Russia Invades Ukraine

NorthDakota

NorthDakota

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calvegas04 said:
Send them a 1000 of these with ammo and russia will be asking for peace real quick.
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This is an old video. The cheerleaders on Twitter love sharing old videos when there is no good news or they want engagement.

Seems we've sent hundreds of them already. Lost at least a third of those as of a few months ago per ukrainian gospel. Reuters says we the US has about 4k.

Makes you wonder how many the US could provide even if we wanted to?

https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...dleys does the,has about 4,000 Bradleys total.

Thousands Of Army Bradleys Don't Have The Power To Use New Active Protection Systems

Ukraine's Bradley Fighting Vehicle 'Dilemma' Can Be Explained in 2 Words
 
calvegas04

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NorthDakota said:
This is an old video. The cheerleaders on Twitter love sharing old videos when there is no good news or they want engagement.

Seems we've sent hundreds of them already. Lost at least a third of those as of a few months ago per ukrainian gospel. Reuters says we the US has about 4k.

Makes you wonder how many the US could provide even if we wanted to?

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-is-bradley-fighting-vehicle-2023-01-06/#:~:text=How many Bradleys does the,has about 4,000 Bradleys total.

Thousands Of Army Bradleys Don't Have The Power To Use New Active Protection Systems

Ukraine's Bradley Fighting Vehicle 'Dilemma' Can Be Explained in 2 Words
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In the movie Red Dawn you would be the Mayor 1733179267321.jpeg
 
Giddyup

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Kamakazee Calve wants in on this meat grinder. Go get them raw minerals buddy.
 
IrishLax

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NorthDakota said:
They have some number of young men between 18-25 it seems. You'd be hard pressed to find a more able group in a population suited to fight. I get that Europeans have a severe crunch in their demographics, but refusing to draft young men looks weird.

I'm curious how many people either country have available. I have zero special expertise in either of the following, just going on "gut" here.

1) I don't really trust either one of them to be accurate about their losses. The "official numbers" are just absurd on their face. I get that countries are reluctant to share information about casualties, but they'd be better off just not saying anything if that's the case.

2) I also don't trust either to be honest about their population as a whole. I see claims from the UN that Ukraine is a country of 41 million people, but that includes areas under Russian control. The IMF says the population is 33 million. Reuters reports it's around 28 million. Im not sure if that is including refugees or not. Ukraine hasn't had a census in over 20 years.

The UN says there are about 4 million refugees in Poland, Russia, and Germany alone. Another 500k in Chechia. Who knows if that has grown or shrank but it seems reasonable that the number fluctuates as some leave or return.

Russia's claimed population is 147 million per a 2021 census. But it's also a giant country with remote populations and serial corruption problems from the top down. Would anyone be surprised if some local bureaucrats were juicing the numbers to get more funding? Like Ukraine, many men worried about conscription have fled the country. I read southeast Asia is a popular destination? Who knows.
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Russia been trying to sustain until Trump takes office with the idea that he will help them negotiate a "win" in Ukraine where they keep a significant portion of territory but otherwise withdraw troops, etc. One way or another -- regardless of whether the US cuts off aid -- they have to end the war soon. It's just a question of how favorable the terms are to them or not.

They're on a clock because they are running out of people and money. This is a biased article but concisely explains their financial situation -- Putin’s cash crunch

A close examination of Putin’s spending plans for next year shows that the Kremlin intends to spend an eye-popping $145 billion on defense out of its roughly $436 billion government expenditure. Totaling over 6.3 percent of Russia’s GDP — keep in mind, NATO’s benchmark is 2 percent — this marks Moscow’s highest level of military spending since the Cold War.

And the bad news for Putin: His technocrats have actually been disguising the full cost of his Ukraine invasion.

Scattered throughout the annual budget are additional pay-outs related to the war, including the wages Moscow pays workers in Ukraine’s illegally occupied regions; health care for wounded soldiers; debris removal; infrastructure repair and undisclosed “classified” expenditures. When these outlays are added up, the real burden on Russia’s economy comes closer to an astonishing 10 percent of GDP.

The simple truth is the Russian government doesn’t take in enough money to cover these war-related costs. The Kremlin must run a deficit — and it already ran around $34 billion in the red last year.
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They have a number of funds and options to cover their issues, but all of them are near depleted, and they can't just "print rubles". Their currency is so unstable that they've suspended exchanges until 2025 to prevent potential bank runs or other panics.

As for people, they've lost about 700k troops (injured + killed) and are struggling massively to sustain their operation:
Most of the recruits have come from far east republics with large indigenous populations such as Bashkortostan, Chechnya, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and Dagestan — or as far from Moscow as possible.

But even young men in Moscow are now facing an increasingly aggressive Russian state. Hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled the country, forcing the government to introduce a tougher draft law to round up troops. With the new law, implemented on November 1 this year, instead of receiving a draft notice through the post, draft notices are now delivered online. Once the notice enters a Russian man’s digital mailbox, those called up are immediately barred from leaving the country and can face stiff penalties if they do attempt to leave.

Since the start of the war, Russian men have resorted to all kinds of tactics to avoid being drafted – faking that they had a drug dependency, falsifying medical documents and even in some cases breaking their own bones. Moving locations within Russia or purchasing property in someone else’s name was also a common tactic, but now these strategies have become more difficult. Someone I interviewed for this article was drafted even though they had not lived in Moscow since 2006. Struggling to find recruits, the Russian government has resorted to going after Russian citizens who live abroad. Russia has also notably drafted prisoners, which include murderers and pedophiles. This has caused Russia’s prison population to plummet.

Clearly, the war is not going particularly well for Ukraine either. They are struggling with their own recruitment issues and territorial losses. But it is a mistake to think that Putin is coming to the eventual negotiation table from a position of strength. Luckily for Putin, though he may be running out of men, a favorable deal may be on the horizon that fails to take this into account.
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Given all of the above, I expect Russia to withdraw by June 2025 and for them to keep Crimea + some of their other territorial gains but not all. Most of the negotiations are likely to center around rearming Ukraine to prevent future Russian aggression.
 
GATTACA!

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IrishLax said:
Russia been trying to sustain until Trump takes office with the idea that he will help them negotiate a "win" in Ukraine where they keep a significant portion of territory but otherwise withdraw troops, etc. One way or another -- regardless of whether the US cuts off aid -- they have to end the war soon. It's just a question of how favorable the terms are to them or not.

They're on a clock because they are running out of people and money. This is a biased article but concisely explains their financial situation -- Putin’s cash crunch



They have a number of funds and options to cover their issues, but all of them are near depleted, and they can't just "print rubles". Their currency is so unstable that they've suspended exchanges until 2025 to prevent potential bank runs or other panics.

As for people, they've lost about 700k troops (injured + killed) and are struggling massively to sustain their operation:


Given all of the above, I expect Russia to withdraw by June 2025 and for them to keep Crimea + some of their other territorial gains but not all. Most of the negotiations are likely to center around rearming Ukraine to prevent future Russian aggression.
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Please stop. You're going to make Giddyup cry.
 
Giddyup

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I’m devastated. I ain’t fighting for raw minerals but you guys have at it. Let’s get a Vietnam going again
 
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Irish#1

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IrishLax said:
Russia been trying to sustain until Trump takes office with the idea that he will help them negotiate a "win" in Ukraine where they keep a significant portion of territory but otherwise withdraw troops, etc. One way or another -- regardless of whether the US cuts off aid -- they have to end the war soon. It's just a question of how favorable the terms are to them or not.

They're on a clock because they are running out of people and money. This is a biased article but concisely explains their financial situation -- Putin’s cash crunch



They have a number of funds and options to cover their issues, but all of them are near depleted, and they can't just "print rubles". Their currency is so unstable that they've suspended exchanges until 2025 to prevent potential bank runs or other panics.

As for people, they've lost about 700k troops (injured + killed) and are struggling massively to sustain their operation:


Given all of the above, I expect Russia to withdraw by June 2025 and for them to keep Crimea + some of their other territorial gains but not all. Most of the negotiations are likely to center around rearming Ukraine to prevent future Russian aggression.
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Headline "Thousands of Gmail accounts in Russia canceled".
 
GowerND11

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Watching Russian tanks get absolutely wrecked in this war… are tanks going the way of the battleship?

We know they were of limited success in Vietnam, and the mountains of Afghanistan made it hard for them to be effective. Curious what will come of them.
 
calvegas04

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GowerND11 said:
Watching Russian tanks get absolutely wrecked in this war… are tanks going the way of the battleship?

We know they were of limited success in Vietnam, and the mountains of Afghanistan made it hard for them to be effective. Curious what will come of them.
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Going forward it will all be about anti drone tech and air supremacy
 
NorthDakota

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calvegas04 said:
Going forward it will all be about anti drone tech and air supremacy
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I believe both parties have placed a heavy investment into electronic warfare (drone/missile jamming). A friend says Russia and the US are the clear 1 and the clear 2 in the world in jamming.

Over the past 6 months give or take you see a lot more cabled weapons in use. Saw Russians using one with something like 10-15km wired range. Can't jam a wired weapon or something? I'm guessing Ukraine is using similar stuff. Can be hard to tell who is who in the video footage.
 
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Irish#1 said:
The ME will always be a percolating mess with the occasional boil over.
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This is a pretty big sea change. Syria's been a joint Russian/Iranian project since Obama was president. This kills Russia's ability to project power in Africa and really has Iran in disarray.

I wouldn't be surprised if Trump's team pushes to scale up the Yemeni civil war again as part of a maximum pressure campaign against Iran.
 
Irish#1

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Trump has already said he is going to stay out of any Syria Iran conflict. To paraphrase, "Why fight both? Let then fight each other." The head of the Syrian radicals is labeled as a terrorist by the U.S., but he did say a few good things the other day, so maybe he's evolved. Maybe Trump gets involved with some covert support.
 
NorthDakota

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Irish#1 said:
Trump has already said he is going to stay out of any Syria Iran conflict. To paraphrase, "Why fight both? Let then fight each other." The head of the Syrian radicals is labeled as a terrorist by the U.S., but he did say a few good things the other day, so maybe he's evolved. Maybe Trump gets involved with some covert support.
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I think Donald will probably do some typical US president strikes on Syria. We gain nothing if the "rebels" can easily consolidate power there. It just becomes a new terror haven then.
 
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NorthDakota said:
I think Donald will probably do some typical US president strikes on Syria. We gain nothing if the "rebels" can easily consolidate power there. It just becomes a new terror haven then.
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We gain if they're fighting ISIS, aligned against Iran, and are stable enough for refugees in Turkey/Europe to go home. They also probably give Lebanon the space to put together a government that's not run by Hezbollah.

Hopefully the Gulf states bribe them into behaving themselves.
 
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Irish#1

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Ukraine sure didn't waste time in delivering the sentence.

Lt. General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defense Forces, was killed in an explosion early this morning in Moscow, Russian officials said.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said it was behind the detonation of an explosive device planted in a scooter next to the entrance of an apartment building in Moscow, according to a Ukrainian source briefed on the matter who asked for anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about sensitive operations.

Kirillov had been charged in absentia by a Ukrainian court a day earlier over the use of banned chemical weapons during Russia’s invasion of the country, according to The Associated Press.
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