Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Raoul said:
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Taking into account the huge superiority of the rushist regime in terms of weapons and troops, they have had very little gains thus far. Once the lend-lease starts coming into play properly, things will get much worse for them.
 
VorZakone said:
Well, we've been hearing that for months. Not that I don't believe it, but it hasn't quite translated yet to many Ukrainian ground victories.
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We should not forget that at the start of this war Ukraine was about 1-to-10 in heavy weapons, artillery and air force. I don't know how much this has changed so far, but it is amazing that they survived at all. The Russians are carpet bombing them and they cannot answer because they don't have an air force, and they don't have long range rockets to destroy the Russian artillery.

I am worried that the West is not doing enough to help them, and the Ukrainians might be suffering heavy losses. I do not understand why the West says that Ukrainians cannot hit any targets inside Russia, while their own cities have been bombarded mercilessly for 100+ days. On 7th Dec 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and 132 days later the Americans did a suicide mission to attack Tokyo, just to show the Japanese that they own country is not safe. England also attacked German cities. I don't understand why Ukraine does not have the right to attack Russian cities, while Ukrainian cities are being decimated. I think that the major problem here is that all the Western leaders are very weak (including Biden).
 
@frostbite I fully agree with you there. Who the feck are they to tell Ukraine what to do and not what to do?

It makes no sense to anyone that the West can dare telling Ukraine to limit the war within its own borders and to not fire back at Russian-based targets. The war will not end by some politician drawing a line on a map because a limited war doesn't do any good. In itself, it's immoral for anyone to send soldiers to war unless total victory is sought. Sometimes you have to play dirty than your enemy in order to win a war; that is what Western governments often forget nowadays.
 
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frostbite said:
We should not forget that at the start of this war Ukraine was about 1-to-10 in heavy weapons, artillery and air force. I don't know how much this has changed so far, but it is amazing that they survived at all. The Russians are carpet bombing them and they cannot answer because they don't have an air force, and they don't have long range rockets to destroy the Russian artillery.

I am worried that the West is not doing enough to help them, and the Ukrainians might be suffering heavy losses. I do not understand why the West says that Ukrainians cannot hit any targets inside Russia, while their own cities have been bombarded mercilessly for 100+ days. On 7th Dec 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and 132 days later the Americans did a suicide mission to attack Tokyo, just to show the Japanese that they own country is not safe. England also attacked German cities. I don't understand why Ukraine does not have the right to attack Russian cities, while Ukrainian cities are being decimated. I think that the major problem here is that all the Western leaders are very weak (including Biden).
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It's the concern of Nuclear escalation.
 
VorZakone said:
Well, we've been hearing that for months. Not that I don't believe it, but it hasn't quite translated yet to many Ukrainian ground victories.
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Over these months Russia has gone from pushing on 4 or 5 different fronts to just one.
 
Sounds like Severodonetsk is under Russian control which creates a frontline made of the river across the East now the bridges are all blown. Wonder if Russia will stop there and declare ‘success’
 
Poland is all in now preparing, or at least deterring, a future war with Russia.



 
The way this is going, can Russia even afford to invade anyone else? I think Poland can relax a bit.
 
maniak said:
The way this is going, can Russia even afford to invade anyone else? I think Poland can relax a bit.
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Maybe not immediately but these preparations will take a long time anyway. Settings things in motion right now is the correct call.
 
maniak said:
The way this is going, can Russia even afford to invade anyone else? I think Poland can relax a bit.
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Surely not until they finish with Ukraine. But if NATO isn't going to prevent that defeat through attrition, they are going to have to fight themselves.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
Sounds like Severodonetsk is under Russian control which creates a frontline made of the river across the East now the bridges are all blown. Wonder if Russia will stop there and declare ‘success’
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I don't think it is - or not yet at least. And unless Russia can take both it and Lysychansk (the town across the river) they won't be able to claim they've taken the Luhansk region, far less the whole Donbas.
 
maniak said:
The way this is going, can Russia even afford to invade anyone else? I think Poland can relax a bit.
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Seems very unlikely at this point, but it seems wise to look at long term possibilities. If Russia somehow does continue steady encroachment westward, if republicans take control in US and spend 8 years finishing what Trump started breaking down NATO, if Russian funds and propaganda continues making ground in the EU, putting more hard right parties into power, etc, etc...
 
GlastonSpur said:
I don't think it is - or not yet at least. And unless Russia can take both it and Lysychansk (the town across the river) they won't be able to claim they've taken the Luhansk region, far less the whole Donbas.
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I feel like Putin lives off such a web of lies and disinformation, he can just say that was the goal of Lysuchansk proves too hard to take. From reports they’re already shelling it now and no doubt he’ll happily send another 30k Russians to their deaths if he can say ‘I won’.
 
Simbo said:
Seems very unlikely at this point, but it seems wise to look at long term possibilities. If Russia somehow does continue steady encroachment westward, if republicans take control in US and spend 8 years finishing what Trump started breaking down NATO, if Russian funds and propaganda continues making ground in the EU, putting more hard right parties into power, etc, etc...
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Yep. Europe and the UK need to start preparing now on the assumption that the worst-case scenario will happen, namely that the US pulls out of NATO.

Of course, if that worst-case happens, then the next time the US wants military and/or diplomatic and/or political support and/or intelligence assistance from the UK and Europe, it will find that the sword cuts both ways.
 
GlastonSpur said:
Yep. Europe and the UK need to start preparing now on the assumption that the worst-case scenario will happen, namely that the US pulls out of NATO.

Of course, if that worst-case happens, then the next time the US wants military and/or diplomatic and/or political support and/or intelligence assistance from the UK and Europe, it will find that the sword cuts both ways.
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It probably won't tbf because the UK is invariably governed by little fat red faced toy soldiers who will jump on their masters' feet as soon as they're called, possibly in exchange for a crack at a truly appallingly one sided trade deal.
 
RedDevilQuebecois said:
Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling is always here to provide daily updates.



Sums up where and what the shift is all about.
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The only thing that doesn't add up in his thread is that he speaks of 10 active US Army Divisions, each with 3 Battalions of artillery, and each such Battalion having between 16-24 howitzers.

That makes between 48-72 howitzers per Division.

However, he then says that "To make it easy for math purposes, let's round up and say each Division has 24 howitzers ... That's a TOTAL of 240 howitzers ... in all ten of the active US Army Divisions."

But the figure of 24 howitzers per Division doesn't square with the maths, which yields (as I say above) 48-72 howitzers per Division.
 
GlastonSpur said:
The only thing that doesn't add up in his thread is that he speaks of 10 active US Army Divisions, each with 3 Battalions of artillery, and each such Battalion having between 16-24 howitzers.

That makes between 48-72 howitzers per Division.

However, he then says that "To make it easy for math purposes, let's round up and say each Division has 24 howitzers ... That's a TOTAL of 240 howitzers ... in all ten of the active US Army Divisions."

But the figure of 24 howitzers per Division doesn't square with the maths, which yields (as I say above) 48-72 howitzers per Division.
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I wonder if Putin will stop in the east or continue westwards to take all of Ukraine?

It's tragic what's happening but all of it is easy to forsee, and I suspect most western countries are letting it play out because whilst it does damage to Ukraine, it does damage to Russia too.

The only way for Ukraine to have a chance is if the west supplied lots of the heavy weaponry Ukraine is requesting, but they're not doing that. So month by month Ukraine will lose more territory, and the people will bleed.

I do question one thing - all the news outlets that made Russia seem weak at the start of the war. I think it did more harm than good - public pressure could've led to more support being urged for Ukraine, and now I doubt many people care enough. They forgot how long most wars take, and given the overwhelming resource advantage this war was only ever going to go one way. Sad for the Ukrainians who have to suffer through it.
 
GlastonSpur said:
Yep. Europe and the UK need to start preparing now on the assumption that the worst-case scenario will happen, namely that the US pulls out of NATO.

Of course, if that worst-case happens, then the next time the US wants military and/or diplomatic and/or political support and/or intelligence assistance from the UK and Europe, it will find that the sword cuts both ways.
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I think it would be smart to have what you need to repel Russia without the US. Our internal political are crazy right now, and we're not very interested in Europe compared to the post-war years. I think the US/UK relationship will be strong though, and Russia could never pull off a water landing anyway, so you all have little to fear.

I imagine US Intel can provide enough info to Europe to get the info they want. Not that I like those guys, but they have a lot of assets.
 
marktan said:
I wonder if Putin will stop in the east or continue westwards to take all of Ukraine?

It's tragic what's happening but all of it is easy to forsee, and I suspect most western countries are letting it play out because whilst it does damage to Ukraine, it does damage to Russia too.

The only way for Ukraine to have a chance is if the west supplied lots of the heavy weaponry Ukraine is requesting, but they're not doing that. So month by month Ukraine will lose more territory, and the people will bleed.

I do question one thing - all the news outlets that made Russia seem weak at the start of the war. I think it did more harm than good - public pressure could've led to more support being urged for Ukraine, and now I doubt many people care enough. They forgot how long most wars take, and given the overwhelming resource advantage this war was only ever going to go one way. Sad for the Ukrainians who have to suffer through it.
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I feel like you should read the post above yours.
 
RedDevilQuebecois said:
Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling is always here to provide daily updates.



Sums up where and what the shift is all about.
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This is why I’m convinced NATO & Ukraine accepted long ago they couldn’t hold the East but had to bog down the Russians as long as possible to secure the rest of the country + train up their soldiers. It was never realistic to get all this NATO hardware into country, soldiers up to speed and then shipped to where it could be useful (without it getting cruise missiles on route). Get soldiers trained properly in the West, allow meaningful weapons and tech to arrive, fortify the rest of the country and buy as much time as possible - sanctions despite people wanting them to work immediately are starting to tell. Then the long long slog to reclaim the country.
 
GlastonSpur said:
Yep. Europe and the UK need to start preparing now on the assumption that the worst-case scenario will happen, namely that the US pulls out of NATO.

Of course, if that worst-case happens, then the next time the US wants military and/or diplomatic and/or political support and/or intelligence assistance from the UK and Europe, it will find that the sword cuts both ways.
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Unfortunately, the GQP could do a lot of damage if Trump gets back into power and so Europe definitely should ensure they have contingencies. Hopefully the Jan 6th committee and the DOJ feel confident in the evidence to criminally indict Trump, apart from that it's not currently promising.
 
sport2793 said:
Hopefully the Jan 6th committee and the DOJ feel confident in the evidence to criminally indict Trump, apart from that it's not currently promising.
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I think the chances of them actually criminally charging a former president are close to zero.
 
Carolina Red said:
What? When? If anything, Russian military capability was largely overestimated at the start of the war.
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Assume poster means Ukraine? As you say, if anything we were completely mislead on Russian military strength, their reputation is in tatters.
 
Carolina Red said:
What? When? If anything, Russian military capability was largely overestimated at the start of the war.
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Maybe just after the start of the war? Russia's military and its operations have constantly been described as a bumbling mess from within days after the invasion had begun, and that continues today. There also continues to be a lot of emphasis on any Ukrainians wins and relatively little on Russia's slow progress. So for a lot of people (occasional followers and people that just read this thread's or news headlines), it may well seem like Russia is basically hopeless at war, that Ukraine is doing fairly OK in holding them back - and that there is hence less need to support Ukraine.

I can see merit in that idea.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
This is why I’m convinced NATO & Ukraine accepted long ago they couldn’t hold the East but had to bog down the Russians as long as possible to secure the rest of the country + train up their soldiers. It was never realistic to get all this NATO hardware into country, soldiers up to speed and then shipped to where it could be useful (without it getting cruise missiles on route). Get soldiers trained properly in the West, allow meaningful weapons and tech to arrive, fortify the rest of the country and buy as much time as possible - sanctions despite people wanting them to work immediately are starting to tell. Then the long long slog to reclaim the country.
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Yeah, and like he touched on in that Twitter thread above it’s not just about giving them weapons. It often takes longer to train support personnel like electronics technicians and mechanics than the guy actually pulling the trigger.

And we talk about all these weaponry acronyms, but sometimes what they really shortest on is just trucks.
 
Beans said:
I think it would be smart to have what you need to repel Russia without the US. Our internal political are crazy right now, and we're not very interested in Europe compared to the post-war years. I think the US/UK relationship will be strong though, and Russia could never pull off a water landing anyway, so you all have little to fear.

I imagine US Intel can provide enough info to Europe to get the info they want. Not that I like those guys, but they have a lot of assets.
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A US administration that would pull out of NATO (under a re-elected Trump, for example) is not going to provide intel to Europe in the event of a Russian invasion - it's more likely to be cheering on the Russians and praising Putin for his "strength".

Nor would the US/UK relationship continue be strong. The UK would see a US withdrawal from NATO as a fundamental betrayal of an alliance that has kept the peace in Europe for its members since the end of WWII. It would be the end of an era - and with it the end of any special relationship between the UK and US.
 
GlastonSpur said:
A US administration that would pull out of NATO (under a re-elected Trump, for example) is not going to provide intel to Europe in the event of a Russian invasion - it's more likely to be cheering on the Russians and praising Putin for his "strength".

Nor would the US/UK relationship continue be strong. The UK would see a US withdrawal from NATO as a fundamental betrayal of an alliance that has kept the peace in Europe for its members since the end of WWII. It would be the end of an era - and with it the end of any special relationship between the UK and US.
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In that hypothetical situation, perhaps.

I wonder if a second Trump administration would be able to pull out of NATO, if indeed they need congressional approval as I’ve read. Plenty of Republicans in the house and senate are backing Ukraine aid. Cuddling up to Russia has a different look now, and most of the country has experience seeing the Russians as the bad guys.
 
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