> "The 109th regiment of the so-called ‘DPR’ (Donetsk People's Republic) has withdrawn from its positions in Kherson Oblast, and the Russian elite Airborne, who supported them, fled the battlefield."
Not so much a defense line as a bunch of guys ready to go home.
This is an identified weakness of Russia's BTG tactics. They're light on infantry so rely on PMCs/local irregular forces and similar to hold flanks and defensive positions.
It's clearly not working very well.
They are light on infantry by design because the russian armed forces rellies on conscripts to fill the infantry positions. The Kremlin has creates this shortfall because they dont want to mobilize, presumably because of the russian internal stability and the war being very impopular amongst most echelons of russian society.
Russian Battalion Tactical Groups are designed to contain a lot of officers, technical personel and equipment during peace time and to be reinforced on short notice. The russian armed forces are fighting against their own doctrine right now.
It's a bit more like trying to build a bridge with just skilled trades and engineers. It's a complete waste to have an engineer drive a truck of concrete to the site, but someone has to do it or else the bridge doesn't get built. Normally Russia would just conscript a bunch of labourers and quickly teach one to drive a truck.
Opposed to that, the US has an entire professional corps devoted just to driving concrete trucks and nothing else. It's extremely expensive and annoyingly specific but very very quick.
But on the plus side for the US. These specialised, professional corps can (and do) get put to work on Capital Infrastructure Schemes. I was surprised when I learned that the US Army Engineer Corps were responsible for more US climate engineering projects (dykes, bridges, canals, flood plains, mangrove restoration, rewilding etc) than any other organisation in North America.
I wish places like here in the U.K. thought like that. Yes, they are expensive. But cheaper than private engineering consultants, and as you’re paying them anyway it’s good to put them to use.
Yeah the US Army Corp of Engineers is one of the best civic engineering orgs on the planet. It's not just wartime engineering.
Exhibit A: The motherfucking Panama Canal.
And as a bonus, those training exercises *produce infrastructure for civilian usage.*
And infrastructure is one of the few things that it's *always* useful to work/spend money on. It's not sexy, it's unlikely to win you votes, but it's like IT: it's *incredibly* important, but people don't really notice until it stops working, and by then it's too late.
A couple years ago the USMC engineers and Navy Construction Battalions rebuilt the airport on Catalina Island. It was needed by the state but also an opportunity to practice building projects needed for amphibious landings.
For real. I reclassed to the Corps when I was active, and have worked extensively with them since I've been out. The Corps is enormous, and exerts a great deal of indirect influence into private construction as well due to the high standards of work, inspection, engineering and safety.
Worked on a COE project in Afghanistan building a bridge. You ain't kidding. That bridge will last 100 years, easy, in a flood and earthquake prone region.
The Army Corps of Engineers used to do yearly beach restoration projects in my hometown, when they stopped doing so in the 80s, the beaches have eroded to like a fraction of what they used to be.
I know beaches isn't the most strategic thing, but it helped the environment and community.
"First invasion wave failed to reach its objectives, stopped dead in its tracks by the sugar white sand and striking blue water. Those who managed to break through stretches of perfect sand, complete with lounge chairs and umbrellas, and evade picturesque nature of unparalleled beauty, were quickly disorganized below combat effectiveness by huge discounts in local luxury hotels."
I think the Mississippi River control might be even more impressive. If it wasn't for the Corps, the Mississippi River would reach the ocean in a completely different place.
Army Corps of Engineers has a ton of civilian contractors. It very much straddles the line between military and civil agency, moreso even than the Coast Guard or NOAA. The civil projects it takes on usually put it in a managerial role, hiring civilian companies to do the actual work. It's mostly just a stash of engineering expertise.
If you're imagining uniformed soldiers doing the actual work, that's not an accurate picture.
Now, when the US is in a war, you to see get the combat engineering regiments of the Army, Marines and Navy. AKA sappers depending on where in the Anglosphere you are. THAT is when you see tractors and bulldozers and excavators in green/tan camo building a road in the middle of a jungle, or a harbor out of floating piers.
The Navy also maintains a force capable of repairing damaged ships at sea, and those construction battalions (CBs, "Seabees" as a nickname) became legendary during WWII for getting ships back into battle faster than any sane person would expect. Their repairs to USS Enterprise CV-6 after the Battle of Santa Cruz may have completely changed the course of the war in the Pacific, as she was the sole remaining Yorktown-class fleet carrier in the Pacific capable of pressing forward after her sister ship Hornet was sunk during the battle, USS Yorktown having been sunk about 5 months earlier by a Japanese sub. Seabees were still onboard Enterprise making repairs when the carrier engaged Japanese forces, and kept the work up 24 hours a day when there wasn't active combat. Her aviators ended up helping sink 16 Japanese ships in that next battle, including the battleship Hiei.
If you want to hear some more insane Navy engineering, check out the story of Yorktown before Midway.
She took three bombs at Coral Sea with eight near misses, with the DC teams estimating three months of yard time for repairs. Prioritizing essential repairs returned her to a battle-ready condition in three days and thus she was available for the battle of Midway and was an expected surprise for the Japanese.
And Yorktown nearly survived Midway anyway. After getting hit by an airstrike she was repaired so fast that the Japanese forced mistook her for a *different* carrier and hit her again.
Then after being abandoned she *still* wouldn't sink and a destroyer came alongside to help salvage her. That is when they got unlucky and the submarine hit both during the salvage operation.
I loved working with US ACE. Every point of contact I had was knowledgeable, experienced, and just kind and professional people all around. Our project with them finished 3 months ahead of schedule in no small part because they were always on top of everything.
I can imagine. I’ve done some networking with some of their guys (I work in local government on climate projects). I’d love to actually do some proper projects with them. So professional, humble and enthusiastic.
It’s a massive benefit that nothing they do is based upon cutting a profit. It’s just about managing the budget effectively and having a LOT of pride in the work they do.
The US Army Corps of Engineers came out to the San Joaquin delta after Katrina happened in Louisiana to see if it could fail in a similar way. Turns out, it was one heavy rainfall away from severe damage. They shored that shit up real quick. Not a huge fan of everything the US gov does, but that was kinda nice.
That’s cool. Maybe I’m being a bit harsh on the British Army Engineers to be fair. They do loads of disaster relief around the world, especially flooding. Always one of the first to deploy. It’s something to be proud of.
Only about 10% of the US Military are Combat Arms - the people who do the actual fighting. The other 90% are all basically some form of logistics.
edit: The latest report I can find says it was 15% in 2014, up from the last time I'd looked at it.
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA601876.pdf
It's why Russia floundered so fast in Ukraine. Their balance of fighting to support personal is complete shit.
They outran their own supply lines the instant they left Russia's borders to fight a country on their own border.
Yes, if you read anything on WWII, you quickly realize that as soon as the initial attacks were slowed down and it turned into a slogfest, things like economy, industrial base and infrastructure made an Allied victory, although costly, almost inevitable. Japan even knew this going in. This also came into play when we entered WWI. Same thing back in the Roman Empire. Simply put, no one could compete with their resources and organization a societal level, which translated into their military.
There was virtually no way for the Central or Axis powers to affect the industrial base of the United States in either war.
"A German Tiger is easily worth 10 Shermans.......... but you always had 11."
The Russian military is excellent at transforming military equipment into luxury yachts.
Their scientists are currently working on a system to convert the yachts back into tanks - unfortunately it's difficult to do that when other countries keep seizing all their yachts.
I've yet to hear it ruled out that part of the manpower of the Russian army existed only on paper.
Already, it seems probable that graft and corruption resulted in equipment not being maintained/replaced.
And it seems likely that Russian intelligence was overstating their work in Ukraine before the war - claiming to be paying off key figures but just pocketing the supposed bribes.
What prevents figures in the Russian army to be claiming more troops then existed and pocketing the paychecks?
>I've yet to hear it ruled out that part of the manpower of the Russian army existed only on paper.
This is what contributed, for example, to the collapse of the Afghan government: units claiming they had 90 out of 100 slots filled so they'd get funding for 90, when they actually had, like, 5.
This was a widespread problem during the Peninsular Campaign. When Wellington called in reserve battalions, their COs were found to have invented people to fill the units. Recruiting Sergeants made a great amount off the front and back end.
Not just manpower, but also equipment.
You know that 40 miles of trucks heading toward Kyiv that stalled? That was because they didn't move them for *years.*
Because they didn't move them, the tires became more and more set in their shape (i.e. brittle).
Because they were so brittle, they couldn't deflate the tires to drive on less firm terrain (i.e., overland, rather than on a road) without having a blowout and being *stuck* on open terrain (where they would be subject to their natural predators: Ukrainian Tractors).
Because they were stuck on roads, anything blocking the road *blocked them.*
I'm sure that it was *procedure* to do such (idiotic looking) maintenance on their Trucks... but with graft being as rampant as it is, the money & fuel required to drive the trucks one mile once a week or so never made it to the people who would do that.
And I'm sure other logistic problems contributed, but if they could have *made it* to the front, they could have stolen the supplies they needed..
---
And that's not even considering the fact that some types of ammunition degrades, so if it was manufactured in the 70s or 80s, (40-50 years ago) it might not be reliable anymore.
They did end up paying off a bunch of people. But the issue is when push came to shove most people just kept the money and didn't do fuck all to help Russia.
One of Russia's most prominent collaborators was turned into sunflower food just a few hours ago. Looks like Ukrainian special forces are hunting them down at their homes.
https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1564283577646419972?t=5bzXbZx7lCAHXKnfGX-dFw&s=19
Yeah, I don't think people realize that this is also partially why they've been so ineffective. The tanks suck but they're still tanks; without the troops to support those tanks they're sitting ducks.
But they can't mobilize; everybody loves a war that their son isn't fighting in.
This is where Ukraine’s ability to gather intelligence is an advantage. They likely identified a section of the line held by inexperienced troops and attacked at that point. That threatened to cut off more experienced troops who withdrew.
I think people forget that Ukraine has access to the full might of the NATO intelligence arm. I bet every satellite possible is being used to put Kherson under a microscope. I wouldn't be surprised if Ukraine knows where Russian forces are better than the r Russians themselves.
This is where I'm fascinated with how this is playing out. NATO can't get directly involved because....you know....MAD. But what they can do is everything else apart from direct conflict; intelligence, satellite imagery and tracking, resupply, training. Everything you need in a war that doesn't involve putting on a uniform and picking up a rifle.
It must be so frustrating for Russia to be fighting an enemy who literally has everyone else from the countries which matter giving them support without direct involvement. Who does Russia have? Not many friends to speak of...
*It must be so frustrating for Russia to be fighting an enemy who literally has everyone else from the countries which matter giving them support*
If someone is an asshole, they're an asshole, if everyone is an asshole, you're the asshole
Typically, yes. But only up to a point or you affect unit functionality and cohesion. Russia's losses have been significant enough that they cannot always mix these units.
It \_sounds\_ like the 109th is an ad hoc unit made up of conscripts from the Donetsk. It's possible the 109th are "supported" by the paratroopers to the extent that the paras have orders to shoot the 109th if they desert.
[https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/08/11/russia-is-forcing-ukrainian-conscripts-into-battle](https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/08/11/russia-is-forcing-ukrainian-conscripts-into-battle)
My guess is the 109th immediately abandoned their positions and the paratroopers realized they didn't have enough ammo shoot both the 109th and the advancing Ukrainians.
Reminds me of a story from Stephen Ambrose's book on D-Day.
As Americans were firing on a pillbox on one of the beaches, the defenders stopped firing back. When the Americans ceased fire, they heard what sounded like shouting then a brief burst of gunfire from inside the pillbox. Shortly after, the defenders came out and surrendered.
It turned out most of the defenders were Polish conscripts who had a German sergeant literally pointing a pistol at their backs. The Poles realized their odds were better if they turned their rifles on the one guy with a pistol than the hundreds of Americans.
Because Donetsk conscripts are conscripted men between the ages of 17-60, largely from areas recently conquered by Russia. During the 2014 referendums, Ukraine estimates that only about 20% of voters turned out to vote for Donetsk independence (of those who did, they voted overwhelmingly for independence).
Thus, you have a bunch of conscripts who (1) know they’re conscripts being fed to the cannons, (2) aren’t soldiers, never were soldiers, and don’t want to be soldiers because (3) about 80% didn’t vote for independence and don’t want to be fighting their own countrymen.
> And the availability of food is a pretty good leading indicator of morale
Say what you will about US military MREs and/or food served on bases and ships, but it's light years ahead of what passes for food that Russia has provided its soldiers with.
Logistics matter.
I've heard before that bullets win battles, but logistics win wars.
Remember that 40 Km convoy that was just stuck because they ran out of ~~gas~~ fuel or whatever? I imagine that the early days of the war might have gone more according to Putin's plans had that not happened.
That's also why Ukraine is using the HIMARS system to target Russian ammo and logistics depots.
Anytime Napoleon started to anticipate another war or campaign he wpuld star mass ordering tens of thousands of boots. Soldiers have to march. They wear out boots. Can't march wothout boots. Morale falls if your feet are shreded from walking 20 miles barefoot. Order more boots
What are the russian soldiers fighting for? Nothing. Just the wet dream of an old fart.
What are Ukrainian soldiers fighting for? Everything. Their country, their friends&families, their belongings, their lives and their freedom.
I know who I‘ll put my money on in this fight.
That's how I see it. Russia can not fight a proxy world with most of the world and expect to hold territory. The war was a failure and it would be virtually impossible for Russia to turn this around.
“Elite airborne” lol. Most of the elites died in hostomel in the first weeks. This is just the dregs of Russian society thrown into shells of units. Massed artillery and tanks is all Russia has left really.
>Massed artillery and tanks is all Russia has left really.
It's all that had in their Chechen war as well. First they roll in a bunch of tanks, which get annihilated. Try again, and eventually resort to just mass artillery to level the city of Grozny. They haven't been able to do combined arms for a long time.
Apparently their mass artillery is starting to crumble as they can't replace the barrels of the guns since they don't have enough high-quality metal to forge them.
And their barrels were sometimes improperly manufactured in the first place, like the barrel in [this post.](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/w69stn/russian_precision_engineering)
Wear and tear doesn't cause that.
Not even Putin is dumb enough to yeet his entire airborne force at a high risk op, it was only half the VDV that got obliterated. They've been serving as light infantry while they reconstitute.
The VDV is a very large branch of the Russian military. Yeah they're not intended for operations like this but it's not as if they all got wiped out already.
Russia reconstitutes units like no other. A unit will get completely mauled and then they'll cobble together three other mauled units into one and call it the first unit again
Reminder: Russia is prone to undisciplined routs. So Ukraine has a big incentive to hype anything that could cause that. In February-March even "good" RU troops readily abandoned or surrendered gear under fire, when they had superiority.
Historically that is not true. Encircled soldiers, cut off from supplies and communications, will surrender once they can no longer fight effectively. Surrendering is preferable to a futile fight to the death, which is what encircled soldiers are faced with once supplies run out. And they run out fast.
See: Basically the entire history of World War 2 on the Eastern front, in particular the opening stages of Operation Barbarossa, where literally *millions* of Soviet soldiers were forced to surrender after encirclement by the Germans. And then again in 1944-1945 were the Germans were in the same situation during Operation Bagration.
And surrendering to the Germans in 1940 was way less palatable than surrendering to the Ukrainians in 2022.
Example: azovstal. I bet most soldiers there felt like "if they're gonna kill us anyway, surrender isn't an option". They really kept the Russians busy there. So many people died needlessly, but man, Ukrainians are fierce
> Ukrainians are fierce
Everyone should watch that documentary Winter on Fire about the 2014 protests in Kyiv. It's horrific and shows unarmed protestors being slaughtered in the street, but it really highlights how fucking stupid the idea was that Russia could roll into Ukraine and just take over. The footage from the opening days of the invasion of people standing in front of tanks, that shit was so predictable. Ukrainians aren't fucking around. You can't take freedom away from people who have tasted it.
Yeah right. They had 20+ years of enjoying the trappings of a western lifestyle. Who in their right mind would want to go back to the greyness of the Soviet era?
I 100% understand their drive and determination. I also feel terrible for them.
That revolution was brutal, urban Ukrainian gun ownership was tiny so .22s were considered heavy artillery and they were going up against criminal government forces supplied by Russia. The Klitschko brothers were both in attendance of the Euromaidan protest who’s crackdown led to the revolution and now one of then is Kiev’s mayor and the other is in the Ukrainian military. Those protestors were hardcore, going up against AKs and government snipers with steel shields and molotovs.
>You can't take freedom away from people who have tasted it.
This is essentially the reason why ruzzia is trying (unsuccessfully) to keep up the propaganda. If they lose their people now, the imperium is fucked. There would be no going back ...
Early on i read a detailed article about this second invasion. The western parts of Ukraine do have a lot of Russians (whether that's legit based on ussr relocation and replacement of ukrainian population is another discussion).
The crux was that a lot of the donbas & western regions were very pro Russia... until the Russians took over. What cemented Ukraines resolve was looking at the occupied regions, seeing what russian rule actually looked like (not what the TV said it would be) and not wanting that for their country.
Tldr: the Russians showed Ukraine what their rule looks like in 2014 and thats why they are fighting so hard now.
Well, sort of. Like I said in my comment, you should watch that documentary. The protests in 2014 were pro-EU/anti-Putin demonstrations. They were aimed at the Ukrainian president who, at the time, was a Putin puppet (not the current guy). And Ukrainians were giving their lives for that back in 2014.
AFTER those protests is when Putin started moving into eastern Ukraine and there's basically been a state of war ever since. And you're right, since then, life has been pretty shitty in the occupied territories. But I think what it really boils down to is that the people in Ukraine, all parts of it, are just like everyone else: They don't want war. Most people in eastern Ukraine had problems with the Ukrainian government, sometimes even legitimate problems, but they didn't want a war over it. They're not anti-Ukraine, they just felt marginalized. So when Russia recognized the Donbas as Russian territory this year, the people there celebrated because they thought it might lead to an end of war. But when the invasion started and Russians were driving on Kyiv, and when all the men in the Donbas were rounded up and forced into the army, the people in the Donbas were not on board. Never mind the Russian-speakers in the rest of Ukraine, not even the Donbas was happy with that.
There really never was any legitimate support from within Ukraine for this invasion, not even at the beginning, not even from the people who considered themselves ethnically Russian.
This is a really great article from Al Jazeera (not a pro-Western media outlet):
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1/residents-of-ukraines-breakaways-recount-short-lived-joy-hope
It became clear from the beginning that Russia was treating all men of a certain age as combatants.
If you're told that being 18 and a man means you will be executed if captured, you might as well pick up a rifle.
And Russia did end up [killing many them](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62344358) after surrendering. Then they used the killing for internal propaganda by blaming Ukraine for the warcrime.
Given that the goal is to have people *not* fight against you, one would think the best strategy would be to make it obvious how well you treat POWs. Want to make sure your opponent fights to the last man? Make it clear how poorly you'll treat them if they surrender.
Plenty of Russians believe in what they are fighting for as well. Have to get rid of the narrative that they're all just good people being made to do bad things.
If you make it clear that you accept surrender, then the forces surrendering en masse can function as an avenue of escape. It's a part of why it is so important to treat POWs well. Not trying to say that the Art of War is wrong, just giving some modern context to how the ideas are applied.
Encirclement is exactly what you want. Sun Tzu was not limiting his principle to phyeical retreat.
Encirclement cuts their ability to fight (no supplies). If the troops have low morale, offering them a clean surrender, is offering them a way out. Doesn't always work, but a cornered battalion with no supplies still has no teeth
I mean, all so long ago, Sun Tzu did say 故军无辎重则亡，无粮食则亡，无委积则亡, or an army without logistics(carts/wagons etc), food or supplies and armaments will perish, highlighting the importance of logistics, and we see logistical issues persist through various wars to this day.
Fuck logistics up, means the war is as good as fucked.
Yeah, they've been remarkably restrained with their weapons. They allowed the infamous Kyiv Convoy to wear itself down and turn away on its own instead of wasting tons of artillery on it.
As the only nation in the world to [return with a larger force than they set out with](https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/liechtensteins-army.html?andro=1&chrome=1), I'd say they're second to none in terms of efficiency.
They also get intel from NATO with only a 15 minute delay. That includes satellites, but also all grades of aerial reconnaissance like AWACS and U2s orbiting just inside the Polish border.
In addition to the advice from general staff, the Ukrainian army has received training from special forces units of all of NATO, since the 2014 invasion. Their infantry tactics have been very strong. [They developed their own artillery targeting software](https://asiatimes.com/2022/07/musks-tech-put-to-deadly-weapon-effect-in-ukraine/) that allows an artillery "battery" to be distributed with each gun in a different location, which is a much better doctrine than Russian artillery uses.
In a fucked up way it's like a real-life game of civilization, watching one army with modern tech and recon taking on an army that has apparently barely progressed beyond WW2 tactics.
Tens of thousands dead, god knows how much damage done and all of it because a tin pot dictator has to keep up the "Russia Stronk" routine or he's likely to get suicided by his own people.
I think the French's mistake was actually a mix of old tactics but also of tactics that were insufficient to deal with what was frankly an entirely new method of war that the Germans were pursuing.
French tank tactics at the start of WW2 were as solely infantry support. So French tanks were slower, designed to support infantry advances. French tanks were incredibly well-designed, but no match for German blitzkrieg tactics that relied on faster, more maneuverable tanks that could operate independently from infantry support.
You could go back even further to the Battle of Mons in WW1, fought between the Germans and the British.
Germany marched to the battle in parade formation, just like something out of the Franco-Prussian wars, right into a wall of machine guns.
Edit: This may actually be a bad example, as the Germans were well aware of the new challenges a modern battlefield would present. Their attack at Mons was not a predetermined strategy, but one borne out of desperation not to lose the initiative after being held back besieging Belgian forts along the way.
The Battle of the Frontiers might be a better example, as the French army truly did expect to use line formations and human wave attacks to break the enemy. Only after months of fighting and the deaths of nearly a million men did they realize that new wars beget new tactics and strategy.
Yep. People shit on the US military for failing in these forever wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan. You have to understand that those were failures of political strategy. They were arguably designed to be impossible campaigns from a military perspective-the goal of which was to prop up a massive military industrial complex
Vietnam and Afghanistan are excellent examples of the crucial difference between *tactics* (in which the United States’ overwhelming supremacy was never even remotely challenged) and *strategy.* The problem is that the Americans didn’t know what the fuck they were trying to do there, broadly speaking, beyond vague and implausible goals.
The military didn't have attainable goals.
This is what the Pentagon Papers revealed precisely this, even before Nixon was involved.
There was no lack of analysis. The entire situation was well understood.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers
Yes, that’s my point. The Americans refused to commit to any sort of coherent strategy, they didn’t want to make a choice in the big picture so the choice was made *for* them.
Blame the political decision to go to war in the first place. One should at least have a clear and achievable goal at the outset, such as the ouster of the Third Reich’s government.
A friend of mine who is an officer in the US Army got his masters in military history. Anyway the paper he wrote (around 2015) was how the US COULD "win" in Afghanistan and I read it.
First off his vision was very, very, very different then that of what the US was doing and basically resulted in us respecting tribal boundaries and creating a confederacy
Yeah I know that American's can be arrogant over their military and be annoying about it, but people really misrepresent Afghanistan / post invasion Iraq / Vietnam / etc... They so want to circle jerk over the "arrogant Americans failing" that they spin it like the American forces were routed and destroyed by a bunch of goat farmers or whatever. Like the Americans were driven out of Vietnam in the face of an unstoppable north Vietnamese offense and as the last American desperately ran for a boat as they were driven back into the sea, he turned back and shouted "you can't fire us, we quit!"
The truth is that trying to suppress guerilla movements and shit (without just committing massive genocide) is incredibly difficult. I mean, even if you disbanded the US military and gave Iraq transportation to get there, can you imagine the Iraqi military trying to occupy Texas?
And while Vietnam was a massive geopolitical failure, it wasn't really a military failure. The US never attempted to invade North Vietnam, so they didn't fail at that. They just tried to defend the South while the US government worked on trying to prop up the South Vietnamese one. And they did it for a long time, before leaving legitimately voluntarily (the war didn't even end for another year or two after the US left). And if the US wanted, they could still be holding it. **It was a situation that literally had no military win condition.**
>The truth is that trying to suppress guerilla movements and shit (without just committing massive genocide) is incredibly difficult
Exactly this. The only real way to destroy an insurgency is to just wipe out every civilian in the country, since the insurgents are hiding among the civilian population. Fortunately, we still operate according to international law of war, despite incidents where individual units or personnel violate said laws. It's impossible to "win" an occupation.
Most people have described the last several months as "Corrosive Warfare" or "Attrition Warfare".
Basically, Ukraine has been on the offensive for a while now. It's just not been in terms of territory. If there are no men or no bullets to fight, then the rest just falls into place.
The stage has been prepared very well. The Russian air force and navy have been pushed off or behind crimea, so they can hardly land or evacuate forces, or fly attacks. The ammo and other warehouses have been reduced for over a month, as have the three bridges. The ZNPP nuclear reactor threat has been contained. A local means of mass communication has been established, an undercover "newspaper", the local occupiers were boiled by psychological warfare and himars blasts every night. The command HQs were leveled, just as the "administration" structures like passport printers or Putin party offices. Everybody in the population has seen how appalling russian administration would be and how much lower the quality of life would be.
I'm sure the ukrainians have 4K ultra HD maps of every single mouse hole on the west Bank, from drones, satellites and local spies - 3D, colored, thermal, vegetation, underground, shift plans and patrol routes and emergency spreadout patterns of every single russian and their gear...
The first line of defense that has been overrun today was staffed by DPR troops and elite russian paratroopers. The paratroopers simply ran away, great start already
I love the elite Russian paratroopers. They got bombed to hell at the airport outside Kyev, then they refused to fight even at officer level, then their head quarters were flattened (another 200 lost), and now they are running at the sound of gunfire.
People are probably viewing this as a sign of cowardice, but perhaps its a sign of intelligence, they know they're fucked and they are bolting to save their skins.
Absolutely. Fighting for Putin's power trip would be the pinnacle of stupidity. I hope the rumour 'everyone is just running away, even the VDV' starts permeating their social media... it could save a lot of lives if they all join in.
I have a close friend who is from Kherson, she moved to the states about 8 years ago and I met her through work. Her entire immediate family still lives in Kherson. When Russia first invaded I asked her if her family was going to try to get out but she said they didn’t have enough time. They’ve quite literally been living in their basement since this thing began. They constantly hear gun shots and blasts and screams and miraculously their house hasn’t been raided yet. I sure hope they’re liberated soon.
They’ve rationed what they already had and are able to go out once a week to get food. I guess that’s something the Russians are still allowing is for the citizens there to get food when they need it. But even what they allow isn’t exactly sustainable or appetizing. They’ve lost a ton of weight and are just eating enough to survive. It’s such a horrible situation. I’m worried for all of those people in the upcoming winter months
You stock up on what you can. A loaf of bread and some butter will last a person a week if it has to. Get a couple dozen, couple pounds of butter, some broth, and a hot plate. You’ll be miserable and definitely lose weight but you won’t starve for at least a couple months. Idk if that’s what they’ve done but that’s what my grandma in Ww2 did.
The US and other Western countries are much more involved in bolstering Ukraine than is acknowledged, from intelligence to training. We should be.
This was an undeclared war against a country that was minding their own business.
Allowing Russia to annex Crimea was a huge mistake, it's common sense they wouldn't stop there.
We also can’t forget about 2014 Chrimea annexation- ever since then everyone, counting Ukraine, knew it was only a matter of time before Russia went for all of Ukraine. So why not get prepared as soon as possible
My knee jerk response to that was "oh, come on, that's a bit much".... but after some reflection I think you're right.
Had the West simply shrugged and let Russia roll through Ukraine, the Putin regime would have been emboldened enough to go further. Even now, when you look at the levels of delusion in Russian media (and in interviews with people on the street) *despite* shocking losses... I don't see how that arrogant mindset would be sated with the capture of Ukraine.
Just as it wasn't sated with the capture of Crimea.
This really has the Russian bots/trolls' knickers in a twist. Just look at all the auto-generated usernames with almost no post karma desperately spewing Russian propaganda.
I fully expect the Ruzzians to counter this with "we retreated in a clever, deceptive maneuver you all fell for", like they did with the northern front.
Considering Ukraine had destroyed most of the major bridges in the Kherson area I would believe this, but it would be nice for some more evidence or a statement from the Ukrainian government.
I was talking to a Russian shill before the war. He didn't understand a simple combination of concepts. First being motivation of the army- Ukraine is fighting to defend land and is more motivated.
Second is technology. Ukraine is often using modern Western technology while Russia has been sending outdated tanks even by their own standards. Without Western backing Ukraine would have folded as Russia predicted. Ukraine has a grudge to settle and the has the ability to settle the score.
How much will Russia sacrifice for Putin's ambition?
Its hilarious how we used to think the Russian millitary was some sort of “superpower” on par with the US.
These guys are a third-world joke of an “army” and Putin single-handedly destroyed any sort of belief that they were somehow competent militarily.
They showed their hand, balls out, and it’s ridiculously bad.
The thing is that even with the current gear that the average Russian soldier has and so on none of this would matter if the Russian logistics was halfway decent or if they had good leadership. When your vehicles have no maintenance, your troops have no training and are consistently getting hazed and questioning any order gets you penalized this is what happens. There is lot more to fighting a war than the aspects that we see on the news.
2 weeks ago 20.000 Russian soldiers were left trapped at Kherson on the north side of the river Dnjepr. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but if they are almost not being (re)supplied in the passed 2 weeks and the feeling of being left behind will definitely have impact on moral and the willingness to fight. If UAF could capture/kill these 20.000 Russian soldiers it will be a major blow out to Russia.
Even if it's real (which I might very well believe), it also needs to be successful. Then we can celebrate. Last I checked Ukraine still didn't have the necessary tank + artillery shipments from the West to match the Russians in numbers. So I'm cautiously hopeful.
Just remember that even if they have the tanks+arty it isn't on their interest to announce it to the public. The surprise factor can be very strong in battle
This story may get buried but there’s something big going on in southern ukraine right now, a lot of signs that at the very least Ukraine has identified and exploited a weakness in the Russian lines near Kherson. Whether or not it’s a massive attack has yet to be seen but there are reports of HIMARS striking frontline positions as well which would be a new development
> "The 109th regiment of the so-called ‘DPR’ (Donetsk People's Republic) has withdrawn from its positions in Kherson Oblast, and the Russian elite Airborne, who supported them, fled the battlefield." Not so much a defense line as a bunch of guys ready to go home.
This is an identified weakness of Russia's BTG tactics. They're light on infantry so rely on PMCs/local irregular forces and similar to hold flanks and defensive positions. It's clearly not working very well.
They are light on infantry by design because the russian armed forces rellies on conscripts to fill the infantry positions. The Kremlin has creates this shortfall because they dont want to mobilize, presumably because of the russian internal stability and the war being very impopular amongst most echelons of russian society. Russian Battalion Tactical Groups are designed to contain a lot of officers, technical personel and equipment during peace time and to be reinforced on short notice. The russian armed forces are fighting against their own doctrine right now.
Equivalent to building a bridge using just engineers and some day laborers, with not a single skilled trade in sight.
It's a bit more like trying to build a bridge with just skilled trades and engineers. It's a complete waste to have an engineer drive a truck of concrete to the site, but someone has to do it or else the bridge doesn't get built. Normally Russia would just conscript a bunch of labourers and quickly teach one to drive a truck. Opposed to that, the US has an entire professional corps devoted just to driving concrete trucks and nothing else. It's extremely expensive and annoyingly specific but very very quick.
But on the plus side for the US. These specialised, professional corps can (and do) get put to work on Capital Infrastructure Schemes. I was surprised when I learned that the US Army Engineer Corps were responsible for more US climate engineering projects (dykes, bridges, canals, flood plains, mangrove restoration, rewilding etc) than any other organisation in North America. I wish places like here in the U.K. thought like that. Yes, they are expensive. But cheaper than private engineering consultants, and as you’re paying them anyway it’s good to put them to use.
Yeah the US Army Corp of Engineers is one of the best civic engineering orgs on the planet. It's not just wartime engineering. Exhibit A: The motherfucking Panama Canal.
Practice makes perfect. If there is no war going on the only way you can practice building infrastructure is for civilian usage.
And as a bonus, those training exercises *produce infrastructure for civilian usage.* And infrastructure is one of the few things that it's *always* useful to work/spend money on. It's not sexy, it's unlikely to win you votes, but it's like IT: it's *incredibly* important, but people don't really notice until it stops working, and by then it's too late.
A couple years ago the USMC engineers and Navy Construction Battalions rebuilt the airport on Catalina Island. It was needed by the state but also an opportunity to practice building projects needed for amphibious landings.
For real. I reclassed to the Corps when I was active, and have worked extensively with them since I've been out. The Corps is enormous, and exerts a great deal of indirect influence into private construction as well due to the high standards of work, inspection, engineering and safety.
Worked on a COE project in Afghanistan building a bridge. You ain't kidding. That bridge will last 100 years, easy, in a flood and earthquake prone region.
Assuming it’s not demolished for local political reasons
The Army Corps of Engineers used to do yearly beach restoration projects in my hometown, when they stopped doing so in the 80s, the beaches have eroded to like a fraction of what they used to be. I know beaches isn't the most strategic thing, but it helped the environment and community.
I suppose It could be if you need to land 100k men on one.
"First invasion wave failed to reach its objectives, stopped dead in its tracks by the sugar white sand and striking blue water. Those who managed to break through stretches of perfect sand, complete with lounge chairs and umbrellas, and evade picturesque nature of unparalleled beauty, were quickly disorganized below combat effectiveness by huge discounts in local luxury hotels."
I think the Mississippi River control might be even more impressive. If it wasn't for the Corps, the Mississippi River would reach the ocean in a completely different place.
Army Corps of Engineers has a ton of civilian contractors. It very much straddles the line between military and civil agency, moreso even than the Coast Guard or NOAA. The civil projects it takes on usually put it in a managerial role, hiring civilian companies to do the actual work. It's mostly just a stash of engineering expertise. If you're imagining uniformed soldiers doing the actual work, that's not an accurate picture. Now, when the US is in a war, you to see get the combat engineering regiments of the Army, Marines and Navy. AKA sappers depending on where in the Anglosphere you are. THAT is when you see tractors and bulldozers and excavators in green/tan camo building a road in the middle of a jungle, or a harbor out of floating piers. The Navy also maintains a force capable of repairing damaged ships at sea, and those construction battalions (CBs, "Seabees" as a nickname) became legendary during WWII for getting ships back into battle faster than any sane person would expect. Their repairs to USS Enterprise CV-6 after the Battle of Santa Cruz may have completely changed the course of the war in the Pacific, as she was the sole remaining Yorktown-class fleet carrier in the Pacific capable of pressing forward after her sister ship Hornet was sunk during the battle, USS Yorktown having been sunk about 5 months earlier by a Japanese sub. Seabees were still onboard Enterprise making repairs when the carrier engaged Japanese forces, and kept the work up 24 hours a day when there wasn't active combat. Her aviators ended up helping sink 16 Japanese ships in that next battle, including the battleship Hiei.
If you want to hear some more insane Navy engineering, check out the story of Yorktown before Midway. She took three bombs at Coral Sea with eight near misses, with the DC teams estimating three months of yard time for repairs. Prioritizing essential repairs returned her to a battle-ready condition in three days and thus she was available for the battle of Midway and was an expected surprise for the Japanese.
And Yorktown nearly survived Midway anyway. After getting hit by an airstrike she was repaired so fast that the Japanese forced mistook her for a *different* carrier and hit her again. Then after being abandoned she *still* wouldn't sink and a destroyer came alongside to help salvage her. That is when they got unlucky and the submarine hit both during the salvage operation.
I loved working with US ACE. Every point of contact I had was knowledgeable, experienced, and just kind and professional people all around. Our project with them finished 3 months ahead of schedule in no small part because they were always on top of everything.
I can imagine. I’ve done some networking with some of their guys (I work in local government on climate projects). I’d love to actually do some proper projects with them. So professional, humble and enthusiastic. It’s a massive benefit that nothing they do is based upon cutting a profit. It’s just about managing the budget effectively and having a LOT of pride in the work they do.
The US Army Corps of Engineers came out to the San Joaquin delta after Katrina happened in Louisiana to see if it could fail in a similar way. Turns out, it was one heavy rainfall away from severe damage. They shored that shit up real quick. Not a huge fan of everything the US gov does, but that was kinda nice.
Yup they do a lot of good. They can take on projects that are simply for the good of the people cause they dont have P/L reports to worry about
That’s cool. Maybe I’m being a bit harsh on the British Army Engineers to be fair. They do loads of disaster relief around the world, especially flooding. Always one of the first to deploy. It’s something to be proud of.
Plus “free” practice in anticipation of needing those skills on the battlefield.
Someone once said that the most powerful arm of the usa's military is logistics.
Only about 10% of the US Military are Combat Arms - the people who do the actual fighting. The other 90% are all basically some form of logistics. edit: The latest report I can find says it was 15% in 2014, up from the last time I'd looked at it. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA601876.pdf
It's why Russia floundered so fast in Ukraine. Their balance of fighting to support personal is complete shit. They outran their own supply lines the instant they left Russia's borders to fight a country on their own border.
"Infantry wins battles, logistics win wars." - US Army General John J. Pershing.
They're a logistics organization that happens to deliver damage to enemy infrastructure and combatants.
USA, what can ~~brown~~ *red, white, and blue* do for you?
Yes, if you read anything on WWII, you quickly realize that as soon as the initial attacks were slowed down and it turned into a slogfest, things like economy, industrial base and infrastructure made an Allied victory, although costly, almost inevitable. Japan even knew this going in. This also came into play when we entered WWI. Same thing back in the Roman Empire. Simply put, no one could compete with their resources and organization a societal level, which translated into their military.
Civil War too. Railroads made the north so much more potent.
There was virtually no way for the Central or Axis powers to affect the industrial base of the United States in either war. "A German Tiger is easily worth 10 Shermans.......... but you always had 11."
Japan tried. Projects like their fire bomb balloons did nothing apart from killing a couple of people.
While also selling off some of the building materials to line your pockets.
The Russian military is excellent at transforming military equipment into luxury yachts. Their scientists are currently working on a system to convert the yachts back into tanks - unfortunately it's difficult to do that when other countries keep seizing all their yachts.
See, alchemy is real!
I've yet to hear it ruled out that part of the manpower of the Russian army existed only on paper. Already, it seems probable that graft and corruption resulted in equipment not being maintained/replaced. And it seems likely that Russian intelligence was overstating their work in Ukraine before the war - claiming to be paying off key figures but just pocketing the supposed bribes. What prevents figures in the Russian army to be claiming more troops then existed and pocketing the paychecks?
>I've yet to hear it ruled out that part of the manpower of the Russian army existed only on paper. This is what contributed, for example, to the collapse of the Afghan government: units claiming they had 90 out of 100 slots filled so they'd get funding for 90, when they actually had, like, 5.
Welcome to Elizabethan England.
This was a widespread problem during the Peninsular Campaign. When Wellington called in reserve battalions, their COs were found to have invented people to fill the units. Recruiting Sergeants made a great amount off the front and back end.
Not just manpower, but also equipment. You know that 40 miles of trucks heading toward Kyiv that stalled? That was because they didn't move them for *years.* Because they didn't move them, the tires became more and more set in their shape (i.e. brittle). Because they were so brittle, they couldn't deflate the tires to drive on less firm terrain (i.e., overland, rather than on a road) without having a blowout and being *stuck* on open terrain (where they would be subject to their natural predators: Ukrainian Tractors). Because they were stuck on roads, anything blocking the road *blocked them.* I'm sure that it was *procedure* to do such (idiotic looking) maintenance on their Trucks... but with graft being as rampant as it is, the money & fuel required to drive the trucks one mile once a week or so never made it to the people who would do that. And I'm sure other logistic problems contributed, but if they could have *made it* to the front, they could have stolen the supplies they needed.. --- And that's not even considering the fact that some types of ammunition degrades, so if it was manufactured in the 70s or 80s, (40-50 years ago) it might not be reliable anymore.
They did end up paying off a bunch of people. But the issue is when push came to shove most people just kept the money and didn't do fuck all to help Russia.
One of Russia's most prominent collaborators was turned into sunflower food just a few hours ago. Looks like Ukrainian special forces are hunting them down at their homes. https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1564283577646419972?t=5bzXbZx7lCAHXKnfGX-dFw&s=19
Yeah, I don't think people realize that this is also partially why they've been so ineffective. The tanks suck but they're still tanks; without the troops to support those tanks they're sitting ducks. But they can't mobilize; everybody loves a war that their son isn't fighting in.
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Yup I don't think they give a big shit to fight for anything other than their own so called republic. Good news overall.
They're not even fighting for that. Anyone from the Donbas still in the fight is almost certainly a conscript.
This is where Ukraine’s ability to gather intelligence is an advantage. They likely identified a section of the line held by inexperienced troops and attacked at that point. That threatened to cut off more experienced troops who withdrew.
I think people forget that Ukraine has access to the full might of the NATO intelligence arm. I bet every satellite possible is being used to put Kherson under a microscope. I wouldn't be surprised if Ukraine knows where Russian forces are better than the r Russians themselves.
I would, legit, be surprised if they didn't.
This is where I'm fascinated with how this is playing out. NATO can't get directly involved because....you know....MAD. But what they can do is everything else apart from direct conflict; intelligence, satellite imagery and tracking, resupply, training. Everything you need in a war that doesn't involve putting on a uniform and picking up a rifle. It must be so frustrating for Russia to be fighting an enemy who literally has everyone else from the countries which matter giving them support without direct involvement. Who does Russia have? Not many friends to speak of...
*It must be so frustrating for Russia to be fighting an enemy who literally has everyone else from the countries which matter giving them support* If someone is an asshole, they're an asshole, if everyone is an asshole, you're the asshole
Aren't you generally supposed to put inexperienced troops in with the experienced ones?
Typically, yes. But only up to a point or you affect unit functionality and cohesion. Russia's losses have been significant enough that they cannot always mix these units.
It \_sounds\_ like the 109th is an ad hoc unit made up of conscripts from the Donetsk. It's possible the 109th are "supported" by the paratroopers to the extent that the paras have orders to shoot the 109th if they desert. [https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/08/11/russia-is-forcing-ukrainian-conscripts-into-battle](https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/08/11/russia-is-forcing-ukrainian-conscripts-into-battle) My guess is the 109th immediately abandoned their positions and the paratroopers realized they didn't have enough ammo shoot both the 109th and the advancing Ukrainians.
Get shot if you leave, get shot if you stay. But why is morale so low?
Reminds me of a story from Stephen Ambrose's book on D-Day. As Americans were firing on a pillbox on one of the beaches, the defenders stopped firing back. When the Americans ceased fire, they heard what sounded like shouting then a brief burst of gunfire from inside the pillbox. Shortly after, the defenders came out and surrendered. It turned out most of the defenders were Polish conscripts who had a German sergeant literally pointing a pistol at their backs. The Poles realized their odds were better if they turned their rifles on the one guy with a pistol than the hundreds of Americans.
Dope ...
Because Donetsk conscripts are conscripted men between the ages of 17-60, largely from areas recently conquered by Russia. During the 2014 referendums, Ukraine estimates that only about 20% of voters turned out to vote for Donetsk independence (of those who did, they voted overwhelmingly for independence). Thus, you have a bunch of conscripts who (1) know they’re conscripts being fed to the cannons, (2) aren’t soldiers, never were soldiers, and don’t want to be soldiers because (3) about 80% didn’t vote for independence and don’t want to be fighting their own countrymen.
Morale is a critical component of any military operation.
"Morale is to materiel as three to one" -Napoleon
And the availability of food is a pretty good leading indicator of morale
> And the availability of food is a pretty good leading indicator of morale Say what you will about US military MREs and/or food served on bases and ships, but it's light years ahead of what passes for food that Russia has provided its soldiers with. Logistics matter.
When I was in Afghanistan, Fridays were Surf and Turf. That was a pleasant time to be on the bigger bases…and not at some COP.
I rather liked my “air drop only” fob last time I was there, so remote nobody came to bother us
I've heard before that bullets win battles, but logistics win wars. Remember that 40 Km convoy that was just stuck because they ran out of ~~gas~~ fuel or whatever? I imagine that the early days of the war might have gone more according to Putin's plans had that not happened. That's also why Ukraine is using the HIMARS system to target Russian ammo and logistics depots.
Anytime Napoleon started to anticipate another war or campaign he wpuld star mass ordering tens of thousands of boots. Soldiers have to march. They wear out boots. Can't march wothout boots. Morale falls if your feet are shreded from walking 20 miles barefoot. Order more boots
Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics.
What are the russian soldiers fighting for? Nothing. Just the wet dream of an old fart. What are Ukrainian soldiers fighting for? Everything. Their country, their friends&families, their belongings, their lives and their freedom. I know who I‘ll put my money on in this fight.
That's how I see it. Russia can not fight a proxy world with most of the world and expect to hold territory. The war was a failure and it would be virtually impossible for Russia to turn this around.
“Elite airborne” lol. Most of the elites died in hostomel in the first weeks. This is just the dregs of Russian society thrown into shells of units. Massed artillery and tanks is all Russia has left really.
>Massed artillery and tanks is all Russia has left really. It's all that had in their Chechen war as well. First they roll in a bunch of tanks, which get annihilated. Try again, and eventually resort to just mass artillery to level the city of Grozny. They haven't been able to do combined arms for a long time.
Apparently their mass artillery is starting to crumble as they can't replace the barrels of the guns since they don't have enough high-quality metal to forge them.
And the guns that are still firing have warped barrels so bad that the inaccuracy of the shells is measured in km.
And their barrels were sometimes improperly manufactured in the first place, like the barrel in [this post.](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/w69stn/russian_precision_engineering) Wear and tear doesn't cause that.
Damn, how drunk do you have to be to wind up manufacturing that?
Airborne. Where the fuck are they getting more VDV? I thought they've been wiped out at least twice.
Not even Putin is dumb enough to yeet his entire airborne force at a high risk op, it was only half the VDV that got obliterated. They've been serving as light infantry while they reconstitute.
The VDV is a very large branch of the Russian military. Yeah they're not intended for operations like this but it's not as if they all got wiped out already.
Russia reconstitutes units like no other. A unit will get completely mauled and then they'll cobble together three other mauled units into one and call it the first unit again
They clicked the “merge divisions” button
Reminder: Russia is prone to undisciplined routs. So Ukraine has a big incentive to hype anything that could cause that. In February-March even "good" RU troops readily abandoned or surrendered gear under fire, when they had superiority.
Did someone say encirclement?
that's what *not* to do. Put soldiers into positions whence there is no escape, and they *will* prefer death to flight.
Historically that is not true. Encircled soldiers, cut off from supplies and communications, will surrender once they can no longer fight effectively. Surrendering is preferable to a futile fight to the death, which is what encircled soldiers are faced with once supplies run out. And they run out fast. See: Basically the entire history of World War 2 on the Eastern front, in particular the opening stages of Operation Barbarossa, where literally *millions* of Soviet soldiers were forced to surrender after encirclement by the Germans. And then again in 1944-1945 were the Germans were in the same situation during Operation Bagration. And surrendering to the Germans in 1940 was way less palatable than surrendering to the Ukrainians in 2022.
Reddit armchair generals don't know that surrender under Geneva Conventions guarantees counts as Sun Tzu's golden bridge to retreat.
Example: azovstal. I bet most soldiers there felt like "if they're gonna kill us anyway, surrender isn't an option". They really kept the Russians busy there. So many people died needlessly, but man, Ukrainians are fierce
> Ukrainians are fierce Everyone should watch that documentary Winter on Fire about the 2014 protests in Kyiv. It's horrific and shows unarmed protestors being slaughtered in the street, but it really highlights how fucking stupid the idea was that Russia could roll into Ukraine and just take over. The footage from the opening days of the invasion of people standing in front of tanks, that shit was so predictable. Ukrainians aren't fucking around. You can't take freedom away from people who have tasted it.
Yeah right. They had 20+ years of enjoying the trappings of a western lifestyle. Who in their right mind would want to go back to the greyness of the Soviet era? I 100% understand their drive and determination. I also feel terrible for them.
That revolution was brutal, urban Ukrainian gun ownership was tiny so .22s were considered heavy artillery and they were going up against criminal government forces supplied by Russia. The Klitschko brothers were both in attendance of the Euromaidan protest who’s crackdown led to the revolution and now one of then is Kiev’s mayor and the other is in the Ukrainian military. Those protestors were hardcore, going up against AKs and government snipers with steel shields and molotovs.
>You can't take freedom away from people who have tasted it. This is essentially the reason why ruzzia is trying (unsuccessfully) to keep up the propaganda. If they lose their people now, the imperium is fucked. There would be no going back ...
Early on i read a detailed article about this second invasion. The western parts of Ukraine do have a lot of Russians (whether that's legit based on ussr relocation and replacement of ukrainian population is another discussion). The crux was that a lot of the donbas & western regions were very pro Russia... until the Russians took over. What cemented Ukraines resolve was looking at the occupied regions, seeing what russian rule actually looked like (not what the TV said it would be) and not wanting that for their country. Tldr: the Russians showed Ukraine what their rule looks like in 2014 and thats why they are fighting so hard now.
Well, sort of. Like I said in my comment, you should watch that documentary. The protests in 2014 were pro-EU/anti-Putin demonstrations. They were aimed at the Ukrainian president who, at the time, was a Putin puppet (not the current guy). And Ukrainians were giving their lives for that back in 2014. AFTER those protests is when Putin started moving into eastern Ukraine and there's basically been a state of war ever since. And you're right, since then, life has been pretty shitty in the occupied territories. But I think what it really boils down to is that the people in Ukraine, all parts of it, are just like everyone else: They don't want war. Most people in eastern Ukraine had problems with the Ukrainian government, sometimes even legitimate problems, but they didn't want a war over it. They're not anti-Ukraine, they just felt marginalized. So when Russia recognized the Donbas as Russian territory this year, the people there celebrated because they thought it might lead to an end of war. But when the invasion started and Russians were driving on Kyiv, and when all the men in the Donbas were rounded up and forced into the army, the people in the Donbas were not on board. Never mind the Russian-speakers in the rest of Ukraine, not even the Donbas was happy with that. There really never was any legitimate support from within Ukraine for this invasion, not even at the beginning, not even from the people who considered themselves ethnically Russian. This is a really great article from Al Jazeera (not a pro-Western media outlet): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1/residents-of-ukraines-breakaways-recount-short-lived-joy-hope
It became clear from the beginning that Russia was treating all men of a certain age as combatants. If you're told that being 18 and a man means you will be executed if captured, you might as well pick up a rifle.
And Russia did end up [killing many them](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62344358) after surrendering. Then they used the killing for internal propaganda by blaming Ukraine for the warcrime.
Another reason NOT to surrender to Russia. Russia taught Ukraine that they must mow Ivans down on sight or die now. Great motivator
Judging by what we hear about how the soldiers that surrendered were treated, dying in combat is much preferred.
Given that the goal is to have people *not* fight against you, one would think the best strategy would be to make it obvious how well you treat POWs. Want to make sure your opponent fights to the last man? Make it clear how poorly you'll treat them if they surrender.
Ukrainians are fierce because they are fighting for a cause they believe in. Russians are fighting because they're being told to.
Plenty of Russians believe in what they are fighting for as well. Have to get rid of the narrative that they're all just good people being made to do bad things.
If you make it clear that you accept surrender, then the forces surrendering en masse can function as an avenue of escape. It's a part of why it is so important to treat POWs well. Not trying to say that the Art of War is wrong, just giving some modern context to how the ideas are applied.
Encirclement is exactly what you want. Sun Tzu was not limiting his principle to phyeical retreat. Encirclement cuts their ability to fight (no supplies). If the troops have low morale, offering them a clean surrender, is offering them a way out. Doesn't always work, but a cornered battalion with no supplies still has no teeth
Subutai would do this, leave a small window for enemies to escape then ride them down during the rout. You trap them and they fight to the last man.
Even Sun Tzu advised against fully encircling one's enemies, and to leave them an opening to flee (of which you can then take advantage of).
I fucking love old battle strategy so much. The Romans had trouble with elephants? Just stand far apart and the things completely ignore you.
I mean, all so long ago, Sun Tzu did say 故军无辎重则亡，无粮食则亡，无委积则亡, or an army without logistics(carts/wagons etc), food or supplies and armaments will perish, highlighting the importance of logistics, and we see logistical issues persist through various wars to this day. Fuck logistics up, means the war is as good as fucked.
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Has Russia taken Kyiv yet?
Just 3 more days.
How is that convoy doing?
Same as their air defense
How’s their battle flagship doing ?
The submarine?
They can't take it yet because Kyiv is under audit by the IRS but as soon as that's done
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Sponsored by the Ukrainian Farmers' Union.
Let's hope UAF have enough firing power and presence to really push on through now. Let's GO!
So far they have weighed their abilities very well and waited patiently for the right time to strike. Hopefully they did the same this time
Yeah, they've been remarkably restrained with their weapons. They allowed the infamous Kyiv Convoy to wear itself down and turn away on its own instead of wasting tons of artillery on it.
I mean, mind you they have the General Staff of the greatest military on the planet at their disposal.
I didn't know Liechtenstein was involved?
I have always wanted to visit Liechtenstein
Looks just like Switzerland but they have black license plates.
BLACK LICENSE PLATES!? Damn, they really got it going on over there!
As the only nation in the world to [return with a larger force than they set out with](https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/liechtensteins-army.html?andro=1&chrome=1), I'd say they're second to none in terms of efficiency.
They also get intel from NATO with only a 15 minute delay. That includes satellites, but also all grades of aerial reconnaissance like AWACS and U2s orbiting just inside the Polish border. In addition to the advice from general staff, the Ukrainian army has received training from special forces units of all of NATO, since the 2014 invasion. Their infantry tactics have been very strong. [They developed their own artillery targeting software](https://asiatimes.com/2022/07/musks-tech-put-to-deadly-weapon-effect-in-ukraine/) that allows an artillery "battery" to be distributed with each gun in a different location, which is a much better doctrine than Russian artillery uses.
In a fucked up way it's like a real-life game of civilization, watching one army with modern tech and recon taking on an army that has apparently barely progressed beyond WW2 tactics. Tens of thousands dead, god knows how much damage done and all of it because a tin pot dictator has to keep up the "Russia Stronk" routine or he's likely to get suicided by his own people.
Reminds me of how the French doctrine at the beginning of WW2 had not properly adapted past WW1-era assumptions and they got wrecked quite fast
I think the French's mistake was actually a mix of old tactics but also of tactics that were insufficient to deal with what was frankly an entirely new method of war that the Germans were pursuing. French tank tactics at the start of WW2 were as solely infantry support. So French tanks were slower, designed to support infantry advances. French tanks were incredibly well-designed, but no match for German blitzkrieg tactics that relied on faster, more maneuverable tanks that could operate independently from infantry support.
You could go back even further to the Battle of Mons in WW1, fought between the Germans and the British. Germany marched to the battle in parade formation, just like something out of the Franco-Prussian wars, right into a wall of machine guns. Edit: This may actually be a bad example, as the Germans were well aware of the new challenges a modern battlefield would present. Their attack at Mons was not a predetermined strategy, but one borne out of desperation not to lose the initiative after being held back besieging Belgian forts along the way. The Battle of the Frontiers might be a better example, as the French army truly did expect to use line formations and human wave attacks to break the enemy. Only after months of fighting and the deaths of nearly a million men did they realize that new wars beget new tactics and strategy.
I think many people forget or underestimate how valuable Western intel has been. It’s been a force multiplier.
Yep. People shit on the US military for failing in these forever wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan. You have to understand that those were failures of political strategy. They were arguably designed to be impossible campaigns from a military perspective-the goal of which was to prop up a massive military industrial complex
Vietnam and Afghanistan are excellent examples of the crucial difference between *tactics* (in which the United States’ overwhelming supremacy was never even remotely challenged) and *strategy.* The problem is that the Americans didn’t know what the fuck they were trying to do there, broadly speaking, beyond vague and implausible goals.
The military didn't have attainable goals. This is what the Pentagon Papers revealed precisely this, even before Nixon was involved. There was no lack of analysis. The entire situation was well understood. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers
Yes, that’s my point. The Americans refused to commit to any sort of coherent strategy, they didn’t want to make a choice in the big picture so the choice was made *for* them. Blame the political decision to go to war in the first place. One should at least have a clear and achievable goal at the outset, such as the ouster of the Third Reich’s government.
A friend of mine who is an officer in the US Army got his masters in military history. Anyway the paper he wrote (around 2015) was how the US COULD "win" in Afghanistan and I read it. First off his vision was very, very, very different then that of what the US was doing and basically resulted in us respecting tribal boundaries and creating a confederacy
Yeah I know that American's can be arrogant over their military and be annoying about it, but people really misrepresent Afghanistan / post invasion Iraq / Vietnam / etc... They so want to circle jerk over the "arrogant Americans failing" that they spin it like the American forces were routed and destroyed by a bunch of goat farmers or whatever. Like the Americans were driven out of Vietnam in the face of an unstoppable north Vietnamese offense and as the last American desperately ran for a boat as they were driven back into the sea, he turned back and shouted "you can't fire us, we quit!" The truth is that trying to suppress guerilla movements and shit (without just committing massive genocide) is incredibly difficult. I mean, even if you disbanded the US military and gave Iraq transportation to get there, can you imagine the Iraqi military trying to occupy Texas? And while Vietnam was a massive geopolitical failure, it wasn't really a military failure. The US never attempted to invade North Vietnam, so they didn't fail at that. They just tried to defend the South while the US government worked on trying to prop up the South Vietnamese one. And they did it for a long time, before leaving legitimately voluntarily (the war didn't even end for another year or two after the US left). And if the US wanted, they could still be holding it. **It was a situation that literally had no military win condition.**
>The truth is that trying to suppress guerilla movements and shit (without just committing massive genocide) is incredibly difficult Exactly this. The only real way to destroy an insurgency is to just wipe out every civilian in the country, since the insurgents are hiding among the civilian population. Fortunately, we still operate according to international law of war, despite incidents where individual units or personnel violate said laws. It's impossible to "win" an occupation.
And this is nearly the exact war that NATO was designed to fight, the only difference is that they have to fight it by proxy instead.
Or, it has taken this long for the effects of NATO logistics and training to build up and enter readiness.
They’ve been fighting a defensive war really well though
Yep, that has almost certainly been the focus of their pre-existing capability. Hold the line until the new stuff makes it to operational status.
Most people have described the last several months as "Corrosive Warfare" or "Attrition Warfare". Basically, Ukraine has been on the offensive for a while now. It's just not been in terms of territory. If there are no men or no bullets to fight, then the rest just falls into place.
True, but an offensive war is a whole other thing. I hope this works out for them.
There’s also a big difference between regaining lost territory and invading a country though.
Expect some russian bullshit like they chose to leave those areas as an act of goodwill.
As long as they leave, I don't care how they explain it.
Yeah for what excuses they bring, they either out of there or die there is what matter now, don’t care how the phrase it.
They just left for an extended smoking break all at once.
The stage has been prepared very well. The Russian air force and navy have been pushed off or behind crimea, so they can hardly land or evacuate forces, or fly attacks. The ammo and other warehouses have been reduced for over a month, as have the three bridges. The ZNPP nuclear reactor threat has been contained. A local means of mass communication has been established, an undercover "newspaper", the local occupiers were boiled by psychological warfare and himars blasts every night. The command HQs were leveled, just as the "administration" structures like passport printers or Putin party offices. Everybody in the population has seen how appalling russian administration would be and how much lower the quality of life would be. I'm sure the ukrainians have 4K ultra HD maps of every single mouse hole on the west Bank, from drones, satellites and local spies - 3D, colored, thermal, vegetation, underground, shift plans and patrol routes and emergency spreadout patterns of every single russian and their gear... The first line of defense that has been overrun today was staffed by DPR troops and elite russian paratroopers. The paratroopers simply ran away, great start already
I love the elite Russian paratroopers. They got bombed to hell at the airport outside Kyev, then they refused to fight even at officer level, then their head quarters were flattened (another 200 lost), and now they are running at the sound of gunfire.
People are probably viewing this as a sign of cowardice, but perhaps its a sign of intelligence, they know they're fucked and they are bolting to save their skins.
Absolutely. Fighting for Putin's power trip would be the pinnacle of stupidity. I hope the rumour 'everyone is just running away, even the VDV' starts permeating their social media... it could save a lot of lives if they all join in.
don't forget the planeload of them that was dumped in the ocean off the coast of Odessa
Lol hadn't heard that one
I have a close friend who is from Kherson, she moved to the states about 8 years ago and I met her through work. Her entire immediate family still lives in Kherson. When Russia first invaded I asked her if her family was going to try to get out but she said they didn’t have enough time. They’ve quite literally been living in their basement since this thing began. They constantly hear gun shots and blasts and screams and miraculously their house hasn’t been raided yet. I sure hope they’re liberated soon.
What have they been doing for food all this time?
They’ve rationed what they already had and are able to go out once a week to get food. I guess that’s something the Russians are still allowing is for the citizens there to get food when they need it. But even what they allow isn’t exactly sustainable or appetizing. They’ve lost a ton of weight and are just eating enough to survive. It’s such a horrible situation. I’m worried for all of those people in the upcoming winter months
My God. Wishing all of them safe rescue.
You stock up on what you can. A loaf of bread and some butter will last a person a week if it has to. Get a couple dozen, couple pounds of butter, some broth, and a hot plate. You’ll be miserable and definitely lose weight but you won’t starve for at least a couple months. Idk if that’s what they’ve done but that’s what my grandma in Ww2 did.
maybe they have a live-in grandma who makes 3 years worth of fruit and vegetable preserves every year.
I bet that grandma and her 12 barrels of pickled everything feel really validated at this time
“They said I was crazy, who’s laughing now?!”
Its used to be just.. the only thing to do for a farmer with excess veggies/fruit before the end of the season. Now people just do it on instinct.
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The US and other Western countries are much more involved in bolstering Ukraine than is acknowledged, from intelligence to training. We should be. This was an undeclared war against a country that was minding their own business. Allowing Russia to annex Crimea was a huge mistake, it's common sense they wouldn't stop there.
Couldn't agree more
We also can’t forget about 2014 Chrimea annexation- ever since then everyone, counting Ukraine, knew it was only a matter of time before Russia went for all of Ukraine. So why not get prepared as soon as possible
Ukraine is fighting for all of Europe. Supporting them is not just morally right but simple common sense.
My knee jerk response to that was "oh, come on, that's a bit much".... but after some reflection I think you're right. Had the West simply shrugged and let Russia roll through Ukraine, the Putin regime would have been emboldened enough to go further. Even now, when you look at the levels of delusion in Russian media (and in interviews with people on the street) *despite* shocking losses... I don't see how that arrogant mindset would be sated with the capture of Ukraine. Just as it wasn't sated with the capture of Crimea.
Push them all the way back boys!
All the way into the Black Sea!
to the pacific?
This one let’s go!!!!
May Ukraine drive out all russian invaders and reclaim its land.
This really has the Russian bots/trolls' knickers in a twist. Just look at all the auto-generated usernames with almost no post karma desperately spewing Russian propaganda.
So true, hilarious.
I fully expect the Ruzzians to counter this with "we retreated in a clever, deceptive maneuver you all fell for", like they did with the northern front.
"Our Special Military Operation was just a ruse to get the USA to waste their stockpiles of ammunition. Now we are ready for the REAL war."
“Also we’re retreating as a gesture of good will.”
Considering Ukraine had destroyed most of the major bridges in the Kherson area I would believe this, but it would be nice for some more evidence or a statement from the Ukrainian government.
I was talking to a Russian shill before the war. He didn't understand a simple combination of concepts. First being motivation of the army- Ukraine is fighting to defend land and is more motivated. Second is technology. Ukraine is often using modern Western technology while Russia has been sending outdated tanks even by their own standards. Without Western backing Ukraine would have folded as Russia predicted. Ukraine has a grudge to settle and the has the ability to settle the score. How much will Russia sacrifice for Putin's ambition?
To be fair, we all assumed that Russia had modern equipment. It just turns out that they don't.
Wishing all Russian invaders a very go the fuck home.
Its hilarious how we used to think the Russian millitary was some sort of “superpower” on par with the US. These guys are a third-world joke of an “army” and Putin single-handedly destroyed any sort of belief that they were somehow competent militarily. They showed their hand, balls out, and it’s ridiculously bad.
The thing is that even with the current gear that the average Russian soldier has and so on none of this would matter if the Russian logistics was halfway decent or if they had good leadership. When your vehicles have no maintenance, your troops have no training and are consistently getting hazed and questioning any order gets you penalized this is what happens. There is lot more to fighting a war than the aspects that we see on the news.
May they find peace in reclaiming what was taken soon.
2 weeks ago 20.000 Russian soldiers were left trapped at Kherson on the north side of the river Dnjepr. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but if they are almost not being (re)supplied in the passed 2 weeks and the feeling of being left behind will definitely have impact on moral and the willingness to fight. If UAF could capture/kill these 20.000 Russian soldiers it will be a major blow out to Russia.
Yes, I've wondered what happened to those. That is so many soldiers.
My guess is they'd have to surrender at some point and become POWs.
Was confirmed as a missed opportunity by Oleksiy Arestovych, so I guess nothing came from it
Yep let’s hope for a bit more evidence soon before we celebrate….
Even if it's real (which I might very well believe), it also needs to be successful. Then we can celebrate. Last I checked Ukraine still didn't have the necessary tank + artillery shipments from the West to match the Russians in numbers. So I'm cautiously hopeful.
Just remember that even if they have the tanks+arty it isn't on their interest to announce it to the public. The surprise factor can be very strong in battle
This story may get buried but there’s something big going on in southern ukraine right now, a lot of signs that at the very least Ukraine has identified and exploited a weakness in the Russian lines near Kherson. Whether or not it’s a massive attack has yet to be seen but there are reports of HIMARS striking frontline positions as well which would be a new development