I agree. The best case scenario for Putin is if the collective west stops supporting Ukraine. As things stand, Russia has no hope of a traditional victory on the battlefield. There’s a small chance of somehow overwhelming the Ukrainian defenses with sheer numbers, but even if they accomplish that all they will have gained is a big pile of rubble.
Given that, maybe Putin thinks a bloodbath is the best way to make the west rethink the commitment to Ukraine.
What has become of all the passenger jets that were being leased by Russia from western companies when the invasion started last year? My recollection is that Russia kept most of the jets, but that the supply of parts they would need for upkeep has been pretty much cut off. Are those jets still flying?
It’s my understanding they’ve started cannibalizing aircraft for parts. Since they are flying to fewer destinations, the reduced fleet is less of an issue.
Their goal has morphed from “Take Kyiv and install a puppet government” to “Destroy as much of Ukraine as possible and kill as many civilians as possible.”
I believe the shift is because they cannot admit failure, as this would lead to a loss of internal power. So they must keep going (sunk cost fallacy) and change the goals to make it appear they are “winning”
The seized jets are the repair parts. Or more likely the Russian jets are now repair parts for the leased jets that likely had better maintenance.
There’s also the fact that maintenance schedules in the US are done to ensure 99.999997% reliability.
If your standards are lower, and 99% reliability is enough, you can get away with less maintenance.
99% sounded like a decent number when I first read it but imagine a 1% failure rate. It would equate to over 200,000 aircraft failures per year.
Sorry I know this post is veering off topic. So in order to avoid some moderator wrath I’ll add in some other stats. Ukraine claims it killed 920 Russian fighters yesterday. If that rate were to occur over the course of the year that would equate to over 335,000. Considering wounded is usually another 3 or 4 times the KIA number that is an unsustainable casualty rate of c.1m in a year!
Numbers may or may not be reliable…
It’s a bit like those fly-by-night ISPs that brag being up 99% of the time. Sounds impressive but it means you’re without the internet an hour and a half per week.
I wonder what happened to the western leasing companies who owns the planes. An airliner goes for IIRC 100M$ and up, so they have assets worth several billions at least temporarily lost, that they might never see again.
To keep on topic: Last US aid package included GLSDB, ground launched small-diameter-bombs which can be fired from HIMARS/MLRS pods.
Bad news: until now only prototypes have been made. Good news: production should pick up fast since they are made out of existing rockets and existing SDBs.
Range is given as “up to 150km”. Since they will glide most of the way the range most depend on wind conditions. Tailwind favors glider range.
Since they will have lost most of their height/speed when they reach their targets at max range, I wonder of it will be an advantage to fire them at night, to avoid interception. Also protects the launcher, of course.
They’d probably still register on radar.
As gliding munitions, they would be fractionally easier to intercept that a purely ballistic warhead, although anti-ballistic defense is a valid thing. But most targets won’t have robust anti-missile defenses so the extra range will be quite beneficial.
You all are a lot more confident that Russia has already lost than I am. If this ends in a cease-fire with Russia keeping Crimea and most of Donetsk/Luhansk, is that a loss for them? Because that’s not unthinkable at all.
That’s unthinkable unless something major turns around for Russia. Once again, war is logistics and morale, and that’s about it. Ukraine has a big advantage in both.
And soldiers. And weapons. Russia has the advantage in soldiers and some areas of weapons.
Are you aware that Russia is currently gaining more territory than Ukraine is winning back?
If Russia keeps more territory than they had on Feb 24th even if it’s less than they have now, is that a loss for them? Because they hold a shit load more territory than they had pre-invasion.
And my prediction going forward is that Ukraine wins back more territory from where they are now. Probably not all of it though. And the uncertainty there is much higher than the confidence merits.
Soldiers aren’t worth shit without good training, good supplies, and good morale, and all signs point to Russia’s new recruits having none of that. Weapons aren’t worth much without good supplies, ammo, and maintenance, and Russia’s done a shit job of that too. As for territory changes, you can write a story cherrypicking certain days or weeks in which Russia is gaining territory and Ukraine losing, but over the whole story of this war, Russia’s progress has been worse and worse, and Ukraine’s counter-attacks better and better, broadly speaking. As Ukraine gets more and better front-line weapons and artillery, that will escalate.
Russia’s logistics are shit. Russia’s morale is shit. Ukraine’s logistics are the entire Western industrial might; their morale is sky-high because the alternative to victory is being crushed by Russia’s boot heel. Countries don’t win wars with shit logistics and morale against opponents with superior logistics and morale.
What’s your prediction for where Ukraine will push Russia?
Ultimately, I predict they’ll expel Russia from Crimea and the Donbas/Luhansk. It may take over a year, or maybe Russia’s military collapse will be accelerated by domestic strife. But that’s my prediction. And it’s pretty much entirely based on the principle that war is logistics and morale.
At this point, even if all Western support were stopped, I think that Ukraine would still eventually win. It’d be a long, slow win with lots of casualties and lots of unnecessary human suffering, but I don’t think that Russia, alone, even has the power to beat Ukraine, alone.
Of course, with Western aid, even if we don’t change the ultimate outcome, we can hasten it, and thus vastly decrease the amount of suffering before the end.
unfortunately, for the past 2-3 weeks russia has been on the offense and Ukr in defense - quite often at huge cost to russia, but that seems to be par for the course for them. It remains to be seen, if russia has culminated (given the huge losses of around 700 pax per day for a months or so … bear in mind, around x-mas the clock ticked over to 100,000 dead russians, and now, just a month later stands at 128k (both numbers are Ukr. count) - but it has been realy deadly for the russians, and also for the Ukr - where anecdotical killings of soldiers also seems to pick up.
I sure hope that russia wont succeed to build momentum and that the newer, longer range missiles will help soften the logistics of the russians even more - and have them want “we need more of everything”.
This is a propaganda number.