The Russian-Ukrainian War of 2022 (News and battle updates only)

[GigaBITE]

I agree completely. The demoniacs know how valuable Kiev would be to Russia (and East Slavs who are not dead inside) from an emblematic, civilizational perspective, so they will fortify and guard it with all their might.


But you know what they say, (Kyiv) pride comes before a fall.

 

[SensibleUlan]

So is Kiev definitely not in the cards? That's kind of a blackpill.

It would be like Greece taking the entire west coast of Asia Minor, up to the Hellespont, but stopping short of Constantinople.

Kiev was a long shot to be honest, I've never entertained much notion of Russia having that as a war goal. They tried / gambled on a quick capitulation in the early weeks and when that didn't go off, it was the realistic goals that took precedence.

If Russia can get the southern and eastern realms, they'll be doing great. In the long-term Kiev may overthrow its clown when they end up land-locked.

 

[Ember]

 

[CaliforniaBased]

I think the simple answer to this question is that we just don't know. There are two basic unanswered questions that underlie the Kiev question: 1) Is Russia able to take Kiev with the forces available to them? and 2) Does Russia want to take Kiev?
My personal suspicion is that ultimately it will be yes to both questions. My reason for this is that Ukraine is clearly intent on continuing to fight until they recover all of their territorial claims. That means that even when the DPR is fully taken by Russian forces, they can't end the war even if they want to, because the Ukrainians will just keep fighting, making Russia push farther and farther, possibly eventually involving mobilization in Russia, which has not been necessary for their current level of territorial gains. Assuming they do want to take Kiev though, that's going to take a long time; they won't have it in 2022.

I would say Odessa is like Constantinople in this situation. Maybe Kiev can be more like Ankara. Odessa and the whole south coast and Kharkiv would wrap up the operation by taking the pro-Russia regions that supported Yanukovitch in 2014. I am sure Russia would like to take Kiev, but that would be a long shot and the local population in north and west Ukraine is not as ethnically/linguistically Russian or as amicable to Russia, so annexing them might not make as much sense.

 

[DeWoken]

I am sure Russia would like to take Kiev, but that would be a long shot and the local population in north and west Ukraine is not as ethnically/linguistically Russian or as amicable to Russia, so annexing them might not make as much sense.

As grinding and terrible as this war is I don't see why Russia won't just take everything and figure out the details later. They can get more involvement from the other BRICS+ coutries, especially China, who is in need of battle experience. This is an "Emperor Who Has No Clothes" situation as far I can tell. It gets more obvious to everyone as the days wear on.

As far as Kiev is concerned, there is a "non-linear" effect, or a "domino effect", when it comes to war. The winner takes it all.

 

[TruckDriver9]

Map - 05.08.2022

 

[CaliforniaBased]

As grinding and terrible as this war is I don't see why Russia won't just take everything and figure out the details later. They can get more involvement from the other BRICS+ coutries, especially China, who is in need of battle experience. This is an "Emperor Who Has No Clothes" situation as far I can tell. It gets more obvious to everyone as the days wear on.

As far as Kiev is concerned, there is a "non-linear" effect, or a "domino effect", when it comes to war. The winner takes it all.

I doubt China wants to get involved directly. Brazil, India and South Africa, will not get involved. At best they will remain neutral and continue to trade with Russia. China may begin to supply arms to Russia.

 

[911]

Ukraine has lost around a quarter million men since the beginning of the war, according to a leaked official report. Total Russian losses are somewhere between 1/10th and 1/5 of that, with the bulk coming from the early stages of the war....

 

[Zanardi]

Ukraine has lost around a quarter million men since the beginning of the war, according to a leaked official report.

I find this very hard to believe.

 

[mountainaire]

I find this very hard to believe.

Why though? It seems the strategy of the Ukranians for several months has been to keep throwing conscripts at the battle lines to get taken out by Russian artillery. I'm not sure what they're hoping to achieve, but it's certainly getting a lot of their men killed and with absolutely nothing to show for it.

 

[ginsu]

Why though? It seems the strategy of the Ukranians for several months has been to keep throwing conscripts at the battle lines to get taken out by Russian artillery. I'm not sure what they're hoping to achieve, but it's certainly getting a lot of their men killed and with absolutely nothing to show for it.

Their president is a crossdressing Jew who is 5+ cm shorter than tom cruise, its obvious why Christians are being slaughtered

 

[Zanardi]

Why though? It seems the strategy of the Ukranians for several months has been to keep throwing conscripts at the battle lines to get taken out by Russian artillery. I'm not sure what they're hoping to achieve, but it's certainly getting a lot of their men killed and with absolutely nothing to show for it.

Because judging by the ratios of dead men by every side, the Russian army should have taken Kiev a long time ago. But they're fighting for villages.

Russian army throws conscripts as well.

 

[911]

I'm not sure here whether you don't understand the military situation and dynamics, or whether you don't want to understand it.

This has been an artillery duel with one side outgunning the other by 10-20 to 1. The great majority of Ukrainian soldiers dying on the frontline never even see any Russians. In one disputed village in the Donbass, Pesky, the Russians have been lobbing 6,500 shells per day, while Ukraine can only answer with two mortars and a limited stockpile of ammo. What do you think the result of this battle is going to look like?

 

[KomnenAl]

This has been an artillery duel

This has become an artillery duel only because the initial operation has failed.

To come here and claim that using WWI tactics is somehow a sophisticated, winning strategy is lauphable (at least to people possesing a modicum of military knowledge). A month after the war begun and the stalemate was apparent to everyone a new military doctrine was invented, i.e. "The Mongolian Doctrine". Now we hear of this brilliant new and innovative doctrine of "just throw stuff that explodes at the geneal direction of the enemy". And this is hailed as "winning the war".

A quarter million casualties? Give me a break... this is Imperial Japan level of propaganda. "Oh yeah, we, uuuumm, we performed a strategic redeployment from the Solomons to the Marianas to lure the enemy and destroy him there".

 

[Zanardi]

My thoughts exactly. Where the Russians needed to withdraw, it was a "goodwill gesture", not a withdrawal because they couldn't keep what they occupied. After the new NATO help, they might do even a third sign of goodwill and withdraw more into Donbas.

 

[mountainaire]

This has become an artillery duel only because the initial operation has failed.

To come here and claim that using WWI tactics is somehow a sophisticated, winning strategy is lauphable (at least to people possesing a modicum of military knowledge). A month after the war begun and the stalemate was apparent to everyone a new military doctrine was invented, i.e. "The Mongolian Doctrine". Now we hear of this brilliant new and innovative doctrine of "just throw stuff that explodes at the geneal direction of the enemy". And this is hailed as "winning the war".

A quarter million casualties? Give me a break... this is Imperial Japan level of propaganda. "Oh yeah, we, uuuumm, we performed a strategic redeployment from the Solomons to the Marianas to lure the enemy and destroy him there".

You can call it what you want. The sad truth is that these men are being forced into a meatgrinder by the thousands each day, being treated as nothing more than cannon fodder by their leadership, and meeting their end in the same manner. Yes, it's like WWI except with much more advanced and effective artillery systems that allow the Russians to strike while minimizing exposure to counterattacks. This is why the casualties are so heavily skewed to one side. This has been going on for months now. What do you think is more likely to happen, Russia running out of munitions, or the Ukrainian military running out of men? Because that's the situation as it sits right now, as terrible as it is.

My thoughts exactly. Where the Russians needed to withdraw, it was a "goodwill gesture", not a withdrawal because they couldn't keep what they occupied. After the new NATO help, they might do even a third sign of goodwill and withdraw more into Donbas.

What withdrawal are you speaking of exactly?

 

[eL-JJ]

 

[TCOCBR18]

I wouldn't set my hopes too high for Russia to take Nikolaev any time soon. Inasmuch as Russia may have unexpectedly switched to the offensive on that front, I think the objective would be to preempt Ukraine's much-advertised Kherson efforts, but I haven't seen much indication that Russia is seriously planning to prioritize that area in the near future. Now what I think actually matters is the Bakhmut-Soledar line, and if that "Intel Slava Z" announcement saying Kodema has been taken is true, then the noose is really being tightened around Bakhmut (Artyomovsk). When that line is overrun, the next major Ukrainian defensive line would pretty much be the Kramatorsk-Slavyansk metropolitan area, and if that's taken then Russia will have won the Donbass campaign.
I also do want to add, I think Zanardi is probably right in doubting that quarter million number for the Ukrainians. If that number is true, then their casualties are simply jaw-dropping. To me saying they've lost that much is kind of like when Ukrainians say Russia has lost 100,000 dead or something; it's just too much. But are Ukrainian casualties extremely heavy now? Yes they are.

 

[DanielH]

As a reminder, casual discussion of the war involving tactics and strategy that does not include breaking news about the war such as shifting frontlines, arms shipments, geopolitical incidents, etc., belongs in the lounge thread, not this one.

You should be able to click the link to this thread and expect to see a breaking news item as the most recent post. Warnings will be issued from here on.

If you want to discuss a news item, you can quote that post and paste it into your comment in the lounge thread.

 

[911]

North Korea apparently ready to send up to 100,000 soldiers to fight for Russia!



(I love how Twitter deems pictures of Kim and NK army as "potentially sensitive content", you can almost feel the butthurt with the Ikea Flag censor )

They have a lot of motives for this, which isn't an empty gesture:

-They want their army to get battle-hardened, and get to have real war experience, with relatively low risk, being in conditions where they are on the winning side, working behind an artillery wall

-They get to try new weapons, want to test their drone, short and medium-range missile and artillery systems

-They could get paid in grain, oil and fertilizer, which is their lifeblood, and which Russia has in droves...

Supposedly a small N korean brigade is already in place in Ukraine, there are pictures posted. I don't think Russia will use 100k NK troops, but they will probably take several thousands. This serves as a dissuasion against further NATO escalations in Poland (Kaliningrad) or the Baltics. Note that there already are a lot of Russia-speaking officers in NK, and NK owes Russia a huge favor from the Korean War.



I predict they will send a rolling contingent of ~5k-10K to join the alliance, rotating to spread the war experience around. Also, NK has huge stockpiles of ammo that is compatible with Russian hardware. They will also manufacture MLRS, shells, cannons, guns on a massive scale for peanuts (more precisely, wheat and a bit of oil), they are the lowest-cost manufacturer in the world today by a wide margin.

The other key element here is that if this war escalated, Russia not only has a huge edge over NATO in terms of equipment and ammo, but it also has a huge edge in manpower as well, they can put together a foreign brigade contingent of up to 1 million just from NK, China, Iran and a few other countries. Good luck to NATO trying to match that with German, Italian or French boots on the ground, no one in W Europe wants to die for Zelensky's billions, whereas NK or Chinese troops would sacrify themselves in a heartbeat.

The other aspect here is the diplomatic one, Russia look like winners, projecting power and influence in the Pacific. Putin is putting himself in a position to broker peace in Korea and pull S. Korea away from the Quad. SK can supplement China and replace Germany in highly strategic items like chips, auto parts and high end consumer products, while Russia can provide them with a large market.