It’s not just Ukraine they’d have to outlast, it’s essentially the entire military-industrial output of the West.
It’s mostly Ukraine. All the military equipment in the world won’t help if Ukrainian resolve starts to fray. Which, I hasten to add, I don’t see happening anytime soon. However the seeming current Russian tactics of grinding away on the fronts to make life miserable for Ukrainian soldiers, while attacking Ukrainian infrastructure to make life miserable for the civilians, could bear fruit somewhere down the road in the kind of negotiated settlement Russia wants. As RickJay noted this is isn’t their first rodeo in a war of attrition and it isn’t all about industrial output, it’s also about will.
I don’t think Russia is going to “win” this. They’re coming out weaker diplomatically, economically, materially and strategically no matter what. The question in the medium term is whether Ukraine blinks about negotiating because they can no longer bring themselves to stomach the damage they are taking trying to force Russia out.
It’s worked mostly when they were defending, and could outlast the invader - especially when winter set in. It does not work as well when you’re the invader.
Destroying Aleppo is along the lines of what they’re currently trying in Ukraine… But the destruction of Aleppo did not lead to a quick win for Russia in Syria.
Well, not yet.
The objectives of Russia and the democratic West are simply not compatible. One has to take a long view here; Russia is inherently paranoid about security, especially from their west. Their objective is always to expand their area of control beyond Russia proper and to geographically defensible lines. That means, ultimately, conquest or puppetry of Finland, the Baltics, Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine, just to cover their frontier with Europe. The West cannot accept that, so this conflict, one way or another, is going to continue. Russian defeat in Ukraine is sure better than the alternatives but Russia will NOT give this up without being utterly devastated there.
That works for me, and I hope recent NATO events (and tanks) will work toward that goal.
I’m fine with that too, though 100 tanks isn’t anywhere near enough to get it done. As superior as Abrams and Leopard II tanks are, 100 tanks is not a lot over the space we’re talking about here.
The West has to be in this for the long haul.
The spring, one we’re past the rasputitsa, is going to see a big uptick in violence. Russia will renew their offensive and Ukraine will be bringing new weapons and men on board.
Someone will renew their offensive, sure. Have the Russians been building up a force large and strong enough to take the initiative?
Well, they have a big prisoner army to be sure. I’m not convinced these guys make the best recruits though.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ukraine-crisis-russia-graves-wagner/
No, and in my opinion, this is going to continue to come back to bite them in the ass. Everyone has been expecting the announcement of a second (and much larger) wave of conscription ever since the first one was announced in September, but it still hasn’t happened yet. By taking until September to announce the partial mobilization of 300,000 men, they let Ukraine have over a half of a year head start on mobilization, and Ukraine went with full mobilization from the start of the war rather than going with a half assed partial mobilization seven months in. Those forces Russia mobilized have already long been committed to the front, which is why a second round to raise enough strength to go on the offensive has been predicted as the logical thing for Russia to do. Russia hasn’t exactly been behaving in a remotely rational manner in this war though.
I have to respectfully disagree with you here. You are certainly correct about the importance of Ukrainian resolve, but equally all the Ukrainian resolve in the world wouldn’t have saved them if not for the immediate and dramatic Western support for Ukraine. The Ukrainian economy would likely have collapsed by now if it weren’t for the West footing the bill for their war expenses, and without NATO nations emptying their stocks of former Warsaw Pact-era gear and ammunition as well as the supplying of NATO caliber artillery pieces and well over a million rounds for them so far, we’d likely be saying that all of the resolve in the world couldn’t save Ukraine from the realities of being hopelessly materially outmatched and alone on the world stage.
@iiandyiiii is right, this isn’t Russia trying to match its military-industrial complex against Ukraine, as long as Western support doesn’t waver it’s trying to pit its military output against that of the entire West, a task that it is not able to match. Though Putin has tried to paint it as such with his justification of fighting Naziism, this isn’t The Great Patriotic War or the Napoleonic invasion. The flight of over a million Russians from the country when partial mobilization was announced shows how little actual popular support for the war there is, as does the failure to get enough voluntary recruits prior to the partial mobilization, the fact that the mobilization was both partial and only took place after seven months of Putin publicly declaring that it wasn’t going to happen, and finally the fact that the anticipated much larger second wave of mobilization still hasn’t happened yet.
The number of Western tanks that have been pledged so far isn’t enough on its own to firmly tilt the war overwhelmingly in Ukraine’s favor, but it has at long last broken the West’s self-imposed restriction on supply them, and the numbers will no doubt increase. Tanks are only adding to the prior announcement of supplying Western AFVs (in the form of the AMX-10RC) and IFVs (in the form of Marders and Bradleys.) Though again currently only pledged in small numbers, the value of the Bradley in particular shouldn’t be underestimated. Though there were fewer Bradleys than Abrams used in Operation Desert Storm, they actually were responsible for more kills of both Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles overall than the Abrams during Desert Storm. Perun has, as always, put out an excellent hour-long video on the topic, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGZi-F3tz-o. It came out prior to the agreement to deliver tanks, so that hasn’t yet been a topic covered by him.
I’d be quite happy if Canada sent 100 Leopard tanks to Ukraine right now, rather than 4. So what if it leaves us with just 12. The war that the Leopard tank was built for is happening now. If we wait until Ukraine is overrun, and Russia is threatening Poland or another NATO country, it may be too late.
The time is now.
Four may be all we have to send.
Canada may have 100+ Leopard IIs, but it is beyond dispute it does not have anywhere near that many operational.
Of course it makes sense to sent Ukraine basically as many as we have and just buy more; Russia is one of our adversaries, so having our tanks destroy Russian stuff NOW is better than later. Every T-72 blown to smithereens by an Abrams, Leopard 2 or Challenger in 2023 is a T-72 we don’t have to blow up in 2026 if, God forbid, Putin remains alive and starts something worse. Successful defense of Ukraine means we don’t have to fight later in Poland. We are not currently DIRECTLY at war and can simply buy more tanks to replenish our stocks, whether we buy more Leopard 2s or Abrams or Challengers; they’re all pretty similar, so just make a deal and get them. But… the sad reality is we haven’t bothered to keep up the ones we have, though.
Canada’s armed forces is, to be blunt, a disgrace. You often hear criticism that Canada spends under the NATO commitment of 2 percent of GDP - we are at something like 1.3 percent - and that’s a valid point, but what is kind of puzzling is that it costs even as much as it does. Almost NOTHING is new and we rarely deploy anyone to anywhere. Our air force desperately needs new fighters, a process which has been delayed for years and year because of politics and incompetence. We have yet to start replacing the navy’s very obsolete warships, because of politics and incompetence. In both cases, delays just added to the expense. Canada is missing entire rudimentary capabilities - we literally have no air defense systems for the Army, for instance. We have no combat UAVs. We have no tracked IFVs. Even what stuff we have, as noted above, is ill-maintained.
We used to be proud of dedication to UN deployments, but almost no peacekeeping troops are sent anywhere anymore. Essentially our entire defense budget is spent paying people to do, well, something. Get frustrated the government won’t get them better kit, mostly.
So now that we have a serious military problem, we have almost nothing useful or modern to send. Were NATO and Russia to actually enter into general conventional war, Canada’s contribution would be embarassingly and inexcusably small.
Yea, can’t say I’m that surprised. I figured so, but did not look into it that deeply.
There’s a video on Twitter of a Russian soldier promising school children the cut off ear of a Ukrainian Soldier if they get good grades. He says other very fucked up shit. I won’t post it since I’m not sure if I should, but I’d love to hear Kedikat defend this evil.
I wonder how widespread such thinking is in that country. It takes my breath away.
Probably with whataboutism from RT where they fabricated a story about Ukrainian soldiers eating babies or whatever.
The first batch of those prisoners that have managed to survive their six months service have begun returning home and it hasn’t exactly been met with enthusiasm by the Russian public to have murderers and rapists just back from a six-month stint in a war walking freely among them. Prigozhin’s asked the State Duma to make it a crime to “discredit” them.
Russian mercenary boss asks parliament to ban negative media reports about his men (yahoo.com)
Mercenary boss Prigozhin, who has adopted a high public profile since the war in Ukraine began in an apparent effort to curry favour with Putin and enhance his own prospects, has drawn attention to the major role his fighters have played in helping seize some towns and villages and has frequently criticised Russia’s own top military brass.
In his letter, he accused “certain media, bloggers and Telegram channels” of discrediting some of his men, including convicts he has recruited into Wagner’s ranks, by presenting them as “bad guys and criminals”.
That was a reference to the fact that the sometimes grisly and murderous past of some convicts recruited by Wagner has been publicised. The men took up his offer to fight in Ukraine for six months as they were promised a pardon if they survived, even if they had originally been jailed for life.
Prigozhin asked parliament to criminalise any actions or publications that discredited such individuals and to outlaw public disclosure of their criminal past.
So… It’ll be criminal to discredit criminals by presenting them as criminals. But only Prigozhin’s criminals. If you become a criminal by calling Pregozhin’s criminals criminals, it won’t be criminal to criticize you, it’ll be a patriotic duty to call you a criminal for criminally criticizing Pregozhin’s criminals.
It’s criminals all the way down.
Russia is simply not a state run by the rule of law.
Indeed, Wagner is itself a criminal organization under Russian law. Russian Federation Criminal Code .
Article 359. Mercenarism
- Recruitment, training, financing, or any other material provision of a mercenary, and
also the use of him in an armed conflict or hostilities,
shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of four to eight years.- The same acts, committed by a person through his official position, or with relation to
a minor,
shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of seven to fifteen years, with or
without a fine in the amount of up to 500 thousand roubles or in the amount of the wage
or salary, or any other income of the convicted person for a period of up to three years.- Participation by a mercenary in an armed conflict or hostilities
shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of three to seven years.
Note: A mercenary shall be deemed to mean a person who acts for the purpose of getting
a material reward, and who is not a citizen of the state in whose armed conflict or
hostilities he participates, who does not reside on a permanent basis on its territory, and
also who is not a person fulfilling official duties.
Well, not with regards to the Ukraine war, as noted in point 3, which states a mercenary is by definition someone not a citizen or resident of a belligerent state. (That is, by the way, consistent with the definition in international law.) I believe all, or almost all, Wagner thugs are Russian and if not I am sure the Wagner guy can ensure they are legal residents.
MORALLY, I consider them mercenaries and their officers should all be hanged. Legally, probably not though.
Why can’t we get more, 100’s more, to Ukraine NOW.