Did anyone else see the thread that raised the possibility that for a Russian commander, the point of the war is to expend/lose all the materiel and get back to normal life as soon as possible? It was raised as an opinion by an experienced Russian military veteran in discussion with another Russian military veteran, IIRC Girkin from the 2014 conflict.
I thought it was an interesting thought model. It maps directly to the circumstances of the war, and it also aligns with the separate model of the Russian military as essentially neglected and kept under highly abusive oversight by criminal elements (opinion shared by Kamil Galeev). IOW, this is what you'd expect such a military to do given the internal circumstances of their existence.
Catastrophic battles are always a possibility, especially with how awesome today's weapons are ("awesome" as in the true sense of the word, not today's colloquial use). Completely devastating, capable of killing hundreds, or even thousands, of people in a matter of seconds.
The failed bridge crossing is well explained by a few artillery strikes to destroy the bridge, followed up by some kind of close-encounter. The bulk of the losses here weren't artillery IMO (which would have scarred the landscape far more than what we saw), but some kind of direct confrontation... be it close-air-support (Su-25? Multiple TB2? Helicopter gunships Mi-17??), or maybe even a Ukrainian Tank-platoon (10 to 20 Ukrainian tanks cleaning up a set of scared / demoralized vehicles). Hell, it could have been an impressive barrage of smart weapons (though I find this unlikely, as smart-weapons are extremely expensive. Still, USA / NATO absolutely has crazy smart-weapons and even smart-cluster weapons in their inventory and maybe Ukraine got to use one here??).
It is safe to say that the bridge was destroyed by an artillery strike of some kind (if not artillery, then heavy mortar). The top-down damage and craters in the bridge prove this enough.
It doesn't seem like the Ukrainians are saying how they "cleaned up" the operation and finished the troops off. But there's "many ways to skin a cat" so to speak. The specifics don't matter at all, whatever operation the Ukrainians did to finish off the troops was brutal, accurate, and devastating. Its truly a marvel of modern warfighting that there are at least 3 or 4 different ways Ukraine could have realistically achieved the result at this river-crossing.
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Why were the Russians trying to make an opposed crossing the river? Well... to get to the other side, obviously. More seriously: Russians have lofty goals, likely goals above-and-beyond what their military is capable of.
Performing high-risk / high-reward strategies (like a river crossing) is necessary, if Russian generals hope to achieve anything in Eastern Ukraine. Alas, if these high-risk operations fail, then Russia loses a ton of troops, becomes further demoralized and have to scale back operations grossly.
River crossings are necessarily a predictable, and forced, chokepoint. Predictable because both sides have a map of the area and can wargame the limited areas where a river-crossing is possible. A chokepoint because you need to send many military units on a narrow bridge as quickly as possible, so your units naturally end up massing at a point (open to be devastated by artillery and/or cluster munitions).
Everything I read about this war feels like propaganda. I know propaganda during war isn't a new thing, but any good news I hear goes in one ear and out the other. My gut tells me almost all of the information is fake or dramatically exaggerated.
Experienced liars tell the truth more often then not. The lies they add are things they need to be true and they know each lie (contra Churchill) needs a bodyguard of truth or it'll be seen for what it is.
The clearest example of this to me is the broad similarities between the maps that show who controls what territory that the Russians and the non-Russians are producing. They're not the same but there's more agreement there then you'd expect if it was just people making up anything and everything out of whole cloth. The real ground truth is probably that no one knows exactly who's controlling what piece of ground but the confusion behind that isn't designed.
Depends on your goal. If your goal is to extract wealth from US taxpayers to give to defense contractors, then these are names you do want to see. As it stands now, with Biden's Ukrainian Lend-Lease arrangement, American taxpayers will be on the hook for years to come in a conflict that we are not directly involved in.
I'm well aware it's bipartisan, I called it Biden's Lend-Lease Act because his administration pushed it and he signed it into law.
As usual, very few people in Congress are actually antiwar, even "The Squad" is all aboard the warmongering in Ukraine. I guess now that we're out of Afghanistan we have to send that money somewhere, god forbid we use it internally.
I can’t believe people actually tolerate websites like this one. I have to scroll past 1-2 pages worth of ads on my phone in between each PARAGRAPH? If reader mode didn’t exist on iPhone, I would have closed the website instantly. What a shitshow..
Wow, his family as well huh? Why stop there, do the soldiers on the ground share no responsibility? What about his supporters in Russia? Strange how that type of "justice" seems to never lead to a more just world isn't it?
While perhaps understandable this is a frightening attitude.
Well, if we slip some polonium into Putin's morning vodka at least one of his relatives might get upset about it. Kinda like how Dubya was reputedly pissy because Saddam Hussein supposedly tried to have his dad whacked. Might as well Romanov the entire family, root and branch.
> Why stop there, do the soldiers on the ground share no responsibility?
Let's ask Tomoyuki Yamashita[0], the namesake of the "Yamashita standard". He was tried, convicted, and executed as the general responsible for atrocities committed by soldiers under his command.
Of course, he was merely a general, not one of the politicians, so let's also ask Hideki Tojo, former Japanese prime minister and also a convicted war criminal.
What I propose is a new standard: initiating a war should itself be considered a war crime, and punishable by execution. Any public official who could conceivably prevent the initiation of war, either by legal or illegal means, is also culpable.
> Strange how that type of "justice" seems to never lead to a more just world isn't it?
Did I say "justice"? My mistake; I meant vengeance. Preferably served cold and meticulously planned to minimize collateral damage -- but sometimes shit happens.
I'm not interested in your idea of justice. I'm sick of wars, and I want to see every last war pig fed into meat grinders -- preferably alive, feet first, and a millimeter at a time.
But more realistically, there will be no security for Russia's neighbors as long as Putin is in power. Which means that there will be no 'normal' for Russia as long as he is in power. And the people around him, at least some of them, can likely see that. It would not surprise me if there is already some movement in the Kremlin to force him out.
There are a multiple reasons why that won't happen in the real world, including but not limited to:
* The Ukrainian army is fighting ferociously to defend their land, not to invade another land.
* The Ukrainian army should not stoop to the Russian level. They have no imperial delusions.
* The west is generally against invasions of other countries, and this should cut both ways. The Ukrainian army won't get the same material support for a push deep into Russia.
* Russia is not a small country. An invasion would take a lot of resources. More so than a defence of home ground.
* While Russian use of nuclear weapons to invade would likely not be tolerated, use of nuclear weapons to defend against the same might be. It is a much more defensible action.
* if the Russian defeat in Ukraine is decisive enough, the "Putin problem" will be taken care of within Russia.
I was little pissed, but then realized that the coast is just steep rocks and ice.
Finland does get what it wanted in 1942. White sea and the lake district. Greater Finland Rules.
Edit: Link. He states it's the view of the entire military hierarchy. So a bit more of a gestalt, metaphorical viewpoint. https://twitter.com/mdmitri91/status/1525904876391305219?t=2...
I thought it was an interesting thought model. It maps directly to the circumstances of the war, and it also aligns with the separate model of the Russian military as essentially neglected and kept under highly abusive oversight by criminal elements (opinion shared by Kamil Galeev). IOW, this is what you'd expect such a military to do given the internal circumstances of their existence.