Posted on 09/20/2022 7:30:29 AM PDT by janetjanet998
JUST IN - Russia's Putin and Defense Minister Shoigu are expected to address the nation tonight, according to Kremlin pool reporters.
Fatal Terrain.
There is no good path forward. A bit like 1914 in way. The best path was to not start.
Too late now.
Range, maintenance and pilot training: carrying a full load and flying low to avoid Uke air defense they only have a limited number of bases close to Ukraine from which to attack, and they still have to contend with low-altitude air defense.
Think sortie rate given poor maintenance, poor training, other borders to defend, etc..
I think you're onto something there, but doubt Russia will declare any new territory until locals hold a referendum to join the Russian Federation. Both the Donetsk and Lugansk republics have just announced their intentions to hold separate referenda as soon as practicable. If these succeed, I suspect Russian will use conscripts to help secure its new Russian Federation oblasts while contracted forces continue offensive operations.
Ukes don’t like Russia, for sure. That’s why Putin is only liberating the Russian-speaking areas.
Yes, but we also need to remember their famous capacity for learned helplessness ("advancing" in the wrong direction, sabotaging vehicles, pretending to be far stupider than they are, etc., etc.)
Stalin was only able to muster enormous masses of military force because he had massive instruments of repression. Putin doesn't have those.
Separatists in Ukraine's Kherson region to hold vote on joining Russia
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4094742/posts
And it could get interesting.
The Euros are incapable. They are crumbling under the stupid green energy policies and loss of resources from the NATO proxy war with Russia. NATO has expanded and pushed up to the borders of Russian controlled territory. Moving frontline military weapons from the US into the fray has crossed the line with the Russians. It's game on.
I wonder where that figure came from? If true, that would equate to 700,000 Russian troops in Ukraine -- in addition to the ground troops of the Donetsk and Lugansk militias (i.e. Ukrainians) which have manned most of the ground combat engagements against the Ukrainian Army.
With what? You do realize we're barely raising a pinky to oppose the Russians with a paltry supply of Western arms for the Ukrainians and they are being pushed back.
If they had to face NATO and US forces, they'd simply be annihilated.
You’re assuming the paper strength of the Russian army corresponds to reality. Besides the “ghost” unit problem where commanders collect pay for forces that do not exist, there are many Russian soldiers at bases with few arms. They can barely ship enough food to feed them, let alone supply them with armor and training.
Declaring mobilization though will strengthen the regime's legal and political position in punishing dissent and overriding bureaucratic resistance. Existing units will be more easily redeployed to the Ukraine front, but with likely no more than marginal effect.
I wonder where that figure came from? If true, that would equate to 700,000 Russian troops in Ukraine -- in addition to the ground troops of the Donetsk and Lugansk militias (i.e. Ukrainians) which have manned most of the ground combat engagements against the Ukrainian Army.
Conscripts cannot be sent to combat zone. Bulk of Russian troops are non-combat, support. Also, remember to exclude the navy personnel and air force.
The Russians have autonomous undersea platforms stationed off the west, east and gulf coasts with 100 MT nuclear weapons inside intended to create a radioactive tsunami. Underestimating them isn't smart.
Sniffer looks to his left, sees Xi, looks to his right, sees Putin.
Uh, no, production is being ramped up.
In May, Lockheed Martin, which also makes the Javelin missiles, announced it was addressing concerns about the continued supply of shoulder-fired Javelin anti-tank missile systems. The company has confirmed that the production rate of the missile will be almost doubled, responding to the demand from Ukraine, as well as the continued requirement for these weapons to arm the United States and other allies and partners.
The maximum annual production rate of GMLRS is about 10,000 or about twice what is currently being called for in the current budget proposal.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/are-there-enough-guided-rockets-for-himars-to-keep-up-with-ukraine-war-demand
U.S. Accelerating HIMARS Production to Help Ukraine: Pentagon Official
"As we continue providing security assistance to Ukraine, we are working with industry to accelerate production of critical weapons and systems," LaPlante said.
"This includes providing funding to buy more equipment, expand production lines, and support additional hiring and workforce development."
https://www.newsweek.com/us-accelerating-himars-production-help-ukraine-pentagon-official-russia-1737611
Regarding nukes, we have enough to hit every Russian city of 50k population about 10 times over and still have a few hundred left for China. It's not as though we don't know from where any nuclear tsunami would be coming from.
The basic fact is that neither the US nor an independent Ukraine are strategic threats to Russia. The whole war is simply a reflection of the Russian elite's delusions of grandeur, not any existential threat and they know it. All the nuclear threats are there to make the Germans piss themselves, but that's another of Putin's miscalculations: the krauts carry far less weight in this conflict than Putin thought they would.
For a start.
He has also made noises about the Baltic States and Finland.
And the Poles are being, well Poles.
“He has also made noises about the Baltic States and Finland. And the Poles are being, well Poles.”
Agree with you on Poland - it’s almost like they want to again disappear from the map. As to Baltics, they’ve cooled off a bit, but a couple of months ago they seemed to have been doing all they could to re-join Russia.
As to Finland, Putin did say, after their hopeless attempt to join NATO, that he wasn’t too bothered by it, more surprised that Finland would suck up to the Neocons considering the good terms they’ve had with Russia, but then Finland is now run by a party-girl babe.
Respectfully, who told you that? Many assume that today's Russia is the poverty-ridden wasteland of the 1990s. Is it?
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