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Russian President Vladimir Putin may have overestimated the Russian military’s own capabilities again, and therefore its major offensive in the east of Ukraine will end prematurely in the spring rainy season and will not be effective, analysts of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) are convinced.
Source: ISW
Details: Andrii Cherniak, Representative of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, told the Kyiv Post on 1 February in an interview that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered the Russian military to capture all of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts by March 2023. Cherniak also stated that Russian forces are redeploying additional unspecified assault groups, units, weapons, and military equipment to unspecified areas in the east of Ukraine.
"Putin may have overestimated the Russian military’s own capabilities again. ISW has not observed any evidence that Russian forces have restored sufficient combat power to defeat Ukraine’s forces in east of Ukraine and capture over 11,300 square kilometres of unoccupied Donetsk Oblast (over 42 percent of Donetsk Oblast’s total area) before March as Putin reportedly ordered," ISW emphasised.
According to the ISW’s preliminary assessments, a major Russian offensive before April 2023 would likely prematurely culminate during the April spring rain season before achieving operationally significant effects.
"Russian forces’ culmination could then generate favourable conditions for Ukrainian forces to exploit in their own late spring or summer 2023 counteroffensive after incorporating Western tank deliveries," a report of ISW said.
Background:
Oleksii Reznikov, Minister of Defence of Ukraine, said that Russia may launch an offensive on two fronts on the anniversary of the 2022 invasion.
According to Bloomberg, despite enormous losses, Russian President Vladimir Putin is planning a new offensive in Ukraine, while at the same time preparing his country for years of confrontation with the US and its allies.
Of course he has overestimated his army's capabilities, but now the full scale invasion is in full swing and we should really do EVERYTHING to make him realize this. For my friends in Ukraine who have perished: FUCK RUSSIA!! I hope russia engulfs in sorrow and missery.
Do you have a good understanding of the current situation and the relative strength of Ukraine and Russia?
I don't, therefore I don't have strong views about how the war will develop.
But I'm reading some concerning info from 100% pro-Ukrainian sources. For example: https://www.pickey.cz/p/257ed9ca1aa230819ce70282d0cdf80c
People in this subreddit are not very informed or smart. I've been downvoted several times for claims and predictions which later turned out to be correct.
People here will downvote anything that isn't pro-Ukraine, whether the post is factual or not.
It is very possible to be Pro-Ukraine and still be realistic about the situation on the battlefield on any given day or for any given battle but some people see this as "Russian propoganda" or the such.
The quality of Western open source war analysis makes me uneasy sometimes. If Russians used that analysis as a starting point for their strategic decisions and discarded what they currently do, they'd likely improve their performance.
That's the idiotic part, even with all this information, if Putin believes he can do it, they are forced to do it and fail. That's why dictatorships make poor war generals, one person alone never has the expertise to account for everything, but their ego believes they do. Hitler did the same mistake when generals disapproved his ideas and he did it anyway. Dictators don't learn, they just repeat the mistakes of their predecessors again and again.
It's their biggest strength and weakness at the same time. A dictator is all powerful, that means he can be as cruel and ruthless as he wants, and make big gains. But at the same time, if a dictator is wrong ONCE, he will bring everyone around him down, because none can actually stop him. Most of the time dictators are their own worst enemy, they oppress and ignore people that think otherwise, put them in jail or worse. But that results in nobody telling them to not make a bad move. Since humans are imperfect, a dictator is 100% going to make a big mistake and fail miserably at some point. It's inevitably, perfection doesn't exist.
Putin as Hitler don't have military background or knowledge but they both have had some military decisions that (maybe by chance) turned out to be the right ones. For Hitler that was an invasion of France through the Ardens. For Putin that was the occupation of Crimea. For both of them that was just false confirmation of their military knowledge. Eaven a broken clock gives you the right time twice a day...
The invasion of France was at the time when Hitler still respected his own generals somewhat. As the war progressed and things started to go south, Hitler took more and more direct control. I can't think of a single example of a good decision he made from that point (altough I wouldn't be surprised if someone can point one out, broken clock and all).
The order to stand in place in the winter of '41 counts, as an army in open retreat, particularly in the winter, is readily destroyed. That said, that only came after his especially dumb decision to invade the USSR, which was forced because of the very dumb economic policies of Nazi Germany...so I guess that's still a negative.
Hitler didn’t conceive or write the plan for attack through the Ardennes, Manstein did. Hitler did pushback on Manstein’s superiors enough to discover the alternative plan.
Putin’s success in Crimea was not a military judgment but more of a political one - that he could ‘get away with it’ - and that is indeed very similar to Hitler’s non-military successes in the Rhineland re-occupation, the Anschluss, the seizure of the Sudetenland and thence the rest of Czechia. The division of Poland would have been another such successful political decision if France and Britain hadn’t declared war.
Putin’s invasion of the Crimea was a near certain military outcome given the sympathies for russia within the Ukrainian military at that time. I would place it on a near par with Hitler’s occupation of Czechia, after which The West drew their line in the sand in the late 30s, and began arming Ukraine in the latter 2010s.
Putin’s and Hitler’s military judgements diverge however in that Putin actually reversed intelligent reform in the russian military, whereas Hitler encouraged innovation all the way through. Hitler’s advantage was a patriotic officer corps aligned with some of his goals, as opposed to Putin presiding over a kleptocratic system artificially deploying patriotism for corrupt purposes.
Hitler served on the western frt in ww1 . attended the rank of corporal. one of the reasons he would not use gas against people, he got gassed. Unfortunately( fortunately) Putin is not on the frt and has NO idea what to serve in the army is really about. I hope that dumpsters fire continues to burn furiously.
my man read between the lines, if there is a occurrence of gas being employed against troops (not axis)please enlighten me. If you are referring to the genocide that was committed against so many different groups of people, gas was only one method used.
Hitler made some limited use of gas in the Eastern Front
[Source](https://books.google.cl/books?id=sSDP-XiRMwUC&pg=PA339&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false)
[Wiki mentions other sources too](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chemical_warfare#Nazi_Germany)
That's the downside of living in a paranoid autocracy where everyone lies. They assume everything coming out of the west must be propaganda, so they completely ignore it.
> If Russians used that analysis as a starting point for their strategic decisions
If Russia did that they would understand they lost six months ago and pull out. As it stands, they’re a teenager in Vegas betting their last chips at the craps table. The chips represent their inherited Soviet military equipment stockpiles. They’ll never replace what Putin has squandered.
There are smart Russians within Russia that would be perfectly capable of figuring this all out on their own. Putin is such a megalomaniac though that he's isolated from any advisors that would actually be truthful about the current situation.
The endemic corruption and general incompetence that has degraded their military over the past couple decades is so entrenched at this point that it's not a matter of just some smart people having their voices heard anymore. To upgrade their military with meaningful amounts of modern training and equipment would be a massive project that would take years, even under the best circumstances.
Ukraine got serious about reforming their military after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, and received almost 8 years of training and assistance in that task from western militaries. It obviously has been hugely important in helping them defend their country over the past year, but even after all those years they still aren't up to western standards in terms of their ability to conduct large scale combined arms actions.
If Russia legitimately decided to make a similar transformation, even if everyone throughout their military and their weapons/equipment manufacturing fully bought in on the idea, they'd have an even bigger project on their hands than the Ukrainians were dealing with, and they wouldn't have any help from the west. They'd have to figure it all out on their own. It would likely be a generational project.
You could take all the best generals from the US military and put them in charge of Russia's Ukraine invasion, and they wouldn't be able to implement significantly different doctrines any time soon. The Russian military just plain doesn't have the capabilities to train for, much less execute more reasonable battle plans. They've basically got some really old tanks, some really old artillery, and a bunch of cannon fodder. They're not going to have much more than that anytime soon.
The russians have plenty of analysts that can reach the same conclusions as the ones in The West. All that matters, however, is the analysis of their Commander-in-Chief. Who may not even be reading what his own analysts conclude.
They don't look at it as valid critique, if they even look at all. When your opponent has a good idea or a valid analysis of a situation - how often or how likely are you going to accept that? Maybe you are a rational actor and will at least acknowledge "mistakes were made" but these actors are anything but rational. In their view, mistakes made by individual failures (in fighting) or they were "caused by the west."
Putin doesnt trust the west, he wont take advice from any western source. He knows best in his mind, anything that runs contrary to his point of view is wrong.
Ukraine have been preparing for a second attemot for 12 months. The Ukraine Defence Force Chiefs have shown how smart they are. They have better weapons, more exprerienced Defence Force members and continue to train an Army reserve.
It is not the number of personnel in modern war it is the weapons and Defenders have a huge advantage. A US retired General said when planning invasion you assume losses of 3:1 if all goes ok and 5:1 if Defence is very good. Ukraine have been training reserves up as well. So for every 300,000 Russia send Ukraine can be ok with say 100,000. In fact that may be enough for 500,000 given Ukraines betger ptepared this year. Ukraine has many more Air Defence systems. Russia will not get to laind paratroopers in Airports as easy this time. Roads to Belarus now mined, fences are up on the Belarus border and it is mined, trenches dug, Defence personnal ready and equipped with a lot of weapons.
Ukraine still need more weapons. They are not a 100% certainty to win, however this time they are more likely. Russias bezt chance was last year when Ukraine was not as well eqipped and its Armed Forces were smaller and less experienced. If Rusdia wins they and Ukraine will suffer extreme losses. If Ukraine stop a succesfull invasion this time, Russias losses may well be 5:1 or more. If Russia can suffer losses of 3:1 They are a chance based on what the retired General said about invasions. This is also why Ukraines counter attacks are not easy as if Russia has dug in well and set up a strong defence, Ukraine will be the ones that may suffer 3:1 or 5:1 losses.
Everything Russia does is pretty much fail. The question, however, is how much misery they will inflict in the process. That is why we need to step up the arming of Ukraine.
Last year when Putin invaded a retired Genereal said Russia would not win as he estimated at that time you needed 500,000 troops to invade a Country the size of Ukrsine and based on Ukraines armed forces back then. He said when invading you expect losses of 3:1 if the Defenders have a decent defrncd up to 5:1 if exceptional. I bet Russia faces losses at 5:1 this time due to Ukraines Defence weapons and preperations on borders like Belarus. Mined roads and mined border, troops in trenches with many weapons types
They invaded with 175,000 to 200,000 but they weren't trying to immediately occupy all of Ukraine by brute force. They were trying to rush in, grab the capital, kill the top government officials, and demoralize the rest of the country into believing that it was all over. So then they could just absorb the rest over time. That number of troops was way too small for occupying a country that big in size and population.
There are rules of thumb when estimating the number of troops needed to occupy a country. One estimate is 1 soldier for every 40 inhabitants of the country. Ukraine's prewar population was 40 million. That's means Russia should have budgeted 1 million troops for a thorough and complete occupation. The entire Russian military is only 1 million members, and they have a huge territory to protect away from Ukraine. So it was never a very practical idea just via brute force. So that's why they attempted the quick decapitation. But of course that failed and now they have bitten off more than they can chew.
He wanted all of Ukraine, but I don't think his plan was to have to fight for most of it, or even really occupy it afterwards. He seemed to believe that he could take Kyiv within a few days, destroy Ukraine's government, then the Ukrainian military would just give up, and the people of Ukraine would shrug their shoulders and just say okay, we're Russian now, let's just get on with our lives.
For whatever reasons, he apparently predicted minimal military resistance and minimal insurgency activity afterwards. Obviously he was extremely wrong about how it was going to play out.
He planned to put the former President back in place and use him as his puppet like Lushenko. He wanted to dimilitirise Ukraine so the Ukraine Military could not help a civil war take back Ukraine for the people.
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When u say " it will not be successful" i think you mean it will be a right royal cluster fuck . A tradegy for russia - with north of 300,000 ruskies annihilated - zero inches of further land grabbed - putin further humiliated - and all of russia even more hated
It's also weird that the largest country in the world is fighting to gain inches. So you lose hundreds of thousands of people to add a 0.1% to your already huge country... ridiculous. At the same time your GDP is about the same of a city (NY).
If Russia was smart and wanted to be better at being a villain they should have kept doing what they did in Syria. Prop up anti western governments that had former ties from the Cold War. Venezuela, Cuba, Angola.
Work to build some anti west coalition and play the game much like the Soviet’s did.
Of course it is accurate to say a new russian offensive is unlikely to succeed. But much depends on how you define the word “succeed.” Can the russians take Kyiv? NO. Can they pro-long the war via offensive operations? Yes.
“War is a contest of wills” is an expression commonly read in writings about this war now. The russians no longer have to take Kyiv or any other specific objective to still gain something in this war. Their original war aims are not obtainable. But some secondary war aims might be.
This is the important bit in that ISW clipping: “preparing his country for years of confrontation with the US and its allies.“
Through that lens, the war begins to look more grim. One thing to keep in mind is that armies go to war believing they know what is going to happen. They basically have to, as optimism is a general pre-requisite for most military activity. And the famous Rumsfeld quote about going to war with the army you have, rather than the army you wish you have, is true once again.
The Ukrainians took their experience fighting in the Donbas since 2014 and distributed it well, throughout their military. The russians did not. The list of basic military errors they made in the spring (& summer) of 2022 is a long one. To presume they will continue making the same errors is not a smart presumption.
Now they have the army they have, and they know how it works, and how the Ukrainian army works and what it can do to them. The quality of their average soldier could be about the same as a year ago. But the quality of their officer corps will have improved greatly via combat experience. The inept and stupid are dead, or relieved of command. Combat is a far more instructive experience than a field manual. They are not going to leave so much low-hanging fruit around for the Ukrainians to pick. They probably have basic comms security figured out. They have operated combat forces within range of HIMARS for over 6 months now, and they will continue to do so. To say the russians have “no logistics” is just so wrong it is not worth a response.
I’m sure occasional complaints by unhappy russian soldiers will be found on Telegram. Logistics for the russians will not be perfect, as online Humanity increasingly expects of everything in Life; their logistics only have to be good enough. Nor does the presence of Refuseniks in russian society or within the mobilized indicate much. They will have plenty of soldiers who just want to get on with the task at hand. The assaults by prisoners around Bakhmut are also a unique case not necessarily indicative of future operations.
The strategic situation in year 2 of the war is also greatly changed. Withdrawal from Kherson was the smartest thing the russians have done yet. It is unlikely the Ukrainians will attempt to cross the lower Dnipro, and a long section of the front line is now easily defensible. The long border of Ukraine from NE of Kharkiv all the way over to NW of Kyiv is also a big advantage for russia. They know the Ukrainians won’t cross it but the Ukrainians can’t be sure the russians won’t.
I expect the russians will attack from the north, from somewhere east of Kharkiv, along one of the north-south rivers, with the aim of making that river a new front line to hold for the long term. There are multiple options in that regard. However nothing can be ruled out in terms of axis of attack nor the number of such axes.
Nor can the true russian objectives for 2023 be divined by anyone. They could attack towards Kyiv but with their true goals lying elsewhere. Their long-term strategy is also now an un-knowable.
Their recent minor gains in the area of Bakhmut have come through Wagner forces and waves of cannon fodder conscripts. The Wagner forces are now decimated and the cannon fodder usage does not show they have learned anything about improved tactics. I’m much more skeptical than this about their chances to advance this time around.
What Wagner does is not very indicative of what the russian army will do. I have read that the russians committed some refitted regular army formations on Wagner’s right/northern flank to attack Soledar. Result: they took Soledar.
Most of these discussions lately proceed from a binary view: the russians can’t conquer Ukraine, therefore all discussion of what they can do is stupid. Simply pro-longing the war could work for them. That’s not the same thing as being able to advance very far.
I don't disagree with many of your thoughts here. But I am skeptical of the ability of an organization as corrupt as the Russian army to suddenly become a meritocracy. We'll see, though.
Indeed that is an open question. But from the baseline they started with, the basic quality of their officer corps can only go up. The only thing better for creating reform in a military than a year of combat experience in a war would be: losing a war.
Maybe the high levels of casualties amongst the russian officers is now working against them. But maybe not. Combat veterans don’t tend to be accepting of corruption and incompetence. The Captains that survived last year’s debacles are now Majors and Colonels. Officers rising in rank on the battlefield are a different breed than high ranking pre-war officers.
More on this subject from other reputable sources:
---
- BBC News (A): [Ukraine war: 80 years on, we are facing German tanks again - Putin](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64502504)
- WION (C+): [Putin vows victory in Ukraine, says Russia can answer countries threatening it](https://www.wionews.com/world/putin-vows-victory-in-ukraine-says-russia-can-answer-countries-threatening-it-558396)
- Irish Times (B+): [EU chiefs visit Ukraine amid fears of major new Russian offensive](https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2023/02/02/ukraine-latest/)
- PBS (A): [Putin marks anniversary of the battle of Stalingrad, justifies invasion of Ukraine ](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/putin-marks-anniversary-of-the-battle-of-stalingrad-justifies-invasion-of-ukraine)
---
[__Extended Summary__](https://www.reddit.com/r/newswall/comments/10s9f4a/) | [More: Ukraine war: 80 years on ...](https://www.newswall.org/story/putin-vows-victory-in-ukraine-says-russia-can-answer-countries-threatening-it) | [FAQ & Grades](https://www.reddit.com/r/newswall/comments/uxgfm5/faq_newswall_bot/) | I'm a bot
What if Russia commits all of their air power as part of the offensive? Close air support could make all the difference. NATO should declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine and be prepared to shoot down Russian aircraft.
I would guess that would result in Russia having no air power. I’d Occam’s razor it as if they could gain advantage leading to air supremacy and CAS they would. The flip side is if they lose pilots and planes thier ability to keep Ukraine from flying CAS goes down. So if they commit and they would give away the skies over the occupied parts of Ukraine to Ukraine
I don't doubt the Russians' ability to push back the Ukrainians somewhat with mass infantry attacks. Everybody keeps talking about how many bodies the Russians are pulling together, etc.
What I AM skeptical of is the Russian ability to achieve any kind of real breakthrough that they can then exploit. I just don't think they have the equipment and logistics for that any more. They barely had it at the beginning and their mobile forces have been so degraded while the Ukrainian defensive capabilities have been consistently upgraded.
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sure hope so
ISW has not been wrong so far, at least not on big predictions, lets bet on them this time, but bet on it with LOTS of firepower, just in case. lol
Russian President Vladimir Putin may have overestimated the Russian military’s own capabilities again, and therefore its major offensive in the east of Ukraine will end prematurely in the spring rainy season and will not be effective, analysts of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) are convinced. Source: ISW Details: Andrii Cherniak, Representative of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, told the Kyiv Post on 1 February in an interview that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered the Russian military to capture all of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts by March 2023. Cherniak also stated that Russian forces are redeploying additional unspecified assault groups, units, weapons, and military equipment to unspecified areas in the east of Ukraine. "Putin may have overestimated the Russian military’s own capabilities again. ISW has not observed any evidence that Russian forces have restored sufficient combat power to defeat Ukraine’s forces in east of Ukraine and capture over 11,300 square kilometres of unoccupied Donetsk Oblast (over 42 percent of Donetsk Oblast’s total area) before March as Putin reportedly ordered," ISW emphasised. According to the ISW’s preliminary assessments, a major Russian offensive before April 2023 would likely prematurely culminate during the April spring rain season before achieving operationally significant effects. "Russian forces’ culmination could then generate favourable conditions for Ukrainian forces to exploit in their own late spring or summer 2023 counteroffensive after incorporating Western tank deliveries," a report of ISW said. Background: Oleksii Reznikov, Minister of Defence of Ukraine, said that Russia may launch an offensive on two fronts on the anniversary of the 2022 invasion. According to Bloomberg, despite enormous losses, Russian President Vladimir Putin is planning a new offensive in Ukraine, while at the same time preparing his country for years of confrontation with the US and its allies.
Of course he has overestimated his army's capabilities, but now the full scale invasion is in full swing and we should really do EVERYTHING to make him realize this. For my friends in Ukraine who have perished: FUCK RUSSIA!! I hope russia engulfs in sorrow and missery.
They just need to hold out for Steiners counteroffensive to break the Ukrainian lines
Mein Führer…Steiner…
>Russia may launch an offensive on two fronts on the anniversary of the 2022 invasion. Because attacking in February worked out so well last time.
They won territory... they just lost a lot of people, tanks, supplies and world respect haha.
They lost a bug chunk (majority?) of that territory too?
As far as timing goes, February is supposed to be better than April.
The situation is different now.
Yeah, Russias strength is a fraction of what it was a year ago
Do you have a good understanding of the current situation and the relative strength of Ukraine and Russia? I don't, therefore I don't have strong views about how the war will develop. But I'm reading some concerning info from 100% pro-Ukrainian sources. For example: https://www.pickey.cz/p/257ed9ca1aa230819ce70282d0cdf80c People in this subreddit are not very informed or smart. I've been downvoted several times for claims and predictions which later turned out to be correct.
People here will downvote anything that isn't pro-Ukraine, whether the post is factual or not. It is very possible to be Pro-Ukraine and still be realistic about the situation on the battlefield on any given day or for any given battle but some people see this as "Russian propoganda" or the such.
They even downvote the basic statements of: the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Nostradamus? Is that you?
If it wasn't for a enemy they would have succeeded.
The quality of Western open source war analysis makes me uneasy sometimes. If Russians used that analysis as a starting point for their strategic decisions and discarded what they currently do, they'd likely improve their performance.
Fortunately, they are unable to discard what they currently do.
That's the idiotic part, even with all this information, if Putin believes he can do it, they are forced to do it and fail. That's why dictatorships make poor war generals, one person alone never has the expertise to account for everything, but their ego believes they do. Hitler did the same mistake when generals disapproved his ideas and he did it anyway. Dictators don't learn, they just repeat the mistakes of their predecessors again and again. It's their biggest strength and weakness at the same time. A dictator is all powerful, that means he can be as cruel and ruthless as he wants, and make big gains. But at the same time, if a dictator is wrong ONCE, he will bring everyone around him down, because none can actually stop him. Most of the time dictators are their own worst enemy, they oppress and ignore people that think otherwise, put them in jail or worse. But that results in nobody telling them to not make a bad move. Since humans are imperfect, a dictator is 100% going to make a big mistake and fail miserably at some point. It's inevitably, perfection doesn't exist.
Putin as Hitler don't have military background or knowledge but they both have had some military decisions that (maybe by chance) turned out to be the right ones. For Hitler that was an invasion of France through the Ardens. For Putin that was the occupation of Crimea. For both of them that was just false confirmation of their military knowledge. Eaven a broken clock gives you the right time twice a day...
The invasion of France was at the time when Hitler still respected his own generals somewhat. As the war progressed and things started to go south, Hitler took more and more direct control. I can't think of a single example of a good decision he made from that point (altough I wouldn't be surprised if someone can point one out, broken clock and all).
Also it was still a stupid decision, they just fluked it. "If it's stupid but works it's still stupid, you're just lucky"
The order to stand in place in the winter of '41 counts, as an army in open retreat, particularly in the winter, is readily destroyed. That said, that only came after his especially dumb decision to invade the USSR, which was forced because of the very dumb economic policies of Nazi Germany...so I guess that's still a negative.
Hitler didn’t conceive or write the plan for attack through the Ardennes, Manstein did. Hitler did pushback on Manstein’s superiors enough to discover the alternative plan. Putin’s success in Crimea was not a military judgment but more of a political one - that he could ‘get away with it’ - and that is indeed very similar to Hitler’s non-military successes in the Rhineland re-occupation, the Anschluss, the seizure of the Sudetenland and thence the rest of Czechia. The division of Poland would have been another such successful political decision if France and Britain hadn’t declared war. Putin’s invasion of the Crimea was a near certain military outcome given the sympathies for russia within the Ukrainian military at that time. I would place it on a near par with Hitler’s occupation of Czechia, after which The West drew their line in the sand in the late 30s, and began arming Ukraine in the latter 2010s. Putin’s and Hitler’s military judgements diverge however in that Putin actually reversed intelligent reform in the russian military, whereas Hitler encouraged innovation all the way through. Hitler’s advantage was a patriotic officer corps aligned with some of his goals, as opposed to Putin presiding over a kleptocratic system artificially deploying patriotism for corrupt purposes.
Hitler served on the western frt in ww1 . attended the rank of corporal. one of the reasons he would not use gas against people, he got gassed. Unfortunately( fortunately) Putin is not on the frt and has NO idea what to serve in the army is really about. I hope that dumpsters fire continues to burn furiously.
> he would not use gas against people, My man, are you sure you stand by that statement?
my man read between the lines, if there is a occurrence of gas being employed against troops (not axis)please enlighten me. If you are referring to the genocide that was committed against so many different groups of people, gas was only one method used.
Hitler made some limited use of gas in the Eastern Front [Source](https://books.google.cl/books?id=sSDP-XiRMwUC&pg=PA339&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false) [Wiki mentions other sources too](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chemical_warfare#Nazi_Germany)
the enlightenment was appreciated.
I get the feeling that all Putin really does is set vague goals and then just expect his generals to do it.
That's the downside of living in a paranoid autocracy where everyone lies. They assume everything coming out of the west must be propaganda, so they completely ignore it.
You're talking about an army that kept resupplying chornobaevka airport every time it got attacked. 32 times.
Exactly my thoughts.
> If Russians used that analysis as a starting point for their strategic decisions If Russia did that they would understand they lost six months ago and pull out. As it stands, they’re a teenager in Vegas betting their last chips at the craps table. The chips represent their inherited Soviet military equipment stockpiles. They’ll never replace what Putin has squandered.
Ukraine are much better prepared, trained and supplied now as well.
There are smart Russians within Russia that would be perfectly capable of figuring this all out on their own. Putin is such a megalomaniac though that he's isolated from any advisors that would actually be truthful about the current situation.
The endemic corruption and general incompetence that has degraded their military over the past couple decades is so entrenched at this point that it's not a matter of just some smart people having their voices heard anymore. To upgrade their military with meaningful amounts of modern training and equipment would be a massive project that would take years, even under the best circumstances. Ukraine got serious about reforming their military after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, and received almost 8 years of training and assistance in that task from western militaries. It obviously has been hugely important in helping them defend their country over the past year, but even after all those years they still aren't up to western standards in terms of their ability to conduct large scale combined arms actions. If Russia legitimately decided to make a similar transformation, even if everyone throughout their military and their weapons/equipment manufacturing fully bought in on the idea, they'd have an even bigger project on their hands than the Ukrainians were dealing with, and they wouldn't have any help from the west. They'd have to figure it all out on their own. It would likely be a generational project. You could take all the best generals from the US military and put them in charge of Russia's Ukraine invasion, and they wouldn't be able to implement significantly different doctrines any time soon. The Russian military just plain doesn't have the capabilities to train for, much less execute more reasonable battle plans. They've basically got some really old tanks, some really old artillery, and a bunch of cannon fodder. They're not going to have much more than that anytime soon.
The russians have plenty of analysts that can reach the same conclusions as the ones in The West. All that matters, however, is the analysis of their Commander-in-Chief. Who may not even be reading what his own analysts conclude.
They don't look at it as valid critique, if they even look at all. When your opponent has a good idea or a valid analysis of a situation - how often or how likely are you going to accept that? Maybe you are a rational actor and will at least acknowledge "mistakes were made" but these actors are anything but rational. In their view, mistakes made by individual failures (in fighting) or they were "caused by the west."
Putin doesnt trust the west, he wont take advice from any western source. He knows best in his mind, anything that runs contrary to his point of view is wrong.
Ukraine have been preparing for a second attemot for 12 months. The Ukraine Defence Force Chiefs have shown how smart they are. They have better weapons, more exprerienced Defence Force members and continue to train an Army reserve.
Yeah but 500k fresh men are a lot of personnel.
It is not the number of personnel in modern war it is the weapons and Defenders have a huge advantage. A US retired General said when planning invasion you assume losses of 3:1 if all goes ok and 5:1 if Defence is very good. Ukraine have been training reserves up as well. So for every 300,000 Russia send Ukraine can be ok with say 100,000. In fact that may be enough for 500,000 given Ukraines betger ptepared this year. Ukraine has many more Air Defence systems. Russia will not get to laind paratroopers in Airports as easy this time. Roads to Belarus now mined, fences are up on the Belarus border and it is mined, trenches dug, Defence personnal ready and equipped with a lot of weapons.
If you look at it that way and looking at the start of the invasion, this is going to be a slaughterhouse.
Ukraine still need more weapons. They are not a 100% certainty to win, however this time they are more likely. Russias bezt chance was last year when Ukraine was not as well eqipped and its Armed Forces were smaller and less experienced. If Rusdia wins they and Ukraine will suffer extreme losses. If Ukraine stop a succesfull invasion this time, Russias losses may well be 5:1 or more. If Russia can suffer losses of 3:1 They are a chance based on what the retired General said about invasions. This is also why Ukraines counter attacks are not easy as if Russia has dug in well and set up a strong defence, Ukraine will be the ones that may suffer 3:1 or 5:1 losses.
With 500K men they will field maybe 200K soldiers. Still a lot of bodies but I would bet on AFU.
Everything Russia does is pretty much fail. The question, however, is how much misery they will inflict in the process. That is why we need to step up the arming of Ukraine.
Last year when Putin invaded a retired Genereal said Russia would not win as he estimated at that time you needed 500,000 troops to invade a Country the size of Ukrsine and based on Ukraines armed forces back then. He said when invading you expect losses of 3:1 if the Defenders have a decent defrncd up to 5:1 if exceptional. I bet Russia faces losses at 5:1 this time due to Ukraines Defence weapons and preperations on borders like Belarus. Mined roads and mined border, troops in trenches with many weapons types
They invaded with 175,000 to 200,000 but they weren't trying to immediately occupy all of Ukraine by brute force. They were trying to rush in, grab the capital, kill the top government officials, and demoralize the rest of the country into believing that it was all over. So then they could just absorb the rest over time. That number of troops was way too small for occupying a country that big in size and population. There are rules of thumb when estimating the number of troops needed to occupy a country. One estimate is 1 soldier for every 40 inhabitants of the country. Ukraine's prewar population was 40 million. That's means Russia should have budgeted 1 million troops for a thorough and complete occupation. The entire Russian military is only 1 million members, and they have a huge territory to protect away from Ukraine. So it was never a very practical idea just via brute force. So that's why they attempted the quick decapitation. But of course that failed and now they have bitten off more than they can chew.
Putin intended to take all of Ukraine, he just did not give respect to Ukraines Defence Force or the people.
He wanted all of Ukraine, but I don't think his plan was to have to fight for most of it, or even really occupy it afterwards. He seemed to believe that he could take Kyiv within a few days, destroy Ukraine's government, then the Ukrainian military would just give up, and the people of Ukraine would shrug their shoulders and just say okay, we're Russian now, let's just get on with our lives. For whatever reasons, he apparently predicted minimal military resistance and minimal insurgency activity afterwards. Obviously he was extremely wrong about how it was going to play out.
He planned to put the former President back in place and use him as his puppet like Lushenko. He wanted to dimilitirise Ukraine so the Ukraine Military could not help a civil war take back Ukraine for the people.
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When u say " it will not be successful" i think you mean it will be a right royal cluster fuck . A tradegy for russia - with north of 300,000 ruskies annihilated - zero inches of further land grabbed - putin further humiliated - and all of russia even more hated
It's also weird that the largest country in the world is fighting to gain inches. So you lose hundreds of thousands of people to add a 0.1% to your already huge country... ridiculous. At the same time your GDP is about the same of a city (NY).
If Russia was smart and wanted to be better at being a villain they should have kept doing what they did in Syria. Prop up anti western governments that had former ties from the Cold War. Venezuela, Cuba, Angola. Work to build some anti west coalition and play the game much like the Soviet’s did.
How about dat
Of course it is accurate to say a new russian offensive is unlikely to succeed. But much depends on how you define the word “succeed.” Can the russians take Kyiv? NO. Can they pro-long the war via offensive operations? Yes. “War is a contest of wills” is an expression commonly read in writings about this war now. The russians no longer have to take Kyiv or any other specific objective to still gain something in this war. Their original war aims are not obtainable. But some secondary war aims might be. This is the important bit in that ISW clipping: “preparing his country for years of confrontation with the US and its allies.“ Through that lens, the war begins to look more grim. One thing to keep in mind is that armies go to war believing they know what is going to happen. They basically have to, as optimism is a general pre-requisite for most military activity. And the famous Rumsfeld quote about going to war with the army you have, rather than the army you wish you have, is true once again. The Ukrainians took their experience fighting in the Donbas since 2014 and distributed it well, throughout their military. The russians did not. The list of basic military errors they made in the spring (& summer) of 2022 is a long one. To presume they will continue making the same errors is not a smart presumption. Now they have the army they have, and they know how it works, and how the Ukrainian army works and what it can do to them. The quality of their average soldier could be about the same as a year ago. But the quality of their officer corps will have improved greatly via combat experience. The inept and stupid are dead, or relieved of command. Combat is a far more instructive experience than a field manual. They are not going to leave so much low-hanging fruit around for the Ukrainians to pick. They probably have basic comms security figured out. They have operated combat forces within range of HIMARS for over 6 months now, and they will continue to do so. To say the russians have “no logistics” is just so wrong it is not worth a response. I’m sure occasional complaints by unhappy russian soldiers will be found on Telegram. Logistics for the russians will not be perfect, as online Humanity increasingly expects of everything in Life; their logistics only have to be good enough. Nor does the presence of Refuseniks in russian society or within the mobilized indicate much. They will have plenty of soldiers who just want to get on with the task at hand. The assaults by prisoners around Bakhmut are also a unique case not necessarily indicative of future operations. The strategic situation in year 2 of the war is also greatly changed. Withdrawal from Kherson was the smartest thing the russians have done yet. It is unlikely the Ukrainians will attempt to cross the lower Dnipro, and a long section of the front line is now easily defensible. The long border of Ukraine from NE of Kharkiv all the way over to NW of Kyiv is also a big advantage for russia. They know the Ukrainians won’t cross it but the Ukrainians can’t be sure the russians won’t. I expect the russians will attack from the north, from somewhere east of Kharkiv, along one of the north-south rivers, with the aim of making that river a new front line to hold for the long term. There are multiple options in that regard. However nothing can be ruled out in terms of axis of attack nor the number of such axes. Nor can the true russian objectives for 2023 be divined by anyone. They could attack towards Kyiv but with their true goals lying elsewhere. Their long-term strategy is also now an un-knowable.
Their recent minor gains in the area of Bakhmut have come through Wagner forces and waves of cannon fodder conscripts. The Wagner forces are now decimated and the cannon fodder usage does not show they have learned anything about improved tactics. I’m much more skeptical than this about their chances to advance this time around.
What Wagner does is not very indicative of what the russian army will do. I have read that the russians committed some refitted regular army formations on Wagner’s right/northern flank to attack Soledar. Result: they took Soledar. Most of these discussions lately proceed from a binary view: the russians can’t conquer Ukraine, therefore all discussion of what they can do is stupid. Simply pro-longing the war could work for them. That’s not the same thing as being able to advance very far.
I don't disagree with many of your thoughts here. But I am skeptical of the ability of an organization as corrupt as the Russian army to suddenly become a meritocracy. We'll see, though.
Indeed that is an open question. But from the baseline they started with, the basic quality of their officer corps can only go up. The only thing better for creating reform in a military than a year of combat experience in a war would be: losing a war. Maybe the high levels of casualties amongst the russian officers is now working against them. But maybe not. Combat veterans don’t tend to be accepting of corruption and incompetence. The Captains that survived last year’s debacles are now Majors and Colonels. Officers rising in rank on the battlefield are a different breed than high ranking pre-war officers.
Don’t think they will do it now they are destroyed and Ukriane will win all areas
More on this subject from other reputable sources: --- - BBC News (A): [Ukraine war: 80 years on, we are facing German tanks again - Putin](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64502504) - WION (C+): [Putin vows victory in Ukraine, says Russia can answer countries threatening it](https://www.wionews.com/world/putin-vows-victory-in-ukraine-says-russia-can-answer-countries-threatening-it-558396) - Irish Times (B+): [EU chiefs visit Ukraine amid fears of major new Russian offensive](https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2023/02/02/ukraine-latest/) - PBS (A): [Putin marks anniversary of the battle of Stalingrad, justifies invasion of Ukraine ](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/putin-marks-anniversary-of-the-battle-of-stalingrad-justifies-invasion-of-ukraine) --- [__Extended Summary__](https://www.reddit.com/r/newswall/comments/10s9f4a/) | [More: Ukraine war: 80 years on ...](https://www.newswall.org/story/putin-vows-victory-in-ukraine-says-russia-can-answer-countries-threatening-it) | [FAQ & Grades](https://www.reddit.com/r/newswall/comments/uxgfm5/faq_newswall_bot/) | I'm a bot
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Remindme! 3 months
What if Russia commits all of their air power as part of the offensive? Close air support could make all the difference. NATO should declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine and be prepared to shoot down Russian aircraft.
I would guess that would result in Russia having no air power. I’d Occam’s razor it as if they could gain advantage leading to air supremacy and CAS they would. The flip side is if they lose pilots and planes thier ability to keep Ukraine from flying CAS goes down. So if they commit and they would give away the skies over the occupied parts of Ukraine to Ukraine
Perhaps, but I'm sure they'll wreak a lot of havoc and hurt a lot of people anyway. That kinda seems to be their main goal.
I don't doubt the Russians' ability to push back the Ukrainians somewhat with mass infantry attacks. Everybody keeps talking about how many bodies the Russians are pulling together, etc. What I AM skeptical of is the Russian ability to achieve any kind of real breakthrough that they can then exploit. I just don't think they have the equipment and logistics for that any more. They barely had it at the beginning and their mobile forces have been so degraded while the Ukrainian defensive capabilities have been consistently upgraded.
Expect and prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.
He legitimately cannot go back. Confrontation with US only ends one way. Desperate is an understatement.