Russian Invasion of Ukraine Megathread

[Henry V]

It seems the Ukrainians are trading space for time in areas where they can afford to do so and then digging in where they can't. I think the bulk of their forces are still up around Kharkiv attempting to secure the city.

Not trying to shill for Russia, but I have to point out that the regions that the Ukrainians are withdrawing from aren't exactly regions they can afford to lose. They lost control of the only highway leading towards severodonetsk, which is the main supply line for forces inside the pocket that's forming around severodonetsk/lysychansk. If Ukraine were simply trading space for time they would have withdrawn the forces inside severodonetsk/lysychansk as much of the Ukrainian army is tied down in the closing pocket. Losing these forces will make the Russian advance further into Ukraine much easier. No one has the advantage of time in my opinion.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

Did Sweden and Finland join NATO yet?

 

[mindlessobserver]

Not trying to shill for Russia, but I have to point out that the regions that the Ukrainians are withdrawing from aren't exactly regions they can afford to lose. They lost control of the only highway leading towards severodonetsk, which is the main supply line for forces inside the pocket that's forming around severodonetsk/lysychansk. If Ukraine were simply trading space for time they would have withdrawn the forces inside severodonetsk/lysychansk as much of the Ukrainian army is tied down in the closing pocket. Losing these forces will make the Russian advance further into Ukraine much easier. No one has the advantage of time in my opinion.

They aren't if the goal is hanging onto the Donbass in the Short Term. But I don't think Ukraine actually intends too if it means trading its Army in being for Donbass. Ukraine has made it pretty clear its digging in for a long war. The regions they absolutely cannot lose are Melitipol, Kryvi Ri, Zaporzhia, Kharkiv. Donbass has been a loss for Ukraine since 2014. Unless Russia can get its forces into Ukraines kill area in the Center and West, the war will go on until someone runs out of bodies.

Keep in mind, the guy in Charge of Ukraine's Army was trained by the US Army, and the scenario he is in is very similar to what the US dealt with against the much more powerful British. The Russians, just like the British, are operating at the end of a very long supply chain in a non-permissive civilian environment. Ukraines victory condition isn't to win, its to not lose. So long as the Ukrainian Army remains in the field, Russia has not won the war.

 

[DumbDude42]

There's way too much about this type of fighting to ever put into a forum post, but in conclusion, I see no way that a sizable or relevant Ukrainian guerilla movement would rise, and even if it did, I do not believe it would be very successful owing to the multitude of these factors.

i don't think terrain or religion is the main factor here, i think the main factor here is state power and control. guerrilla forces function well in places with weak central governments: latin america, iraq, afghanistan, these places all have (had) very weak central government authorities who did not have a lot of control outside of their core cities or regions. this is not the case in europe though. for example, after ww2 there were anti soviet guerrilla movements in lots of countries in eastern europe, from ukraine to baltics, but they didn't really achieve anything because the might of a totalitarian state crushing down on them from every angle was just too overwhelming. the soviet union had an extraordinarily powerful central government, so guerrilla war did not work well against it.

same situation arose during ww2, with all the partisan movements in europe against the germans - they barely achieved anything beyond sporadic acts of sabotage and the occasional assassination of a german official, mostly they got themselves massacred in brutal acts of reprisal from the wehrmacht, their supporters sniffed out and disappeared by gestapo, and their captured or arrested fighters sent to camps or killed by the SS.

modern russia isn't quite the same level of totalitarianism as the ussr or the reich were, but it's close enough, its security apparatus is large and powerful, if it incorporates ukrainian territory then the russian glowies will likely succeed in snuffing out any organized resistance there.

 

[naffatune]

Chechens do some fighting. Location unknown (link)

Rosgvardia soldiers fight against Ukies. Location unknown (link)

Russians take control of Mir Hotel in Severodonetsk (link)

American mercenary uses rocket launcher vs a Russian APC (link)

BONUS: Donbass fighters capture Ukrainian APCs (link)

 

[mindlessobserver]

American mercenary uses rocket launcher vs a Russian APC (link)

View attachment 3329246

This really needs to be corrected. "Mercenary" is a very specific term when it comes to warfare. A Mercenary is not a regular part of a countries armed forces but is instead a gun for hire. They don't swear oaths of allegiance to any of the combatant countries, they don't wear their uniforms and do not join organized units paid for by the combatant countries. They come "as is" with their own equipment and uniforms.

These guys are all wearing UAF uniforms, so its more accurate to describe them as foreign volunteers for the Ukrainian Army. If we follow Russia's logic about this, then the French Foreign Legion are all Mercenaries. Which they are not.

 

[Ponzo]

Field trip with the bois

Another Uke soldier appeal and complain that higher command is providing "inadequate orders".

Clip of Ossetians fighting at the front. Based on dress may be from a bit earlier

Large column of military equipment headed towards Slavyansk

Zaporozhckaya oblast getting lit up

VDV in combat defending against a Uke counter-attack

Fighting around Kamyshevakh

Shelling of a residential area of Makeevka by Ukraine

Russians move through abandoned Uke fortifications in Troitskoe

Petro Poroshenko has been confirmed by the UKR Border Service as attempting to leave the country.

 

[Regenbogen]

 

[White_N]

The footage shows a unit of foreign mercenaries fighting in Ukraine. Among them is Ben Grant, a 30-year-old former Royal Marine, the son of Helen Grant, a Tory MP. He arrived in Ukraine in March.

polish mercenaries

Just social advertising in Germany

 

[Ponzo]

The footage shows a unit of foreign mercenaries fighting in Ukraine. Among them is Ben Grant, a 30-year-old former Royal Marine, the son of Helen Grant, a Tory MP. He arrived in Ukraine in March.

Why does this look more like a training exercise than actual frontline footage

View attachment 3329285

 

[The Ugly One]

And how can you manage morale without religion and a Dear Leader to hold things together when you have to march 30 kilometers a day under harassing fire, or when you took casualties because your ambush didn't do well or some civilians ratted out on you? How are your irregulars going to be convinced to fight soldiers equipped with modern stuff holding Lee-Enfields like the Afghanis had to? Your fighters stop believing in the cause, they start thinking that maybe it's better to just live their lives in peace, and your guerilla starts losing members and stops getting new ones.

In the case of Afghanistan, it really helped that the USA was bringing in a civic order many of the locals utterly despised. The practice of chaining a little boy to your bed to rape wasn't and isn't universal in Afghanistan, just with the tribes we denoted as "the good guys." The Taliban brutally repressed pedophiles, and was popular because of it. You have to have a lot of faith to fight, faith that you can win, faith that even if you lose your life, a better life awaits those you left behind, faith that some day, the invaders will leave and give you your way of life back.

In the case of Ukraine, they can "win," but they won't get independence. We established in 2010 that Ukrainians aren't allowed to elect a government that Washington doesn't like. We established this year that Washington is willing to fight Moscow down to the last drop of Ukrainian blood if that's what it takes to keep our access to Kiev. Millions of Ukrainians have already decided they'd rather live anywhere than Ukraine. They don't want to live under a corrupt puppet state managed by Washington or Moscow.

 

[Regenbogen]

In the case of Afghanistan, it really helped that the USA was bringing in a civic order many of the locals utterly despised. The practice of chaining a little boy to your bed to rape wasn't and isn't universal in Afghanistan, just with the tribes we denoted as "the good guys." The Taliban brutally repressed pedophiles, and was popular because of it.

lol they practice child marriage, unless you think that's not pedophilia because it's heterosexual

 

[The Ugly One]

lol they practice child marriage, unless you think that's not pedophilia because it's heterosexual

The Taliban banned marriage under age 15. Without getting into an autistic slapfight about definitions, social censure of sex with prepubescent children is far closer to a universal human behavior than drawing a bright line between "child" and "adult" at age 18.

The USA officially accepted literally purchasing a nine-year-old slave boy and chaining him to your bed. As a cultural practice, there's a huge gulf between that and marrying off girls a few years after puberty.

 

[FightenGnome]

You're right about the coping and seething we'll witness when this is done but this part is optimistic on the other end of the spectrum.
I'm not an expert so I'm obviously relying on the Russian liberals, but Donetsk and Luhansk already rely on gibs. It's like carving up puffer fish and gobbling up the viscera.
This alignment with China... I don't see how this is going to end well for Russia. What the hell is going on with the rolling lockdowns over there? Oh, they're "amused" with the West dumping old weapon stockpiles in the middle of a recession? They're locking entire cities at home. That's worse for the economy than giving away the stuff that was going to end up as foreign aid anyway.

The territorial gains Russia will receive are strategic and not economic, creating more territorial buffers between Moscow and the borders of NATO. Even annexing Southern Ukraine is of immense value. My earlier post about them following a "Solzhenitsyn" path to a Greater Russia is what I think they ultimately hope to achieve. Eastern Ukraine, Belarus and Northern Kazakhstan to be added to the Russian Federation.

I could muse further about their European strategic situation, and how they could rebuild some sort of alliance system within Europe proper but it would be speculation. If Russia was to take more of a bite out of Europe to take advantage of Western Europe, the submission of Moldova would be the next logical step. I recently travelled to Romania and was surprised by the amount of Graffiti that I saw of "Bessarabia E Romania". I wonder if the Russians would dissolve the state of Romania, keep Transnistria and offer the rest of Moldova to Romania who would be very happy to accept. This would allow the Russians to extend influence into South-Eastern Europe with Serbia and potentially Hungary. However this part is fantasy football.

As for China, I am not trying to build them up. The Chinese would serve as a hub for which the Russians could sell to the world, receive goods and basically go around Western Embargos. China is probably feeling kind of cozy right now in regards to Western weapons being sent to Ukraine. The media frames it as "aid" but these aren't stockpiles of spare weapons, I know countries like Canada and Poland have sent weapons that they themselves need abroad. We're talking weapons that should be reserved for actual militaries leaving their own troops without any. New weapons will have to be bought, but the West is in economic trouble right now and this will have repercussions further on the economy.

As for the lockdowns in China and the civilian economy, China isn't a free market nation. Their people also don't have any illusions of freedoms or rights. I have a longtime friend in China who speaks about the situation there from time to time, they could lockdown whole cities and aside from people raising their fists in frustration, the population would rather pay bribes or suffer quietly than politicize it unlike people in the West.

Russia and China both are Great Powers but not Superpowers and neither are under the delusion they are. They're acting to take advantage of the weakness and declining Superpower that is the U.S. Many English speakers want to believe the West or NATO is like some 30 year old boxer in his prime, when he's now an 80 year old man with arthritis and dementia. Russia or China don't want to beat him up and go to jail like the media seems to meme, they want to get him to change his Will so they have a bigger piece of the pie when he dies. Sometimes this means pressing him.

 

[trent]

The BBC is reporting that Russia has removed the upper age limit for new recruits.

Guess they are running out of young fellas to feed to the meatgrinder.

 

[kuuu]

The BBC is reporting that Russia has removed the upper age limit for new recruits.

Guess they are running out of young fellas to feed to the meatgrinder.

Or maybe there are too many older experienced volunteers and they can't pass the age limit(which was 40)? Couldn't possibly be the reason, right?

 

[Aidan]

Keep in mind, the guy in Charge of Ukraine's Army was trained by the US Army, and the scenario he is in is very similar to what the US dealt with against the much more powerful British. The Russians, just like the British, are operating at the end of a very long supply chain in a non-permissive civilian environment. Ukraines victory condition isn't to win, its to not lose. So long as the Ukrainian Army remains in the field, Russia has not won the war.

I can attest that the US military still trains like it's the 18th century so the Ukrainians are in good hands.
Seriously that is a retarded allegory and has no relevance to the situation in Ukraine

I don't think the US training has had as much of an institutional effect as you think but we may never know.

 

[FightenGnome]

Post on page 1789 about Guerilla warfare variability that I couldn't reply to and had to quote post from earlier in thread

Fantastic post that not only covers the practical realities of guerilla warfare but the spiritual and psychological aspects as well. The issues the Ukrainians and indeed, any Western state, have is that Liberal Capitalism breeds a population of people that lack the will to carry out guerilla warfare practical realities aside. This has been discussed in the United States for decades that the biggest resistance to say Soviet invasion would come from the Mid-West, Montana and the Deep South. Religious, rural, gun owning people who are proud of their history and want to be left alone. These are the same population groups that Liberal Capitalism hates and wishes to demoralize in the 2010s and 2020s.

It's the kind of stuff that makes things like the portrayal of leftist resistance groups in media so comical such as for games like the new Wolfenstein.

 

[mindlessobserver]

I can attest that the US military still trains like it's the 18th century so the Ukrainians are in good hands.
Seriously that is a retarded allegory and has no relevance to the situation in Ukraine

I don't think the US training has had as much of an institutional effect as you think but we may never know.

Wars strategic aims and methods remain unchanged since Roman times. The only things that change are how we go about it.

 

[bifftango]

Did Sweden and Finland join NATO yet?

No, but your mom did, and now all they do is argue about the color of the curtains at NATO HQ.