Posted on 03/03/2024 7:53:26 PM PST by EnderWiggin1970
As the calendar barrels into another year and we tick away the days of February, notable anniversaries are marked off in sequence. It is now 2/22/2022 +2: two years since Putin’s address on the historic status of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, followed on 2/24/2022 by the commencement of the Special Military Operation and the spectacular resumption of history.
The nature of the war changed dramatically after a kinetic and mobile opening phase. With the collapse of the negotiation process (whether thanks to Boris Johnson or not), it became clear that the only way out of the conflict would be through the strategic defeat of one party by the other. Thanks to a pipeline of western support (in the form of material, financial aid, and ISR and targeting assistance) which allowed Ukraine to transcend its rapidly evaporating indigenous war economy, it became clear that this would be a war of industrial attrition, rather than rapid maneuver and annihilation. Russia began to mobilize resources for this sort of attritional war in the Autumn of 2022, and since then the war has attained its present quality - that of a firepower intensive but relatively static positional struggle.
The nature of this attritional-positional war lends itself to analytic ambiguity, because it denies the most attractive and obvious signs of victory and defeat in large territorial changes. Instead, a whole host of anecdotal, small scale positional analysis, and foggy data has to suffice, and this can be easily misconstrued or misunderstood. Ukraine’s supporters point to nominally small scale advances to support their notion that Russia is suffering cataclysmic casualties to capture small villages. This suggests that Russia is winning meaningless, pyrrhic victories which will lead to its exhaustion, so long as Ukraine receives everything it asks for from the west.
(Excerpt) Read more at bigserge.substack.com ...
Two things that are notable in this report.
Mediazona’s own data do not align with their spin of “massive’ Russian losses.
If the Ukrainian do mobilize a further 500,000 they are dependent on Western support to arm and train them.
Since Western support is in doubt, the Ukrainians don’t want to take to unpopular step of the additional mobilization...
I guess we just have to wait until it all caves in.
I agree. I’ve wondered why the Russians seem to have a propensity for assaulting heavily defended fortress cities rather than simply encircling them and starving them out. I suppose the Zeeper non-answer would be “because they are stooopid.” But a more rationale response would be that they find assaulting the cities preferable to fighting over the countryside, all things considered. I suspect when all is said and done, we’ll find the cities really were a meat-grinder, but not for the Russians.
They have been assaulting fortresses because they can. FAB bombs, in particular, can wreck the high rise buildings prior to any ground assaults. This also tends to demoralize the UAF soldiers (many of whom are conscripts from Russian speaking regions, which led to discipline problems, most notably in the disorganized escape from Avdeyevka).
That’s what is interesting to what Big Serge is saying about Russia wanting to fight in urban areas.
It seems insane, for Western militaries who want to do wars of maneuver in open country.
But if the battle plan is massive pulverization by artillery, troops in a city can’t spread out enough, so maybe there is a logic to it.
After a fast read, the one thing I come away with is that Ukraine is off balance now because western support, notably United States support, has been held back by timidity and political wrangling.
If Ukraine is subsumed by the Russian Borg due to our isolationism, it will rank with the abandonment of Poland and Czechoslovakia to Stalin by FDR at Tehran.
Syrskyi and the boys over on the Eastern Front in Donetsk are waiting for you to suit up...
‘notably United States support,”
There you go again. bitching about the USA. It’s a constant from you. Mr. Mayflower.
As if an armed invasion against a sovereign nation is acceptable today.
Barbarians.
I’ll take being under Russian rule in preference to being under Washington’s rule. At least they have credible elections, a leader who cares about his people, and they aren’t trying to brainwash my kids into mutilation and delusion.
Moscow runs credible elections? Oh, pull the other one!
What is your evaluation of the US presence in Syria?
Are we invading Syria? Let me know when announce that we have annexed them.
Last I heard, our forces killed a whole lot of Russians there.
How is it called squatting in the oil rich part of a sovereign nation and depriving the rightful owners from the related proceeds?
Regarding “Russians” they are invited by the legitimate authority.
Also there is little to be proud about for the regular military in killing a bunch of mercenaries. But I guess you need to be proud about something after being routed by Taliban that isn’t Japan or Germany.
Also if you think that the Russians won’t punish you then you aren’t smart.
Forget about three decades of free ride. The next war is going to be akin to Vietnam.
The reason is simple: a siege takes time. Time Putin doesn’t want to spend. So he doesn’t mind Russians dying for his hubris
Looks more like Hitler - Napolean
Invading The ukraine - Russia
Ever since Julius Caeser
Half civilized maniacal liberals
Only want to destroy everything
Gog mau mau usa
MaGog mau mau nato - un - Vatican
Rev 13
But under Moscow rules you can get 20 years for donating $50 to a human rights group that the dictator disapproves of. Or have your underwear Novichoked for being a political opponent. Does homeschooling as we have even exist in Moscow? Other than for the nomanklatura? How are you at flying off 4th story balconies in your pajamas?
Are you trying to say that "Russia" existed in 50 BC? Is that a joke? In that time the East Slavs were illiterate pagans. The Kievan Rus empire didn't coalesce for another 900 years. Christianity didn't start to take root until nearly 1000 AD.
BTW turn on your spell-check. You got both Napoleon and Caesar wrong.
Biden the hun
Gog hitler usa
MaGog hitler nato - un - Vatican
Rev 13
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.