I guess his 2022 goal was to destroy the Ukr (didn’t go so well)
I guess his 2023 goal is to not die
priorities change
thats already happening … Ukr. is consistently neutralizing around 85% of all incoming long-distance missiles …so those long-dist-volleys are extremely expensive (both in terms of money, as well as opportunity-cost) for russia.
And out of the 60-70 missile volley, those 5-10 missiles that make it, tend to kill 5-10 random bystanders and upset the power grid for 3-6 hours - but not more. The next day is already “business as usual” for Ukr.
and that is pre-patriot - so the cost for russia will only increase in the future
… so for me those attacks look more and more like Hitlers V2 attacks on London … somewhat spectacular (an easy sell on the home-front), but in the bigger scheme of things, truly irrelevant and comparable to the swansongs of the violin quartet when the Titanic went down.
I hope this is true.
But I had understood the opposite…that the switching stations are almost irreplaceable. So each one destroyed creates a very serious problem for the city, and if enough of them are destroyed, that specific city will remain dark till the end of the war, and till somebody in the west can design, build and deliver new equipment --which must be built to match the Russian-made equipment in the rest of Ukraine’s electric grid.
(by the way, and off topic, I’ve read that the American grid is also vulnerable, and that there is no backup supply of switching stations so that any destruction/vandalism/ etc could leave huge areas of America dark and cold.).
I wish somebody could - with more authority - clear that up …
(FWIW, I am going mostly from memory of those daily Selenskiy - late night speeches, and of course he has an agenda of down-talking the electric-outages) …
The real problem is transformers to switch from high voltage transport from the production sites to low voltage for use in houses, factories, etc.
About 1 000 small transformers have been send to Ukraine but the large transformers are another problem: about 60 have been destroyed and there are almost no spare. They cost millions (literally) to built and weight hundreds of tons so are generally built in place (that can be problematic when the place is bombed frequently).
Compatibility between ex-USSR and western grid is also an issue.
Actually Ukraine is at about 30% of its pre-war capacity.
A transformer station getting hit is bad news for sure. That one in North Carolina that got shot up took days to fix, even without a war on. But the Russians aren’t noted for their good aim: It’s possible that they’re (mostly) just hitting other, more easily-repaired, pieces of electrical infrastructure.
I’ve been following Phillips O’Brien, a writer and war historian, on the progress and trends of this war nearly since the beginning. He argues that there’s still little sign Russia has learned the right lessons from its early mistakes, and that journalists are still too eager to latch onto signs of Russian success, no matter how meager those signs are (e.g. focusing on Russia gaining some tiny town or locality while ignoring the massive and counterproductive losses the Russians took to get it):
The failures of the Russian military appear to be deep and intrinsic military cultural faults - a culture of grift, a culture of dishonesty (not reporting facts to superiors when it’s bad news or could reflect poorly on you), and a culture of shifting blame. Those kinds of faults can’t be corrected in days or months, and probably not even in years. It will take decades.
I’ll say it once again - Russia cannot win this war. Ukraine will retake all of its territory, including Crimea, eventually. The Russian military is incapable of holding territory outside of Russia against a determined and well supplied foe, and they will still be incapable a year from now.
It’s all about logistics and morale. Every time you read something about how the war is going, try to dig in to see what the writer says about logistics and morale. If they don’t mention it, it’s probably not a particularly useful story.
What if Russia pulled back, bulldozed Moldova (that’s probably unkind-I’m certain they’d put up a fight), and came at Ukraine from Transnistria? Would it be a shorter/easier supply line, given that they’re starting from “Russian” land that’s right next to Ukraine?
I don’t see how invading Ukraine through Moldova would be any easier than invading Ukraine through Ukraine. And it’d doubtless escalate Western support even further.
Look at this map, and tell us how Russia could build up any kind of troop and vehicle strength in Moldova? The build-up in Belarus was obvious to everyone watching, and this build up, even if it were physically possible, would be even more obvious.
And while Russia benefited from the game of “We’re not invading you! We’re not invading you!” last year, there is no way Ukraine will ever fall for that again. Any major build up of Russian troops near any Ukrainian borders will be met with at least a matching defensive force, to stop them dead as soon as they cross the border, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Ukraine decided to use a pre-emptive HIMARS strike to disrupt the build up before they even tried crossing the border.
If Russia loses in this attempt at taking Ukraine, they’ll never even get another chance. Ukraine simply won’t allow it.
Russia now claims to have destroyed 45 of the 20 HIMARS delivered to Ukraine. Reminder: NO HIMARS are known to have been destroyed in the war thus far.
“There were 90 of us. Sixty died in that first assault, killed by mortar fire. A handful remained wounded,”
…
“The first steps into the forest were difficult because of all the landmines spread out. Out of 10 guys, seven were killed immediately,”
…
“We couldn’t retreat without orders because if we don’t comply with the order, we will be killed,” said one of the prisoners.
“One man stayed at a position, he was really scared, it was his first assault. We received an order to run forward. But the man hid under a tree and refused. This was reported to the command and that was it. He was taken 50 meters away from the base. He was digging his own grave and then was shot.”
The other fighter reported a similar situation: “Our commander was told that if anyone gets cold feet, he would have to be eliminated. And if we failed to eliminate him, we would be eliminated for failing to eliminate him.”
…
“The command ordered me to dig in at my position, so I dug in at my position, awaiting evacuation. They sent one group of 10, and the sniper eliminated all 10,”