How Russia could have won the war in Ukraine, had it not been too arrogant and greedy
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If so, it should have been the only axis of attack.
The Russian plan of "lets spread ourselves thin and attack Ukraine everywhere in the hopes of a systemic collapse" was doomed to failure because the Russians didn't have enough forces to push through any significant resistance, and ended up exposes enormously long supply lines to guerilla attack throughout the NE front.
Do you think it's a good strategy to commit to a plan where "if they give up, we win, but if they don't, we lose"?
Yeah the idea that the US govt thought Ukraine would collapse is just propaganda. PRIVATE ANALYSTS thought so, because they still believed in the myth of "Russia Stronk", but I do not think that the US military thought so. Ukraine had dragged its feet in preparing for war thanks to Zelensky's idiotic "we must prevent a panic" strategy, but Kiev had still built up substantial defensive strength, which is why Zelensky didn't flee: his military was telling him the city would hold.
Time is not on Russia's side. Russia continues to lose equipment at a 2-3 to 1 ratio against Ukraine. Ukraine captures a ton of Russian equipment because Russians have poor morale and abandon it often. Ukraine continues to get a trickle of top quality NATO systems, which are not getting destroyed at all, so their numbers are just building up. The balance of power in equipment has already decisively shifted to Ukraine, and will only widen over time.
Russia is, quite frankly, running out of tanks, IFVs, APCs, and artillery. Russia's artillery tubes are already reaching their service lives and failing/splitting when fired because they're old, poorly maintained, and being leaned on too heavily without barrel replacement. Russia also cannot sustain ammo production at replacement levels, and its stockpiles are falling enough that it will be forced to use older and less reliable ammo as time wears on. Russia has no counter to HIMARS, and no method for logistics that doesn't involve building up vulnerable ammo dumps that the US spy sats will see, and then Ukraine will blow up.
Russia is already fighting a strictly defensive war, as I predicted months ago when I wrote posts saying that Russian power would grind down to exhaustion and then operational initiative would shift to Ukraine. That's exactly what has happened. Russia hasn't launched any non-local offensives since it squeezed Ukraine out of Lysychansk in early July, almost 3 months ago.
Energy prices spiked in August because the EU went on a buying frenzy to build up stockpiles for the winter. Now that they have done so, prices have fallen throughout September. The crisis is over. Russia's threats are empty. The EU already paid its pain up front and has reserves now.
What if it had failed as it did here? Ukraine would have been able to, with its superior manpower, encircle the entire army. The elimination of the entire army would have been quite disastrous. Even the Von Manstein plan provided for an 'attack' on the Maginot Line, along with the two other pushes that were to do that actual work.
Let's be frank here. 170,000 is too few. That's actually a reason I was skeptical that Russia would invade. The only way they could win in the manner they wanted was through a coup de main. You could mobilize but then the element of surprise is lost.
Rumors have it that Vova got bad intelligence from the FSB and that high officials were placed under house arrest. But given the assumption that he only needed to kick in the door for the entire rotten structure to collapse, this was probably rational.
Especially as I will continue to hold that Russia literally cannot lose. You probably would have been crowing a few months into the Winter War. Of course, the Mannerheim Line was about to collapse, but the Fins leveraged their resistance into a mild peace treaty (which still lost them more than Stalin's prewar offers).
Then I wonder what their business was announcing it to the world. It would demoralize their puppets. But I think it may have shocked their dupes and slaves in Europe to impose harsher sanctions on Russia than anyone planned for.
They're not even getting enough ammunition + your precious HIMARS is blown to bits by freaking Iranian drones. That's almost as humiliating as losing to the Taliban.
Russia has all those Soviet-era factories plus natural resources that can pump out unlimited amounts of equipment, which is why they are so careless with it.
Asphalt.
And now they're getting 300,000 extra troops. NATO will be overwhelmed. They've been losing to a skeleton army of 170,000 so far. And now they're going to beat 470,000? I'll believe it when I see it. Let's hope they don't, because if they do - the nuclear weapons will come out.
But obviously, you are incorrect. The side with 4x as many people and 15x the GDP is going to win, if it wants to. And I don't see Russia abandoning as central a territory as Ukraine. Perhaps Galicia.
So called experts are predicting disaster. I always take experts with a grain of salt, but let's see. It would be glorious if both American world hegemony and the Fourth Reich collapsed due to Uncle Vova. You know as well as I do that if he succeeds in swallowing Ukraine, and forms a new Union Treaty with Belarus and Kazachstan, he will go down as greater than Peter the Great.
Nah 1. Stalin didn't care how many Soviet troops needed to die, and he had the kind of absolute power where no degree of defeat or humiliation could shake it. 2. Finland was getting basically no help. 3. It was known from the start that Finland would eventually run out of ammo.
There has not been a single confirmed kill of any HIMARS, and there isn't likely to ever be one. The Russians simply lack the capability to observe, target, track, and kill moving targets well behind the front lines.
Unfortunately for Russia it has come to rely on western components in many of its systems in the last 20 years, and sanctions cut all those off. Why do you think Russia has been forced to buy drones from Iran? Because Russia cannot make its own drones thanks to component dependencies. Iran, having been under sanctions a long time, has its own domestically produced components for everything.
Russia will probably get 100-150k more troops slowly trickling in over the next 6-12 months. Russia has already lost 1200 tanks confirmed out of a total force of 2k-2.5k potential combat effectives. They're already scraping the barrel by deploying T-62s. By the time those reservists show up, there won't be any Russian tanks left for them to crew.
What are the Russians going to do? Human wave attacks like China did in the Korean War? lol.
Ukraine has been winning against a highly mechanized highly equipped force which lacked much filler infantry. Russia's force was built for offense but poor defensively. But now most Russian combat vehicles have been destroyed, so Russia has permanently lost its offensive capability.
Those new troops will (1) lack the equipment needed to fight, and (2) will have extremely low morale, not want to be there, and (3) you can be damn sure that orders to human wave attack with infantry will be routinely ignored.
Russia's force in 1 year's time, if it hasn't been defeated outright by then, will be an overwhelmingly infantry force with little to no offensive punch, basically only good for digging trenches and sitting in them while UKR drones drop grenades on their heads.
LOL. Only in your dreams. Russia will never use nukes. "Muh nukes" is the ultimate cope from Russia's cheerleader squad.
Except 7 months in Russia just got dealt some humiliating defeats and has been handily losing a war of attrition, so obviously you can't just look at population and GDP.
Sometimes I think you write these posts hoping that Putin sees them.
None of them do, obviously, unless they are forced to care. I will be the last to defend so called "democracies", which are anything but of course, but one thing that can be distinguished is that they are generally forced to care about how many of their troops die.
Without any consequences for him personally or the strength of the country, do you think Putin if he sends 10 million men to their deaths? What about Biden?
This makes little sense. Mannerheim said that they should not fight but instead concede, but he dutifully fought, and the socialists of Finland rallied to his conservative banner and national defense, much to Stalin's chagrin. But as for the rest? If you know you're going to lose, and you know Stalin isn't going to give up, why would you risk war?
I can make the same argument here. There is zero chance of Ukraine prevailing. You need a miracle. Do not forget your daily prayers to Satan.
Hard predictions. I like those. Let's see.
If Iran can do it, Russia certainly can do it. Furthermore, I think you're grossly exaggerating how much Drag Queen Story Hour components are needed for weapons of war.
Where did all the 10,000s of tanks of the USSR go? Into thin air?
Besides, Russian industrial production when ramped up is unbeatable. They were losing astonishing amounts of material in World War II, even when they nominally won the battle, but they won because they were able to out-produce their opponents.
Sounds like copium. Russia just levels everything with artillery and then moves in.
Here's hoping, though I have seen no evidence that the Russians would do something like that. The Kiev stuff excepted, they've been extremely casualty-averse.
I'm sure a pathetic shithole puppet country is going to DEFEAT a country with 4x the population, 15 times the GDP, natural resources and industrial capacity beyond reckoning. Even I could defeat Ukraine with such odds, and without just leveling every city in my way. How you can persuade yourself is a mystery to me, particularly since you are level-headed on the recent Ukraine gains. If they can't win a straightforward fight before mobilization, you have to do a whole lotta rationalization to think that they will after.
I'm not hoping for nukes on Ukraine. The poor people there have suffered enough. That said, in case of NATO aggression, the proper response is tactical nukes. And by the way, that was always the NATO gameplan against an invasion by the Warsaw Pact.
On the contrary, fundamentals will reassert themselves. That is what I expect. This is likely the nadir of Russian military fortunes. You expect the nadir to last, and to even get worse. That is madness, or rather, your most fervent Cold War dreams of 'pwning the reds'.
What, you think Putin would be very pleased with the 'if', or my judgment of his character (and that of all politicians)? I'm just telling a man who got drunk from smelling the wine cork what will happen if things don't pan out precisely as he expect.
Just for the sake of fun: supppose that Putin prevails, annexes all of Ukraine, then enacts a new Union treaty with Belarus, Ukraine and Kazachstan (and occupies Azerbaijan). Leave aside for a moment your fantasies of arming a Ukrainian insurgency to bring democracy like you did in Syria and Libya. What do you think history's judgment on Putin would be?
There is zero chance of Russia prevailing. Ukraine has already won. All that is left is to watch Russia bleed out over the course of the next year.
Of course they could eventually, just not on short notice.
It might surprise you, but American high tech components aren't made by faggots who dress as women. "In July a CNN report on the ORAN-10 showed a thermal camera from France, a Japanese engine, and a sophisticated American circuit board". It's a lot easier and cheaper for Russia to outsource components. If it had to make everything in-house it would be lower quality at higher cost. So now they don't have a choice so they'll have to start, but who knows how long it will take?
(1) Russia has rapidly reduced its stored tanks over the last 20 years, and at most only has 6k by this year. Estimates of 10k+ tanks are simply outdated and wrong. That may have been the number in the early 90s at the peak. (2) of those 6k tanks, only a relatively small number were kept in active service or ready reserve, 1,500-2,000. This leaves the "long term storage" remainder which would require refurbishment.
So the vast majority of those "tanks" are stripped, rusted hulks that have been sitting in open air storage rotting for 30+ years, not remotely usable. In order to deploy a tank, it needs to have a fully functional and maintained engine, moving parts, electronics, optics, and a well-maintained gun. Those junkyard hulks have none of those things. For the vast majority of stored tanks, the cost to actually refurbish it into combat capable shape would cost more or similar to building a new tank.
There were some tanks - a small minority - kept in climate controlled and sheltered storage complete with periodic maintenance. These were the only tanks capable of being rapidly refurbished and pressed into service. Here is a rough review of Russia's tank storage facilities.
I researched this earlier into the war, and the total number of tanks that Russia could actually refurbish and deploy was only between 2,000-2,500. Basically 500-1,000 "extra" over what they already expected to have available to use.
Considering we have 1,200 CONFIRMED Russian tank losses, and not 100% of tank kills are photographed and counted, I think the lower bound for Russian tank losses would be about 1,500. This means Russia has at most 500-1,000 left, and at the pace it has been losing them, they will all be gone within 3-6 months.
I can't believe you just compared 2022 Russia to 1941 Stalin's USSR. The differences could not be more night-and-day. Russia's industrial capacity in 2022 is a fucking joke. Russia simply cannot afford to build many tanks. It buys only a handful of combat aircraft per year, less than 10.
That was what Russia did in June, until HIMARS ammo dump hits made that strategy non-viable by July and we haven't seen it since.
The simple and obvious answer is that because 100% of Ukraine is only fighting maybe 10% of Russia. Russia is not mobilized, cannot mobilize, and will never be mobilized, either in population or economically. This is to be expected in an offensive war. The vast majority of Russians simply don't care. Ukraine on the other hand, is fighting for its life.
I was super interested in military history even as a child. I've been actively studying the art of war for more than 30 years. I know my shit.
Every single prediction I have made in this war has come true. Sure you have to recognize that. I predicted that the Russian northern front would collapse within weeks, and I made this prediction in mid-March. Within 2 weeks, the Russians realized the same things I did and totally pulled out. They knew if they did not, they would have ended up pocketed because they were over-extended.
Then in May, when the war seemed like a grind with no end, I said within a few months that the attrition would favor Ukraine so much that Ukraine would eventually be able to go over to the offense. I even remember writing that the most obvious target for a counter attack would be Kup'yans'k since it was the logistics hub for the Izyum front just like Ivankiv was for the NW front. And what do you know? Like fucking clockwork, a few months later, Ukraine launches a thrust to Kup'yans'k, takes it, and the whole front collapses and the Russians abandon hundreds of armored fighting vehicles as they fled east to escape the pocket.
Yes, NATO's policy early in the Cold War was to use tactical nukes defensively if the USSR tried to attack through the Fulda Gap, because on paper, the USSR had NATO so outnumbered in ground forces and tanks that simply setting up a defensive line and holding it was not seen as a viable option. By the 1980s NATO had enough strength that it didn't need to resort to nukes, but kept them around as a deterrent while negotiating SALT treaties.
The world is very different now, and any nuke use would be totally unacceptable and invite nuclear retaliation.
Why would you think Russia's fortunes would improve? Down 1200-1500 tanks? Forced to buy Iranian drones because they don't have and can't make enough of their own? Still can't use their air force after 7 months because UKR air defense is unbeatable? Totally had their "artillery only" approach cucked by HIMARS on their ammo dumps, with no counter after months?
And their new troops are going to be people forced into service against their will, fighting an unpopular offensive war Russia is losing, who don't want to die and will likely flee, desert, or surrender whenever shit gets real? These are not Russia's best. Russia's best units have already been DESTROYED or gutted to the point of irrelevance, like their naval infantry and 1st guards tank army.
Russia has already expended itself. It's exhausted. It's power is broken. The rate it is losing armored fighting vehicles is so high that its' gotten to the point where its BTGs are likely under half strength already in equipment, and dropping. And conscripts are going to turn this around HOW exactly?
Meanwhile the West LOVES to back a winner [we've been mostly stuck backing losers in almost every war since ww2], and if anything Ukraine is going to be getting more help in the coming months, not less.
The man who destroyed Russia in a vainglory attempt to rebuild the USSR.
If Putin "wins", through some black magic, the West will fully embargo him on trade. Russia will be a pariah akin to Iran and North Korea, and Putin will rule over the poorest, weakest Empire ever to exist. Just as Putin is bitter in defeat, the West's bitterness will be expressed through trade sanctions on a whole different level.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Putin was forced to become a subject of China in such a scenario. His combat potential would be near-zero and the Chinese could basically dictate terms to him.