Russian special military operation in Ukraine #33

Kabooming all over 404 for a while now.
Wasn't that Ukrs cheering partial power return in the morning or something?

Seeing how quickly Russia ramped up drone production, I wonder if artillery guys are getting some love as well. Russian artillery seems to be more effective now as there are much more footage of krasnopol and observed artillery fires.

I remember it was a Lithuanian merc who said, when he got back to his country intact, that from engagement with the Russians to artillery coming down on their heads directed by the Russians was only a matter of 10 minutes or so. That was sometime in the first few months of the war.

So I don't buy this pen & paper only, grid squares, no GLONASS tracking, no-one knows how to use anything, accusations that are being flung against Russian artilleryists

Yes they're probably not being using ultra-modern means, but they are trained fine in the instruments and procedures that they do have and can get rounds downrange quickly and accurately. If it's just a matter of a radioman and artillery spotter and co-ordinates on a map, but your artillerymen respond promptly and hit where you're requesting their fire - then what more could you ask. Most armies won't be using Telegram and Android apps to direct artillery fire either, including the same NATO ones. It's just an innovation and development that comes out of war.

Hello, let me quickly introduce myself because I have 0 posts and don't want people to think I've suddenly para-dropped on to the forum. I know some members and mods from mp.net/key aero, back from the day (15ish years ago). I've also been involved in site Aviapedia if any of you stumbled to it. Been lurking this forum ever since those mentioned went dodo. My primary interest is not war but hardware.

I've been following this war day by day since SMO launch, from both sides. Although one side is clearly more down to earth in reporting than the other. (and that's an understatement...)

The thing is, if you don't comment day by day and especially if you're not so tied to block politics, it's still not clear to me what are the acceptable endgame scenarios for Russia.

Lets presume even if Ukraine signs off territory (defeat), that they'll keep on training the anti-Russian military forces in their sovereign territory. Even if Russia had supervision there (which is something I guess Ukrainians will never sign), it would still go on. Western money is practically infinite as are their weapons, it's just that they need time. They can't send 100 billion and 1000 tanks to Ukraine today but if you give them 2-3 years they will. That's the problem with adversary such as NATO states. The legitimacy they have at home is based on standard of living. If they dig into that standard with a big shovel, people are going to be pissed. But if they tea spoon resources all the time, they'll still mound a big pile, just over time.

I mean it's a problem today for USA to hand out 15.000 shells daily, but it won't be a problem tomorrow if they set their minds to it. Let's not kid ourselves these are the people that went to the moon from an underdog position.

For me the issue is that west public has a quite of slice of people that are hell bent on "defeating Russia". Regardless of Ukraine, both the spirit of nation and the territory, there is no peace after this, it's Cold War 2.0 and even peace in Europe will turn itself into arms race and heavy militarization of everyone involved.

RF on itself cannot win a prolonged arms/tech race, USSR couldn't. IMO. RF's competitiveness is not only in cheaper labour and materials and cheaper MIC overall, but also in the fact that American cots and EU milspec components were available to them up to ~10 years ago. There is also ever present fact that RF simply doesn't order enough of its own stuff and especially the cutting edge projects. Every other vapourware shit American MIC "pilot project" gets billions and years of funding.

Regardless how war in Ukraine turns out, heavy times are ahead of Russia. Things are never going to be the same. Chinese-Russian rapport has been largely based on one-sided cutting edge tech transfers. China is developing faster than Russia by definition, so that's not a reason for stable alliance.

So, some things to possibly consider in analyzing military decisions of today. Every big turnaround in Ukraine projects a new possible geopolitical situation which the powers will have to deal for decades.

These are all good points, but they miss the bigger picture

Russia doesn't need to win an arms race with NATO, any more than Russia needs to replace the US as a superpower

And it's not Russia that's against them by themselves. Rather it's the Western bloc itself, that is attempting to maintain hegemony in the world against everyone outside the West. Essentially preserve its position as the aristocrats lording over the greater mass of commoners, who themselves don't have to abide by the exemplary conduct that they hold everyone else to.

And this the reason why all these countries are going their own way and have stopped listening to them, and are switching to mutual trade in their own currencies. It's not that all these countries have formed a bloc of their own, one like the socialist bloc following WW2, with some senior leader such as Putin. No, circumstances have forced all sorts of countries, even rivals such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, or India and China - to similar courses of action and they've started to find more and more things to agree about, first and foremost about how a fair international system actually should work - multi-polarity, respect for different civilizational paths, avoiding regime change, a basket of world currencies rather than one or two, financial sovereignty and less laissez-faire policies, more state capitalism.
Russia's ambition here is not to lead anything. All it really just needs to keep the West busy in the Ukraine, while countries in Asia, Africa, South America, etc... progress with their decoupling from the US Dollar, IMF and other Western-dominated organizations.

The Ukraine is not viewed by the West as pivotal for no reason. They realize that losing here will mark a watershed where the world order switches to another one, of which they are not longer at the head. Yet even without a loss in the Ukraine, but just an endless stalemate - the same result will occur later anyway. Time is not on their side. If things simply carried on as they were prior to the war, then that would already have been enough for the US and EU to have been eclipsed by a rising Asia within another 15 years. Hence why they tried to provoke Russia in the Ukraine and China in Taiwan over the past couple of years.
As it is now however, the process has only been sped up, with the energy crisis in Europe and the establishment of alternate financial and trade mechanisms by Eurasian states, and the expansion of the BRICS grouping.
The US and EU have no time really to wait, they have to be more pro-active. Not just in prosecuting the Ukraine war now, but in other parts of the world. Hence their ambition to collapse Russia through the Ukraine, encircle China and re-establish dominance without further challenge.
If the US Dollar and related financial instruments are challenged further, then there goes a lot of the US's purchasing power. If the EU doesn't get ahold of cheap energy, then there goes theirs. They themselves will have trouble with an arms race - that they would essentially be conducting not just against Russia, but against China, Iran, maybe more countries later as well.

In terms of specifically the end-game for Russia, there won't be an end-game that will allow the US and EU to arm up the Ukraine as they did before, for another confrontation. Otherwise Russia is back where it was in 2015, just with more territory. Russia may well want to lower the tempo of the fighting, but for sure it won't agree to negotiate an end to the war w/o recognition of what it considers as its own territory by the Ukraine (and thus everyone else), removing the pretext for any future war, and also without enshrining the Ukraine as a neutral state - thus ruling out NATO bases or troops on its territory, or a build-up of its armed forces.
Is it realistic to expect Washington to agree to that for the moment? Probably not, for the reasons I've already outlined. Although we can at least be confident that Washington is not in a hurry to start WW3 either. Hence there is probably no end-game for now, just digging in and expecting more NATO forces to unofficially involve themselves in the Ukraine.

"The Ukraine didn't force Russia out and Russia in fact had no problem repelling every Ukrainian offensive along the Kherson-Nikolayev borderline over the past 6 months.

Why Russia withdrew, well perhaps supplying the civilian population became a problem, or it was worried about the damn bursting, or it anticipated the Ukrainians and NATO gathering more forces in the future for an assault on Kherson. We don't know.
However the Ukrainians are taking attritional damage in the Kherson region constantly, and they have announced evacuations of their own. Perhaps over the dam/flooding issue."

Ah here we go, the same old lines.

The fact is Russian military stated they were having big trouble supplying the forces due to Ukie strikes and attacks and that it was becoming big enough a problem that pulling back was the best option, these are the guys you fanboys love to hide behind, and say "They know more than us". Additionally, those same leaders said (going by stuff people posted here as to the excuse on why they fled) they could not longer hold Kherson without the army taking huge losses.

You yourself said if no counter attack came by a week later it wasn't a trap.

Now you are just acting like a complete troll, if your forces are put into a position by their enemy where the supply lines were severely disrupted and in constant danger and you had to pull your forces out due to perceived losses in defending then your forces where forced to leave the area due to the enemies actions. Hence they where pushed out.

You claimed this same BS with Kharkov and the reality there was clear from day 1, Russia had two few forces and had to retreat in response.

So you can call applies oranges all you like, but your just white knighting the facts on the ground speak for themselves regardless of what you had in the sand fanboys wanna claim.

Wonder if someone like you was calling out the Mongols for retreating all the time back in the 13th century as well.

Where was this battle of Kherson at which the Russians were defeated?

The Russians decided to withdraw, they weren't chased out. Their stated reasons may, or may not be accurate. I strongly suspect Surovikin wasn't stating the whole story, as if the Ukrainians can keep their forces supplied with ammo and food despite all their ammo depots constantly being under attack and their supply lines extending all the way from Poland - then so too can the Russian forces be kept supplied in Kherson. I mean the Ukrainians themselves didn't buy that excuse.

And what I said back then is not so relevant, as back then we didn't have much info. Now we know more about the dam situation, we know about the coming cold making logistics over the river more complicated, we know more about increasing NATO personnel in the Ukraine, and we can sort of guess that Russia will be looking for good defensive lines as well.
Meanwhile Ukrainian forces in Kherson have proved vulnerable to constant Russian artillery strikes against them. Perhaps it was a trap after all, just a slow-burning one.

SiegHeil, what is your military career to have any more weight than anybody of the "fanboys" you are complaining about?

Are you some officer with a better understanding of what was wrong doing by leadership or some special intel?

We know the answer to these questions and you are just talking bollocks just like about your claims of higher mobility and precision of HIMARS over Smerch'.

If criticism isn't constructive it's simply complain or rant. So stop complaining and provide factual arguments otherwise you are just merely a pizdabol.

He's a secret SF Delta operator in Syria. He told us so.

Sure he is 🤭 but Napoleons are being kept at the first floor

So according to your logic su-57 is a shitty aircraft since su-35 was shot down in ukraine.

On the contrary, it is your "logic", even though you have no logic and you are an arrogant idiot without arguments..
The Russians are waging a real war, that is, what your France has tried for the last 80 years and never succeeded..
Day after day, I watch you piss on Russian weapons, but you only say "the Su-35 is good". Of course, it is countless times better than the French Rafale.
If your Rafale and Western planes were any good, they would already be above Ukroshitstan, but the truth is that no one would buy them after that.
Turn off the system of satellites that provide support to Ukroshitstan and the war is quickly over

No it's your logic. Look at your last post drama queen.

Prove it it's better. Rafale entered first in Lybia which operated soviet AD systems. No losses. Su-35 was shot down by system russian designed themselves and it had its jamming pods.

Rafale is being sold. It is first tested by air force and they buy it. If the test proved it was a shitty aircraft from the 80s no one would buy it.

Russia sells jammers that can jamm any satellites (according to them). They can just use them to cover all Ukraine. Why are you crying about that ?

They sold rafales before the sub story.

Nato radars don't reach the eastern ukraine border. They can't supply any data to ukraine about incoming russian attacks. Ukro AD is alone there. Maybe around kiev they got some data but not in the Donbass.

Lybia had quite a lot of systems that could pose a threat. Managing to attack targets daily 2000km away is way more impressive than not entering a neighbour country that is defended by weapons you designed 40 years ago...

Why are people here picking on France?