Russia invades Ukraine {2022-02-24} (Part 2)

[Sam_Stone]

The scenario I could see coming: Putin digs in at Kherson and elsewhere, declares the territory to be his and the ‘special military operation’ over. Then if Ukraine keeps attacking, he’ll then claim that they are the aggressors and they are attacking Russian soil. Don’t count out the possibility of a false flag dam destruction by Russia to make everything worse.

In the meantime, Europe could run out of gas, and if that happens or anything close to it, there will be a lot of protests against the war. Putin will be happy to seed those protests and amplify them.

If the people in Europe are protesting because they are cold and hungry, and Southeastern Ukraine turns into a quagmire that doesn’t see any progress on either side, calls for a negotiated peace will get very loud.

I’m split on the fate of Crimea. By now it has been cleansed of troublesome Ukrainians and populated by Russians. It’s probably heavily defended. Attacking Crimea would open up a whole new front to the war. I don’t know how that ends, but it would certainly add to Putin’s claims that the Ukrainians’ aggression in Crimea is proof that the original war was correct and inevitable, so not his fault. But if he loses Crimea I don’t think he survives, so we would be backing a man with thousands of nukes into a corner. It’s a dangerous move.

I think we’d all like to see Russia spanked hard, completely ejected from Ukraine including the Donbas and Crimea, and forced to pay reparations. Whether we can achieve that without losing a few cities is another question. At some point, hard decisions have to be made.

[mordecaiB]

@Tamerlane

Crimea was a contentious absorption by Ukraine and while the Russian referendum of 2014 was a transparent and illegal sham, it is in fact in possible that given a genuine choice Crimea might prefer to join Russia. Possible.

Depends how many Russians/Russian supporters have fled Crimea already. I totally agree with your end of their rope portion. So much depends on how the war goes this winter,

[bobsmom101]

@Sam_Stone

Russia has a military budget of $83 billion dollars. Much of it went to maintaining old Soviet hardware, paying crap wages, maintaining the ICBM fleet, etc. They don’t have the money to rebuild their military - they didn’t even have enough to properly maintain the equipment they had. Throw in corruption and the poor quality of soldiers, and Russia’s military is a basket case.

Given these repeated assertions of how the Russian arsenal is so outdated and poorly maintained, do we have any info on whether this extends to their nuclear weapons? It would be comforting to imagine if Mr. Putin decided to launch one or more of them, that it is more likely to fizzle or detonate on the launch pad rather than reach its target.

[Horatius]

@bobsmom101

Given these repeated assertions of how the Russian arsenal is so outdated and poorly maintained, do we have any info on whether this extends to their nuclear weapons?

No actual information, but lots of speculation. Nukes are pretty expensive to maintain, and require refurbishment every now and then to keep the nuclear bits working, not to mention all the non-nuclear bits needed to make them weapons, like the missiles and such.

Some speculate that, since nukes are key to keeping Russia from being invaded, of course they’re spending the money needed to keep at least some of them viable.

Others speculate that, based on everything else we’ve seen of the Russian government, which seems to be incompetence tempered by kleptocracy, of course any money “spent” on their nuclear forces has been wasted or stolen, and anything of value attached to a missile was stolen and sold years ago.

For me, it’s really a coin flip as to which is true.

[Si_Amigo]

@Horatius

anything of value attached to a missile was stolen and sold years ago

Except for the warheads, which Putin is holding back like a savings account. His final weapon will not be using them, but threatening to sell them or the tech to deliver them and then supplying terrorst states to do his dirtey work.

This guy has many nasty tricks up his sleeves other than trying to take the Ukraine. Do not think this will stop until he is dead.

[EllisDee]

Just Ukraine, no the. Much like it’s not the Mexico or the Canada.

[aceplace57]

Given half a chance the conscripts would have wiped out Ukrainians.

‘We were completely exposed’: Russian conscripts say hundreds killed in attack

[Chronos]

All of what you say is true, and a good thing for the rest of the world that it is. But the important point is, it’s not fundamentally and immutably true. All of that old Soviet hardware the Russians have? They made it, back when they were the Soviet Union. They’re trying to rebuild the Soviet Union, and that means they could make it again. Reconquer all of the old SSRs, and they’d have the same manpower and other resource they had. Use that power to conquer the next ring of “buffer countries”, incorporate them into the economy, and repeat every few decades.

@DrDeth

Hardly abject surrender, just Realpolitik. Save hundreds of thousands of lives, and lose nothing. Crimea is lost, sadly.

“Lose nothing, and Crimea is lost”? Crimea is nothing? And if they don’t join NATO, just how long is that peace treaty going to last? I put the over/under at three weeks.

@bobsmom101

Given these repeated assertions of how the Russian arsenal is so outdated and poorly maintained, do we have any info on whether this extends to their nuclear weapons? It would be comforting to imagine if Mr. Putin decided to launch one or more of them, that it is more likely to fizzle or detonate on the launch pad rather than reach its target.

I have no doubt that Russia’s nuclear arsenal would have a very low proportion of them functional. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were as low as 10% of them working. But unfortunately, they have lots of them-- About 6000, from a quick Google. If 600 of them still work, well, that’s still enough to very thoroughly ruin everyone’s day.

[Dr.Strangelove]

@Chronos

Crimea is nothing?

From Ukraine’s perspective, probably less than nothing. Ethnic Russians were 60% of Crimea in 2014, and that number has only gotten worse (I can’t find an up-to-date percentage, but hundreds of thousands of ethnic Ukrainians have left Crimea since then and hundreds of thousands of ethnic Russians have arrived). Managing that territory sounds… unpleasant. Unless they take the same inhumane ethnic cleansing steps that Russia has.

[Johnny_L.A]

@aceplace57

Given half a chance the conscripts would have wiped out Ukrainians.

Still working, so I didn’t read the whole article. Is there a relevant quote that says that?

[FlikTheBlue]

@DrDeth

Then a long bloody war until either Putin dies or uses nukes. Do you think Ukraine can conquer all of Russia? Do you think Putin will give up unless he can claim some sort of win?

Crimea was lost back in 2014, not just before the war. The West more or less did nothing.

No, just until all of Ukraine is liberated. Same as what the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Taliban did to the US. Neither one had a hope of sending armies to occupy the entire continental US plus Hawaii, Alaska, and the territories, capturing the American president, and demanding an American surrender . Yet they both achieved a total victory on the battlefield.

[Sam_Stone]

@Chronos

All of what you say is true, and a good thing for the rest of the world that it is. But the important point is, it’s not fundamentally and immutably true. All of that old Soviet hardware the Russians have? They made it, back when they were the Soviet Union.

They’re trying to rebuild the Soviet Union, and that means they could make it again.

How much was actually made in Russia as opposed to Soviet satellites? Ukraine itself was responsible for manufacturing a lot of Soviet weaponry. Ukraine is a major shipbuilder, the Antonov aircraft factory was in Ukraine, etc.

But the Soviet Union itself was not competitive with western militaries. Its military was based on numbers - lots of tanks, lots of soldiers, lots of artillery. But they were always behind the west in the cold war in terms of quality and technology, and when the competition turned technological the Soviets were horribly outmatched. We’re still learning just how bad their equipment was.

Reconquer all of the old SSRs, and they’d have the same manpower and other resource they had. Use that power to conquer the next ring of “buffer countries”, incorporate them into the economy, and repeat every few decades.

There’s a real chicken and egg problem there. How are they supposed to reconquer the old SSRs to rebuild the Soviet Union when they can’t conquer anyone without effectively having the resources of the old Soviet Union? Russia is resorting to drafting criminals, drunks and old men just to keep their marginal gains in Ukraine from being taken away from them.

Take Poland, for example. Poland will soon have over 400 M1A1 and M1A2 Abrams tanks. Those things will run rings around any Russian tank. They will have over 1,000 K2 Main battle tanks from South Korea.

The Iraqis fought the Abrams with Russian tanks. The result was four damaged Abrams and 3300 destroyed T-72 and T-80 tanks. American tanks also now have very good active defenses for ATGMs and drones.

For its air force, Poland has 32 F-35’s on order, and currently has 48 F-16Cs and Ds, two dozen MiG-29’s, etc. They have Patriot Pac-3 and other advanced air defense systems.

The Polish navy has 48 ships including modern guided missile frigates, three attack submarines, etc. They are buying more and engaging in an expensive modernization program for 23 vessels.

I think Poland could give Russia a real fight all by itself, in Russia’s weakened state. If has about 120,000 professional soldiers before any sort of mobilization or reserve callup. And of course it’s part of NATO, so…

[slash2k]

What percentage of ethnic Russians want to live in Putin’s Russia, now that they’ve seen it up close? Some do, I’m sure, but i’d guess it isn’t 100 percent.

[aceplace57]

@Johnny_L.A

Still working, so I didn’t read the whole article. Is there a relevant quote that says that?

Not that exact statement. They were beginning to dig in and build bunkers. Ukraine saw them with drones and attacked with artillery.

That position would have been more difficult and costly to attack after the Russians finished digging in.

[Dr.Strangelove]

Hard to say, but I’m sure a large number are taken in by the propaganda. I’m not saying there’s nobody in Crimea that wishes to return to Ukraine, but it’s almost surely well under 50%. And if even a small fraction are true loyalists to Russia, that makes it very hard to manage.

I don’t think Ukraine should give away their notion of acceptable losses too early–for now, it makes sense for them to not publicly give an inch. But it would not shock me if they saw Crimea as being something of a potential albatross at this point and would surely agree to losing it if they gained in other ways. This depends, of course, on getting security guarantees which can be counted on. Hard to say what that would look like given that Russia is not a trustworthy actor.

[aceplace57]

Iran is going to get a lot more Ukrainians killed.

Ukraine targeting the Russian launch sites is the next escalation. They have no other choice.

CNN live feed

Ukraine’s air force says that newly arrived western air defense systems will help deal with the new threat of Iranian ballistic missiles reportedly being purchased by Russia.

Yuriy Ihnat, Air Force spokesperson, told a briefing in Kyiv that Ukraine might target the Iranian missiles at their launch sites, which would probably be well inside Russia.

“They must somehow be destroyed, probably from where they are launched. Because we have no effective means of fighting ballistic [missiles], except for their physical destruction at the launch stage.”

Ihnat said the Iranian missiles have “a range of 300 and 700 kilometers, which in principle will not create anything new for Ukraine, because [Russian-made] Iskanders were used from the first day of the war.”

“I think both the top military leadership and our partners are working on this issue, looking for effective ways to counter these new threats,” Ihnat said.

He said that the Russians were unable to make progress on the battlefield and had resorted to attacking infrastructure supplying energy and water. “They want to hit energy facilities in the autumn-winter period first of all, because people’s lives largely depend on them. This air terrorism will continue by all available means.”

“It is clear that the missiles that will be received from Iran, if it is done, will be used at the energy infrastructure facilities, and [the Russians] will continue to strike with cruise missiles as well.”

CNN reported on Nov. 1 that Iran is preparing to send about 1,000 additional weapons, including short range ballistic missiles and more attack drones, to Russia, citing officials from a western country that closely monitors Iran’s weapons program.

[Euphonious_Polemic]

@aceplace57

CNN reported on Nov. 1 that Iran is preparing to send about 1,000 additional weapons, including short range ballistic missiles and more attack drones, to Russia, citing officials from a western country that closely monitors Iran’s weapons program.

Another option is to hit these weapons at their source, or during delivery, before they even make it to the Russian launch sites.

[FlikTheBlue]

@Euphonious_Polemic

Another option is to hit these weapons at their source, or during delivery, before they even make it to the Russian launch sites.

That’s a theoretical option, but it would obviously mean bringing at least two other countries into the conflict. I doubt even Israel is thinking about any sort of serious attack against Iran at this point.

[DrDeth]

@Tamerlane

Well, minus the half of the Donbas that was in rebellion. A return of all of Luhansk and Donetsk (and every other bit and bob) to Ukrainian government control in exchange for a proper, de-militarized and internationally run referendum in Crimea might be a starting point.

Yes, it is not so crazy.

@mordecaiB

No, but nobody thinks they have to, least of all the Ukrainians. Right now they are well on their way to getting their country back. If they are willing to fight for it, the least we can do is back them

In order to get Putin to back down, Ukrainian tanks are gonna have to roll thru Moscow. Just recapturing all of the Ukrainian mainland will not stop the war. And Ukraine has no way to invade Crimea.

@Horatius

Nukes are pretty expensive to maintain, and require refurbishment every now and then to keep the nuclear bits working, not to mention all the non-nuclear bits needed to make them weapons, like the missiles and such.

I would hope that most of the ICMBs are no good anymore. But I am not willing to bet nuclear destruction on that.

@FlikTheBlue

No, just until all of Ukraine is liberated.

Then Putin stops and goes “Okay, you win!”? No way. And Ukraine can not invade Crimea.

@Sam_Stone

The Iraqis fought the Abrams with Russian tanks. The result was four damaged Abrams and 3300 destroyed T-72 and T-80 tanks

Not to mention our Warthogs, etc.

[FlikTheBlue]

@DrDeth

Then Putin stops and goes “Okay, you win!”?

No. Gerald Ford and Joe Biden also failed to say anything similar to the leaders of Vietnam and Afghanistan when those wars were lost. That doesn’t mean that we didn’t lose.