Posted on 05/13/2022 5:52:25 AM PDT by GonzoII
Official Ukrainian statements, independent news reports, local social media, and RF state-controlled news platforms on Friday said UAF advance elements had closed on Ukraine’s border with Russia at multiple locations, Fighting according to those reports was in progress for the Ukraine-side border villages of Lipsy, Vesele, Kozacha Lopan’, Pitomik and Russki Tishy, all to Kharkiv’s north.….snip Video images made public by the RF state-controlled news platform Readovka on May 13 showed scattered mortar or artillery strikes purportedly hitting fields and homes near the Solokhi, some 10 km inside Russia. There was no outside confirmation of the bombardment, but both UAF-associated social media and RF-associated news platforms repeated reports that UAF infantry and light vehicles had reached the Russian border in the vicinity.
Another UAF advance to Kharkiv’s north-west, along the right bank of the Seviersky Donets river, was on Friday per multiple reports pushing infantry into the village Rubizhne, against moderate RF resistance. If captured, the village would give the Ukrainians control of a tactically-important bridge across the river, and potentially threaten an RF logistics and supply center less than 10 km distant….
(Excerpt) Read more at kyivpost.com ...
Apparently, the new Howitzers NATO is supplying have ammunition that can hit targets up to 25 miles away and to within a circular error probability of 16 feet. Whether or not NATO is supplying them with that ammunition is not known yet. But given the intel they’ve got it allows decapitation strikes deep into Russia. Kill enough generals and the war stops. (It’s like turning off the droids from orbit in Star Wars.)
I have been wondering all along why the Ukrainians don’t cross the border and move far enough into Russia that Russia must deploy back home. One problem with a movement like that is the supply train would make the kind of target you’d use a nuke on. Armies have always bunched up their supplies behind the lines for ease of access, distribution and use. Spreading the supplies out so they don’t make tempting targets limits their utility.
Wow
While I may not agree with it, I can see the Russian logic in the whole affair. The thing that gets me is that on paper, Russian could have rolled up Ukraine in a week, or so. As it is, they used 2nd tier troops and executed a poorly made plan, with a fraction of their troops, and limited their attacks. All in a misguided attempt to mitigate international backlash. So here they are 2 1/2 months later, bleeding men and equipment in arguably a worse position than when they started. All this, with the specter of losing in several different ways looming over it all.
“The Russians enjoy a geographical advantage if this sanctuary system were to continue because their sanctuary immediately abuts the act of war zone in Eastern Ukraine…”
On paper, yes. But a lot of Russian hardware has to cross multiple time zones just to get there. And given what we’ve learned about the condition a whole lot of that hardware is in most of it won’t last a week in the field, let alone under combat conditions.
The Russian equipment in the former Warsaw Pact countries is in better condition than the stuff that’s actually in Russia.
“Seems to me that bringing Russia under fire brings marginal tactical advantage to Ukraine but significantly increases the risk of wider war.”
I’d tend to agree. But it’s going to be very difficult for the Ukrainians to not strike at the supply lines and depots. The Russians have been hammering the Ukrainian’s supply lines for a month. They’d be stupid not to do the same.
L
Russia invades Ukraine, but Ukraine can only take the fight to the Ukraine/Russia border and dare not hit targets in Russia? ...not even to disrupt supply lines?
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There are no such rules. Ukraine was attacked, so they can fight back which way they want.
However they try to avoid major attacks on Russian soil.
The reason is the nature of Russian people.
They are corrupt, rotten and ineffective. They are not particularly interested in fighting in Ukraine.
But, they will unify and fight to their death if the Mother of Russia is attacked.
We are agreed on this point. And the greater point is that fighting proxy wars always court the danger of the proxy widening the war against the principal' s interest precisely because it is in the interest of the proxy to engage the greater assets of the ally.
You want nuke loaded supersonic missles over the US in minutes in retaliation all for the likes of Ukraine?
If Ukraine invades Russia, Putin will ask to join NATO for protection.
Military history is replete with ill-advised military adventures.
Truth is that most of the world’s armies are little more than constabulary forces that would crack under the strain of real combat. The real professional armies tend to be smaller, better trained, politically reliable and highly-expensive to maintain. That’s a combination that most countries can’t afford.
Lotta that going around. You just described... us.
NATO and American command staff are directing the action from Lviv. There’s your explanation.
“NATO and American command staff are directing the action from Lviv.”
The far simpler explanation is that the Russian army is led by a bunch of incompetent and corrupt yes men who don’t dare tell Putin the truth of how bad things really are.
L
I'll give you 1 reason. I don't know if this fits into Ukraine's calculus, but here it is. Putin doesn't have the Russian armed forces on full war footing. He's fighting this war with his regular formations, supported by mercenaries. That, apparently, is Russian law. If Putin were to fully mobilize his reserves he may risk his own ouster over it. It was the mothers of dead Russian servicemen that forced the end of the Russian adventure into Afghanistan.
” I don’t know if this fits into Ukraine’s calculus, but here it is. Putin doesn’t have the Russian armed forces on full war footing.”
Good answer. Talk about a poker game...
If Ukraine fires much into Russia then Putin will frame it as an invasion of mother Russia. That’s what Putin wants.
Refer to the 1920 Polish Soviet war. The Poles helped the Ukrainians under petlura capture Kyiv and declare the west Ukrainian republic. But the Soviets, until then very anti nationalism, framed it as an attack on mother Russia and got many anti bolsheviks to join them.
Pooptin wants that.
According to a report from Bellingcat, Sergey Beseda, head of the Fifth Service (section of the FSB, dedicated entirely to monitoring the political, social and political climate within the former Republics of the Soviet Union, like Ukraine) managed to convinced Putin he had succeeded in raising a huge and highly effective domestic insurgency within Ukraine. He took that money and deliberately lied to Putin for the sole purpose of lining his own pockets. Putin took everything Beseda told him as the truth.
The deception seems to have begun quite soon after the seizure of Crimea. Beseda and his cronies told Putin what he wanted to hear, believing Putin would never act on any of it. Beseda’s partners in crime were greedier and less disciplined than their boss, however, and as time went on, it seems the fictions became ever grander and more fanciful.
The insurgents had multiple hidden stockpiles of weapons, emergency food, ammunition - all paid for from the Fifth Service’s budget. Putin refunded them the outlay and they went and spent the money on flashy lifestyles. in fact, a lot of Russia’s kackhanded logistics at the start of the invasion can probably be explained by the fact that they genuinely believed the logistical supplies were already in place.
At Hostomel, on day one of the invasion, VDV soldiers were running around the runway buildings going “What’s going on? Where’s or welcome? Where are the partisans? How are we supposed to secure this on our own?”
Just a point, the Russians used 1st tier troops like the VDV paratroopers.
That’s why they are now hiring mercenaries. They ran out of troops
Actually, Ukraine is trying to do something about corruption. Their instiutions are developing.
Russia? For a while, it looked like they were doing the same. At first, Putin was not bad. He did some things to liberalize the economy and went after the Oligarchs.
But then he become one himself. And then he was able to consolidate power.
Ultimately, once the war ends, Ukraine is going to accelerate their orbit to the West. They are going to receive the Marshall Plan so that'll help their economy to take off.
Russia is going to be like North Korea. Crazy. Isolated. But armed with nukes.
Funny thing is that Ukraine should have closed ties with Russia. They are Slavic brothers. Part of the Orthodox world. But I guess the Soviet period really ***** up the Russians. And that's all bcause of Czar Nicholas II's reign during WWI.
Has anyone said that? I missed it.
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