That defeats your argument. Your plan is based on the idea that Ukrainians would be willing to die as long as they can take a Russian with them. And we have not seen that.
The Ukrainians are certainly willing to fight the Russians. But they’re doing so as a military force. We’re not seeing suicide bombers.
Ah yes, the innovation of putting petroleum products in glass bottles, the greatest advance in the science of insurgency warfare in the past 50 years. How different the Warsaw uprisings in 1943 and 1944 would have been had they only been used 8 years prior during the Spanish Civil War and been called something simple like, I dunno, a petrol bomb. Or if the Finns had dubbed the concoction a Molotov cocktail during the 1939-40 Winter War. Then in this weird alternate reality the Poles might have used them in Warsaw. Oh wait, all that actually happened.
that is happening pretty much right now … see the reaction of those people HERE
they are risking their lives just to make a statement and to pick up a fellow citizen. Thats actual shooting with live ammunition! … they could have run away - but they did not, they went forward to help the wounded.
now imagine 2 of those ukrainians bumping into a russian soldier taking a leak behind a tree at night …
that is why i talked about ADVANCE of guerrilla warefare … I assume you are not doubting that there were significant advances in gue.warfare since the warsaw uprisings (heck, just google the famous “cookbook”)
they molotov cocktails are now being produced in Ukr. on a semi-industrial scale in breweries HERE … and backyards HERE
also note the huge sacks of polystyren pearls in the picture … so its advance in quantity but also quality of guerrilla warefare.
I think that qualifies for the phrase “Advance of guerrilla warefare” over warshaw - which was my actual point
Did you really think my point was if any Ukrainian was willing to risk their lives?
Should I now show news of the 1% of the population who have already decided the best approach is to leave the country? It would be as much an argument as what you have presented so far.
I’m not going to engage further though. You’ve made zero effort to engage with realistic feedback to your “doctrine”.
This suggests a profound misunderstanding of the nature of armed resistance.
You will not get 30,000,000 Ukranians to resist. You won’t get 3,000,000. You would actually be lucky to get 300,000 - that would be AMAZING, a great resistance movement.
When this sort of problem comes, most people will not fight. They just don’t have it in them. They’d rather lay low. They figure there will be some other solution. They don’t want their children at risk. They have a job to do. Or they sympathize with the invader.
They will protest, however. THAT seems like it will be the real core of Ukrainian resistance. I think people are under-rating this aspect as well. We’ve already started to see an increase in this…and the willingness of the populace to risk itself in these protests.
I think a lot of folks in this thread are angry and lashing out…and, unfortunately, are putting forth stuff that is really unrealistic, even a bit insulting. Also, willing to give plans that risk Ukrainian lives, if they were implemented…IOW, willing to risk others lives by the suggestion.
Realistically, it’s not going to be 30 million Ukrainians resisting if/when the Ukrainian military goes down. It won’t be 3 million or 300,000 either. It MIGHT be 30,000, but even that is a stretch. I don’t think folks are really grasping the difference this is going to be to, say, the US occupation of Afghanistan or Iraq. Brutal as those seemed…and, even as they were…they won’t be anything like this. We can see what happened in previous Russia Federation occupations in places like Georgia as a guide…or the wars in Chechenia. Hell, even their conduct in Syria.
Even if we are talking about resistance of a puppet that Putin installs for a large part of Ukraine (which is what I expect…at least, that’s what I expect the Russians to try), that installed government is going to be extremely heavy handed with anyone rebelling, at least IMHO. Consider what the previous Ukrainian regime did that caused this series of events in the first place. Snipers attacking crowds of protesters. And that was before all of this. Putin is supposedly looking to reinstall that regime, which fled to Russia when this first went down, back into power. Even if it’s not them, it will be someone similar.
I hope this doesn’t happen. I hope the plucky Ukrainians manage to hold this off, manage to win at some level, that someone puts a bullet in Putin or that at a minimum cooler heads prevail in Russia and they back down. But…I don’t expect that to be the outcome. And I don’t see millions of Ukrainians, armed with AK-47’s continuing to fight after their military is defeated in the field and their government goes down. I expect some of them will fight…but, realistically, this isn’t going to be a huge number of folks for all the reasons RickJay and others in this thread are saying. It’s just not going to be. And, I think, folks need to set their expectations and also prepare themselves for the worst. Hope for the best in all of this, but keep it real, and be prepared for Russia to eventually win. And consider what the wests realistic options are going to be going forward if/when that happens.
I think this would qualify as a new doctrine, at least with respect to battlefield weapons:
— Stephen Peter Rosen, Department of Government, Harvard University
Hey, take it up with the OP, he’s the one who wants to hand out rifles like they were tic-tacs.
That dude misspelled “treason”.
Sure, that might be our best hope at this point, but make no mistake about it: any Russian who tries this in a time of war risks execution for treason.
My Google Fu absolutely fails me.
How many Jews were there in the USSR? I’ve posted this story before. One night, an ex Soviet stopped me on my way to the grocery store. He didn’t know much English. I knew less Russian. In broken English and some Yiddish he said (not an exact quote) ‘I see you wear a yarmulke all the time. Isn’t it wonderful to be Jewish in a country where you don’t have to worry about being taken away by the secret police for wearing a yarmulke, or going to shabbat services or having a Hebrew prayerbook? I think it is wonderful!’
All those Jews wanted out of the USSR. You remember when they rose up and overthrew the government? Neither do I. Remember when they mounted an armed insurgency? Neither do I. The OP’s understanding of the situation in Ukraine, and the realities of resistance is minimal at best.
Okay, so what if we give an AK47 to every Ukrainian citizen and send in 20,000 Korean commandos disguised as tourists?
I love the guy who obviously printed a Ukrainian flag on his home printer. “I don’t know where to buy a flag on short notice, but by Christ, my Canon G3200 still works!”
This would cause the people to lose too much morale. You will be seen as a weak leader with a hopeless cause, therefore losing international support. As opposed to fighting for every inch of land, evoking David and Goliath. Everybody likes to root for the underdog who won’t flinch in the face of danger. Nobody likes to root for a coward who relies on civilians shooting unsuspecting people in the back, even if they are occupiers.
The Russians would gain so much morale in the short term because of tangible progress. They won’t have to commit atrocities and so you don’t have as much international support for your insurgency. If the Russians take the cities without shedding blood and then you start shooting them after, you are seen as the aggressor, maybe even a terrorist group.
It just seems like a bad idea.
~Max