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Posted on 02/24/2024 6:47:08 AM PST by canuck_conservative
For Russia, the battlefield situation is a testament to systemic failure.
"Russia could not win this war at all," he continued. "No chances. Nothing to fix... Everything is wrong: Russia's strategy, Russia's ideology, decision-making process, education system, etcetera."
Moscow's war effort has become more costly, more brutal and less ambitious over the past two years. The Kremlin's plodding devastation doctrine is still laying waste to front-line areas, but a goal of total victory was abandoned—like so many Russian soldiers—in the churned approaches to Kyiv in the spring of 2022...
"Russia's army was unable to win anyway," Luzin said. "Russia put itself into fatal strategic disaster since February 2022."
The Associated Press called the failure to take Kyiv "a defeat for the ages." ... But without resupply, taking Kyiv was not possible.
"This was going to be hard even if the Russian army had proven itself to be competent" ... "It's proven itself to be wholly incapable of conducting modern armored warfare."
The sinking of the Moskva, which had a crew of 510, was the most significant naval combat loss since World War II. It was the first of many. The fleet is believed to have had around 80 vessels before Russia's 2022 invasion. Ukraine now claims to have sunk at least 25 warships of various sizes and put another 15 in for repair...
The Prigozhin-Wagner drama, particularly the mutiny and the failure of Russia's security services to respond quickly and in force, was interpreted abroad as a blow to Putin's legitimacy...
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
Wrong time to invade - middle of winter allowed Ukraine lots of hours of darkness to launch surprise ambush attacks; Russia also then got boxed-in by the legendary spring muds, a crucial delay, right in the middle of an advance, which allowed Western countries time to organize & supply Ukraine
Under-estimating Ukraine's abilities - kept forces too low (an admission confirmed by the Sept. 22 mobilization)
There's many more mistakes Russia has made & continues to make ...
good thing for Ukraine that Russia's "leader" is so stupid, that's why this war is still going, with Ukraine still controlling 5/6 of its land
Russia may be following the Chinese method in Ukriane...death by thousand cuts.
The Ukraines biggest blunder? Believing that Joe Biden, Surrender-Monkey in Chief, would actually help the Ukraine.
Who’s cutting whom?
Russia’s needless war is destroying a whole generation of Russian men
It looks like Pooty has lost another A-50, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPcJT_EK9xo
Military is one thing, I hope no villagers were hit by debris falling to the ground.
Both sides use Decoys but Ukraine is much better at it and Russia is wasting millions of Russian Rubles shooting nothing
What price has Ukraine paid for this proxy war? Hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded. Russia has seized additional territory since the initial invasion in 2014. No membership in NATO. Ukraine was among the poorest and most corrupt countries in Europe before 2022. It is now poorer and more corrupt.
The US has borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars to fund another endless war. Zelensky wants $800 billion to rebuild Ukraine. We can’t afford an open-ended commitment to this black hole. The US is the world’s biggest debtor nation. Who profits from this war? The military industrial complex.
And now Stoltenberg says NATO has no objection with Ukraine using the F-16s to bomb inside Russia. Are we about to be drawn into a direct confrontation with Russia?
Ukraine can’t win this war. What is the exit strategy?
The Russians will have to do pretty badly to match Westerners when it comes to losing wars (think Khabul). Have to laugh at Western elites critiquing the guys that are kicking their butts on 1/20 of their budget.
The original invasion was not a “blunder.” It was an attempt at a “decapitation strike.”
It very nearly worked. While the West knew something was coming, it avoided a huge massing of soldiers which would be detected by NATO ISR capabilities
It had Kiev surrounded. It brought Ukraine to negotiations about implementing Minsk agreements, neutrality and its future in NATO, which would have achieved Russian goals - until Boris Johnson’s fateful trip to scupper the deal. The Russians withdrew from Kiev as a gesture (and probably extended lines) - not because Ukraine beat them.
No doubt they had plan B, which is what we are seeing now.
They knew NATO would mobilize it resources for Ukraine, and it would become a more positional and industrial-capacity war.
As such, the initial strike was a smart, calculated gamble.
—In the meantime, (military objectives) It's Russia that is sitting in Ukraine and took 18% of the real estate there. Took an industrial and major port city with most of Ukraine's steel industry.
—It's Ukraine that is not in NATO (political objectives) and in fact now won't even be in the EU which was well in reach before the war.
Wars like this have no definitive end, just like Iraq had no definitive end and we're still there despite lying about leaving (political ploy for Obama's reelection and the MSM gladly played along). We are also still in Afghanistan, 23 years later.
The problem with all these grand ideas of sending more troops is it that it's not feasible. No different than us in Iraq: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/25/international/middleeast/army-chief-raises-estimate-of-gis-needed-in-postwar.html Shinseki wasn't a genius, just a political hack who was aligned with the Democrats and using the same sort of argument. Only in his case, he had to have known 100% for sure that what he's saying isn't really feasible and merely amounts to smearing the administration. Look, I don't even think George W. was a great President, but using this argument against him and Rumsfeld etc was nonsense.
Where are all these troops supposed to come from?
1. Russia needs to defend their frontier, i.e. we have been invading their space for years. Iraq, Syria, Libya, Niger, and Venezuela are all Russian aligned or formal allies where we have invaded, attacked, or staged a coup, usually under false pretenses. If Russia pulls their intel and military assets from these areas, they will easily fall to us, and that is probably our grand strategy which appears more and more likely.
From before the war: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/25/venezuela-maduro-russia-private-security-contractors
DW bigger view: https://www.dw.com/en/russias-wagner-group-where-is-it-active/a-66027220
2. These are long haul conflicts. You need to plan on having troops deployed in operations, reconstituting after returning, and preparing to go there again. You cannot simply surge all you forces into a fight and tell them they will return when it's over, whenever that is. Men and equipment need pulled off line and you can figure in a long fight you need about 3 times the actual forces that are in theater. Massive surges can only be sustained for a short time.
These arguments are ignorant (not enough troops). All I want is frigging sharks with laser-beams, makes about as much sense. Of course I want 1,000,000 troops all armed with laser guns and imaginary Masterchief body armor. Can I now be a genius statistician like this articles writer? Russia already guaranteed has a timeline of what units are rotating into and out of operations in Ukraine and how they balance that with operations in Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Niger, Sudan and other places along their border (Republic of Georgia, along the Baltic states...).
“Westerners when it comes to losing wars (think Khabul).”
Amazing how little young people know about history.
You don’t realize that the Russians have plenty of experience losing wars in Kabul themselves?
The annexed land, land that will never be part of Ukraine again, was the only land Russia prioritized going into the war. It's 42,000 square miles of land that comprised 70-80% of Ukraine's GDP and most of the Black Sea coastline.
For the past year, the Russians have been content to annihilate the Ukrainian army. Ukraine's military and defense lines are now collapsing and the Russian military is making gains daily along the lines of contact.
Ukraine has only two options 1) Surrender, save what's left of Ukraine and agree to remain a neutral country or 2) lose a considerably more amount of territory if not everything.
G_d only knows who’s going to win this atrocity. The Ukes keep shooting down Russian aircraft and dropping bombs from drones with lots of video coverage, but the maps show steady progress of Russian ground forces.
We can be sure there’ll be lots of destruction, carnage and dead soldiers. The dirt and blood will mask the colors they fought for.
Advise to Mr. Z. Get, buy or steal a small nuke, Blow up a Russian city and provide “evidence” that Putin blew up his own city so as to use nukes! That or attack Poland and blame Russia! Blanket Moscow with sarin gas and kill all in Red Square. The western media would support Mr Zelensky actions as “forced” upon Ukraine. That would get Russia to retreat! Set it up with Poison Gas attacks in Donbass. Go all WW I with Gas, the poor man’s nuke.
But now a new era is beginning. The real unconventional fight which mauled us in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The advantage Russia has going into this fight, is that they were smart enough to go for the ethnic Russian areas of Ukraine, that means they have some degree of support by the local populace.
Also, Russia knows the area (at the political, military and even individual soldiers level) far better than we did Iraq and Afghanistan going in.
All things considered. Russia met their political objectives in blocking NATO from expanding into Ukraine. Furthermore, if the US/West is going to purge Ukraine of all Russian influence and make it theirs (what Maiden was about), then Russia will take what they see as theirs in a military campaign which has succeeded in taking those areas they wanted.
What did not succeed and isn't talked about, is Ukraine's glorious counter offensive, the last of its kind, where 2/3rds of all equipment was from the US and other NATO allies.
Imagine this scenario. The West fields the largest mercenary and foreign army ever fielded since WWII in Ukraine (supported and paid for by us), the US alone blew over a 150 billion USD plus what our allies pitched in, we threw in some of our premiere weapon systems like Patriot, ATACMS, HIMARS, Javelin... We were preparing Ukraine for 7 years with military advisors training them, equipping them, feeding them intel. We went as far as using our logistic hubs in Poland (to repair arty) and Command and Control in Germany (actually creating targeting lists for them) to help Ukraine out. Poland flat out sent in troops (mine clearance etc) and in fact NATO probably under guise of being mercenaries sent in troops filling key positions Ukraine was in dire need of... And yet Russia took 1/5 of Ukraine, the parts they wanted. Who failed?
Unstoppable. Russia Captured Three Settlements Near Avdiivka. Russian Advance & Entered Ivanivske.
Ukraine won.
Huge victory.
Loosing 1/5 of your country, your biggest industrial area and a port city where most your steel industry is, was actually just a trick!
The counteroffensive which went no where, is actually also just a trick.
Ukraine is winning, really! Total victory.
sarc
PS: today there are only versions of the truth, and if you really believe in something strong enough, it'll make it so.
I suppose my mother died of cancer because I just didn't believe she was cured hard enough.
Ukraine is winning!
Stop spreading disinformation!
You Russian propagandist and Putin puppet.
sarc.
These people remind me of the Black Knight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmInkxbvlCs
" ZEEPER FOLLIES PINGLIST!
(((PING!)))
... to be added to the best Zeeper-provided entertainment since Paul Shanklin parodies, ping me bro.
" ZEEPER FOLLIES PINGLIST!
(((PING!)))
... to be added to the best Zeeper-provided entertainment since Paul Shanklin parodies, ping me bro.
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