I don't think the Russians care about accuracy, and they obviously don't care about taking over abandoned, flattened, burned out territory. So I'm not sure the great accuracy of the various weapons the Ukrainians have will matter. The Russians will just keep sending more old junk and keep slowly advancing, unless something changes.
What exactly Russia gets out of all this I have no idea, of course.
-W
That is my thought as well. Okay, they reduce Ukraine to ruins. I'm sure there are plenty of ruined Russian cities already left over from the Soviet era. Are they seizing Ukrainian farms and wheat capability?
Do they REALLY think NATO would cross their border unprovoked?
This website has plenty of ruined Russian places detailed: https://englishrussia.com/
It's less about wheat farms (though that is very nice), it's about the 80% of Ukraines heavy industry in the Donezk+Luhansk area. Not only the capability, but also that without those parts Ukraine has a hard time surviving as a country (which is the main goal).
Primary goal of Putin was always to make Ukraine into a puppet state (or downright annex), secondary was to destabilize it so much that it sooner or later will become that.
Russia is expending enormous quantities of artillery ammunition. If they are truly breaking out their stockpiles from the 70's and 80's, and if they are getting supplies from Belarus, that tells me that they are A) running out of their own stock, B) having trouble getting it from their stockpiles to Ukraine, C) unable to produce enough, or D) all of the above.
I think you got that partly wrong.
Russia is getting Cold War area ammo out because they have so much of that stuff. It may not be meant literally, but it is described as "anough artillery shells for a hundred year long war".
Getting that now is just normal procedure for a war lasting longer than a few days.
In the rest you are right: What the Russians do have problems is getting that ammo to the front lines. And that is imho what Ukraine is aiming at: They have blasted ammo depots far in back with the HIMAR's etc. Russia has to unload it 100km or more from the trains which are supposed to be the medium which transports the ammo to the front lines.
Ukraine is trying to recreate the logistical nightmare the Russians had in the first weeks. You problably need more than 10 trucks (and personnell) to fuel a single heavy artillery if it fires continously.
Almost all wars get ended by 2 things: 1) morale 2) supplies.
My intelligence says who gives a flying fuck about HIMARS.
Your intelligence sounds like it's the same that give Putin the reports that said that the Ukrainians won't fight back.
Yeah, a hand full of HIMARs or Panzerhaubitze 2000 won't do much in a front line battle. What they can do is blowing up ammo depots and other important targets without the Russians having a chance to fire back. Which is not war deciding but certainly a felt headache. Especially if such an important target is the Snake Island.
and Russia turned out to be far more incompetent that anyone believed.
Not really. Incompetent was the belief that Ukraine would falter like a wet towel again. Which was based on "Only tell me what I want to hear" reports, which is (surprisingly?) often how autocracies stumble. (You might want to read up on the fall of East Germany if you want to have fun, on topics like painted trees and shops that were stuffed only for the one day the head of state visited. Or for that matter how Stalin's farmers fullfilled their unreachable meat quotas for a dark end story.)
Based on those intelligence reports Russia did nothing wrong in their attack planning, and don't forget that their win in Kyiev was largely a very lucky incident around a group of civilians with drones. What if one of the assassinations on the Ukranian president (I think there were 3?) in the first days had succeeded? His Charisma and media appearance certainly helped a lot. What if the 30 mile convoy would not have been stalled for days by the drone group and false intelligence they (or their comrades) gave? Or what if the Ukrainian troops had not been able to hold the Antonov airport by a hair's width until reinforcements arrived? A few hours under Russian control was all they needed to land thousands of troops. But instead one the transports was shot down and the rest turned away.
If thesy would have landed, Russia woudl have a bridgehead, the convoy would likely not have been stalled and Kyiv would have been under heavy artillery fire 2 days in the attack.
I think that right now the biggest threat to Ukraine is Western Europe getting tired of high energy prices and sending arms.
Yeah, that's the deciding factor. I would not at all be surprised if the routine maintenance of the Nordstream pipeline that starts next week will take longer than unusual because "because of sanctions we don't have spare parts to repair it".
Western politicians had a conference on rebuilding Ukraine. I found this a bit bizarre when the war is still going full throttle.
That is what the Ukrainians want though. I think this is A) for PR reasons (we will win!) and B) because it's a lot easier to get promises now than in half a year when they might have won but Europe is in a economic depression for lack of gas and the cruelty of the war is out of the public mind. Of course C) it helps to have things planned before oyu start them is also a point.
I thought Russia used the military to help with fighting wild fires, the harvest, and other things that require lots of labor? If so, then getting rid of the military would mean they'd have to pay people to do that stuff.
No. Things ust burn down in the tundra.
Topic: Ukraine (Read 559891 times)
