The New York Times linked to this recent lecture by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, which mostly concerns the Ukraine war. It’s very long but explains a lot about Orbán’s worldview. I remain diametrically opposed to Orbán and resent him for all the damage he’s done to Hungary and to the war effort. Still, the lecture is illuminating enough that I’ve read it a few times.
So, Russia does have a plan. They’re losing a lot of men and resources to keep Ukraine on the defensive.
It will be interesting to see if the F-16’s can provide air support for Ukraine’s troops. Drones are already doing some air support. But, the F-16’s have missiles that can take out Command Posts and forward operating bases (FOB’s). Most are on the Russian side of the border. Ukraine has been targeting along the border and just inside Russia.
Several high ranking Russian officials have been arrested for corruption. The Aug 2 and Aug 5 reports have more information.
Link Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 2, 2024 | Institute for the Study of War
Russian Railway Networks Facing ‘Imminent Collapse’: Report (msn.com)
An article explaining how Russia used to get the high quality ball bearings required for the operation of trains from the West, and how following the imposition of sanctions they’ve had to rely on lower quality bearings, which makes rail disasters a ‘when’ not ‘if’ proposition.
I recall first reading about this issue back in 2022 when industry commentators pointed out that Russian rolling stock would be living on borrowed time in a couple of years, as the ball bearings used only last so long before needing to be replaced. It’s an issue that affects not only the shipment of critical military supplies, but affects virtually all aspects of their economy that depend upon the movement of goods across the country. Russia has nothing like the size of truck fleets we have in the West and relies much MUCH more heavily on rail transport. Economic pressure is a slow gradual thing. At 2.5 years into the conflict we’re beginning to see the economic strains come into play that were predicted at the onset of the conflict. Much has been made about aging Russian airframes in the absence of high tech Western replacement parts, but an ailing rail network has potential for much broader negative effects to the Russian economy. Putin needed to end this conflict like yesterday
So what you’re saying is, the sanctions are … 
on track.
Couldn’t this be overcome with shorter bearing replacement intervals? Or is the problem that the quality is random (as opposed to reliably mediocre), and it becomes impossible to specify a replacement interval that makes disasters a rare thing?
My understanding is it’s the latter. I have to believe if it was the former they could easily deal with it.
Wasn’t it one of the Allied strategies in World War II to selectively target all of the German ball bearing plants, because everything relied on ball bearings, and so taking out all of them would grind everything to a halt?
Granted, it didn’t work too well then, but that was largely because in WWII, “selectively targeting” a factory meant “carpet bomb every city that’s reasonably close to a factory”. Nowadays, though, with precision munitions? It just might work.
I suspect that it’s going to end up being the oil infrastructure that’s the tipping point, though. For multiple reasons: First, oil is directly consumable, as opposed to a ball bearing that lasts until it wears out. Second, because oil is flammable, and so it only takes a relatively small hit on an oil facility to start a large fire that destroys the whole thing. And third, because oil infrastructure seems to be the target that Ukraine is actually prioritizing.
I’m not sure why European nations are donating a decent number of F-16s but the United States isn’t. I’m guessing it may be that F-16s are considered expensive and the Biden administration thinks that, given the $30+ billion limit under the recent package Congress passed, it would maximize Ukraine’s bang for the buck for America to not give F-16s out of the Congress-passed budget, but rather, give the maximum of all non-F16 weapons, and also to give missiles to outfit the jets with.
As for Orban, the guy isn’t dumb, but his rhetoric in that speech is totally trollish. He says “The Ukrainians think this is a Russian invasion” - as if, you know, it isn’t.
That was the idea of the Schweinfurt-Regensburg raid of August 1943, made as part of Operation Pointblank, the attempt by the US and British bomber forces to destroy German fighter strength to ease Operation Overlord by establishing air supremacy. The idea was to attack factories manufacturing fighters, forcing the Luftwaffe to defend those factories with its fighters and making them vulnerable to escort fighters and defensive fire from the bombers. The Schweinfurt part of the raid, directed against ball-bearing plants, was originally conceived as a distraction from the main mission against Me109 factories.
It had a shot at working because Germany had centralized its ball bearing production in Schweinfurt. The raid did significant damage to production, and a an immediate followup raid could have stopped supplies for a long period of time. However, Germany had plenty of reserve ball bearings in inventories that it could draw down to supply its needs; Italy, Sweden and Switzerland were all alternative sources of ball bearings; and the USAAF bombers that were part of the mission were so badly attrited (~15% losses, another 30% damaged, many beyond the point of repair) that a followup was delayed for months, giving Germany the opportunity to disperse ball-bearing production.
So what does that tell us about UKR-RUS, and the latter’s trains? Well, I note from the article that it’s about discussions that happened five months ago, so I’m guessing they have managed to evade any “imminent” collapse. I would note that prioritizing the war effort means that deficiencies will cut harder in the civilian parts of the economy, particularly in terms of investment. And Russia does have potential sources of ball bearings through cannibalization of existing trains, inventories, and China (and North Korea and Iran, though they are under sanctions themselves). Is smuggling via a semifriendly country such as Hungary or Serbia a possibility? Either way, the Russians aren’t dumb and they are going to be looking at ways to decrease the impact of their losses. At some point, it’s going to hurt, but don’t look for every Russian train to suddenly stop on the tracks tomorrow.
The conflict between Ukraine and Russia has had effects in lots of far-flung places. I’m not sure why the Ukrainians decided to get involved unless they were concerned that more Wagner troops might return to their country.
One important villain that’s gone largely unmentioned is Jake Sullivan, the American version of Neville Chamberlain. Seemingly practically everything he’s said about Ukraine is something calculated to benefit Russia’s interests and harm NATO’s.
This is a cynical thought, but aren’t we selling F-35s to NATO countries? The intent may be to encourage those countries to reduce or eliminate their F-16 fleet so we can sell them F-35s as replacements. Sending a greater number of our own F-16s would impact that.
Of course, it also strengthens overall air capabilities in Europe if F-35s are more widespread, so there’s a long-term benefit.
But those F-16s were really old - all acquired in the 1980s, if I recall right. They were all on the verge of retirement anyway and Denmark, Norway, Holland and Belgium had all placed orders for F-35s regardless. Although the donation of these F-16s may indeed have sped things up by a few years ahead of schedule.
The Pentagon has been less than enthusiastic about the efficacy of fighter planes in this conflict since the very beginning. Europeans (especially smaller countries) are very publicly donating F-16s to show they are doing their part, but I don’t think any of their military experts really think it’s some kind of game changer.
Well, the problem with that idea is that the countries that are donating had already placed orders for F-35s and had basically decided to retire the F-16s. I’m not aware of any of them expanding their F-35 orders, but I suppose that could still happen later. And really, Putin is the best salesman ever devised for the F-35.
Anyone understand the geographic area? Is this occupied territory or actually Russia? It’s confusing because Russia refers to the occupied land as Russian territory.
Either way, it’s a smart move. Ukraine needs to force Russia to commit troops for border protection. Hinder the Russian offensive.
Guardian live feed. The Dan Sabbagh link has an article where Russia acknowledged the attack.
Looking at the map this fight was/is on the Russian side of the internationally acknowledged border
It’s about time that Ukraine takes the war directly into Russia.
Ukraine won’t hold that territory for very long. They expect Russian troops to deploy to the area.
ISW has a report
Link Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 6, 2024 | Institute for the Study of War
Ukraine has attacked on the ground inside Russia before, albeit usually with more deniable proxies. Previously it was mostly for PR / morale reasons. Seems this might be more about actual military objectives (supply lines, gas pipeline). On Twitter people are wondering how spicy things could get if Ukraine can get an S-300 in place quickly.