Where Do Things End With Vlad? (h/t romad1)

[romad1]

amusing and true

 

[romad1]

good

 

[pfife]

Tbf one of the employees may have had a vape pen with devils lettuce ALLEGEDLY 

 

 

[Motown Bombers]

 

[1984Echoes]

If the shoe fits...

[gehringer_2]

55 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

 

We bemoan how terrible the choices were in 2016, but in 2000 they were both a couple of nut-balls as well. I'd like to believe that had he been elected, Al Gore's name wouldn't be just as much a punch line today as Shrub's is, but I wouldn't have put any money on it. 

[pfife]

the punchlines would have been way less funny that's for sure b/c wingers would be making them and we all know the right can't meme

[Mr.TaterSalad]

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-military-intelligence-chief-optimistic-of-russian-defeat-saying-war-will-be-over-by-end-of-year-12612320

I was watching an interview that SkyNews in the UK aired with Ukrainian Major General Kyrylo Budanov. Gen. Budanov was saying that he believed the war would be largely over by years end. To those that fallow the granular details closer than I do, like Romad, is this an accurate assessment? Can the Ukrainians hold out until years end? Can the Russians even sustain a full on assault until the end of the year?

[romad1]

13 hours ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-military-intelligence-chief-optimistic-of-russian-defeat-saying-war-will-be-over-by-end-of-year-12612320

I was watching an interview that SkyNews in the UK aired with Ukrainian Major General Kyrylo Budanov. Gen. Budanov was saying that he believed the war would be largely over by years end. To those that fallow the granular details closer than I do, like Romad, is this an accurate assessment? Can the Ukrainians hold out until years end? Can the Russians even sustain a full on assault until the end of the year?

There are experts who are looking at Russian attrition and say they will be done by June.  I won't make any bets.  In the favor of these experts there is a point where the differential equations for modeling of combat (Lanchester) break.   The point where the Regular Iraqi Army after being smashed by airpower for a month lose their ability to stand and fight and the Republican Guard do stand and fight at 73 Eastings and get destroyed by the US Army who are happy not to have to fight all those non-Republican Guard units to get to the RG.   Another example is the German Army in Normandy after fighting hard in Normandy for a month+ in June/July 1944 finally broke and were nearly encircled.   The difference besides our numbers was our firepower.

I look at the situation in Ukraine and I don't know how the Ukrainians actually reconquer all of the lost territory unless they just keep killing Russians.  Killing Russians requires accurate artillery or other long range fires (drones, missiles, airpower).  Their ability to go on offense thus far as been driven by the Russians withdrawing from territory to consolidate their forces because of attrition.  

So, more US and western artillery systems will give them that ability to smash the Russians and win.  

Am I optimistic this happens by mid-summer...nah.  Russia is a big place and it has a lot of resources.  It might break but the most Ukraine can hope for is they cry uncle unless Putin dies.

[romad1]

5 minutes ago, romad1 said:

There are experts who are looking at Russian attrition and say they will be done by June.  I won't make any bets.  In the favor of these experts there is a point where the differential equations for modeling of combat (Lanchester) break.   The point where the Regular Iraqi Army after being smashed by airpower for a month lose their ability to stand and fight and the Republican Guard do stand and fight at 73 Eastings and get destroyed by the US Army who are happy not to have to fight all those non-Republican Guard units to get to the RG.   Another example is the German Army in Normandy after fighting hard in Normandy for a month+ in June/July 1944 finally broke and were nearly encircled.   The difference besides our numbers was our firepower.

I look at the situation in Ukraine and I don't know how the Ukrainians actually reconquer all of the lost territory unless they just keep killing Russians.  Killing Russians requires accurate artillery or other long range fires (drones, missiles, airpower).  Their ability to go on offense thus far as been driven by the Russians withdrawing from territory to consolidate their forces because of attrition.  

So, more US and western artillery systems will give them that ability to smash the Russians and win.  

Am I optimistic this happens by mid-summer...nah.  Russia is a big place and it has a lot of resources.  It might break but the most Ukraine can hope for is they cry uncle unless Putin dies.

As an addendum:  the Ukrainians do not have the ability to do maneuver warfare because they lack training in large unit coordination.  The Russians tried it with their large cumbersome force and you can see the results.   Perhaps though with some work over the next few months the Ukrainians can generate some units for maneuver that will allow them to do that.   Defensive weapon systems appear to have advantages over maneuver units at the moment though.  Like they did in WWI and the US Civil War.

[gehringer_2]

There are reports out that commanders, worried about 'scape goating are refusing any initiative, forcing all field decisions high up the chain and creating immobility/predictability in the Russian force - though again more of an issue on offense than defense. Also that Putin is increasingly taking low level field decisions himself. That should spell disaster but given the quality of the Russian officer corps it could be a step up.

I would have to guess a huge amount depends on whether the Russian propaganda machine can keep up the warrior motivation going in the troops. I would think a big factor in when an army reaches it's "Lancaster Break" is going to be it's belief in the regime it's fighting for, in support of which I would offer Russia in WW1, the ARVN, and even Iraq for that matter.

[Tigeraholic1]

 

 

[Tigeraholic1]

15 hours ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-military-intelligence-chief-optimistic-of-russian-defeat-saying-war-will-be-over-by-end-of-year-12612320

I was watching an interview that SkyNews in the UK aired with Ukrainian Major General Kyrylo Budanov. Gen. Budanov was saying that he believed the war would be largely over by years end. To those that fallow the granular details closer than I do, like Romad, is this an accurate assessment? Can the Ukrainians hold out until years end? Can the Russians even sustain a full on assault until the end of the year?

 

 

[romad1]

 

[romad1]

i did not watch the video so i can’t verify 

[gehringer_2]

31 minutes ago, romad1 said:

i did not watch the video so i can’t verify 

 I sort of assume Bill Browder speaks Russian, but I don't know one way or the other....

[ewsieg]

6+ months is a long time, especially for Russia given how the last several months have worked out for them.  As stated above though, reports are that they are strengthening in Donbass and while western media has exhaulted gains from Ukraine towards the Russian border near Kharkiv, the fact Russia was moving back certainly played a part in it.

A coup for Putin still feels like a pipe dream, but I do think it has legs now.  That happens, whoever comes in can 'save face' by getting out and keeping Crimea.  

I can see Putin, or anyone that he has picked to take over for him should his health require it, to ignore what's happened so far and just consider it sunk cost and even show more of a need to keep eastern Ukraine for the resources that they'll need to recoup from this.  

[gehringer_2]

I wonder if curiously, the way the battlefield has evolved, the best thing that can happen for the Ukrainian side is for Putin to keep pushing for more territory. The advantage in this war seem to be heavily tilted to defense, so it seems the highest probability for the Ukrainians to be able to attrit the Russian forces to the point of collapse is if the Russian keep extending themselves. If they were to consolidate and force the Ukrainians to try to push them back, they might have a better long term outlook.   But so far from what I have read, Putin's still demanding more gains.

Edited May 22, 2022 by gehringer_2

[romad1]

Got to love the simplicity of this.  Its almost poetry

 

[romad1]

I see a lot of optimism in the Western press and I want to share it.  if Putin stops now, he has more territory than before he started.   He can manage the perceptions of his power when Germans and others return to importing his fuel and he gets the sanctions eased because of the burden they place on Western investors.  

I want him out of power.  i fear we lack the Will to do that. 

[gehringer_2]

Quote

In a letter circulated to colleagues in Geneva and posted on a LinkedIn account in his name as well as on Facebook, Boris Bondarev, counselor at the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, said he had left the civil service Monday.

“For twenty years of my diplomatic career I have seen different turns of our foreign policy, but never have I been so ashamed of my country as on February 24 of this year,” he wrote, referring to the date the invasion was launched.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/23/russia-diplomat-resigns-united-nations-ukraine-war/

[Mr.TaterSalad]

6 hours ago, romad1 said:

I see a lot of optimism in the Western press and I want to share it.  if Putin stops now, he has more territory than before he started.   He can manage the perceptions of his power when Germans and others return to importing his fuel and he gets the sanctions eased because of the burden they place on Western investors.  

I want him out of power.  i fear we lack the Will to do that. 

If you're Ukraine/the west, do you have many means or capability to remove him from power? Can you pay an oligarch and some top military people on the DL to do that? How do we remove him from power without a full-scale nuclear war happening? It seems like the only realistically safe and effective model for doing so comes from within his own apparatchik/military/oligarchs.

[oblong]

27 minutes ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

If you're Ukraine/the west, do you have many means or capability to remove him from power? Can you pay an oligarch and some top military people on the DL to do that? How do we remove him from power without a full-scale nuclear war happening? It seems like the only realistically safe and effective model for doing so comes from within his own apparatchik/military/oligarchs.

I think that would have been done by now if possible.

 

[gehringer_2]

Between the ascension of Romanovs (1613) and Gorbachev, only one Russian ruler left office any way but feet first, and that was Krushchev. With Putin having taken Russia back into the same repression/corruption/stagnation status that has pretty much been its tendency for all but 20 years of the last few hundred, I guess we have to assume Putin is there till he dies, at which time he will probably be replaced by someone from the small cohort of similarly aged ex-KGBs that have stayed in his immediate orbit. Much like when the last of Brehznevs the post WWII group passed from the scene, only at that point are we likely to see an opportunity for another Gorbachev style generation shift and an opening for reform. Maybe it will last more than 20 yrs next time.

Edited May 23, 2022 by gehringer_2

[romad1]

Henry Kissinger is beclowning himself.  Again.  How much silver has crossed his palm?