Russian Special Military Operation in the Ukraine - Mark IV: The Partitioning of Discussion

Corn Syrup Connoisseur said:
This UK MoD 'Intelligence' update might be the most stupid one yet:
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Lmao! They’re FORCING THEM TO PERFORM FOR TROOPS!

How absolutely, totally regarded.

Performing for troops is a time honored tradition. Even if you’re against the war, surely you sympathize with the hapless troops?!

blablabla said:
what the fuck i love russia now?!
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Imagine if they dealt with degeneracy in Hollywood in a similar way, lol
 
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prolapsed_cranium said:
30 vehicles doesn't like much . It's basically a company level assault if you look at it as a bunch of MRAPs or a mixed unit with some Tanks and IFVs and infantry..... unless they just yeeted all the M1s and Bradleys into the fight
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That is true but Ukraine does not have a lot of armored vehicles. Even a company level commitment is a lot. I suspect Russia has been attacking such that they lose equipment less than or equal to what they can produce. Ukraine will probably never get more and so an attack with so many vehicles is a big deal.
blablabla said:
The thing is they dont need a fucking distraction, they are hitting everywhere. they just entered Pobeda, then is a straight road to Marinka. Ukraine is getting gutted.
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I will address this argument because I think it is interesting.

If Ukraine has knowledge of exactly where Russia will attack at any given time they could concentrate reserves there with impunity. However If Ukraine doesn't know where Russian troops are they have to distribute their troops everywhere and hold reserves everywhere. This makes it easier for Russia to attack at any one point. If Ukraine "knows" its a certain location and it actually is somewhere else, then the lines will be thin and there will be no or very little reserves, making the attack comparatively easy.

During WW2 the Soviet's tactics were fairly simple and basic. But on the operational and strategic level the Soviets were quite capable and regularly employed deception and subterfuge to their advantage. I assume the Russian General Staff has a similar way of doing things still. I do remember Russia hinting about an offensive from Belarus during the early period of 2023 in order to get Ukraine to deploy troops there. I have also been seeing things like Western sources saying that there are 150k troops there.

You could be right though. Russia could be deciding not to be deceptive and just grind Ukraine down. The Russian General Staff could have decided it is not time yet to try this sort of thing or they don't want to try this sort of thing at all and just want to go with what they know works.
 
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blablabla said:
ukraine defense is shot, they are commiting everything to try to stop holes
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Garm said:
What's peoples opinions on Ukraines manpower problems? I figured they are near Volkssturm levels of exhaustion. I've been told that, no, Ukraine still has millions of people it can draft. It just needs to find them.
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I think it lost a lot of people due to migration to EU countries and it has lost a lot in terms of dead and wounded. I don't know if they are Volksturm quite yet, maybe Volk grenadiers to use your analogy.

The other thing to think about it is lead time. You don't just grab a man off the street and instantly he is a well trained and capable soldier. It takes months of training to do that and Ukraine isn't able to give new conscripts that level of training because they need people now. This creates a death spiral where new troops that aren't trained very well die much more easily and are less effective making the manpower problem worse. Which in turn puts more pressure on the training system etc etc.

blablabla said:
ukraine defense is shot, they are commiting everything to try to stop holes
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Yes I am aware. I wrote a long post about how the presence of holes tells us Ukraine is in Crisis. But imagine making it even more so. Really get the blood flowing so to speak.
 
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Garm said:
What's peoples opinions on Ukraines manpower problems? I figured they are near Volkssturm levels of exhaustion. I've been told that, no, Ukraine still has millions of people it can draft. It just needs to find them.
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Big country with lots of population. The will to fight will disappear long before everybody dies or whatever. Even Germany still had plenty of people left after losing millions in WW2 (and obviously, so did Russia).

Manpower isn't the big problem, men with rifles don't win this type of war, it's artillery, the inability to protect their logistics and the lack of vehicles, armored or otherwise, tanks, missiles, airplanes and helicopters. And more importantly, the lack of time to train people to effectively use said equipment - training time for modern equipment is ridiculous owing to how much more complex they are now.

For example - let's say you want to train a new crew for your Panther, in 1943 before time was really pressing. First you train the infantryman, which takes around 16 weeks ideally (but lowered incrementally to 10 weeks by the end of the war IIRC). Then when he has the basics of soldiering down, he goes to tank school. 16 weeks. So you can get a brand new very well trained tank crew in give or take 5 to 6 months, which as far as I know was the most extensive training any nation gave their crews at the time. This is going to be a fresh crew who realistically aren't going to be terribly effective in combat because, well, they're new. Realistically however, you can "train" a crew to drive a tank in 2 weeks, since it isn't rocket science, but they're far more likely to take to the field and get their tank stuck in the first trench they (don't) see. Today it's still around 3 months for tank school in the US.

Ukraine's big problem is that they don't have 6 or 3 months to train really good tank crews - they need them now, 1945 Germany-style. Apply this to everything more complex than "point, shoot, dig". They're running out of trained soldiers far quicker than they will run out of soldiers in general. It's a lose - lose situation, you either rush the training and get less competent crews, or you don't rush the training and not only do you get less crews, but these will run the risk of being available to late to help the war effort much.

I didn't even touch aircraft because trying to rush pilot training in current year must be hell.
 
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CNN joins the Kremlin propaganda network:
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Bits from the Article:
Russia is entering its third year of war in Ukraine with an unprecedented amount of cash in government coffers, bolstered by a record $37 billion of crude oil sales to India last year, according to new analysis, which concludes that some of the crude was refined by India and then exported to the United States as oil products worth more than $1 billion.

The net impact of India’s crude purchases has been to weaken the pinch Russian President Vladimir Putin feels from oil sanctions. Russia’s federal revenues ballooned to a record $320 billion in 2023 and are set to rise further still. Roughly a third of the money was spent on the war in Ukraine last year, according to some analysts, and a greater proportion still is set to finance the conflict in 2024.

The analysis by the CREA estimated the US was the biggest buyer of refined products from India made from Russian crude last year, worth $1.3 billion between early December 2022, when the price cap was introduced, and the end of 2023. The organization’s estimates are based on publicly available shipping and energy data.

Moscow has found means to enrich itself off this refining and export process too. One of the Indian refineries and ports accepting Russian crude is in Vadinar, and run by a company called Nayara Energy, which is 49.1% -owned by Russian state oil giant Rosneft. The CREA estimated that the US imported $63 million worth of oil products refined in Vadinar in 2023, and that about half the crude used in the plant was Russian. All of which is entirely above board.

But the organization’s report added that exports from Vadinar “lead to significant tax revenues for the Kremlin in the form of taxing the exported Russian crude oil” and also via the profits made by Rosneft from the refining and resale to Moscow’s Western opponents.
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Napoleon III said:
You could be right though. Russia could be deciding not to be deceptive and just grind Ukraine down. The Russian General Staff could have decided it is not time yet to try this sort of thing or they don't want to try this sort of thing at all and just want to go with what they know works.
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Just wanted to point out that there is a bit of a time crunch here.

Towards the end of March, possibly earlier, it’ll start getting warmer and the paths and fields they use now will turn into mud for at least a few weeks.

So whatever Russia does, they need to do it now.

How that affects the thinking in terms of which direction to strike is of course hard to predict.

Could be as simple as by attacking in the south, they’re preventing reinforcements to be drawn towards Donetsk which is their main goal.
 
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Fapcop said:
Just wanted to point out that there is a bit of a time crunch here.

Towards the end of March, possibly earlier, it’ll start getting warmer and the paths and fields they use now will turn into mud for at least a few weeks.

So whatever Russia does, they need to do it now.

How that affects the thinking in terms of which direction to strike is of course hard to predict.

Could be as simple as by attacking in the south, they’re preventing reinforcements to be drawn towards Donetsk which is their main goal.
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Fairly sure the mud season has already started. Early spring this year.
 
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Givi said:
Ukraine's big problem is that they don't have 6 or 3 months to train really good tank crews - they need them now, 1945 Germany-style. Apply this to everything more complex than "point, shoot, dig". They're running out of trained soldiers far quicker than they will run out of soldiers in general.
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It’s also a demographic problem.

Birth rates in Ukraine plummeted after 1990, so they have a huge shortage of young men. (Note how many of their soldiers are already in their 40ies.)

On top of that, millions went abroad and even more after the war started.

They COULD start drafting everyone in their 20ies, but it would really fuck the country long term. And would be very unpopular.
 
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Napoleon III said:
I think it lost a lot of people due to migration to EU countries and it has lost a lot in terms of dead and wounded. I don't know if they are Volksturm quite yet, maybe Volk grenadiers to use your analogy.

The other thing to think about it is lead time. You don't just grab a man off the street and instantly he is a well trained and capable soldier. It takes months of training to do that and Ukraine isn't able to give new conscripts that level of training because they need people now. This creates a death spiral where new troops that aren't trained very well die much more easily and are less effective making the manpower problem worse. Which in turn puts more pressure on the training system etc etc.


Yes I am aware. I wrote a long post about how the presence of holes tells us Ukraine is in Crisis. But imagine making it even more so. Really get the blood flowing so to speak.
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Now they are bombing the everloving shit out of Orekhov, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye and Kremenchug. I dont think we are never going to see a full on balls to the wall atack on Ukraine positions. They are going to glass them and then pick up slow and steady whatever is left.
 
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Garm said:
What's peoples opinions on Ukraines manpower problems? I figured they are near Volkssturm levels of exhaustion. I've been told that, no, Ukraine still has millions of people it can draft. It just needs to find them.
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Its not a matter of finding them. The problem is that Ukraine (as usual) has a deeply corrupt mobilization system which is designed to sweep up peasants and people with no money into the army while protecting the elite. For example, its possible currently to avoid military service entirely by just enrolling in a single higher education class. Age doesn't matter. How long you have been in school doesn't matter. How many degrees you have doesn't matter. Anyone who could be admitted to a program and take a class is exempt from mobilization. There are also all sorts of corrupt exceptions to mobilization around the companies people work for.

The other odd thing Ukraine does is only begin conscription at age 27. There is no reason for the age to be so high.

The western media talks as if Ukraine is united in the war are in a national struggle against Russia. But when it comes to actually fighting the war, the typical attitude is "can't someone else go to the front and fight". A 20 year old kid doing nothing in Kiev is safe. But a 40 or 50 year old man in a village is going right to the front.

This is the truth about Ukraine's manpower:

1) They have no reserves. Units can't be relieved, rebuilt or rotated. The entire military is committed to the frontlines.
2) The classes and groups they are recruiting from in the country are exhausted. All the people available in those groups to conscript have been conscripted or are wounded & no longer available. They have to expand the pool of recruits by changing the conscription laws.
3) Because there are no reserves, there is basically almost no proper training. recruits are just thrown out after minimal training as replacements into existing frontline military units.
4) Zelensky and company have known about these problems since the start of the conflict and refused to take action. Because any action to increase conscription will be unpopular with businesses and the elite in Ukraine.
5) Its too late to solve these problems. even if the best possible laws were passed today and 500,000 new people were conscripted, the best that one could do would be to sustain the current army in the field as it is and keep the army from a slow collapse.

Fapcop said:
Birth rates in Ukraine plummeted after 1990, so they have a huge shortage of young men. (Note how many of their soldiers are already in their 40ies.)
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Its not just birth rates. Its also been massive emigration for many years. And one of Ukraine's many problems that there has been no population census in Ukraine for over 20 years. Most of the information provided about the population of Ukraine and demographics for military mobilization is pure guesswork.
 
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jje100010001 said:
Europoors deserve this fate for swallowing the propaganda and trusting Washington.

For all the comments about NATO losing, America has essentially been the biggest winner of this conflict at the expense of the Europeans.

> Energy independence stolen by the US
> Military independence stolen by the US
> Diplomatic independence stolen by the US
> Cultural & political independence stolen by the US
> Industry actively being stolen by the US
> Finance (Euro) to be stolen by the US

Washington essentially has acted as a second stage boss that sucks out the lifeforce of the 1st stage boss in order to make itself stronger.
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Huge sucking sound in the German economy:
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MrJokerRager said:
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Also on a tangent, people smugly posting Russian stats from the 90s need to update their script:
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