Russia invades Ukraine. Volume 2
Discussion
vonuber said:
So Russia has the GDP of Italy and a hugely corrupt system siphoning off billions, yet apparently they have a massive and well equipped military?
A military they have decided to use with one hand behind their back? Why?
No they don’t. They are playing fear factor. Putin told Ukrainian soldiers to give up their guns and go home, he thought he will have the country under control in 12 hours. Well he didn’t and now he’s brokeA military they have decided to use with one hand behind their back? Why?
king arthur said:
Dingu said:
f the kinds of things such as giving Ukraine aid, sanctioning Russia and condemning them pushes it to nuclear then it is inevitable anyway. It’s just a matter of when the line in the sand is drawn.
I'm saying those things won't be enough to stop the atrocities I fear we may be about to see.littlebasher said:
Can't help thinking that backing Putin into a corner is not going to end well.
Whole situation starting to unnerve me now, hopefully someone will come up with a means to de-escalate the situation before Putin and our leaders sleepwalk us into a war.
wont be a war.... putin has too much in the west to go blowing it up...Whole situation starting to unnerve me now, hopefully someone will come up with a means to de-escalate the situation before Putin and our leaders sleepwalk us into a war.
he launches, he is sooo done. even if he has nothing he wont as isnt that stupid
J4CKO said:
TheJimi said:
J4CKO said:
TheJimi said:
julian987R said:
TheJimi said:
Anyone else getting a bit uncomfortable at the alienation of Russia, and the ongoing international pile-in?
Surely the last thing you want to do to someone like Putin is make him feel like he has nothing to lose?
Gotta stand up to a bully. Come on man where’s your b@llsSurely the last thing you want to do to someone like Putin is make him feel like he has nothing to lose?
Yes, thanks for that searing riposte.
I'm all for standing up to bullies, but not all bullies are equal, and in this case, I think alienating Putin and Russia, as is currently happening, while deserved and just, is also a dangerous game to play.
I'm not against it, but I'm uncomfortable with corning a headbanger with a f
ktonne of nukes at his disposal.k me, where did I say we should do nothing?! 
Its been fairly low key, Liz Truss has him threatening nukes so has a low bar.
Rather, what I'm uncomfortable with is that there's little to no reversing space for him - both by virtue of the international response, and by his own actions. When we're talking about someone like Putin, for whom strength and power is all, and someone with control of nuclear weapons, I think backing him into a corner is a dangerous game - that is in essence what I'm getting at.
Edited by TheJimi on Monday 28th February 22:14
vonuber said:
So Russia has the GDP of Italy and a hugely corrupt system siphoning off billions, yet apparently they have a massive and well equipped military?
A military they have decided to use with one hand behind their back? Why?
Their military isn’t that good it turns out. Lots of old kit. Putin is lucky he has the nukes or we probably would be half way to Moscow by now. A military they have decided to use with one hand behind their back? Why?
So, was Trump right in 2018.
"U.S. President Donald Trump launched a sharp public attack on Germany on Wednesday for supporting a Baltic Sea gas pipeline deal with Russia, saying Berlin had become “a captive to Russia” and he criticized it for failing to raise defense spending more.!
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-pip...
"U.S. President Donald Trump launched a sharp public attack on Germany on Wednesday for supporting a Baltic Sea gas pipeline deal with Russia, saying Berlin had become “a captive to Russia” and he criticized it for failing to raise defense spending more.!
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-pip...
irc said:
So, was Trump right in 2018.
"U.S. President Donald Trump launched a sharp public attack on Germany on Wednesday for supporting a Baltic Sea gas pipeline deal with Russia, saying Berlin had become “a captive to Russia” and he criticized it for failing to raise defense spending more.!
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-pip...
If you say enough things you’ll always have some right. But yes, adding reliance on Russia is a bit daft. "U.S. President Donald Trump launched a sharp public attack on Germany on Wednesday for supporting a Baltic Sea gas pipeline deal with Russia, saying Berlin had become “a captive to Russia” and he criticized it for failing to raise defense spending more.!
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-pip...
As far as I can tell from everything I've seen
Either Putin's army is absolute ragtag, not anywhere near the power we have previously been lead to believe and is being shown up as a madman who massively overestimated their capabilities
Or this is a sacrificial first wave and the real guys come soon along with all the big non nuclear bombs and he'll soon achieve his goals of getting the president at least killed and maybe a puppet government installed?
Either Putin's army is absolute ragtag, not anywhere near the power we have previously been lead to believe and is being shown up as a madman who massively overestimated their capabilities
Or this is a sacrificial first wave and the real guys come soon along with all the big non nuclear bombs and he'll soon achieve his goals of getting the president at least killed and maybe a puppet government installed?
irc said:
So, was Trump right in 2018.
"U.S. President Donald Trump launched a sharp public attack on Germany on Wednesday for supporting a Baltic Sea gas pipeline deal with Russia, saying Berlin had become “a captive to Russia” and he criticized it for failing to raise defense spending more.!
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-pip...
Possibly although more than cancelled out with trying to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on a rival..."U.S. President Donald Trump launched a sharp public attack on Germany on Wednesday for supporting a Baltic Sea gas pipeline deal with Russia, saying Berlin had become “a captive to Russia” and he criticized it for failing to raise defense spending more.!
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-pip...
Responding to posts from Volume 1, because it got closed while I was writing a reply...
People forget Russia only has about 250,000 professional soldiers. The rest are conscripts with almost no training. Apparently, the guys going into Ukraine are by and large the pros, although very few of those had any combat experience (unlike the Ukrainians, who have been cycled through the fighting in Donbas since 2014) .
Russia is vast. They can't afford to commit 500,000 soldiers to an invasion of Ukraine. Even if they did, it probably wouldn't be enough. Ukraine has circa 1.2 million available militarily trained citizens (between professional soldiers, militias and 900,000 reservists) and probably well over a million very motivated citizens perfectly happy to take up arms to defend their country. Traditional counterinsurgency strategy demands outnumbering insurgents five to ten times. I'd like to see Russia try that with 2.5+ million insurgents.
Reports before it really kicked off were that Russia had 130-150k soldiers on/near Ukraine's borders.
A bit of internetting suggests Ukraine has around 215k soldiers, plus a lot of paramilitary like the border guard and national guard. Plus up to 900k reserves with recent enough military training to be useful.
So my take on it is that the Russian troops are probably actually well outnumbered (depending how many more arrived after those estimates) and would have to rely on superiority of equipment and supply, well targeted strategic objectives and intimidation etc for advantage.
Western assistance is giving Ukraine more equipment to work with and more intel to identify and interfere with Russia's strategic goals. Ukraine seems to be very much not intimidated, and doing reasonably well at disrupting Russian supply chains so far if the stories about Russian tanks running out of fuel etc are anything to go by.
Whether that supply disruption continues to be effective as Russia takes more ground remains to be seen, but there will be a whole lot of pissed off Ukrainian citizens behind the Russian lines as they advance.
HM-2 said:
bloomen said:
Pommy said:
I think a lot of positivity about Ukraine and how well they are doing hasn't realised that Russia haven't even really started.
So much of their armed forces havent even taken part, and I'm talking just the ones waiting waiting outside the front door.
Out of the 200,000 figure a big proportion will be cooks, mechanics, communications. They may of course be told to go and hurt someone, but that's not what they're there for. So much of their armed forces havent even taken part, and I'm talking just the ones waiting waiting outside the front door.
Russia is vast. They can't afford to commit 500,000 soldiers to an invasion of Ukraine. Even if they did, it probably wouldn't be enough. Ukraine has circa 1.2 million available militarily trained citizens (between professional soldiers, militias and 900,000 reservists) and probably well over a million very motivated citizens perfectly happy to take up arms to defend their country. Traditional counterinsurgency strategy demands outnumbering insurgents five to ten times. I'd like to see Russia try that with 2.5+ million insurgents.
Reports before it really kicked off were that Russia had 130-150k soldiers on/near Ukraine's borders.
A bit of internetting suggests Ukraine has around 215k soldiers, plus a lot of paramilitary like the border guard and national guard. Plus up to 900k reserves with recent enough military training to be useful.
So my take on it is that the Russian troops are probably actually well outnumbered (depending how many more arrived after those estimates) and would have to rely on superiority of equipment and supply, well targeted strategic objectives and intimidation etc for advantage.
Western assistance is giving Ukraine more equipment to work with and more intel to identify and interfere with Russia's strategic goals. Ukraine seems to be very much not intimidated, and doing reasonably well at disrupting Russian supply chains so far if the stories about Russian tanks running out of fuel etc are anything to go by.
Whether that supply disruption continues to be effective as Russia takes more ground remains to be seen, but there will be a whole lot of pissed off Ukrainian citizens behind the Russian lines as they advance.
irc said:
So, was Trump right in 2018.
"U.S. President Donald Trump launched a sharp public attack on Germany on Wednesday for supporting a Baltic Sea gas pipeline deal with Russia, saying Berlin had become “a captive to Russia” and he criticized it for failing to raise defense spending more.!
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-pip...
He's a slug but he was totally on point there. "U.S. President Donald Trump launched a sharp public attack on Germany on Wednesday for supporting a Baltic Sea gas pipeline deal with Russia, saying Berlin had become “a captive to Russia” and he criticized it for failing to raise defense spending more.!
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-pip...
When he does get back in he will find a rather more assertive Europe so perhaps he'll get some crushing handshakes back this time around.
xu5 said:
What of Ukrainians application to EU? Surely the EU would be mad not to want easy trade with Ukrainians resources? Or would they not want the 'agro'?
Possible bargaining chip?Pull away your forces or we'll sign Ukraine in
Perhaps it's time for the west to show some aggression for once
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