Ah…sorry. Meant to stand corrected as I conflated the two in my memory. Nonetheless, long murderous reach, that guy.
IIRC, conventionally the thing to do if they cross as a unit of the Ukrainian forces would be to disarm them and intern the people and any vehicles until hostilities cease. And the “third country” would be interested (and in their rights) to not allow for a “hot pursuit” scenario to develop.
Heard about this one earlier. Thought it was a good omen:
The daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov posted an anti-war message to social media on Friday, but then appeared to delete the post shortly later.
The 24-year-old posted “HET BOЙHE” (or “no to war” in English) to her Telegram account. She wrote the message as a white hashtag with a translucent gray highlight on a black background, according to screenshots and reports from multiple journalists. The post was later removed.
This kind of sentiment, from this kind of person with ‘influence,’ has to propagate.
Also see:
It seems Russian civil aircraft are now banned from British, Polish and Estonian airspace. More countries ought to do this.
Delta airlines has cut its code-sharing agreement with Aeroflot. It is not clear to me what practical effect this will have.
A week ago I would have said yes, absolutely, this would be over in 10 days. I would have given 15:1 odds on Russia winning. Clearly I was spectacularly wrong about that (for which I’m happy). Russian forces have proven to be a lot less capable and motivated than I thought. Their strategy has proven disastrous… their SEAD/DEAD was inefficient, they failed to mass their forces decisively at any point, they seem to be failing to protect their logistical tail, they failed to gain air supremacy. They seem to have bet everything on a political objective of decapitation, at the expense of a coherent military objective, and it’s all topped off with a particularly harmful case of war optimism.
On the opposing side, Ukrainian anti-air and anti-armor has been surprisingly effective and surprisingly durable. Guerilla/urban partisans seem to be mobilized, equipped, and motivated, but I’m not believing anything I see about their effectiveness right now. At this moment this mainly seems to be effective as propaganda (perhaps true, perhaps they will fight effectively, but at this stage they’re still mainly an informational/morale-busting weapon).
It’s hard to make calls right now especially with so much false information, but the rough contours seem to be an attempted Russian blitzkrieg, stalled out by effective Ukranian resistance. That’s a hard hole to dig out of, but Russia still has half their forces in reserve. But the more they deploy reserves, they more they risk overextending and not being able to defend their own forces against counterattack.
Personally, just spitballing, I would say Russia’s chances of winning are still around 3:1 in favor, but falling. So now we have the uncomfortable question: what if Ukraine actually wins? What if they end pounding a third of the Russian army into a thin layer of dogshit? And Putin, the man with the nuclear launch codes, is a wounded tiger facing harsh accountability for an epic screwup that seems extremely unpopular in Russia?
I never run out of things to worry about, but that last bit is what has me twitchy lately, more so than spillover to neighboring NATO countries. Putin, humiliated and defeated, with his back to the wall but still quite dangerous to the world.
Also the Czech Republic and Bulgarian airspace.
Russia may very well achieve their military objectives eventually. But what about Putin’s strategic objectives? To achieve those he has to perform the magic trick of making the Ukrainians accept the puppet he wants to install. Difficult to see this happening.
I think the best he can hope for is that instability in Ukraine is heightened so much that the prospect of NATO membership disappears further into the distance. But he might get more NATO in Scandinavia and other parts of eastern Europe.
I think this is a huge strategic error from Putin, and the my worries about that are the same as yours.
Both countries have a lot of REALLY stubborn people in them. I am thinking of a) my visit to the cemetery outside St. Petersburg where the hundreds of thousands of victims of the 900-day siege of the city in WWII are buried, and b) the tour I took of the tunnels under Odessa led by the former Ukrainian partisan, with a plate in his head, who told us all about how they hid out in the tunnels and snuck out at night to work as snipers against the German Army.
I hope I am wrong, but I am seeing this turn into a REALLY ugly guerilla war.
I don’t know in recent times but, in 20th century Russian history, leaders who proved weak and inept tended to disappear from the world (not always murdered, just choosing to retire and stay very very quiet) and get replaced with new leaders.
Putin might have just accomplished what Castro didn’t: Failing to retain the Presidency for life.
We’ll have to see.
I hope you are correct but how do you know this? There is a video of what appeared to be jet exploding falling out of the sky at night. Some source say it was Russian, some (most?) say Ukrainian. Verifiable information in a war zone is very difficult to come by. I’ve seen few videos of Russian causalities/destroyed equipment.
I can’t really say I know anything, given the fog of war here. But Kyiv still seems (mostly) to have electricity and telecommunications, and people are still moving freely in the street shooting vids in the daytime, and those videos show (relatively) minimal damage. It’s possible that Russia reserved their air capacity for some other use, but that’s not normally how this kind of operation goes. From this, we can infer that Russian air power has been successfully denied to a greater degree than expected.
Plus the fact that Kyiv isn’t yet encircled by Russian tanks, despite being only 236mi from the border, combined with images of burning/disabled vehicles, suggests that anti-armor has been surprisingly effective. (surprising to me, at least)
I think the lack of concentration of forces in the beginning is a feature, not a bug, of the Russian doctrine of “deep operation”. Attack everywhere and see what breaks, and furthermore, if you attack everywhere in overwhelming numbers, you are bound to make the enemy retreat by merely looking like you can surround them, or surrounding them on a strategic level, rather than actively trying to do so. Unfortunately, if you don’t have overwhelming numbers, you might not force a break anywhere, and people who have nowhere to retreat to and are defending their homes aren’t going to retreat from a city.
That’s the problem… this requires attacking everywhere in overwhelming numbers. They don’t have the numbers for that. They had the numbers to assault Kiev and split the country in half on the Dnieper. But didn’t do that.
It seems like they tried to puff themselves up like a pufferfish, attacking everything in depth to appear larger, but the ruse didn’t survive first contact. So now everyone understands Russian forces aren’t massed, and can be isolated. Russia is now faced with a decision to fall back to its historical tactical staples of massive, indiscriminate artillery prep, followed by a massive mechanized infantry advance in just a few locations. (I’ve seen photo of Russian MLRS systems said to be mobilized on the border, so that may already be in motion, but again… who knows about wartime info).
That’s if they even have a military objective. It seems they were aiming for the political objective of decapitation and capitulation. It seems like the political objective is unachievable, and there’s no real military objective, so what do they do now?
So, indirect evidence, no? There have been a few photo’s/videos what are alleged to be Russian vehicles. One is a tank that simply ran out of gas, its crew standing around and being taunted by a passing motorist. Another of a large howitzer or similar abandoned on a road but little signs of damage. It could be it just broke down. There was a video of a Russian POW who was allowed to call his parents. He said, basically, they didn’t know what they were up to. I’d feel a little better if there were pictures of claimed destroyed convoys but I understand that isn’t a priority when in combat. At the same time they can be great morale boosters or quite the opposite, depending which side you are on. As such, videos and pics have some value.
Never claimed otherwise. But direct evidence of Kyiv and even Kharkiv still having electricity, and enough comms to upload photos of battle damage, and the Ukranian president being alive… the absence of reports of Russia successfully seizing and holding airfields to use as a beach-head for a deeper attack… to me this is strongly suggestive that Russia isn’t making the gains that were initially anticipated. And it gives me more credence toward imagery of destroyed/disabled vehicles. The logical conclusion is that Ukrainian anti-armor and anti-air has been surprisingly effective.
I still forecast that Russia has a decent shot here, as does the US DoD. But from here on out, none of their options are pretty from a perspective of casualties or collateral damage.
Assuming the West keeps up the unified economic sanctions then a prolonged occupation against moderate ongoing resistance will be very painful across Russia.
I’ve also been wondering if some of his own apparatus could turn against him.
Two thoughts to share and apologies if these have been addressed.
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Holding troops there for weeks sleeping outside their tanks may not have been the best tactic for having troops at their motivated fighting best.
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Xi is thrilled no matter what happens here. If the West demonstrates little resolve then China can be confident that it can act on Taiwan whenever it wants and Taiwan would know that as well. If Russia gets a huge bloody nose, is economically further weakened, and further isolated on the world stage, then they need to behave as China’s little brother, China gaining.
Hell, or start shooting. An armed force entering Polish territory without permission is committing an act of war.
You will no longer be able to book a ticket to a Russian destination via Delta airlines.
In that situation a lot depends on the “oligarchs” or whomever is actually running Russia in the background. I mean, yes, Putin IS in charge, I don’t believe he’s a puppet, but others with power have to back him for him to stay in power. If they turn on him… well, who knows? Do they arrange a “sudden” death for him? A “suicide”? Hand him over to the mob? What else?