Russian special military operation in Ukraine #51

Mariupol was virtually cut off from the rest of the active defense, most of the Ukie's left realizing it was a futile effort to hold it, only hard liners choose to stay.

That said there is multiple reasons why the war will take years at this rate.

1. Lack of manpower, the russians do not have hundreds of thousands more men then Ukraine within the operational threater, this means they are very limited in how much operations they can conduct.

2. Their tactics they are favoring slow burn tactics because again, they have parody in troops numbers with Ukraine when you have roughly the same sized force you cannot force that much.

3. Equipment and funding, due to their failure to cut off the Polish border, supplies are just streaming in and that is very much delaying the Russians, Putin himself stated that. Without these critical supplies, Ukraine would have likely folded a year ago

4. An unwillingness to order a general mobilization to put many many more men in ukraine to force the ukraines down. It amazes me the russians just haven't gotten a second force of 400k and sent it in through Belarus to threaten to cut off the Polish borders, Ukraine would be forced to deploy and redirect troops because they need the Western supplies.

You wouldn't even need to take the border, merely go in enough to make the risk very well, and once ukraine is forced to redeploy hundreds of thousands of men to match, their eastern lank would crumble. Once Ukraine does this, switch to an active defense, just dig in and keep them pinned there.

5. Ukraine seems to be switching to active defense tactics, which will further hinder and slow Russian progress because again the russians just aren't committing the manpower to deal with it at a decent rate

The difference is back then the Ukrainian army was mostly located right next to the Donbass. The Russians basically caught them with their pants down. That's why Russia could make such deep thrusts into Ukrainian territory in the north and south. If you look at it, the front line next to the Donbass itself, where Ukraine had most of their forces, didn't move nearly as much.

To be fair when the Russians started their liberation they were massively outnumbered so going directly to where the enormous numbers of enemy forces were located would actually be rather stupid.

Attacks deep into Ukrainian territory forced Kiev to shift forces to defend Kiev and other places, whereas if Russian forces had just rushed to the combat line in the east the Ukrainians could have sent all their forces there to overwhelm the Russians and their new allies.

They adapted tactics over time to minimise their own casualties and also civilian casualties on the other side, but also to maximise casualties of the enemy forces... because that is how they will win this... when the Ukraine army collapses and turns on the politicians making so much money and caring so little for the soldiers doing all their fighting for them.

After Ukraine mobilized they started attacking the rear areas of the Russian combat lines. It would have been hard to sustain those advanced positions without Russian general mobilization to guard the rear. There was also the (wrong) expectation that the peace talks would be successful.

Exactly... the first phase was necessary because they still had an airforce and quite a lot of armour and air defence systems. Eventually though... after large amounts of weapons and ammo and equipment had been eliminated it made more sense to fall back to the territory that has decided to join the Russian Federation and grind down enemy forces coming to you. The friendlier nature of the locals means enemy sabotage and ambush groups will have a much harder time operating in hostile territory... and it means their supply lines are shorter and enemy supply lines are longer and more vulnerable.

Kiev obliged by continuing to send in men and equipment and weapons to attack Russian lines who are slaughtering them.

At the very least, concrete shelters should be built as bases like Saki, Morozovsk, belbek and other frontline bases

Concrete shelters are expensive and unless you have more than one shelter for every aircraft they are not actually that effective.

They don't keep the doors on concrete shelters shut all the time and any time they are open it would actually make the fire and damage worse.

Drones are often controlled by operators which means it can approach an airfield and find any aircraft not in a hangar and hit that.

What results are you talking about? Russia wasn't taking anything on, they were just prancing around like complete idiots

They advanced deep into several areas of enemy territory including surrounding the enemy capital city... which made Zelensky crap himself. It was only when they withdrew from Kiev that Zelensky was seen in Kiev or anywhere that wasn't green screened.

GarryB wrote: ...

What results are you talking about? Russia wasn't taking anything on, they were just prancing around like complete idiots

They advanced deep into several areas of enemy territory including surrounding the enemy capital city... which made Zelensky crap himself. It was only when they withdrew from Kiev that Zelensky was seen in Kiev or anywhere that wasn't green screened.

And this accomplished what exactly?

PapaDragon wrote:

GarryB wrote: ...

What results are you talking about? Russia wasn't taking anything on, they were just prancing around like complete idiots

They advanced deep into several areas of enemy territory including surrounding the enemy capital city... which made Zelensky crap himself. It was only when they withdrew from Kiev that Zelensky was seen in Kiev or anywhere that wasn't green screened.

And this accomplished what exactly?

If not for Boorish Johnson and Sleepy Joe's lust for Ukraine's extinction, Zelensky, from all I have gathered, was about to tap out. Once Zelensky's pimps bitch slapped him and tricked him out, the tactics became a slow evisceration of Ukraine in terms of population and territory. NATO may eventually get a rump state but its not going to have much east or south of the Dniepr and that's if Putin is feeling nice. Frankly, by not accepting the peace deal Ukraine is never going to get back to what it had in February 2022 and the longer they keep this nonsense up the less land they are going to have. Frankly, Kiev controlled Ukraine is going to look a lot like ISIS controilled Syria and Iraq. Mostly rubble. A great American success story.

Slovak prime minister Fico ...

https://t.me/boris_rozhin/106732

In short, Ukraine is a tool of the west to harm Russia economically, and the war will be pushed by the west till the last Ukrainian. Which is not a far-away perspective.

ALAMO wrote:

Hole wrote:
Time to get some flamethrowers out of storage.

They do have those.
Only calling RPO

...the old one is better at preparing your Christmas roast

Nobody asks chicken about cooking technique

LPO vs RPO

1. Lack of manpower, the russians do not have hundreds of thousands more men then Ukraine within the operational threater, this means they are very limited in how much operations they can conduct.

They have air power and artillery advantages that means they don't really benefit from putting more paper targets on the range.

2. Their tactics they are favoring slow burn tactics because again, they have parody in troops numbers with Ukraine when you have roughly the same sized force you cannot force that much.

For as long as they burn up their men and equipment trying to push Russian forces back 50m so they can pretend they are winning the Russians really don't need to change tactics because different tactics wont allow them to keep their own losses low or the enemy losses so high.

3. Equipment and funding, due to their failure to cut off the Polish border, supplies are just streaming in and that is very much delaying the Russians, Putin himself stated that. Without these critical supplies, Ukraine would have likely folded a year ago

That equipment has not been that useful... and emptying western equipment and weapons and ammo in storage meaning they have to buy all new stuff at inflated prices because of price gouging is an added bonus too.

If the Ukraine had folded in an hour they would still have most of their territory.

4. An unwillingness to order a general mobilization to put many many more men in ukraine to force the ukraines down. It amazes me the russians just haven't gotten a second force of 400k and sent it in through Belarus to threaten to cut off the Polish borders, Ukraine would be forced to deploy and redirect troops because they need the Western supplies.

A full mobilisation would only be justified if HATO was who they were actually fighting.

The effect on the Russian economy would mean this war would be damaging Russia like the west wanted it to.

5. Ukraine seems to be switching to active defense tactics, which will further hinder and slow Russian progress because again the russians just aren't committing the manpower to deal with it at a decent rate

Defence tactics would stop the meat grinder from working so Russia would then have to switch to siege tactics... really cut off supplies of all types all over Ukraine. Dropping bridges and rail likes, destroying runways, attacking food storage and power generation etc etc.

If not for Boorish Johnson and Sleepy Joe's lust for Ukraine's extinction, Zelensky, from all I have gathered, was about to tap out.

This conflict would not have happened with Trump or anyone other than Biden in charge... this is Bidens war.

And this accomplished what exactly?

They signed a peace deal... it was only Boris that stopped him ratifying it and making it take effect.

ucmvulcan wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:
And this accomplished what exactly?

If not for Boorish Johnson and Sleepy Joe's lust for Ukraine's extinction, Zelensky, from all I have gathered, was about to tap out. ...

Zelensky was never going to agree to anything with Russians especially if it meant stepping out of line drawn by USA and UK

That entire "plan" was fantasy based on stupidity

Backman wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:
And this accomplished what exactly?

The first ukraine army was destroyed in this time. And the bulk of the arms industry was taken out by the missile forces

First Ukrainian army was destroyed only AFTER this initial clownshow plan failed miserably just as everyone expected it to

GarryB wrote:
They signed a peace deal... it was only Boris that stopped him ratifying it and making it take effect.

Person not authorized to sign a peace deal has signed a peace deal?

Slow claps all round

They could have just asked me to sign a worthless peace deal with them, it would have saved them a lot of time, money and meat

Backman wrote:
Who knows why Putin is content with doing it this way. He sure seems to like it this way. The only thing preventing big ops like the Polish border is political choice by Putin. 


He's also guaranteeing that whatever cities or anything are taken this way , are maximally damaged. He probably thinks any big ops is too much of an escalation. It's not like doing it this way is casualty free either. 

Well if the cities are damaged it is easier to order to dismantle some parts and rebuild them in a rational or modern way.

I am not saying this is the purpose, but sometimes you need to periodically rebuild things or insta new systems etc. 

Especially if Ukraine did not properly maintain stuff for many years. Ensuring that old things are safe and maintaining them is not always cheap, 
Particularly if proper maintenance has not been carried out across the years.

As far as the supply in the polish border, it also ensure that the west has exhausted many of its reserves. It will be not so cheap anymore to supply stuff for another insurgent (i.e. in central Asia or Armenia).

Furthermore it also means that it will cost more for NATO countries to get ready for a direct confrontation, since they do not have as much artillery systems or "cheap" tanks in reserve  anymore.

Even the mig-29 given away by Poland and Slovakia, they thought they would be better off on giving away soviet stuff in exchange for F-16 (funny, since the original project is even older, and if the electronic upgrades make it a better aircraft, the same is true for the mig-29 as well) which they will have to pay dearly.

Furthermore for a while they will have no (or less) Mig29 and the f16 will not be in service yet.

It means that if Poland or someone else had a thought to escalate the war in case Russia conquers the entire 404, now they have to think even more.

By the way the west Armies were already crazy with the obsession about stockage space efficiency and cost of storage.

After the cold war many old tanks in reserve had been sold almost for scrap price in order to free storage space. Some of those had been hurriedly bought back as a much higher price last year in order to supply them to ukraine.

The only reason why people constantly discuss the "cutting Polish border" issue must be somehow connected with an inability to read the map I guess.
The fact that supply chain was built with Poland as a transportation hub existed because it was Poland who owned most of the equipment to be donated.
Ukrainian border with Romania is not much shorter than that, with several crossing points including a big railroad hub north of Satu Mare. With an airport actually bigger than Rzeszow, and closer to the border, too.
I was there in August.
Cutting the border with Poland - but not only - would require occupation of core Ukro lands.
Those territories are habituated by people who are the strongest antiRussian fraction in 404.
It would have been a bloody and costly occupation, and Russia didn't have the forces to carry it. Even now.
Making it costly is one side of a coin, but bloody means they would face civil resistance on a scale and type where protests in Cherson would have been considered as amateur spectacles. And that means tons of propaganda load on pair witch "bucha".
I will remind you that the relative weakness of the Russian land forces was the main reason why most of the people rejected the possibility of this war even happening. They simply didn't have the required manpower to occupy 35+ mln country.
Russia never wanted to occupy, yet incorporate, Ukraine as an organized entity. It was clearly stated from the very beginning. Minsk agreements were all about retaining the territorial integrity of Ukraine, including both Lugansk and Doneck, for gods sake...
The only reason why at the end of the road Russkie will be forced to partial 404 and suck its parts into federation is the principal inability of Ukrainian ruling caste to make any agreements.

ALAMO wrote:The only reason why people constantly discuss the "cutting Polish border" issue must be somehow connected with an inability to read the map I guess.
The fact that supply chain was built with Poland as a transportation hub existed because it was Poland who owned most of the equipment to be donated.
Ukrainian border with Romania is not much shorter than that, with several crossing points including a big railroad hub north of Satu Mare. With an airport actually bigger than Rzeszow, and closer to the border, too.
I was there in August.
Cutting the border with Poland - but not only - would require occupation of core Ukro lands.
Those territories are habituated by people who are the strongest antiRussian fraction in 404.
It would have been a bloody and costly occupation, and Russia didn't have the forces to carry it. Even now.
Making it costly is one side of a coin, but bloody means they would face civil resistance on a scale and type where protests in Cherson would have been considered as amateur spectacles. And that means tons of propaganda load on pair witch "bucha".
I will remind you that the relative weakness of the Russian land forces was the main reason why most of the people rejected the possibility of this war even happening. They simply didn't have the required manpower to occupy 35+ mln country.
Russia never wanted to occupy, yet incorporate, Ukraine as an organized entity. It was clearly stated from the very beginning. Minsk agreements were all about retaining the territorial integrity of Ukraine, including both Lugansk and Doneck, for gods sake...
The only reason why at the end of the road Russkie will be forced to partial 404 and suck its parts into federation is the principal inability of Ukrainian ruling caste to make any agreements.

Yes but at the end of the road Russia will have to deal with at max 20million people in former 404. I suppose that Poland will have also to deal with many "refugees" (and by many I mean several millions).

As I said before, the area in northwest is also very useful to have a direct connection with Hungary. Furthermore NATO countries are probably more interested in keeping a Russophobic country so that they can continue creating problem for Russia than incorporating the territory in their lands.

So either Russia manage directly the land and the people there, or it make into a no man's land, basically an area larger than Hungary and Slovakia together with no inhabitants... But even that would make no sense.

At that point it would be cheaper to offer real estate for cheap or for free to russian "colons" from other areas.

Note:after WW2 most Italians leaving in Dalmazia were forced to leave and packed in trains leaving for mainland Italy. Same thing was done by Libya when Gaddafi came into power.

[quote][Only calling RPO/quote]
In that case, a underground hideout with a small opening, the old model would be more effective.

Russia may not have wanted to annex the land however there is no choice, one can dance around the raw hard truth all they want.

Ukraine is left to manage it's self will only become NATO, it will be used against the russians and it will only lead to even more problems.

The population in Ukraine isn't that big right now, it is manageable yes for the first few years there will be rough insurgency but it can be cut out in time.

I am sorry but no matter what logical way you look it at, Ukraine cannot be allowed to exist as a neutral state if you are the russians

the idea they would stay neutral or a puppet government could be put in place is laughable, that worked so well last time didn't it and its that kind of clueless thinking that lead to the war in the first place.

Its either you take it now or you put a pause on the conflict and well have to do it later anyways

SeigSoloyvov wrote:
the idea they would stay neutral or a puppet government could be put in place is laughable, that worked so well last time didn't it and its that kind of clueless thinking that lead to the war in the first place.

You seriously lack the perspective here.
Ukraine "worked so well last time" was a country of 53 mln people, with positive fertility rates.
Huge industry. Phenomenal education system, healthcare, agriculture. Bloody space and atomic industry. 20 or so nuclear reactors, and huge hydro stations.
It was heading the shithole status from that point, yet before 2014, there was still close to 40 mln people living there.
One could plan the creation of a ram against Russkie using it, because it was objectively speaking a big, European country.
When Russkie will finish playing with them now, with the highest probability it will be a landlocked shithole, with a destroyed industrial base, and some 15 mln people. I would doubt if they will be able to feed themselves at that point, because any agrarian land that they will be left with will be owned by western agro industry. That will give a shit about what they will eat.
You can locate it in the middle between Romania and Bulgaria, only striped off the industry and with economic parameters making Moldova a fukin superpower.
How much a 150+ mln Russia shall be afraid of it, even if they will be some sort of NATO protectorate Kosovo style or something?

Ukrian industry was in the east and south from day one of its concoction by the anti-Russian Bolsheviks. It has finally lost what it never deserved
to have in the first place. These spiteful welfare bums actually ran around spewing hate on the Donbass for being a GDP sink "supported" by the
western agrarian toilet.

I do not see what value this western Ukrian toilet has for NATzO. It has no economic weight and not even cannon fodder. The vast majority of the
Kiev regime army is composed of ethnic Russians, albeit brainwashed and coerced ones. The western toilet contribution is as regime command
and control. But that is not enough for an army without soldiers.

NATzO can engage in biowarfare activity from Poland if Russia pushes all the way to the Polish border. The only real solution for this terrorist activity is
for Russia to routinely target such facilities with hypersonic missiles. If it is not willing to take this risk, then there is not much left to say. For sure the
occupation of the western toilet is not a cure.

I think the economics aspect is critical. Before February of 2022, Ukria had sufficient resources to be relevant. This is true even if it was in a poor state.
Size and diversity matters. But any rump western toilet will be a full economic sink without the diversity and scale and that NATzO will have to support.
Washington can keep on printing its green funny money, but economic reality does not go away. This reality will impact the western Ukr decision making.
Russia will offer some economics carrots (Black Sea access, cheap energy) that will be of more concern than suicidal anti-Russian planning. In fact,
the mentality of these western true Ukrs is opportunistic as evident by their readiness to work in Russia and avoid at all costs dying on the front.

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:after WW2 most Italians leaving in Dalmazia were forced to leave and packed in trains leaving for mainland Italy. Same thing was done by Libya when Gaddafi came into power.

Vendetta happened against all non-slavs, Italians in Istria, volksdeutschers and Hungarians in Slavonia and so on.

For Italian question in Dalmatia, IMO Austria is guilty here like the entire shebang between Croats and Serbs in 20th century. They ruled these territories.

In 1873 Split/Spalato first time city council voted in a "people's government" , eg. slavs. Only then have the sessions started on our language.
This is what Gregory of Nin fought for in liturgy in middle ages. To have sermon in our language, the language of the majority, not Latin, the language of a powerful ruling minority. Split has had slavic majority since the middle ages.

Meanwhile Turks stormed in and we were for 4 centuries in La Serenissima and a bit under France. When Austrians inherited us and Turk threat was largely gone, then it was the time to allow people control over their own territory. But no, Austrians took every measure possible to keep south slavs out of power in Dalmatia. At the eve of that elections 150 years ago, Italians constituted for 5% of the city. Yet they had power bestow upon them artificially by Austrian King.

I think this played a heavier role than fascist occupation. This period I'm talking about has permanently disillusioned the local population in Italic rulership. We didn't have problems with it for a 1000 years then suddenly we're enemies. Think about that.

During the extended meeting of the final board of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the head of the department, Sergei Shoigu, addressed the officers. He announced new data on the losses of the Ukrainian army. According to him, since the beginning of the counter-offensive, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have lost 159 thousand people killed and wounded.

Kyiv lost 159,000 people killed and wounded as part of the counteroffensive. The losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces since the beginning of the Northern Military District amounted to 383,000 killed and wounded, 14,000 tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, 553 aircraft and 259 helicopters, 7,500 guns, field artillery - Shoigu said.

The Russian Defense Minister recalled that Ukraine received $203 billion from external sponsors, which is $30 billion more than its GDP.

In fact, this is a bankrupt country – emphasized the head of the military department.

Speaking about the role of the West in the Ukrainian conflict, Sergei Shoigu recalled that the partners supplied Kyiv with 5,220 tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, 28 aircraft, 87 helicopters, 23,000 UAVs, and over 1,300 artillery systems.

Commenting on the successes of the Russian army, the Russian Defense Minister noted that the waters of the Sea of ​​Azov have become an internal sea of ​​Russia. A new naval area has been created there. According to him, during the special military operation, Russian troops destroyed more than 5,800 foreign mercenaries, of which 1,427 were from Poland, 466 from the USA, 344 from Great Britain.

103 war criminals eliminated – emphasized the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation.

The head of the military department also noted that Ukraine has carried out nine waves of mobilization, and the tenth is ongoing.

At present, including those who are partially fit for military service, are being conscripted. - Shoigu said.

https://topcor-ru.translate.goog/42477-shojgu-ozvuchil-cifry-poter-vsu-v-lichnom-sostave-i-bronetehnike.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en

In 2023, the size of the Armed Forces was increased to 1,150,000 military personnel. Thus, all plans for recruiting the Russian army and navy were fully implemented. This was stated by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu during an extended meeting of the board of the defense department.

“All plans for recruiting the army and navy this year have been completed in full. Their number has been increased to 1,150,000 military personnel. “Two combined arms armies, a mixed aviation corps, 50 formations and military units, including four divisions, 18 brigades, 28 regiments, have been formed, fully staffed, and equipped,” Shoigu said.

On December 1, the Russian Ministry of Defense began implementing the president’s instructions to build up the Armed Forces to 1,320,000 people. The formation of the Leningrad and Moscow military districts also continues against the background of Finland’s accession to NATO and the upcoming entry of Sweden. When forming them, the agreement between Washington and Helsinki on the use of Finnish military facilities by the Americans is also taken into account.

Shoigu also said that in 2023, about 490 thousand contract soldiers and volunteers will be recruited for military service. (Putin stated 486,000 in his speech)

https://tvzvezda-ru.translate.goog/news/202312191415-OkyPV.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB&_x_tr_pto=nui&_x_tr_hist=true

Within the next couple of years you'll have individual members of NATO who will insist that Russia signs a no war pact with them since NATO won't sign such a pact collectively because of US pressure.