Hello everybody! Yesterday, I’ve discussed what do I think the Russians might be planning for this year. As next, lets have a look at what have Ukrainians got to prevent the Russians from achieving their aims. In order to do that, I’ll have to start with the ‘top’: with the political leadership of the country, the top brass of the ZSU (Ukrainian Armed Forces), and their strategies.
Not sure if it is true or an urban legend, but I've read somewhere that Syrsky's nickname "Butcher" was given to him not by Ukrainian soldiers but by Russian ones - after one of his highly-kuddling assaults.
That's highly unlikely - the Ukrainian Ground Forces never being very able at assaults (it's just several specialized units wich are quite able to do it), the Russians would not give this nickmane to the enemy's general with this reasoning, and the Ukrainians just would not catch such a nickname from the Rusians.
Well, the assault in question was probably the one eastwards of Kharkiv in 2022.
Ukrainians, unfortunately, are en masse very prone to emotionally-coloured misinformation spread over social networks (by Russians too). What's even worse is that they unthinkingly share and spread it further without double-checking. As far as I remember, that "Butcher" nickname became more or less widely known only before Zaluzhny was dismissed - at least, that's when I first heard about it.
Another reason for Russian origin it the word itself. "Butcher" in Russian is "Мясник", derived from "Meat", while in Ukrainian it is "Різник", derived from "Cut".
It is not from a western dialect - it was mentioned in "Letter from Cossacks to Turkish Sultan", for example. But it is extremely rarely used nowadays - unlike Russian counterpart, which is often used in their pop-culture.
My bad, offensive. I have to admit that I'm not a military expert, especially in English terms.
As for "м'ясник"... well, you are right - this word is in dictionaries as well, but I still have a feeling that my Ukrainian language teacher would excommunicate me for using it.
To be fair, nobody is very able at assaults. Democratized fire support will do that.
The fundamental laws of warfare haven't changed, though, and the winner of the ground war will be the side that works out how to assemble the combined arms ingredients in the correct way.
Well, Gurkha are. Some other nations have traits (not inherent for every member, for sure, yet statistically common) making them more fit for this. Ukrainians were quite inclined to be good fighters 2 centuries ago, yet now Ukrainian population is quite normal Eastern European one, mostly townspeople and highly educated, not especially physically fit or weather-hardened. The most noticeable Ukrainian national traits now are stubbornness and irreverence, wich makes us statistically inclined to defend our land, yet assault, well, yes, needs coordination, and coordination needs discipline, wich isn't Ukrainian national trait at all.
I dunno, take a look at how the Taliban rolled over the US-backed national government. Centralization and direct coordination are often overrated, especially when they produce signals an enemy can detect and attack. On the whole, Ukrainians seem way more suited for fighting than Americans or russians.
It's the raw density of fire that's making assaults so hard. You can be the bravest, toughest, most fit warrior and still get offed by a drone. In reality, the issue is that most gear is obsolete, even NATO stuff. They bet everything on air superiority, which is just bad math unless your enemy is a generation behind tech-wise.
You're right. I thought all NATO modern tanks had classified APS systems capable of detecting and taking out drones which is why they were hesitant to send them. I still thought tanks were the most likely to be obsolete system in this conflict and still didnt understand why we didnt just send as many of our tanks to Ukraine as possible. To my surprise they arrived over a year late and were not anything to harp about in the modern sense. I could take one out myself today with a few drones. But I think overwhelming airborne platforms with modern sensors and missiles can be a game changer in this war. A lot of Western EW tech not present on the battlefield.
There are still very few vehicles in service with any military that use APS. Israel is the leader in this area. The main advantage of NATO tanks is that they tend not to burn up their crews nearly as often when they get hit, as they will. Ukraine needs as many as it can get simply because more tank crews will stay alive.
And it might as well get them because you'd be absolutely nuts to send NATO troops to war in anything without APS and EW built in. Remotely-controlled turrets that rebalance protection to cope with hits from all angles are on the menu for future armored vehicles.
Part of the APS problem is that having it requires very careful coordination with any infantry in the area. It's mainly going to be useful on the move. NATO doctrine has to be rewritten to reduce the risk drones pose to personnel and without assuming perpetual air superiority. That takes time to implement, and military bureaucracies are effing sloooow...
Strategically-wise - yep, Ukrainians showed unexpected tenacity as a nation, yet looks like it's rather strictly defensive mindset: Ukrainian territorial communities are prone to field fighters to defend themselves being invaded (and it's the same with many Russian-speaking communities - for example, Russian propagandists complained that in Slovyansk-Lisichansk agglomeration just no youth left when the AFU retreated, everyone went to AFU or support volunteers), yet it's much harder to make quick national-wide decisions, to evoke the same level of a nationwide response to defend mutually, harder to organize the Armed Forces into the coherent, disciplined, promptly manageable force - there's too little willingness to obey any distant authority or embrace any conjoint idea, every time is was done historically, it was a brutal force within a full generation to subdue. As an old Ukrainian proverb says: "two Ukrainians - three hetmans"; there's too much bickers, too much independence, wich is not always a good thing when you need to unite and go on the offensive with some common plan.
On the other side, the same national trait provides plenty of innovations, ideas arising and stubbornly testing and promoting everywere, and it's really hard to break the resistance if there was enough time for the resistance to emplace itself: once established, it's hardened with Ukrainian stubbornness and needs no distant command at all.
Overall, it's a tendency to prolong any war, make it viscous and somewhat chaotic, and costly, and it's a risk that some cornered Ukrainian group will invent something too much brutal just because of utter lack of conventional defensive means.
It's tough, but balancing local level initiative and national level intent is one of the keys to building an efficient defense force. I see the Ukrainian tendency to call bullshit on everything as an asset - Americans, by contrast, have been educated over the past generation to do nothing unless a checklist says its okay.
I'm big on the future of ground warfare being powered by small decentralized teams capable of hiding until each executes a swift strike in its area of responsiblity. When everything goes to shit, as it does, the winning side is the one with the most platoons and companies able to think strategically and act locally according to a shared understanding of what has to happen.
This is what western-style Mission Command is *supposed* to be about, but classic military bureaucracies are too risk averse to trust anything not agreed on by a committee. Everyone gets to avoid being blamed for failure that way. People on the contact line are the ones who suffer. Earlier in the conflict Ukraine embraced that mode of fighting out of necessity. Mobilization is part of what broke it down, because it brought a huge number of people trained in a purely Soviet mindset together without - speaking as an observer lacking all the facts, of course - also creating a unified system of training and doctrine to enable highly autonomous independent actions that minimizes wasted effort.
I come at the problem from an information theory perspective - quality of data declines the farther you get from the source. High-level analysis is essential to work out what needs to be done in a broad sense, but implementation is always best left to properly resourced teams on the ground. And they've got to be as small as possible.
Anyway, 100% agree that the longer this war goes on the greater the chances that someone in Ukraine goes off in an unexpected direction and does something vicious. I can't blame them. Were it my country under attack, there would be no rules, only pure pragmatism. Civilians cannot be targeted, for example, because the back end costs are always much too high.
Thanks Tom for another cup of bitter (but necessary) truth to swallow. If the mindset guiding assistance to Ukraine is indeed support success and shun failure (and I sincerely hope it is not), then this would seem to me the root cause of why Budanov is popular, smokestacks rise, planes are not struck, glide bombs fall and the poor bloody infantry suffer. Such a mindset is / would be far more dangerous than anything else Ukraine faces, methinks.
"The percentage of units fully trained and fully equipped by NATO is less than 10% (if not less than 5%), and most of those that are equipped that way are either artillery- or air defence units." Are the Nato trained brigades performing better? considering the short time of training
AFAIK, there's not one brigade that's NATO/Western-equipped. And even if: that's no indication of anything at all.
Examples:
- 47th Mech: 'largely' NATO/Western-equipped and -trained, and having a good PR-department so we regularly see its successes; what we do not get to see is that during the counteroffensive of the last year had to deploy its artillerists as infantry and these have suffered heavy losses...
- 66th Mech: entirely 'Soviet-style', rarely present in the social media (except in Ukrainian), yet doing a good job ever since it's involvement in the Eastern Kharkiv advance.
The thing I cannot fully agree about Zelensky - Zaluzhny - Syrsky affairs is that Syrsky is inclined to fight "bardak". The reason of my skepticism is that the "bardak" was the most perceptible in Ground Forces, and it was Syrsky who commanded Ground Forces all this time "bardak" was growing, and the most ridiculous disordered axes-and-times you have mentioned in this regard were actually the axes Syrsky was sent to command and enforce before the "bardak" went there towards ridiculous level. So, I think while he's indeed much more hierarchically inclined, yet he doesn't look like an organizer - hierarchy for him is rather just about never-challenge-the-order and not about forming an orderly structure of command, unified standards and so on. Therefore, the bardak will remain. And no, I think he will never tell Zelensky not a word about what Zelensky needs to do (instead of thinking about his popularity all the time), because that is, again, the very thing how Syrsky evidently understands the hierarchy: it's you cannot tell your superior what to do, even in the form of advices (that was Zaluzhny who was able and insistent to do it actually, by the different sources: both to let and give advices up the hierarchy).
1. Less experiments with nowel tactics and weapons (because there is no unique enabler-commander for these things anymore, and Syrsky and other high commanders are much more Soviet-style conservatives). Falling morale, because free initiative was one of the most significant boosts of it.
2. The same level or even more "bardak", especialy when something going wrong and Syrsky's trying to fix it by crushing at local commanders in his Soviet style. And now it will affect Air Force, and Air Defence, and Navy, and Marine Corps too.
3. More bullshit-style showing off operations by both regular forces and special services, because no one will oppose this anymore.
4. No prospects of enforced mobilization until it's the only visible way to stop the catastrophe (in wich case it will be likely too late to prevent large territoria, personnel and equipment losses), because it was Zaluzhny who insisted on this and even then it wasn't done, and Syrsky will not insist on anything up the hierarchy.
5. More risky operations and so more losses with, most likely - no significant gains at all and, less likely - some minor lucky success with even more losses as a cost, for the next 2 years.
6. If Syrsky remains in command for 2 years and the Russians do the same stupid things they are doing now - there's some probability of making a risky costly all-out offensive in 2026, chances of success depend on the foreign aid scale mostly.
2) Fathers of 3+ children - mobilizing them will starve their children.
3) Agricultural workers - they produce food for Ukrainians.
4) Workers in the defense industry - they produce the drones.
5) Medically unfit - many of them were already mobilized, some happy owners of spinal disk protrusions had to be evacuated to neurosurgery after wearing body armor and guns.
6) Women, unlikely to obey.
7) Men who hide at home from military recruiters and who will desert at the first opportunity.
Cmon. They are everywhere around me, i know a lot personally and i am one of them.Millions. There is no working mechanism to force the person to serve except catching people on the streets. Especially non state employees. I do not experience any restrictions. I drive the car, use my credit cards, even had my teeth treated in public hospital(lol) recently, etc etc. This is not mobilisation, this is joke.
In reality there a lot of those who haven't received the writ. The writ was left in mailbox, or their wife/parents/children opened the door and said they're not here or the writ wasn't even attepted to be delivered because of other reasons like incomplete records. Lots of people with fake medical diagnosis or other excuses who when re-evaluated by the medical commissions will have to join the army. If the government really wants it they could enforce the mobilisation and hundreds of thousands more men. They can even mobilise women to perform non-combat roles with moving all freed up men to combat ones. These measures won't be popular of course but they can get a significant boost to army numbers.
On the other hand I have heard of a case of a man with schizophrenia getting mobilized. The medical commission is a Russian roulette, thus people just hide instead of passing it.
And regarding the numbers: Putin has bought 3M of NK rounds. Zaluzhny thought for a while and decided to counter those with 0.5M of Ukrainian men.
You forgot to mention that all law enforcement personnel, military and LE pensioners (+35-40yo) trained to serve with arms, government service, judiciary, prosecutors, customs, border control, emergency personnel, wealthy people and so on are all exempt from mobilization. Only private poor civilians are obliged to protect the country, even if they have health issues.
As you can see, mobilization in Ukraine is conducted in discriminated manner and in fact is not fair. That's why many people in Ukraine don't like how it goes.
Even Zelensky publicly offered to exempt from mobilization those who can pay the biggest amount of tax close to $1K monthly. That's outrageous for democratic country.
Mind that people tend to act differently depending on the position at which they're working. Which is why there is absolutely no guarantee that 'an excellent Lieutenant = excellent Captain, too (or poor CinC Ground Forces = bad CinC)', just for example.
"But, mind: meanwhile, there’s at least one clear answer. Pudding had let himself re-elected. So, if spoiling this was an aim: it didn’t work."
...is this an attempt to imply that bombing a few refineries would even theoretically not get Putin elected - and that would have been even theoretically a plan?
It's fair to criticise those particular targets and how effectively they could hurt the enemy vs other targets; but this bit I didn't buy. Lots of stuff to chew on otherwise.
Exactly. The numbers pudding's lackeys had drawn for him on these "elections" had absolutely nothing to do with whatever happened in reality, not to mention "russian people's minds". I thought everyone understands that by now... So no, preventing pudding's re-elections could never be a serious goal. If (and, in case of Russia ruled by pudding for 24 years already, that's a big if) things like refinery bombings or Belgorod incursions will eventually achieve any useful "psychological effect" at all, it can only be achieved in the long term.
In this regard, I also can't really understand the actual goals of whatever these "russian freedom fighters" are doing. But hey, they are russians. Yes, they are obviously controlled and supported by Ukraine, but their own "local napoleons" definitely have some plans of their own for what and why to do in their homeland if/when they get the chance, so perhaps that's why some of their actions seem to make little sense for a ukrainian observer like me...
I could see some psychological effect in the sense of "Vote Putin! Everything including fuel is getting more expensive and now there are refineries blowing up all over the place, so everything will be even more expensive in the years to come, thanks to his war."
I suppose the same thing could be said for those "freedom fighters", the desired image being a Putin unable to defend Russia itself, even though the war, sorry, SMO, is going totally great.
...so there is a possible effect here, however hard it is to calculate; on the top of pure economic damage.
Defeating the beast was never in the cards in any short order; slowing it down and demoralising somewhat is an interesting goal, however.
Using the attacks on oil refineries as a psychological operation against Putin re-elected would be incredibly naive.
Even I wouldn't expect Putin to lose these elections, especially after the death of Navalny.
And the huge percentage declared of voters for Putin isn't simply for legitimization, it's about identifying with Putin and the regime during a war ("Russians are with Putin"). It's the next stage in a dictatorship.
Well, as I said - nobody cares how people would actually vote. In Russia, nothing stops them from just announcing whatever numbers they need (sometimes without even checking that they add up to 100%).
From the pre-war times, when I still communicated with some Russians, one of the things I understood is that most people there are simply unwilling to protest about anything, ever. They are either too scared, or don't believe it will make a difference, or believe it will only make things worse, or despise anti-government protest as an idea - or all of these things. And those few that could find it in themselves - trust no one. Because in Russia, everyone knows that everyone lies, always. So, even when hating their government, they always hate and despise any opposition even more. I'm not sure how any meaningful revolt can be organized in a place where basic trust is not a thing. Russians outside Russia are often a completely different story - but they can't really affect the mentality of the ones still there.
As for the "freedom fighters" - they were also playing knights e.g. by announcing "humanitarian pauses" every night, promising to restart the attacks exactly at 7 in the morning. Their latest announcement included bragging about the achievement of "liberating two settlements from Putin's regime" (not recently, but in grand total). How much of these two liberated settlements is still intact after all the "counter-liberation" attempts by Pudding's forces and how much love it will win for the "liberators" is anyone's guess.. Mine is - the people from the "liberated" villages probably hate them as much as they hate Pudding & Gladkov by now. :)
Prigozhin also had money and a private army, which he could at least trust as much as he could pay it. And, judging by how quickly he backed off - he probably expected to have some other support (from someone more important than "people"), but didn't get it. Well, now we'll never know. :)
Who else in Russia has enough money AND a more or less proper military force of his own, plus a motive to play for power? Kadyrov? Definitely not a viable candidate for the Great Liberator and new Russian Emperor. Of course, he could always try starting a Chechen War №3, but why would he go directly against Pudding, who might just be the main reason his clan is still in power?
Also, as far as I remember, Prigozhin's "popular support" was limited to some cheering as his forces strolled pompously through a peaceful city without meeting any resistance. If he had to start actual street figthing e.g. in Rostov, I imagine that support would evaporate quickly.
Even if the Russians doing the incursion at Belgorod area manage to hit the city, I think that the regime won't permit any news to reach the populace in Moscow and St.Petersburg to notice anything. The political base of the regime is within these two cities, from what I understand.
In Telegram, they already have enough news about explosions etc in Belgorod (and not for the first time - it's simply way too close to the border). But I guess nobody in Moscow or Peter will really care until Belgorod or some other well-known city suddenly gets "liberated" completely, which is non-science fiction at this point. :) It's not the first time for their border towns like Grayvoron or Shebekino to suffer, but who cares? Most Russians don't even know they exist (like most Ukrainians probably never knew Vovchansk existed until it was liberated in September 2022).
If Ukraine expected to influence Russian elections by bombing oil refineries, they are incredibly naive. The Russian regime has a quite tight control on everything, and the death of Navalny showed that they are not open to any dissent anymore.
The huge percentage of voters for Putin declared makes it clear - the regime won't accept any political dissent anymore
(the old social contract was "Stay out of politics, we stay out of your life" - now, it's "We are at war - any dissenter is a traitor, we require everyone on the side of the regime, it's a total war against the corrupt West" etc)
Regarding bombing refineries instead of airplanes on the ground: Budanov stated quite many times that for Ukraine to live in peace, there must be a regime change in Russia. As the Russians don't care about their soldiers life's, just killing them won't do the trick. Yes, it might win you the war but not the peace.
As someone growing up in the countryside, our local privately owned gas station used to run out of diesel during two time periods of the year: planting season and harvesting season. That's why export restrictions got now in place. As Russia is an agricultural nation, that could do the trick if the farmers have to watch their crops rotting on the fields due to a lack of fuel.
Another option are the siloviki depending on oil income cause that profit is dwindling. That could also do the trick.
Additionally you seem to overestimate the amount if refineries in Russia. Google told me 33, Wikipedia lists 24, another article told me 44. I guess it depends what you count. Anyway those are far less then Russian Su-34 or Su-35, they move far less and Russia can't produce the spare parts that easily or use outworn ones for spares. Furthermore 14 got hit already.
So for me there is an argument to make for that strategy. Will it work - will see
You need a either a coup or a revolution in Russia in order to overtake Putin. A coup is always a possibility, but I think that is a thing Putin is really concerned about and has planned for. A revolution would need weapons. Lots. Basicallt it would require soldiers turning on him. That can only happen if you kill enough and stop the Russian advance. Win the war first, get a revolution at the end. Of course, if something exploded on the fringes of empire, say Caucasus that might trigger changes. If somebod tok out Kadyrov or something similar. But bombing the refineries want stop that.
I disagree regarding revolution and the strict need of weapons for it. Yes, of course those are helpful, but desperation is also a good catalyst for that. You simply can't arrest people forever. At some point the system breaks and yes that can last. Anyway are Moscow and St. Petersburg two big cities that need food. If that doesn't arrive, he'll breaks loose.
Moreover, attacking the refineries is CHEAP and causes HUGE MONEY LOSSES. And money in russia runs and buys everything... That´s why I´m not with Tom Cooper´s considerations... Those long range drones cost little resources and are best used as costeffective weapon. If 4 out of 5 drones are shot down while attacking an airport and only a fraction of those hits actually something valuable, I can clearly see why they are aimed at the refineries instead...
"I guess it depends what you count. Anyway those are far less then Russian Su-34 or Su-35, they move far less and Russia can't produce the spare parts that easily or use outworn ones for spares. Furthermore 14 got hit already." Spot on!!
I don't think a NATO equiped, trained and even lead Ukr. Army would have done better or worse and no sane proffesional, I am not talking abouth those social media/think thank company commanders with white hair but the real proffesionals, ever believed Ukr. would win the war. And by winning I mean either take back the occupied lands or force Russia to sign a peace deal that would see those lands returned. In November 2022, at our version of NMCC, a very flashy even was held, a lot of VIPs, more stars than on a clear night. Clips, posters with a super soldier, super tech on him, all bells and whistles, looked like a fucking cyborg. It was the new Ukr. soldier. After the presentation was over, one of the American starred guys (wont give his name because he is still in active service), one who likes "the gravy" A LOT, said and I am quoting: "by March 2023, a certain peninsula will return to Ukraine". Almost everyone started smirking. After a couple of minutes, in a private discussion, a retired Chief of General Staff asked if anyone believed it. Never heard a single yes.
Thanks for Info. UA is not able to win war by a fight (unless miracle happens and receive enough weapons).But can destroy RU Economy, but not in 3 months, but maybe in a year. Now is cca 25% capacity off, but UA need to destroy at least 60-70% + some OIL and LNG ports. Questions is how many planes can be destroyed by drone attack and what can RU done after attack? Move planes far away, better protect them. Is there a change that this will reduce attacks? The best solutions for me is to do a 1 very big attack with drones, storm shaddows, atacms to destroy many planes before they can be moved out of range. But again UA need approval and weapons.
Thanks for the analysis. I liked the quality of it (especially the two points about western thinking) not the conclusions. But I cant really argue against them. So your analysis ends with the advice of bombing Russian airfields to stop the glide bombers? I may be a little slow, I think this has been your advice all through the last there four pieces…
I'm afraid that, as you said many times, we are now far beyond the tactical or strategy level, only a political change can really be a turning point for this war.
I live in western europe and I KNOW we hae the industrial and techincal abilities needed to fully support Ukraine in its strugle , I KNOWwe have all it takes: we have money, we have the capability to organize and execute the change. but we are not willing to pay the price of it.
Not a single politician is willing to say to the population that they cannot have this or that bonus because that money is neede to reactivate old arsenal or to build a new chemical plant to build ammo.
None is willing to tell the people that we need to stop funding electrical vehicles and green transition in order to fund the production of more SAM systems. The blanket has always been to short to keep warm everyone. I only hoped that we would have been able to shift it just enough to keep Ukraine warm, but it seems this is not the case.
Putin will win, and we will have wasted a lot of money and SO MANY lives for nothing...
It's so sad to see the failure of our society in grasping the harsh truth and unwillingness to even sacrifice a little of our wealth to help stop such an horrific future..
Your politicians should be able to sell that to the people. How? They know better, they were elected after all - they have their own "marketing teams". Helping people not to die is just as good cause as green energy is, perhaps even better. Even if these people are from another country.
1. Israel doesn't threaten anybody with nuclear war or with any war; this is why everyone criticises Israel freely.
2. I think the number of Israelis who do not support Netanyahu is increasing. That's not Russia, it is a democracy.
Though, like in the case of Ukraine, it takes too long to see some results and people are killed every day. And it is another proof that the UN organization is not working anymore.
Are the citizens of Western Europe coming out to rallies to help Ukraine, no. Then why do politicians have to explain to their citizens that they need to increase production of ammunition and air defense, when the citizens of Western Europe do not care about Ukraine. Let's face it.
My POV is that refineries shouldn't change the general perception of the Russian public(it's unchangeable), but the perception of oligarchs who control those refineries, and who own a big chunk of Russian capital.
I got a strange feeling after reading the article. Zelensky, who forbids bombing Russian airfields instead of oil pipes. The problem here is not only the bombing planning but the lack of everything, look at the video how the K-52 battalion reflects the Russian attack with only a few shells from a D-30 and a mortar. Ukrainians make mistakes, but look at the news how our partners the US and the West are helping us. The US can not allocate money for assistance, then probably soon we can send the Himars back to the US, as there are no missiles to them, then Macron is talking some nonsense about sending his troops. The F-16 story is just infuriating, we will be given 6 airplanes by summer. Ukraine will run out of air defense missiles at the end of March. The Verkhovna Rada is delaying the adoption of the law on mobilization. We still don't have the promised 1 million shells, while Russia produces 3 million a year. The US has huge storage bases of already decommissioned weapons, but they don't want to give them to us. Putin has really decided to just wait it out since no one wants to get seriously involved in this war. Maybe this is a strategy to get Ukraine to negotiate. All in all, everywhere you look, there is only one positive, and this is in the third year of the war. I have the feeling that I am not a Ukrainian, but a Syrian or an Afghan.
That would make lots of Americans red with apoplexy. After all, they kicked out Turkey from the F-35 program because they didn't want them to have the S-400 record the F-35 emissions etc.
Imagine their outrage with Ukraine proposing giving the spent Patriot and HIMARS launchers to Russia...
One of the points among the Russian conditions for Ukrainian surrender in 2022 was that Ukraine should be unable to buy any foreign weapons in the future. If the updated conditions are similar, Ukraine will have no use for those launchers (and even missiles for them).
On the other hand, the launchers become a burden if they have nothing to launch. Why not give them away?
Because the critical part is the command center and radars etc. Not the launchers per se. Having access to the actual hardware would be a goldmine for Russian EW efforts
we will send them to the defense of Berlin or France, where they are needed more and the US will surely give them missiles, NATO allies after all:) And then there are Abrams, but the Russians can capture them and they can be sent as well. We'll fight with fpv-drones.
1. Budanov is sending many UAVs to Russia, but just handful of them hit targets. If they are lucky and hit war airplanes - public cheers much more than hitting refineries. Remember how they hit A50 repair base? With just a small hole in the roof? So, they are hitting refineries at least. Sorry, UAVs are no Iskanders, no Tauruses.
2. Damaging refineries would not stop VSFR, not cause any serious shortage of fuels, would not knock Russian economy to the knees. As you have mention, Russia would simply by fuels from abroad (Belarus), but for higher price. So, this is "just" weakening Russia economy and have some effect in the long term only.
3. I bet Budanov changes targets to make AD less successful. But as I have mentioned, many UAV attacks fail.
Thank you Tom for being a voice of reality.
Harsh truth but required one so the people would remove the rose-colored glasses.
Not sure if it is true or an urban legend, but I've read somewhere that Syrsky's nickname "Butcher" was given to him not by Ukrainian soldiers but by Russian ones - after one of his highly-kuddling assaults.
That's highly unlikely - the Ukrainian Ground Forces never being very able at assaults (it's just several specialized units wich are quite able to do it), the Russians would not give this nickmane to the enemy's general with this reasoning, and the Ukrainians just would not catch such a nickname from the Rusians.
Well, the assault in question was probably the one eastwards of Kharkiv in 2022.
Ukrainians, unfortunately, are en masse very prone to emotionally-coloured misinformation spread over social networks (by Russians too). What's even worse is that they unthinkingly share and spread it further without double-checking. As far as I remember, that "Butcher" nickname became more or less widely known only before Zaluzhny was dismissed - at least, that's when I first heard about it.
Another reason for Russian origin it the word itself. "Butcher" in Russian is "Мясник", derived from "Meat", while in Ukrainian it is "Різник", derived from "Cut".
Ukraine is bilingual
BTW I have never heard the word "Різник", it is probably from some Western dialect.
It is not from a western dialect - it was mentioned in "Letter from Cossacks to Turkish Sultan", for example. But it is extremely rarely used nowadays - unlike Russian counterpart, which is often used in their pop-culture.
Thus you argument that ordinary Ukrainians should have called Syrsky this way is void.
it's used allright, when one invites riznyk to zakoloty a pig.
In the "letter from cossacks to turkush sultan" from about 1668-86 they used word "riznyk" ("riznytska sobaka") (butcher's dog).
Guys who wrote letter might be from any region, most likely, graduated from Kyiv or Ostrog school.
But "Sirko" - the guy in command is from Kharkiv region.
So it might be some word which was replaced in some dialects but still remains in other
Kharkiv 2022 was offensive, not assault. Assault is breaking the prepared defense.
In normative Ukrainian "butcher" is "м'ясник", the same as in Russian, and that is the very word is avialable in Ukrtainian internet regarding Syrsky.
My bad, offensive. I have to admit that I'm not a military expert, especially in English terms.
As for "м'ясник"... well, you are right - this word is in dictionaries as well, but I still have a feeling that my Ukrainian language teacher would excommunicate me for using it.
“Ukrainians, unfortunately, are en masse very prone to emotionally-coloured misinformation spread over social networks “
I hate to break it to you, but I think this is more of a human liability than an exclusively-Ukrainian one.
To be fair, nobody is very able at assaults. Democratized fire support will do that.
The fundamental laws of warfare haven't changed, though, and the winner of the ground war will be the side that works out how to assemble the combined arms ingredients in the correct way.
Or the one with a larger mobilization base - the one able to compensate for the losses for longer time.
Well, Gurkha are. Some other nations have traits (not inherent for every member, for sure, yet statistically common) making them more fit for this. Ukrainians were quite inclined to be good fighters 2 centuries ago, yet now Ukrainian population is quite normal Eastern European one, mostly townspeople and highly educated, not especially physically fit or weather-hardened. The most noticeable Ukrainian national traits now are stubbornness and irreverence, wich makes us statistically inclined to defend our land, yet assault, well, yes, needs coordination, and coordination needs discipline, wich isn't Ukrainian national trait at all.
I dunno, take a look at how the Taliban rolled over the US-backed national government. Centralization and direct coordination are often overrated, especially when they produce signals an enemy can detect and attack. On the whole, Ukrainians seem way more suited for fighting than Americans or russians.
It's the raw density of fire that's making assaults so hard. You can be the bravest, toughest, most fit warrior and still get offed by a drone. In reality, the issue is that most gear is obsolete, even NATO stuff. They bet everything on air superiority, which is just bad math unless your enemy is a generation behind tech-wise.
You're right. I thought all NATO modern tanks had classified APS systems capable of detecting and taking out drones which is why they were hesitant to send them. I still thought tanks were the most likely to be obsolete system in this conflict and still didnt understand why we didnt just send as many of our tanks to Ukraine as possible. To my surprise they arrived over a year late and were not anything to harp about in the modern sense. I could take one out myself today with a few drones. But I think overwhelming airborne platforms with modern sensors and missiles can be a game changer in this war. A lot of Western EW tech not present on the battlefield.
There are still very few vehicles in service with any military that use APS. Israel is the leader in this area. The main advantage of NATO tanks is that they tend not to burn up their crews nearly as often when they get hit, as they will. Ukraine needs as many as it can get simply because more tank crews will stay alive.
And it might as well get them because you'd be absolutely nuts to send NATO troops to war in anything without APS and EW built in. Remotely-controlled turrets that rebalance protection to cope with hits from all angles are on the menu for future armored vehicles.
Part of the APS problem is that having it requires very careful coordination with any infantry in the area. It's mainly going to be useful on the move. NATO doctrine has to be rewritten to reduce the risk drones pose to personnel and without assuming perpetual air superiority. That takes time to implement, and military bureaucracies are effing sloooow...
Strategically-wise - yep, Ukrainians showed unexpected tenacity as a nation, yet looks like it's rather strictly defensive mindset: Ukrainian territorial communities are prone to field fighters to defend themselves being invaded (and it's the same with many Russian-speaking communities - for example, Russian propagandists complained that in Slovyansk-Lisichansk agglomeration just no youth left when the AFU retreated, everyone went to AFU or support volunteers), yet it's much harder to make quick national-wide decisions, to evoke the same level of a nationwide response to defend mutually, harder to organize the Armed Forces into the coherent, disciplined, promptly manageable force - there's too little willingness to obey any distant authority or embrace any conjoint idea, every time is was done historically, it was a brutal force within a full generation to subdue. As an old Ukrainian proverb says: "two Ukrainians - three hetmans"; there's too much bickers, too much independence, wich is not always a good thing when you need to unite and go on the offensive with some common plan.
On the other side, the same national trait provides plenty of innovations, ideas arising and stubbornly testing and promoting everywere, and it's really hard to break the resistance if there was enough time for the resistance to emplace itself: once established, it's hardened with Ukrainian stubbornness and needs no distant command at all.
Overall, it's a tendency to prolong any war, make it viscous and somewhat chaotic, and costly, and it's a risk that some cornered Ukrainian group will invent something too much brutal just because of utter lack of conventional defensive means.
It's tough, but balancing local level initiative and national level intent is one of the keys to building an efficient defense force. I see the Ukrainian tendency to call bullshit on everything as an asset - Americans, by contrast, have been educated over the past generation to do nothing unless a checklist says its okay.
I'm big on the future of ground warfare being powered by small decentralized teams capable of hiding until each executes a swift strike in its area of responsiblity. When everything goes to shit, as it does, the winning side is the one with the most platoons and companies able to think strategically and act locally according to a shared understanding of what has to happen.
This is what western-style Mission Command is *supposed* to be about, but classic military bureaucracies are too risk averse to trust anything not agreed on by a committee. Everyone gets to avoid being blamed for failure that way. People on the contact line are the ones who suffer. Earlier in the conflict Ukraine embraced that mode of fighting out of necessity. Mobilization is part of what broke it down, because it brought a huge number of people trained in a purely Soviet mindset together without - speaking as an observer lacking all the facts, of course - also creating a unified system of training and doctrine to enable highly autonomous independent actions that minimizes wasted effort.
I come at the problem from an information theory perspective - quality of data declines the farther you get from the source. High-level analysis is essential to work out what needs to be done in a broad sense, but implementation is always best left to properly resourced teams on the ground. And they've got to be as small as possible.
Anyway, 100% agree that the longer this war goes on the greater the chances that someone in Ukraine goes off in an unexpected direction and does something vicious. I can't blame them. Were it my country under attack, there would be no rules, only pure pragmatism. Civilians cannot be targeted, for example, because the back end costs are always much too high.
Thanks Tom for another cup of bitter (but necessary) truth to swallow. If the mindset guiding assistance to Ukraine is indeed support success and shun failure (and I sincerely hope it is not), then this would seem to me the root cause of why Budanov is popular, smokestacks rise, planes are not struck, glide bombs fall and the poor bloody infantry suffer. Such a mindset is / would be far more dangerous than anything else Ukraine faces, methinks.
"The percentage of units fully trained and fully equipped by NATO is less than 10% (if not less than 5%), and most of those that are equipped that way are either artillery- or air defence units." Are the Nato trained brigades performing better? considering the short time of training
There was just no such thing as the whole NATO-trained brigade, as far as I know. NATO training was limited with batalion level.
AFAIK, there's not one brigade that's NATO/Western-equipped. And even if: that's no indication of anything at all.
Examples:
- 47th Mech: 'largely' NATO/Western-equipped and -trained, and having a good PR-department so we regularly see its successes; what we do not get to see is that during the counteroffensive of the last year had to deploy its artillerists as infantry and these have suffered heavy losses...
- 66th Mech: entirely 'Soviet-style', rarely present in the social media (except in Ukrainian), yet doing a good job ever since it's involvement in the Eastern Kharkiv advance.
The thing I cannot fully agree about Zelensky - Zaluzhny - Syrsky affairs is that Syrsky is inclined to fight "bardak". The reason of my skepticism is that the "bardak" was the most perceptible in Ground Forces, and it was Syrsky who commanded Ground Forces all this time "bardak" was growing, and the most ridiculous disordered axes-and-times you have mentioned in this regard were actually the axes Syrsky was sent to command and enforce before the "bardak" went there towards ridiculous level. So, I think while he's indeed much more hierarchically inclined, yet he doesn't look like an organizer - hierarchy for him is rather just about never-challenge-the-order and not about forming an orderly structure of command, unified standards and so on. Therefore, the bardak will remain. And no, I think he will never tell Zelensky not a word about what Zelensky needs to do (instead of thinking about his popularity all the time), because that is, again, the very thing how Syrsky evidently understands the hierarchy: it's you cannot tell your superior what to do, even in the form of advices (that was Zaluzhny who was able and insistent to do it actually, by the different sources: both to let and give advices up the hierarchy).
So, what I'm expecting is:
1. Less experiments with nowel tactics and weapons (because there is no unique enabler-commander for these things anymore, and Syrsky and other high commanders are much more Soviet-style conservatives). Falling morale, because free initiative was one of the most significant boosts of it.
2. The same level or even more "bardak", especialy when something going wrong and Syrsky's trying to fix it by crushing at local commanders in his Soviet style. And now it will affect Air Force, and Air Defence, and Navy, and Marine Corps too.
3. More bullshit-style showing off operations by both regular forces and special services, because no one will oppose this anymore.
4. No prospects of enforced mobilization until it's the only visible way to stop the catastrophe (in wich case it will be likely too late to prevent large territoria, personnel and equipment losses), because it was Zaluzhny who insisted on this and even then it wasn't done, and Syrsky will not insist on anything up the hierarchy.
5. More risky operations and so more losses with, most likely - no significant gains at all and, less likely - some minor lucky success with even more losses as a cost, for the next 2 years.
6. If Syrsky remains in command for 2 years and the Russians do the same stupid things they are doing now - there's some probability of making a risky costly all-out offensive in 2026, chances of success depend on the foreign aid scale mostly.
The enforced mobilization is ongoing since the very beginning of the war.
What I meant is enforcing the scale.
That is not going to work. The groups that were not already mobilized are:
1) Youth below 27 - too few and sending them to death is literally genocidal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine#/media/File:Ukraine_2023_population_pyramid.svg
2) Fathers of 3+ children - mobilizing them will starve their children.
3) Agricultural workers - they produce food for Ukrainians.
4) Workers in the defense industry - they produce the drones.
5) Medically unfit - many of them were already mobilized, some happy owners of spinal disk protrusions had to be evacuated to neurosurgery after wearing body armor and guns.
6) Women, unlikely to obey.
7) Men who hide at home from military recruiters and who will desert at the first opportunity.
Nope. Actually the most numerous category - about 4mln - is still those who just never received the writ. (I know the stats.)
Because they either stay at home, are abroad or exist only in the database of the military recruiters.
Cmon. They are everywhere around me, i know a lot personally and i am one of them.Millions. There is no working mechanism to force the person to serve except catching people on the streets. Especially non state employees. I do not experience any restrictions. I drive the car, use my credit cards, even had my teeth treated in public hospital(lol) recently, etc etc. This is not mobilisation, this is joke.
Neither owners of Ukrainian businesses https://minfin.com.ua/ua/2024/03/20/123457432/ nor clients of IT outsourcers https://dou.ua/lenta/articles/it-export-2023/ treat the mobilization as a joke. Both groups now prefer non-Ukrainians.
In reality there a lot of those who haven't received the writ. The writ was left in mailbox, or their wife/parents/children opened the door and said they're not here or the writ wasn't even attepted to be delivered because of other reasons like incomplete records. Lots of people with fake medical diagnosis or other excuses who when re-evaluated by the medical commissions will have to join the army. If the government really wants it they could enforce the mobilisation and hundreds of thousands more men. They can even mobilise women to perform non-combat roles with moving all freed up men to combat ones. These measures won't be popular of course but they can get a significant boost to army numbers.
On the other hand I have heard of a case of a man with schizophrenia getting mobilized. The medical commission is a Russian roulette, thus people just hide instead of passing it.
And regarding the numbers: Putin has bought 3M of NK rounds. Zaluzhny thought for a while and decided to counter those with 0.5M of Ukrainian men.
You forgot to mention that all law enforcement personnel, military and LE pensioners (+35-40yo) trained to serve with arms, government service, judiciary, prosecutors, customs, border control, emergency personnel, wealthy people and so on are all exempt from mobilization. Only private poor civilians are obliged to protect the country, even if they have health issues.
As you can see, mobilization in Ukraine is conducted in discriminated manner and in fact is not fair. That's why many people in Ukraine don't like how it goes.
Even Zelensky publicly offered to exempt from mobilization those who can pay the biggest amount of tax close to $1K monthly. That's outrageous for democratic country.
Mind that people tend to act differently depending on the position at which they're working. Which is why there is absolutely no guarantee that 'an excellent Lieutenant = excellent Captain, too (or poor CinC Ground Forces = bad CinC)', just for example.
No guarantees, sure. Just probabilities.
One thing to point out:
"But, mind: meanwhile, there’s at least one clear answer. Pudding had let himself re-elected. So, if spoiling this was an aim: it didn’t work."
...is this an attempt to imply that bombing a few refineries would even theoretically not get Putin elected - and that would have been even theoretically a plan?
It's fair to criticise those particular targets and how effectively they could hurt the enemy vs other targets; but this bit I didn't buy. Lots of stuff to chew on otherwise.
Exactly. The numbers pudding's lackeys had drawn for him on these "elections" had absolutely nothing to do with whatever happened in reality, not to mention "russian people's minds". I thought everyone understands that by now... So no, preventing pudding's re-elections could never be a serious goal. If (and, in case of Russia ruled by pudding for 24 years already, that's a big if) things like refinery bombings or Belgorod incursions will eventually achieve any useful "psychological effect" at all, it can only be achieved in the long term.
In this regard, I also can't really understand the actual goals of whatever these "russian freedom fighters" are doing. But hey, they are russians. Yes, they are obviously controlled and supported by Ukraine, but their own "local napoleons" definitely have some plans of their own for what and why to do in their homeland if/when they get the chance, so perhaps that's why some of their actions seem to make little sense for a ukrainian observer like me...
I could see some psychological effect in the sense of "Vote Putin! Everything including fuel is getting more expensive and now there are refineries blowing up all over the place, so everything will be even more expensive in the years to come, thanks to his war."
I suppose the same thing could be said for those "freedom fighters", the desired image being a Putin unable to defend Russia itself, even though the war, sorry, SMO, is going totally great.
...so there is a possible effect here, however hard it is to calculate; on the top of pure economic damage.
Defeating the beast was never in the cards in any short order; slowing it down and demoralising somewhat is an interesting goal, however.
Here is a statistical analysis of the elections https://meduza.io/feature/2024/03/20/eto-byli-samye-nechestnye-vybory-v-istorii-rossii
Using the attacks on oil refineries as a psychological operation against Putin re-elected would be incredibly naive.
Even I wouldn't expect Putin to lose these elections, especially after the death of Navalny.
And the huge percentage declared of voters for Putin isn't simply for legitimization, it's about identifying with Putin and the regime during a war ("Russians are with Putin"). It's the next stage in a dictatorship.
Well, as I said - nobody cares how people would actually vote. In Russia, nothing stops them from just announcing whatever numbers they need (sometimes without even checking that they add up to 100%).
From the pre-war times, when I still communicated with some Russians, one of the things I understood is that most people there are simply unwilling to protest about anything, ever. They are either too scared, or don't believe it will make a difference, or believe it will only make things worse, or despise anti-government protest as an idea - or all of these things. And those few that could find it in themselves - trust no one. Because in Russia, everyone knows that everyone lies, always. So, even when hating their government, they always hate and despise any opposition even more. I'm not sure how any meaningful revolt can be organized in a place where basic trust is not a thing. Russians outside Russia are often a completely different story - but they can't really affect the mentality of the ones still there.
As for the "freedom fighters" - they were also playing knights e.g. by announcing "humanitarian pauses" every night, promising to restart the attacks exactly at 7 in the morning. Their latest announcement included bragging about the achievement of "liberating two settlements from Putin's regime" (not recently, but in grand total). How much of these two liberated settlements is still intact after all the "counter-liberation" attempts by Pudding's forces and how much love it will win for the "liberators" is anyone's guess.. Mine is - the people from the "liberated" villages probably hate them as much as they hate Pudding & Gladkov by now. :)
Prigozhin started a revolt that had popular support.
Prigozhin also had money and a private army, which he could at least trust as much as he could pay it. And, judging by how quickly he backed off - he probably expected to have some other support (from someone more important than "people"), but didn't get it. Well, now we'll never know. :)
Who else in Russia has enough money AND a more or less proper military force of his own, plus a motive to play for power? Kadyrov? Definitely not a viable candidate for the Great Liberator and new Russian Emperor. Of course, he could always try starting a Chechen War №3, but why would he go directly against Pudding, who might just be the main reason his clan is still in power?
Zolotov but he does not show any activity.
Also, as far as I remember, Prigozhin's "popular support" was limited to some cheering as his forces strolled pompously through a peaceful city without meeting any resistance. If he had to start actual street figthing e.g. in Rostov, I imagine that support would evaporate quickly.
Even if the Russians doing the incursion at Belgorod area manage to hit the city, I think that the regime won't permit any news to reach the populace in Moscow and St.Petersburg to notice anything. The political base of the regime is within these two cities, from what I understand.
They cannot suppress military reporters on Telegram.
In Telegram, they already have enough news about explosions etc in Belgorod (and not for the first time - it's simply way too close to the border). But I guess nobody in Moscow or Peter will really care until Belgorod or some other well-known city suddenly gets "liberated" completely, which is non-science fiction at this point. :) It's not the first time for their border towns like Grayvoron or Shebekino to suffer, but who cares? Most Russians don't even know they exist (like most Ukrainians probably never knew Vovchansk existed until it was liberated in September 2022).
If Ukraine expected to influence Russian elections by bombing oil refineries, they are incredibly naive. The Russian regime has a quite tight control on everything, and the death of Navalny showed that they are not open to any dissent anymore.
The huge percentage of voters for Putin declared makes it clear - the regime won't accept any political dissent anymore
(the old social contract was "Stay out of politics, we stay out of your life" - now, it's "We are at war - any dissenter is a traitor, we require everyone on the side of the regime, it's a total war against the corrupt West" etc)
Thank you for the great read.
Regarding bombing refineries instead of airplanes on the ground: Budanov stated quite many times that for Ukraine to live in peace, there must be a regime change in Russia. As the Russians don't care about their soldiers life's, just killing them won't do the trick. Yes, it might win you the war but not the peace.
As someone growing up in the countryside, our local privately owned gas station used to run out of diesel during two time periods of the year: planting season and harvesting season. That's why export restrictions got now in place. As Russia is an agricultural nation, that could do the trick if the farmers have to watch their crops rotting on the fields due to a lack of fuel.
Another option are the siloviki depending on oil income cause that profit is dwindling. That could also do the trick.
Additionally you seem to overestimate the amount if refineries in Russia. Google told me 33, Wikipedia lists 24, another article told me 44. I guess it depends what you count. Anyway those are far less then Russian Su-34 or Su-35, they move far less and Russia can't produce the spare parts that easily or use outworn ones for spares. Furthermore 14 got hit already.
So for me there is an argument to make for that strategy. Will it work - will see
You need a either a coup or a revolution in Russia in order to overtake Putin. A coup is always a possibility, but I think that is a thing Putin is really concerned about and has planned for. A revolution would need weapons. Lots. Basicallt it would require soldiers turning on him. That can only happen if you kill enough and stop the Russian advance. Win the war first, get a revolution at the end. Of course, if something exploded on the fringes of empire, say Caucasus that might trigger changes. If somebod tok out Kadyrov or something similar. But bombing the refineries want stop that.
I disagree regarding revolution and the strict need of weapons for it. Yes, of course those are helpful, but desperation is also a good catalyst for that. You simply can't arrest people forever. At some point the system breaks and yes that can last. Anyway are Moscow and St. Petersburg two big cities that need food. If that doesn't arrive, he'll breaks loose.
You might have a point, but that scenario is something they will try hard to avoid. But of course if it could be managed…
I currently also don't see a force in the shadow like that one that brought Khameni to power. But hey, there were also no weapons.
Anyway, there is a long way to that and in occupied France there was also no fuel to collect milk and it didn't collapse the occupiers.
Only history will tell.
Moreover, attacking the refineries is CHEAP and causes HUGE MONEY LOSSES. And money in russia runs and buys everything... That´s why I´m not with Tom Cooper´s considerations... Those long range drones cost little resources and are best used as costeffective weapon. If 4 out of 5 drones are shot down while attacking an airport and only a fraction of those hits actually something valuable, I can clearly see why they are aimed at the refineries instead...
"I guess it depends what you count. Anyway those are far less then Russian Su-34 or Su-35, they move far less and Russia can't produce the spare parts that easily or use outworn ones for spares. Furthermore 14 got hit already." Spot on!!
Well, now in the news is that the USA is asking Ukraine to stop attacking Russian refineries, because the global fuel prices are increasing and it's affecting the American citizens, too. (Roll-eyes). https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-has-urged-ukraine-halt-strikes-russian-energy-infrastructure-ft-reports-2024-03-22/
Also, the EU imported Russuan agricultural products worth more than 1 bn euro in 2023, but the EU farmers are protesting against Ukraine. (Roll-eyes).
https://abcnews-go-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/International/wireStory/eu-impose-tariffs-russian-grain-fearing-moscow-exports-108383079?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17111270878792&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fabcnews.go.com%2FInternational%2FwireStory%2Feu-impose-tariffs-russian-grain-fearing-moscow-exports-108383079
I don't think a NATO equiped, trained and even lead Ukr. Army would have done better or worse and no sane proffesional, I am not talking abouth those social media/think thank company commanders with white hair but the real proffesionals, ever believed Ukr. would win the war. And by winning I mean either take back the occupied lands or force Russia to sign a peace deal that would see those lands returned. In November 2022, at our version of NMCC, a very flashy even was held, a lot of VIPs, more stars than on a clear night. Clips, posters with a super soldier, super tech on him, all bells and whistles, looked like a fucking cyborg. It was the new Ukr. soldier. After the presentation was over, one of the American starred guys (wont give his name because he is still in active service), one who likes "the gravy" A LOT, said and I am quoting: "by March 2023, a certain peninsula will return to Ukraine". Almost everyone started smirking. After a couple of minutes, in a private discussion, a retired Chief of General Staff asked if anyone believed it. Never heard a single yes.
Thanks for Info. UA is not able to win war by a fight (unless miracle happens and receive enough weapons).But can destroy RU Economy, but not in 3 months, but maybe in a year. Now is cca 25% capacity off, but UA need to destroy at least 60-70% + some OIL and LNG ports. Questions is how many planes can be destroyed by drone attack and what can RU done after attack? Move planes far away, better protect them. Is there a change that this will reduce attacks? The best solutions for me is to do a 1 very big attack with drones, storm shaddows, atacms to destroy many planes before they can be moved out of range. But again UA need approval and weapons.
Shtorm Shadow can't be used on Russian territory because there will be a nuclear war:)
not exactly... they can´t because someone fears there will be a nuclear war
Thanks for the analysis. I liked the quality of it (especially the two points about western thinking) not the conclusions. But I cant really argue against them. So your analysis ends with the advice of bombing Russian airfields to stop the glide bombers? I may be a little slow, I think this has been your advice all through the last there four pieces…
Once again, thanks for your work.
I'm afraid that, as you said many times, we are now far beyond the tactical or strategy level, only a political change can really be a turning point for this war.
I live in western europe and I KNOW we hae the industrial and techincal abilities needed to fully support Ukraine in its strugle , I KNOWwe have all it takes: we have money, we have the capability to organize and execute the change. but we are not willing to pay the price of it.
Not a single politician is willing to say to the population that they cannot have this or that bonus because that money is neede to reactivate old arsenal or to build a new chemical plant to build ammo.
None is willing to tell the people that we need to stop funding electrical vehicles and green transition in order to fund the production of more SAM systems. The blanket has always been to short to keep warm everyone. I only hoped that we would have been able to shift it just enough to keep Ukraine warm, but it seems this is not the case.
Putin will win, and we will have wasted a lot of money and SO MANY lives for nothing...
It's so sad to see the failure of our society in grasping the harsh truth and unwillingness to even sacrifice a little of our wealth to help stop such an horrific future..
So sad...
Your politicians should be able to sell that to the people. How? They know better, they were elected after all - they have their own "marketing teams". Helping people not to die is just as good cause as green energy is, perhaps even better. Even if these people are from another country.
From Gaza?
Who cares?
A proper marketing could do the trick.
Apparently the whole world cares about Gaza more than about Ukraine.
With much less (close to zero) result.
We shall see about that.
1. Israel doesn't threaten anybody with nuclear war or with any war; this is why everyone criticises Israel freely.
2. I think the number of Israelis who do not support Netanyahu is increasing. That's not Russia, it is a democracy.
Though, like in the case of Ukraine, it takes too long to see some results and people are killed every day. And it is another proof that the UN organization is not working anymore.
Are the citizens of Western Europe coming out to rallies to help Ukraine, no. Then why do politicians have to explain to their citizens that they need to increase production of ammunition and air defense, when the citizens of Western Europe do not care about Ukraine. Let's face it.
If West gave a lot of weapons noone would care about PR in Ukraine.
But they need to fight for weapons.
It seems weapons tgey got when Western public has attention
Public has attention when they are entertained like show
So you have to generate them show.
Killing orcs during the day, making videos at night.
Watch The Sky Crawlers
My POV is that refineries shouldn't change the general perception of the Russian public(it's unchangeable), but the perception of oligarchs who control those refineries, and who own a big chunk of Russian capital.
I got a strange feeling after reading the article. Zelensky, who forbids bombing Russian airfields instead of oil pipes. The problem here is not only the bombing planning but the lack of everything, look at the video how the K-52 battalion reflects the Russian attack with only a few shells from a D-30 and a mortar. Ukrainians make mistakes, but look at the news how our partners the US and the West are helping us. The US can not allocate money for assistance, then probably soon we can send the Himars back to the US, as there are no missiles to them, then Macron is talking some nonsense about sending his troops. The F-16 story is just infuriating, we will be given 6 airplanes by summer. Ukraine will run out of air defense missiles at the end of March. The Verkhovna Rada is delaying the adoption of the law on mobilization. We still don't have the promised 1 million shells, while Russia produces 3 million a year. The US has huge storage bases of already decommissioned weapons, but they don't want to give them to us. Putin has really decided to just wait it out since no one wants to get seriously involved in this war. Maybe this is a strategy to get Ukraine to negotiate. All in all, everywhere you look, there is only one positive, and this is in the third year of the war. I have the feeling that I am not a Ukrainian, but a Syrian or an Afghan.
Himars and Patriots can be gifted to Russia as a part of the peace deal.
That would make lots of Americans red with apoplexy. After all, they kicked out Turkey from the F-35 program because they didn't want them to have the S-400 record the F-35 emissions etc.
Imagine their outrage with Ukraine proposing giving the spent Patriot and HIMARS launchers to Russia...
One of the points among the Russian conditions for Ukrainian surrender in 2022 was that Ukraine should be unable to buy any foreign weapons in the future. If the updated conditions are similar, Ukraine will have no use for those launchers (and even missiles for them).
On the other hand, the launchers become a burden if they have nothing to launch. Why not give them away?
Because the critical part is the command center and radars etc. Not the launchers per se. Having access to the actual hardware would be a goldmine for Russian EW efforts
Their software may be even more interesting - it's probably the software that allowed the old Patriots to hit the new Kinzhal missiles.
Of course, I mean the total package (hardware and software)
we will send them to the defense of Berlin or France, where they are needed more and the US will surely give them missiles, NATO allies after all:) And then there are Abrams, but the Russians can capture them and they can be sent as well. We'll fight with fpv-drones.
Yesterday: Ukrainian drones attacked Russian bomber air base overnight, Kyiv source says https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-drones-attacked-russian-bomber-air-base-overnight-kyiv-source-says-2024-03-20/ (result is unsure).
1. Budanov is sending many UAVs to Russia, but just handful of them hit targets. If they are lucky and hit war airplanes - public cheers much more than hitting refineries. Remember how they hit A50 repair base? With just a small hole in the roof? So, they are hitting refineries at least. Sorry, UAVs are no Iskanders, no Tauruses.
2. Damaging refineries would not stop VSFR, not cause any serious shortage of fuels, would not knock Russian economy to the knees. As you have mention, Russia would simply by fuels from abroad (Belarus), but for higher price. So, this is "just" weakening Russia economy and have some effect in the long term only.
3. I bet Budanov changes targets to make AD less successful. But as I have mentioned, many UAV attacks fail.
It's really a grudge. The Ukrainian people are ready to endure the war as long as necessary, but Zelensky isn't ready to make the right decision.
https://kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=1372&t=13&page=3 (Grapgh 7)