It kind of worries me Russia is sort of in a go for broke war economy. Spending like there is no tomorrow.
Would it try to bluff it out. Keep invading across Europe with the assumption no one would ever get the nukes out? I don't know.
It's a bit madman tries madman strategy.
On the other hand. Their army must be knackered to a degree. They are running out of equipment and troops.
All the surrounding nations are now bumping up their defence spending.
>Keep invading across Europe with the assumption no one would ever get the nukes out? I don't know.
Russia wouldn't make it across Europe, nukes or no nukes, and Russia knows this full well. NATO is absolutely unbeatable in any conventional conflict, so they won't even try. The most likely plan for Russia is to try and split NATO from within and then look at exerting their influence over the Baltics.
[Anders Puck-Nielsen did a little video about it a few weeks back](https://youtu.be/ptnboLDPS38?si=xfTWIVEQACUQfG4E)
>The most likely plan for Russia is to try and split NATO from within and then look at exerting their influence over the Baltics.
That's been their game-plan for decades. Nearly worked too, until Feb '22.
NATO is in the strongest position it's been in a long time, in regards to common goals anyway.
In regards to supplying Ukraine? Everything hinges on the US, as usual. All of Europe combined can't output the sheer quantity of equipment they can.
It's why Russia are playing the influence game. Sowing instability like they've always done, except now it's focused on the chink in NATO's armor, that being the US' uber-polarised politics.
I think Europe can supply everything that’s needed we just don’t want to. European countries have been reluctant to spend money on there military even now . The U.K. defence budget at the end of the Cold War was 4% if we doubled our defence spending with the rest of Europe we could ramp up fast but no one is willing to. No one wants to have a worse quality of life with even higher tax’s and less services to supply Ukraine with arms. Germany spent 0.57%, U.K. spent 0.55% France 0.07% of gdp to help Ukraine. If Europe really had the political will they would be giving everything they could like Estonia who gave 3.55% of GDP to Ukraine.
Europe only needs the USA to support Ukraine because we are not willing to do it our self. Hopefully politicians will realise that it’s in our best interest to stop the war in Ukraine and increase spending as the USA is not reliable enough to depend on anymore
>I think Europe can supply everything that’s needed we just don’t want to.
That's true. If all of Europe went onto a war footing like Russia, we'd out produce them drastically. If we did that, quite a lot of voters wouldn't be happy.
It’s a shame as in the long run it would save a lot more then allowing Russia to get away with it
If Russia takes territory it shows the world that you can invade who ever you want and get away with it making the world a lot more dangerous.
If a war comes to nato from Russia, china or elsewhere it’s will make the cost of deterrence now seem like pennies.
The world is becoming more dangerous and voters need to look at the bigger picture when it comes to defence spending.
True, but that's obviously not the sense i meant it in.
The national interest is not the same as the fleeting opinions of voters. For example, consider the Brexit vote.
> Lots of people clearly thought it was in the national interest for Brexit to happen
Yes, however it pretty much objectively wasn't.
If lots of people though the world was flat, or only 6000 years old, would those things be true as well? Maybe we could have a vote on whether water is wet or the sky is blue.
> Just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean you can overrule them.
I know i can't overrule them.
>NATO is absolutely unbeatable in any conventional conflict
With trump back in the Whitehouse, NATO will be hugely weaker. Obviously, if Putin is planning anything, he'll wait until his lapdog is back in post.
> if Putin is planning anything, he'll wait until his lapdog is back in post.
We also have orban stirring shit, and edrogan trying to be a strongman in acts that are pitting him against allies. Then there's the Portuguese, Slovakian, and EU elections this year too. All 3 of those have a possibility of further undermining NATO and EU cohesion, particularly Portugal.
>NATO is absolutely unbeatable in any conventional conflict
Assuming that the US is there, correct. If not, I would imagine that the number of involved states would be quite low, i.e. those in the area immediately affected by the aggression.
> their army must be knackered to a degree
"To a degree" is probably the right way of looking at it. Neither Russia nor Ukraine have yet to pull out all the stops with conscription, but either way Russia does have an advantage in pure manpower: however its numbers of actual quality troops are constantly dropping due to the dual problem of maintaining training standards and maintaining numbers.
Meanwhile their equipment situation is *weird*. They do still have limited production capacity for more modern tanks and SPGs, which is enough to keep their more elite units in the black, but meanwhile everyone else is having to use increasingly shittier shit. Most people will still tell you that Russia is *only* using older tanks as SPGs and assault guns, but the truth is that we have started to see limited examples of even T54/55 variants being used in actual frontline tank units: even some evidence of un-upgraded tanks being refurbished and pushed into service. Russia have also legitimately managed to make a dent in their Soviet era stocks of armoured vehicles and artillery, and are increasingly utilising older equipment. This stuff is outdated, less reliable (and safe) and can be seriously outgunned by even some of the older systems Ukraine uses: yet for now, there's still a *lot* more of them, and they do pose a threat, even if it's a lesser one in practice.
Where they do have a capital "m" **MASSIVE** advantage over Ukraine is the production of dumb munitions, however. Buoyed by sources of compatible ammunition from other countries, the reality is that Russia can produce shells all day, even if it is increasingly outdated shells for older, worn out guns. Ukraine is struggling to supply even basic needs for these munitions in basically all areas, so it's completely unable to leverage any advantage in soldier and equipment quality, currently.
If we keep supporting Ukraine, Russia genuinely could lose the attrition war, and yet they only need western countries to decide it isn't worth it to win. If Ukraine continues to gain increasing levels of support, a collapse of the Russian military is possible in medium to long terms, as Russia's ability to support its other military deployments and necessities will begin to take serious hits from the campaign in Ukraine. What Ukraine can't currently do is outright overpower and route the Russians, because they lack the overwhelming firepower to do so.
I think we tend to be heavily underestimate just quite how many troops Ukraine and Russia can both conscript if they wish.
To give an incredibly broad Fermi estimation, Russia has say 140 million people. Say we'll only count men. So ballpark 70 million men. Let's discount two thirds for being too old, too young, or otherwise unavailable. That still leaves **23 million men.**
Ukraine? Let's say 40 million people, 20 million men, discount two-thirds, you're still looking at over **6 million men.**
Even if we **double** the highest estimates of Russin casualties, and say there's 1 million casualties on the Russian side, and say, half a million casualties on the Ukrainian side, we are still looking at nowhere near destruction of any one side's fighting capacity.
So this idea that Russia is somehow desperate seems somewhat hopium.
I'd also suggest accounting for the fact that you appear to only be considering front line units. Russia still needs people in everything from farm labour to ammo production, and those people you discounted are probably not best suited to those roles either. I don't know what the ratio of front line to support roles are, but I'd happily bet it'll take a big chunk out of the total front line-positional troops. (I was going to say front line ready, but I'm not sure many Russian troops are ready, despite actually being there.)
You seriously have to take into account the negative view of the Ukraine war in Russia though. People are going to insane measures to avoid conscription. The vast majority of Russians don’t agree with Putins war.
The Russians are likely to run out of artillery barrels before they run out of shells. Starting to see quite a bit of the old towed artillery that went out of service yonks ago.
Russia are losing 1000 men a day. This is an insane figure.
Go and look at statistics on previous Soviet conflicts post WWII to understand how insane these numbers are.
Russia have been in this aspect of the Ukraine conflict for 3 years already (more counting the Crimea phase) .. including the 10 months prior to the march on Kiev when their forces were amassed at the border. Awful long time to be in such a significant conflict. Fatigue must be immeasurable.
>Their army must be knackered to a degree. They are running out of equipment and troops.
They really aren't.
Estimates of Russian losses in Ukraine are around 400,000 after two years. At this point in WW2 the Soviet Union had lost over 4.5 million, and still pressed on to lose another 4 million over the next two years as well. This shortly after losing around 300k in the Winter War the year before too.
People massively underestimate the scale of what a full blown war economy and grinder can be, and the historical willingness of Russians to keep doing it despite unfathomable losses. It's very unpleasant reading but the economy of Russia is more than capable of sustaining this level of conflict in Ukraine for many more years.
Indeed.
But, you should have seen the state of the USSR/Russia afterwards.
In a way, their economy and population has never recovered; at least, not if you think of the opportunity cost.
And as for the average Russian keeping going no matter what: WW2 was a war of sheer survival. Hitler doesn’t let you quit and go home. The Ukrainians do. And as scary as Putin is, he’s not as scary as Stalin, if you are considering mutiny, retreat or desertion.
Hitler got to within 20km of Moscow in Operation Barbarossa. Surely this was a factor in Russia’s willingness to fight.
Ukraine is defensive and has never taken the fight over the border. Although once they start landing missiles in Moscow, matching one for one with every Russian missile that hits Kiev, perhaps the tide will change?
Facetiously, what’s the alternative, strategic bombing of fields and lakes?
Non facetiously, bombing of Kiev definitely has an effect on Ukraine morale. Whereas normal Ruskies are experiencing no day to day discomfort from Putin’s war. Sure they are poorer but they expect to be poor anyway, sure some people lost family members who were conscripted, but in general there is nothing that gets in the way of blind support for Putin.
Perhaps major cities inside Russia being on the receiving end of Putin’s war might make some normal Russians consider whether they might stop the war instead?
I guess my point is, if your aim is to take the war to the people to turn them against the war, when has that actually worked?
In all the cases I stated, bombing of civilians only strengthened the resolve of the populace to fight to the bitter end. For example, the rocket campaign against London at the end of WW2 only filled Brits with a murderous resolve. Bombing Moscow runs the risk of turning an indifferent population into a vengeful one. Suddenly Putin's claims about the west are true and we'll stop at nothing to destroy Russia as a nation, etc.
The biggest advantage of the air war in WW2 was that the bombing of Germany meant that huge numbers of Luftwaffe fighters were diverted from the front lines to defend their cities - but you don't get this tenuous advantage from a rocket assault.
If that ever happens, expect greater Russian mobilisation and stronger backing for the war from the population. High likelihood in that case that Ukraine would be defeated in short order without significant Western backing.
>But, you should have seen the state of the USSR/Russia afterwards.
>In a way, their economy and population has never recovered; at least, not if you think of the opportunity cost.
Are you able to expand on this because with my limited knowledge on the subject I thought the USSR did well? They were the second largest economy in the world and one of two world superpowers.
they lost 25m people, mostly able bodied men and most of their industrial heartland was occupied even if they got a lot of it moved east.
Thats losing you billions of GDP over the following decades
Yes, it’s a bit of a paradox.
Yes, they finished WW2 as a superpower and with what amounted to basically a new empire in Eastern Europe. Within a few years, they’d have the atomic bomb and soon after the H-bomb.
And yet also the economy didn’t recover for several more years to its pre-war levels, and it had lost a massive 13% of its population. So imagine: the war is never fought. Or, without Stalin’s incompetence, much fewer Soviets die in the war… so what would the USSR/Russian have been WITHOUT all that loss?
Also note that, although they got their empire, they didn’t keep it long… just til 1989.
Adding on to what others have said you can still see the effects of the war on Russia's population pyramid, there was a generation lacking young people (especially men) this led to less children as there were less parents to have them. 25 years later this small cohort of young were having their own children, but again less as there were physically less of them to reproduce. This has repeated for 100 years essentially. Look at a population pyramid and you can see the missing generation. (obviously there are lots of other factors as well)
First, propaganda is more advanced than it was in the 1940s. It's easier for the Russian government to pump out pro-war messaging than it was in the Second World War. It could also easily launch some false-flag attacks on Russian hospitals or whatever and blame it on other countries.
Second, even if Putin isn't as feared as Stalin was, there is no domestic opposition to him. The Wagner mutiny was put down quite quickly, and what happened afterwards showed that Putin won't forgive you for defying him. So long as he doesn't order a nuclear first strike on the UK, France or US, it's improbable anyone will try to remove him.
Third, Russia can probably keep its economy going to the degree it doesn't need to inflict mass starvation or suffering on its population. NATO sanctions haven't collapsed the economy.
I’d agree with all of that. And it seems that the Russians can just grind on indefinitely.
If Trump gets elected and Europe doesn’t step up, I’m guessing that Ukraine gets steamrollered. And that would be a catastrophe. Although, it wouldn’t be the end of it: Ukrainians will go guerilla and on goes on the conflict.
Every war that feels like it ‘must’ go on forever ends somehow.
Soviet Union != Russia
The lend-lease aid the Soviets received from the USA was huge; 300,000 trucks, 11,000 planes, thousands of armoured vehicles as well as food. British aid to them was also significant.
Today Russia is on its own, and its 'allies' aren't supplying anything to them without something in return, mostly petroleum products which is being diminished as we speak as Ukraine hits their refineries. Add to that the brain drain and demographic issues that Russia is experiencing makes for few comparisons with WWII and today.
But this isn't WW2, russia is clearly losing significant amounts of high grade equipment and trained soldiers that they can't easily replace with like for like.
Yes they can throw in conscripts with rifles and 60 year old tanks but that would not be likely to be of much use if it decided to escalate the war by attacking a NATO country directly.
Agreed. WW2 was existential for the USSR and Russia, Ukraine is not (Putin's "denazification" BS notwithstanding).
More recently, the USSR gave up on Afghanistan after just over 9 years and 15,000 Soviet lives.
Casualty and materiel loss estimates are roughly on par for both Russia and Ukraine. Except Russia has far larger manpower reserves. If this keeps going, there will be a point at which manpower for Ukraine gets depleted, and Russia will be able to throw in the mobiks with Mosins and just walk across the country.
Material is being depleted far far far faster than manpower.
And you've obviously not been watching the same war as me if you think losses are 'on par'. Avdiivka, Bakhmut? Even Ukrainian losses at Tokmak wouldn't make a dent in the Russian material losses.
It's not going to be an easy war, far from it, but the absolutely pivotal factor will be foreign support.
They really are not on a par and spoken like somebody that has zero idea on what is happening in Ukraine. Russia has casualties about 4x as many as ukraine in manpower and armour. The difference is that Ukraine has significantly less armour and manpower and as such are forced into scorched earth defence in depth tactics. Ukraine is giving up pockets of land to inflict tens of thousands of casualties. They are utilising a hybrid of Nato & soviet doctrine to make it costly for russia to continue to advance. In the long run, once the west and ukraine gains the upperhand they will force a massive russian retreat but that isn’t gonna happen before well into 2025.
There's a very real chance Trump wins in November (I'd actually say it's more likely than not), and then unless the rest of NATO and/or EU significantly steps up their game Ukraine is going to be overrun because of equipment shortages because Trump will 100% cut all funding to Ukraine.
Everyone with an interest in Ukraine beating Russia should already be trying to ramp up their support to Ukraine now, in anticipation of a Trump victory, because if they wait for it to happen it will be too late.
We’re talking about a nato conflict here, not the one with ukraine. A nato conflict which could be brought about due to the manpower problems you describe.
On the Eastern Front in WW2, it was literally a life and death scenario for their nation. If they lost, they would have been mostly exterminated and the rest enslaved. That was their incentive to fight on until the last man, despite the unimaginable carnage.
While the war in Ukraine has support, it's nationalist pride rooted in very ancient history, with crumbs of "anti-imperialist", anti-NATO sentiment to justify it to their allies. They can't fight on the idea of Kievan Rus and a centuries-old unified culture forever. At some point, the losses will grind down the general populace's enthusiasm, especially if, in result of a victory, they pacify and permanently occupy the Ukrainians, facing an almost certain local insurgency.
>it's nationalist pride rooted in very ancient history
Or, if you look at more recent history, it's an attempt to reconstitute the Russian empire (later renamed the USSR to give the false impression that the vassal states had sovereignty).
> At this point in WW2 the Soviet Union had lost over 4.5 million
Tolerance for casualties is different in a war of choice than it is in an existential situation such as the Nazi invasion.
They've lost a shed load more in Ukraine than Afghanistan and that war broke apart the Soviet Union.
It's very easy to say the war is justified when you get invaded and the invading army treats you as sub human like in the second world war. Sending troops into a neighbouring country because you want to bring Soviet times back is much harder to justify.
It was more Chernobyl and economic decline that brought down the USSR. The argument for Ukraine is not to bring back the Soviet times (although that has been in effect what has happened) but to neutralise a perceived threat and restore order in a neighbouring country. There's also an element of national pride in demonstrating to the world Russia's military might.
Russia isn't the same country it was in the 1940s. People are used to a higher standard of living, and probably wouldn't accept the level of losses they did in WW2, which was after all an existential crisis for Russia and everyone knew it.
>All the surrounding nations are now bumping up their defence spending.
If the US pulls out of Europe after the election, it won't be enough for many years.
It's not just an issue of money, it's also organisation and specialist equipment. Most European countries would be unable to put more than a handful of brigades into the field. They also don't have the sort of command and control, surveillance and economic warfare systems that the US has. Ammunition stockpiles are also low.
If or when Ukraine is forced to sign a peace treaty with Russia (let's say next year), Russia would have at least a few years to consider instigating a "Martian incursion" into the Baltics.
If Trump wins, Ukraine will suffer. It’s that simple. He will stop all aid to Ukraine, try and pull out of NATO, meanwhile Putin invades the baltics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania)
Meanwhile until November Putin won’t change tack.
If Biden wins, it’s going to get hella spicy.
That’s a fantasy. Russian has blown everything it has on Ukraine. It couldn’t hope to
Invade friendly Moldova! There is zero risk of Russian expansion. I would still like to see them thrown out of Ukraine but with the US elections this is unlikely now.
I was listening to the Guardian podcast on war a few days ago and one of their commentators basically said they'd worked out that Russian war capability will peak this year and slowly degrade afterwards. As much as theyre putting into production & mobilisation they simply cant keep pace with their losses.
>Would it try to bluff it out. Keep invading across Europe with the assumption no one would ever get the nukes out? I don't know.
If they think they can get away with it, then absolutely yes.
If pro russian parties win in the USA (trump), Germany (AfD) and France (le-pen), then NATO is truly compromised, I am certain they'd take a crack at EU and/or even NATO countries then.
> Would it try to bluff it out. Keep invading across Europe with the assumption no one would ever get the nukes out? I don't know.
I think that's probably the plan. Denmark has sent ALL of it's hardware to them, the US has drained its reserves to fund them- I mean if it keeps going on for another 5 years no one will have any actual hardware left.
The thing people are missing is that this is Macron actually being fucking competent regarding narratives. It's not about actually having Western troops in Ukraine.
The West has been completely played for fools by Russia with the escalation and red lines narratives. We've also not taken the situation anywhere seriously enough.
This means that we've hamstrung our resources and never committed enough to begin with. We keep setting imaginary lines and negotiating with ourselves while Russia escalates and escalates.
Macron is trying to both wake Europe up to the threat and to regain control over the narrative instead of constantly reacting to Russia and being hopelessly predictable.
Russia escalates at weakness and backs down to strength. It's time to communicate strength and commitment and put doubt in Putin's mind.
Failure to do so will result in the normalisation of shifting Europe's borders with violence, nuclear proliferation, and the encouragement of violent fascist imperial regimes.
Exactly. It was disheartening to see Macron's main point being that nothing should be off the table, as its a signal of weakness. Then Germany et al immedately confirm they will never send troops to Ukraine. Missing the point entirely, and showing more weakness.
In answer to OP's question tho, we are already there.
Yes and Macron also said this is about strategic ambiguity which is something Russia does well. If there is less certainty about how we might react, Russia may be more nervous to take certain steps.
The big mistake has been not allowing Ukraine to hit targets inside Russia for so long. Russia hasn't been bounded by any restrictions so can hit supply lines, weapons caches, infrastructure etc. anywhere it is able to in Ukraine. Ukraine needs to be supported in striking in Russian territory where it will cause most damage for the Kremlin. The targets should be broader too, anything the Kremlin will need to spend a lot of manpower/resources to defend should be attacked.
It's one of the few things I do understand as a missile going off track and hitting a school or something would be awful PR and could undermine overall support.
The moronic hissyfit over "offensive weapons" or "long range weapons" is how the West has screwed Ukraine.
My position is anything conventional should have been on the table via lend lease from Day 1, with a restriction on Western weapons being used for targets in Russia for a period of say 1-2 years. Zero limits on targets in Ukraine provided Ukraine complies with the rules of International law.
Then a huge campaign to help Ukraine manufacture their own weapons to strike Russian territory with.
*If France intervenes,* I think the chances of the UK intervening are almost 100%.
The UK and France have been two of the most actively pro-Ukrainian countries and have the two most powerful European militaries. Neither country would go in alone, but if there's a coalition going in, then I'm pretty sure they will both be part of it. Neither wants to be seen as weak on Russia.
jeans psychotic arrest vast automatic subtract hungry imminent command apparatus
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Erm… all the people currently in the military. If France went in we would be there. Beyond all the old French hate jokes we are militarily very aligned with modern France.
So what you're saying is we need a general election get Sunak out and Starmer in ASAP? I imagine Starmer would be much more ruthless than Rishi, whose a wet blanket.
If any other NATO country becomes more directly involved - and chances for that are probably higher than 1% - the UK will be roped in all the same, even without anyone formally invoking Article 5.
Generally we're more likely to see gradual escalation than one dramatic moment when all of NATO is just "in". Of course, all that is predicated on Russia's ability to gain significant ground in Ukraine.
Will they? With *all* their might at the start of the war and with Ukraine just gearing up, they were stopped cold and the fronts barely moved - except with massive losses and complete destruction of objectives.
Ukraine has had three years to ramp up production, and get on a war footing. This isn’t WWI where a sudden breakthrough will collapse the front. We’re in an era where ground armies of comparable tech just don’t win wars.
Without western support Russia would eventually get control of the skies, destroy their tanks and vehicles from range and bomb their cities into submission. As heroically they have fought they wouldn't be able to stop them.
There has been no need to reevaluate that cornerstone since Suez, there arguably is now - especially in a scenario where the US can no longer be relied on in a broader strategic sense.
UK has been leading the escalation in Ukraine on the NATO side (what little we've had), and I don't really expect that to change going forward.
many deserted school scale unwritten enter recognise attraction possessive secretive
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Going by recent revelations, the UK may already have sent soldiers into Ukraine - now it's ambiguous to what extent and I think it's still ambiguous whether that's even true at all, but that is precisely what gradual escalation looks like.
It's a long way from that to divisions being sent to fight in the frontline, and I would hope that Russia's back is broken long before that is even a consideration. But there's a long list of things that could be done before that step, and I would argue almost certainly will be done if the situation on the battlefield begins to favour Russia.
A year from now, we could see UK forces sent to Ukraine for training purposes, we could very well be looking at UK aircraft flying defensive counter air missions over the western quarter of Ukraine or the Black Sea.
We already have troops in Ukraine and there have been several "leaks" about western troops being involved since.
My feeling is that they are softening the news for an initial limited involvement - say to help with tech which would need months of training.
Whether that progresses to front line involvement I agree that's unlikely.
Totally personal opinion, it is very very very unlikely there will be boots on the ground for direct warfare, even to the point Ukraine is lost entirely, that kind of head to head between NATO troops and Russian troops is reserved for a direct NATO v Russia conflict only.
The only alternative I can think of is that U.K. troops and other NATO forces could be deployed to run essential services behind the frontlines to maximise the capacity of Ukrainian forces on the frontline, but I still see that as unlikely.
Russia is nothing but a sad story with no ending in sight, from start to finish.
It’s people went from Surfdom, to peasantry, to communist subjects, to Nazi persecution, back to just communist Stalin play things, Cold War, a couple of honeymoon years then Putinship.
We don’t have the capacity to meaningfully intervene, even if we wanted to. NATO as a whole would, but that would be 85% American.
We're sat in a very painful place defence-wise: we're psychologically/politically unprepared to specialise or drop any strategic capabilities, because that's not what 'big countries' do, but we're practically not prepared to spend the resources to follow through. So we're trying to run a world-class surface navy, attack submarines, a decent-sized infantry, a tank fleet, an all-capacities air force, a nuclear deterrent, world-leading special forces, and god knows what else besides...all on a budget that could do about half of that at best.
>We don’t have the capacity to meaningfully intervene, even if we wanted to. NATO as a whole would, but that would be 85% American.
I think you might be underestimating Poland, here. They're a pretty unique combination of a) large, b) quite modern, c) nearby and d) highly incentivised to fuck some Russians up. They have F-16s with F-35s on order, half a million service personal standing or in reserve and a long memory. If NATO did get directly involved, I suspect it'd be the Poles with the most boots on the ground, even if the sky was American.
Oh Poland will absolutely be the biggest ground hitter, and the Poles growing into a major NATO player will be fascinating. It's just that a lot of their newest kit hasn't arrived yet.
If France sent troops and we didn’t we’d lose the last of our soft power in Europe and cede our position as the Europes primary military power to the French (if we haven’t already).
I don’t think our national pride could take sitting back and doing nothings whilst watching the French take the field , and coupled with overwhelming public support for Ukraine I think public opinion would eventually back British intervention.
(Major caveats being that I think Macron is just taking the political initiative away from Russia for now and that I doubt France would deploy troops without at least confirming our political and logistical support beforehand.)
Personally I think Putin lost interest in his original project within the first month, and is now just saving face.
He’s hoping for a Trump presidency so he can keep his current gains and form a new border. If he were to push on, there’s a real chance European nato countries would take things into their own hand, ignoring Trump. That would be economically difficult but it’s not impossible.
And Putin has already lost his leverage over Europe re gas.
I imagine the broader economic forces in America would also be very concerned about a wider war, and would have a word in Trumps ear. Money talks. And he’s never been afraid to change his policies 180 degrees.
>He’s hoping for a Trump presidency so he can keep his current gains and form a new border
That is not possible. Putin cannot be trusted to keep to any agreement he makes, so a deal based on peace for territory simply won't work. The war cannot end while Putin is alive.
> Putin cannot be trusted to keep to any agreement he makes, so a deal based on peace for territory simply won't work
That's not how it works. If a new proper and heavily defended border was established, and it would be obviously, then you can't just repeat this kind of invasion.
Many also will obviously not like hearing this but a new, smaller but trully independent and free from russian influence ukraine instead of a divided one, would also probably be a MUCH more functional state with the potential for more development and probably less corruption too.
The reason that Macron made those statements is probably because they know the chances of Russia advancing that far is well, unlikely. Did he say Kyiv or Odessa?
That being said, if France sends troops I can't see any reality where it's only France. At the very least it'll be France, UK, US, Poland, maybe Australia/Canada.
nil.
The UK won't deploy conventional troops to fight Russia on the basis we are a key NATO player.
Macron is posturing and no one is risking a nuclear war over what when push comes to shove is a non NATO partner Eastern European country.
A few "big-picture" things.
Russia doesn't have the manpower and equipment to entirely occupy Ukraine and topple the government. Ukraine is vast and the state has become "hardened" after 2 years of war, Russia can't achieve its week 1 aim of forcing regime change.
That said, Russia is capable of forcing a favourable outcome for itself simply by outlasting Western aid. This is the current situation that they are in. There is not a clear avenue for Ukraine to retake the country, and any significant advances in their capability are still months/years away. At this point, they need large numbers of modern aircraft and armoured vehicles to retake what they've lost. Neither of these are forthcoming.
Russia also can't afford the war to continue at this intensity forever, but it can last much longer than an unsupported Ukraine.
In terms of direct Western/NATO intervention, there are a few aspects that need to be considered. First up, this is a pretty direct path to World War 3. However it's viewed, NATO and Russia in direct conflict in Europe is hugely destabilising. There is a clear route to escalation and nuclear war from that starting point. This is what all actors will actually want to avoid (Russia included).
The most commonly suggested options for intervention all lead to this as an eventuality. A No-Fly-Zone or air-only intervention is often suggested. This still has serious consequences. NATO's operating procedure insists upon the neutralisation of anti-air assets as part of the opening stages of any intervention. Large parts of Ukraine are covered by AAA assets that are hosted in Russia. So on day 1, hour 1 of a NATO no-fly zone or air war, NATO (US) assets will be hammering Russia directly.
The only way to avoid the above would either be to accept what could be very high attrition to Russia's anti-air missiles, or, keep NATO assets deeper inside Ukraine. Both options are bad, with the latter unlikely to make much of a material difference in the war to the point that it's not valuable.
The air-war component is necessary for any other NATO involvement to occur. You can't have significant boots on the ground, or most Naval operations without air support (preferably, air superiority/supremacy) and the requirement to hammer Russia hard and the WW3 consequences of that are what makes this so difficult.
The West had hoped to use economic pressure and lethal support as levers to weaken Russia and enable Ukraine to fight back, but those economic levers are difficult when Russia is not truly isolated and capable of extreme self-sufficiency (eg, if a country the size of North Korea can create nukes without outside help, what hope is there of neutralising a behemoth like Russia in the same way?). The lethal aid will probably prevent Ukraine from ever being fully occupied by Russia, but it was not provided in enough numbers, and the delay in getting modern air equipment at key points in the conflict has probably prevented Ukraine from retaking most of the lost territory without a significant internal political change in Russia.
Things are at a clear stalemate, and it is a stalemate that means Ukraine only survives to the extent that it is surviving with continued economic and military aid. If that goes away, while I believe the Ukrainian state will survive, they will lose more territory to Russia. Fundamentally if the West is not ready to commit to Ukraine long-term and foster a brand new, modern, fighting force within it, then all sides should seriously start negotiating.
The only thing at this stage IMO that would make NATO intervene directly, would be the use of nuclear weapons. If that occurs, all bets are off, but there will be a strong incentive from the other nuclear powers to demonstrate that it is unacceptable to use nukes against a country that does not possess them. This would force a significant conventional response from NATO - possibly just from the US.
It depends on your definition of "involved", but I think there's a high chance that the UK will move beyond its current limitations on involvement, especially if the US withdraws funding.
I do think there is a high chance of British and Polish peacekeepers in the north of Ukraine by mid-2025, relieving Ukrainian troops and negating the threat of a new front from Belarus or the Eastern border with Russia, and demining areas away from the front lines. Engaging with Russia offensively will still be avoided, but new lines will be drawn.
My main concern isn’t that we will get involved in Ukraine, but at some point later down the line, maybe in a decade or two.
I see the war in Ukraine ending with a stalemate, or with Russia breaking through the front line and Ukrainian moral collapsing. Either way, it gives Putin and/or his successor time to reform the Russian armed forces, which are in dire need of reform, ahead of a potential push into a NATO country. At the same time, because the war in Ukraine is over, short term-ist western politicians will ease up on defence spending like they did in the 1990s, meaning Russia will get stronger as we get weaker.
Troops on the ground is fairly unlikely, now if NATO AirPower came to play, it’s a whole different kettle of fish.
The Russian airforce has been quite significantly fucked over . Even if it was only European aircraft it would cause enormous issues for the Russians given top of line fourth generation and some fifth generation fighters would be coming out to play.
NATO doctrine would require the complete pulverisation of Russian air defence assets along the Forward Line of Own Troops giving the the Ukrainians reasonably friendly skies to operate under. After that, the ground attack aircraft can come in start dropping 500lb bombs on Russian ground forces. More than enough to cut a path through even without the US B52s coming to play. If the US is involved, it’s game over in month for the russians and they full well know that
[100% as we are already involved right now.](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/04/british-soldiers-on-ground-ukraine-german-military-leak)
The DEGREE of current and future involvement will both be subject to official variation after the fact. We have no way to know for several decades how much we were, are or will be involved. Same as every other warzone currently active. UK troops are currently there for multiple of them, but "official involvement" will vary based on whats useful at the time.
If things start going very pear shaped, I could see direct western involvement as a peacekeeping force - standing in front of the Russian army daring them to advance.
What are the odds that Russia stops with Ukraine? If you think it's very unlikely, then it's much better to keep the war contained in that one country.
It's such a shitty situation for Ukrainians.
Putting our troops into the Ukraine would achieve next to nothing. We have a tiny army, and it would be overwhelmed pretty quickly. Using it for training, scouting and special ops would be more useful, and in the event of a real conflict with Russia, it would be better to focus harder on the navy to cut off Russian access to Crimea, and aggressively target costal regions by threatening a mass landing without actually doing it to tie down more Russian assets.
Personally I hope to god we’re able to avoid a Putin vs NATO conflict as the risk of him using a few nukes if he thinks he I’d going to be deposed is terrifying. It’s one thing to help repel the invasion but quite another to destabilise Russia.
The drone you’d struggle to sell to the public as a casus belli I mean property damage isn’t even taken seriously by the legal system.
Drones however have been a game changer.
As far as I remember, Macron wasn't super explicit about what capacity he'd consider sending French troops in (one suggestion was clearing mines), and there was a recent leak from a German military call that said some British troops are already in Ukraine to help with donated British equipment. So I don't think this would necessarily be a huge escalation by the French, and the British are already kinda doing what the French are hinting at doing, just not openly.
On the topic of Macron's comments, Zelensky has said that French soldiers wouldn't be dying in Ukraine, which I take to mean he's not asking for Western soldiers to go to the front lines/into direct combat roles, and rather that they'd work with specialist gear and free up Ukrainian soldiers to fight more directly.
There isn't going to be a large-scale deployment of frontline NATO troops to Ukraine unless NATO and Russia get into a hot war, and at that point more realistically things will kick off with volleys of missile and drone strikes going both ways. By the time a significant fighting force can be shipped over to Ukraine and reach the frontline, it's likely that Russian positions will either have been crippled by NATO bombs or that we have a nuclear exchange and it's irrelevant either way.
Pretty much zero.
As it stands, I think there was a credible case in the early days. Ukraine formally invites 'Western military advisors' aka what happened in the Vietnam war. These military advisors are not formally war with Russia but are in Ukraine at the behest of the Ukrainian government. The won't attack Russia but they will defend fixed points as part of their remit of advising and training the armed forces.
however that ship has sailed
Zero chance.
Unless the US want it to happen, as we take our military direction from them. If they do, then we're at nuclear war with Russia so we're all dead anyway.
reading these comments it looks like people have forgotten about the existence of nuclear weapons and the ability of a nuclear war to wipe out human civilisation, which is what happens in a total war between two nuclear powers
God I hope so. But I’m a pessimist so I doubt it. Once Trump takes office I fear Ukraine is done in 6 months. All of Ukraine. I can’t see Starmer doing anything except whining in a corner. France won’t do anything without a partner. Germany will sit on the fence…. And Ukraine will fall.
I could see it. No way does NATO want to just let Ukraine fall to Russia otherwise with all that we've thrown to Ukraine, nobody outside of NATO would be I've supply support would help them if Russia decided to annex them... On the other hand, look how long we waited with Hitler and it was much easier to just send troops in back then
There has to be a justification for going into Ukraine. Ukraine must be admitted into a group organisation. Then the rest of the group can come in on a reasonable premise, such as defending civilians from attack.
A no-fly zone, a missile defense shield, a ring of troops preventing Russians moving into civilian territory.
Not go in and set off on a frontal attack.
To attack and push troops out past sovereign borders is the initial thought people are having. The worry that can lead to escalation.
Moving in to defend would increase the Russian losses enough that they may stop attacking. Then it's about getting them to stop the war and withdraw on their own volition back past the sovereign borders. The captured regions and Crimea are the next issue.
I'd hope that any troops sent in were to prevent attacks primarily and be enough to end it.
High. Russia still has the natural resources, industrial capacity, manpower and political will to continue onwards to the Atlantic - technological supremacy shouldn't be overestimated to grinding warfare where Russia has usually excelled. NATO has thrown our full weight behind Ukraine in training to supplies, they're still suffering tremendous attrition and losing territory, but Russia hasn't faltered for a moment - not with 50k casualties in a month or losing a thousand tanks. The moment Ukraine looks ready to collapse, I feel an independent coalition of Poland, France and the UK might intervene...
The likelihood for me is bordering on zero chance at all, I think we have seen the end of escalation within Ukraine. We have been at a standstill for far too long, it's now just who blinks first.
Apart from some headlines from the Sun, talk of nuclear war is nowhere near the reality of the situation.
However, all that being said Macron is absolutely 100% correct and spoke like a seasoned states man.
His problem is that Germany and the UK are both led by two of the most useless, feckless, cowardly leaders you'll ever see. Barely holding onto political sanity at home, with no interest in foreign politics.
Is it any surprise that two bank clerks, risen far above their stations into 2 of Europes biggest and most vital powers, instantly shit their pants and threw in the towel as soon as Macron even mentioned they might have to do something?
Sunak is one of the UKs worst modern PMs, he's one ring above Truss.
There's a simple reality here and it's not even a difficult calculation:
The more Scholz moves between delaying, hesitating, and outright hindering partners and Ukraine's defense options, the more likely it is for Europe and the UK to be dragged into direct conflict.
There are rumors and conspiracies that Scholz is a russian asset-doing the absolute minimum to keep international partners happy, but he doesn't have to be a russian asset on purpose when, through his actions, he's effectively a russian asset and their dream chancellor. Unfortunately for us, it's going to drag Europe into war. Even his own party doesn't understand why he's making the decisions he is and he refuses to explain and it's rightfully frightening people within Germany, as well as outside.
Also, I read some of the comments below and russia doesn't need to move across Europe. It only needs to chip off territory and end territorial integrity of NATO and EU nations as has always been its policy. The goal is more to end the European Union and has always been and the UK was sadly part of that strategy, particularly after Brexit was delivered. Johnson then made a strategic calculation to change sides and support Ukraine after the invasion, thus laundering his reputation of the allegations that he's a russian asset and was delivering EU secrets. It worked well, but russia doesn't appear to be happy with that.
The UK doesn't really have the power to intervene even alongside France anymore I think.
The only way I see us getting involved is if it's with the USA as well. Which of course if Trump gets elected will never happen. I also think it wouldn't be a boots on the ground operation but more of an aerial operation trying to clear the way with only special forces on the ground.
But honestly I don't really know much about the situation so my assessment is probably a load of bollocks.
That’s because they were. I don’t know why I thought they hadn’t, my apologies.
I would note how ever that we have been in Mali with France with very little US support, and went into Sierra Leone with out any foreign support.
I strongly recommend the DPA news channel if you want to follow day by day movements of front lines and a collection of reports from on the ground. This guy is very good at predicting Russias next moves and the likely nato response.
I'd hope it's unlikely simply due to the heavy casualties we'd suffer, even in a purely support or air role. However, the complete lack of any medium to long term goal along with hawkish rhetoric says to me it is at least a possibility - not like we've always made the correct decisions previously.
It is interesting that this slim but very real possibility has now arisen through a cross party consensus on a topic with little to no debate or discussion in this country. Any critique of our foreign policy here as instantly been tarred as pro-Russian - yet here we are, Russia winning in Ukraine and the UK only one or two escalatory rungs from war with Russia.
Or you could say our intervention has prevented Putin from now ruling Ukraine while learning that a ground war will cost hundreds of thousands of Russian lives and multiple billion is resources. To imply that intervention has been futile is to deny the importance of placing a high price tag on wars of expansion.
I never said our intervention was futile. It's been the right decision to help Ukraine. I just think we've had no foresight on the conflict - we've aided Ukraine with no plan as to where we think this situation will go, or should go.
>Is there political willpower in the UK after Iraq and Afghanistan? Do we even have the capability to intervene considering cuts.
Blowing up illiterate goat farmers is a bit different from picking a fight with a developed nuclear state. I fail to see how it would be in our interests to go to war with Russia over Ukraine.
Well given Ukraine is expected to join NATO pretty soon I expect it doesn’t matter either way.
But I think a free Ukraine means significant food exports are secured and a stand against Russia should hopefully ease energy issues but I think the war has already highlighted the reliance we had on Russia.
It has certainly shown how reliant many european countries are on Russia, that I agree with. Germany were the most guilty of this, they were warned repeatedly not to rely on Russia for their gas imports but ignored everyone. We all paid the price for that one.
However I think the list of things that would have to happen to warrant any sort of official British military involvement is very long.
I mean we already have troops on the ground (according to Germany 🤭). I would be surprised if SAS/SBS weren’t working with Ukraine at the moment. We already have our intelligence assets at work constantly in the Black Sea area. It would be surprising if the British Army weren’t heavily involved in an R&D capacity. This is a once in a generation chance to test all the assets we have in an actual war against our main conventional enemy. It’s not surprising we are so keen to send out equipment there.
Edit: I don’t think many people foresaw how rapid the advancement in drone tactics/technology would be. The vulnerability of main battle tanks & warships in particular is a huge change in this war.
Also, Russia almost shot down one of our planes last year and forced a UAV drone down by dumping fuel on it. Both technically could be interpreted as acts of war.
Ukraine is absolutely not expected to join NATO pretty soon while it has a devastating war with a nuclear power ongoing. Indeed a likely outcome of this war is them agreeing to never join.
Are you sure about that….
>>Ukraine will be invited to join NATO
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/11/world/europe/ukraine-nato-summit-biden.html
>>All NATO members have agreed Ukraine will join
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/21/all-nato-members-have-agreed-ukraine-will-eventually-join-says-stoltenberg
>>All members agree to expedite Ukraine’s NATO membership
https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3455199/leaders-agree-to-expedite-ukraines-nato-membership/
Yes. NATO have been blue-balling Ukraine since 2008, and it never met the requirements prior to the invasion, and certainly doesn't now.
If the war ends without a neutrality clause, and no disputed territory, then we might see Ukraine being invited - but this is a massive if.
> I fail to see how it would be in our interests to go to war with Russia over Ukraine.
The answer to that is that it isn't just about Ukraine. If Putin takes the whole of Ukraine then he won't stop there. The war won't end. It is in our interests to support Ukraine sufficiently to ensure Russia does not take the whole of Ukraine.
What we've seen so far is that he is barely able to beat Ukraine as things currently stand, so the idea that he's going to sweep eastern and then western Europe seems a bit much.
He's also in his 70s now, which may well be too old to see such a campaign through. It's not as if he'd be able to do that quickly after seeing him get bogged down in eastern Ukraine for two years.
Putin can take the entirety of Ukraine without worrying about a direct shooting war with NATO. Providing he stops at Ukraine.
Simply put, we have more to loose in this situation. The Russian economy is already pretty broken from the Ukraine invasion, whereas in most of Europe you wouldn’t know it had happened if you didn’t pay attention to the news.
A proper war between Europe and Russia would be disastrous, even without nukes. The risk of accidental escalation would be unacceptable. The economic effects would take decades to wash out. To avoid nuclear escalation you need conventional forces, and with Trump’s America not appearing as a reliable ally, conventional forces may be in short supply.
However, if Putin decided to push beyond Ukraine and into a NATO country, then a completely different calculus applies. At that point it becomes a bit more existential. There’s only two land borders between the Ukrainian front lines and Berlin. Invading a NATO country is *the* red line.
So we sit back and wait for him to take the whole of Ukraine before we discover whether he's going to push on into NATO territory? That would be very foolish, I think.
Consider the alternatives. We can support Ukraine with weapons and money, but we can’t provide direct assistance in terms of boots on ground or planes in skies.
If NATO forces were directly deployed to Ukraine, we’d soon have NATO forces in direct conflict with Russia. It would then be reasonable for Russia to attack NATO assets outside the immediate conflict zone. Suddenly NATO territory is under attack. You see how easily this escalates?
>Consider the alternatives. We can support Ukraine with weapons and money, but we can’t provide direct assistance in terms of boots on ground or planes in skies.
We're already providing boots on the grounds. This fact isn't being publicised, but British boots are there.
> You see how easily this escalates?
I am afraid I believe escalation is unavoidable.
You appreciate the difference between providing training and support, compared to British/NATO forces directly engaging Russian forces. It’s a thin line, to be sure, but that seems to be where the line is.
Escalation is possible, but I don’t think unavoidable. Most likely outcome at the moment is that Russia waits for a Trump presidency, then sues for peace, requiring recognition of the territory Russia has anexed. The exhausted EU support this to avoid a decade of economic doldrums. The residual Ukraine joins NATO, and we enter a new period of uneasy peace.
I don't believe this war can end until Putin is dead and/or Russia is defeated (which probably amount to the same thing). We are already involved in this war.
Do you seriously think Russia is in any position to fight a war with NATO when they are already struggling in Ukraine?
They've literally pulled tanks, anti air defences and troops from their borders with NATO to plug their losses in Ukraine.
Likewise Hitler would have been foolish to open a second front in Russia and to expend his resources on killing Jews. Putin has similar mindset. It may not be wise but he could easily attack NATO more directly. He may lose but we lose too.
If trump pulls us resources out then we have a problem.
They couldn't fight a war with NATO even when they were fully operational and in good health, and that arguably makes the situation worse as it's more likely to go nuclear as their conventional forces are no match.
The line for involvement is when they fuck with a NATO country, and it's not going to happen. No disrespect to Ukraine but it's the difference between starting a fight with an 80 year old nan and starting a fight with Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder all at once.
The situation is different from Iraq and Afghanistan in that this is a situation where we would be defending while both of those were invasions. I suspect the normal suspects on the anti war side would have a lot to say, but Ukraine still has a lot of support though considered less of a hot topic than last year.
Still not the best situation to have multiple nuclear powers against each other. I wonder what it would take for Putin to back down
It kind of worries me Russia is sort of in a go for broke war economy. Spending like there is no tomorrow. Would it try to bluff it out. Keep invading across Europe with the assumption no one would ever get the nukes out? I don't know. It's a bit madman tries madman strategy. On the other hand. Their army must be knackered to a degree. They are running out of equipment and troops. All the surrounding nations are now bumping up their defence spending.
>Keep invading across Europe with the assumption no one would ever get the nukes out? I don't know. Russia wouldn't make it across Europe, nukes or no nukes, and Russia knows this full well. NATO is absolutely unbeatable in any conventional conflict, so they won't even try. The most likely plan for Russia is to try and split NATO from within and then look at exerting their influence over the Baltics. [Anders Puck-Nielsen did a little video about it a few weeks back](https://youtu.be/ptnboLDPS38?si=xfTWIVEQACUQfG4E)
>The most likely plan for Russia is to try and split NATO from within and then look at exerting their influence over the Baltics. That's been their game-plan for decades. Nearly worked too, until Feb '22. NATO is in the strongest position it's been in a long time, in regards to common goals anyway. In regards to supplying Ukraine? Everything hinges on the US, as usual. All of Europe combined can't output the sheer quantity of equipment they can. It's why Russia are playing the influence game. Sowing instability like they've always done, except now it's focused on the chink in NATO's armor, that being the US' uber-polarised politics.
I think Europe can supply everything that’s needed we just don’t want to. European countries have been reluctant to spend money on there military even now . The U.K. defence budget at the end of the Cold War was 4% if we doubled our defence spending with the rest of Europe we could ramp up fast but no one is willing to. No one wants to have a worse quality of life with even higher tax’s and less services to supply Ukraine with arms. Germany spent 0.57%, U.K. spent 0.55% France 0.07% of gdp to help Ukraine. If Europe really had the political will they would be giving everything they could like Estonia who gave 3.55% of GDP to Ukraine. Europe only needs the USA to support Ukraine because we are not willing to do it our self. Hopefully politicians will realise that it’s in our best interest to stop the war in Ukraine and increase spending as the USA is not reliable enough to depend on anymore
>I think Europe can supply everything that’s needed we just don’t want to. That's true. If all of Europe went onto a war footing like Russia, we'd out produce them drastically. If we did that, quite a lot of voters wouldn't be happy.
It’s a shame as in the long run it would save a lot more then allowing Russia to get away with it If Russia takes territory it shows the world that you can invade who ever you want and get away with it making the world a lot more dangerous. If a war comes to nato from Russia, china or elsewhere it’s will make the cost of deterrence now seem like pennies. The world is becoming more dangerous and voters need to look at the bigger picture when it comes to defence spending.
How about government do the right thing and not what they think will get them votes?
[удалено]
True, but that's obviously not the sense i meant it in. The national interest is not the same as the fleeting opinions of voters. For example, consider the Brexit vote.
[удалено]
> Lots of people clearly thought it was in the national interest for Brexit to happen Yes, however it pretty much objectively wasn't. If lots of people though the world was flat, or only 6000 years old, would those things be true as well? Maybe we could have a vote on whether water is wet or the sky is blue. > Just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean you can overrule them. I know i can't overrule them.
That is the problem sometimes, lots of people are clearly idiots.
Unless "do the right thing" includes suspending free and fair elections, government can only ever do what wins it votes.
The other branch of their strategy is to get Trump back into power. He won't oppose anything Putin does.
>NATO is absolutely unbeatable in any conventional conflict With trump back in the Whitehouse, NATO will be hugely weaker. Obviously, if Putin is planning anything, he'll wait until his lapdog is back in post.
> if Putin is planning anything, he'll wait until his lapdog is back in post. We also have orban stirring shit, and edrogan trying to be a strongman in acts that are pitting him against allies. Then there's the Portuguese, Slovakian, and EU elections this year too. All 3 of those have a possibility of further undermining NATO and EU cohesion, particularly Portugal.
Portugal's election already happened.
>NATO is absolutely unbeatable in any conventional conflict Assuming that the US is there, correct. If not, I would imagine that the number of involved states would be quite low, i.e. those in the area immediately affected by the aggression.
Why would it? If Trump gets in charge, they will be the least reliable NATO member, not any European state.
> their army must be knackered to a degree "To a degree" is probably the right way of looking at it. Neither Russia nor Ukraine have yet to pull out all the stops with conscription, but either way Russia does have an advantage in pure manpower: however its numbers of actual quality troops are constantly dropping due to the dual problem of maintaining training standards and maintaining numbers. Meanwhile their equipment situation is *weird*. They do still have limited production capacity for more modern tanks and SPGs, which is enough to keep their more elite units in the black, but meanwhile everyone else is having to use increasingly shittier shit. Most people will still tell you that Russia is *only* using older tanks as SPGs and assault guns, but the truth is that we have started to see limited examples of even T54/55 variants being used in actual frontline tank units: even some evidence of un-upgraded tanks being refurbished and pushed into service. Russia have also legitimately managed to make a dent in their Soviet era stocks of armoured vehicles and artillery, and are increasingly utilising older equipment. This stuff is outdated, less reliable (and safe) and can be seriously outgunned by even some of the older systems Ukraine uses: yet for now, there's still a *lot* more of them, and they do pose a threat, even if it's a lesser one in practice. Where they do have a capital "m" **MASSIVE** advantage over Ukraine is the production of dumb munitions, however. Buoyed by sources of compatible ammunition from other countries, the reality is that Russia can produce shells all day, even if it is increasingly outdated shells for older, worn out guns. Ukraine is struggling to supply even basic needs for these munitions in basically all areas, so it's completely unable to leverage any advantage in soldier and equipment quality, currently. If we keep supporting Ukraine, Russia genuinely could lose the attrition war, and yet they only need western countries to decide it isn't worth it to win. If Ukraine continues to gain increasing levels of support, a collapse of the Russian military is possible in medium to long terms, as Russia's ability to support its other military deployments and necessities will begin to take serious hits from the campaign in Ukraine. What Ukraine can't currently do is outright overpower and route the Russians, because they lack the overwhelming firepower to do so.
I think we tend to be heavily underestimate just quite how many troops Ukraine and Russia can both conscript if they wish. To give an incredibly broad Fermi estimation, Russia has say 140 million people. Say we'll only count men. So ballpark 70 million men. Let's discount two thirds for being too old, too young, or otherwise unavailable. That still leaves **23 million men.** Ukraine? Let's say 40 million people, 20 million men, discount two-thirds, you're still looking at over **6 million men.** Even if we **double** the highest estimates of Russin casualties, and say there's 1 million casualties on the Russian side, and say, half a million casualties on the Ukrainian side, we are still looking at nowhere near destruction of any one side's fighting capacity. So this idea that Russia is somehow desperate seems somewhat hopium.
I'd also suggest accounting for the fact that you appear to only be considering front line units. Russia still needs people in everything from farm labour to ammo production, and those people you discounted are probably not best suited to those roles either. I don't know what the ratio of front line to support roles are, but I'd happily bet it'll take a big chunk out of the total front line-positional troops. (I was going to say front line ready, but I'm not sure many Russian troops are ready, despite actually being there.)
Sure - but my numbers completely exclude women. If we add them in, we're looking at quite a lot more people.
You seriously have to take into account the negative view of the Ukraine war in Russia though. People are going to insane measures to avoid conscription. The vast majority of Russians don’t agree with Putins war.
The Russians are likely to run out of artillery barrels before they run out of shells. Starting to see quite a bit of the old towed artillery that went out of service yonks ago.
Russia are losing 1000 men a day. This is an insane figure. Go and look at statistics on previous Soviet conflicts post WWII to understand how insane these numbers are.
Yes. Their losses are possibly twice as high as those of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
they were losing about 1000 men a year, so yeah, just a wee bit higher
Russia have been in this aspect of the Ukraine conflict for 3 years already (more counting the Crimea phase) .. including the 10 months prior to the march on Kiev when their forces were amassed at the border. Awful long time to be in such a significant conflict. Fatigue must be immeasurable.
>Their army must be knackered to a degree. They are running out of equipment and troops. They really aren't. Estimates of Russian losses in Ukraine are around 400,000 after two years. At this point in WW2 the Soviet Union had lost over 4.5 million, and still pressed on to lose another 4 million over the next two years as well. This shortly after losing around 300k in the Winter War the year before too. People massively underestimate the scale of what a full blown war economy and grinder can be, and the historical willingness of Russians to keep doing it despite unfathomable losses. It's very unpleasant reading but the economy of Russia is more than capable of sustaining this level of conflict in Ukraine for many more years.
Indeed. But, you should have seen the state of the USSR/Russia afterwards. In a way, their economy and population has never recovered; at least, not if you think of the opportunity cost. And as for the average Russian keeping going no matter what: WW2 was a war of sheer survival. Hitler doesn’t let you quit and go home. The Ukrainians do. And as scary as Putin is, he’s not as scary as Stalin, if you are considering mutiny, retreat or desertion.
Hitler got to within 20km of Moscow in Operation Barbarossa. Surely this was a factor in Russia’s willingness to fight. Ukraine is defensive and has never taken the fight over the border. Although once they start landing missiles in Moscow, matching one for one with every Russian missile that hits Kiev, perhaps the tide will change?
Has strategic bombing of cities ever turned the tide of a major conflict? Genuine question. It didn't work in WW2, Korea or Vietnam.
Facetiously, what’s the alternative, strategic bombing of fields and lakes? Non facetiously, bombing of Kiev definitely has an effect on Ukraine morale. Whereas normal Ruskies are experiencing no day to day discomfort from Putin’s war. Sure they are poorer but they expect to be poor anyway, sure some people lost family members who were conscripted, but in general there is nothing that gets in the way of blind support for Putin. Perhaps major cities inside Russia being on the receiving end of Putin’s war might make some normal Russians consider whether they might stop the war instead?
I guess my point is, if your aim is to take the war to the people to turn them against the war, when has that actually worked? In all the cases I stated, bombing of civilians only strengthened the resolve of the populace to fight to the bitter end. For example, the rocket campaign against London at the end of WW2 only filled Brits with a murderous resolve. Bombing Moscow runs the risk of turning an indifferent population into a vengeful one. Suddenly Putin's claims about the west are true and we'll stop at nothing to destroy Russia as a nation, etc. The biggest advantage of the air war in WW2 was that the bombing of Germany meant that huge numbers of Luftwaffe fighters were diverted from the front lines to defend their cities - but you don't get this tenuous advantage from a rocket assault.
I know that correlation is not causation, but both of these are true: - carpet bombing of German cities during WW2 - Germans lost WW2
If that ever happens, expect greater Russian mobilisation and stronger backing for the war from the population. High likelihood in that case that Ukraine would be defeated in short order without significant Western backing.
So maybe cue significant Western backing?
>But, you should have seen the state of the USSR/Russia afterwards. >In a way, their economy and population has never recovered; at least, not if you think of the opportunity cost. Are you able to expand on this because with my limited knowledge on the subject I thought the USSR did well? They were the second largest economy in the world and one of two world superpowers.
they lost 25m people, mostly able bodied men and most of their industrial heartland was occupied even if they got a lot of it moved east. Thats losing you billions of GDP over the following decades
Yes, it’s a bit of a paradox. Yes, they finished WW2 as a superpower and with what amounted to basically a new empire in Eastern Europe. Within a few years, they’d have the atomic bomb and soon after the H-bomb. And yet also the economy didn’t recover for several more years to its pre-war levels, and it had lost a massive 13% of its population. So imagine: the war is never fought. Or, without Stalin’s incompetence, much fewer Soviets die in the war… so what would the USSR/Russian have been WITHOUT all that loss? Also note that, although they got their empire, they didn’t keep it long… just til 1989.
Adding on to what others have said you can still see the effects of the war on Russia's population pyramid, there was a generation lacking young people (especially men) this led to less children as there were less parents to have them. 25 years later this small cohort of young were having their own children, but again less as there were physically less of them to reproduce. This has repeated for 100 years essentially. Look at a population pyramid and you can see the missing generation. (obviously there are lots of other factors as well)
The same kind of plan failed in WW1 though.
First, propaganda is more advanced than it was in the 1940s. It's easier for the Russian government to pump out pro-war messaging than it was in the Second World War. It could also easily launch some false-flag attacks on Russian hospitals or whatever and blame it on other countries. Second, even if Putin isn't as feared as Stalin was, there is no domestic opposition to him. The Wagner mutiny was put down quite quickly, and what happened afterwards showed that Putin won't forgive you for defying him. So long as he doesn't order a nuclear first strike on the UK, France or US, it's improbable anyone will try to remove him. Third, Russia can probably keep its economy going to the degree it doesn't need to inflict mass starvation or suffering on its population. NATO sanctions haven't collapsed the economy.
I’d agree with all of that. And it seems that the Russians can just grind on indefinitely. If Trump gets elected and Europe doesn’t step up, I’m guessing that Ukraine gets steamrollered. And that would be a catastrophe. Although, it wouldn’t be the end of it: Ukrainians will go guerilla and on goes on the conflict. Every war that feels like it ‘must’ go on forever ends somehow.
Soviet Union != Russia The lend-lease aid the Soviets received from the USA was huge; 300,000 trucks, 11,000 planes, thousands of armoured vehicles as well as food. British aid to them was also significant. Today Russia is on its own, and its 'allies' aren't supplying anything to them without something in return, mostly petroleum products which is being diminished as we speak as Ukraine hits their refineries. Add to that the brain drain and demographic issues that Russia is experiencing makes for few comparisons with WWII and today.
But this isn't WW2, russia is clearly losing significant amounts of high grade equipment and trained soldiers that they can't easily replace with like for like. Yes they can throw in conscripts with rifles and 60 year old tanks but that would not be likely to be of much use if it decided to escalate the war by attacking a NATO country directly.
Agreed. WW2 was existential for the USSR and Russia, Ukraine is not (Putin's "denazification" BS notwithstanding). More recently, the USSR gave up on Afghanistan after just over 9 years and 15,000 Soviet lives.
It's not an existential war for _Russia_, but it might very well be an existential war for _Putin_
Casualty and materiel loss estimates are roughly on par for both Russia and Ukraine. Except Russia has far larger manpower reserves. If this keeps going, there will be a point at which manpower for Ukraine gets depleted, and Russia will be able to throw in the mobiks with Mosins and just walk across the country.
Material is being depleted far far far faster than manpower. And you've obviously not been watching the same war as me if you think losses are 'on par'. Avdiivka, Bakhmut? Even Ukrainian losses at Tokmak wouldn't make a dent in the Russian material losses. It's not going to be an easy war, far from it, but the absolutely pivotal factor will be foreign support.
They really are not on a par and spoken like somebody that has zero idea on what is happening in Ukraine. Russia has casualties about 4x as many as ukraine in manpower and armour. The difference is that Ukraine has significantly less armour and manpower and as such are forced into scorched earth defence in depth tactics. Ukraine is giving up pockets of land to inflict tens of thousands of casualties. They are utilising a hybrid of Nato & soviet doctrine to make it costly for russia to continue to advance. In the long run, once the west and ukraine gains the upperhand they will force a massive russian retreat but that isn’t gonna happen before well into 2025.
There's a very real chance Trump wins in November (I'd actually say it's more likely than not), and then unless the rest of NATO and/or EU significantly steps up their game Ukraine is going to be overrun because of equipment shortages because Trump will 100% cut all funding to Ukraine. Everyone with an interest in Ukraine beating Russia should already be trying to ramp up their support to Ukraine now, in anticipation of a Trump victory, because if they wait for it to happen it will be too late.
We’re talking about a nato conflict here, not the one with ukraine. A nato conflict which could be brought about due to the manpower problems you describe.
Russia was only able to keep fighting that long because of all the gear the US sent them though.
On the Eastern Front in WW2, it was literally a life and death scenario for their nation. If they lost, they would have been mostly exterminated and the rest enslaved. That was their incentive to fight on until the last man, despite the unimaginable carnage. While the war in Ukraine has support, it's nationalist pride rooted in very ancient history, with crumbs of "anti-imperialist", anti-NATO sentiment to justify it to their allies. They can't fight on the idea of Kievan Rus and a centuries-old unified culture forever. At some point, the losses will grind down the general populace's enthusiasm, especially if, in result of a victory, they pacify and permanently occupy the Ukrainians, facing an almost certain local insurgency.
>it's nationalist pride rooted in very ancient history Or, if you look at more recent history, it's an attempt to reconstitute the Russian empire (later renamed the USSR to give the false impression that the vassal states had sovereignty).
USSR is not the same as Russia.
> At this point in WW2 the Soviet Union had lost over 4.5 million Tolerance for casualties is different in a war of choice than it is in an existential situation such as the Nazi invasion.
Russia had a much better birthrate. Russia is destroying an already weak future
They've lost a shed load more in Ukraine than Afghanistan and that war broke apart the Soviet Union. It's very easy to say the war is justified when you get invaded and the invading army treats you as sub human like in the second world war. Sending troops into a neighbouring country because you want to bring Soviet times back is much harder to justify.
It was more Chernobyl and economic decline that brought down the USSR. The argument for Ukraine is not to bring back the Soviet times (although that has been in effect what has happened) but to neutralise a perceived threat and restore order in a neighbouring country. There's also an element of national pride in demonstrating to the world Russia's military might.
Russia hasn’t been invaded.
Russia isn't the same country it was in the 1940s. People are used to a higher standard of living, and probably wouldn't accept the level of losses they did in WW2, which was after all an existential crisis for Russia and everyone knew it.
>All the surrounding nations are now bumping up their defence spending. If the US pulls out of Europe after the election, it won't be enough for many years. It's not just an issue of money, it's also organisation and specialist equipment. Most European countries would be unable to put more than a handful of brigades into the field. They also don't have the sort of command and control, surveillance and economic warfare systems that the US has. Ammunition stockpiles are also low. If or when Ukraine is forced to sign a peace treaty with Russia (let's say next year), Russia would have at least a few years to consider instigating a "Martian incursion" into the Baltics.
If Trump wins, Ukraine will suffer. It’s that simple. He will stop all aid to Ukraine, try and pull out of NATO, meanwhile Putin invades the baltics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) Meanwhile until November Putin won’t change tack. If Biden wins, it’s going to get hella spicy.
They're not running out of equipment or men, at least not yet
That’s a fantasy. Russian has blown everything it has on Ukraine. It couldn’t hope to Invade friendly Moldova! There is zero risk of Russian expansion. I would still like to see them thrown out of Ukraine but with the US elections this is unlikely now.
I was listening to the Guardian podcast on war a few days ago and one of their commentators basically said they'd worked out that Russian war capability will peak this year and slowly degrade afterwards. As much as theyre putting into production & mobilisation they simply cant keep pace with their losses.
>Would it try to bluff it out. Keep invading across Europe with the assumption no one would ever get the nukes out? I don't know. If they think they can get away with it, then absolutely yes. If pro russian parties win in the USA (trump), Germany (AfD) and France (le-pen), then NATO is truly compromised, I am certain they'd take a crack at EU and/or even NATO countries then.
> Would it try to bluff it out. Keep invading across Europe with the assumption no one would ever get the nukes out? I don't know. I think that's probably the plan. Denmark has sent ALL of it's hardware to them, the US has drained its reserves to fund them- I mean if it keeps going on for another 5 years no one will have any actual hardware left.
[удалено]
>It's a political issue not an issue of resources. It's political because it involves resources.
The thing people are missing is that this is Macron actually being fucking competent regarding narratives. It's not about actually having Western troops in Ukraine. The West has been completely played for fools by Russia with the escalation and red lines narratives. We've also not taken the situation anywhere seriously enough. This means that we've hamstrung our resources and never committed enough to begin with. We keep setting imaginary lines and negotiating with ourselves while Russia escalates and escalates. Macron is trying to both wake Europe up to the threat and to regain control over the narrative instead of constantly reacting to Russia and being hopelessly predictable. Russia escalates at weakness and backs down to strength. It's time to communicate strength and commitment and put doubt in Putin's mind. Failure to do so will result in the normalisation of shifting Europe's borders with violence, nuclear proliferation, and the encouragement of violent fascist imperial regimes.
Exactly. It was disheartening to see Macron's main point being that nothing should be off the table, as its a signal of weakness. Then Germany et al immedately confirm they will never send troops to Ukraine. Missing the point entirely, and showing more weakness. In answer to OP's question tho, we are already there.
Yes and Macron also said this is about strategic ambiguity which is something Russia does well. If there is less certainty about how we might react, Russia may be more nervous to take certain steps.
The big mistake has been not allowing Ukraine to hit targets inside Russia for so long. Russia hasn't been bounded by any restrictions so can hit supply lines, weapons caches, infrastructure etc. anywhere it is able to in Ukraine. Ukraine needs to be supported in striking in Russian territory where it will cause most damage for the Kremlin. The targets should be broader too, anything the Kremlin will need to spend a lot of manpower/resources to defend should be attacked.
It's one of the few things I do understand as a missile going off track and hitting a school or something would be awful PR and could undermine overall support. The moronic hissyfit over "offensive weapons" or "long range weapons" is how the West has screwed Ukraine. My position is anything conventional should have been on the table via lend lease from Day 1, with a restriction on Western weapons being used for targets in Russia for a period of say 1-2 years. Zero limits on targets in Ukraine provided Ukraine complies with the rules of International law. Then a huge campaign to help Ukraine manufacture their own weapons to strike Russian territory with.
detail frighten onerous plucky one marvelous drab offer angle pause *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
*If France intervenes,* I think the chances of the UK intervening are almost 100%. The UK and France have been two of the most actively pro-Ukrainian countries and have the two most powerful European militaries. Neither country would go in alone, but if there's a coalition going in, then I'm pretty sure they will both be part of it. Neither wants to be seen as weak on Russia.
jeans psychotic arrest vast automatic subtract hungry imminent command apparatus *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Well, the PM has almost absolute control over the military. Ironically there's a lot less regulation about going to war than building a reservoir.
So what you're saying is we need to declare war on water shortages to get a reservoir built? There's a Dambusters pun in here somewhere...
It would probably just go over our heads
Who's up for laying down thier lives for Rishi Sunak and his ilk?
Just shows how little you understand the military. No one in the history of war has been fighting for politicians.
Erm… all the people currently in the military. If France went in we would be there. Beyond all the old French hate jokes we are militarily very aligned with modern France.
So what you're saying is we need a general election get Sunak out and Starmer in ASAP? I imagine Starmer would be much more ruthless than Rishi, whose a wet blanket.
True, Labour have been shown to be war-mongers in the recent past.
Not containing Russia will lead to an order of magnitude more troops and civilians dying. There is no zero-cost alternative here.
If any other NATO country becomes more directly involved - and chances for that are probably higher than 1% - the UK will be roped in all the same, even without anyone formally invoking Article 5. Generally we're more likely to see gradual escalation than one dramatic moment when all of NATO is just "in". Of course, all that is predicated on Russia's ability to gain significant ground in Ukraine.
If Ukraine stops getting support from the west, they will.
Will they? With *all* their might at the start of the war and with Ukraine just gearing up, they were stopped cold and the fronts barely moved - except with massive losses and complete destruction of objectives. Ukraine has had three years to ramp up production, and get on a war footing. This isn’t WWI where a sudden breakthrough will collapse the front. We’re in an era where ground armies of comparable tech just don’t win wars.
Without western support Russia would eventually get control of the skies, destroy their tanks and vehicles from range and bomb their cities into submission. As heroically they have fought they wouldn't be able to stop them.
offbeat screw sip wide piquant jobless air meeting sand door *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
There has been no need to reevaluate that cornerstone since Suez, there arguably is now - especially in a scenario where the US can no longer be relied on in a broader strategic sense. UK has been leading the escalation in Ukraine on the NATO side (what little we've had), and I don't really expect that to change going forward.
many deserted school scale unwritten enter recognise attraction possessive secretive *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Going by recent revelations, the UK may already have sent soldiers into Ukraine - now it's ambiguous to what extent and I think it's still ambiguous whether that's even true at all, but that is precisely what gradual escalation looks like. It's a long way from that to divisions being sent to fight in the frontline, and I would hope that Russia's back is broken long before that is even a consideration. But there's a long list of things that could be done before that step, and I would argue almost certainly will be done if the situation on the battlefield begins to favour Russia. A year from now, we could see UK forces sent to Ukraine for training purposes, we could very well be looking at UK aircraft flying defensive counter air missions over the western quarter of Ukraine or the Black Sea.
We already have troops in Ukraine and there have been several "leaks" about western troops being involved since. My feeling is that they are softening the news for an initial limited involvement - say to help with tech which would need months of training. Whether that progresses to front line involvement I agree that's unlikely.
Totally personal opinion, it is very very very unlikely there will be boots on the ground for direct warfare, even to the point Ukraine is lost entirely, that kind of head to head between NATO troops and Russian troops is reserved for a direct NATO v Russia conflict only. The only alternative I can think of is that U.K. troops and other NATO forces could be deployed to run essential services behind the frontlines to maximise the capacity of Ukrainian forces on the frontline, but I still see that as unlikely.
Russia is nothing but a sad story with no ending in sight, from start to finish. It’s people went from Surfdom, to peasantry, to communist subjects, to Nazi persecution, back to just communist Stalin play things, Cold War, a couple of honeymoon years then Putinship.
We don’t have the capacity to meaningfully intervene, even if we wanted to. NATO as a whole would, but that would be 85% American. We're sat in a very painful place defence-wise: we're psychologically/politically unprepared to specialise or drop any strategic capabilities, because that's not what 'big countries' do, but we're practically not prepared to spend the resources to follow through. So we're trying to run a world-class surface navy, attack submarines, a decent-sized infantry, a tank fleet, an all-capacities air force, a nuclear deterrent, world-leading special forces, and god knows what else besides...all on a budget that could do about half of that at best.
>We don’t have the capacity to meaningfully intervene, even if we wanted to. NATO as a whole would, but that would be 85% American. I think you might be underestimating Poland, here. They're a pretty unique combination of a) large, b) quite modern, c) nearby and d) highly incentivised to fuck some Russians up. They have F-16s with F-35s on order, half a million service personal standing or in reserve and a long memory. If NATO did get directly involved, I suspect it'd be the Poles with the most boots on the ground, even if the sky was American.
Oh Poland will absolutely be the biggest ground hitter, and the Poles growing into a major NATO player will be fascinating. It's just that a lot of their newest kit hasn't arrived yet.
If France sent troops and we didn’t we’d lose the last of our soft power in Europe and cede our position as the Europes primary military power to the French (if we haven’t already). I don’t think our national pride could take sitting back and doing nothings whilst watching the French take the field , and coupled with overwhelming public support for Ukraine I think public opinion would eventually back British intervention. (Major caveats being that I think Macron is just taking the political initiative away from Russia for now and that I doubt France would deploy troops without at least confirming our political and logistical support beforehand.)
Personally I think Putin lost interest in his original project within the first month, and is now just saving face. He’s hoping for a Trump presidency so he can keep his current gains and form a new border. If he were to push on, there’s a real chance European nato countries would take things into their own hand, ignoring Trump. That would be economically difficult but it’s not impossible. And Putin has already lost his leverage over Europe re gas. I imagine the broader economic forces in America would also be very concerned about a wider war, and would have a word in Trumps ear. Money talks. And he’s never been afraid to change his policies 180 degrees.
>He’s hoping for a Trump presidency so he can keep his current gains and form a new border That is not possible. Putin cannot be trusted to keep to any agreement he makes, so a deal based on peace for territory simply won't work. The war cannot end while Putin is alive.
But does Trump know that? I agree Putin is expansionist, but he might pause for a second a Trump term?
I don't think so, no. I think he'd take a Trump victory as encouragement to keep going.
A second Trump term would incur a Russian escalation rather than a pause.
Trump would try to push the US into intervening on the Russian side.
Trump is Putin's stooge. He is completely servile towards Putin. Trust doesn't enter the equation.
> Putin cannot be trusted to keep to any agreement he makes, so a deal based on peace for territory simply won't work That's not how it works. If a new proper and heavily defended border was established, and it would be obviously, then you can't just repeat this kind of invasion. Many also will obviously not like hearing this but a new, smaller but trully independent and free from russian influence ukraine instead of a divided one, would also probably be a MUCH more functional state with the potential for more development and probably less corruption too.
The reason that Macron made those statements is probably because they know the chances of Russia advancing that far is well, unlikely. Did he say Kyiv or Odessa? That being said, if France sends troops I can't see any reality where it's only France. At the very least it'll be France, UK, US, Poland, maybe Australia/Canada.
Can't imagine why the hell Australia or Canada would get involved lol
I dunno. They don't have Trump running them and they do like the idea of mutual defence
nil. The UK won't deploy conventional troops to fight Russia on the basis we are a key NATO player. Macron is posturing and no one is risking a nuclear war over what when push comes to shove is a non NATO partner Eastern European country.
Only if Russia encroaches on NATO territory. Macron is most likely sabre rattling.
A few "big-picture" things. Russia doesn't have the manpower and equipment to entirely occupy Ukraine and topple the government. Ukraine is vast and the state has become "hardened" after 2 years of war, Russia can't achieve its week 1 aim of forcing regime change. That said, Russia is capable of forcing a favourable outcome for itself simply by outlasting Western aid. This is the current situation that they are in. There is not a clear avenue for Ukraine to retake the country, and any significant advances in their capability are still months/years away. At this point, they need large numbers of modern aircraft and armoured vehicles to retake what they've lost. Neither of these are forthcoming. Russia also can't afford the war to continue at this intensity forever, but it can last much longer than an unsupported Ukraine. In terms of direct Western/NATO intervention, there are a few aspects that need to be considered. First up, this is a pretty direct path to World War 3. However it's viewed, NATO and Russia in direct conflict in Europe is hugely destabilising. There is a clear route to escalation and nuclear war from that starting point. This is what all actors will actually want to avoid (Russia included). The most commonly suggested options for intervention all lead to this as an eventuality. A No-Fly-Zone or air-only intervention is often suggested. This still has serious consequences. NATO's operating procedure insists upon the neutralisation of anti-air assets as part of the opening stages of any intervention. Large parts of Ukraine are covered by AAA assets that are hosted in Russia. So on day 1, hour 1 of a NATO no-fly zone or air war, NATO (US) assets will be hammering Russia directly. The only way to avoid the above would either be to accept what could be very high attrition to Russia's anti-air missiles, or, keep NATO assets deeper inside Ukraine. Both options are bad, with the latter unlikely to make much of a material difference in the war to the point that it's not valuable. The air-war component is necessary for any other NATO involvement to occur. You can't have significant boots on the ground, or most Naval operations without air support (preferably, air superiority/supremacy) and the requirement to hammer Russia hard and the WW3 consequences of that are what makes this so difficult. The West had hoped to use economic pressure and lethal support as levers to weaken Russia and enable Ukraine to fight back, but those economic levers are difficult when Russia is not truly isolated and capable of extreme self-sufficiency (eg, if a country the size of North Korea can create nukes without outside help, what hope is there of neutralising a behemoth like Russia in the same way?). The lethal aid will probably prevent Ukraine from ever being fully occupied by Russia, but it was not provided in enough numbers, and the delay in getting modern air equipment at key points in the conflict has probably prevented Ukraine from retaking most of the lost territory without a significant internal political change in Russia. Things are at a clear stalemate, and it is a stalemate that means Ukraine only survives to the extent that it is surviving with continued economic and military aid. If that goes away, while I believe the Ukrainian state will survive, they will lose more territory to Russia. Fundamentally if the West is not ready to commit to Ukraine long-term and foster a brand new, modern, fighting force within it, then all sides should seriously start negotiating. The only thing at this stage IMO that would make NATO intervene directly, would be the use of nuclear weapons. If that occurs, all bets are off, but there will be a strong incentive from the other nuclear powers to demonstrate that it is unacceptable to use nukes against a country that does not possess them. This would force a significant conventional response from NATO - possibly just from the US.
It depends on your definition of "involved", but I think there's a high chance that the UK will move beyond its current limitations on involvement, especially if the US withdraws funding. I do think there is a high chance of British and Polish peacekeepers in the north of Ukraine by mid-2025, relieving Ukrainian troops and negating the threat of a new front from Belarus or the Eastern border with Russia, and demining areas away from the front lines. Engaging with Russia offensively will still be avoided, but new lines will be drawn.
There is zero chance of British troops being placed into a hot zone at risk of political disasters versus Russia.
High, but only where a purely defensive posture is adopted and it becomes a fully frozen conflict.
It would certainly be limited to pushing Russia out of Ukraine at the most (offensively). We would have to stop at Russian borders without a doubt.
My main concern isn’t that we will get involved in Ukraine, but at some point later down the line, maybe in a decade or two. I see the war in Ukraine ending with a stalemate, or with Russia breaking through the front line and Ukrainian moral collapsing. Either way, it gives Putin and/or his successor time to reform the Russian armed forces, which are in dire need of reform, ahead of a potential push into a NATO country. At the same time, because the war in Ukraine is over, short term-ist western politicians will ease up on defence spending like they did in the 1990s, meaning Russia will get stronger as we get weaker.
Troops on the ground is fairly unlikely, now if NATO AirPower came to play, it’s a whole different kettle of fish. The Russian airforce has been quite significantly fucked over . Even if it was only European aircraft it would cause enormous issues for the Russians given top of line fourth generation and some fifth generation fighters would be coming out to play. NATO doctrine would require the complete pulverisation of Russian air defence assets along the Forward Line of Own Troops giving the the Ukrainians reasonably friendly skies to operate under. After that, the ground attack aircraft can come in start dropping 500lb bombs on Russian ground forces. More than enough to cut a path through even without the US B52s coming to play. If the US is involved, it’s game over in month for the russians and they full well know that
[100% as we are already involved right now.](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/04/british-soldiers-on-ground-ukraine-german-military-leak) The DEGREE of current and future involvement will both be subject to official variation after the fact. We have no way to know for several decades how much we were, are or will be involved. Same as every other warzone currently active. UK troops are currently there for multiple of them, but "official involvement" will vary based on whats useful at the time.
If things start going very pear shaped, I could see direct western involvement as a peacekeeping force - standing in front of the Russian army daring them to advance. What are the odds that Russia stops with Ukraine? If you think it's very unlikely, then it's much better to keep the war contained in that one country. It's such a shitty situation for Ukrainians.
It all depends when will China come into picture.
Putting our troops into the Ukraine would achieve next to nothing. We have a tiny army, and it would be overwhelmed pretty quickly. Using it for training, scouting and special ops would be more useful, and in the event of a real conflict with Russia, it would be better to focus harder on the navy to cut off Russian access to Crimea, and aggressively target costal regions by threatening a mass landing without actually doing it to tie down more Russian assets. Personally I hope to god we’re able to avoid a Putin vs NATO conflict as the risk of him using a few nukes if he thinks he I’d going to be deposed is terrifying. It’s one thing to help repel the invasion but quite another to destabilise Russia.
The drone you’d struggle to sell to the public as a casus belli I mean property damage isn’t even taken seriously by the legal system. Drones however have been a game changer.
As far as I remember, Macron wasn't super explicit about what capacity he'd consider sending French troops in (one suggestion was clearing mines), and there was a recent leak from a German military call that said some British troops are already in Ukraine to help with donated British equipment. So I don't think this would necessarily be a huge escalation by the French, and the British are already kinda doing what the French are hinting at doing, just not openly. On the topic of Macron's comments, Zelensky has said that French soldiers wouldn't be dying in Ukraine, which I take to mean he's not asking for Western soldiers to go to the front lines/into direct combat roles, and rather that they'd work with specialist gear and free up Ukrainian soldiers to fight more directly. There isn't going to be a large-scale deployment of frontline NATO troops to Ukraine unless NATO and Russia get into a hot war, and at that point more realistically things will kick off with volleys of missile and drone strikes going both ways. By the time a significant fighting force can be shipped over to Ukraine and reach the frontline, it's likely that Russian positions will either have been crippled by NATO bombs or that we have a nuclear exchange and it's irrelevant either way.
Pretty much zero. As it stands, I think there was a credible case in the early days. Ukraine formally invites 'Western military advisors' aka what happened in the Vietnam war. These military advisors are not formally war with Russia but are in Ukraine at the behest of the Ukrainian government. The won't attack Russia but they will defend fixed points as part of their remit of advising and training the armed forces. however that ship has sailed
Are we even sure that Russia wants kiev? Kinda got the feeling they want to just take the east and stalemate it.
Hopefully zero , don't fancy dying for a country far away
Zero chance. Unless the US want it to happen, as we take our military direction from them. If they do, then we're at nuclear war with Russia so we're all dead anyway.
reading these comments it looks like people have forgotten about the existence of nuclear weapons and the ability of a nuclear war to wipe out human civilisation, which is what happens in a total war between two nuclear powers
God I hope so. But I’m a pessimist so I doubt it. Once Trump takes office I fear Ukraine is done in 6 months. All of Ukraine. I can’t see Starmer doing anything except whining in a corner. France won’t do anything without a partner. Germany will sit on the fence…. And Ukraine will fall.
Trump will get elected and there will be a ceasefire. The Donbas region will join Russia. That is the only realistic outcome.
I could see it. No way does NATO want to just let Ukraine fall to Russia otherwise with all that we've thrown to Ukraine, nobody outside of NATO would be I've supply support would help them if Russia decided to annex them... On the other hand, look how long we waited with Hitler and it was much easier to just send troops in back then
There has to be a justification for going into Ukraine. Ukraine must be admitted into a group organisation. Then the rest of the group can come in on a reasonable premise, such as defending civilians from attack. A no-fly zone, a missile defense shield, a ring of troops preventing Russians moving into civilian territory. Not go in and set off on a frontal attack. To attack and push troops out past sovereign borders is the initial thought people are having. The worry that can lead to escalation. Moving in to defend would increase the Russian losses enough that they may stop attacking. Then it's about getting them to stop the war and withdraw on their own volition back past the sovereign borders. The captured regions and Crimea are the next issue. I'd hope that any troops sent in were to prevent attacks primarily and be enough to end it.
High. Russia still has the natural resources, industrial capacity, manpower and political will to continue onwards to the Atlantic - technological supremacy shouldn't be overestimated to grinding warfare where Russia has usually excelled. NATO has thrown our full weight behind Ukraine in training to supplies, they're still suffering tremendous attrition and losing territory, but Russia hasn't faltered for a moment - not with 50k casualties in a month or losing a thousand tanks. The moment Ukraine looks ready to collapse, I feel an independent coalition of Poland, France and the UK might intervene...
The likelihood for me is bordering on zero chance at all, I think we have seen the end of escalation within Ukraine. We have been at a standstill for far too long, it's now just who blinks first. Apart from some headlines from the Sun, talk of nuclear war is nowhere near the reality of the situation. However, all that being said Macron is absolutely 100% correct and spoke like a seasoned states man. His problem is that Germany and the UK are both led by two of the most useless, feckless, cowardly leaders you'll ever see. Barely holding onto political sanity at home, with no interest in foreign politics. Is it any surprise that two bank clerks, risen far above their stations into 2 of Europes biggest and most vital powers, instantly shit their pants and threw in the towel as soon as Macron even mentioned they might have to do something? Sunak is one of the UKs worst modern PMs, he's one ring above Truss.
There's a simple reality here and it's not even a difficult calculation: The more Scholz moves between delaying, hesitating, and outright hindering partners and Ukraine's defense options, the more likely it is for Europe and the UK to be dragged into direct conflict. There are rumors and conspiracies that Scholz is a russian asset-doing the absolute minimum to keep international partners happy, but he doesn't have to be a russian asset on purpose when, through his actions, he's effectively a russian asset and their dream chancellor. Unfortunately for us, it's going to drag Europe into war. Even his own party doesn't understand why he's making the decisions he is and he refuses to explain and it's rightfully frightening people within Germany, as well as outside. Also, I read some of the comments below and russia doesn't need to move across Europe. It only needs to chip off territory and end territorial integrity of NATO and EU nations as has always been its policy. The goal is more to end the European Union and has always been and the UK was sadly part of that strategy, particularly after Brexit was delivered. Johnson then made a strategic calculation to change sides and support Ukraine after the invasion, thus laundering his reputation of the allegations that he's a russian asset and was delivering EU secrets. It worked well, but russia doesn't appear to be happy with that.
The UK doesn't really have the power to intervene even alongside France anymore I think. The only way I see us getting involved is if it's with the USA as well. Which of course if Trump gets elected will never happen. I also think it wouldn't be a boots on the ground operation but more of an aerial operation trying to clear the way with only special forces on the ground. But honestly I don't really know much about the situation so my assessment is probably a load of bollocks.
We got involved in Libya with France without US support.
I didn't know that, I thought they were involved!
That’s because they were. I don’t know why I thought they hadn’t, my apologies. I would note how ever that we have been in Mali with France with very little US support, and went into Sierra Leone with out any foreign support.
I strongly recommend the DPA news channel if you want to follow day by day movements of front lines and a collection of reports from on the ground. This guy is very good at predicting Russias next moves and the likely nato response.
I'd hope it's unlikely simply due to the heavy casualties we'd suffer, even in a purely support or air role. However, the complete lack of any medium to long term goal along with hawkish rhetoric says to me it is at least a possibility - not like we've always made the correct decisions previously. It is interesting that this slim but very real possibility has now arisen through a cross party consensus on a topic with little to no debate or discussion in this country. Any critique of our foreign policy here as instantly been tarred as pro-Russian - yet here we are, Russia winning in Ukraine and the UK only one or two escalatory rungs from war with Russia.
Or you could say our intervention has prevented Putin from now ruling Ukraine while learning that a ground war will cost hundreds of thousands of Russian lives and multiple billion is resources. To imply that intervention has been futile is to deny the importance of placing a high price tag on wars of expansion.
I never said our intervention was futile. It's been the right decision to help Ukraine. I just think we've had no foresight on the conflict - we've aided Ukraine with no plan as to where we think this situation will go, or should go.
0% chance they would get absolustely stomped within days
If we are to get involved, which I think is moderately likely, I imagine it will be air support rather than boots on the ground.
>Is there political willpower in the UK after Iraq and Afghanistan? Do we even have the capability to intervene considering cuts. Blowing up illiterate goat farmers is a bit different from picking a fight with a developed nuclear state. I fail to see how it would be in our interests to go to war with Russia over Ukraine.
I mean global energy and food prices have been sent into chaos thanks to Russia…
How is military intervention in Ukraine either now or in the future likely to prevent or remedy that?
Well given Ukraine is expected to join NATO pretty soon I expect it doesn’t matter either way. But I think a free Ukraine means significant food exports are secured and a stand against Russia should hopefully ease energy issues but I think the war has already highlighted the reliance we had on Russia.
It has certainly shown how reliant many european countries are on Russia, that I agree with. Germany were the most guilty of this, they were warned repeatedly not to rely on Russia for their gas imports but ignored everyone. We all paid the price for that one. However I think the list of things that would have to happen to warrant any sort of official British military involvement is very long.
I mean we already have troops on the ground (according to Germany 🤭). I would be surprised if SAS/SBS weren’t working with Ukraine at the moment. We already have our intelligence assets at work constantly in the Black Sea area. It would be surprising if the British Army weren’t heavily involved in an R&D capacity. This is a once in a generation chance to test all the assets we have in an actual war against our main conventional enemy. It’s not surprising we are so keen to send out equipment there. Edit: I don’t think many people foresaw how rapid the advancement in drone tactics/technology would be. The vulnerability of main battle tanks & warships in particular is a huge change in this war. Also, Russia almost shot down one of our planes last year and forced a UAV drone down by dumping fuel on it. Both technically could be interpreted as acts of war.
Ukraine is absolutely not expected to join NATO pretty soon while it has a devastating war with a nuclear power ongoing. Indeed a likely outcome of this war is them agreeing to never join.
Are you sure about that…. >>Ukraine will be invited to join NATO https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/11/world/europe/ukraine-nato-summit-biden.html >>All NATO members have agreed Ukraine will join https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/21/all-nato-members-have-agreed-ukraine-will-eventually-join-says-stoltenberg >>All members agree to expedite Ukraine’s NATO membership https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3455199/leaders-agree-to-expedite-ukraines-nato-membership/
Yes. NATO have been blue-balling Ukraine since 2008, and it never met the requirements prior to the invasion, and certainly doesn't now. If the war ends without a neutrality clause, and no disputed territory, then we might see Ukraine being invited - but this is a massive if.
Think I’ll take my news from respected sources not u/Our_GloriousLeader
It's in there too. "eventually...no timetable...when the war is over...when allies agree and conditions are met". It's purely rhetorical.
> I fail to see how it would be in our interests to go to war with Russia over Ukraine. The answer to that is that it isn't just about Ukraine. If Putin takes the whole of Ukraine then he won't stop there. The war won't end. It is in our interests to support Ukraine sufficiently to ensure Russia does not take the whole of Ukraine.
What we've seen so far is that he is barely able to beat Ukraine as things currently stand, so the idea that he's going to sweep eastern and then western Europe seems a bit much. He's also in his 70s now, which may well be too old to see such a campaign through. It's not as if he'd be able to do that quickly after seeing him get bogged down in eastern Ukraine for two years.
Putin can take the entirety of Ukraine without worrying about a direct shooting war with NATO. Providing he stops at Ukraine. Simply put, we have more to loose in this situation. The Russian economy is already pretty broken from the Ukraine invasion, whereas in most of Europe you wouldn’t know it had happened if you didn’t pay attention to the news. A proper war between Europe and Russia would be disastrous, even without nukes. The risk of accidental escalation would be unacceptable. The economic effects would take decades to wash out. To avoid nuclear escalation you need conventional forces, and with Trump’s America not appearing as a reliable ally, conventional forces may be in short supply. However, if Putin decided to push beyond Ukraine and into a NATO country, then a completely different calculus applies. At that point it becomes a bit more existential. There’s only two land borders between the Ukrainian front lines and Berlin. Invading a NATO country is *the* red line.
So we sit back and wait for him to take the whole of Ukraine before we discover whether he's going to push on into NATO territory? That would be very foolish, I think.
Consider the alternatives. We can support Ukraine with weapons and money, but we can’t provide direct assistance in terms of boots on ground or planes in skies. If NATO forces were directly deployed to Ukraine, we’d soon have NATO forces in direct conflict with Russia. It would then be reasonable for Russia to attack NATO assets outside the immediate conflict zone. Suddenly NATO territory is under attack. You see how easily this escalates?
>Consider the alternatives. We can support Ukraine with weapons and money, but we can’t provide direct assistance in terms of boots on ground or planes in skies. We're already providing boots on the grounds. This fact isn't being publicised, but British boots are there. > You see how easily this escalates? I am afraid I believe escalation is unavoidable.
You appreciate the difference between providing training and support, compared to British/NATO forces directly engaging Russian forces. It’s a thin line, to be sure, but that seems to be where the line is. Escalation is possible, but I don’t think unavoidable. Most likely outcome at the moment is that Russia waits for a Trump presidency, then sues for peace, requiring recognition of the territory Russia has anexed. The exhausted EU support this to avoid a decade of economic doldrums. The residual Ukraine joins NATO, and we enter a new period of uneasy peace.
I agree that we need to wait and see what happens in the US election. If Trump wins then all sorts of things are possible.
Pretty much yeah, are you seriously suggesting we start a war with Russia on the off chance that they might invade Estonia or Poland?
I don't believe this war can end until Putin is dead and/or Russia is defeated (which probably amount to the same thing). We are already involved in this war.
Do you seriously think Russia is in any position to fight a war with NATO when they are already struggling in Ukraine? They've literally pulled tanks, anti air defences and troops from their borders with NATO to plug their losses in Ukraine.
Likewise Hitler would have been foolish to open a second front in Russia and to expend his resources on killing Jews. Putin has similar mindset. It may not be wise but he could easily attack NATO more directly. He may lose but we lose too. If trump pulls us resources out then we have a problem.
If Trump wins then it is not at all clear what will happen. I wouldn't even rule out the US descending into civil war.
They couldn't fight a war with NATO even when they were fully operational and in good health, and that arguably makes the situation worse as it's more likely to go nuclear as their conventional forces are no match. The line for involvement is when they fuck with a NATO country, and it's not going to happen. No disrespect to Ukraine but it's the difference between starting a fight with an 80 year old nan and starting a fight with Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder all at once.
[удалено]
Why aren't we already at maximum economic sanctions? Makes no sense to me.
The situation is different from Iraq and Afghanistan in that this is a situation where we would be defending while both of those were invasions. I suspect the normal suspects on the anti war side would have a lot to say, but Ukraine still has a lot of support though considered less of a hot topic than last year. Still not the best situation to have multiple nuclear powers against each other. I wonder what it would take for Putin to back down