Russia Invades Ukraine. Volume 3

[BertieWooster]

Continued from here: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Hopefully this should sort out the page and posting issues.

[vonuber]

Phone call (in English) between Zelensky and Macron on the 24th, day of invasion:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/vqop1j/p...

What's interesting is that Macron went to see Putin at Zelensky's request right from the start, which certainly casts a new light on things.

Explains why France have been speaking to Putin whilst also sending Caesars etc.

[Johnnytheboy]

BertieWooster said:

Continued from here: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Hopefully this should sort out the page and posting issues.

So there may be a finite thread size...

[BertieWooster]

Johnnytheboy said:

So there may be a finite thread size...

The hamsters finally won.

[MOTORVATOR]

vonuber said:

Phone call (in English) between Zelensky and Macron on the 24th, day of invasion:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/vqop1j/p...

What's interesting is that Macron went to see Putin at Zelensky's request right from the start, which certainly casts a new light on things.

Explains why France have been speaking to Putin whilst also sending Caesars etc.

Russia were spitting feathers about the calls being recorded between Macron and Putin earlier but I haven't seen them published yet.

https://tass.com/world/1475065

[HM-2]

BertieWooster said:

Johnnytheboy said:

So there may be a finite thread size...

The hamsters finally won.

At least we now know where the limit is!

[B'stard Child]

HM-2 said:

BertieWooster said:

Johnnytheboy said:

So there may be a finite thread size...

The hamsters finally won.

At least we now know where the limit is!

410 (x80 posts per page) from what used to be 125 (x80 posts per page)

It was way more than I'd expected

[Jockman]

HM-2 said:

At least we now know where the limit is!

We don’t. I think it may change but anyway……

[B'stard Child]

If anyone fancies a 1hr 17min powerpoint presentation by Perun on the history/background of German Military readiness that might explain some of the "issues" with their support to Ukraine it's Here

[HM-2]

B'stard Child said:

If anyone fancies a 1hr 17min powerpoint presentation by Perun on the history/background of German Military readiness that might explain some of the "issues" with their support to Ukraine it's Here

Very interesting, and does address some of the regular comments that have regularly popped up in these threads on Germany.

[vonuber]

B'stard Child said:

If anyone fancies a 1hr 17min powerpoint presentation by Perun on the history/background of German Military readiness that might explain some of the "issues" with their support to Ukraine it's Here

Well I'm saving that one for the two hour meeting I've got tomorrow.

Edited by vonuber on Sunday 3rd July 23:29

[rxe]

We need a new adjective for ammo dumps blowing up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/vqtgmu/a...

I’m going with “biblical”.

[Wozy68]

rxe said:

We need a new adjective for ammo dumps blowing up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/vqtgmu/a...

I’m going with “biblical”.

Wow ….

[mondeoman]

Wozy68 said:

rxe said:

We need a new adjective for ammo dumps blowing up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/vqtgmu/a...

I’m going with “biblical”.

Wow ….

The NASA (?) fire maps are backing up the theory that UKR are now hitting RU well behind the lines - most of the fires are now on the RU side, clustered around the mustering / regroup / storage areas.

RU may have taken Lysychansk, but soon they'll have no way to support the ground they've captured.

[NRS]

I think some of the comments to Adam were pretty unacceptable before - he was bringing an alternative possible interpretation, which may well be true. Remember, the fog of war clouds a lot of stuff, and we often see what we want to see. One of the huge issues of WW2 was WW1 ended very quickly, with many Germans believing they were about to win and then they suddenly surrendered which was a complete surprise and meant many believed the generals/leaders sold them out.

The point about Russia having a lot less territory that before shows a clear strategic retreat from some tactics that clearly were not working. They’d lost the original aim, so gave up on a tactic that clearly would not work. What we see now in Donbas is likely the same, a strategic defeat to gain the high ground from a tactical point of view.

At the moment Russia is clearly focusing it’s attention on one area, and just smashing it all to bits with whatever they can. Ukraine has more tech, but more limited numbers of it. We don’t know how it will play out, as now it’s basically who runs out of equipment/men/will first. Ukraine is defending the country, but also sees how these current tactics are wiping out anything (cities etc).

You’d expect Russia to give up in a normal fight like now, but it’s a Mafia state, and Putin is crushing any sign of protest, and knows his legacy/time in power rests on this. He doesn’t care about the people, so I doubt Russia will give up until they have to. If they do they’ll presumably highlight the destruction meaning the ‘Ukrainian Nazis’ will have to rebuild so it’s a win. They’ve lost any possibility of working together in future though, same as all Eastern Europe apart from a dictatorship or two.

What we’re seeing now is basically trench warfare, it’s very hard to see a winner as territory means very little, it’s how the supplies and losses add up over time that shows the winner. We see all the Ukraine wins (ammo dumps exploding) but presumably the Russians are doing similar - strikes on railways etc.

[wolfracesonic]

rxe said:

We need a new adjective for ammo dumps blowing up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/vqtgmu/a...

I’m going with “biblical”.

Russian ammo dumps are like our recycling plants in regard to not catching fire…

[sisu]

wolfracesonic said:

rxe said:

We need a new adjective for ammo dumps blowing up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/vqtgmu/a...

I’m going with “biblical”.

Russian ammo dumps are like our recycling plants in regard to not catching fire…

The Donbas battle has been going on for 76 days, the longest battle in Europe for quite some time, only the WW1 battles like the Somme were longer at 141 days.
The Ukrainians withdrew over the last week without taking a loss. However the HIMARs are taking out ammunition dumps deep into Russian territory. One every day for a week, not only does this take out ammo, it also takes out the Trucks that move the ammo as they are parked in the depot. Russia's tactical truck fleet (armoured trucks) have suffered the same rate of loss since its failed Kyiv offensive in March.
This slows the Russians down even more.

[jtremlett]

isaldiri said:

HM-2 said:

No, you didn't.

At no point have you addressed the simple reason "why" the West are intervening in Ukraine - that it's in their rational self interest to see Russia's power and strategic influence curtailed, and if they can accomplish it without any western lives lost for only a few billion dollars then it's probably the best value geopolitical decision they'll have made since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

At no point have you been able to provide a single analogous example where the US has "got bored" of providing material support to a party on a conflict of this nature.

There's about half a dozen more, but let's address those once those two very simple ones first.

Well in my opinion I did, you merely refused to consider anything I said.

I've pointed out I don't believe it will necessarily continue to be in US rational self interest to have the conflict continue at current levels precisely because Russia has not not proven to be a major strategic threat given their very clear lack of capability as shown by not being able to easily overrun a weaker poorer neighbour. Given Russia isn't say Iran or North Korea that one can slap down sanctions without any care of the impact on the rest of the world (mainly commodities), the benefit of attempting to curtail Russian power isn't entirely clear given the disruptions and potential consequences involved especially given the way the conflict is developing into an extended attritional battle.

I have also provided more than a couple of examples where the US has been entirely happy to stand by ignoring fairly egregious things occur so yes I haven't trawled through recent history for the US getting bored but there also hasn't been an example where the non direct costs of intervention were as considerable. Although your default answer to this is I am clueless about self interest or whataboutism, it's simply that I disagree with your certainty that that supposed self interest will last as the various impacts of the war start to trickle through in a more major way over an extended period of time to the public (and at this point I'm probably going to be accused of tediously repeating myself so there's only so many ways one can reply to a multitude of outraged posts that are insistent that the US is sure to stay the course to punish the evil Russians).

As I said earlier, it's been clear that we aren't going to get much reasonable discussion so I'm quite happy to await your next reply to this but subsequently drop this as whoozit had already pointed out yesterday.

The US was in Afghanistan for 20 years with US soldiers getting killed and I doubt too many people would suggest Russia is less of a threat than the Taliban. As HM-2 points out, here the Americans are committing only money. Most of which goes straight to their own defence industries anyway.

I also doubt that many in Washington are thinking that the Russian army has done worse than expected so the Russians will go away and hide for the next 20 or 30 years.

That said, there is obviously a question of how long it goes on for. I imagine it will be fairly clear how things are going to pan out at least before the end of this year and I can't see the US and others (including the UK) dropping their support in that timeframe. A long drawn out more-or-less stalemate stretching into years might be another matter but, even then, giving Ukraine enough support to keep the Russian army occupied might well still seem like a good deal.

[CrutyRammers]

vonuber said:

Phone call (in English) between Zelensky and Macron on the 24th, day of invasion:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/vqop1j/p...

What's interesting is that Macron went to see Putin at Zelensky's request right from the start, which certainly casts a new light on things.

Explains why France have been speaking to Putin whilst also sending Caesars etc.

Very interesting, it does start to make a bit more sense.

[CrutyRammers]

sisu said:

wolfracesonic said:

rxe said:

We need a new adjective for ammo dumps blowing up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/vqtgmu/a...

I’m going with “biblical”.

Russian ammo dumps are like our recycling plants in regard to not catching fire…

The Donbas battle has been going on for 76 days, the longest battle in Europe for quite some time, only the WW1 battles like the Somme were longer at 141 days.
The Ukrainians withdrew over the last week without taking a loss. However the HIMARs are taking out ammunition dumps deep into Russian territory. One every day for a week, not only does this take out ammo, it also takes out the Trucks that move the ammo as they are parked in the depot. Russia's tactical truck fleet (armoured trucks) have suffered the same rate of loss since its failed Kyiv offensive in March.
This slows the Russians down even more.

It certainly seems like the best option for them. We'll see its effect over the next couple of weeks, I guess. I've no idea how many of these dumps there would be and how big a blow each one is.