Backman wrote:
All 3 of those exist now. You are gun shy from the crazy thunder runs at the start of the war. I am not talking about doing that.
Then what are you talking about?
Because the battle for Kharkov, for Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, nevermind the battle for Kiev - will make Mariupol and Bakhmut look like child's play.
At this stage anyway. It will be far more effective to simply march into these cities once the will to fight has broken down and the enemy is not capable of mounting a cohesive defence.
Advancing full bore into the Ukraine is something Russia could have continued to do right at the start, if it wanted to. The Ukraine unlike now, did not even have any serious defensive lines anywhere outside the Donbass. The Russian military could have advanced to Nikolayev, Krivoj Rog, Zaporozhie; they were a stone's throw away from them. They were already on the outskirts of Kiev and Kharkov and stayed there for some time.
The problem is not Ukrainian defensive lines and entechments. It's the cities themselves. The Ukrainians at the start of the war had a defence strategy focussed on the cities and overlapping their defences between them, in a system of concentric circles.
If anyone remembers all those artillery pieces the Ukrianians situated right among residential buildings in Nikolayev. Or launching Grads from under a shopping centre in Kiev.
Attempting to assault these cities would have led to some unbelievably costly urban warfare and the scale of destruction would have left every such place looking like 90s Grozny.
It's simply not what Russia was prepared to deal with. Nor was it prepared to deal with all these infiltration bands of infantry taking out its supply columns and rear eschelon units all the time, as GarryB was saying.
By now, most of the professional Ukrainian soldiers are dead or wounded. Same goes for most of the nationalist fanatics. NATO mercs are less keen to get involved. The Ukrianian air defence network is heavily depleted and compromised. But the will to fight is still there, and it makes more sense to hold position for now and exercise some more patience.
Plus drones are hitting Moscow city. And shells are still hitting the Donbas. At minimum, both of those have to end.
Breaking windows in Moscow city skyscrapers impresses no-one, it's a move towards terrorist tactics and nothing more
The Russian govt is risking domestic support now, with not showing how this can be brought to a conclusion. Russia needs to move the line 300km west at least. And then build the mother of all defenses.
It's not, as everyone outside the 5th and 6th columns understand by now that it's a a long war with NATO and there can be no quick conclusion to it. People are satisfied that Russia tried the diplomatic avenues and offered peace deals too.
There already is the mother of all defences, and it's working well. And it's located in mostly friendly, adjacent to pre-war Russian territories, which lessens the strain on policing and information leaking out.
When the time comes Russia will advance and create new defensive lines, and establish Russian administration, rebuild ruined towns, and integrate into the Russia economy all territories behind those new lines. And so on.
In the manner that what's today south and eastern Ukraine was conquered from the Nogais, Crimean Tatars and other nomadic empires in the first place.
Last edited by flamming_python on Sat Aug 26, 2023 10:15 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Experts surveyed by the publication believe that the situation is so critical that Germany may introduce strict credit and monetary regulation. In particular, they may freeze interest rates on loans.
