Russia’s New Strategy In Ukraine
by Carlo Graziani
Hot-take is not my preferred mode of writing about the war, because I don’t think mine are particularly hotter or deeper than anybody else’s. But the story about Russia announcing its new tack is now a couple of days old, and has cooled a bit, so maybe I can afford to indulge in a warm take.
The Russians, if we are to take their statements at, well, not at face value, but at least according to an interpretation in which every word is not in fact false, appear to have concluded that the war in the North of Ukraine is a lost cause, whereas there is some hope for consolidating their gains in the South and East. They therefore plan to move their forces away from the Kiev region so that they can employ them to secure Ukraine’s coastal regions. This would entail packing up all their remaining heavy weapons onto trains, draining fuel tanks, securely packing up the ammo, putting the troops on buses, and sending the lot on an 800-mile ride through Belarus and Russia to their new theatre of operations. Packing everything for moving day would have to occur without any kind of cease-fire.
In other words, what the Russians would appear to have in mind is a “fighting withdrawal”. Now, I have no personal experience of war, either fighting or planning one, but I have read a number of works on various wars that have referred in passing to the subject of fighting withdrawals, and it is striking that every one has described such feats by some variant of the phrase “most difficult operation of war”. Such works often expatiate on the fact that the difficulty of such withdrawals, mortally challenging for small units, increases exponentially as the scale of the forces involved increases, so that by the time a theatre-wide withdrawal is contemplated the complexity approaches that of a combined-arms assault across a major river in the teeth of prepared defenses, but without the benefit of extensive advanced planning.
An army executing a fighting withdrawal must (among many other things) reverse half of its logistical train without screwing up the other half, maintain rigorous control of its road and rail network, carefully and thoroughly brief officers at all levels over secure and robust communication channels, perform an orderly disengagement and reconfiguration of the larger part of its forces from “attack” to “withdraw” modes—making them combat-ineffective—and designate, deploy, and coordinate a rear guard tasked with force protection that continues to fight, covering the withdrawal, constantly receiving supplies, echeloning in orderly fashion as they withdraw, giving the enemy the big “bugger off” while the rest of the force packs up and leaves.
Does any of that sound to you like a set of achievable goals by the Russian army as we have come to know it over the course of the past five weeks? Yeah, me neither.
If the rear guard fails in its task, the rest of the army is delicious meat for the enemy. Which is what the Ukrainian general staff is probably thinking right now, as they put their bibs on. They must be praying that the Russians are incompetent enough to try this, because if they are, “Russian army in the North encircled, carved up and forced into humiliating surrender” seems like a much more likely outcome than “Russian army in the North redeploys to Donbas”.
It may be that the “new strategy” is just a messaging feint for some inscrutable purpose. But honestly, to me this has the feel of the Big Map Table in the Kremlin Situation Room, with with all the colored plastic counters showing various army units, being pushed around by Putin and his lickspittle general, Shoigu, while the rest of the MOD generals look on stone-faced.
Now, where have I seen that scene before?
WaterGirl
Carlo, setting aside for the moment the fact that your articles are about the grim realities of this war, I am really appreciating what a fine writer you are.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Agree. He write good.
West of the Rockies
I don’t know why Ukraine would happily allow Russia to withdraw troops just to reinsert them elsewhere. The lack of honor and decency and honesty in the Russian government is egregious.
TonyG
So … the Russian Army units that have failed in five weeks in their attacks on Kyiv and other northern cities are now going to successfully execute a more difficult maneuver. That sounds very plausible to me.
planetjanet
I am concerned that Russia’s announcement of reducing operations in the North and near Kyiv may just lull the Ukrainians into a reduced tempo as well as Russia pushes their covert squads for a decapitation strike. There was as report a week or so ago where a relatively large number of groups were stopped. in Slovakia and Romania among others. A swift decapitation strike was their original strategy after all. I hope the Ukranians do not let their guard down.
bbleh
@WaterGirl: @Baud: Concur. It really does highlight the value of having a good communicator working with the subject-matter expert(s).
As to which, WHO is advising the Ukrainians on their PR? I have never seen such an effective propaganda campaign … well, ever. I mean, this seems even better than George and Dick’s Excellent Iraq Adventure, and that was domestic and had the advantage of racial animus. Zelensky is a natural with training, but this is broad-spectrum. Amazing.
WaterGirl
@West of the Rockies: I assumed that Ukraine would let them start to try to leave, Russian would get themselves in a tangled mess, and then Ukraine would attack. But what I know about war strategies would fit in my little finger.
Carlo Graziani
@TonyG: That is exactly what struck me as issuing from an alternate reality.
debbie
@West of the Rockies:
And miss the countless opportunities for mockery and belittling, especially after what Vova’s put them through? Would any self-respecting Ukrainian pass that up?
bbleh
@planetjanet: Sure, including the risk that they’ll just lob a nuke into Kyiv. Just gotta hope there is sufficient sense left somewhere in the Russian command structure.
coin operated
Regarding Russia’s BS in regards to Kyiv…turn the Russian units north and east of Kyiv into a rout army and I might buy into the “reduced combat” talk. Not a moment before.
Carlo Graziani
@planetjanet: From what I’m reading, there is nothing naive about the Ukrainian government’s understanding of Russian intentions or capability for treachery.
cain
@TonyG: We don’t even have to root for injuries.
I hope this turns into a rout with minimal bloodshed. Russian soldiers are likely victims as much as everyone else.
Putin is going to continue to look like a paper tiger.
cain
@Carlo Graziani:
They’ve been pretty good at figuring out what the Russians are up to. We are talking about a govt that poisoned attendees of a cease fire.
Dan B
NPR reported that only 20% of the Russian forces around Kyiv were being withdrawn. Makes me wonder if they are moving the most capable to the Donbas and leaving the rest as sacrificial lambs lobbing bombs or do they believe that 80% can hold the terrain?
SpaceUnit
I’d like to see both sides agree to an immediate cease-fire until we can get this whole Will Smith / Chris Rock thing straightened out.
brendancalling
I hope the Ukrainians kill them all except one. And that one should be sent home riding a donkey, and only allowed to live so he can tell his fellow Russians about how badly the Ukrainians fucked them up.
Not really, I hope the Ukrainians kill all of them.
bbleh
@SpaceUnit: Lol, priorities! But since we’re on the topic, I’d like to extend it until we can get this Jerusalem thing sorted too, mkay?
Carlo Graziani
@Dan B: That’s empirical observation. It is essential, but it doesn’t reflect intentions. It may reflect no more than hapless logistical capability. We need to wait a bit longer and see what happens.
WaterGirl
@SpaceUnit: Squirrel!
HumboldtBlue
@Baud:
And he does other stuff good too.
The Ukrainians are doing good too, and if this is what a Russian fighting withdrawal looks like, they won’t have much left for the south.
Radio free Europe with a report from Eastern Ukraine.
eclare
@brendancalling:
The British in Afghanistan approach.
Winston
They could be withdrawing their troops for the forthcoming gas attack on the city.
WaterGirl
@HumboldtBlue: Yes, by marveling at the great writing it was not my intention to ignore how interesting and well through out these posts have been. (sigh)
Chetan Murthy
@cain:
With respect, *no*. Rapists, murderers, thieves, killers of little old ladies and men: these are not victims. May they all burn in hell. And the only reason why anybody should give them quarter, is b/c it’ll end the war sooner.
coin operated
@Winston:
The prevailing winds would wipe out a good chunk of Belarus to the north. Chemicals would settle in the Dnieper and contaminate the water supplying a good chunk of the Donetsk region to the south. Judging from the equipment we’ve seen so far, Russian forces would be decimated after a chemical attack.
I don’t see it happening.
Martin
I think a big part of our overestimation of Russian military strength was that our spies in Russian leadership genuinely believe in their military strength, because when your economy is based on stealing all the way down, it necessitates lying all the way up.
My guess is that Russia is just pausing, saying they’ll move east, making some moves to withdraw to refresh, and take another run at it believing that they still have the capability because I don’t think anyone wants to tell Putin that he’s lost half of the tanks he committed to this war and has next to nothing to show for it. I mean, Russia is using technicals now FFS. That’s not what a world power does. Putin can’t possibly be okay with that, which suggests he has no idea.
HumboldtBlue
@WaterGirl:
Noooooo… that was a Zoolander reference!
Zoolander’s Center for kids who wanna read good and who wanna learn to do other stuff good too!
Too funny.
Martin
@HumboldtBlue: Somewhere there’s a video of a few Russian trucks hightailing it out of an area with two soldiers furiously running to catch them in the snow. Just left them behind.
Kirk Spencer
@Winston: Actually what keeps going through my mind is a question: Will Putin claim the nuke that hits Kyiv is just a nuclear weapons test?
Yeah, I have dark thoughts.
Ken Cox
Carlo, I wonder you might square what you’ve written with what this person has written.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1508813631311466496.html
I know absolutely nothing about military strategy or tactics and probably even less about geopolitics. Like many people I’ve been trying get an understanding of what is happening in Ukraine. So far the only conclusion I’ve reached is that none of it is going to end well for anyone.
Cameron
A cunning plan indeed.
WaterGirl
@Chetan Murthy: I see 17-year-olds who have no knowledge of Chernobyl being deliberately and callously sent into a hot radiation zone with no protection and then dying of radiation poisoning … I call them victims.
Other than that, I hope the young Russian soldiers are smart enough to turn in their weapons once they see what they are being asked to do to Ukraine.
WaterGirl
@coin operated:
Not that Putin would have a problem with that if he got to declare victory.
Ruckus
@West of the Rockies:
Even the use of the word egregious isn’t strong enough to describe the current day Russian military. The bits and pieces seem to exist on some plane but it certainly isn’t one with any type of cognizant organization. It looks like everyone in Russia is just taking everything they can get their hands on, because otherwise they have nada, as in nada damn thing. They showed to a war with unprepared soldiers, every thing they told the troops seemed to be a complete fabrication, limited fuel, limited food, unstable ammo, crap communications, etc, etc.
HumboldtBlue
@Martin:
Yes, this one.
WaterGirl
@Ken Cox: Wow, I hope the guy who wrote that thread is wrong. I will be interested to see what Carlo has to say.
coin operated
@WaterGirl:
If your goal is a survivable land bridge to occupied Crimea, it’s a problem. it won’t be survivable for 50+ years. As craven as Putin is, I still think he wants it usable for transplanted Russians.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chetan Murthy: “Exterminate the brutes” is not a good look from any side.
Jeffro
@Kirk Spencer: I stress about this too. A tactical nuke or two, as – in Putin’s mind – an object lesson.
In addition to the more conventional attempts to send special forces, assassins, and mercenaries in to get Zelensky.
Ruckus
@Carlo Graziani:
Exactly.
Add in that a seemingly large segment of their generals, who the Russians rely on massively, are taking dirt naps and this seems to be either a complete ruse or massively stupid. Hmmmmmmm. Ruse or stupid, hmmmmmmm…..
Ken
Thank you for your audition. We’ll call you in three to five days to let you know if you’re the newest member of the White House Press Corps.
Chetan Murthy
@Ken Cox: Scott Ritter. Scott Ritter. Russian agent or useful idiot.
There’s a thing: https://blog.danieldavies.com/2004/05/d-squared-digest-one-minute-mba.html
Daniel Davies’ 1-minute MBA (or, why he wasn’t fooled by the Iraq War marketing pitch).
Shorter: any good idea that you read by some compromised co-opted Russian tool, you will also find being espoused by someone who *isn’t* compromised. Just ignore the obvious malefactors. Life’s too short, and especially in the age of the Internet, there are way too many excellent, talented, *honest* people out there.
P.S. No, I didn’t bother to read it. That’s my (and Davies’) point. Or as he summarizes, “If You Tell Lies A Lot, You Tend To Get A Reputation As A Liar”
Roger Moore
@planetjanet:
I don’t think the Ukrainians are going to reduce their tempo. They know perfectly well that if they let the Russians withdraw in good order, they’ll have to face those same troops again somewhere else. Not to mention they want the Russians out of their country post haste, and they’re likely to see any withdrawal as a reason to push harder. The sooner they get the Russians back into Belarus, the sooner they can get to saving the South and East.
Winston
@Kirk Spencer: If Putin nukes Kyiv that will ignite at least a limited nuclear war where Russia is destroyed and the west takes a lot of damage. So bye bye NYC.
dmsilev
@Ken Cox: Scott Ritter kind of lost his mind a while back. I’d be very reluctant to trust any analysis from him.
Chetan Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: Great: then, *as an expedient*, I’m fine with granting quarter to those who surrender. Fine. *as an expedient*.
piratedan
have noted that the tenor in the last week or so has changed where we’re not getting strident calls for a no-fly zone. Does this imply that the skies are essentially a stalemate?
I wonder if the UA forces will pivot to targeting RU artillery as a means of providing relief to their citizens since the Russian troops seem ill equipped to do well without intensive artillery support.
Gin & Tonic
@Ken Cox: Scott Ritter is a convicted pedophile and a paid agent of the Russian government.
Roger Moore
@SpaceUnit:
Hell no. A ceasefire right now just lets the Russians hold onto Ukrainian territory and abuse Ukrainian citizens.
MagdaInBlack
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: I have never heard of Scott Ritter. Can you share an elevator pitch about him?
Omnes Omnibus
@Ken Cox: It’s Scott Ritter who has set fire to his credibility and is a fully paid up pro-Putin flack these days. I also doubt that the Russian army that I have seen over the past month could pull it off.
Fake Irishman
@Ken Cox:
Ritter was a US Marine and a UN weapons inspector before the second Iraq War. He got that right, but he’s drifted into Putin’s orbit since and been writing for a lot of Russian state media sources since. Approach with extreme caution. (A quick Google search will show an article by him written at the end of January suggesting that Putin had “checkmated” Ukraine. Compare that to what Adam was saying here, which was more like “Ukraine can’t go head to head with Russia, but they are a lot better prepared than in 2014 and they have a good plan to resist an invasion both militarily and diplomatically.”
turned out neither were right, but one was a lot more right and insightful than the other…..
Ruckus
@coin operated:
I don’t see it happening.
That may be the reason for suspecting that it will. Not that you don’t see it but that it is a stupid, illogical thing to do and operationally it will hurt them far more. Right now Russia seems to like those odds.
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: See #49.
coin operated
@Fake Irishman:
Seconded. He was a great resource in the runup to the Iraqi invasion. He’s deteriorated significantly since…
Fake Irishman
@Fake Irishman: or what Omnes said more quickly, more concisely and more effectively. Which is what usually happens when we both comment on the same thread.
WaterGirl
@coin operated: I have come to think so little of Putin that I wonder if Putin just wants to be able to say he won and may care little what devastation he leaves in his wake.
But I don’t begin to know, just something I wonder.
Carlo Graziani
@Ken Cox:
That’s a hilarious find. I do appreciate the request, though.
This person wants readers to believe that Russia, with a vast preponderance of materiel, personnel, and weapons, needed a fiendishly clever tactical plan to divert and pin down the powerful Ukrainian military so that it could swish out its saber from behind its back and delver a coup-de-grace.
Which is really very funny, given the nearly unanimous pre-war assessments (including, apparently, those made by Russian military intelligence) that the Russian ground forces could simply show up in their dress uniforms and parade into Kiev by the end of the first week of the war.
My personal view of this guy is “mentally ill, basically harmless if you don’t argue with him”,
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Seriously? Yikes. Apparently this Scott Ritter should come with a warning label.
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: I am fairly certain that SpaceUnit intended that as a mockery of all the attention the Will Smith / Chris Rock thing has gotten.
SpaceUnit, did I get that wrong?
Mike in NC
@Ruckus: You were Navy and must have had to deal with the Preventive Maintenance System (PMS), which every sailor suffered to implement. Seems like the Russians mostly gundecked their version of PMS.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Yes, between #49, #53, #54 things are much more clear. thanks to all who helped clarify that..
Ken
@WaterGirl: I think his name (and his history, and his recent employer) did come up a few days ago, when someone pointed to another, similarly-themed, analysis he’d made.
WaterGirl
@Fake Irishman: That made me laugh out loud! But it’s always good to hear the same thing in two different ways.
SpaceUnit
@Ken:
Some dope actually asked about this at today’s WH presser. I couldn’t believe it.
TonyG
@Jeffro: If Zelensky were to be killed, then I imagine that another leader would take his place. My impression is that Ukrainians are fighting for their country, not for Zelensky.
Carlo Graziani
@Fake Irishman: Pity. I remember him from when he made sense.
WaterGirl
@Carlo Graziani: I especially appreciated the way the question was asked – not as a challenge or trolling in any way, but as a sincere question.
I might have asked it myself if I had come across that on my own.
WaterGirl
@Ken: I must have totally missed that. It’s hard to keep up sometimes!
HumboldtBlue
Cheryl Rofer is working on the story about the supposed radiation exposure of the Russian soldiers.
WaterGirl
@SpaceUnit: I am two days behind on the press briefings. I will look forward to (hopefully) the smackdown.
Kirk Spencer
@Ken Cox:
If you take the article on the assumption facts as presented are accurate, it makes sense.
If you stop to check the facts, the odor of bovine excrement is unmasked.
Case: the claim that Russia has 200,000 soldiers while Ukraine has 600,000. Ukraine’s military strength was 250,000-300,000 (active and reserve) when this mess began. Russia sent in roughly the same number of forces, and if you’re going to count all the Ukranian forces you should probably count the several hundred thousand providing support from Russia. Which is not all ~900,000 service members, but is still a measurable chunk.
Fact: Airborne element use. You don’t use airborne as operational fixing elements. They’re not strong enough for that – they’re dismounted light infantry with the ability to have combat effectiveness multiplied by being placed behind the primary combat forces’ lines. Russia’s forces were being used to take airfields. That’s a valid offensive use, but doctrinally one of three things follow: they’re extracted, they’re relieved, or the offensive is executed to take advantage of the confusion caused by the stab in the back and/or the panic of rear echelon facing direct combat. None of the three happened for any of the airborne attacks.
Fact: the necessary assumption of strong logistics. Big Arrow movement as Ritter calls it assumes logistics are strong and effective. Which does not see soldiers raiding corner groceries for meals.
Others have pointed out that Ritter’s main paycheck is from RT for several years now, and that really should have been enough. But I thought I’d flatten the niggling doubt. Carlo’s concept might not be right, but Ritter is wrong.
Fake Irishman
@HumboldtBlue:
I don’t want to hear your excuses! Your comment needs to be at least three times bigger than this.
Also as a public service announcement: please refrain from getting involved in any lighthearted gasoline fights with male models. It’s really expensive these days in addition to being a safety hazard, no matter how chiseled your abs are.
(Am I doing it right?)
Omnes Omnibus
@Chetan Murthy: At this point, I don’t really care what you are fine with. I know that I am out of step with a lot of people here on this issue, but I will keep banging my drum when I see the need. I have little confidence that I will change any minds. Just putting down my marker.
TonyG
@coin operated: Ritter was arrested, tried and convicted some years ago for felony unlawful contact with a minor. It’s possible to imagine that he has some skeletons in his closet that Russian intelligence officers would be able to use to their advantage. I’m just speculating. Certainly nothing like that has ever happened before in history.
@coin operated:
kalakal
Transferring their forces from the North to the South is probably beyond Russian capabilities. The official counters on maps presentations to Putin will be that they’re maintaining pressure in the South, attempt to encircle the Eastern Ukrainian forces while pausing in the North ( except around Chernihiv), using small tactical withdrawals to consolidate their position prior to advancing after success in the other operational areas.
More realistically they are in serious trouble in the North, and are pretty much stalled elsewhere, there can be no pretence of ‘liberation’ when your policy consists of murdering civilians and making rubble bounce. The Eastern area is the most dangerous for the UA.
CaseyL
@WaterGirl: Scott Ritter was, way back in 2003 (?), one of the weapons inspectors in Iraq looking for WMD. IIRC, he was front and center in saying they hadn’t found any, and he protested mightily when Bush ordered all the observers out. At the time, it was a transparent ruse to prevent the inspectors from declaring, definitively, that Hussein had no, repeat no, WMD. Which would have undermined Bush-Cheney’s drive to war.
Now, I may be entirely misremembering, but if I am remembering correctly, then Ritter was one of the good guys in 2003.
I don’t know why he turned out the way he did.
Professor Bigfoot
@Winston: You say this with such certainty.
What did your March Madness bracket look like?
Kent
Well, they are supposed to all be volunteers (something we know isn’t true). But the majority definitely signed up for this duty. So fuck them.
Winston
I posted this scenario what if the other night but my GF called to complain about her plight for an hour or two and wasn’t able to get back to the discussion. Also I think BJ editor sucks. Here again with a scenario that Russia invades Estonia. Which isn’t too much different than Ukraine. Click on the map to imbiggin.
We are at the point of the top of the scenario where Nato recommends calm. We could re enforce Estonia and in either case the Russians could defuse the situation and peace could prevail. But the Russians could escalate in either scenario. Then there is every chance that it leads to nuclear war.
I have said all along that our best bet is to first strike. That leads to a lot of Russians dying but not the end of the world.
Ruckus
@Mike in NC:
And here I thought PMS stood for something else…….
Yes. I spent more time doing preventive maintenance that anything else. I worked on navigation and ships operation electronic equipment and supporting equipment like rather weird specialty generators. Oh and the paperwork to “support” said work. I was after all in charge of a ships department, as the senior enlisted, an E5.
And getting chewed out by an E7 idiot from a different department for not smiling and liking something, something, bullshit.
Good times. Not.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kirk Spencer:
Market Garden was a textbook use of airborne forces to seize objectives and then hold them until more heavily armed forces could reach and relieve them. Unfortunately, they went a bridge too far.
Kent
I can’t wait for the first Putin in Ukraine Downfall parody lip sync. Come to think of it there probably are already some out there.
Omnes Omnibus
@Winston: You are either an idiot, a maniac, or both.
SpaceUnit
@Winston:
Thanks for the advice.
ETA: Christ.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I, for one, very much appreciate that you do. It helps me and likely others like me who feel as you do.
coin operated
@Kent:
Until then…the Trump lipsync was pretty friggin amazing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj7P4FUxu7k
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent:
They volunteered for the Russian army so that they could go to Ukraine and commit war crimes? That is a novel view.
WaterGirl
@CaseyL: Now that you write that, I think I do remember him from back then.
Maybe I need to add Scott Ritter to the War in Ukraine lexicon. //
Fake Irishman
@Kirk Spencer:
Nice synopsis. I remember on the first day of the war when the Russian airborne forces took a major military airfield …and then Ukrainian units calmly and efficiently took it right back. That was the moment when I went “Wait a second, this story might be a different one than I was expecting to read.”
Kent
I’m surprised that the Ukrainians haven’t blown up the actual regular bridge across to Crimea. I would think it is a prime military target since it is being used to move troops and supplies up to Ukraine.
Uncle Cosmo
@eclare: I gather this refers to the assistant surgeon William Brydon, reputed (incorrectly) to have been the sole survivor of 16,000 British soldiers and civilians on the retreat from Kabul in 1842. I believe the model here is more the Battle of Kleidion (1014). After his victorym Basil II of Byzantium had the Bulgar prisoners sorted into groups of 100; 99 were blinded and one was blinded in one eye only, so he could lead the rest back to the Bulgarian tsar Samuel, “who survived the battle, but died two months later from a heart attack, reportedly brought on by the sight of his blind soldiers.”
matt
What comes to mind is the old ‘Napoleon’s Army’ info-graphic.
Carlo Graziani
@Kent:
If I may: there’s been rather a lot of kind of thing. I know the anger that it comes from. I feel it too, but it totally misses the mark.
I think it is worth keeping in mind a lesson that seems to be universal to all armed conflict, even ones that seem, to us, to feature Angels fighting Devils: war is brutal, and brutalizing. Its effects on the psychology of warriors is analogous to the effect of power on politicians: just as power corrupts, war brutalizes.
This happens to the Angels just as much as to the Devils. There is nothing that can be done to change this basic fact of human nature. The best that we can do is erect some barriers, such as Geneva Convention indoctrination and enforcement within Western armed forces, to act as guard rails.
Just like civil society laws that bind rulers to follow rules, those measures only work by consensus, and occasionally fail, as we saw, to our shame (but hardly surprise) in Iraqi prisons, and other similar incidents.
This is the shameful part of war. We are not exempt from it, and should never forget that fact. The best we can do, is at least feel ashamed about it, and try to do better. Wishing relief from that moral restraint is like wishing our souls to the Devil. I am not a religious person, but that is something those people have right, as far as I’m concerned.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Thanks, but there are a lot of threads I feel I need to just walk away from these days. We are supposed to be the good guys. We should at least fucking try.
WaterGirl
@Kent: What leads you to believe that the young Russians knew what they were signing up for?
It’s hard to know what is propaganda and what is real, but it sure seems to me that many of these soldiers had no idea they were being sent in to destroy Ukraine.
Kent
For anyone who has been paying attention to the past two decades, how would you expect to be deployed if you are in the Russian army? Chechnia, Georgia, South Ossetia, Azerbaijan, Crimea, Belarus, Kazakhstan, etc. etc.
Basically for the past 20 years all the Russian army has done is get deployed around the frontier to either beat heads on the local population in support of a pro-Russian stooge, or invade neighboring countries illegally.
You know what you are signing up for.
kalakal
@Uncle Cosmo:
Harry Flashman survived as well!
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: well, obviously walk away when you need to, but i couldn’t agree with this more.
Maybe part of trying is being the better angel on a shoulder when the anger and frustration sometimes leads to a loss of perspective.
dmsilev
@Winston: Estonia is very different from Ukraine. NATO member, and has ground units from several other NATO countries stationed there exactly so that an attack on one is an attack on all. Yes, Putin may be crazy enough to try that, but it’s far from guaranteed, especially right in the middle of his army being stalemated at the best in Ukraine.
Kirk Spencer
@Omnes Omnibus: Point. Egos and failures in execution abounded making the whole look incompetent (because they were).
Counterpoint – I didn’t see coordinated movement of ground forces in conjunction with the air insertions in Ukraine. At least in Market-Garden that was there.
Kent
@Carlo Graziani: Oh, I don’t think the Ukrainians should be committing any war crimes or mistreat/assassinate prisoners. They should definitely follow the Geneva Conventions.
But I definitely don’t think the Ukrainians should take the foot off the pedal short of mass surrenders by Russian troops. Certainly don’t let them walk back to Russia where they will just get re-armed and re-deployed.
As long as they haven’t surrendered you shoot to kill.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: Sure, because the Russian news keeps the average Russian kid well informed.
US forces did some really shitty things in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Do you want to paint them with that same broad brush?
Fake Irishman
@Omnes Omnibus: let me know if you need to replace your drum. Please keep beating on it.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Unless I’m misunderstanding I agree with you.
War is hell and most of the people killed and killing are not the problem. It’s the people who send them and often the people in charge. A military marches on it’s stomach and does what it’s told. The vast majority of the people may or may not be grand individuals but they are not murderers by profession or ideals. At times they are mislead by people who are, but even that is a lot less often than normal. They will do horrible things because they are lead to do horrible things and actually have little choice. And that leads others to have to do the same. A story as old as time and humans.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kirk Spencer: I meant it as a contrast with what the Russians have been doing.
coin operated
@Kent:
The only reason I can think of is that it is far behind enemy lines and they don’t have the airpower to do so. While they’ve denied Russia air superiority, I don’t believe they can get that far into occupied territory without significant risk. Any other bridges they could get to have been destroyed.
I remember one such bridge being destroyed by a Ukrainian engineer who had to detonate it manually…knowing he would go down with the bridge. Puts me in mind of the scene in Godfather2, where the Cuban rebel blows himself up rather than being arrested. Michael Corleone said “They can win”
Kent
What else has the Russian Army done in the past two decades but invade neighbors or intervene on behalf of pro-Russian dictators.
You are essentially Putin’s personal army and he is not a good person. That is what you are volunteering to be if you volunteer for the Russian Army.
Josie
@Carlo Graziani: So true, and beautifully stated.
YY_Sima Qian
Great stuff Carlo!
I think a question is how mobile is the Ukrainian Army in & around Kyiv to take advantage. Furthermore, I don’t think Russia intends to withdrawal all forces in the region, but will instead dig in & defend a stabilized front. The point is to switch the Kyiv theater into an economy of force operation (relatively speaking) so the Russian Army’s remaining combat power can be focused on the Donbass theater to try to encircle & reduce the Ukrainian Joint Force Command, which comprises the bulk of Ukraine’s combat power. I doubt the Russian Army is intending to reorient the forces from Kyiv all the way to Donetsk, perhaps more to southeast of Sumy, driving south to meet up w/ the forces driving north from Crimea.
From the Russian perspective, this probably should have been done weeks earlier, when it had become clear that the thunder run to Kyiv would not succeed & the Ukrainian authorities would not collapse under pressure.
I think the question for the Russian Army is if it can keep the remaining forces in defensive positions in the Kyiv theater adequately supported & supplied, so they can hold their positions against inevitable Ukrainian pressure. Given their poor performance to date, that is indeed an open question. If they cannot hold their position, & instead collapses while forces are being re-oriented to the east, then it could turn into a rout reminiscent of la Grande Armeé in 1812.
The question for the Ukrainian Army is can they actually force a collapse in defensive positions. To date, they successes int he north have been in attriting exposed Russian forces in advance or in transit, or harassing clogged & vulnerable logistics trail, or urban ambushes, befitting a highly effective campaign mixing regular & irregular warfare. My impression of their successful tactical counterattacks so far is that they have been against relatively isolated Russian units that are not dugged in. Attacking fortified positions will require the Ukrainian Army to concentrate combat power & expose them in the open, which could make them vulnerable to destruction by Russian artillery fire (in theory, anyway), which I think is something the Ukrainian side have avoided so far.
The Russian Army is significantly disadvantaged due to operating on the exterior lines, & it could take them quite a long time logistically to reorient the bulk of their forces in the north to the northeast, even without Ukrainian harassment or counteroffensive. OTOH, have we seen the Ukrainian Army able & willing to shift forces between theaters, even though they have the advantage of operating on the interior lines? In any case, move brigade sized forces between theaters expose them to Russian airstrikes, & Russia is still highly advantaged in the air.
Decidedly amateurish $ 0.02.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Here is the real transcript of that briefing.
Winston
@Professor Bigfoot: We could surrender and not even play.
Kent
Those who volunteered to go there and then did shitty things, yes. Wearing an American flag on your shoulder doesn’t excuse you. If I was North Vietnamese and my village was napalmed, I’d show no mercy either. Leadership of course bears most of the blame. But no one is blameless when bad shit happens. We now jail cops who accidentally kill.
Chetan Murthy
@WaterGirl:
Raping women, raping children, shooting children, shooting old men and women. I’m sorry, but I have no compassion for orcs.
The idea that somehow “they didn’t sign up for this” ….. NOBODY needs to be told not to rape, not to murder children and old people. Or at least, nobody should.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent:
Who thinks that Ukraine should do that? I certainly don’t. Combatants are combatants. When I was taught how to take an enemy position, it involved shooting the fuck out of it and then charging in. And you went through the position, you double tapped anything that looked like it might be a person or hiding one. Once through, you went back and did it again, On the third time through, you looked for people who might surrender.* This is perfectly acceptable according to the laws of war.
*There is more to it, but this is close enough.
Winston
@Omnes Omnibus: Either that or you are. You most probably. Didn’t you say you are a lawyer?
ian
@Winston:
Yes it does. This is precisely why Russia and the US keep thousands more nuclear weapons than necessary, so they can retaliate in event of a first strike.
Kent
I teach HS and I have a student in my class who is from Crimea. His father is ethnic Russian and his mother is ethnic Ukrainian. They fled Crimea in 2015 after the Russians arrived and it became untenable to remain. I’m not sure I got the entire story but it seemed that Russian officials of some sort wanted their house and made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.
His immediate family made their way to Moldova and then eventually to the US but his two brothers got out faster because they were of draft age and didn’t want to get caught in the Russian army once Russia declared sovereignty over Crimea. He has cousins further east in Russia who are currently getting out through Kazakhstan where they hope to make their way to India or Turkey and then onward to the UK or US but that is probably unlikely as they are Russian not Ukrainian. Again, the main motivation is to stay out of the Army.
So yes, young people do know what the Russian army is about, and many do decide not to cooperate.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kent: Indeed they did… but many of those who committed those crimes were arrested and tried.
Like that guy TFG pardoned.
The Americans try to follow the rules of war, but as Carlo points out, this is war.
L85NJGT
The bogged down leading elements are tasked with the rear guard action. With the expectation they hold out to the last man, allowing time and space for the withdrawal.
Instead the hard points are getting overrun in short order, and the retiring logistical elements are getting plastered on the roads.
You can ignore the “experts” analyzing this as a frontal war. The Russians have never controlled anything other than the stretch of road or village their vehicles currently occupy.
I believe the French called it dot and line (or something to that effect) in Indochina. That didn’t go so great for them, and that strategy’s prospects over time have decreased inversely to MANPAD and LAW lethality.
marcopolo
@WaterGirl: I hear about busloads of Russian soldiers with acute radiation syndrome being taken to Belgorod from Chernobyl. When asked how they might wind up with this condition, the reply was they were digging trenches in the exclusion zone. Great way to irradiate your lungs.
Doug R
@WaterGirl: I stopped reading when he misspelled Kyiv.
Carlo Graziani
@Winston: For what it’s worth, Omnes is a former military officer who actually once had the moral courage to stand up and question a possibly illegal order, as he related in a comment to an earlier thread. This is the kind of test that very few people are called upon to take, and many fewer pass. Just saying.
Ruckus
@Kent:
When the average wage is less than I make on SS and I have to live in subsidized housing, people in those types of situations don’t always join the military for the massive bennies, they join to stay alive and maybe keep their family alive. It’s called survival. Also many of the Russian military are conscripts, draftees if you will. This isn’t their life’s goal, to be a Russian solider or any solider. Ask me how I know this first hand if you hadn’t gotten the concept prior. In many parts of the world, including Russia, the military is often conscripts. Especially large, generally poor countries. You don’t do this to go to war, you do this to survive. Often the people that pay the highest price are people with little to zero choice. In Vietnam, Marine draftees were said to have an average lifetime after arriving in Vietnam of 2 weeks. I have no idea how true this was but it seems not unreasonable from what I’ve heard. Put yourself in that position and ask your self, “Truthfully, what the hell would you do?” If you think you know, you are wrong, unless you’ve been in that position. You can’t know if the question is theoretical. It sounds easy. It is not, not in any fucking way.
Professor Bigfoot
@marcopolo: Everyone’s talking about the Russian army like it’s filled with volunteers like the American one; but I thought they were all conscripts in a system akin to that run by the Soviets.
I read this and can only think, those poor bastards.
marcopolo
So one question I’ve had for a while is we’ve been hearing about all of these Ukrainian ex pats and foreign nationals heading to Ukraine to join the fight. I think last I read there were 80-100K (or more) Ukrainians and 20K+ foreign nationals. How many of those folks have been “trained” and equipped formed into new units and sent into the fight? I realize many or most of these folks will wind up in supporting roles but still, adding 5, 10, or 15K new soldiers to the fight would give Ukraine a little more flexibility in how to allocate their forces.
WaterGirl
@Winston: You can be kind of a dick sometimes.
WaterGirl
@Kent: Good to know.
Jeffro
Completely OT but I cannot for the life of me imagine what news outlets are thinking if/when reporting on Hunter Biden’s blessed laptop. The WaPo story notes in, oh, five dozen places where clearly things have been added, altered, deleted, and so on. It’s complete garbage (both the laptop and the reporting) save for causing a distraction.
OT side note: considering what happened to Hunter’s laptop and Ashley’s diary, I sure as hell hope someone is getting the word out to every D official in the country that they and their family members need to take every possible measure protect their data, devices, and even written journals/diaries.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: I threw the first punch here. I stand by my analysis of Winston though.
Lyrebird
..and I know you’re not doing it for thanks from random other commenters, but thanks anyhow!
Did you see the other comments by… the nym might have been AndoChronic or something… the other night, speaking in a similar vein?
To me, part of “never again” is to not let myself start using eliminationist rhetoric. Even if I had enough money to buy UF a couple new Bayraktars, and did, I don’t need to think like that.
dmsilev
@Professor Bigfoot: As I understand it, the Russian army is a mix of conscripts and what they call ‘contract’ soldiers, people who voluntarily signed up for an enlistment term of however many years. Supposedly Putin promised that only the contract soldiers would be involved in the ‘special military operation’, but that promise had about as much worth as any of his others.
WaterGirl
@marcopolo: I saw that. And then someone in the other thread (I think it was the other thread) said that Cheryl Rofer is in the process of rebutting that, saying that it’s highly unlikely that that’s true.
It’s certainly a challenge to know what’s true these days and what is not.
Winston
@Carlo Graziani: As I said up thread, we could surrender. but I doubt that is going to happen.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I was aware of that when I wrote what i did. I stand by what I wrote, regardless.
marcopolo
@Professor Bigfoot: The Russian army has two tiers: contract soldiers and conscripts. Twice a year, Russia does a draft. I think one is just starting or just about to start right now. What I’ve read is if you have the means (or brains), you figure out a way to avoid the entire process (I guess through bribery or something), which means the vast vast majority of conscripts are poor, ill-educated kids from rural areas–also majority of these conscripts are ethnic minorities cause that is where pop growth is happening. After a period of time, conscripts can sign contracts and become “contract” (I guess “professional”) soldiers. Theoretically (by this I mean legally but then we know how Putin feels about laws and rules), only contract soldiers are sent off to fight (conscripts are only supposed to fight in defense of Russian soil–but then again we’ve seen how Putin talks about this war, Ukraine is Russia, right?). As we’ve seen from reports that is def not the case in this war. Additionally, I’ve read numerous reports that conscript soldiers were cajoled, tricked, harassed into signing contracts in the lead up to the war with Ukraine. So not a group of soldiers that is particularly motivated, professional, or as we’ve seen effective. Anyways, my 2 cents of knowledge on how the Russian army works from what I’ve read.
Omnes Omnibus
I said the other night that I think we will get through all of this shit, and I want to be able to look myself in the eye on the other side. Mere survival isn’t good enough. I did see AndoChronic’s comments as well.
VeniceRiley
For Kyiv, I was expecting “HODOR” but got the opposite. They’ve been brilliant. I doubt we would be continuing outpouring of support supplies and cash if it was a lost cause.
WaterGirl
@Doug R: Interesting point.
WaterGirl
@Carlo Graziani:
That might just be a better response than “you can be a real dick sometimes”. :-)
Thank you for that.
kalakal
@WaterGirl: He’s so wrong it’s laughable
Frankensteinbeck
@Omnes Omnibus:
I am 100% with you.
@Fake Irishman:
From what I have read the paratroopers were one of the first signs that Putin knows nothing about his army or his opposition. Russia’s paratroopers are not elite combat units. They’re a PR stunt. They’re trained and equipped as scary riot police, not soldiers. This isn’t even new information. They’ve been sent in against actual soldiers before and gotten their asses kicked. That Putin thought they would work here… see ‘knows nothing’ above.
kalakal
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m with you on this .
WaterGirl
@kalakal: I have no background in this stuff, so it’s really hard to know sometimes. ?♀️
I really appreciate hearing from people like you who have the background to know what you are talking about.
Ruckus
@Kent:
We now jail cops who accidentally kill.
Sometimes.
I am in my eighth decade now and I can vividly remember less than I’d like as I age. I remember Vietnam. I still remember days vividly. And I wasn’t ever even close to it. I know a lot of people at the VA who were. They aren’t bad people but many of them did bad things. If you think that everyone who joins the military is a killer, you are so wrong that it might not be possible for you to understand. But war is not desired by most people. War is not desired by most people in the military. Most people do not want to kill. Often they will if they have to but they don’t want to. Often they are lied to by the leaders of their government. Because their leaders want something they can’t have and are left with the only solution, to steal/murder and take it. And to do that they often lie to their country, which of course is getting harder to do because communications have improved exponentially. War is not a single country or type of government solution. it never has been or will be. It is the worst side of humanity but it is a side that we all have. There is a reason some are called conscientious objectors. They have to really, really think and desire to not fit in to the general mold. They often risk everything for the concept that war is wrong. We all know it is wrong but history is filled with just wars. Few can or do make that choice to decide against war. Many did during Vietnam, how did that work out? We still had 58,220 dead. Vietnam itself had many times more.
patrick II
The unwritten rules seem to say that Ukranian militiny cannot enter Russia, but if the see a Chance to cripple a fleeing Russian army, does anyone think they might follow them into Belarus?
Ruckus
@Chetan Murthy:
Or at least, nobody should.
You are absolutely correct. On the list of Nobody Should, that one may be in first place. But like almost every point on anyone’s list of Nobody Should, there is always someone who will think it’s a great idea, and a lot more that will think, what can it hurt? Humanity has grown a bit in my lifetime. But not near far enough. I suspect that humans will be flying, you know flapping our arms and taking off like a bird before many things on any Nobody Should list will be take off because no one does them any longer.
Another Scott
@Martin: KyivIndependent.com news feed:
That’s a good illustration of the problem with having a system based on lies. Reality always eventually intrudes.
[ womp, womp ]
Cheers,
Scott.
Frankensteinbeck
@patrick II:
Ukraine will follow whatever rules they think they should follow, updated as circumstances change, and I think we would be foolish to try to predict them.
Winston
@dmsilev: Well yes. But take a look at Peskov. right across the border, right now(google maps}. Bombers, bombers, bombers. Fighters, fighters, fighters. What or who is going to stop that?
Frankensteinbeck
@Winston:
NATO. Russia can’t beat Ukraine. NATO will wipe the floor with them. One of the biggest reasons Putin picked Ukraine was because Ukraine wasn’t in any military alliances.
LivinginExile
Illia Ponomarenko had a tweet and pictures showing Ukrainian troops training Russian POWs that have switched sides. I assume the Ukrainians know what they’re doing. It would make me very nervous having an ex Russian soldier behind me with a rifle.
Omnes Omnibus
@Winston: Can they fly? Do they have sufficient pilots? Why do you want to start a nuclear war?
marcopolo
@Ruckus: Agree. My understanding is one of the things army training is meant to do is to indoctrinate soldiers into being able to kill other human beings. Most of us aren’t built like that from the get go. When you add in the kind of propaganda (and yes indoctrinating soldiers into folks able to kill does involve propaganda) that the average Russian has been fed just in everyday life for the past 20 years about the heroic/mythic nature of Russia and Russians and the criminal/perverted/ immoral nature of everyone else on the planet, well, the results are what we are seeing in Ukraine (or many conflict zones).
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: Cheryl has a thread on the Chernobyl radiation issues:
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
kalakal
@YY_Sima Qian: A very good summation. That’s very much how I view it
Roger Moore
@Kent:
A lot of them have sat quietly on the Russian border protecting the motherland from invasion. Or they’ve sat bases somewhere repairing equipment. Or served in peacekeeping missions in places like Nagorno-Karabakh, where they’ve been the main thing keeping the Armenians and Azerbaijanis from killing each other.
I don’t want to defend Russia’s military history for the past couple of decades. They’ve done a lot of stuff wrong. But they’ve also done a huge amount of boring stuff we never hear about because it’s boring. And I’m willing to bet a lot of the people in the Russian military signed up either expecting to do that boring stuff or because it was the best way out of their poor village in the middle of nowhere.
marcopolo
@Another Scott: All these darned experts raining on our amateur parades…bah humbug. But, yes, her expertise and explanation make total sense.
Lyrebird
@LivinginExile:
Yeah I thought that story was quite interesting too!
This is pretty amazing. (Found this one on DKos)
And I’ll defer to Gin & Tonic on this, but my guess is that this next comment is graciously worded understatement, so I am not going to worry about these units or UF exercising caution:
Winston
@dmsilev: Well yes. But take a look at Peskov. right across the border, right now(google maps}. Bombers, bombers, bombers. Fighters, fighters, fighters. What or who is going to stop that?
@WaterGirl: And you’re supposed to be some sort of moderator?
OO is playing a surrender monkey. I don’t think that’s gonna fly. But lawyers take any side as long as they see some profit. I don’t know what OO’s game is, but if someone paid him, he would switch to the other side.
@WaterGirl:
Another Scott
@Another Scott: (As HuboltBlue said in #72.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Lyrebird
Uh not only is she the front pager, she’s also one of the people who keep the site running, so yes.
First rule of holes applies here.
Omnes Omnibus
@Winston: Fuck yourself running.
marcopolo
@WaterGirl: I hear there’s this thing called the pie filter…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
surrender monkey? really?
Ishiyama
I haz an opinion. There will be no negotiated settlement of this war until Putin is gone. “War of Maneuver” or not, Ukraine has enormous advantages with a free border in the East for resupply, and internal lines of communication. Nobody will announce their plans in advance. Sometimes the besiegers of a city become trapped themselves. Grand and sweeping advances intended to encircle whole armies disperses troops across a hostile terrain – “there is always a reason converging columns do not meet.”
Anywhere that the Russian army hasn’t gotten to yet should by now be filled with infiltrated small units.
Professor Bigfoot
@marcopolo: thanks!
I had read that the Russian army really doesn’t have a professional NCO corps, so one wonders if these “contract soldiers” serve the purpose of NCOs in Western armies.
I wonder how they manage good order and discipline- oh, that’s right, they don’t.
Winston
@Lyrebird: Oh. Is water girl a well paid expert moderator making a lot of money for John Cole, by not getting paid?
Professor Bigfoot
@Winston: I’ve never pied anyone before, but you’re making an awfully good case for it.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: Yes, I have mentioned that twice now in two different threads. I hope she is right.
marcopolo
@Professor Bigfoot: Retired General Mark Hertling has made several statements about the absolute lack of a professional NCO corps (I guess it is something he actually discussed with Russian generals once upon a time) in the Russian army and how that is one of the things that has led to their utterly bad performance–and also the high number of officers getting taken out by Ukrainian snipers since they have to lead from the front. There apparently is no mechanism for taking independent action at the squad/platoon/company level in the RU army.
Alternatively, he has had experience with the training the Ukrainian military has done since 2014 and says their move towards a more western force structure with a professional NCO class has allowed them to be much more nimble and creative in how they are fighting.
WaterGirl
@Winston: Yes, and this moderator felt the need to tell you that you’re being a dick. And sometimes you’re just plain mean.
That’s a quote from John Cole’s comment policy for Balloon Juice, in case you are wondering.
Ruckus
I am going to speak here now and say some things I’ve been holding in.
I very seriously looked into conscientious objection over 5 decades ago, during Vietnam. I did not want to kill anyone and I knew that was a possibility, me being in the navy and all. I respect life. But it occurred to me that I respected life that wasn’t trying to take mine. Even if I managed to put myself in front of said life, thereby increasing the risk they would try to take mine. And I just couldn’t make the argument work. Because most people didn’t want to kill, at least most of the people I served with and have known. And after all these decades over which I added more examples on a regular basis I have for quite a while realized that most people do not want to kill. And yet millions have died in war, and more get killed in this country most every day. And every life ends the same way – death. Lack of breath. Lack of heartbeat. Lack of functioning brain. I’ve had my arm around someone who died of age and health. As much as it hurt it was peaceful. So peaceful that I was the only person in the room that knew exactly when my dad died. War isn’t like that. War is brutal, it often is far worse than brutal. It’s destructive, it’s explosive, it’s painful, it’s immediate and it’s far too slow. And I’m touching on the high points.
This concept that the people in a military have to be destroyed because someone sent them to make some one else dead and therefore should be murdered is what keeps war on the human What The Fuck List. It isn’t leaving soon. I know that most people haven’t been in a war. I haven’t, but I served during a war. I carried a loaded gun while on in port watch, with orders to kill if necessary. And I know because I asked exactly what I was supposed to do. And that was my order. I never had to pull that gun out of the holster other than to unload it and hand it to the next man. And you have no idea how having that order makes me feel all these years later. So I’ll tell you. Not one bit better than the day I was given it. Not one iota better. Would I have done it? We’ll never know and that includes me. Anyone who tells me they know what they would do is so fucking full of shit that their teeth are shit brindle brown and their breath smells of farts. War is fucking hell. It always has been, it always will be and there is no way to change that except the extremely small possibility of the human race growing the fuck up. I’m not holding my breath.
Winston
@Omnes Omnibus: The problem that I see between you and me is you think there is a peaceable solution to this Ukraine war. I see it that you want us to surrender, and I see it that Russia surrenders. You apparently want us to surrender.
Ruckus
I wonder how many people have reached for the door to the bakery?
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: ICYMI, Galeev has one of his giant threads on the topic of who is serving in the Russian army:
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Winston: You are putting words in my mouth. You obviously do not know the first thing about what I believe except that I believe a first fucking nuclear strike on Russian is both insane and wrong.
YY_Sima Qian
@Lyrebird: I have to believe “Legion of Free Russia” is a psychological warfare operation, but could be a very effective one to sow distrust among Russian ranks. I would only believe such rapid switching of sides if it was a civil war.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Contract soldiers “volunteer” to go anywhere Russia sends them.
Conscript soldiers are not supposed to be deployed outside of Russia.
Sadly, due to brutality in the RA, many conscripts are forced to sign contracts on pain of death, or worse.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: Yes, I know.
Gin & Tonic
@Winston: The two sides in this war are Ukraine and Russia, not the US and Russia. Unless you are Ukrainian, which I suspect you are not, you are using the word “us” incorrectly.
Winston
@Omnes Omnibus: I take it that you didn’t look at the scenario chart i posted earlier and you think you know better?
Winston
@Gin & Tonic: Well. Us is NATO and most of the world and them is Russia and Trump party. Maybe you are them. I’m us. I don’t know about you.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
yeah, I know you know.
sadly, the concept of “illegal” orders has been rare in The USSR and RA military.
Winston
No apologies from watergirl for calling me a dick. Russian like censorship here;
J R in WV
@Kent:
You seem to think that these young country boys are as well informed about geopolitics as we are. In rural Russian districts where there is little news, and that little from their equivalent to Faux News.
Almost certain that they have no idea what the Russian military is like in any way, from the brutal treatment of fellow draftees to the strategic use of terror!
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic: Yes, very strange usage.
zhena gogolia
@Another Scott: This has been clear to me just from the videos I’ve seen.
JAFD
@LivinginExile:
There were some Italian units fighting on the Allied side in 1944-45, and the Polish units fighting in Italy and Normandy would check POWs to find Poles drafted by the Wehrmacht.
ljdramone
@Winston:
Amateur image analyst here, but I don’t see any fighters or bombers in that Google Maps image. It does generally look like a military airbase, but the aircraft are all transport/cargo types.
The four-engined jet aircraft are all Ilyushin Il-76. The smaller twin-engined aircraft are mostly Antonov An-26/An-32. The aircraft lined up neatly on the parking apron roughly in the center of the airbase are Antonov An-2, a large single-engine biplane that first flew in 1947.
Winston
@ljdramone: I’m surprised you didn’t see that cruise missile. Think it’s a nuke?
ljdramone
@Winston:
If you’re talking about the probable Pilatus PC-12 parked on the apron in front of the Pskov airport terminal (at lat-lon 57.796682468305306, 28.391886405555358), no I don’t think it’s a nuke.
If you see camouflaged cruise missiles hiding in the woods near the airport and you want them to have nuclear warheads, then yeah, whatever.