Dude, the whole current war is precisely because NATO isn't Ukraine's friend ... or it would be in Ukraine right now shoulder to shoulder, protecting its "friend".

Saying NATO arms dealing with Ukraine is "friendship" is like saying your meth dealer dealing you meth is "friendship".

Maybe you need the meth, but big mistake thinking your meth dealer's your friend. That's how suicides happen. Public service announcement everyone.

I can't respond to all the responses to me just yet.

However, I wanted to drop this analysis that seems, so far in my research, the best overall view of the crisis and each expert more-or-less predicts exactly the current situation in their area, and also agree on where their subjects overlap.

Anatol Lieven even predicts the exact Russian political strategy, which is to not "occupy" and passify the country, but just hold territory militarily, blowup everything that's a threat, and basically demand Ukrainian Neutrality and independence for Dombass regions.

The military experts correctly predict it will not be "half measures" but a full scale invasion, and the political experts correctly predict Russia can likely withstand the sanctions.

When searching for theories, you don't actually want too much analysis of current "just happened" information (although that's useful too, and necessary to even have some idea of what a theory would need to explain, just that so many theories can fit today's data), but rather theories in the past that predict the current information; i.e. predictive power, is what is most insightful.



The absolute key takeaway is: "The Swedes could join NATO, or could join any other alliance, they still won't fight."

In your cryptosoviet dreams. — Olivier5

This is literally what has just happened with cold war 2.0.

It's not a Soviet dream ... soft power didn't matter much in the cold war, but mattered a lot after the cold war, and again doesn't matter much in the new cold war.

EU doesn't have hard power, NATO does and it's lead by the US (which isn't even in the EU), so, as the worlds largest economic block, the EU had a lot more soft power in the global integrated economy as it existed before this war in Ukraine and schism in said globally integrated economy.

↪boethius Yeah, I get that, but, you know, actions speak louder than words. — Wayfarer

The BBC and other Western media are starting to "prepare" people for a negotiated settlement ... whether to encourage that to happen or then it's already been "more or less" worked out behind the scenes. Keep in mind Russia and US still have the "nuclear emergency phone" so may have been having a totally parallel top level negotiation all this time.

We certainly don't know the facts on the ground, but Russia and US certainly have a pretty good picture. If Ukraine can't win, then both Russia and US certainly know that, and they may have already worked out "a deal" of some sort.

Negotiation between the big powers is always secret and they can always "horse trade" all sorts of stuff, certainly to the disapproval of everyone here.

At the end of the day, Biden wants to be reelected more than he hate Russians, and so he's "pro Ukraine war" when that boosted his ratings, and now that there's not only blowback but potentially a lot more blowback if the war continues, he / administration maybe willing to work out a deal with Russia (there's all sorts of diplomatic channels to "feel things out", but the nuclear phone would be the most "dramatic" and I assume has been used in all these nuclear escalation talks).

The big liability for Biden if the war is not resolved is that supporting Ukraine and denouncing Russia has played well in this phase, but if Ukraine loses then he looks weak, which is worse in American domestic politics and all these international relations considerations.

So, at this particular moment of the war, everyone, in particular US and Russia (the people with all the nuclear weapons) can call it quits and still say they won.

As I said previously, Zelensky is entirely dependent on NATO, therefore the US, to supply his army, so will accept whatever deal US tells him to accept.

I want to see a resolution because I don't like people dying. Morality questions are easier to discuss with people that are still alive.

Some Kremlin PR hack drafting respectable-sounding diplomatic soundbytes to feed to the media, meanwhile Putin's army is destroying entire cities full of non-combatants because his troops are too incompetent to win on a battlefield. — Wayfarer

This is literally the BBC ... yes, state media, but the British state media last time I checked.

The Russian demands fall into two categories.

The first four demands are, according to Mr Kalin, not too difficult for Ukraine to meet.

Chief among them is an acceptance by Ukraine that it should be neutral and should not apply to join Nato. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has already conceded this.

There are other demands in this category which mostly seem to be face-saving elements for the Russian side.

Ukraine would have to undergo a disarmament process to ensure it wasn't a threat to Russia. There would have to be protection for the Russian language in Ukraine. And there is something called de-Nazification.

This is deeply offensive to Mr Zelensky, who is himself Jewish and some of whose relatives died in the Holocaust, but the Turkish side believes it will be easy enough for Mr Zelensky to accept. Perhaps it will be enough for Ukraine to condemn all forms of neo-Nazism and promise to clamp down on them. — BBC

Indeed, perhaps it's enough for Zelensky to just publicly say neo-Nazi's are bad and should not have their own paramilitary brigades and bases, where they publicly said they'll kill the government if the Ukrainian actual military came for their guns.

The rest of the article is interesting as well on the other category which was the land issue.

Still, President Putin's demands are not as harsh as some people feared and they scarcely seem to be worth all the violence, bloodshed and destruction which Russia has visited on Ukraine.

Given his heavy-handed control over the Russian media, it shouldn't be too hard for him and his acolytes to present all this as a major victory. — BBC

Which is a pretty good insight on part of the state owned media the BBC.

If they wanted a clear & unequivocal answer from Nuland, they would have asked for such an answer. But they didn’t, and also that can be seen as suspicious. — neomac

The senator was totally shocked that the answer wasn't no, and changed the subject to his next question (aka. damage control) that any chemical attack we can know ahead of time is like totally Russia, which Nuland then stops what she was saying to joviently declare chemical attacks Russia's MO.

Feeding the Russian propaganda with half truths to increase Russian support will facilitate Russian use of chemical weapons in a "false flag" attacks against Ukraine [1]. This is for example what I would consider more reckless. — neomac

It's not feeding Russian propaganda with half truths, it's a completely legitimate conversation about something "fuck-the-EU" Nuland said, and as someone who lives in the EU, I think it's pretty relevant to evaluate her testimony as potentially revealing her "fuck-the-EU" strategy.

Of course, any legitimate criticism by EU citizens of US official operating in the EU, will also be used for propaganda purposes by plenty of parties, doesn't render legitimate discussions "half truths feeding the propaganda"; indeed, it's only so amazingly awesome for propaganda purposes because it's a legitimate discussion. If it was out of context, minor official, nothing burger, then using it for propaganda can easily blow-back when the nothing burgerness is established. What's shocking in the Nuland testimony is there's no contextual ambiguity, she's a high official that would know, and she even disambiguates what she means by clarifying that what she's talking about shouldn't fall in the hands of the Russians and they're working hard to make sure that doesn't happen.

I’m referring to a war of propaganda and how the intelligence resources might be invested to feed the propaganda machine. — neomac

Yeah, obviously there's also a propaganda or "information" war going on, but the problem with ignoring legitimate issues of debate because talking about something may "help the bad person" is that ... how do you even know who's good and bad if truth is off-limits. I'm not advocating we should peddle in half truths, I'm advocating we should deal in truths. Obviously, any given truth is going to help certain people more than others and, indeed, could be extremely embarrassing to certain people and not others. Doesn't change the fact that it's true.

’m just saying that one part of the American establishment might find some use in feeding the “neo-Nazi”, “bio-weapons”, “Russian genocide” narrative in a way that on their side grants plausible deniability while on the other side it can contribute to escalate tensions between Russia, Ukraine and EU. — neomac

That's what would normally happen. What's so unusual is there isn't plausible deniability. On the question of neo-Nazi's the West and Ukraine defence ministry had the assurance to everyone that "volunteers" (aka. Azov brigade) weren't doing any fighting and, sure, aren't "really Nazi's". Journalists went to record them fighting (which would mean, if US was following its own policies, that Ukraine should not get weapons and training support). The spokesperson of Azov brigade itself clarified they only have "10 to 20%" members who are Nazi's.

Then, this testimony of Nuland you'd think would have some plausible deniability, but she clarifies she's talking about stuff the Russian's shouldn't find and they need to work hard to make sure the Russian's don't find it ... which is alarming and also just weird as to why they didn't take care of it if they knew the war was coming as US intelligence publicly claimed.

This is what's so odd in these subjects, is that you'd expect plausible deniability, which then, sure, whatever, who knows, but these issues don't have plausible deniability.

As much as Russia, its useful idiots and its useless troll army. — neomac

I do not claim the war is good for Russia. EU getting fucked doesn't exclude Russia getting fucked as well. But at least Russia is achieving something and getting at least whatever military gains they do get (even if it doesn't compensate the losses and sanctions, they'll at least get something).

What does the EU get? More or less the collapse of its immense soft power position in the world overnight, and nothing in return, except of course Russian gas.

We can not exclude that there are competing views within the American establishment toward this war. — neomac

Nuland is not commenting on the war, she's answering the direct question of whether there are bio-weapons in Ukraine.

And, this theory:

Others do not want to escalate it further. Maybe "fuck-the-EU" Nuland is dog-whistling to the Russian propaganda and intelligence on purpose, to galvanize them and maybe offer them a pretext for becoming even more reckless. In other words, Nuland and the piece of establishment she represents could be doing their dirty job by exploiting such ambiguous declarations in public hearings. — neomac

Is just more example of how bizarre apologetics for Nuland need to get to actually fit a theory to the facts.

Yeah, sure, maybe Nuland is trying to "galvanize them and maybe offer them a pretext for becoming even more reckless."

Certainly a good tactic, but the problem is that this is really not a good way to do that, as it obviously will play well to the Russian supporters of the war and consolidate support for the war, which makes the war less reckless.

Furthermore, if you did hatch such a plan, you wouldn't do the taunting in a senatorial hearing; the classic strategy for what you propose is to feed Russia false intelligence that can be easily disproved, denied or just ignored later.

So, maybe some elaborate prank ... always possible, or maybe "fuck-the-EU" Nuland just wants to do what she claims and fuck the EU by orchestrating a coup with neo-Nazi's, setting those neo-Nazi's up with means and resources and then institutional legitimacy, and then setting up bio-weapons labs for this neo-Nazi cesspool as she feels that's a good way to "fuck-the-EU" which is her stated desire.

EU has gotten fucked, has it not?

Don't bother tagging me, I am not reading your ignorant bullshit. — SophistiCat

It's her own words, even specifies whatever these biological materials are, shouldn't fall into enemy hands.

We wouldn't be talking about it if it wasn't a senatorial hearing.

People here have tried to argue things like "lab could mean anything" or then it's just normal bio-research or then it is bio-weapons research but that's totally legitimate and normal for defensive purposes.

But if you have a better explanation of Nuland's answer, feel free to debate that point of view on a debate forum.

Maybe consider the Western media attitude on this point that it can just be ignored ... is because there's no good answers that account for the facts and what's already admitted to by the US, not just Russia suddenly throwing stuff up on the internet.

Same problem with the neo-Nazi's, it's not just Russia claiming stuff, Western media has documented these guys since 2014, there's all sorts of reportages on them by all sorts of credible journalists ... in addition to what they self publish about themselves!

Totally agreed that anything coming solely from the Russians can be seriously doubted, no way to know if it's true or fabricated, the problem is the stuff coming from Western media and Western institutions. We can't just ignore what "our own side" says simply because it's inconvenient for hating the Russians more. And, of course, what "our own side" says makes the best propaganda for Russia ... doesn't mean Western institutions exposing or admitting to some problems or corruption or totally illegitimate intelligence operations, can't be discussed as that undermines the idea that only Russia is bad now, everyone else good, all Western policies and wars of aggression fought or backed we can just ignore the morality of now, the West pure now.

Also unlikely that they care about ethnic Russians NOT fighting the war either, because the civilians being bombed in Mariupol are in majority ethnic Russians. — Olivier5

Maybe, but I'm sure they would say "liberating" Mariupole from Azov brigade is for the greater good of ethnic Russians.

But how do you know what Putin feels? And it's a legitimate grievance any oppression, such as language suppression, of ethnic Russians, regardless of what Putin feels about it, his concern in negotiation is how it will play out for the Russian people who obviously do care about ethnic Russians.

Legitimate grievance just means there's a valid argument based on at least some facts that do exist, and not some bullshit made up argument.

But sure, you can criticise Putin, the Kremlin, the Russians all you want, doesn't suddenly white knight Ukrainians or the EU or NATO.

As I've explained, even a murderer, confessed to murder, can have legitimate grievances about a fair trial or sentencing or treatment by police and in jail. Having a legitimate grievance does not make a party "right" or "more right", only that it needs to be recognised, perhaps for moral reasons if we agree about the grievance, but for sure in the context of a negotiation. For instance, if the police suddenly need a murderer to testify against his mob boss or whomever, and the murderer has a bunch of legitimate grievances about conditions in jail ... maybe police are going to need to sort that out if they want a deal.

Of course, prisoner may push beyond what's legitimate (like a helicopter and 1 million dollars) and will obviously be turned down on those requests because they are not legitimate.

The first point about a legitimate grievance is that it matters to the counter party, so you obviously have to respond to it if you want something from the counter party, like a deal. Of course, then there's negotiation and a deal is reached or not, it's only the very first step which is trying to understand the counter-party's point of view and what they are complaining about and what they want and what they can offer.

Of course, if police don't want anything from a prisoner, and that prisoner is being mistreated, but there's nothing that prisoner can do ... then likely to just stay that way regardless of this mistreatment being a legitimate grievance.

Honestly, you don't? — Olivier5

I mean the idea NATO doesn't give an actual shit about Ukrainians, ethnic Russians or whoever, in Ukraine ... doesn't exclude the possibility that the Kremlin also doesn't give much of a shit about ethnic Russians in Ukraine.

First, certainly the Kremlin position is any ethnic Russians still in Ukraine fighting Russia are traitors, just like the Kremlin position is any ethnic Russia in Russia in anyway opposing the war is a traitor. So, unlikely they care about ethnic Russians fighting the war.

For ethnic Russians on Russia's side, likely the Kremlin does care about them (whether genuinely or for propaganda purposes, feel free to decide), and for these ethnic Russians Russia would likely state they started the war super soft to get everyone a chance to leave and also cities and towns that are pro Russian to give up (which does happen) and the "humanitarian assistance" that Russia is at least bringing some stuff ... compared to the West pulling out of Afghanistan and cutting all food and and child care funding and just letting those children starve to death.

Obviously Taliban will do a little corruption with whatever is given to Afghanistan, but there's no reason to believe they wouldn't distribute food if we sent it, nor allow NGO's to distribute the food directly, nor any reason to believe that's not the right thing to do even if Taliban somehow stop any food getting to anyone; but would that really be politically viable for the Taliban, that we send food and they simply throw it in the sea? And ... West has pulled out of Afghanistan and let the Taliban take-over ... so it's not like there's some political demand or reason for sanctions.

NATO just straight abandoned their Afghanistan people and their allies (all those hearts and minds they did manage to win over) and have now let them starve.

And, think of the budget that would be spent to keep NATO in Afghanistan even a few months longer and how must funds it would take to keep getting food into the country?

There's no longer interest in getting food to our Afghanistan "friends" because there's no more arms sales related to the issue.

↪boethius Likewise, if you want us to believe that the Russian government gives a rat's ass about the lives of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, do try and explain why Russian forces are bombing so many ethnic Russians in Ukraine... — Olivier5

Sure, yeah, I don't see how the proposals are mutually exclusive.

My basic thesis in this discussion is that two sides of the story are needed to reach a diplomatic solution.

Now, if Ukraine is going to win, and you care about Ukrainians, ok, no need for diplomacy, just let them "win" as the vast majority of Ukrainians seem to be in favour of fighting and winning and support Zelenskyy

However, if Ukrainians aren't going to win, the diplomacy now is almost always better than diplomacy tomorrow in this sort of situation.

Likewise, fighting to a stalemate ... only purpose is to then have a diplomatic resolution, so still requires both sides of the story (whatever we may morally think of any particular point or who's right and who's wrong or who's more right and who's less right and so on).

Russian state-controlled media is still pushing the "biolabs" story. — SophistiCat

Nuland literally answers this question about biolabs with with a non-no answer. If there was no bioweapons Nuland would just confidently state there's no bioweapons. Just like if she was asked if Ukaine had nuclear warheads and ICMB's ... she would just say "no, Ukraine does not have nuclear warheads and ICBM" as obviously it doesn't.



Things are not necessarily how they appear ... even the above video could be some deep cover Russian plant; difficult to tell, nothing is clear cut.

Anyone that can watch this video:



And maintain the West and NATO are sincere in their sudden concern for war victims ... feel free to explain how.

Well, The Germans did pocket whole armies when they attacked in 1941, so encirclement of enemy forces can be done basically anywhere. — ssu

Yes, but the Germans pocketed soviet armies using armor. Motti tactics are about encircling columns without armor, which was possible if the Soviets are stuck in long columns on roads through the forest and were also not prepared for Finnish winter.

And, as I've explained, the armor component to armor is somewhat secondary to the mobility part. If you simply can't get to the front without a tracked vehicle in a reasonable amount of time, then you can't reinforce a breakthrough to cut through enemy lines to encircle them.

In addition to just the speed problem, there's simply a limit to how much ammunition you can carry on foot, so even you do get to the front you maybe out of ammunition pretty quick, especially anything heavier than bullets (but they can go pretty fast too).

would not be surprised if the Russian army already lost 10,000 or more soldiers, and many more to come. — magritte

It maybe true Russia has suffered 10 000 losses or more. And in terms of casualties I would agree that's a reasonable figure. However, depends a lot on how casualties are defined; after a war it's usually killed and seriously wounded, but during a war the smallest of injuries can get infected and make you non-combat effective, even if you're back to basically 100% after a week in an infirmary.

These small injuries don't really matter in a conflict like Afghanistan (to US troops) as attacks are relatively infrequent, "low-intensity conflict" (compared to what's happening in Ukraine) and so they just go back to base and heal up and any given time there's some sick and wounded soldiers, but the don't accumulate.

However, in a high intensity conflict with shelling and explosions all over the place, people can get cut, concussed, fractured limbs or ribs, infected or just get sick due to stress and exhaustion, or simply reach their physical and psychological limits.

So, we'd need to know the statistics on these casualties, to decide if 10 000 is a big number or not.

And that's also the basic problem with all the negative reporting on the Russian military situation, it's really sparse data that doesn't give much statistical insight. The "Task and Purpose" video has a really good contrast (by someone a lot more qualified than me on these tactical issues) of a totally incompetent armor response to an ambush and a pretty competent response. It's entirely possible the incompetent response was because the tanks weren't even driven by a tank crew but just logistics people to get them to the front and it was believed the area was cleared (obviously a mistake).

However, ambushed don't take territory and unless they stop logistics completely, don't really change anything fundamentally. German U-boats sank plenty of merchant ships resupplying UK, but obviously enough got through for UK to hold out. In supplying some location where resupply can be targeted it's a question of if those losses are worth it for whatever strategic location is being supplied.

I expected that modern technology would have proven cumbersome tanks and even expensive airplanes obsoleted by this war. Movements of large machines can be tracked by satellites making them easy targets for attacks from the distance by small groups of scattered defenders armed with portable and shoulder fired rockets. — magritte

The problem is that everything has a counter. If you don't have tanks ... enemy use weapons and tactics that highly effective against an enemy without tanks, if you do have tanks they'll employ weapons and tactics to try to take out your tanks. Of course, you'll then try to deal with their anti-tank weapons and tactics and they'll try to deal with those.

Air power is definitely the tanks biggest weakness, and drones extremely effective air power for this purpose, so facing this threat counters will be developed, and then counters to those counters and so on.

So, to evaluate anything we need some statistical information of how much a given tank is able to accomplish before being destroyed, how many anti-tank drone missions can be done before the drone is destroyed (or drone command center targeted with cruise missiles), and so on. What we'd want to know is the Russian tank's survivability generally speaking in front line combat and against ambushes as well as the survivability of the crew.

We basically don't have any statistical information at all.

All we know is that Russia can take and hold territory in Ukraine pretty effectively, and regularly advances key positions, but we don't really know what the cost is to Ukraine or Russia. Are Russians regularly tactically retreating to inflict heavy losses ... or are Ukrainians methodologically tactically retreating to inflict heavy unsustainable losses.

We definitely don't know, my main purpose is to simply point out that Western media claims are totally unsubstantiated and can represent Russia winning as easily as Ukraine somehow winning.

I'll look this up. But do note that this was before the current war. — ssu

That's why it gives really context of what Russia's strategic doctrine may have been before going into the war.

The analysis is not biased by trying to interpret current events as it was done before.

A lot of actors do have genuine reasons to get a realistic picture of the war. — ssu

I don't say otherwise, but most material just so happens to be published by Ukraine as basically the foundation of their strategy is the social media battle, to get international support, to get weapons and sanction pressure on Russia, so publishing material to support the narrative that they are winning, or inflicting serious unsustainable losses on the Russians, is critical for that.

Even observers tying to be unbiased may not have any unbiased sources. Sure, you're free to believe Western intelligence sources are just unbiased truth tellers if you want.

What is really lacking is that Ukraine would make larger counterattacks and surround larger Russian units and hence use as Finland did in Winter War the famous motti-tactics. — ssu

Motti-tactics were specific to the Finnish Boreal Forest North of lake Lagoda, where the Russians were constrained to narrow roads to move any heavy equipment or supplies through the forest; Finns could use their advantage of ski and other winter forest tactics to cutup and destroy these columns (including excellent mortar teams trained precisely due to the near vertical terminal descent of mortars perfect for hitting targets between tall trees). It should also be noted that the Soviet Union was still wary of and positioned for a war with the Nazi's and Stalin purged some 90% of the officers. So these weren't Russia's best troops and officers sent into said forest / death trap.

However, south of lake Lagoda there is more of an open plane of farmland that the Finns must defend a more traditional line against armor and artillery, but there's a big bottle neck between the lake and the gulf of Finland where a small force can hold hold a line against a larger force due to the constrained space making flanking maneuvers impossible and the entire region will be impassible mud for armor and artillery come spring--hence "the Winter War".

The situation was very different.

Notice that the map hasn't changed much for days. — ssu

This is the basic pattern of the war, as forward operating bases need to be built, and defenses to protect them, to supply forces for the next step (otherwise armor just runs out of fuel as we saw in the first days of the war). Russia has a unit dedicated to building tactical pipelines for example, which apparently has been stealing tractors from farmers for digging and landscaping for this project.

The other reason there's a pause is that Kiev has been nearly encircled, which means the affect of this will be tested diplomatically and also strategy rethought considering this strategic objective being achieved (consolidate, move forces around, decide and plan the next military operations). For example, Russia may decide Kiev is encircled "enough" and so dig in where they are now to focus on other objectives, or decide to storm the capital, or decide to fully encircle the capital.

Lastly, there may not be a pause at all, but rather the next critical step is not taking more territory but something more subtle when looking at a map of the entire country.

Or maybe there's a pause as things are falling apart, and casualties and losses are unsustainable.

It's very difficult to tell, but a few days pause, even if literally nothing much was happening, may indicate a setback or may indicate Russia is simply preparing it's next major offensives and moving things into position.

All the anti-tank weapons are definitely clearly dangerous, but what we don't know is if Russia has developed effective counter tactics. Russia has had experience with a lot of anti-Tank weapons in Syria and developed counter tactics in that context, but the environment was very different and they weren't NATO's best in stock. We really have almost no insight into what Russian generals are thinking of these weapon systems (except obviously they'd rather them not be there; so, if they simply inflict unsustainable losses without any counter-tactic, then Russia will likely dig in where they are now; but if they, at least feel, they can deal with them somehow, then we may see major offensives demonstrating that confidence--I honestly don't know what the situation is with the ATGM's, except both sides are trying to learn and adapt, and they clearly haven't stopped Russian getting to wherever they are now).

For those confused about the current mainstream maps getting more and more ambiguous, such as replacing Russia "territory" with arrows, there's 2 reasons for this.

There's a good faith reason that journalists simply don't know the situation on the ground. At the start of the war there were journalists a bit everywhere and almost everything was documented on social media.

It's sort of the reverse of pre-telegraph times where the start of a war was the most confusing and word travels on foot and can be inaccurate and rumors spread on purpose by enemy spies and so on, and the reality becomes clearer only over time. And also "journalists" didn't necessarily exist at all.

However, there's also a bad faith reason of "map propaganda" in that if one wants to make the argument Russia has completely stalled ... one simply need not update the map for a few days to give that impression. Likewise, a pro-Russian source may do the opposite and so paint as much of the map Russian as can be possibly argued. So, whereas both pro-Ukraine and pro-Russian maps of the war started out largely agreeing, I have noticed they can now be really far apart (not just between different partisans but also even between the same partisans maps can now be very different).

There is one mapper that not only seems genuinely making an effort to be as objective as possible, but even makes videos explaining sources and confidence level of different reports as well as tactical implications and what's been reported about different battles.



It's so far the most insight into what's actually happening on the ground I have found so far, and where things are very unclear (basically still internet rumors with no confirmation) it at least gives insight into the tactical stakes in different battles and fronts (such as if the rumor is true what that may mean etc.).

My first comment on this thread was mainly asking for insight into how Russian's perceive things, to balance out the inundation of what Westerners think.



This video is pretty good for that purpose.

Here's some analysis of the fog of war situation from someone who's actually been in a war.



He also comments on the use of conscripts situation and that they seem useless to him as front line soldiers.

It definitely could be a "send the cannon fodder situation" but from what I can tell we're not talking about a lot of conscripts.

For me, the buildup is over a year and conscripts will simply be integrated into the war games and training, so it makes sense to me that they'd just be deployed like everyone else, especially in a chaotic 1 week to plan situation (again, that has many cons, but means Ukraine has no time to deploy their own conscripts).

I think it's really difficult to evaluate what risk Putin saw in the current situation happening, and maybe none, but it seems clear to me that both Putin and Russian generals would want to avoid a Ukrainian sizable conscript deployment along the West of the Dnieper and Belarus border, with all the bridges wired to blow. Even if Russia then takes the East side it's not really a victory as that would be exactly Ukraine's strategy.

In any case, to understand decisions you have to know what risks they were intended to mitigate. There can be a lot of negative consequences for a decision, but if it mitigated worse risks then it may still be the best one, and certainly rational.

It's possible Russia is somehow losing, but it's also possible they are happy the West thinks they are losing so that Ukraine keeps on fighting so they can destroy more of their military capacity (the stated 'de-militarization" objective which Putin told the Finnish president was currently 'happening'). Of course, the negative is Russia is certainly experiencing losses, but without knowing how many and some idea of the acceptable loss level, it's basically impossible to evaluate the Kremlin's view of things and what motivates decision making.

This entire process is Zelenski and the West calling Russia's bluff, and now Russia calling the West's bluff.

Who's actually bluffing ... we'll find out soon enough.

Completely agreed, and those governments will therefore soon want the conflict to be resolved one way or another.

The party (that they can influence) that can most easily end the conflict is NATO, by stopping the supply of weapons (or just negotiate behind the scenes, and then telling Zelensky to accept the deal or the arms supplies ... well, aren't necessary going to stop but, it would be a damn shame if anything were to happen to them once in Ukraine--there's a nice supply line of ATGM's here, I wouldn't want to see anything to happen to it, capiche, kind of remark).

↪boethius, the Nazi thing wasn't in Putin's demands (other than used as a pretext/excuse perhaps). Either way, UN peacekeepers ain't up to him to decide, as he apparently thinks, only to go in with his bombs blazing instead. — jorndoe

Legitimate grievances are rarely directly addressed in a resolution, rather compensation is represented in some way to make the deal acceptable.

For example, if a company screws up, they may offer you a gift card to "resolve the issue", they won't commit to writing that they accept whatever the grievance is has any legitimacy; it's their offer that represents that and their proposal to solve it.

Russia knows that the Ukraine and NATO will never admit to a neo-Nazi problem, so there's no use in negotiating that directly. Most leverage in a negotiation is implied. Someone much bigger and stronger than you shouldn't need to actually point that out if "you're in their seat".

Completely agree.

However, Russia is also currently holding the world's food hostage. This is going to create a log of diplomatic pressure from all sorts of countries on NATO to resolve the crisis.

On-top of the Ukraine-Russian military struggle, there's also this battle of wills. Russia is hurting from the sanctions ... but the whole world is hurting from the sanctions as well as commodity price increases. At some point, various "neutral" governments, that NATO still "needs" to deal with for various reasons, are simply not going to care who wins or loses the fight ... only that their people are gong to be able to eat.

What we can be sure of is that the whole situation is tense.

Thanks for these insights, always pause for thought someone describing something happening today ... about a century ago.

Reminds me of a passage from Marx about how the "liberal" party of UK, whatever it was called at the time, just represents the aristocrats and their fellow rich friends that benefit from economic liberalisation and getting rid of the rest of aristocratic privileges, and they'll never deliver on their "ideals" of freedom and equality and the rest of it; that it's all talk and you'll never see actions no matter their majority in parliament ... it will always be close but "shucks, can't do it".

↪boethius For what it's worth, the Ukrainian side estimates that the Russians will have exhausted their stock of cannon fodder by end April - early May.

With any luck, Ukraine can save part of their wheat harvest, that should take place in June I think. If the conflict last longer, the harvest will be compromised, with significant repercussions on food prices and possibly famines in a number of food-importing countries. — Olivier5

Even if true about the cannon fodder, which is certainly difficult for us to know, is this leverage Ukraine has on Russia, or leverage Russia has on Ukraine and the entire world?

In Russia every man who is qualified for military service is either on active duty or in reserve - up to the age of about 50. So imagine all those men with families, jobs and beer bellies being called up to fight in the "brotherly" nation of Ukraine! — SophistiCat

Definitely if they need to start forced conscription, this would be a sign of strategic troubles.

However, a military recruiting like mad during a war is not unusual, US marines are recruiting all the time.

Should also be kept in mind by everyone that conventional warfare produces a lot and a lot of casualties on a very wide spectrum of injuries. During my own training I was several times inured / exhausted to a point of 0 combat effectiveness, but then recovered in a week or two after a doctors note; and this was just training and more or less "sports injuries" without anyone actually shooting anything at me. So in a real war you're going to have all these "sports injuries" and limits of exhaustion, likely a lot more, in addition to shrapnel and bullet wounds and psychological limits as well. The stress of just training for war has a big effect, and there's basically zero trauma of anyone dying or actually trying to kill you.

So, all this affects the Russians, but so too the Ukrainians, and pauses are not just to resupply and buildup forward operating bases, they are also to wear down the enemy psychologically, physically, allow small wounds to get infected etc.

And being able to rotate out troops to infirmaries in Russia, even for small wounds or psychological recovery, is an immense strategic advantage. Soldiers that do "break" you want to immediately send somewhere far away so it doesn't take time of effective troops to manage and affect their morale.

And people break all the time just training for conventional warfare, so, I can only really imagine what a real conventional war is like.

One guy on our base broke his foot with a chair, to get out of the experience. This other guy (far more intelligent) just refused to speak nor do anything other than eat and go the bathroom, he'd just lie in bed, and progressively higher ranked officers would come and yell at him--even the commander of the entire base, so the legend goes--until they finally let him go do civilian service after two weeks (once the army "has you" they won't let you go easily, if they believe you can actually fight--of which they prefer your opinion on the matter not to count).

And, the motivation to break people down (especially in basic training) is extremely high, as from the officer's point of view the people that break are not only not-effective soldiers and just a combat liability ... but are somewhat likely to shoot you if you give them a riffle and bullets. But these are still just simulations that don't even get remotely close to the psychological pressures of a real war.

Russian army reserve is not like US army reserve - it is not just a branch of the military that you can join for a few years of service. — SophistiCat

I am aware of this, I mean they will first try to recruit conscripts as full time regular soldiers voluntarily, as you describe, before conscripting people (i.e. force people who do not want to volunteer). The conscripts we've heard about so far were active duty conscripts that were thrown in to the war. Active duty conscripts train in the context of regular forces and bases (there's no separate base just for conscripts), as it's regular full time soldiers and officers that train the conscripts but also the regular forces train to deploy and manage conscripts in war games.

So, to use conscripts without calling it conscription, you just need to hire them as full time soldiers. For the active duty conscripts that got sent in with regular forces, I guess Kremlin is calling this an "error"--but of course it's purely just a PR thing, no one's "suing" the Kremlin over it.

Of course, there's a limit to how many people want to volunteer, but they'll certainly exhaust the voluntary recruits first. And by voluntary in this context, I mean someone wanting to join regular forces, not "volunteers" as has been labeled foreign fighters (by both sides).

Russian Ground Forces consist of only 280 000 troops.
— ssu

That's the number of active duty troops as of 2020 per Wikipedia, but that would include both conscripts and professionals (Russia has both). — SophistiCat

I have done a bit of digging into the numbers, all of which seem to come from US intelligence estimates and refer to troops "in and around" Ukraine, which includes the bases around Ukraine.

For me, these figures represented total personnel of front line soldiers and support personnel.

However, the basic point that however many troops in Ukraine at any given point, it's easy for Russia to rotate troops out of combat for rest and recovery, whereas very difficult for Ukraine will remain true even if 100% of Russia's troops were committed to the war (they would still rotate some percentage at a time for recovery).

The following video also gives a lot of context:



The critical part for understanding Russia's overall doctrine (at least what they are trying to do) is the explanation of the basic organisation of brigade and division.

Basically, they have a divisions that are meant for large scale offensives and permanent defensive positions (i.e. the division, if things go well, can supply itself indefinitely in the field), and then they have smaller brigades that are smaller and mobile with limited sustainability in the field.

(According to the analysts at least) the Russians do not believe in long defensive lines, but rather manoeuvre based warfare including a lot of tactical retreat to inflict losses and then rapidly retake the area in question.

So, however "good" things are going for Russia in terms of absolute losses and relative losses vis-a-vis Ukraine, it makes a lot more sense to me at least what the Russian's basic idea is.

They have "divisions" setup around Kiev and in the south to protect core strategic objectives (Kherson to cross the Dnieper, land-bridge to Crimea, and of course encircling Kiev). Everything else is consistent with this manoeuvre based warfare of brigades that have limited sustainability, so might break through create a salient and then retreat. The sign of a "failed salient" is encirclement of forward forces.

Another interesting part of the video is describing the toppest-top level strategic thinking (again according to them) of the Russian military, which is their belief that any large scale conflict will involve a first phase of basically lot's of missiles and quick strikes at key strategic objectives (and giant air war; but that would apply more to a large air-power such as NATO) and then after that chaotic phase, a second phase of more prolonged warfare, where it is the side that adapts best that will prevail.

So, it definitely appears to me that this doctrine has been put into practice; it's of course up for debate how well it has worked and extremely difficult to evaluate based almost solely on information Ukraine side chooses to public.

They haven't called in reservists yet (by law, that can only be done in wartime, but then again, "law" is a very flexible thing in Russia), but they are actively recruiting. People are being called up under any pretext and asked to sign a contract. — SophistiCat

Yes, this seemed to me extremely likely that they'll just make reservists "full time" and so avoid calling conscripts (who don't want to go) as much as possible.

This may also explain why Putin has put so much effort into arguing Ukraine is already part of Russia, in case they need conscripts they can argue their defending Russian soil.

So the Russians decided to kill Russians outside of Donbass.... Makes things more even, right? — Olivier5

Russian's really don't like the original Nazi's or neo-Nazi's, and the Russian government nor the Dombass breakaway regions have any evidence of any institutional integration with neo-Nazi groups nor any evidence of tolerating such groups existing in the first place.

We've already dealt with this strawman and also deflection from the self-described neo-Nazi's in Ukraine.

Says who, and to whom? There's no grievance without an aggrieved party. — Olivier5

Russian's are legitimately aggrieved by the neo-Nazi's killing Russians in Dombass. You can engage in apologetics for the neo-Nazi's, but that doesn't change the Russian's perception of them being neo-Nazi's and their perception of them killing Russians in Dombass and elsewhere since 2014.

But, you clearly haven't understood what the basic concept even is. I'll need to continue tomorrow, but maybe someone else will re-explain it to you

It is useful also for the non-intended purpose of showing how immoral you guys are. — Olivier5

Things are perhaps not as black and white as you believe.

Understanding the history, nuances, perspective and what in negotiation we call "legitimate grievance" is essential for a diplomatic solution. Likewise, the evaluation of the military situation influences whether one believes diplomacy is even "necessary" for your aims, and, if so, then what a reasonable deal would be considering the military situation (of which, we don't really know the true state of things on the ground, but need to make deductions from larger events and considerations).

Recognizing someone's legitimate grievance does not mean agreeing everything they say.

To bring up the example of police negotiators, if they are talking to someone who they are certain is the suspected murder, and the suspect asks for a coffee ... they are likely to provide it as it's a legitimate grievance to be denied a coffee as a police captive, likewise food, and, likewise, indeed, the murder itself can be motivated by legitimate grievances and police negotiators will recognize that to get the suspect to talk and admit to the murder and so wrap up the case with far less resources as well as satisfy their own and other people's desire to at least understand the motivations and events.

And, it's these police murder suspect negotiators videos that you can find plenty online, as it becomes public evidence in trial, that are probably the best examples of negotiation that are accessible. Corporations and governments also have good negotiators ... but they tend not to film it and post it online afterwards.

One of the key themes in these police negotiations is responding to legitimate grievances and opposing non-legitimate grievances (for example: avoiding a question). It's the only way to have a constructive conversation with a counter party regardless of the moral context. Even higher stakes is hostage situations which can be available online as well.

So, in the situation in Ukraine, just so happens that neo-Nazi's is a legitimate grievance. Now, as already discussed with @ssu a response to legitimate grievance doesn't mean "agreeing"; a legitimate response to a legitimate grievance can be proving it's not true, or then exaggerated or then arguing about it; recognition just means acknowledging it's important for the other person and that they have valid feelings about the issue that warrant engagement, not-recognizing would be just ignoring it (for example, maybe there simply is no coffee left and I can't have a coffee; ok, that would be a legitimate response and good faith if it's true, but not-recognizing my grievance about a coffee would be just to completely ignore my asking for a coffee). So, EU could "prove" there are no neo-Nazi's and the Azov brigade didn't do any active fighting as a paramilitary force, would be one response, just bad faith if there are neo-Nazi's and Azov brigade was doing parallel paramilitary fighting in Dombass outside a legitimate chain of command. Likewise, Russia's grievance about being threatened by NATO with nuclear Armageddon is also a legitimate grievance, as is our grievance of Russia's threat to us of nuclear Armageddon.

I don't know what you're talking about. I'm sure that on the basics, we agree. Maybe we differ on strategies for dealing with bullies, but we're still on a dead rock hurtling through nowhere on the way to nowhere for no reason.

As we pass into oblivion we whisper into the darkness: "we did the best we could..." — frank

Very possible out positions are close. If you're sympathetic to @ssu position, then we are mostly debating different sides of the issue. Obviously he recognizes the Russians could win, and I recognize the Ukrainians could win, just by some big surprise we don't know about. My analysis is mostly based on the assumption that the arms Ukrainians have can't really assault Russian positions.

And, I'm sure with your experience you experience of the true scale of the carnage and trauma; if more can be avoided by talking then I think that should be attempted, and talk requires mutual understanding, so, in this case, understanding the Russian perspective as well as Ukrainian.

Of course a stalemate is possible, or peace deal happening at anytime, and who really "won" is up for a debate. A good peace deal mid-war, both sides can claim they won. For instance, both Soviet Union and Finland could make a legitimate claim to having "won" in WWII, and it's that kind of peace deal that is more stable than a WWI armistice type deal that humiliates one side.

I do indeed hope we both can say we do the best we can.

I don't have any righteous rage. This is nothing new. Same shit different day. — frank

Ok, well then re-imagine my little bully story but you're not motivated to do anything at all about the situation except for some purely academic analysis on the internet.

Although the bully analogy is useful for the intended purpose of imagine I tell you guys I got a whole group of marines going to back you guys up, totally for sure, we're buddies, to go take on that bully. And then you guys channel your righteous rage that this bully is also a rapist or will soon be a rapist, and go to beat down on him (by which you mean me and my marine buddies that can easily do so).

Obviously, first you just start just pissing him off with symbolic gestures, like an SS battalion emblem as even though he's a bully he really hates neo-Nazi's as they killed his gandma ... ok, you pissed him off and he starts coming at you, and you guys start backing up like the raised arm batman meme waiting for me and my marine buddies to jump in front of you and take care of business, any moment now ... any day now ... gonna happen ... we're gonna do this. This is it. Today's the day. Any moment now.

Instead, my marine buddies and me toss you a few sticks to defend yourselves, which you totally have righteous cause to do and we get crazy mad likes for backing you up where it counts (to us personally in our ability to "slay puss", as us tough guys refer to copulation): social media.

That would be the analogy in evaluating the NATO's moral position. Definitely NATO starting "the process" with Ukraine and Georgia was a "we got your back bro" statement ... or then a deceptive tactic to bait Russia into a war to restart a cold war at their expense. One way to tell: does NATO actually have either Georgia's or Ukraine's back?

While you ponder that question, what "having someone's back means" (only talk and slipping them a shank in a fight they'll lose count?) ... perhaps consider there are also two sides to the story. How are we sure it's not Ukraine that's the real bully refusing to let people have their "right" to democratic self determination?



Deep cover Russian agent social media provocateurs?

So NATO is careful about who joins them as well, some sort of a balance. — FreeEmotion

Exactly why NATO didn't just let Ukraine in a month ago when a invasion "might" happen and "NATO's Ukrainian friends" could have easily been helped without any loss of life at all.

NATO can't have it both ways and say they care "oh, so, so much about Ukrainians", enough to supply weapons and expend the massive political energy to sell Germany on F-35's and chnage the entire posture and financial position of NATO overnight (which doesn't save a single Ukrainian life, but is obviously the priority and 99% all the actual big boy talk intra-NATO) ... but doesn't care enough about Ukraine to let them in the alliance, because that would be irresponsible (so why bait them with that in the first place again? someone please remind me), which is basically what the argument is, nor put much energy to negotiate in the interest of any civilians or Ukraine itself (just cheer on social media for Ukrainians to die to demonstrate the effectiveness of NATO weapons for the purposes of the arms sales that have already happened, are happening and will happen due to NATO pumping in arms into Ukraine to demonstrate their effectiveness and simply leads to Russia to escalate indirect fire, the reasonable tactical response to infantry that make themselves a nuisance--that any commander on the entire planet, including every single NATO officer, would do without question, which causes more collateral damage (which last I hear NATO doesn't even bother keep count of) that can easily be used to justify sending more shoulder launched systems to cause even more escalation and prolong the war causing vastly more death and trauma to, most of all, children.)

To put it bluntly, joining NATO gives a nation absolute impunity, because any military action, whether sanctioned by the UN Security council or not, with our without just cause, cannot be responded to by Russia in kind because that would mean attacking a NATO member, which is tantamount to attacking them all, including the United States.

This was Putin's point when he suggested that if Ukraine joined NATO, they could attempt to take back Crimea and he would not be able to do anything about it. — FreeEmotion

That's why countries want into NATO; way easier to be defended by the largest military block on the planet.

Come to think of it, a good strategy would be for everyone to join NATO and paralyze Russia's ability to use their military ever again. Whom is Russia going to have left to attack? China? — FreeEmotion

The problem with this is that, sooner or later, in particular unstable regional powers, but generally speaking, diplomacy breaks down and push comes to shove. May also not be clear who fired the first shot.

By letting in unstable nations with their own regional ambitions, if not today perhaps tomorrow, then war inevitably follows and NATO won't actually respond to some cluster-fuck regional shit-show. I.e. in NATO, plenty of nations will abuse the position, NATO won't do anything as otherwise it will just encourage more abuse, and so the Article 5 will be undermined and the alliance start to fall apart in a practical sense.

How does the civilian population figure in all this? Surrounding a city and asking the civilians to leave seems like a good strategy but the combatants are unlikely to let civilians leave, when they make avoiding civilian deaths more difficult, and also, combatants become civilians when they drop their weapons. Isn't it reasonable to expect civilians to be prevented from leaving a battle zone? — FreeEmotion

What mattes in the rules of war is who's to blame. Russia also has video cameras and as soon as the war ends will start to justify their military decisions based on the intelligence that they had.

If Russia wanted to kill civilians it could just drive a thermobaric multiple rocket artillery launcher up to the front lines and fire everything it has into a city center, or just carpet bomb cities relentlessly.

However, it's not doing that, and so will state that it conducted the war to minimize civilian casualties, although some collateral damage cannot be avoided (same as the US says), and that it's offers of civilian corridors were good faith and maybe will publish video of Ukrainians breaking these cease fires. Russia may also simply prosecute / discipline some soldiers who "broke it's rules of engagements"and pay reparations for those "errors". From there is will get all technical legal all sorts of details needing investigation, and, therefore, drop out of the news cycle and that will be that.

Well, 90% of 280 000 is 252 000, hence even if you take into account the National Guard units fighting in Ukraine, not so much is committed to Ukraine. But it's logical that they cannot withdraw troops for example from Kaliningrad and leave other places totally void of troops. — ssu

Ok, well we'll see, but I have not seen any similar analysis that Russia is engaging a majority of it's total force.

Or then start calling in the reserves. — ssu

Yes, Putin committed to not conscript anyone for the war, but there will be plenty of reservists wanting to become full time soldiers. The Kremlin does not have a short term war financing problem so it can simply start hiring more troops, especially pre-trianed (to some degree) reservists. Especially with the sanctions causing deep recession in Russia there is certainly plenty of people looking for a job.

Of course, this doesn't instantly replenish the force, but mitigates losses and frees up existing full time soldiers to replace with new recruits.

Point is, Russia can "tap" their reserve force without technically using any reserves, as it can just convert reservists to professional full time soldiers.

No, the fact is that dictators and authoritarian regimes are basically scared of their own security apparatus and hence they divide the apparatus to various competing organizations. — ssu

Agreed, some force is necessary to protect the Kremlin from revolution.

I'm not accusing you of that! I'm only making the point that it's wrong to say only 1/10 of Russian forces are deployed to Russia. There isn't the 9/10 to be deployed there. — ssu

I was just responding to your mention Putin as a dictator, which I initially interpreted as just moral condemnation, so wanted to make that part clear. However, if it was just to point out the units committed to protect Putin, then I agree with your point.

However, we seem to be on the same page. I'm not saying 9/10'ths could be thrown into the fight.

My point is that the troops can be rotated out of the battle space. This is a large strategic advantage.

First, front line companies, or units, or individual soldiers (depending on the situation) can be rotated back to rearguard / Russia / Crimea for just basic sleep recovery and then just sent back to the front line if needs be or then for the next company to rest. Just as even US soldiers in the Middle East do some patrol or fight a battle and then rest up in the "green zone"; they are still in a war zone but have safe space to rest and aren't literally sitting in a trench for their entire tour. It maybe counter productive to send soldiers to relax on the beach, but sleep is a basic need and difficult to do with constant explosions.

Whatever the force committed to Ukraine, it's not some absolute figure, but just "at any one time" Russia can support so many troops in the war. If companies become ineffective they can be rotated out with a fresh company with just a few train rides. For example, let's say 35% of troops of some base have been requisitioned for the war in Ukraine, as things go on, they will start to be rotated out with the fresh troops still on base; still 35% from that base committed to the war, but different people. Keep in mind many professional soldiers "want" to go to war and use their training and get experience and have stories to tell. The morale level of conscripts sent in on the first day by surprise (as mentioned, so Ukraine doesn't mobilize) is not indicative of the moral of the entire Russian military; which also can explain why Russia didn't organize it's best (as that would signal imminent invasion and preemptive mobilization).

Likewise, lightly injured soldiers can be sent back to base as part of the garrison and maybe have some productive things to do in an arm sling, and so can be replaced with a fresh soldier.

Lastly, soldier that die can be replaced by recruiting more soldiers.

The point of this fact is that a war of attrition with Russia needs to take their overall force into account.

Of course, not that Russia is willing to fight until the destruction of their whole army, but that their overall force outside the battle space makes "force repair" far easier in a purely military sense. As with the United States, likely the political tolerance for losses is reached far ahead of a purely military tolerance (mainly due to nuclear weapons, Russia doesn't actually need to fear an opportunistic invasion by a neighboring empire or upstart, unlike basically any time before nuclear weapons).

Just add up the figures and you do get the nearly one million. 280 000 + 340 000 + 200 000 +.... — ssu

The analysis I've seen of the Russian overall military position is they are still garrisoning their usual border positions, in particular close to Georgia but also in the North-East and West.

I have seen no one add up the personnel they're committing in the way you describe.

However, one must include their reservists as part of their overall force and their stockpiles of armor and artillery etc. The proper way to do things is weight each person / equipment in terms of battle readiness and effectiveness.

I agree maybe 10% is too low ... but nearly 90% committed to Ukraine seems too high.