I think Putin thought the same about Zelensky. A puppet he could knock over in a few days.Do you think Russia began this prepared for a long war of attrition? — unenlightened

Even within your own logic, a puppet of who?

Obviously the US, and the US was clearly not interested in peace, rejecting to even discuss Russia's peace proposal before the war nor anything else (as well as forbidding their vassals in Europe of doing so of their own accord).

So, assuming you're correct and Putin views Zelensky a puppet of the US, why wouldn't said US puppet do what he's told and implement US policy of rejecting peace?

Russia built up a massive war chest, over 600 billion USD, over nearly a decade; why would they do that if they were not preparing to finance a potential long war of attrition.

More troops could have been committed to the initial invasion, but if the primary military goal was to secure the land bridge to Crimea then clearly the commitment was sufficient.

There's also not only the military sphere, but the Kremlin needed also to prepared and balance things for massive sanctions and economic disruption: hence prosecute the war with professional troops and mercenaries so as to overcome the initial shock of sanctions with minimal additional disruption to the civilian population.

Of course, certainly it can be argued a better strategy was available, diplomatic or militarily, but this idea that the war was initiated on some sort of whim without careful thought and planning is really quite ludicrous. There was already a war in the Donbas supported by Russia for 8 years, so clearly it is on the minds of military and political leaders that if there's no diplomatic settlement then a military solution is the only alternative. Putin received far more criticism within Russia for not intervening sooner, but obviously a war of this size and right next to Russia would be complicated, hence clear indications of preparation.

Had Russia mobilized more troops for the initial invasion, it risks Ukraine mobilizing and a blitz to take the key territory becomes harder rather than easier.

Likewise, had things been prepared even better, every soldier knowing they will be going to war and exactly what they will be doing, it again risks Ukrainian mobilization and hundreds of thousands additional dug in troops and the bridges out of Crimea mined, shelled and bombed rather than massive columns of Russian armour just rolling into South Ukraine (which clearly the Ukrainians were not prepared for and completely collapses their lines West of the Donbas allowing the Russians to conquer the land bridge).

Which also goes to explain such observations:

Anecdotally, they were running short first of fuel, then of personal equipment for troops, and then of munitions and tanks and even training facilities for the reinforcements. But perhaps that is all Western propaganda. — unenlightened

In addition to @Tzeentch already mentioning that perhaps Russian forces were adequately supplied for the advances they intended to make in the initial invasion, any giant operation is going to have all sorts of anecdotal problems along with major setbacks and confusions. No one here is arguing the Russian invasion went perfectly according to plan, we're just pointing out Russian decisions do make sense.

The idea that Russia is an irrational actor was quite clearly a myth created in the early days and sustained for over a year (sometimes cherry picking true but pretty expected things like equipment SNAFU's as well as obvious lies like exorbitant number of casualties), as it avoids the difficult question of how Ukraine is going to prevail over a far larger opponent.

You don't need a viable plan if you're fighting an army of essentially retarded monkeys.

'Shelling targets of military value for 2 months'? I suppose you mean shelling of residential suburbs from March 4 (when the main convoy got close enough) till March 24, when they were pushed out of artillery range, not so much because Ukrainians pushed so hard, but because they were out of resources (with the most shelling, which was even then not that intense, lasting about ten days)? That is three weeks... care to list the supposed targets of military value that were hit? — Jabberwock

Although of course far more focus was paid to damage to civilian zones, the shelling of industrial zones was covered even by the Western media.

This is from the Hindu Times, just because it's not behind a paywall but it's simply repeating what was reported by AP, Reuters et al.

In this one article you have shelling of industrial zones, such as the airplane factory:

Ukrainian authorities said two people were killed when the Russians struck an airplane factory in Kyiv, sparking a large fire. The Antonov factory is Ukraine’s largest aircraft manufacturing plant and is best known for producing many of the world’s biggest cargo planes. — Kyiv areas shelled but ‘hard’ Ukraine peace talks go ahead - Hindustan Times

as well as how negotiations were to a peace deal:

[Kyiv areas shelled but ‘hard’ Ukraine peace talks go ahead - Hindustan Times;https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/kyiv-areas-shelled-but-hard-ukraine-peace-talks-go-ahead-101647309135539.html]The latest negotiations, which were held via video conference, were the fourth round involving higher-level officials from the two countries and the first in a week. The talks ended without a breakthrough after several hours, with an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky saying the negotiators took “a technical pause” and planned to meet again Tuesday.

The two sides had expressed some optimism in the past few days. Mykhailo Podolyak, the aide to Zelensky, said over the weekend that Russia was “listening carefully to our proposals”. and that the negotiators would discuss “peace, ceasefire, immediate withdrawal of troops & security guarantees”.[/quote]

Now obviously a peace deal was not reached, but shelling industrial zones (of which the military value is repurposing to ) was clearly one purpose of the push to Kiev.

As you note yourself, Russian forces reached residential areas of which many industrial zones will be similar distance, if not farther, from the town centre. And even if you simply refuse to believe Russia got close enough to shell significant industrial zones it was clearly a priority for them, doing so with missiles as well:

[Russia says ammunition factory near Kyiv destroyed by missile strike - Reuters;https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-ammunition-factory-near-kyiv-destroyed-by-missile-strike-2022-04-17/]April 17 (Reuters) - Russian armed forces destroyed an ammunition factory near Kyiv, Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Sunday.

"Overnight, high-precision air-launched missiles destroyed an ammunition factory near the town of Brovary in Kyiv region," Konashenkov said.[/quote]

So obviously advancing to Kiev would also accomplish this purpose of being able to destroy factories of various kinds.

The supposed evidence is Tzeentch quoting an Ukrainian general in the days BEFORE the attack, so take it up with him. — Jabberwock

You have trouble with reading comprehension. I state that even if Ukraine knows Russian troop numbers approaching Kiev they still have to defend Kiev. Furthermore, even if this was your belief you could not be 100% certain the intelligence is accurate or then that Russia cannot move in more troops on short notice, so you'd need to price that risk into your defence of the city as well.

Russia does not require Kiev to believe they are genuinely attempting to take Kiev to accomplish various objectives. These explanations of pretty obvious things is in response to your thesis that:

It needs to be pointed out that the whole theory of 'just threatening Kiyv' with an army that was supposedly obviously and clearly incapable of threatening Kiyv, is simply incoherent. In order to make a threat you have to be visibly capable of employing a force that is able to fulfill that threat. In fact, usually when you make a threat, you try to exaggerate the projected force. — Jabberwock

Which for all the reasons I explain, is clearly not true. It's completely coherent to send a small force to fix a large amount of troops, destroy plenty of factories and infrastructure, apply significant political pressure, while 15% of the country is conquered in the meanwhile.

It's a pretty common sense manoeuvre and if Ukraine "called the bluff" and sent significant resources to the south and undermanned their defence of Kiev, then maybe Russia would have taken the opportunity to pour in troops and storm the city.

Now, if you want to argue the Northern operation was had more drawbacks then achievements, that shelling Kiev simply increased resolve and Western support and allowed Zelensky to play the hero and ambushes on overstretched supply lines make the Russians look bad and beatable, and so on, such arguments make sense. There was certainly pros and cons to the Northern operation to siege Kiev and a lot could be considered.

For example, I'd have no problem accepting an analysis which concluded that short term the siege of Kiev nearly achieved a negotiated peace (but ultimately failed) while assisting the conquest of the Southern land bridge, and in the medium term made increased Ukrainian and Western resolve while making Russia look bad when they needed to retreat, but in the longer term creating a refugee exodus significantly weakens Ukraine structurally (economically, new soldiers aging into fighting age for a long war, less people to do things generally speaking, etc.) which aids in winning a war of attrition.

I'd even be willing accept that had Russia not sieged Kiev and simply took the land bridge that ultimately it would be more likely Ukraine would have accepted Russia's peace deal, as there would be less "bad blood".

However, that may not have been predictable from the outset, it certainly seems logical that pressuring the capital would maximize pressure for a political settlement. Furthermore, if Ukraine was able to fully focus on the South then perhaps it would have been able to counter attack and relieve Mariupol, stabilize the lines far less favourably for the Russians and that would have encouraged further fighting as much as the siege of Kiev.

The Russian strategy makes obvious sense. Certainly there is always a better strategy available, but the idea that the army that has taken and held critical land for its stated and common sense war objectives (land bridge to Crimea, protect Russian speaking separatists) is somehow incompetent or that sieging Kiev has no relation to the accomplishments in the South, is just dumb.

So their plan was obviously NOT a long-term 'siege' of Kiyv, contrary to your claims, because you rightly conclude that it would open them to attacks from the rear and they would not be able to maintain the siege at all. — Jabberwock

"Long-term 'siege' " is a nice but lame strawman. Where do I say a long term siege is necessary to apply political pressure?

Russia sieges Kiev until Mariupol is fully taken (the withdrawal is the week after the surrender of the remaining Azov forces), tries to negotiate a peace during this time, a peace deal is not reached, they can't maintain their positions, so they are forced to leave.

There was clearly many advantages to the Russians of the push to Kiev as well as disadvantages. I have zero problem with the argument that in some final analysis there was more cons than pros, but clearly the strategy made sense and did achieve some key military objectives.

The 'blitz' taking of Kiyv, while risky and obviously unsuccessful, at least has some strategic merit. The northern operation as a 'siege' would be an even greater Russian failure - when you prepare for a siege, you do not issue your troops fuel for four days and you do not bypass major resistance centers (as you pointed out). The loss of material suffered there (not destroyed, but mostly abandoned, which for a long time was the main source of Ukrainian supplies) in no way justifies the supposed profit of vague 'political pressure' from one-fourth of a siege. — Jabberwock

The Russians are not routed and captured but have an orderly withdrawal when they retreat, so they obviously had enough fire power to hold their positions and get resupplied.

If it was a risky mad dash blitz the capital with only 4 days of fuel, then they would have all been captured when that failed.

Now, I have zero problem with the idea that the ideal scenario for the Russians is that the Ukrainians simply fall apart in terms of C&C and there's a near complete capitulation, or then no defence of the city is organized and they're able to take the city with a small force and the population accepts a total Russian victory. However, they do commit enough resources to maintain the positions they take around Kiev the time to accomplish full occupation of major cities in the south, particularly Mariupol.

However, what is clear even in your scenario is that there is not enough man power to take Kiev waging urban combat even against a small amount of defenders.

I of course agree that total capitulation by Ukraine would be the a preferred outcome of blitzing to Kiev, and if that was plan A then the Russians clearly had a plan B, but we seem to agree that their plan is not conquest of Kiev against any significant resistance.

It needs to be pointed out that the whole theory of 'just threatening Kiyv' with an army that was supposedly obviously and clearly incapable of threatening Kiyv, is simply incoherent. In order to make a threat you have to be visibly capable of employing a force that is able to fulfill that threat. In fact, usually when you make a threat, you try to exaggerate the projected force. — Jabberwock

What's incoherent about applying political pressure, a fixing operation, shelling targets of military value for 2 months as well as causing a flood of refugees out of Ukraine?

It's also completely ignorant of the history of war. Laying siege to a city rather than trying to storm it right off the bat is a pretty old and common sense tactic, essentially as old as fortified urban centres themselves.

Of course modern cities are not fortified on purpose but it turns out lots of concrete buildings serve that purpose, and applying pressure by purposefully starving urban populations is no longer "a thing" (except if you're Israel of course), but a siege applies significant pressure nonetheless and created a significant barrier to moving people that are in Kiev to the southern front.

Even if Ukraine knew (i.e. informed by the US) that the Russians did not have enough forces to take and occupy Kiev, they still have to direct significant forces to defend the capital as it's a politically critical target. Furthermore, few things are certain in war, so likely Kiev did not "know" Russian troop numbers and disposition or then what man power Russia could divert to Kiev on short notice.

Meanwhile, during the battle of Kiev, Russia took the land bridge to Crimea and then pacified those regions they are still occupying today.

Another indication of Russian strategy to take the South and not Kiev is that Russia not only did not engage in fierce Urban combat in Kiev but bypassed most urban centres on the way to Kiev, which was a significant weakness in terms of maintaining their position around Kiev as Ukrainians could go out from these bypassed urban areas and ambush and harass the Russian supply line.

Then there is the political pressure of the capital being gotten to from both sides in short period of time and siege starting.

Now, would surrounding the capital without being able to take it and occupy it apply enough pressure to cause a complete unconditional surrender? No, obviously not, if the defence of the city was holding up there would be little reason to just completely capitulate.

However, the Russians were not asking complete capitulation, but at that time there main demands were a neutral Ukraine, recognizing Crimea as part of Russia and an independent Donbas, so occupying the South of Ukraine and slowly surrounding the capital and shelling significant parts of it and causing a refugee crisis etc. was significant pressure to accept Russian demands.

It's certainly a reasonable strategy that facilitates taking the South in the event Ukraine refuses peace terms and wants to continue fighting.

What is completely unclear is what scenario the Kremlin viewed as more likely, Ukraine accepting peace terms or then a longer war. It can be argued both ways. The story emerges, in both the West and Russia, that Russian intelligence underestimated Ukraine, but there's no hard evidence for this. It's pretty typical for countries starting a war to promise their population a quick victory even if the leaders know there is significant risk it can take a long time.

One could also argue that the operation to lay siege to Kiev had serious drawbacks such as creating the perfect scene for Zelensky to rally Ukrainian and Western support, hardening the Ukrainian will rather than weaken it and since the positions could not be maintained long term then setting up a Ukrainian victory.

Pointing out that the Russian strategy made sense and clearly on the whole delivered the result of conquering the Ukrainian lands Russia now occupies, and that the Northern operation achieved plenty of purposes other than storming and occupying Kiev, does not imply it's some optimum military maneuver.

In my view, militarily it was a good strategy and prevented Ukraine from organizing any sort of counter offensive in the South, especially to try to rescue the trapped Azov guys and destroying or capturing Azov Battalion was a significant victory for Russia in terms of consolidating their gains, but also domestic and international politics.

Politically it did have the draw backs mentioned above, but I don't think Ukraine would have been any closer to agreeing to peace terms without sieging the capital.

First and foremost, the battle for Kyiv wasn't some kind of fake attack. Yet the fall of Ukraine didn't happened and Putin (correctly) then withdraw. Yet it's obvious, starting from Clausewitz, that this was one of the most important objectives: either take or surround the capital. — ssu

That there was no intention or plan to occupy Kiev does not mean it was a fake attack.

The purpose was to pressure Ukrainians / Zelensky into negotiating a settlement while also fixing troops while the South was conquered and pacified (and Azov battalion destroyed in Mariupol and prevent some sort of heroic rescue of them).

Pointing out 20 000 troops isn't enough to conquer in urban combat and occupy a capital city of a few million does not mean the attack was "fake", just that there was obviously no intention to do something so obviously impossible.

The Russians also shelled everything of military value in Kiev, such as war industries, so it accomplished that too.

And in the meantime you'll just ignore the evidence because it suits you. Because that's proper epistemology, apparently. — Echarmion

Ignore what evidence?

I went and looked for ISW tally of Russian and Ukrainian losses, as even if heavily biased towards supporting Western narratives, I'd nevertheless be surprised if they were arguing Ukraine is inflicting the many multiple times more losses required to win a war of attrition with the Russians.

I ask you to actually cite the evidence you're referring to in the context of you complaining about the lack of evidence to support facts you don't dispute ... and you just claim I'm ignoring your evidence by asking for the actual evidence??

Oryx I also did not ignore but pointed out their methodology of just looking at videos published by Ukraine and taking them at face value is not even moronically intellectually dishonest but pure propaganda; it's essentially just relabelling Ukrainian propaganda and then considering it independent. Absolute rubbish.

I didn't ask you to prove any of these, but I'm glad you got all that anger off your chest. — Echarmion

What anger. I ask you questions.

That the questions don't need answering because the answers are so obvious closes the case that you are a complete fool.

You ask for "the evidence" to support my arguments, I ask you what evidence you want to see, and then you say you aren't asking me to prove any of the facts needed to make my argument that: bigger army with more capabilities is very likely to win a war of attrition.

Oh god you're actually serious... — Echarmion

Since the invasion, Russia has mobilized hundreds of thousands more troops thus essentially creating another army compared to the first army that invaded.

Again, what are you disputing? That Russia has mobilized hundreds of thousands additional troops? Or just you'd quibble about calling such a mobilization another army?

At the start of the war everyone assumed the russian army would overrun Ukraine in weeks, as far as I remember. — Echarmion

This is just false. Plenty of military analysts pointed out that 200 000 troops is not enough to overrun Ukraine, that Ukraine is huge, that Ukraine has the largest Army in Europe, can mobilize hundreds of thousands of additional troops, is supported by US / NATO weapons, logistics and intelligence.

Go and find even one expert pre-war military analysis that concluded Russia would overrun Ukraine in weeks, then contrast your failure to find even with "everybody".

Academic, think tank, and even talking heads in the media all agreed that essentially the maximum aim of the Russians would be to create a land bridge to Crimea compared to a minimalist incursion to simply protect the Donbas separatists. The idea Russia would be conquering all of Ukraine in weeks did not exist.

Of course, Ukraine could capitulate, but all there was pretty wide consensus that if Ukraine decided to fight it can put up a serious fight and would not be easy to defeat.

Maybe it cannot, but for one Russia is not as of now fighting a total war in Ukraine and, for another, military capabilities seem to be about at parity for now, which means that Ukraine certainly has not lost the ability to negotiate from a position of strength. — Echarmion

For someone who complains about a lack of evidence to support facts you don't doubt to begin with, you say a lot of baseless obviously false things.

Ukraine still has no air power remotely comparable to the Russians, and their top general complains about it regularly that air power is required for modern warfare.

Air power has been essential for conventional warfare since WWII. The entire US military strategy and force composition is centred around achieving air supremacy.

What parity?

As for negotiating from a position of strength ... Russia was offering Donbas to remain in Ukraine, just with some political autonomy so as to protect Russian speakers, both before the war and during the first phase. You seriously believe Ukraine will be able to get such a deal now?

And even if that was somehow in the cards (which it's not) what could possibly justify over a year more of fighting and such devastation to a deal that was rejected?

However, your focus on capabilities again simply highlights your complete ignorance of military affairs and total lack of understanding of "facts on the ground" you allude to.

The smaller party is going to lose a war of attrition even with parity in capabilities.

Russia does not need to fight a total war to fight with Ukraine, it needs only match Ukraine in man power and then rely on replenishing its forces and greater capabilities to grind down the Ukrainian military to the point of total collapse.

Since it's far larger, Russia can match Ukraine's total war and also keep running its peace time economy at the same time.

The fact that you understand Russia is not at total war but there is a "stalemate" (aka. war of attrition) should be enough in itself to conclude Ukraine is in a disastrous position.

Again apart from the fact that they have alredy suffered three major defeats in this war and have had obvious problems replacing both men and materiel.

To be sure I'm not claiming Ukraine is certain to win, but so far the war has certainly not demonstrated Russia's overwhelming superiority. — Echarmion

Russia needs to balance the war effort with maintaining a functioning economy and also domestic support for the war.

This is what the West was betting Russia would be unable to do, especially under the "nuclear option" of massive sanctions.

That was the theory of victory, some sort of internal Russian collapse. Since that didn't happen, Ukraine is now screwed as there was no military backup plan. Ukraine fighting was supposed to trigger some sort of Russian revolution and so there was no need to defeat the Russian military in the field.

There was never any evidence this theory of victory could likely work (of course, in "hypothetical land" nearly anything can work) but it was an easy sell to a Western audience.

Well, so what? The Russians told us, over the course of some 20 years, that they view it as a threat to their vital security. We, the West, snubbed them at every turn because we thought they were weak. — Tzeentch

I'd like to elaborate on this for the benefit of people who have been confused by Western propaganda that spins military hardware and assistance as non-threatening.

The propaganda is based on the bait-and-switch fallacy of first establishing providing military assistance is legal and then switching out legal for "non threatening", then any rational discussion of this error in reasoning simply being met with endless confusion as to what "threat means", essentially concluding with the argument that since NATO does not intend to attack Russia that therefore military hardware moved close to Russia is not threatening.

The analogy required to understand how stupid this propaganda is, is to consider the scenario where I put a loaded gun to your head and then tell you I'm not threatening you because I don't intend to pull the trigger.

That a gun to your head is a threat to your safety is independent of the intention to shoot you.

Military hardware is by definition a threat to one's safety and by definition moving said military hardware closer is moving said threat closer and the party it's being moved closer to will naturally feel more threatened than if that hardware was further away.

This was a critical piece of propaganda as without accepting moving military means closer to another country is by definition moving a threat closer to that country which may provoke said country to reduce the threat, makes any rational analysis of the situation impossible.

Of course, you can argue that the military hardware moved further and further East towards Russia has nothing to do with Russia and is just a fun exercise.

Likewise, you can argue that even if Russia should feel threatened by NATO moving hardware East it shouldn't respond by invading West; that "defending national interest" is only a US prerogative, for example.

Or one could argue that despite the hardware being an obvious threat that a rational actor should try to diminish, that NATO is so far more powerful than Russia that there is no effective response.

The problem with all these arguments is of course it begs the question of why move military hardware further East if the West has no intention to threaten Russia as it claims and maybe it's just better to negotiate peace rather than do destabilizing things, in the best light, to not really achieve anything. Did moving NATO missile bases into Eastern Europe make Eastern Europe safer and a better place? If not, what was the point again?

Fanatical fighting, however, is incompatible with rational analysis.

Apparent from reading reports by the ISW, Oryx, or various commentators who cite their sources. — Echarmion

I do not find where ISW makes any tally of Russian losses.

Oryx methodology is an absolute joke; they count any piece of video provided by Ukraine with zero context purporting to show a Russian loss as a "verified" Russian loss.

Anyways, with the end of the war we'll get a better picture of what the losses have actually been.

I demand argument mostly, and some reference to facts on the ground rather than airy declarations.

You, I might remind you, have provided zero evidence yourself. — Echarmion

I've provided plenty of evidence throughout this discussion to support my points.

For the matter at hand however, it's not under dispute that Russia is the larger force. You don't dispute that, neither does anyone else. The argument is straightforward that the larger force is likely to win, especially in a a war of attrition that is the current configuration of the war.

The argument is so obvious based on so obvious facts that asking for references just highlights your confusion as to where you are, what your purpose in life is and what is happening generally speaking. For, you, nor anyone else, disputes these facts, so there is no need to support them with citations.

I point out that actual evidence is needed to believe the contrary: that despite being a smaller country with a smaller military and less capabilities, that Ukraine is going to win or there is even a viable path to victory.

You, nor anyone else, can now present such evidence that Ukraine is "winning" against the odds, or even a remotely plausible theory of how Ukraine could potentially win.

The best that is offered is that it's hypothetically possible for a smaller force to defeat a larger force or then larger forces have tired of war and gone home in the past.

Failing to answer such questions and find any evidence, you feebly retreat to demanding I provide evidence to support my position.

You really want evidence that Russia is the larger country with the larger military? Or do you really want evidence that the war at the moment, and since a while, is not a war of manoeuvre but of attrition?

Or do you want me to through the basic arithmetic required to understand that in any attritional process of even remote parity (of which there is no reason to believe any asymmetry is in Ukraine's favour), the larger of the abrading assemblies has the advantage.

Or do you want me to cite CNN citing Ukrainian top officials saying exactly the same thing?

Two articles published this week give a stark assessment of Ukraine’s prospects in its war with Russia. One – by the commander in chief of the Ukrainian military – admits the battlefield has reached a stalemate and a long attritional war benefiting Moscow beckons. The other portrays Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as exhausted by the constant effort to cajole and persuade allies to keep the faith.

Ukraine’s military chief, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, says in a long essay and interview with the Economist that “just like in the First World War we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.”

He acknowledges: “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough,” but instead an equilibrium of devastating losses and destruction. — Exhausted and disappointed with allies, Ukraine’s president and military chief warn of long attritional war - CNN

So are the Ukrainians fools for strategically deciding which front to defend? Because earlier you lauded Finnland for that strategy. — Echarmion

I lauded Finland for using military action to support feasible political objectives and conserving their military force through defending rather than working themselves up into a delusional war frenzy and promising to "retake every inch of Finnish lands" before recklessly throwing themselves at prepared Soviet Defences.

Now, it just so happens that Finland had suitable geography to defend against a larger force, one reason to gamble on costly military defence rather than capitulate.

Ukrainian political leaders are fools for not using their military leverage (before it is exhausted) to negotiate the best possible terms for peace.

These are the kind of airy statements unmoored from facts on the ground that I meant earlier. — Echarmion

What are you disputing exactly? That Ukraine won the battle of Kiev in 2022?

Or are you disputing the basic principle that military power should be used to achieve political objectives (either by physically implementing them or leverage in negotiation) ... rather than express wanton hate and strive for pointless destruction?

Hahaha, yeah the famed second russian army they kept in reserve. Too bad it never made it to Ukraine... — Echarmion

I'm referring to the fact that Russia has far larger professional standing army, far more reservists and conscripts that can be mobilized. Are you disputing this fact? That Russia, being larger, has far more manpower available?

And this famed second army does exist and is still in reserve. It may simply be used to simply continue the attritional fighting and rotate and replenish troops or maybe it will be used for some large offensive maneuver anywhere along the border with Ukraine / Belarus.

You're discussing a strawman. The russian army has demonstrated ability to learn in various areas. That said it still seems to suffer from C&C flaws, which aren't surprising in an autocratic regime.

But anyway what's the point of discussing when you're clearly have a very different picture of reality but don't seem interested in naming your sources. — Echarmion

What straw man? I'm discussing the propaganda pervasive at the start of the war that the Russian army was incompetent and easy to defeat. Propaganda that was essential to convince the West and Ukraine to rush into total war.

For, if you paused to reflect that Russia is far larger and the degree to which, man for man, Ukraine would need to outperform Ukraine with less military capabilities (air, sea, armour, drones, electronic warfare etc.) the doubt may creep in that maybe Ukraine cannot win a total war with Russia and it would be much better for the Ukrainian people and Europe to negotiate a peace, compromise with the Russians to save lives and as much Ukrainian sovereignty as possible.

Of course, no need for such sober deliberations if the Russian soldier is some hapless retarded child wandering around the battle field in a blissfully ignorant whimsy.

Again, the position that requires evidence is the idea that Ukraine can inflict massively asymmetric losses required to win.

My position is based on the facts that are not in dispute: Russia is larger and has more military capabilities and there is no reason to believe Ukraine can somehow win in such a disadvantaged position.

Of course, US / NATO could have tried to even the odds by pouring in advanced capabilities, but they didn't because they fear nuclear escalation, which even if the risk is small is not a risk worth taking for Ukraine.

Russia takes 20% of Ukraine territory and your conclusions is:

Russia meanwhile has demonstrated the ability to take territory by assaulting a relatively small sector of the front with a large, grinding assault. But the losses this causes are apparently very heavy and it's very slow. — Echarmion

But the losses this causes are apparently very heavy and it's very slow. Ukraine meanwhile has failed to penetrate heavy russian defenses. — Echarmion

Apparent to whom? What evidence?

You demand others provide evidence (often of completely obvious things to anyone following the conflict, which is what we do here) and yet provide none yourself.

Ukraine won the battle for Kiev, the battle for Charkiv (that one actually was a major rout) and the battle for Kherson. — Echarmion

While Ukraine was "winning" the battle for Kiev, Russia simply rolled out of Crimea (on bridges that were neither bombed nor shelled) and created a land bridge from Crimea to Russian mainland.

However, true that Ukraine was at least able to defend Kiev and did not entirely capitulate and clearly demonstrated that if Russia was to settle things militarily it would be extremely costly (which it has been). Of course, when a smaller force makes such a demonstration to a larger force it is extremely likely that continued fighting will be even more costly to the smaller force.

Therefore, the smaller force should aim to use the leverage of the prospect of a costly and risky war (not only in itself but in terms of extrinsic events) to negotiate a peace on the most favourable terms.

Ukraine achieved that after the winning the battle of Kiev.

Unfortunately, if temporarily winning one battle among many losses, against what is essentially an imperial expeditionary force (not remotely the whole your adversary can muster) goes to your head and you, the smaller force, decide your soldiers are so much better and more motivated than your enemy and you are in fact in position to settle things on the battle field (aka. delusional), then that leverage starts going away.

The more the war goes on, the more the larger force will want to "show for it" and the more foolish the decision to keep fighting becomes compared to settling things quickly (especially when reasonable peace terms were proposed): enter wishful thinking driving strategy rather than any realistic summation of prospects.

And the reason it is delusional is that against a far larger force you'd need to inflict losses at such a disproportionate rate and sustain that against the enemy being able to do something call learning. There was never any concrete evidence Ukraine could inflict disproportionate casualties on the Russians at the scale of the entire war (certainly some engagements go better or worse) and any critical enquiry would be met with "well .... Ukraine doesn't disclose its casualties; it's a war you know, very secret stuff", but even if the propaganda was true you'd need to believe Russia would be unable to adapt and even the playing field, which is an incredibly foolish assumption considering Russia has not only more resources, available manpower but far more capabilities than Ukraine (air, sea, armour, etc.); it is not a situation where Ukraine is carpet bombing at will Russian troops equipped essentially with only small arms.

Why the myth of the incompetent Russian soldier who essentially wants to die was so critical to make Ukraine's commitment to further fighting and explicit refusal to negotiate make sense. You'd have to believe that the Russian soldier is essentially retarded to maintain the idea that the Russian army won't figure out some effective use of all its equipment, assuming you believed the propaganda that Ukraine was inflicting asymmetric losses on the Russians (rather than what was likely: Ukraine was suffering significantly more losses maintaining ground against Russia's professional and better equipped army and then later mercenaries).

Hard to see the Russians going home. — Tzeentch

Yes, it's almost impossible to envision in the actual war at hand.

Unlike some remote and exotic place that normal people don't care about, the war is right on Russia's border and defending (from the Russian point of view) ethnic Russians as well as retaking lands that were Russian for hundreds of years. These are elements that strongly motivate a population to fight a war, very unlike wandering around the mountains in Afghanistan for no clear reason.

Pressure on Zelensky is growing to start negotiations with the Russians. He has cancelled elections because by now everybody understands Zelensky wouldn't be re-elected. People within the Ukrainian military and political establishment are starting to admit that things are much worse than the media makes them appear. — Tzeentch

Yes, we haven't even gotten to the part where all this skeptical analysis of Ukraine's prospects in a long war (compared to negotiating before or then in the short term after the war started) accumulated here and elsewhere is starting to be openly admitted and discussed even in mainstream Western media.

But it's not a stalemate. Ukraine is losing, and it's losing decisively. That's why the pressure is growing. Sensible people understand that the longer Ukraine waits to negotiate, the more Ukraine's negotiating position will deteriorate.

'Stalemate' is just a cope term, to save face, to avoid having to admit defeat to domestic audiences, and to not have to utter the words "the Russians won". — Tzeentch

Agreed.

What's worse than calling a war of attrition a stalemate, the comparison to WWI trench warfare is particular irritatingly ignorant.

WWI wasn't a stalemate! I'm pretty sure one side lost.

The bottomline now is that Ukraine is not going to join NATO, and the question is whether negotiations will be able to produce something that the West and Ukraine can prop up to their domestic populations.

EU-membership might be that thing, though it's questionable whether this is realistic considering how utterly broken Ukraine is, and the fact that the EU has some pretty strict criteria on whether a country can join. It might simply be a carrot to dangle infront of Zelensky's face to get him to negotiate, or to give Zelensky something to sell to Ukrainians as a 'victory'. — Tzeentch

This should be the problem, but the underlying problem is the extent of the losses. As soon as the war ends there is going to be a tally of Ukrainian dead and permanently disabled and it will be revealed the extent to which Ukrainians and the West were lied to and the madness driving the war will be revealed.

The entire justification for the war effort was that Ukraine was inflicting more losses than sustaining, or then the moments of skepticism about that in Western media would fall back to at least parity: that "maybe" Ukrainians aren't inflicting more losses but then it would be about the same.

It is the day of reckoning that Zelensky fears most and he will do everything to avoid it.

I would argue that it is simply not mentally possible for Zelensky to face the reality of what he has done, especially as multiple opportunities to negotiate a peace existed before and during the war.

Everyone else can just say they were following orders, naturally.

Hence the need to gradually discredit Zelensky and get rid of him.

That is my prediction anyways.

I think this is all quite bleak and tragic, especially for Ukraine itself. I can't imagine having to make such sacrifices only for it to be in vain. But that's the price to pay for politicians who deal in delusions and fairy tales. — Tzeentch

It is certainly a great tragedy.

And we have definitely learned that wishful thinking doesn't win wars. Again.

Right, because it's absolutely impossible for a smaller country to win against a larger one. Never happens, ever. — Echarmion

Where do I say it's impossible?

It's called evidence. Actual evidence is needed to support the idea that Ukraine is winning or can win in this case against a larger and stronger opponent. Otherwise, without evidence to the contrary it is reasonable to assume that the much larger and more powerful force is going to win a military confrontation.

Something being hypothetically possible does not lend any weight to it actually being the case in reality, which is the topic here.

And the Finns were right, while Ukraine is wrong, because? — Echarmion

The Finns were right because their strategy was realistic: Finland in WWII could not defeat the Soviet Union, but by defending long enough it would motivate the Soviet Union to agree to a peace on more favourable terms that outright capitulation or eventual military defeat.

The Finns leveraged their much smaller military force to maximize their defensive advantage in order to support a political objective of remaining independent.

Throughout the entire conflict with the Soviet Union, Finland maintained constant diplomatic talks.

What they didn't do is just throw their hands up, declare the Soviet Union evil, Stalin evil, and they wouldn't talk or negotiate with them and demand the world finance their entire war effort and most of their economy without any discernible political objective, or "end game" in modern talking head parlance.

I don't have access to the intelligence Ukraine had when deciding on that offensive, so I have no idea whether the effort was delusional. They seem to have adjusted their tactics to the situation on the ground well enough. — Echarmion

We have enormous amounts of intelligence to go on, including regularly updated satellite imagery of Russian positions which showed us elaborate and multi-layered fortifications with extensive mine fields.

What sort of intelligence could Ukraine possibly have that would indicate attacking fortified lines built up over a whole year would be less costly to them compared to not-doing-that and waiting for Russia to attack Ukraine's own fortified positions?

Now *that* is a delusional scenario unless we assume the Russian leadership is a suicide cult. — Echarmion

Why didn't the US and NATO acolytes pour in all the advanced weaponry they have since trickled into Ukraine from the get go? Why aren't squadrons of f16 with all the advanced sensors and missiles and other munitions not patrolling Ukrainians skies as we speak?

The first year of the war, Ukraine had realistic chances of defeating the Russian forces that had invaded. Russia had not yet even partly mobilized, had not yet built up sophisticated defences, and were prosecuting the war with their professional soldiers and a band of mercenaries.

If the goal was to defeat Russia in Ukraine, it was certainly possible in the first months and year. Of course, that would not end the war but would be a humiliating military disaster for Russia, which combined with the disruption of the sanctions, would have solid chances of unravelling the Russian state as the Neo-cons so desired.

Now, instead of "providing what Ukraine needs" the West simply made arbitrary rules of what could be supplied: no tanks, no howitzers, no "offensive" missiles that could reach Russia proper, certainly no Western aircraft or helicopters, no advanced drones and so on.

When questioned about these limitations, sometime US or NATO officials would make up some lame excuse, but mostly they would simply say that they don't want to "escalate".

Escalate to where? To Ukraine winning, at least a first war?

No, obviously escalate to nuclear weapons.

If Russia was actually facing military defeat, lines collapsing, tens of thousands of prisoners, chaotic mobilization and so on, furious population and the start of civil unrest etc. they would certainly consider the use of nuclear weapons to salvage the situation.

Of course, we don't know if they would use nuclear weapons.

What we do know, is that the US and NATO did not want to find out what the decision would be.

And why? Because if you war game it out, if NATO and the US "pushed hard" in Ukraine and actually supplied what could deliver victory to Ukraine, and there was a flood of advanced Western weapons, then Russia certainly could legitimately say it is de facto in a state of war with NATO and so strike NATO bases in Eastern Europe with nuclear weapons as well as every bridge across the Dnieper as well as critical bunkers, C&C and supply centres to arrest the Ukrainian advance.

Now, you can argue that maybe such attacks wouldn't work, that all Russian warheads are duds or missile defence would work flawlessly to deal with it or whatever, but maybe such strikes would work perfectly well.

There is no rule that the use of tactical nuclear weapons automatically triggers a full on armageddon. You could say all Russian second strike capability are duds too ... ok, well, maybe they aren't.

So the question becomes first is it worth risking a full strategic exchange of nuclear weapons on all major cities in the West ... to protect a non-NATO members property over Russian speakers in East Ukraine?

And second, if the escalation stops and the end result is Russia hit some bases in Eastern Europe and NATO his some comparable Russian bases somewhere, and the war in Ukraine is ended as Russia can anyways just nuke at will there without there even being any treaty obligation to respond, is this a "win" for the West?

Maybe the outcome is better for the West than for Russia, but it doesn't seem to me a desirable situation.

More important than my opinion in explaining events, it is clearly NATO's opinion not to escalate anywhere close to what would cause Russia to seriously consider the use of nuclear weapons.

So, the logical corollary of such a policy is to support Ukraine enough to prop it up and avoid an embarrassing collapse but not enough to pose any real risk to Russian forces. So as Ukraine's fighting capacity diminishes, this policy calls for trying to reestablish parity with those advanced weapons that was "common sense" couldn't be sent sometimes even the month before.

What are they winning exactly? — Echarmion

They are winning the war. They have successfully conquered nearly a quarter of Ukraine, and arguably the most valuable quarter in terms of resources and the part that most speaks Russian.

The current "stalemate" is a war of attrition that heavily favours the larger force.

If you want to argue these aren't worthwhile moral objectives or then they are losing in some economic or political way (vis-a-vis the West; clearly Ukraine is far more damaged than Russia and is not winning in any political or economic sense against Russia), then you are free to do so, but the context of such an argument would be the Russians are at least winning militarily in Ukraine.

↪boethius, let me just check that I understand your theory, the military-industrial complex decides what is and isn't sent to Ukraine, and they're in business. — jorndoe

This is not my theory at all.

"Drip Feed theory" (DFT) is that what is sent to Ukraine depends on what kind of help will prop up Ukraine in the short term while not being a real threat to Russia nor piss them off "too much".

So, the "next thing" is only sent to Ukraine after their fighting capacity is degraded sufficiently that they risk collapse if they don't get "the next thing" but also they no longer pose much of a threat even with "the next thing".

The reason for this policy is that if you sit down and really try to "push things" and consider doing what would need to be done to see through a Ukrainian victory, then rapidly you need to contend with nuclear escalation.

Help too much the Ukrainians with too sophisticated weapons and Russia can easily say things such as the weapons are entirely dependent on systems and information support outside Ukraine and is de facto at war with NATO and then not only strike Ukraine with nuclear weapons but also strike NATO bases in East-Europe.

Now, maybe NATO responds by nuking some Russian bases. If there's a full scale nuclear exchange that follows, that's not "winning" anything.

However, Russia could not respond, just take the loss in exchange for the loss of NATO bases in Eastern Europe, but retaliate instead by nuking more Ukraine, for example all the major cities rendering Ukraine completely unable to keep fighting.

And those would be the only two outcomes. Obviously, you have to nuke something if you get nuked, that goes without saying, but scenario 1 is a loss (doesn't matter much if Russia loses too for any rational actor) and scenario 2 is also a loss and arguably a win for Russia.

Of course, if there's no need to use nuclear weapons then as as has been noted many times there are lot's of reasons Russia would not use nuclear weapons in the current situation: because they are winning. Hence, if the West wants to minimize the risk of the use of nuclear weapons, then it needs to keep Russia winning by undersupplying Ukraine.

Well, a Soviet Union, with far more arms and men, did tire from fighting a far smaller war Afghanistan, even they managed to kill far more Afghans than the US ever. But you assume this war hasn't had any effect on Russia? — ssu

I literally say "Of course, maybe Russia will 'tire out'," followed with "feel free to present evidence that will happen 'this time' ", and ending with "but there's a lot of lives to gamble to test such a theory."

I am completely aware that larger armies can simply tire of fighting and go home and that is one potential outcome in any war, that's why I literally say so.

That it has happened before, however, is not evidence it will happen this time.

Feel free to provide evidence Russia, in whatever general form is required to continue to prosecute the war, is not committed to said war, and in particular defending the annexed territories.

Unlike in Afghanistan in the Cold War, Russia is defending Russian speakers in the annexed regions and defending a critical long term strategic position.

Additionally, unlike Afghanistan, I would argue there isn't really an option of "just leaving" due to the geology (of there being no natural barrier between Ukraine and Russia) and politically due to the annexations.

That entirely depends on the larger situation. You can't just sit on the defensive all the time either. There are plenty of plausible reasons why Ukraine might want to push even into prepared russian defenses - to fix troops in place, to keep russian commanders on the defensive psychologically, to seize tactically advantageous positions, to force the russian artillery to fire so they can be targeted with counter-battery fire. I could go on, but the point is your analysis is simplistic to the point of being useless. — Echarmion

You can't be on the defensive all the time in football, you can be on the defensive all the time in a war.

Of course, there are offensive actions that will optimize defence, but the great Ukrainian offensive to cut the land bridge and then retake Crimea is not such offensive actions undertaken for the purposes of defence.

When you are a smaller country invaded by a larger country, the correct military strategy is to defend, minimizing your own losses while maximizing losses on the enemy. Of course, doing so requires defending positions until they are no longer fit for purpose and retreating to prepared fortifications behind you (the opposite direction of a foolish charge at the enemy's fortifications).

Of course, the pace of retreat must be slow enough in order to render the ongoing conquest of the entire country too costly.

Now, offensive operations do have a uses within the context of a defensive strategy. Making your enemy fear surprise offensives and counter-offensives makes them divert resources and increases the costs and complexity of planning, all of which further slows down the attacker.

The classic purpose of defending against a superior force that will eventually win is give time for diplomatic actions.

There are only two available:

1. convince other parties to join the war. For example the UK defending against Nazi Germany to buy time for the US to join the war and save them.

2. Negotiate a peace using the leverage of the high cost of further fighting.

When a larger country with a much larger military invades a smaller country with a smaller military, plan A is for the smaller country to simply capitulate. There are many sound and rational reasons to simply capitulate and this happens regularly throughout history. People don't want to die, nor see their country destroyed, and the new boss maybe remarkably similar to the old boss anyways.

However, if the smaller country musters a defence then it is in a position to negotiate better terms than an outright surrender.

Finland fighting the Soviet Union has been often cited as some sort of model for Ukraine.

Ukraine's initial defence does follow the Finnish model (or pretty much any smaller country putting up a serious defense).

However, in then quickly diverges into delusional fantasy of "beating" the Russians. Finland, not being delusional that it could defeat the Soviet Union, needed to agree to a peace and accept it lost said war with the Soviet Union, lost 20% of their territory, lost access to the Arctic Ocean, the largest lake previously split with the Soviet Union, a cultural heartland, and of course many lives, and last but not necessarily least had to concede defeat to the Soviet Union (kiss ass in more formal diplomatic parlance) and agree to pay massive war reparations that transformed the country's ecology (in order to cut down enough trees to pay for the privilege of still existing as a country).

In the case Finland, military defensive strategy coherently supported diplomatic efforts. The only nuance being the Finns did reconquer territory at one point, but this was not a delusional strategy but a bet that Nazi Germany (not themselves) would defeat the Soviet Union and they could get all their land back that way (though it should be noted the Finns also hedged their bets and did not go past their initial borders in order to have a better diplomatic position in case the Nazis lost; aka. not provide the Soviet Union with casus belli of a war of reprisal if they defeated the Nazis).

Point is, you can always be on the defensive and it is wise to do so against a superior force and the point would be to negotiate a peace that is better than both capitulation and complete conquest.

There is zero point to go on a delusional campaign right into sophisticated prepared defences of a superior force.

Catch-phrases such as "you can't just sit on the defensive all the time either." are true in football and other similar sports.

Now, if you mean that some offensive actions support defence and that by "depends on the circumstances" you agree Ukraine's campaign to "cut the land bridge" and "retake Crimea" was a delusional fools errand, then we agree.

People have been bashing each other's heads in for scraps of territory for hundreds of years. — Echarmion

Did you even read what I wrote?

What I wrote assumed Ukraine's goal of "freedom" and pointed out that freeing a few while putting the rest at risk makes no military sense.

Attacking prepared defences in a war of attrition as the smaller party is the opposite of military sanity. This is the point to make it more clear.

Of course, the reason for doing so is to maintain a (delusional) narrative that the West just kind of needs to hear right now and since the star of the war, which leads to the vast sums of money required to even be in the game. To have "a chance", Ukraine needs to do militarily stupid things for the sake of optics.

Now, if the required sacrifices on the Western political altar led to the promised demise of the Russian state by mechanism that were and remain essentially voodoo (i.e. magical thinking without any precedent in history at all), then the military moves would have had to have made sense had the things that would have made them make sense happened to have actually happened. But they didn't.

This is literally an article about Russian helicopters being shot down by advancing UAF forces. It details how Ukraine has increased the air defense capabilities over brigades advancing into Russian-held territory. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The point is Ukraine doesn't have such helicopters to be shot down.

The other point would be the damage these helicopters do.

Sure, Ukraine can shoot some down from time to time, that's what attritional warfare is.

Both sides take losses in a war of attrition, that's sort of the definition.

Ukraine has less man power and less capabilities ... so how is it going to win a war of attrition?

The destruction of a large number of rotary wing craft over the past two weeks thanks to the US (finally) delivering long(er) range missiles has further reduced Russia's ability to use rotary wing craft. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Again why is it "finally"?

Why didn't US just supply these weapons before the Ukrainian offensive ... or then during when Ukraine was having so much trouble even getting to Russian fortified lines with armoured vehicles due to said helicopters?

Why only supply the missiles after the offensive has failed and the capability of the attack helicopters was realized in their ideal role of destroying advancing armoured columns?

The copium is so thick it's hard to see in here.

The claim that Russia can use their air force "at will" is patently ridiculous no matter who says it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So the same journalist you just cited to minimize the effectiveness of Russian helicopter (which his point was more that "maybe" Ukraine will be able to deal with them ) is also "ridiculous" when he says something you don't like. We can of course get pedantic over what exactly "at will" means, how pervasive and permissive it means "exactly", but we at agree that Forbes and myself use it in the same way; if you'd reserve the expression more for explaining wizards literally conjuring up glide bombs with their minds and solemn chants, that's your prerogative.

Have Russian sorties been increasing as of late? They haven't. — Count Timothy von Icarus

They have been using more glide bombs — Count Timothy von Icarus

How do you use more glide bombs with less sorties?

But again, the point is Ukraine essentially has no airforce in which it can be attritted.

Having less men and less capabilities is not a good position in a war of attrition.

Of course, maybe Russia will "tire out", feel free to present evidence that will happen "this time", but there's a lot of lives to gamble to test such a theory.

I mean you're right about that, but your reasoning is odd.

There's a very obvious reason why the west wouldn't want Ukraine to "beat" the russians. The same reason why they didn't send their air forces to flatten the russian invaders. The west doesn't want to give Russia an excuse to use nukes. — Echarmion

First, the reasoning is not odd, it didn't happen because that was not the intention.

Second, I've explained dozens of times already that the drip feed of weapons systems to Ukraine is precisely because Russia has nuclear weapons.

So yes the western strategy is a kind of death by a thousand cuts. They prefer the russians to grind bleed themselves dry in a slow grind over some calamitous collapse which could have unforeseeable consequences for russian internal politics. They even prefer Ukraine to loose in a slow grind over such a scenario. — Echarmion

This is the new copium of choice in recent comments.

For, if there is no collapse ... how exactly does Russia lose exactly? Isn't the key word in a "death by a thousand cuts" the death part? How exactly does Russia die by a thousand cuts without a "calamitous collapse" which could have "unforeseeable consequences for russian internal politics"?

The war is about separating Russian resources from German industry and locking in the Europeans as vassal states without sovereignty being even an option on the table anymore; destroy the Euro as a possible competitor to the dollar while we're at it.

However, we are in agreement that the US / NATO "They even prefer Ukraine to loose in a slow grind over such a scenario".

It freed a bunch of their territory and subjects from russian occupation?

That's kinda what the war is about, isn't it? — Echarmion

I guess just playing dumb is the copium of choice at this stage of the war.

But to play along to your obtuse delusions, "freeing" a bunch of people, more so in regions that had already largely been evacuated of anyone who wanted to leave to Ukraine, is not justification for military action. In this case, even if "fighting for freedom" was the goal (which I very much doubt) the interest of the greater number must prevail over the smaller number.

There was a tiny number of people to "free" in these regions compared to the total Ukrainian population, so therefore it would not be justified to expend valuable military resources to free a small number of people if it greatly increases the risk to the larger number.

Going on these offensives is extremely costly to Ukraine in terms of men and material.

Now, if they "win" the war of attrition against Russia, then clearly they had those resources to spare, but if they don't win the war that is actually currently happening then it will become clear what the cost of expending large amounts of resources on offensives actually turns out to be.

What military disasters had Ukraine suffered? — Echarmion

Losing 20% of their territory in the first days of the war, not even striking the bridges out of Crimea but letting massive columns go through and behind the prepared defences around the Donbas was definitely a military disaster. Bahkmut was a military disaster. This latest offensive was a military disaster.

Now, if you think Ukraine can just keep grinding indefinitely like a tech bro in a coffee shop, then you're just completely delusional.

We are now at a phase of the war where it is accepted Ukraine has no potential for victory with some sort of maneuver warfare, which is, by definition, the only way to win against superior numbers and resources, so the only other way to win is through attrition which is a war that Ukraine can't possibly win.

I prepend "military" to all this analysis as there would still be the option of victory through some sort of revolution in Russia or total economic failing under the sanctions (the theory of victory when Ukraine rejected peace talks), which maybe someone here will still argue will actually happen "this time", but that seems a distant dream even to the present dreamers.

So why are they loosing more men and materiel every day? That doesn't sound like winning a war of attrition. — Echarmion

The analysis is answering the question of why Russia took the position in question.

Yes, Russia loses men and material, but so too the Ukrainians, that's what makes it a war of attrition.

And your evidence for this is? — Echarmion

Russia's use of glide bombs and attack helicopters has been covered extensively even by the Western mainstream press, so if you don't follow events in the slightest why do you feel you contribute anything to this conversation.

But to satisfy your lazy quest for knowledge here's a journalist from Forbes literally using the words "at will".

Only the Russian air force can deploy attack helicopters and fighter-bombers at will directly over the heaviest ground fighting. — Forbes

Lol, yeah according to Josh Hawley, one of the people trying to turn the US into a Putin style "managed democracy". Why would I believe anything a known con-man like this says? — Echarmion

He's reporting what Zelensky said to him and his colleagues, what the administration said the day before, it would be a pretty bold lie which others in attendance could easily call him out on.

So your contention is that he's a liar and everyone else present in these meetings or privy to the information is a liar?

Perhaps he is a conman generally speaking, but you should have some of that actual evidence you so easily demand of others in calling a sitting US senator a liar about events that literally just happened, in which no one's contradicting his narrative, and "stalemate" is the key word coming from plenty of angles so hardly implausible that's exactly what Zelensky stated.

Not just the US, but you're right. They should just have been given the tools/resources from the get-go. — jorndoe

Obviously if the intention was to actually "beat" the Russians then that's what would have occurred.

It didn't occur because that is not the intention.

You really haven't caught on? You really believe the drip feed of weapons systems to Ukraine since the start of the war, just enough to prop them up, is just a bureaucratic oversight of some kind or well intentioned difference in policy that just so happens to have been proven wrong?

You're really that naive?

The point of the drive was take the railhead at Tocomak and cut off forces on the river in Russian held Kherson to withdraw. It's aim was cutting ground lines of communications, the exact thing it did to force a Russian withdrawal from the rest of Kherson and Kharkiv. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Which then accomplishes what? What did the withdrawal from Kherson and around Kharkiv accomplish for the Ukrainians other than feeding the narrative they can "win"?

The other objective is obviously to get the bridge to Crimea in MLRS range so it can be destroyed. A follow on goal would be to drive to Melitopol and encircle Russian forced in Kherson if they had yet to withdraw. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If hitting the bridge was so important ... why not just ask the US to supply the longer range ATACMS rather than waste precious lives and equipment to carve out a a tiny cauldron into Russian heavily fortified lines?

Oh right, because Ukraine only gets the "next thing" after suffering military disasters and so the "next thing" is no longer an escalation but can drag the war out a bit longer.

Russia is aiming at a far smaller operation here, nothing that can really be said to be of strategic value, unless one considers that getting the "legally defined boundaries of the Donbass," within their control might make suing for some sort of peace more palatable domestically. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I just explained to you, after @Tzeentch just explained to you, that Russia's aim is to attrit the Ukrainians to the breaking point (which just like every individual, every organization has). They do this by creating cauldron's around Ukrainian forces and hitting them with artillery and glide bombs until they leave.

We can definitely say the strategic value of capturing some high ground around said cauldron is to more efficiently attrit the Ukrainians while minimizing losses. Of course maybe the losses weren't "worth it" to achieve this purpose, but that is beside the point as Russia can absorb far more losses than the Ukrainians: that's what attritional warfare means when you are the larger force.

The facts are Ukraine essentially does not have any air power and Russia seems to have now nearly completely attritted their air defence (just as the leaked pentagon papers informed us), enough to effectively use glide bombs and attack helicopters at will.

Zelensky was recently in Washington to explain that with 100 000 000 000 USD more that "maybe" they can achieve a stalemate for the next year.



In other words, what I and others pointed out in the first weeks of the war (that Ukraine has zero hope of some sort of military victory) is now official policy of both the US and Ukraine nearly 2 years later.

For, Ukraine is not only at a significant military disadvantage in terms of numbers and capabilities, but its economy is in ruins and backers need not only provide militarily but float the entire Ukrainian government and heavily subsidize the economy ... all while Russia's economy is growing and able to self-finance its war effort.

The situation is not good for Ukraine and cannot possibly last.

What is clear is that the current goal is to try to keep things together until the next US election, since as unpopular as the 100 000 000 000 more USD to Ukraine maybe, a complete military debacle for the "friend" Ukraine would be even worse.

A goal I think is achievable and then we'll see the war wound down after said election (whoever wins).

Oh yeah, it's tactically useful, for sure. I just question the rationale for expending the massive amount of resources that have already been lost there given the apparent odds of success. It would be the equivalent of the AFU launching another NATO style maneuver offensive directly into Russian defenses (and on a significantly larger scale), with the goal apparently being to secure an arbitrary political border for x date . — Count Timothy von Icarus

This was Ukraine's militarily nonsensical reasoning for their offensive.

Nonsensical because achieving an "arbitrary political border for x date" had essentially zero chance of success and also doesn't end the war. Russia would still be there with an army and able to invade at any point along the entire border (the front line is the entire border with Russia and Belarus).

The need for the Ukrainian offensive was purely for PR purposes of propping up the narrative that Ukraine can "win".

However, there is no symmetry here. The reason Ukraine's offensive makes no military sense is because Ukraine has no chance of winning the war of attrition, and even less chance by recklessly charging at Russian prepared defences.

Russia on the other hand can win the war of attrition. It is an illusion to believe Ukraine can "keep it up" indefinitely.

Some forces and equipment were expended to secure positions around Avdiivka to create a cauldron to attrit Ukrainian forces there everyday, which as @'Tzeentch' has already pointed out.

Given the state of foreign support for Ukraine amidst the Middle-East crisis, there will be a lot of pressure on the Ukrainian forces to defend it, which how the Russians aim to attrition the Ukrainian forces. — Tzeentch

So, the losses needed to secure the position needs to be evaluated against the attritional value of the cauldron. If the Ukrainians retreat to better positions then the losses achieved the political value of winning a battle.

Point being, it is erroneous to equate the Russian offensive with the recent Ukrainian offensive. Yes, Russia faces the same challenges that the Ukrainians faced but with more equipment, air superiority, and more man power available.

That Ukraine attacked Russian prepared defences and attritted a large part of their forces is essentially a dream come true if you're trying to win a war of attrition.

The correct military strategy for Ukraine would be to not attack Russian lines but focus on defence and maximize the cost of Russian advances.

However, the problem Ukraine has is that the Western and Ukrainian narrative is that they can and will "win" on the battlefield. This narrative maximizes support for more war and rejecting peace talks (why talk peace if you can just win), but requires Ukraine to recklessly attack Russian lines in order to keep the narrative somewhat plausible. Of course politically speaking, if Ukraine can't secure aid then the entire government would collapse so the strategy must be to play to what sounds good to a Western audience (which is that we're repeating WWII somehow ... and what people remember most about WWII is that "we won"); so in this light it is the only strategy that keeps things going (especially when there was hope that economic sanctions would lead to economic collapse in Russia) the main problem now is that there is no where to go for Ukraine.

Unless the promise of economic collapse and political breakdown in Russia actually materializes, Ukraine will lose the war of attrition which means at some point total collapse of Ukrainian lines.

Which sounds kind of suprising given that NATO has been so rightly perceived as a growing unbearable threat against Russia at least since 2008, right? — neomac

NATO's planes and submarines and missiles and nuclear weapons are definitely a threat.

I personally have my doubts as to the effectiveness of the F-35 stealthiness, but it is still a dangerous aircraft and capable of many dangerous things.

The problem Ukraine has is that it has none of those things.

The problem the West has in supporting Ukraine fighting is that it simply doesn't have what Ukraine would need to have a chance.

I do sense a bias towards the Russians in your comments. — ssu

I've explicitly stated multiple times that one of my purposes in the thread is to explain Russia's perspective as mutual understanding is required to negotiate peace.

The reason I don't equally represent the Ukrainian perspective is because we get that not only from other posters here such as yourself but the main stream media. We are inundated with the Ukrainian perspective.

Likewise, that Russia (having larger amounts of men and material) may simply win the war due to those advantages is another reason to negotiate peace, but I make clear many times that is not inevitable, maybe sanctions or low morale will cause some sort of collapse anytime (I just do not see any actual evidence for that nor historical precedent, but sure it's possible).

The reason to understand the opposing perspective is to first simply evaluate the situation.

We are told by the Ukrainian perspective that the Russians are all low morale and not motivated etc. Which is you believe then is one reason to seek a military solution as Russia is "weak". But is that true? It's perhaps wise to take into consideration Russia's arguments and reasoning (from government, media, ordinary people etc.), not just what Ukraine says about Russia, in making an evaluation of Russian determination.

Likewise, a sober analysis of force disposition and capabilities and recourses is also perhaps a wise thing to do in evaluating the project of defeating Russia in military terms.

If the conclusion of such an analysis looking at the different arguments and perspectives concludes Ukraine has little chance of achieving its objectives with military force, then there is little alternative to negotiation.

Lastly, in understanding the perspectives of the different sides it is maybe possible to negotiate. The only person you encounter who you can completely ignore what they say and what they believe is someone you can beat to death.

Otherwise, you have to deal with people you encounter and that requires some understanding them to some degree.

You mean NATO assistance has to traverse 1000 km to supply the front in Ukraine or what? Well, it's their country so that isn't a big problem.

Otherwise yes, but note that with an inferior armed forces, with less equipment and not much of an air force has put Russia to entrench itself behind WW1 lines and isn't taking much anywhere the initiave. — ssu

It is a big problem if you're logistics hubs can be hit by missiles, grid and rail disabled, and also that it just takes time to move things over this distance and maintain all the equipment and infrastructure needed to do so etc.

As for the initiative, we'll see what happens next.

If the Russian strategy of attrition is successful then Ukraine has indeed run out of anti-air missiles and Russia can get close enough to the front to use lot's of guide bombs and attack helicopters and Ukrainian supply chains and ammunition are under extreme strain and this will permit Russia to go on the initiative, also due to building up large formations not yet committed to battle.

If Ukraine's strategy is successful then none of that will happen and they will remove Russia from their former territory.

Well, this is the kind of war Finland was preparing for. Not going for the brainfart of an idea of New-NATO new threats was in hindsight a very good choice. And seems like Poland is now preparing for something similar. Yes, NATO depends on air power and that is totally rational. However what has changed is the idea that a) conventional war in Europe is extremely unlikely so you don't prepare for one and b) wars aren't short and hence you do have to have those materiel and ammo stocks. — ssu

In other words you agree that NATO was not and is not prepared for the kind of war Ukraine is fighting and so unable to supply Ukraine to fight said war it's not prepared for.

Really? What's your reference to conscripting 16 years of age? I haven't heard this. — ssu

The Cabinet of Ministers introduced military registration from the age of 16. This is stated in the message of the Ministry of Defense in the Telegram channel, Ukrainian News Agency reports.
The Ministry of Defense reported that the Cabinet of Ministers approved a new procedure for military registration, which in particular provides for military registration from the age of 16.

"Conscripts between the ages of 16 and 27 must register for military service," the message reads. — ukranews.com

Seems the confusion was caused by above statement, by referring to them as conscripts it would seem to mean they are conscripted, but I have not found explanation of why the age of registration was lowered.

So not actually conscripting 16 year old's, but just making the register. I did not find any clarity on if they can still leave Ukraine at 16 or not.

This literally is what happened. The Russians have been disabling the Ukrainian grid at will. — boethius

You said it. :wink: — ssu

I did not deny saying this and I pointed it out it's true.

Where I am unsure the citation is from me or someone else I say so.

And again, why not just use the citation function so it's clear who said what and when.

For example, when I stated:

Once Kiev is encircled the military, social and political dynamic will completely change. — boethius

First, this is in the context of responding to the comment:

It's also unclear why they wouldn't want to encircle Kiev as quickly as possible. You can hold most of the area around a city, and if supplies can still get through, your seige won't be effective. — Count Timothy von Icarus

My comment is explaining why Russian would want to encircle Kiev, because once the capital is encircled the dynamic changes.

And the first sentences of explaining that is:

They certainly do want to encircle Kiev as quickly as possible, but due to the political consequence of of that (leadership also stuck and suffering) preventing encirclement of Kiev is Ukraine's top priority.

Why gains in the south are extremely rapid and Kherson was taken without prolonged urban combat resistance, is because Ukraine clearly can't fight on all fronts. — boethius

In other words, encircling the capital would change the military, social and political dynamic (so one reason the Russians are trying to do it) and it also absorbs a lot of Ukrainian forces as their top priority is to prevent encirclement (precisely because that changes the military, social and political dynamic) which has the benefit for the Russians of gaining ground in the south.

In literally my next comment I clarify:

Definitely Ukrainians could keep fighting for a long time. — boethius

Precisely to clarify that Kiev may succeed in preventing encirclement, break the siege and rout the Russians with a surprise counter offensive, or even just be sieged for a long time.

I add further clarification in my next posts that:

Of course, deception is a large part of warfare, so the Ukrainians could be planning some brilliant move to rout the enemy that launches at any time. Likewise, stories of Russian moral collapse could be totally true or then riots start breaking out all over Russia at any moment. There's definitely risks on Russia's side and predictions of obviously possible things always have a chance to come true. However, what we can be certain of is that all the retired generals and retired intelligence directors that hammer this impending Ukraine victory home, base that on absolutely nothing. The real experts acknowledge they don't know the situation on the ground for Russia or Ukraine. — boethius

And when asked:

↪boethius are you averse to including evidence/sources with your posts? — Changeling

I respond:

I'm not averse to it, but the whole point of my post is that we don't really know what's going on. Western media continuously say one unsourced thing, so seems appropriate to say the alternative scenario. — boethius

In other words, the context makes it abundantly clear that I am engaged in analysis of different possibilities, including the Ukrainians completely routing the Russians in some brilliant surprise move.

However, I explain why I don't think that will happen:

So, that being said, the reasons to assume Ukraine is not going to bust out some brilliant move is that conscripts generally speaking, and especially conscripts that trained sometime in the distant past, are terrible at offensive maneuvers. Conscripts are effective at manning trenches and firing artillery mainly, and doing the logistics, cooking, repairing, medical evacs and nurse work etc. — boethius

I then go onto explain what would change that situation and be a game changer:

In terms of game changing weapons, it seems extremely likely to me that Migs from Poland would just get shot down and not do much (certainly can have a chance of doing some damage before being shot down; but the idea the skies would be safer for Ukrainian pilots than for Russian seems "untenable" to use the word that seems to currently describe that). The reason for the focus on the planes is likely for the simple reason that Ukraine does have the pilots and personnel to put some planes up in the sky.

The real game changing weapons would be a lot of armor. There's a reason that Nato assumed that the Soviet Union could just roll through Europe: a shit ton more armor than Nato had. Turns out that the US wildly overestimated the Soviet capabilities (because they hired a Nazi to run intelligence on the Soviets who realized grossly inflating Soviet capabilities would get him more resources and reason to hire his friends), but the basic principle that only a bunch of armor is actually effective against a bunch of armor at the end of the day is pretty accurate (planes and other things can help, but any large scale offensive or counter offensive maneuver needs a bunch of armor--which is why the conscript mobilization playbook also calls for an insane amount of anti-armor mines everywhere). — boethius

Which is exactly what everyone accepts a year later that Ukraine needs a lot of armour to do any offensive maneuovre.

I explained this March 10th, 2022, less than a month into the war right after explaining Ukraine contesting the skies is "untenable".

I could provide even more context to explain that my analysis at the time was completely accurate.

After all this military analysis of the different scenarios (not predictions), in my next comment I state:

Yes, definitely Putin could stop at any moment and says he's achieved whatever he set out to achieve. — boethius

In particular:

Key land captures to show for the blood spilled: land bridge to Crimea. — boethius

Which is what happened. If you believe the Russians they retreated from the siege of Kiev as a show of good faith in what they believed was preliminary agreement to end the war.

So, I fail to see how any of this analysis was anything other than spot on.

That's not within NATO's mandate, is it? Others may not have such a charter, though. But, hey, maybe you're right, end the tiptoeing. — jorndoe

There is no tiptoeing, there's a very clear objective to weaken Europe, in particular the Euro, and give money to the defence contractors and start a new cold war so even more money flows to defence contractors: everyone pulling their weight and spending 2% of GDP, No Free Rides!!

... seems to often enough be put forth by those saying that Ukraine should capitulate. — jorndoe

The logic also goes the other way, that if it makes no sense for NATO to pick a fight with a nuclear armed opponent, neither does it make sense for Ukraine.

Well, what I remember was that the "clear arguments" were for the Ukrainian Nazis just to roll over and die. Because Ukrainians were Nazis, right? — ssu

The clear arguments were that Ukraine has less man power, far less material in what you are now calling a material war, barely any airforce, needing to traverse 1000 km to supply the front whereas the front is next door to Russia pre-invasion.

The additional clear arguments is that NATO does not wage and is not prepared for the kind of war Ukraine is fighting, relying on a strategy that assumes gaining air supremacy (which makes sense if you are the US projecting power around the globe, but does not make sense if you are Ukraine defending against a lot of artillery without said NATO airforce).

But let's just look at the past comment just why and how unfeasible it has been to attempt to remove Russia from its "former territory" (Hint, Soviet or Imperial territory) by military means. — ssu

Exactly what one would expect looking at the numbers and looking at the disparity in forces is happening: Ukraine has suffered massive casualties, needs to conscript down to 16 years of age, and has not achieved anything militarily.

the Russian army and reserves are far larger and now on the defensive and have all the benefits Ukrainians had defending Kiev, and the Russian army can disable. the entire Ukrainian grid at will

This literally is what happened. The Russians have been disabling the Ukrainian grid at will.

as from many Russian's perspective, once the 4 Oblasts are officially part of Russia then they will be defending their country against a hostile invader

I'm pretty sure I didn't even say this, but I'm sure many Russias see the Donbass as ethnic Russians that have been re-integrated into Russia and with the annexation support Russia's defense of this legal Russian territory (legal as far as Russia is concerned).

But you take the trouble to get these quotes, why not just use the quote function so it's clear who is saying what and when and anyone can easily find the context.

I do that "work" as part of my new "job" later I guess.

Additionally, Russia has demonstrated it has highly motivated soldiers able to win in urban environments, so, as I already mentioned, the reservists can have a large impact simply supporting the professional forces.

This is exactly what the Wagner narrative turned out to be that these highly motivated professional mercenaries took Bahkmut because they are so good and professional, only these highly skilled professionals could oust the brave defenders. Of course, less professional soldiers manning the rear and quieter parts of the front are essential in supporting said mercenaries.

Ukraine has sent fresh conscripts with little to no training into front line combat, but there's no reason to believe Russia will do the same.

Ukraine has done exactly that, putting conscripts into Bahkmut with essentially no training, whereas Russia fought Bahkmut with only mercenaries which are not conscripts at all. The reservists Russia called up are, whether you want to call them conscripts or not, are already trained and have been training all throughout the Bahkmut ordeal.

Let winter pass and by the spring everyone will be so fed up with energy prices that peace with Russia will just be the normal, competent, level headed thing to do by politicians wanting to be reelected.

Again, I don't think I said this, but it is also what is happening, just not as early as this poster predicts. Take Poland for example, distancing from support to Ukraine, calling Ukraine ungrateful and a drowning man (pretty strong words) due to upcoming elections.

Russia has only committed 10% of it's standing army to Ukraine, and so can also rotate units in and out of the war as well as reinforce if it needs.

This is what Russia has been doing. Unless the West's own figures are wrong, the amount of troops Russia has committed to Ukraine at any given time has been remarkably low.

This narrative that the Russians have "stalled" makes zero sense. Had Russia failed to siege Kiev (the biggest single strategic objective), ok, then clearly a big stall, but it didn't fail. Reporters are essentially reporting Kiev is now under siege. It may not be completely surrounded, but if it can cover the Southern gap with artillery fire then it becomes significantly harder to resupply Kiev

This I probably said, but I'm pretty sure was when Russia was still advancing. The stall narrative basically came out in the first days of the offensive when clearly nothing was stalled. But we could go back and debate that sort of things retrospectively if you want.

Definitely I did predict Russia would continue the siege of Kiev but I also did mention they had other option such as pulling back and just keeping and defending what they already took in the Donbas.

Keep in mind that the paper (written before the war) analysing different scenarios of a Russian invasion concluded establishing a land bridge to Crimea was the maximum war aims achievable by Russias force disposition. I made it clear that maybe they will just do exactly what that paper said was the maximum they could do.

I also made clear that the purposes of laying siege to Kiev was both to tie up Ukrainian troops, as the Capital takes priority over everything else and can't fall, and also to apply pressure for a diplomatic resolution. So, all that analysis was entirely correct.

If Ukrainian forces dig in to the front of a salient, Russian forces can just flank and pincer around it, and in flat open territory like this I do not see how Ukrainians could build and defend a line hundred or two hundred kilometres against armor maneuvers.

This too I likely said, and definitely armour in this war has not been decisive outside the first days of the invasion.

However, that Russia can simply flank the Ukrainian lines remains completely true. The front is not what the Western media calls the front in the Donbas but the entire border.

There are large formations of Russian troops in Belarus for example, but simply moving large amounts of troops and equipment around the border with Ukraine to conduct an offensive anywhere is entirely possible.

So we'll see.

If you've been following my analysis as closely as you're citations of some of what I have said seems to indicate, you'd know that Russia's own military doctrine is that a modern war would have 3 phases: first a manoeuvre phase supported by advanced capabilities but this would get bogged down due to the small quantities of advanced capabilities, followed by an attritional phase where neither army can make significant advances but large quantities of men and material are being lost (due to things like drones, precise strikes etc.), and then a termination phase that will be won by the side that out-learned their opponent in the attritional phase.

That the war moved into a attritional phase is therefore not a surprise in that this is exactly what Russian doctrine calls for as well as this doctrine may simply reflect the truth of modern warfare (that a modern army needs advanced capabilities to compete but it's impossible to afford to fight a whole war with them, so there's this crazy mix and a high rate of attrition).

Obviously, Russia can eventually simply complete the encirclement of Ukraine by coming up from the south, but that will take time and preventing encirclement of Kiev meanwhile is their main strategy.

Once Kiev is encircled the military, social and political dynamic will completely change.

I definitely agree Ukraine managed to prevent complete encirclement and thus the dynamic didn't change and they had the determination to continue to fight.

As I said at the time, they fought to the point of maximum leverage to negotiate the best resolution to the war.

But please, explain how Ukraine leverage has increased since their breaking the siege of Kiev.

Also of note, the war is not over and Kiev can be sieged again at any time.

Likewise, Russia can still potentially invade right to the Dnieper.

If their doctrine is correct and they have indeed out-learned the Ukrainians then we may see the return to manoeuvre warfare and these strategies play out.

Not that I want NATO to send troops to Ukraine and spark WWIII, but it dangled that promise of safety infront of the Ukrainians only to hang them out to dry. — Tzeentch

People like to forget, but the first things Ukraine was "fighting for" was "the right to join NATO" and a NATO no-fly zone.

What's even worse is that early on I also put it to the "pro-Ukrainians" that if Ukrainian former lands is so important, why not send NATO boots on the ground to defend it? which was met with a combination of not-our-fight, can't escalate are you crazy, Russia has nukes! and but, but, but, but we're harming Russia for free!!!

And through all this Ukrainian cheerleading not a single moments reflection on the lives lost.

Not a single prediction ever comes true from Russian low morale will somehow cause total collapse of Russian lines, sanctions will destroy the Russian economy, Ukraine doesn't need heavy weapons when they have "saint Javelins", Ukraine doesn't need Western Heavy weapons, Western heavy weapons will be a game changer, but ok the next heavy weapon will be a game changer, Ukraine will "cut the land bridge", Russia has run out of missiles! Russia is running out of artillery! etc. etc. etc.

And yet not a single moments reflection of questioning source of these predictions and there relation to any discernable reality.

When I have the time I'll go through my posts and cite myself explaining that not only does Ukraine have no reasonable chance of winning in military terms but that as soon as that becomes clear Ukraine's "friends" will abandon Ukraine just like we abandoned all our freedom fighting "friends" in Afghanistan and that, just like Afghanistan, they would be blamed for the loss by not "wanting it enough".

I would compare it to something like a drowning person... A drowning person is extremely dangerous because he can pull you to the depths ... He can simply drown the rescuer. — President of Poland, as quoted by Reuters

The only argument I heard that things will be different in Ukraine is that Ukraine is European (aka. white).

However, seems to me the scene seems set to play out exactly as before.

Of course. That's what I and many others have been saying for months. — Tzeentch

Just too ironic.

And not just for months, since the very beginning clear arguments have been presented of why it's simply unfeasible for Ukraine to attempt to remove Russia from its former territory by military means.

At the time the only argument for continued fighting was able to present was that "maybe" Ukraine has some surprise in store.

And, since the beginning, the question has been to the pro-more-war side of the issue to either explain how Ukraine has a chance of winning military (without invoking magical thinking) or then explain how indefinite warfare benefits Ukraine (in particular if they do all this fighting and lose).

However, not only is no theory of victory ever presented (for example how to deal with the lack of air power) but even simple questions such as how many lives lost would be worth the territory back if it was feasible likewise proponents of Ukraine policy can't answer.

That it is simply Ukraine's choice is the answer and we must just take it for granted that Zelensky speaks for all Ukrainians.

But who doesn't have a choice is Westerners supplying weapons. No actual sense to the project need be presented by Ukraine nor anyone else. Ukraine wants to fight!!

If they can't "vote with their feet" if they don't actually want to fight as they can't leave, that's called wanting to fight apparently, and if they can't vote as elections are suspended, that's just not only wanting to fight but fighting for democracy.

As I wrote, it is now impossible to determine how much Russia trades in rubles and how it is affected by the exchange rate, as that depends on the terms of the contracts and the info coming out of Russia seems rather contradictory. — Jabberwock

If you understood anything about how the commodities market works internationally -- or then read and reflected on even a small part of what I explained about it -- you would know that any imbalance between the international spot price and unclosed contracts relative the Ruble would be small and short term.

Instead of pretending like you know anything about what you're talking about and that maybe there are 10s of billions, or hell why not hundreds of billions of dollars worth of unclosed commodities contracts in Rubles could have been out there: that for some unexplained and irrational reasons that have zero evidence actually exists, the Kremlin, knowing that their currency could be a weak point, decided to commit for the long haul to Ruble prices for their commodities and have taken a severe hit now that the Ruble is cheaper to buy.

Or, you know, you could be honest and just say you have no clue what you're talking about but happy to learn.

hat is absurdly untrue. Even China is very much reliant on the Western technology:

https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/china-more-dependent-us-and-our-technology-you-think

Most of Russia's industries now have a choice: go back to the eighties (which will make them completely uncompetitive anywhere outside the domestic market) or fold. All Russia has left is the resource trade and even that will suffer, as most oilfields and gas fields were serviced by Western companies. You cannot buy such equipment and knowhow through parallel import. — Jabberwock

We are talking about Russia and what critical supplies Russia needs for their economy to simply function.

Obviously, since Russia's economy has not collapsed and nearly entirely cut off from Western supply chains, it's able to source what it needs from mostly China.

I'm also talking about critical technologies.

You also don't know how licensing works. That you need to purchase a license doesn't mean you can't produce whatever it is, it's that you can't export it into the Western economies as it's protected by a patent.

The fact the authors of the article you cite (from the spin machine that is the Heritage Foundation) don't understand the difference between capacity and licensing render their analysis completely useless.

Now, compare this situation where China is spending big to license technologies in order to be able to export those technologies back to the West to the technological differences between China and the West during the cold war, then you'd understand my point.

Yes, I retract the inital argument, it was based on the data (supposedly from the Bank of Russia, shown in the chart before) that half of Russian exports are denominated in ruble, which seemingly was incorrect. — Jabberwock

Good that this little interlude is over.

However, the data can be completely correct even for commodities.

Saying the exports are denominated in Rubles just means that people needed to buy Rubles one way or another to then buy whatever it is. However, the contracts can easily just reference the international spot price in USD one way or another, and, even if the contracts are in rubbles commodities usually trade on a fairly short term basis so there would be winners and losers in any currency change. Additionally, commodities traders generally hedge against such currency fluctuations so the winners and losers can be completely different parties, all financiers in Shanghai for example, who provide markets for these sorts of derivatives.

And, obviously, saying have is in Rubles is the same as saying half is in hard currency of other nations, which in Russias is a significant amount of cash in addition to it's cash and precious metals reserves.

There was certainly the possibility of severe economic dislocations when the war and sanctions started as supply line disruption could have caused cascading failures in industry, infrastructure which then immediately spill over into financial chaos and civil unrest making the problem even worse.

I don't think anyone outside the Kremlin has any good idea of how close or far such a total system failure was due to Western sanctions. What we do know is that they did prepare for 8 years for that exact scenario and were able to mitigate it.

After nearly 18 months it's extremely implausible that Russia would have some severe economic problem now.

The main reason is that everything the West supplied, China and India also supplies. "Competitive advantage" of Western technology can easily be 1 or 2 %.

Unlike the cold war, there's no critical technologies today that the West is far ahead of everyone else.

So, it was certainly disruptive for a whole country to change supply chains on such a large scale, but substitutes do exist and it was pure Western hubris to believe that they didn't or there's something special about Western tech in today's market.

Sure, if you ignore all the differences between certain countries, then they are exactly the same. I am pointing specific issues which make Russia's situation difficult and you just ignore them and go back to your generalities. — Jabberwock

Russia's economic situation would be difficult if it was in or we had reason to believe it was heading towards recession, that's what all these various macro economic variables synthesise to.

If all the things you point to were a "difficult situation" then why isn't there a recession or analysts predicting a recession?

Analysts have gradually been improving economic growth forecasts, now seeing Russia's gross domestic product (GDP) rising 0.7% this year, up from 0.1% in the early May poll, and increasing 1.4% next year, slightly lower than previously thought. — Reuters - Russia to hold rates next week, 2023 GDP growth may improve, Reuters poll shows

And in the same article:

Analysts have gradually been improving economic growth forecasts, now seeing Russia's gross domestic product (GDP) rising 0.7% this year, up from 0.1% in the early May poll, and increasing 1.4% next year, slightly lower than previously thought. — Reuters - Russia to hold rates next week, 2023 GDP growth may improve, Reuters poll shows

So there is zero "difficult situation".

Lol. No, he is not. He gives examples of specific sectors which indicate the bigger problem which is the overreliance on raw resource exports - that is the whole point of the meeting (and his speech). I have asked you to provide the examples of the sectors (beside the military one, which is also not doing that great) which are booming and seemingly you are unable to give any. — Jabberwock

You're literally repeating my arguments to me.

You point to sectors reliant on exports as some sort of economic problem, I explain that (in the context of there being no recession) it would be only a problem if there's some strategic consideration; you then cite someone explaining the same thing, I point that out and then you re-explain this argument that reliance on imports is not a economic problem in itself (if there's no recession caused by said reliance, just normal economic phenomena of specialising in some things and importing others) but would be a strategic problem.

I.e. we both agree these imports do not represent some structural economic problem which was and is your argument.

Whether there's some strategic vulnerability, such as over-reliance on China, these imports represent is a different question, but you'd need to elaborate an actual argument of how China both intends and is going to actually exploit such reliance. For, China is also reliant on Russia for a significant amount of the commodities it needs.

And again, I don't claim Russia's economy is or will be booming.

I literally state:

Where do I argue some sort of commodities boom is coming? Generally speaking or even for Russia?

This literally comes from literally no where. — boethius

You claim there is a "difficult situation".

What was you're original argument:

↪Changeling The exchange rate of ruble against all major currencies (USD, EUR, CNY) is climbing very fast. That means that all imports are more and more expensive for Russians. Whatever they bought for 75 RUB in December soon will cost 100. But that is even more devastating for Russian war effort, as they have to import lots of parts (e.g. electronics). Due to sanctions they had to pay much more for parts bought through intermediaries, now it will cost them even more. But even before the war due to 'easy' money from the natural resources (and rampant corruption) Russia's economy has been underdeveloped in many areas and relied on imports. — Jabberwock

You literally use the word "devastating".

Devastating for what? "for the Russian war effort".

Which is relevant to this conversation of the war in Ukraine.

You've now moved the goal posts to Russian economy is not "booming" after accepting all my arguments.

The key one is that Russia can effectively pay for whatever imports it needs for it's war effort with commodities: Russia sells commodities relative the international price (that has nothing to do with the value of the Rouble) and brings in foreign exchange which Russia can then use to buy imports it requires for military equipment.

At no point is Russia forced to try to buy foreign exchange with Roubles to then buy imports for military equipment.

You have zero clue what you're talking about and now just flailing around strawmen and throwing the goal posts off the field entirely.

If you're now no longer arguing that the currency devaluation is "devastating for the Russian war effort", then not being clear that you've retracted and reformulated your position to "not booming" and "weak in some strategic sectors" is tiresome, bad faith, and the sign of a weak mind that is not even aware of what it has said in the past, or then you're just a no-good, damn dirty liar.

It just doesn't seem like Ukraine can take it back...without getting destroyed in the process...and the Russian Ukrainians of the Donbas want to stay part of Russia — Jack Rogozhin

To give an alternative possibility than the frozen conflict hypothesis of @ssu, the weapons systems being used are too advanced and too destructive to result in any sort of stability resulting in a war of attrition that the Ukrainians are losing.

Ukrainians are losing the war of attrition not simply because they are smaller country that can absorb less losses, but because they lack all sorts of capabilities entirely.

We could go weapons system by weapon system, but the overall reason is that NATO is designed primarily as an air force with the approach of gaining air superiority and then air dominance and then dealing with things on the ground by relentless bombing.

Whether this is the best strategy for NATO to have or not is of little importance in the current conflict since NATO doesn't want to and arguably can't effectively transfer this equipment to Ukraine anyways, and Russian air defence systems can shoot down all such planes, even F-35 and F-22, if they're close enough even without any particular technology to shoot down stealth air-craft. Stealth aircraft don't allow you to just go fly over the front and drop bombs at will with zero risk. Of course, perhaps US / NATO as a whole could effectively suppress and attrit Russian air defence and then be able to bomb at will or largely at will, which would be a different conversation.

What matters in the current situation is that even if NATO could establish air superiority / air dominance, itself against Russia, there's zero way to transfer these capabilities to Ukraine. Likewise, even more flexible (in terms of ground facilities) air assets like helicopter gun ships can't just be sent to Ukraine.

Long story short, Russia is prepared to fight exactly this kind of war and NATO is not for reasons that are easy to explain: 1. Russia is there 2. the US isn't there. Moreover, the US has no plausible threat of being invaded by land and so focuses on both defence projecting force globally by sea and air.

Even if NATO wanted to, it's simply impossible to just transfer the NATO way of war fighting to Ukraine.

For these reasons, support to Ukraine was most effective during the phase of just scrounging up old soviet equipment, and sending in NATO equipment instead has shown essentially zero results as Ukrainians have barely and training on these systems and they aren't designed for the conditions ... and you still need air power and air defence which Ukraine has essentially run out of.

To put it simply, Ukraine doesn't have the capacity to fight a war of attrition indefinitely and NATO doesn't have what Ukraine would need to even attempt to do so and Ukrainian man power and will is not some magical given but has a breaking point.

And the above is only in material and capacity terms, if you then consider in addition the strategic situation, Russia has a massive advantage.

For, the front line is not constrained to the South-East of Ukraine but is in fact the entire border with Russia and Belarus. Russia chooses to only fight in the South-East of Ukraine during this attritional phase of the conflict not simply because that's where the Russian speakers are and the land they want to keep, but also it's the farthest point from NATO supply lines in Poland. To supply the front in the South-East Ukraine needs to travel a maximum of distance which creates delays and all sorts of logistical problems while maximising the amount of time Russia has to observe material and troop movements and plan accordingly.

Not only has NATO forbid Ukraine to invade Russia proper but there's essentially no strategic advantage in doing so ... there's not really anywhere to go once you're in Russia.

So, if Ukraine wants to make gains it's only realistic choice is to attack the Russian heavily fortified lines in the South-East as there's nothing to accomplish in Russia and the purpose of the Ukrainian war effort is to liberate previously held Ukrainian territory. Ukraine can only attack where it will face the deepest mine fields and maximum fortifications.

However, no where is it written that Russia will just stay in the South-East along the built-up line of contact and can only attack Ukraine where it has build up defences. At any time Russia can move into Ukraine along any part of the border in "big arrow" offensive mode.

↪boethius, no, it wouldn't be stabilizing, and Putin presumably knows. (Not sure why you keep writing that.) — jorndoe

We're discussing the hypothetical situation where at the start of the war NATO provided Ukraine no limits support and Ukraine routing the Russians and Russian lines and military falling apart and civil unrest and the economy unravelling due to both losing the war and the disruptive effects of the sanctions and the collapse of the Russian government imminent.

In such a situation, dropping nukes on Ukraine would stabilise the military situation as Ukraine would have no way to nuclear retaliate. Stabilising from their perspective (the perspective of the people considering nuclear use in a unstable and deteriorating situation).

Hence, NATO did not provide "no limits" support to Ukraine, so, in the least, NATO agrees with me.

Your argument was that depreciation of ruble was great for Russia, because it boosts exports. While in theory that is correct, in this particular case it will not boost Russian exports, for the numerous reasons I have already given. — Jabberwock

No where do I say the depreciation of the Ruble is "great for Russia", I explain why the Russian central bank supported the Ruble and how letting the Ruble float (or close to float) is wiser and in some ways inevitable central bank policy policy. I explain there's winners and losers in these sorts of macro economic shifts, exporters of manufactured goods that have foreign buyers with inputs purchased in Rubles being among the winners but there are of course both losers and plenty of other effects.

My point is this currency change is no unexpected nor dramatic nor, due to the particular circumstances of having reoriented supply chains, not a signal of high risk or imminent collapse or inability to prosecute the war (which is what we're discussing).

I explain the depreciation is also in essence a tax on the middle class who therefore are losers in this scenario, insofar as they don't ultimately benefit from increased exports of manufactured goods and services.

I also explain how depreciation of the Ruble has nothing to do with Russia's ability to get foreign exchange in selling commodities on international markets denominated in foreign currencies (and the fact Russia forced some countries to pay in Rubles is of little importance).

More to the point, none of these macro-economic variables mean much if they aren't the cause of or symptom of recession, which the Russian economy is not currently in and the depreciation of the Ruble against other currencies is unlikely to cause recession.

Balance of trade and capital flows and so on can go one way one year and another way the other year ... or, you know, consistently have a trade deficit for decades such as in the case of the United States.

Lol, you are hilarious... You know who Dmitry Medvedev is? This is what he said seven years ago (Google translated):

The situation in some areas is still extremely difficult. Let me remind you that our share of imports in machine tool building is estimated at approximately 90% (90!), in heavy engineering - about 70%, in oil and gas equipment - 60%, in power equipment - about 50%, in agricultural engineering, depending on the category products - from 50 to 90%, too, and so on. Even in civil aircraft construction, imports, unfortunately, are still overwhelming - more than 80%.
— Dmitry Medvedev

Are you saying he is an anti-Russian racist? — Jabberwock

He's saying the same thing as me:

In any major macro-economic shift (such as cutting off nearly all trade with the West) there are losers and winners (what matters is how many of each in the mystical agragate of the economist). Russian economy is growing, so pointing out sectors that were losers from recent events is not indicative of the whole. — boethius

Any economy will have sectors that rely heavily on imports, that is not indicative of the whole.

What is more indicative is recession or not. If the Russian economy is growing then maybe it's doing other things of value where it is more competitive.

Plenty of countries are not competitive in all those sectors you mentioned and a long list of other sectors.

Being competitive or then protecting / subsidising a domestic industry is important if the sector is strategic, but there is literally no country on the planet that is fully self sufficient.

If Russia is getting infrastructure built faster and cheaper by the Chinese then maybe that's building capacity that creates more overall value ... which is basically economics 101.

Japan imports a lot of oil, Saudi's import a lot of arms, America imports a lot of electronics and random stuff.

Pointing to an economy and then pointing to a sector that is heavily reliant on imports means absolutely nothing and you can do that with every country. What matters is if those dependence relations can be disrupted or manipulated. The West tried to disrupt those dependence relations prophesying doom and the Russian economy was able to adapt. Now the argument is the dependence relations are manipulated by China and India and so on and prophesying ... I'm not exactly sure, a few points off the international spot price for a few years?

Russia was selling under the price cap practically till June and it was accused of lying about the cuts (as Daniel Yergin pointed out). — Jabberwock

I have zero problem accepting massive discounts in 2022 and 2023, as I explain these are massive flows of material and finance over decades and centuries and what matters is the medium and long term and not any given year or two. I even explain why Russia needs to offload the oil at nearly any price as the oil wells can't easily be turned off and on. However, there is zero evidence Russia is somehow stuck with those discounts for any significant period of time.

You seem to just randomly assign points to me in total disconnect to anything I've written or the points you've made, and then argue against those points sometimes repeating my arguments I've made against your points that you've actually written.

It's tiresome.

Russia's primary concern was to maintain revenues, given that half of its budget is financed by resource exports. You are pretty confident China and India will buy same amounts for higher prices, but actually give no argument for that. And it does not align too well with the facts: China's July crude imports drop to lowest since January India's purchases peaked in April. — Jabberwock

Russia built up massive foreign currency reserves as well as gold and other precious metals reserves.

The priority in 2022 was not maintaining revenue (whole point of having a war chest) but to maintain market share, especially in fossil fuels.

The reason maintaining market share is important is that industrial projects and capacity can have long lead times and cost significant capital and may not be easy to just shut off and on again (in terms of the state of equipment, skills, supply lines, etc.), especially oil fields of which shutting off may damage the oil fields permanently.

So, Russia offered deep discounts to be sure to move it's stuff and maintain market share.

It would take many, many years for Russia to entirely deplete it's war chest and running a budget or trade deficit for a single year might be a warning sign or might be smart investment that will create larger growth and surpluses down the line, depends on what the money is spent on and what capacities imports help build.

Again, what is true in principle does not necessarily apply to each and every situation. Sure, Russia would be happy to sell a somewhat smaller amount for a much higher price. The question is who will be happy to buy from Russia at those inflated prices. You assume that China and India will happily buy the same amounts of oil if it is much more expensive. That assumption is, to put it very mildly, unreasonable. — Jabberwock

It's basic math.

Maybe I'll explain it tomorrow with the actual volume and price numbers of the recent oil market to show what price increases make the price cuts worth it in terms of revenue and the how much bigger an effect it has on profits (which is what matters).

And I have pointed out why Russia's exports will stall while its imports soar. I did not write that I expect a collapse, I wrote that it will be more and more dififcult for Russia to pay for its imports. — Jabberwock

Well, the main point of my analysis is that this isn't the case.

Insofar as Russia sells a lot of commodities denominated in foreign currencies (how the international commodities market works) there will be the forex available to buy whatever imports Russia needs.

Across the board subsidising all imports is a simplifying measure that's practical in the case of the disruption of the sanctions to ensure business have the purchasing power to find substitutes, but now that the Russian economy has adapted it is far more efficient to let the currency float and then target the sectors you want to support (that have some strategic value) since supporting the price of the currency is a massive subsidy covering everything (dildos to capital flight) and so covers what you want but also everything you don't want or don't care about. Targeting subsidies means bureaucratic overheads (that you can't implement and scale in an emergency) but is far more efficient over the long run (why countries are constantly accusing each other of unfairly subsidising strategic sectors).

As long as Russia has a large foreign currency revenue from selling commodities it is easy for the Russian government to subsidise any given sector it wants to protect / grow.

There is no structural problem that is currently happening in Russia.

Of course, managing an economy is difficult and simply because Russia has the foreign exchange to subsidise imports of whatever it wants doesn't mean it will do so wisely, but that would be mismanaging in the future and not some structural problem that you seem to be describing.

Also, for the record I don't expect Russia to grossly mismanage these sorts of economic questions; Russian economic policy has been pretty effective in recent years so presumably that will continue.

↪boethius, turning it into a nuclear war wouldn't stabilize anything, it'd be like a defcon 2 or 1 escalation (sort of, to use old verbiage).
I'm assuming the Kremlin knows, but might be wrong I suppose.
Or, do you think Putin is that spiteful (and mad)?
He'd jeopardize lots more than himself, and has been told so by more than one party on more than one occasion.
(For that matter, there's a chance it could lead to unrest within Russia.)
At times, Putin comes through as meticulously calculating.
Incidentally, in this respect, I'd be more worried about Kim Jong Un. — jorndoe

If the Kremlin was faced with the unravelling of the Russian economy and state, from their perspective, nuking Ukraine would be stabilising.

Certainly that may not be true for the rest of the world, but we are considering the actions and decisions of the Russians in the scenario that NATO actually did provide "unlimited support" and "whatever it takes".

NATO would not nuke Russia in return and, at least in my opinion, nuking a bunch of key formations and infrastructure in Ukraine would arrest any offensive momentum. Some people disagree that nukes would be militarily effective ... but I find that hard to believe, and not just "because nukes" but because there are plenty of missile strikes on targets that survive and are repaired and attacked again (bridges, air-fields, logistics hubs) that a tactical nuclear weapon would not only dispatch in one go but permanently. The fact these targets are struck again and again simply to disrupt them indicates to me at least that they are of significant importance and simply nuking them off the map would be of comparable significant military advantage.

And yes, obviously would send the US to defcon 1 and things would be tense.

However, there's zero reason for the US to strike Russia with nuclear weapons and risk escalation into a strategic nuclear exchange so the US would likely do nothing.

Why would the US risk it's own cities in retaliating on Ukraine's behalf? Zero reason.

Now, the Neocons spent significant grey matter on trying to crack this impasse by brainstorming non-nuclear retaliation options that could potentially deter Russia from using nukes in Ukraine to therefore justify more and more advanced weapons systems being sent to Ukraine.

(Again, I don't think it's a given that there was a significantly better strategy than pouring in every piece of old soviet equipment NATO could find) but the neocons definitely wanted a "no limits" policy and that didn't happen because they never solved the nuclear retaliation (or lack thereof of an option) problem.

They'd say things like "oh, we'll strike Crimea with conventional missiles and sink the black sea fleet!!"

However, Russia could just eat that and not retaliate in turn as a "cost to doing business".

Of course, there would be significant costs to Russia and significant chaos down the line (including to Russia) due to the disruption to the international system using nukes would cause, which explains why they don't go around nuking people.

And, keep in mind, if Putin was hell bent on nuking Ukraine, or anyone, that would have happened already.

Putin is not an irrational actor, he has different goals that are at odds with Western goals but the West does not define rationality. The West goes around saying it defines rationality to justify imposing imperialistic policies on weaker parties since other forms of justification (the glory of the emperor or the will of God or straight up plunder) are incompatible with the Western advertised ethos.

Let us see about that... — Jabberwock

Yes, let's continue, why not?

Yes, that is exactly what I wrote: 'No, because Russian problems with exports have little to do with prices.' Russia had to provide significant discounts to find new customers for its resources, but it is no longer able to do that as it needs to make profit. — Jabberwock

... You literally wrote:

No, because Russian problems with exports have little to do with prices. Due to its huge official (and probably even bigger unofficial) deficit Russia no longer can provide such deep discounts on resources, so even with the better exchange rate — Jabberwock

Linking exchange rates to the commodity prices, somehow mitigating the already existing discounts that are too much of a discount and Russia's problem?

I didn't have time to unpack entirely how little sense that makes on each level. I leave it as an exercise to the reader.

I also didn't even have time to point out that Russia has large cash reserves and so can run a deficit.

We are all Keynesians now except for this guy.

Most of Russia's exports are related to raw resources. We do not know what portion of it is denominated in rubles, what we do know is that Russia wanted to move away from USD and EUR in its trades. — Jabberwock

None of it is denominated in Rubbles.

Countries who sell commodities do so relative the international spot price of those commodities.

You have literally zero clue how the international commodities market functions and you're insistence on providing analysis based on complete ignorance is, as I say, remarkable.

That is exactly Russia's case for most exports beside resources, because its industry is underdeveloped and heavily relies (or did, when it worked) on imported inputs, most of those from Western countries. That is why its e.g. automoblie industry practically collapsed - Russians have no know-how, no domestic industrial machinery, etc. There will be no export boom for Russian cars, if the door handles come off or the car does not start. — Jabberwock

In any major macro-economic shift (such as cutting off nearly all trade with the West) there are losers and winners (what matters is how many of each in the mystical agragate of the economist). Russian economy is growing, so pointing out sectors that were losers from recent events is not indicative of the whole.

However, it does not matter much, because there will be no boom in the trade of resources, for reasons already given. — Jabberwock

First, Russia makes regular revenue and foreign exchange off the sale of resources in completely normal market conditions and does not require a boom to continue to do so.

Second, commodity price increases are due to either shocks (which are by nature unpredictable) or then follow the international business cycle (recessions put downward pressure on commodity prices and growth puts upward pressure, in a cycle that is not really cyclical but a one way street to environmental collapse, but that is a larger time frame than the war at hand).

Third, I must admit I do not know the reasons given, feel free to provide them again.

We do not know in what state Russian industry is, as we do not know what part is directed to the war effort. — Jabberwock

... I thought you literally just told us because you know??

because its industry is underdeveloped and heavily relies (or did, when it worked) on imported inputs, most of those from Western countries. — Jabberwock

Which is just anti-Russian rhetoric, I'd say racist, based on nothing, but also self-contradictory.

Yes, I know that. That was my argument, maybe it was too succint. There will be no boom in resource sales for Russia, because there will be no or very few new customers who will be willing to break the price cap (and going through intermediaries diminishes profits). — Jabberwock

You're argument was:

Few countries are willng to break the price caps, Saudis are demanding keeping output cuts. Russia will not be able to boost its resource sales significantly. — Jabberwock

Which definitely implies Russia is selling under a price cap few are willing to "break" and so the only way to increase revenue is to sell more volume but the mean Saudi's are demanding Russia keep output cuts.

But if you're now saying your argument was too "succinct" to make any sense or have and meaning, yeah, sure.

No, as I have already mentioned. China and India were eager to buy at the discount, but it was not profitable enough for Russia. Besides they bought much more than they need already and they cannot store unlimited amounts, not to mention that China's economy is cooling off significantly. Russia will struggle to maintain the exports at the current levels, export boom is simply unrealistic. — Jabberwock

Again, zero understanding of commodity markets. Russia's primary concern when the war started was maintaining market share and ensuring it's oil flows somewhere. Storage is limited and stopping oil producing oil wells can be costly and do irreversible harm to the oil field for a bunch of complicated geological reasons (of course producing the oil efficiently will harm humanity more, but that's not Russia's main concern in 2022 or 2023 ... and possibly for the foreseeable future as they'll have a large amount of the world's arable land and can just watch world burn if they feel like, you know, we've been less than understanding).

Again, while generally you are correct, you are wrong in this particular case. Russia does not want output cuts NOW, it needs to increase its exports to cover rapidly growing imports. — Jabberwock

I literally explained several times that Russia (and Saudi Arabia and the other major oil exporters) want high prices and are perfectly happy to cut production if it means prices are higher. For example, obviously you'd be willing to sell 10% less if you are selling at 100% higher the price, but it's even more sensitive to price than that because what you actually care about is profits and the profits will increase even faster than revenue with price increases. It's basic math, I can break it down with additions and multiplications and subtractions if you want.

Now, what each oil exporter doesn't want to do is take it on themselves to cut production just to see another oil producer increase production and take their market share; if they did that then they'd be selling less at the same price and so simply making less money; if they then increased production to try to win back that market share then the price will decrease. The solution is to form a cartel and get enough of the market to coordinate production cuts to increase the price while no single cartel member looses market share relative the other members.

It's called friendship.

Nope. China and India will simply buy less if the price is raised (and they already buy from Russia below the OPEC price) as they have gotten enough cheap oil already, countries working with the West will not buy if the price cap is exceeded. All that is left is the illicit trade, but that will not be sufficient. Again, no boom in sight. — Jabberwock

Where do I argue some sort of commodities boom is coming? Generally speaking or even for Russia?

This literally comes from literally no where.

I've simply pointed out that the Russian central bank letting the Rubble float is quite usual and expected and not, in itself nor in this actual context, some harbringer of economic doom.

As long as Russia can sell a large quantity of commodities it will have foreign exchange and some sort of forex driven economic collapse (as certainly can happen as we've recently seen in Sri Lanka) is basically impossible in Russia's case.

Of course, some sectors of the Russian economy may do better may do worse, sanctions or central bank economic policies may or may not be the cause, but at the moment Russia's economy is growing so there's zero reason to believe there are some imminent economic problems that would affect the war effort, which is what we're discussing here.

Also, for people interested in actually understanding the situation rather than just swallow anti-Russia rhetoric, commodity producing nations don't go bust in one or two or several years. These are massive material and financial flows and have large amounts of momentum and what matters is a whole bunch of years. Even if Russia did sell at deep discounts in 2022 and 2023 (which we don't really have enough details of all the horse trading that goes on to really know much) this is just 2 years in decades and decades. 10 years would be a reasonable time frame to consider, such as Russia amassing a war chest over 10 years before invading Ukraine, and there is no evidence that Russian buyers of commodities have enough leverage to turn Russia into a vassal state that is unable to sell relative the international market rate.

No, because Russian problems with exports have little to do with prices. Due to its huge official (and probably even bigger unofficial) deficit Russia no longer can provide such deep discounts on resources, so even with the better exchange rate (and, as I have shown, it helps only some, as half of the exports are in rubles) the opportunistic trade with India and China is slowing down - they now have enormous, cheaply bought reserves. — Jabberwock

You have a remarkable ability to have zero clue what you're talking about.

Russian resources are sold at international prices and if offered at a discount due to having limited buyers due to sanctions that has nothing to do with the Rubble exchange rate, but would just be 20% or whatever off the international price that's denominated in USD (even if the sale is made in other currencies, the price will be set relative the international price).

Where currency devaluation cheapens exports is in things that are not commodities but services or manufactured goods where the inputs are bought in Rubbles (i.e. labour and domestic resources and components -- if you need to import most of the inputs to your product then currency devaluation doesn't necessarily result in a lower price of the final product).

Devaluing your currency has an immediate effect of making your exports (dominated by domestic inputs) cheaper to international buyers while also making imports into your country more expensive thus encouraging buying domestic.

Of course, if your exports require all sorts of imports to produce (energy, material, services etc.), such as basically any small country that specialises in a few parts of the value chain, then currency devaluation can have the opposite effect, but that's not Russia's case.

You are literally grasping at straws trying to spin these changes in currency and trade balance winds as some sort of fatal blow to the Russian economy.

Russia is not in a recession and pretty much any economist on the planet will be able to inform you that supporting the price of the Rubble has only short term reasons for doing (subsidise import substitution to adapt to sanctions and provide stability and "confidence" generally speaking) but those reasons go away and long term it's wise to let the currency float (at least pretty close) to its market rate (supporting your currency is, fundamentally, subsidising capital flight out of the country).

Few countries are willng to break the price caps, Saudis are demanding keeping output cuts. Russia will not be able to boost its resource sales significantly. — Jabberwock

First, Russia doesn't sell to countries that have a price cap:

Russia bans oil sales to countries using price cap — BBC

And there are enough countries to purchase Russian output, in particular China and India as well as countries willing to man-in-the-middle Russian oil to Europe.

Whatever discounts Russia offered in 2022 or even 2023 to lower "friction" is relative higher prices due to anxiety caused by things like ... a big war.

And stating that "Saudis are demanding keeping output cuts" like that's against Russias interest or desires is just laughable.

Both Russia and Saudi Arabia always want output cuts as major oil exporters ... just "if everybody does it".

OPEC is a cartel who's entire purpose is to cut oil production and Saudi Arabia and Russia are in this cartel to always try to do that.

What matters is profits and if oil is 2% oversupplied or 2% undersupplied on the global market has a huge difference on profits, so if you can form a cartel to cut production and so fix prices high then you make far more profits than selling 10% more volume but at half or less the price.

So, if you can get enough exporting partners together you can all agree to cut production and sell less volume but at a higher price and make not only far more revenue but even more profits.

That's what OPEC is about, so Saudi Arabia "demanding" output cuts during this conflict is basically siding with Russia to make mad coin.

Saudi Arabia said it would extend its voluntary oil output cut of one million barrels per day (bpd) for another month to include August, adding that the cut could be extended beyond that month.

Shortly after the Saudi announcement, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Moscow would cut its oil exports by 500,000 barrels per day in August. — Reuters - Saudi Arabia, Russia deepen oil cuts, sending prices higher

The oil cuts are literally good, not bad, for Russian oil export revenue.

Of course, the US exports oil too, so higher prices are a mixed bag to the US, in particular US elites who are the people that matter in the US system.

Europe on the other hand ...