ilmoro
Member of DD Central
'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
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Post by ilmoro on May 30, 2024 12:01:40 GMT
Looking at the last two weeks of the war, I would say the following. Russia has involved itself in another meaningless quagmire by opening the front in the North without sufficient weight of arms to achieve anything and in the case of Vovchansk, in an area of no strategic value. Just another place to waste away equipment and people. This war is largely being fought for the “information sphere.” Most of what I see from the Russians involves how things will look. Making it look like Ukraine is losing is as important or perhaps even MORE important than Ukraine losing. Having an attack that gets reported breathlessly as Ukraine falling back in disorder is a big deal even if the land the Russians take is almost meaningless. Agreed There is no much left for russia to diminish Ukraine achievements. Senseless russians cannon footers just to prolong the situation in hope Ukraine and West got tired. Currently time is against russia. Conscripts reached Moskov perhaps this might be an eye opening for russian society although very much doubt so after years and years of propaganda Thats just nonsense. Russia is nibbling away at Ukraine's achievements everyday. The Ukraine is tired, thats a fairly established fact, most units have been in the lines for months if not years, and the West waxes & wains. The Kharkiv offensive is clearly designed to stretch Ukrainian resources & exacerbate the manpower crisis & open up opportunities elsewhere ... thats its strategic purpose, anything else is just opportunistic. Economy is on a war footing, can churn out the relatively unsophisticated weaponry necessary ... Europe cant even manufacture enough explosive, whereas the Russians have tons of dumb bombs to turn into glide bombs.
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Post by captainconfident on May 30, 2024 12:49:43 GMT
Agreed There is no much left for russia to diminish Ukraine achievements. Senseless russians cannon footers just to prolong the situation in hope Ukraine and West got tired. Currently time is against russia. Conscripts reached Moskov perhaps this might be an eye opening for russian society although very much doubt so after years and years of propaganda Thats just nonsense. Russia is nibbling away at Ukraine's achievements everyday. The Ukraine is tired, thats a fairly established fact, most units have been in the lines for months if not years, and the West waxes & wains. The Kharkiv offensive is clearly designed to stretch Ukrainian resources & exacerbate the manpower crisis & open up opportunities elsewhere ... thats its strategic purpose, anything else is just opportunistic. Economy is on a war footing, can churn out the relatively unsophisticated weaponry necessary ... Europe cant even manufacture enough explosive, whereas the Russians have tons of dumb bombs to turn into glide bombs. Russia's manpower advantage is nullified as they must persistently attack. It is one thing to sit in your position and prepare to be attacked then to be ordered out of your trench and attack over the minefield. In the last two weeks, Russia has gained overall about 2 sq km a day. Nibbling is going nowhere. A breakthrough with overwhelming reserves would the only meaningful event. Russia has a huge air superiority and can glide bomb at will. But they have had this superiority for months and it has not proved decisive. If it was a key to unlock the war of movement, we would have seen that by now. Eventually Ukraine will receive aircraft to redress the balance. But the fact remains, that with Ukraine starved of supplies and at their lowest ebb, they have held on.
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ilmoro
Member of DD Central
'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
Posts: 11,214
Likes: 11,406
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Post by ilmoro on May 30, 2024 14:55:28 GMT
Thats just nonsense. Russia is nibbling away at Ukraine's achievements everyday. The Ukraine is tired, thats a fairly established fact, most units have been in the lines for months if not years, and the West waxes & wains. The Kharkiv offensive is clearly designed to stretch Ukrainian resources & exacerbate the manpower crisis & open up opportunities elsewhere ... thats its strategic purpose, anything else is just opportunistic. Economy is on a war footing, can churn out the relatively unsophisticated weaponry necessary ... Europe cant even manufacture enough explosive, whereas the Russians have tons of dumb bombs to turn into glide bombs. Russia's manpower advantage is nullified as they must persistently attack. It is one thing to sit in your position and prepare to be attacked then to be ordered out of your trench and attack over the minefield. In the last two weeks, Russia has gained overall about 2 sq km a day. Nibbling is going nowhere. A breakthrough with overwhelming reserves would the only meaningful event. Russia has a huge air superiority and can glide bomb at will. But they have had this superiority for months and it has not proved decisive. If it was a key to unlock the war of movement, we would have seen that by now. Eventually Ukraine will receive aircraft to redress the balance. But the fact remains, that with Ukraine starved of supplies and at their lowest ebb, they have held on. Im more pessimistic than you ... its going to be slow & painful but at the moment Russia controls the strategic narrative. Unless there is a significant change in circumstances the steady pressure will ultimately cause the Ukr army to crack ... its down to the US because Europe just doesnt have the scope to ramp up production fast enough ... just too many capacity issues & bottlenecks in the supply chain.
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Post by captainconfident on May 30, 2024 15:05:17 GMT
Russia's manpower advantage is nullified as they must persistently attack. It is one thing to sit in your position and prepare to be attacked then to be ordered out of your trench and attack over the minefield. In the last two weeks, Russia has gained overall about 2 sq km a day. Nibbling is going nowhere. A breakthrough with overwhelming reserves would the only meaningful event. Russia has a huge air superiority and can glide bomb at will. But they have had this superiority for months and it has not proved decisive. If it was a key to unlock the war of movement, we would have seen that by now. Eventually Ukraine will receive aircraft to redress the balance. But the fact remains, that with Ukraine starved of supplies and at their lowest ebb, they have held on. Im more pessimistic than you ... its going to be slow & painful but at the moment Russia controls the strategic narrative. Unless there is a significant change in circumstances the steady pressure will ultimately cause the Ukr army to crack ... its down to the US because Europe just doesnt have the scope to ramp up production fast enough ... just too many capacity issues & bottlenecks in the supply chain. I do respect what you are saying and you might well be right. But it is so much less costly to sustain an army on the defensive that I think the Russian army blinks first. Ukraine will be over the hump in a few months in terms of defensive armaments and in the longer term with no strategy beyond costly nibbling, the Russian generals will probably turn on the politicians. Politician. Its an easy regime to decapitate.
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rscal
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Post by rscal on May 30, 2024 18:34:31 GMT
Im more pessimistic than you ... its going to be slow & painful but at the moment Russia controls the strategic narrative. Unless there is a significant change in circumstances the steady pressure will ultimately cause the Ukr army to crack ... its down to the US because Europe just doesnt have the scope to ramp up production fast enough ... just too many capacity issues & bottlenecks in the supply chain. Not to mention blowing up Germany's cheap gas pipeline - jeez if only Russia hadn't done that it, would be so much easier to build dem panzers (feel free to invert that one!)
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ilmoro
Member of DD Central
'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
Posts: 11,214
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Post by ilmoro on May 30, 2024 21:57:48 GMT
Countries allowed to use their weapon on Russian territory so far. -Sweden -Great Britain -Finland -Latvia -Lithuania -Estonia -Czech Republic Seems you can add US to the list ... sort of. Biden has reportedly allowed US weapons to be used against targets in Russia supporting the Kharkiv offensive specifically
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k6
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Post by k6 on Jun 2, 2024 13:42:55 GMT
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Post by captainconfident on Jun 4, 2024 18:23:53 GMT
Here is my proposition, that Russia simply opened up a new opportunity to grind itself to pieces in the North, that attacking is 10x more costly than defending and that eventually the soldiers will turn on the politicians and the war will end, summed up in a single video.
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Jun 6, 2024 19:53:57 GMT
mostlywrong Ace sticking this here, because the thread is more relevant than "amused you...", but I thought it might be of interest.
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Jun 7, 2024 21:04:54 GMT
Hey K6 - is the BBC scaremongering by reporting this ? “It’s always a bluff. Until the time when it is not,” Mr Solovyov replies. “You can keep thinking that Russia is bluffing and then, one day, there is no more Great Britain to laugh at. Don’t you ever try to push the Russian bear thinking that ‘Oh, it’s a kitten, we can play with it.”www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn00e422yr2o
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k6
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Post by k6 on Jun 8, 2024 8:12:23 GMT
Hey K6 - is the BBC scaremongering by reporting this ? “It’s always a bluff. Until the time when it is not,” Mr Solovyov replies. “You can keep thinking that Russia is bluffing and then, one day, there is no more Great Britain to laugh at. Don’t you ever try to push the Russian bear thinking that ‘Oh, it’s a kitten, we can play with it.”www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn00e422yr2oHey michaelc , please stop being childish. Time to put some Big boy pants. You can start digging a banker under your bungalow if you soo concerned.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Jun 8, 2024 8:19:17 GMT
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angrysaveruk
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Back and to the left..
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Post by angrysaveruk on Jun 8, 2024 10:02:44 GMT
Hey K6 - is the BBC scaremongering by reporting this ? “It’s always a bluff. Until the time when it is not,” Mr Solovyov replies. “You can keep thinking that Russia is bluffing and then, one day, there is no more Great Britain to laugh at. Don’t you ever try to push the Russian bear thinking that ‘Oh, it’s a kitten, we can play with it.”www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn00e422yr2oThere are certainly some people in Russian Politics who think Putin is not taking things far enough and direct strikes against countries supplying weapons to Ukraine is a good idea. One mistake people (especially people who tend to believe everything the authorities tell them) make is they believe that everyone else perceives things the same way they do. Assuming Russia will not do something "unexpected" is failing to recognise that Russia has a very different culture and belief system to western countries. A good example of the unpredictable nature of Russians from a western perspective is Yevgeny Prigozhin deciding to march on Moscow with his mercenaries because of a dispute he had with the Russian military.
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Jun 8, 2024 12:56:17 GMT
Hey K6 - is the BBC scaremongering by reporting this ? “It’s always a bluff. Until the time when it is not,” Mr Solovyov replies. “You can keep thinking that Russia is bluffing and then, one day, there is no more Great Britain to laugh at. Don’t you ever try to push the Russian bear thinking that ‘Oh, it’s a kitten, we can play with it.”www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn00e422yr2oHey michaelc , please stop being childish. Time to put some Big boy pants. You can start digging a banker under your bungalow if you soo concerned. I'm genuinely curious now. Using a when you mean u is exactly the kind of mistake a russian speaker would make (Ukranian or Russian). So go on, are you russian K6 ?
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michaelc
Member of DD Central
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Post by michaelc on Jun 8, 2024 12:58:25 GMT
"Reporting" verbatim what Putin said to a couple of million people in the UK is not scare mongering. But when I do it to 4 people in a forum I get accused of scare mongering and being a russian spy. Its cliched I know but you really couldn't make it up.
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