Luhansk as Russia had eight years to fortify there, trying to retake those could be bloody.

Crimea is a different beast I fear. Very small land connection to Ukraine, very important for Russia. Ukraine would need massive long range artillery and air strike capabilities to weaken it in preparation (btw, is the English language really missing a nice wording for the German "sturmreif schießen"? Just sounds more appropriate to my ears :lol: )
 
Bosnian_fan said:
I know I have asked something pretty much like this before, but what comes next for both sides?

My own logic tells me that Ukraine can't lose this war in any sort of scenario, because they have over 40 million people. Russia has around 150 million, but they matter little as I simply don't see how they could recruit enough people to fight for their cause. That's discarding the fact that even those of Ukrainians who aren't going to fight could still give meaningful contribution to the fight in various ways, while Russians simply can't count with that.

What I'm interested in, is there any way for Russia to turn the things upside down at the moment? Optimist in me says, no there isn't, but pessimist is still scared that they may pull off some trick.

And how long and how far-reaching is current Ukrainian offensive going to be? Is there any objective possibility of them stoping or being stoped before they take back last inch of their country back? This last question obviously is more long term based, and not connected to current offensive.
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One of the main risks is if Ukraine's own lines, where they're advancing and also where they're static, are too thin and therefore vulnerable to counter-attack even by a limited Russian force. Since the beginning of this there's very little insight into the strength of the Ukrainian Army, particularly what sort of numbers and capabilities it has augmented to via mobilization/recruitment, but also the losses suffered in the past 6 months. I'm hoping that they're not endeavoring on this offensive with insufficient numbers, although their command has seemed pretty effective in this war so that would suggest they know what they're doing.
 
I still can’t believe how Russian reconnaissance in Kharkiv did not pick up the signs of possible counteroffensive.
 
MTF said:
One of the main risks is if Ukraine's own lines, where they're advancing and also where they're static, are too thin and therefore vulnerable to counter-attack even by a limited Russian force. Since the beginning of this there's very little insight into the strength of the Ukrainian Army, particularly what sort of numbers and capabilities it has augmented to via mobilization/recruitment, but also the losses suffered in the past 6 months. I'm hoping that they're not endeavoring on this offensive with insufficient numbers, although their command has seemed pretty effective in this war so that would suggest they know what they're doing.
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While that’s true in theory can you see incompetent Russian commanders launching any kind of coordinated counteroffensive in this chaos with broken communication lines?
 
Raoul said:
The real danger will come as Putin begins to realize he's losing and will be incentivized to use more powerful weapons. If the Ukrainians happen to repel the Russians back to their borders, Putin will be confronted by the domestic reality of having sent over 50k Russians to their deaths and at least double that amount wounded, all the while having depleted his own conventional weapons, while getting sanctioned by the rest of the world and leaving his own economy in ruins. That is when he will be at his most dangerous.
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Yup, it's shaping up to be a catastrophic failure, unless Putin finds a way to reverse Ukrainian gains. And god knows how he can do that without extra mobilization.

Shortly after the invasion, when things slowly turned into a stalemate, my guess was that they'd negotiate a ceasefire in which the Russians would control the south and east, essentially splitting the country. But after what we've seen now, there's just no way the Ukrainians will agree to that, they will absolutely try to take back every single inch of occupied territory excluding Crimea. So that scenario (a country split) is out of the window.
 
MTF said:
One of the main risks is if Ukraine's own lines, where they're advancing and also where they're static, are too thin and therefore vulnerable to counter-attack even by a limited Russian force. Since the beginning of this there's very little insight into the strength of the Ukrainian Army, particularly what sort of numbers and capabilities it has augmented to via mobilization/recruitment, but also the losses suffered in the past 6 months. I'm hoping that they're not endeavoring on this offensive with insufficient numbers, although their command has seemed pretty effective in this war so that would suggest they know what they're doing.
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By all accounts, Kharkiv was one of the better defended frontlines with significant manpower allocated to it's defense. Proximity to russian border, Kupyansk/Izium logistical hubs and static frontline with a rare ukrainian land liberation, while Russia was on the front foot, months ago, would point to Ukrainians having upper hand in the area even before russians shifted south.
 
MTF said:
What does it sort of mean?
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"Sturmreif schießen" literally translates to "storm-ripe shoot", meaning shooting something until it is ripe/ready to be stormed. As English is usually a bit shorter than German I was surprised as I realised there isn't such a short expression for this in English, at least not to my knowledge.
 
Putin's gamble has always been that the Russians can last longer than the Ukrainians and, more likely, their allies. He expected that eventually high gas prices and other expenses would force the Europeans, particularly, to capitulate and end support for Ukraine. While it seems he is ready to stay the course on the invasion, it's becoming clear that his military isn't capable of holding its gains, much less advancing. If the "Separatists" completely collapse in Kharkiv and Donetsk, Putin doesn't have the forces to make up for them.
 
Seems more and more likely that the Russian army totally collapsed in the Izyum area. Just read an overview someone made based on Russian (and therefore pro-Russian!) Telegram Channels, however in German so I won't link it here... Key takeaways for the current situation:

- Izyum is attacked from the North (Kupyansk direction, Kupyansk itself seems to be already taken, at least partially)
- it is also attacked from the East (Oskil/Lyman direction - where did the Ukrainians there come from? Must have moved quite fast to get there. There was a bridgehead established some days ago, but an attack from that direction on Izyum means that they just blasted through/around Lyman)
- further attacks from the South are reported (no surprise here, the nearest front to Izyum)

So it looks like Izyum is completely encircled, the Russian command got evacuated and up to 20k troops are left there in chaos, a lot of them seem to capitulate now. Seems like an absolute disaster for Russia if all this should be confirmed.

Meanwhile there seem to be first rumours of a "massive Ukraine breakthrough" in the Kherson region...

In general the mood in those channels seems to be at absolute zero now.
 
stefan92 said:
(btw, is the English language really missing a nice wording for the German "sturmreif schießen"? Just sounds more appropriate to my ears :lol: )
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I'm trying to think of an equivalent for Hornberger schießen but can't come up with anything. In times like these it would be really useful.
 
Ah it would have been amusing to let Pax in the thread for tonight.
"Izium front is collapsing "
"Proof mate?"
 
Bosnian_fan said:
Sadly, I can't enjoy this as much as I would like.

This might be slightly off-topic, but not completely, and I'm just going to write it here to show you how difficult it is to deal with Russian satellite states.

As most of you are probably well aware by now, Bosnia is made od two entities, one of which (Republic of Srpska) is completely pro-Russian. Serbs gained it in 1992-1995 war, effectively splitting country in two parts, and the separation is visible in every possible way. To cut the long story short, Serbs have a long term goal of separating from Bosnia, and in order to do so, they are attempting to prove every day that coexistence is impossible.

Serbia is Russian ally, and has instigated a lot of political unrest in Bosnia, Kosovo and Montenegro recently, with a long term goal of creating Greater Serbia, a country in which all Serbs would live. Of course, it has large parts of neighbouring countries in it.

Now, as I said, nothing is immune to this political divide. Bosniaks and Croats (well, mostly) are pro-European, pro-EU and pro-NATO, as we are well aware that it is our only way of survival to integrate into Europe and western civilization. But we can't make any decision without acceptance of Serbs. And they are not pro EU and are definitely anti-NATO, spewing some neutrality shite and hoping that Serbia will one day walk in there and liberate them the same way Russia is liberating Ukraine. Infact, there are lot of similarities in Russian and Serbian propaganda and war doctrine.

Information has come out today that Bosnian FA has accepted invitation from Russia to play a friendly in november in St. Petersburg. That was made possible by the fact that FA is now run by Serbs due to the rotation policy in Presidency. Vico Zeljkovic is president now, he is nephew of Serbian leader Milorad Dodik and yields a great amount of power. Dodik is Putin's lapdog.

I know football is not important, but this is football forum and I'm taking a wild guess many will see in november that Bosnia is playing Russia and take a guess that we are pro-Russian oriented. I just wanted to move your attention to the fact that we aren't. At least majority isn't. Serbs are. And their attempts to break away from Bosnia are well supported by Russia.

Once again, someone may dismiss this writing as bollocks and offtopic, but to me it isn't. I see this as just another step in attempting to cut us off from west and keep us in Russian sphere of interest. We don't want that, we need people to know where we stand but also that our hands are tied.
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I think we all see what Russia is trying to do, but thankfully many of your top footballers are already pushing back.
 
TMDaines said:
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:lol: What a slimeball. Russians proper done him over here.

From his channel: " After a few days in the cells I was taken to an office of an MVD officer ( ministry of internal affairs ) who said 'Whether you get just a fine or a long prison stretch depends on how sorry you are for what you said and your justification for saying it.' In that moment you have a decision to make: either be a hero and get five years in a concrete cell or say 'Glory to Putin!' and go home to enjoy your life with your family and friends again. I took the second option without hesitation which is why I'm writing this from my comfy bed and not from a concrete cell in Birobidzhan. I'm not Russian or Ukrainian and won't be martyring myself for any of their causes. The only shield I'll ever fall on will be covered in the Union flag. (UK) "
 
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