Will you please finish your sentence? They need coffee to … what?
(since picayunity is what got you to this point)
I think the Naval base at Sevastopol weighs heavily in Ukrainian thinking. They really want/need to take that port away from Russian control. It would go a long way towards freeing up the Black Sea.
I’m not having any luck finding a cite, but I have a hazy recollection that back when one of the nuclear arms treaties was being verified that some of the missiles the Soviets were eliminating were in silos that were so flooded the missile were useless. Maybe during Reagan’s “trust but verify”.
Ethnicity is not destiny.
Quite a bit of Eastern Ukraine beyond the four occupied oblasts are “ethnic Russian” but plenty of those folks are opposed to what Russia is doing and fighting on the Ukrainian side.
Putin likes to push the narrative that if you speak Russian and/or are of Russian descent you’ll be on his side but reality says differently.
In reality no one knows how Crimea would choose if they actually had a free and fair election on the matter. Is it a possibility Crimea would choose Russia? Yes. But it’s not a certainty and wish people would stop acting like it is.
I mean, crap, looking at how many Russia citizens have fled Russia since this war began. Three quarters of a million of your own citizens saying “F*** this, I’m outta here” is NOT a ringing endorsement. If Russian Russians don’t want to live in Putin’s Russia why assume “ethnic Russians” and “Russian speakers” will decide differently en masse?
Those are all fair points, but they don’t quite address my point, which is that Ukraine still has to decide whether Crimea is an acceptable loss in exchange for a true end to the war (which, obviously, can’t just be Putin pinky-swearing to leave).
I don’t think a fair referendum (even if it were possible) would be the end-all-be-all in any case. It would only take a sizeable minority of nationalistic Russians to cause problems. And surely, Putin has to every extent possible filled Crimea with these people since 2014.
I am still not seeing any realistic proposal to the end of the war. I think Crimea has to be at least under consideration, not least because it is likely to prove far harder to retake than the other occupied oblasts. Joke answers like “Ukraine can give Russia one bullet for Putin to shoot himself with” are all well and good, but at some point serious decisions have to be made.
That is fair, but has to be balanced against Russia viewing it as just as important, if not more so (in the sense of: how hard is Russia going to fight to not lose it?). Taking the port was a major factor in the 2014 annexation in the first place. Russia had been leasing a significant portion already.
War isn’t about giving the other side even half a chance.
How do Iran and Russia send big things to each other, anyway? Through Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan? Through the Caucuses? Or do they just ship it across the Caspian Sea?
In my very uninformed opinion, these ethnic Russians may be wildly pleased to join a 1st world NATO country
The sticking point is probably Russia accepting pre-invasion Russians who want to move to Russia. I think that post-invasion Russians should be expelled - it would be another story if they had grown up there. And I don’t think that pre-invasion Russians should be forced out: morally it would be okay to force them out if they supported the invasion, but that’s hard to determine. On the other hand, if they don’t want to live in Ukraine, I don’t think it would be right to force them to stay, either.
Russia, however, might want to keep them there as a constant source of trouble and not accept them if they want to move to Russia.
I don’t know what a realistic proposal to end the war would look like, and at this stage, I don’t think anyone else can be sure, either. To some it may seem judicious and sober for Ukraine to concede Crimea to Russia. But such a move could also embolden Russia to start the war again in the future, or embolden other countries that want to grab territory by force (see: China). Trying to gauge under what circumstances Putin might use nuclear weapons is next to impossible. Also, between now and the end of the war, it’s not inconceivable that Russian resistance will simply collapse. It’s true that “at some point serious decisions have to be made” – but we’re not anywhere near that point. Huge swaths of mainland Ukraine still await an end to Russian occupation. For now, Ukraine, aided by its allies, should just concentrate on fighting.
a somewhat sobering vid of the aftermath of one of the frontal attacks from russia
—>https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1589936107541577728
russia is losing 500-700 troops per day - how long can they keep going with a rate like this?
As a pragmatic matter, even if Ukraine fully expected Russia to try this again in a few years, letting them keep Crimea for now might be worth it, since the intervening years will give Ukraine a chance to re-build its own military and infrastructure.
It’s clear that Ukraine is far more competent in these areas, and had they had a few more years to fix some of the corruption that Zelenskyy was elected to fix, Putin’s war would have gone very differently. And now, no one will ever believe Russian lies about “Oh, that’s just an exercise, we’re totally not going to invade you, bro!” again.
This might mot be palatable, and of course everyone would prefer Russia lose everything and gain nothing, but again, as a pragmatic matter, sometimes you have to take what you can get, and live with that.
True, pragmatism is necessary.
But this should be decided by Ukraine, not by anyone else.
Yep, they’re the ones fighting and dying, so they should be the only ones who decide when they begin negotiations. So far, they’ve been pretty clear about returning to the pre-2014 borders as a starting point, and I’m not inclined to argue with them.
Is anyone familier withe the anti tank Dragons Teeth the Russian are installing?
Can they be cleared with a Dozer blade? I’ve seen house lots with small trees cleared with a Bobcat. That’s much smaller than a Dozer.
Or maybe drag out the Teethe with chains on a dozer or tank?
How effective arw Dragons Teeth in stopping tanks? I know Combat Engineers train to breach obstacles like dragons teeth and razor wire.
I’m skeptical the Russians had time to dig down below the frost line and pour footings to anchor the Teeth. The concrete needs time to cure for full strength.
My guess would be across the Caspian Sea to Chechnya and then over land from there. Next most likely is through Azerbaijan, which might work for an 18 wheeler full of drones, but probably not for a bunch of flatbed trailers or a train with cruise missiles sitting out in the open for the whole world to see. The eastern route through Turkmenistan looks like it would be too long and my guess is that route is even less likely. All of that is just speculation based on looking at a map.
Me too.
Could a tank stand off 100 yards, and just blow them to smithereans? I would think they could lower the barrel enough to shoot that low. Sort of depends on the terrain I guess.
And that might be a waste of ammo.
One thing to consider, though, is that where maintenance is not actually performed—perhaps due to a lack of spare parts or basic consumables—generators can end up out of action indefinitely. I get that a properly supplied/maintained back-up power generation scheme can carry the load for long periods of time. What we cannot know, however, is just how well provisioned with necessary stockpiles of consumables (lube oil, filters, etc)
Ukraine is.
Should be an easy enough problem to solve. Provided someone with access to resources is engaged in solving it.
Talk of Russian attacks on the Ukrainian power grid has talking heads abuzz. Most discuss how this is an attempt to freeze out civilians thereby diminishing their will to fight, another angle is that Russian possibly hopes to create a humanitarian crisis by creating more Ukrainian refugees into European countries, thereby diminishing European support for the war. One thing I don’t hear talking heads discussing are the military ramifications for taking out their power grid. As in, won’t this disrupt and complicate Ukrainian communications? What about the rail networks? Aren’t most of the trains Ukraine relies on to transport their troops and materiel electric? Seems like losing their power grid could cripple Ukr’s military almost as effectively as losing major battles would.