Russian Invasion of Ukraine Megathread

[St.Davis]

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

Yes, which is why that comparison is kind of retarded. A situation can't be exploited now in the same way as it was then.

 

[Elbereth]

I am ready to hear your alternative solid ways. Poland stronk enough to drink vodka and piss oil?

Buying from V4 doesn't count as we don't piss it out but buy it from the bear, Morty.

Poland uses 18 bilion m3 gas per year.
5 bilion m3 is mined in country.
6 billion m3 is from gas terminal in Świnoujście.
3 bilion is from gas terminal in Gdańsk.

By the fall this of year, Baltic pipe is opened. It's yearly capacity is 10 billion m3 gas. Together 24 billion m3.

We don't need gas from Russia.

 

[Aidan]

The best way to tell Russia to go fuck itself would have been to become independent of them years ago. More should do and should have done that

 

[The Ugly One]

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.

Supply chains didn't stop being important just because the trucks carrying stuff have GPS units on board or whatever.

 

[Aidan]

Supply chains didn't stop being important just because the trucks carrying stuff have GPS units on board or whatever.

My point was American training has nothing to do with the British of 200+ years ago. It's a silly reach to make that connection.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

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.

You know how many grandpa and grandmas that were NG we sent to Afghanistan/Iraq? Plenty. There were even father/son and mother/son situations. This isn't unusual.

 

[The Ugly One]

My point was American training has nothing to do with the British of 200+ years ago. It's a silly reach to make that connection.

The post you were responding to was about logistics, not training infantry, so you weren't even really responding to the actual point.

 

[There Is Light At The End]

Let's say Russia wins. Then what?

@nippleonbonerfart shid, piss, cope and dilate. Than hang himself

 

[Napoleon Bonerfart]

@nippleonbonerfart shid, piss, cope and dilate. Than hang himself

Nigger I do that whenever the McDonalds milkshake machine is down.

 

[Aidan]

The post you were responding to was about logistics, not training infantry, so you weren't even really responding to the actual point.

I was never talking about infantry, I'm saying the whole "Hurr durr the guy in charge of Ukraine's military was trained by the US Army and this is just like the Americans vs British!!!" point is inapplicable.

British are relevant though as even the BBC is touting this apparent new media agenda.
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The leaders of France and Germany have urged Russia's Vladimir Putin to hold "direct [and] serious negotiations" with Ukraine's president, the German chancellor's office said.
Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz spoke to Mr Putin by phone for 80 minutes.

The pair "insisted on an immediate ceasefire and a withdrawal of Russian troops," the chancellor's office said.
Russia's leader said Moscow was open to resuming dialogue with Kyiv, according to the Kremlin.
It did not mention the possibility of direct talks between Mr Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Ukrainian president earlier said he was not "eager" for talks, but added they would likely be necessary to end the conflict.

Russian and Ukrainian delegations have held multiple rounds of talks remotely and in person since Russia invaded on 24 February, but efforts have stalled of late.
France and Germany also urged Mr Putin to release 2,500 Ukrainian fighters taken as prisoners of war at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol.
The sprawling factory became the last holdout in the southern port city, which endured relentless bombardment from Russian forces and now lies in ruins.

• Mariupol: 80 days that left a flourishing city in ruins
• What next for Ukraine's captured Azovstal fighters?

Earlier this month, Moscow officials said the last fighters defending the plant had surrendered, while President Zelensky said they had been given permission to leave.
Russia has previously said more than 900 of the fighters were moved to a reopened prison colony in Olenivka, a village in Russian-occupied Donetsk. A smaller number with serious wounds were taken to a hospital in the town of Novoazovsk, also in Donetsk.
Ukraine hopes they will be released as part of a prisoner exchange - but Russia has not confirmed that. Some Russian lawmakers argue the fighters should be tried or even executed.



Image source, Reuters
Image caption,
Ukraine wants the fighters who defended the Azovstal steelworks to be part of a prisoner exchange - but Russia has made no public commitments

Elsewhere in the call, the French and German leaders asked Mr Putin to lift Russia's blockade of the Ukrainian port of Odesa, to allow for grain exports.
The Kremlin said Mr Putin offered to look at options, to help address the risk of a global food crisis - but demanded that the West lift sanctions.
Russia also warned France and Germany against increasing weapons supplies to Ukraine, saying that could increase instability still further.

 

[kuuu]

Meanwhile Poland still can't into space.

 

[sneedpest]

Another Kherson offensive cant keep the track of these

 

[GoPro]

Next Russia will seek a greater alignment with China, who is watching with great amusement as the West throws military hardware into the meatgrinder while in the midst of an economic recession turning into a depression. This will save Russia economically in the short term until new opportunities arise.

The West will cope seethe and dilate until the Winter of 2022 begins. Europe will suffer from the irresponsible policies of its leaders as energy demands and food prices escalate, people will die. North America will be no stranger to the economic downturn as people can barely afford anything and politicians have wasted billions of dollars in cash and billions more in military equipment into Ukraine. Politicians will demand spending more money, as people suffer. Europe will feel it worse than any, as Germany has bought many "responsible" energy supplies from the world market, leaving their EU pals without proper support.

On top of all these we see a year of bad luck. Food production hasn't been as fruitful as it has in the past, and fertilizer that typically comes from Russia is now blockaded. European governments may end up taking a more neutral or positive view of Russia simply to prevent riots or take care of their population. This will alienate allies like Germany or the U.S., causing as further divide. In America, the Republicans look poised to win the Mid-Term elections under the faltering Biden administration, and this could cause further tensions between the Right-Left as well as within the Democrat party.

This is just how things could be lined up geopolitically towards the end of the year, and things look very bad for the West, and perhaps neutral to the Russians. I think one of the things I hate about the English language culture is that most English speaking countries have this attitude of "Everything will work out fine" due to the success of the UK and the U.S. over the last couple hundred years. People think that once "The West gets out of this slump" it's all Aces for another hundred years. There's no reason another Great Depression isn't going to happen, and once it does happen, there's going to be radical change.

When Gas is 10 dollars a gallon, and McDoubles 6.50, even Joe-beerkeg might yell enough is enough.

"Greater alignment with China" is a very generous way to frame "becoming subservient to China." If Russia wins, it will upset the west. War already accelerated efforts to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and diversify sources. Russian victory will only amp these efforts further. As Europe will move towards not buying from Russia, China and India will become its main customers. Both of them will exploit the situation and low ball Russia in trade deals. India is already doing that. Exports to third world nations will become more expensive due to sanctions. Russia will have another competitor to worry about if the U.S.-Venezuela relations continue to thaw.

It will be similar politically.
War proved Nordics and Eastern EU/NATO members right. France and Germany look like fools, and the U.S. who they were complaining about before Russians attacked is suddenly in good graces again. Germany is already shifting to align more with Eastern EU's views on Russia, and that's reflected in recent victories of the German Green party. Macron and Orban are all Russia has left among major EU leaders willing to cooperate. Both of them will be forced to change their tune or will risk getting sidelined within the EU. France is already making amends with Australia. Less than a year ago French were hurling insults at Australians and Americans over that failed submarine deal.
Another thing brought to the forefront recently are ties of certain European nations to Russia. War will probably end or severely limit access to western tax havens, property investments, golden passports, and luxury goods.
Last issue is the integrity of CSTO. None of the members even lifted a finger to help Russia in Ukraine, save for Belarus letting Russian military in. During the recent 2022 meeting, none of the members even acknowledged Putin's complaints about Ukraine. CSTO will probably be supplanted by Chinese-led military alliance, further sidelining Russia on the international stage.

From security standpoint, it's bad for Russia too.
Germany and Poland are throwing a lot of money at their military. Sweden and Finland are close to joining NATO, and Russian victory will motivate them even more. Ukraine will most likely seek NATO membership or a defensive alliance. US, UK, Poland, Baltics, and Turkey will most likely be interested in that. Germany, Scandinavians, and Canada might be too. If most of that will come to pass, Russia's west will be in a very tough position defensively. If Russia truly didn't want NATO's Eastward expansion, they really messed up by attacking Ukraine.

Russia will have no choice but to rely on China sooner or later. Chinese will use that situation to their advantage, just like they do with their African and Asian vassals. Subservient Russia is in China's interest and current war accelerates that process. That's why Chinese are content with buying Russian goods at a discount without offering any direct help in the war.

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.

Russia runs a lot like a Middle Eastern petrol state. They will invest bare minimum in the region's infrastructure. Only enough to support resource extraction industries, military, and perhaps agriculture. Some token effort will be put into making few city centers look presentable, but everything outside of it will be left neglected. Vast majority of the profits from local economy will be sucked up by Moscow.

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.

If the U.S. is an 80 year old man, then Russia is a 90 year old on life support and China is a 60 year old dying of cancer but refusing to acknowledge it. Problems both of these nations have are as bad if not worse than what American has to deal with. Neither one of them has as much money or international goodwill as the U.S. to help them deal with said issues too.
Both Russia and China have to deal with approaching bad demographic crisises. They have too many middle aged and elderly and not enough people are being born. Too many young are fleeing to other countries. Most texts on geopolitics I have read predicted that Russia will try to attack one of its neighbors before 2030 while Russian military still has enough young people to support the effort and before Russia enters a death spiral for good. Most of these texts were written in late 90s and early 2000s, and this prediction came to pass. I think it was Friedman who likened that military intervention to last lashing out of a dying empire.

China has to deal with issues like desertification in its north and west, increasingly challenging water management, India's growth, economics slowdown, and looming unrest within its borders. All of these are linked and feed into each other. China is trying to hamper down desertification by damming rivers, and some of that will interfere with India's water supply. India will have to deal with China somehow and India's demographics will give it an edge in a conventional war. Desertification will cause food insecurity in China, and lead to unrest. Ironically, Southern China has too much water. Heavy rains there cause floods, mudslides, and soil erosion. China has been trying to divert water from south to other regions, but shoddy practices and corruption made this a decades long process an inefficient money hole. That will lead to water insecurity what will cause more unrest. All of these will hurt China's economic growth. It might not look that bad, until you learn that the main reason Chinese put up with CCP is the relative prosperity and economic growth it brought in last three decades. If that ends, CCP will be on thin ice.

Russian economic future is not looking to good either. Their primary exports are fossil fuels, and world is slowly diversifying its energy sources. Sanctions certainly do not help, and if China faces an economic downturn, Russia will be hurt by it too while Americans will benefit. Siberian thaw could open some extra farmland, but so far all it caused are California-tier forest fires and accelerated decay of infrastructure in Russia's east that was built with colder conditions in mind.

Infrastructure in China and Russia has issues too. In China it is built rapidly and looks shiny, but quickly falls apart. Look at their covid hospitals built very fast in 2020 that are now derelict and unusable. Infrastructure in Russia is maintained even more poorly than American, and a lot of it was built in Soviet era. Hardly anything gets renovated on time, and overall poor state of buildings is even evident in Moscow and Petersburg. Roads are in far worse condition than ones in the U.S.

So far Russia and China have been managing their populace's dissatisfaction. Both have been relying on aiming it outside of their countries by blaming westerners and their allies for all ills. It's not going to work forever. Sooner or later people will look at the kleptocratic governments and try to do something. Russia already had Navalny, who capitalized on pointing out how kelptocrats are robbing the country. He was deemed dangerous enough to be assassinated, and was imprisoned after that failed and west started paying too much attention. Chinese CCP has the problem of it's shanghai faction that is more western-aligned, and with anti-CCP expats. I suspect that Shanghai lockdowns and starving were in part a gamble to erode support for shanghai based politicians. They can't do much about expats, other than having Chinese visa students harass them. That's playing with fire, as these students are prone to join anti-CCP expats. That's why China monitors and regulates their students so closely.

A lot of what's now happening tracks with Russia's behavior back in the 80s, when their commie empire was in dire straits. In 1979 Russia attacked Afghanistan, most nations in Russian orbit were beginning to break away, and Russians amped up their threats of nuking NATO. This time Russia has to deal with the war in Ukraine, pro-western and pro-China sentiments among their allies, and they are daily talking about nuking NATO again. Main difference is that this time Russia has more problems on its plate and less bodies to throw at them.
China's future is far from being rosy either. What I mentioned is just scratching the surface. I didn't even talk about the real estate market, their healthcare system, pollution, political system in a dire need of a reform, succession issues within CCP, decaying diplomatic relations, regional imbalances, and more.
For all its fault, the U.S. has a decent track record with reforms and working through challenges. Something both China and Russia have done at lot worse at throughout their history.

 

[DumbDude42]

@GoPro

If the U.S. is an 80 year old man, then Russia is a 90 year old on life support and China is a 60 year old dying of cancer but refusing to acknowledge it. Problems both of these nations have are as bad if not worse than what American has to deal with.

this part i wouldn't be so sure about
the issues that china and russia face are severe, no doubt about it. but they are, in principle, fixable.
the wests issues on the other hand, while less severe in the present, are essentially impossible to fix under its current political system.

a better analogy therefor would be russia as a man with a few broken ribs, china as a man with a dislocated shoulder and broken wristbones, and the west as a man with early stage brain cancer. the first two can recover, but the third is utterly doomed.

 

[There Is Light At The End]

Nigger I do that whenever the McDonalds milkshake machine is down.

You will do it extra hard this time

 

[Ponzo]

In our news today but don't forget, "Putler" is going to lose any minute now!

Spoiler

 

[mindlessobserver]

I was never talking about infantry, I'm saying the whole "Hurr durr the guy in charge of Ukraine's military was trained by the US Army and this is just like the Americans vs British!!!" point is inapplicable.

British are relevant though as even the BBC is touting this apparent new media agenda.
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The point, is that Politically speaking, Ukraine has no incentive to give up the fight, because defeat in this scenario means absolute defeat. Just like the war between the American Colonies and the British. Britain, like Russia is under no such existential restraint, which means political pressure can definitely build up on the homefront to question why so many resources are being expended on a fools errand.

Further, just as with the American War with the British, and Ukraines present war with Russia now, there is a homefield advantage as Ukraine and America were both being invaded. In both scenarios the overall goal is not defending any one place to the last, its preserving the existence of the military and the government. Part of why the American Independence war dragged on for so long was the British could not pin the Americans down into one decisive battle that they could win. They came close on several occasions, but in the end Washington always managed to get away. Ukraine is under a similar scenario here. I expect we will start to see a retreat from Sieverodonetsk in the coming days/weeks. If Russia is unable to pin the Ukrainian Army to the wall, then and there, they will have issues. Much like the British when they took Philadelphia and New York City.

Namely, Ukraine is fucking huge, and the bulk of its military power comes from further into the interior. The fighting right now is centered in a part of Ukraine Russia has been preparing to invade for almost a decade now. They have the built up rail and ammunition infrastructure to support it. The population is also slightly more permissive. This becomes less and less relevant the further west the Russians go.

My point was that Ukraine doesn't have to win any decisive battles. They just don't have to lose any decisively and instead bleed Russia until their economy starts to crack. Just like the Americans did to the British. This war is astronomically expensive, and Russia I don't think can spend the next 4 years fighting it. Maybe 1 year at the most optimistic. But as I pointed out at the beginning the longer it goes on the harder its going to get.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

The point, is that Politically speaking, Ukraine has no incentive to give up the fight, because defeat in this scenario means absolute defeat. Just like the war between the American Colonies and the British. Britain, like Russia is under no such existential restraint, which means political pressure can definitely build up on the homefront to question why so many resources are being expended on a fools errand.

Further, just as with the American War with the British, and Ukraines present war with Russia now, there is a homefield advantage as Ukraine and America were both being invaded. In both scenarios the overall goal is not defending any one place to the last, its preserving the existence of the military and the government. Part of why the American Independence war dragged on for so long was the British could not pin the Americans down into one decisive battle that they could win. They came close on several occasions, but in the end Washington always managed to get away. Ukraine is under a similar scenario here. I expect we will start to see a retreat from Sieverodonetsk in the coming days/weeks. If Russia is unable to pin the Ukrainian Army to the wall, then and there, they will have issues. Much like the British when they took Philadelphia and New York City.

Namely, Ukraine is fucking huge, and the bulk of its military power comes from further into the interior. The fighting right now is centered in a part of Ukraine Russia has been preparing to invade for almost a decade now. They have the built up rail and ammunition infrastructure to support it. The population is also slightly more permissive. This becomes less and less relevant the further west the Russians go.

My point was that Ukraine doesn't have to win any decisive battles. They just don't have to lose any decisively and instead bleed Russia until their economy starts to crack. Just like the Americans did to the British. This war is astronomically expensive, and Russia I don't think can spend the next 4 years fighting it. Maybe 1 year at the most optimistic. But as I pointed out at the beginning the longer it goes on the harder its going to get.

Is a regurgitated Ronald Reagan and his Afghan Freedom Fighter's speech? Because those niggers turned on us after they were done with the USSR so be careful what you wish for my fellow American. The United States should not be involved in a slav slapfight halfway across the world; there is not benefit, directly or indirectly to its people, only to venal and craven American oligarchs.

 

[Borscht]

Putin received more phone calls.



I wonder if they offered something in return?

 

[BiggerChungus]

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.

Russia wanting older recruits is bad, but Zalensky offering children rifles and molotovs is heroic and brave.