Posted on 04/18/2022 5:35:55 AM PDT by GonzoII
The Ukrainian army’s 3rd Tank Brigade reportedly has reached the battlefield around Izium, near Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine. The 3rd might be the first of Kyiv’s reserve armored formations to join the fight.It’s a big deal. Several weeks after pulling its battered, starving forces from northern Ukraine, the Russian army is working to shift battalions south and east in order to redouble its offensive just west of separatist-controlled Donbas and along the Ukrainian coast.
But the Ukrainians are on the move, too. Units that spent the first month of the war defending Kyiv now are free to deploy elsewhere. Meanwhile, reserve formations that as recently as late February lacked people and equipment now are at fighting strength and have begun deploying toward the front.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
A big factor here is the improvement in the professionalism of the Ukrainian military since 2014. Not only have NATO troops been in Ukraine helping to bring the Ukrainians up to modern standards, but we've been training a lot of their officers and NCO's here in the U.S. as well. And for all the woke stuff, our combat/organizational training is still miles ahead of where the Russians are. That bodes very well for properly integrating recruits and reservists into active formations.
For the Russians, it's pretty much grabbing some guy and handing him a rifle. That just doesn't work with the speed and technology inherent in truly modern warfare.
No, that's not going to happen, and nobody is claiming that it is. There's a big difference between mounting a successful defense, and transitioning to a successful large-scale offense. To do that, the Ukrainian will need to increase significantly the amount of mechanized/armored assets. Even then, they will never have the combat power necessary to launch a successful ground attack into Russia itself. Successful local counterattacks within Ukraine to recover lost territory may be possible, though.
That doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm not trying to convince anyone who is already dug in on the Russian side of this. I'm mostly talking to others with military experience on the ground side who have some independent knowledge/experience regarding the things I'm mentioning, and so can participate in that kind of discussion.
Not a word of what I'm saying comes from post-invasion propaganda from either side. It comes from knowledge of ground combat, experience with personnel and training, and knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of the Russian military that were known long before this. As well as contact with some folks who have been involved in training Foreign Military Officers - "FMO's" - including Ukrainians, over the last several years.
You are making assumptions. I, we the united states has no dog in this fight.
We don’t have a clue as to what is going on. All we hear and see is Ukrainian propaganda amplified by the West’s MSM, which has a political agenda.
War is a function of logistics. Russia has a 1,500 mile border with Ukraine. Russia can resupply its troops far more easily, especially on the Eastern front. Russia controls the air and can launch missiles into Ukraine from Russia. In a war of attrition, Russia wins.
Time to end the senseless death and destruction of Ukraine. The idea that we need to destroy Ukraine to save it is bad policy—for Ukrainians. It will take decades to rebuild the country. And US taxpayers will be picking up part of the bill.
Hard for Russia to justify a full mobilization of their Armed Forces including calling up their Reserves.
I think you mean "Democrats always lead us into war".
Other than in the parts of the Donbass in which the Russians were dominant prior to the invasion, those logistics still have to be moved through pro-Ukrainian populations after they cross the Russian border, and they become very vulnerable at that point.
Missiles aren't going to win a war. Mariupol is all but completely flattened, and the Russians still don't control it. They'll run out of missiles long before they managed to shell Ukraine into submission. They're going to have to take ground with infantry and armor, and the Russian supply of both is limited. And when you start losing your contract soldiers and have to replace them with less experienced/motivated conscripts, the problem is simply going to get worse.
That changes only if the Russians go to full war mobilization, which they show no signs of doing.
Which of my assumptions do you think are factually wrong? I didn’t exactly go out on a limb.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if they were destroyed by US Javelin missiles captured by the Russians.
What does wag the dog mean?
To wag the dog means to distract attention away from a political scandal, often through military action.
The CCP seems to prefer economic leverage to military conquests. The PLA did not fare well against the Indians in recent border skirmishes. Their Belt and Road Initiative is emblematic of their approach. The Red Chinese leadership may view the Putin regime as an Eurasian equivalent of a Third World country. China's government or businesses offer a country like Nigeria a good deal on an infrastructure project. However, their terms leave Nigeria with debt that is difficult to repay. Also, Chinese businesses may purchase Nigerian products at a more favorable price than British or other Western firms.. Slowly, countries like Nigeria are drawn into the Chinese orbit.
That may be Xi's plan for Russia. With Western sanctions in place, Putin increasingly relies on the PRC to sell its oil and grain. Chinese banks replace Western financial institutions as a source of credit. In time, the once proud ex-USSR becomes a satellite of Red China.
A million times worse than bombing an aspirin factory...
Maybe they can catch up with Zelensky’s mouth.
But it terms of the debt, there's an old saying among bankers -- owe the bank $1B, and the Bank has you. Owe the bank $100B, and you have the Bank. The U.S. always has the trump card of disavowing all debt owed to China, which would collapse their economy worse than ours as all that debt they hold becomes worthless overnight.
"If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. Owe the bank $100 million, and that's the bank's problem."
Why would the Russians even want to control a city of ashes?
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