21 ms·

Let's see how well "botched war" does in the coming weeks and months. There is a big, as in enormous, battle coming in Eastern Ukraine and if the Russian encirc

by a0-prw 5y ago

Let's see how well "botched war" does in the coming weeks and months. There is a big, as in enormous, battle coming in Eastern Ukraine and if the Russian encirclement is successful, there will be very little between Kiev and Russia.

zibzab 5y ago
This is probably one area where software projects and wars differ: When things go bad in a war, you can always throw more bodies on it to turn it around.
- mcv 5y ago
  I think that's about as successful in war as it is in software projects, except many of those bodies will end up dead. If there's one thing that the Russian invasion shows, it's the massive difference that morale makes. But also planning, coordination, logistics. You need to have soldiers who know what they're doing.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  Until you can't.
- torginus 5y ago
  This is not true. Most credible military analysts say that Russia's Achilles heel in this war is the lack of trained personnel in sufficient numbers.
- vintermann 5y ago
  Oh no, you definitively can't. Not when you're the one invading. People always bring up WW2, but in WW2 USSR was being invaded, and had a lot of material support from the west. They could keep "throwing more bodies on it" because 1. Those bodies were still very motivated, since they were being invaded and, 2. They had useful equipment for those bodies, in significant part from western support (lend/lease etc. Ukraine is more like WW1 for Russia. That didn't end so well for the Russian leadership.
  - meepmorp 5y ago
    Just to expand on that a bit, the USSR received ~$11 billion in lend-lease assistance from the US, which is roughly $130 billion in current dollars. The scale was incredible - hundreds of thousands trucks and jeeps, thousands of tanks, thousands of airplanes, as well as small arms, ammo, explosives, etc. Food, too, and lots of oil. A huge part of the Red Army's success was having the US backing them up.
  - maratc 5y ago
    The Napoleon invasion in 1812 started with deep Russian humiliation. But then the Russians won. The Winter War of 1939 started with deep Russian humiliation. But then the Russians won. The WW2 started with deep Russian humiliation and mind-bogglingly terrible losses. But then the Russians won. On the other hand, the Russo-Japanese war and the WW1 were lost because of the political decisions rising from unrest at home. This war started by Russian humiliation. How it's going to end remains yet to be seen.
    - tim333 5y ago
      Though a lot of countries manage to cope with the neighbouring countries being independent and not invading them or installing a puppet ruler. Perhaps Russia will be able to get used to it too.
      - maratc 5y ago
        Here's hoping.
  - tim333 5y ago
    People also forget that the of the red army fighting Hitler about 4.5 million of the troops were Ukrainians fighting on the Russian side. They were supposed to be some of the best troops.
- Isinlor 5y ago
  Not always, Russia lost war in 1920 with Poland. Russia was trying to give military support to communist movements in Europe going across Poland. While Poland was trying to restore lands occupied by Russia in partitions of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772-1795 that lead to Poland not existing for 123 years. Russia lost that war and had to settle borders with Poland in the Treaty of Riga.
  - dekhn 5y ago
    I'm all for Poland and Lithuania joining forces again and invading russia.
_kbh_ 5y ago
Botched indeed, the visual losses for Russia alone are staggering. Give it another couple more weeks with losses like they have no now in their tank force alone and they will have trouble running any sort of armour battalions. Heres a list of Russias visually confirmed losses, the real numbers are likely much higher. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-docum...
- sharken 5y ago
  Another point is that Ukraine might now have enough weapons to destroy all Russian tanks, planes and helicopters operating in Ukraine. But even though things look hopeful, there really is no countermove to Putin bombing every major Ukrainian city. So it looks like a stalemate unless Putin successfully conquers Donbas, at which point he might negotiate some kind of peace. But with heavy vehicles such as tanks starting to arrive for the Ukrainians, a quick resolution to the invasion seems a long way off.
  - _kbh_ 5y ago
    Theres anecdotal evidence that Russia is also running out of missiles, which would make it a lot harder to bomb the Ukrainian cities into rubble, not that they aren't doing that already anyway.
    - sharken 5y ago
      That would be very good news if true. It also looks like Russia will have to spend Dollars from sale of gas and oil on debt payments. If that happens it will be even harder to manufacture more missiles.
      - tim333 5y ago
        Amusingly it seems they can't make cruise missiles because the engines are made in Ukraine.
  - tim333 5y ago
yakak 5y ago
The west has now had time to create a pipeline, so as long as Ukraine doesn't have to accept a ceasefire it can keep all of Russias troops in a hopeless defense of whatever part of the east they can cover. But at least they won't need as much fuel, right? The Russians should be more concerned that the longer this goes on the more handheld weapons are going to stockpile in Ukraine. What portion will end up traded or given to groups that want a rematch in Syria, Belarus, Chechnya, ..., even if the Ukraine doesn't decide a policy of destabilizing Russia is the easiest road to short term security?
JeremyNT 5y ago
> Let's see how well "botched war" does in the coming weeks and months. There is a big, as in enormous, battle coming in Eastern Ukraine and if the Russian encirclement is successful, there will be very little between Kiev and Russia. I don't suppose there's ever been any doubt that Russia can defeat Ukraine. The numerical superiority makes a Russian "defeat" essentially impossible. That still leaves plenty of ways to "botch" the war, even in "victory." Russia is doing this both by wasting resources in poorly planned attacks and by incurring collateral damage amongst the civilian population. They're also botching the "PR" aspects of the war. All of this is going to make the ongoing occupation/subjugation of the Ukrainian population much more challenging than it needed to be for them, so it makes sense that heads would need to roll.
- tim333 5y ago
  Depends how you define defeat. They could easily end up in an Afghanistan situation and have to withdraw after a while.
- _ph_ 5y ago
  Unless Russia can overwhelm the Ukraine defenses in one massive battle, victory is all but assured. They failed to do so in the first attack and now the west is pouring ressources into the Ukraine. As long as the west is willing to do so, the Ukraine might actually have a better supply perspective, not counting even the embargo cutting Russia off a lot of supplies. After all, that Russia managed to defend itself against the Germans in WW2 had a lot to do with the supplies it got from the US.
  - sliken 4y ago
    Even if successful, they have nowhere near enough soldiers to occupy Ukraine afterwards. See Syria or Afghanistan on how well that goes.
    - _ph_ 4y ago
      That for sure. Especially as all the Ukraine resistance fighters would find open borders to e.g. Poland across which they could resupply easily. However you look at it, this war cannot have a positive outcome for Russia, unless just laying Ukraine to waste is enough for them. This is my greatest fear that complete destruction would be a success for Putin and he would be willing to go all the way to achieve it. Like using nukes. My big hope though is, especially after withdrawing from quite a lot of regions of the Ukraine already occupied, that after all the losses, the Ukraine together with the supply from the west might be able to hold new offenses from the east and perhaps even push them back. That depends a lot of how many reserves Russia still has and which further weapons they are willing to use.
FlyingCapybara 4y ago
Kiev is something like 100km from the belarussia border, Kharkiv (second biggest ukrainian city) is 20km from the russian border. We're still waiting for Russia victory. No "they just take care about the civilans", we all know it's a lie, they use artilery on civilians zones and commited insane war crimes during the last weeks. Kharkiv was a mess, russians got destroyed in this city, just take a look at any photos/videos from Kharkiv. Russian bodies and burned armors all over the place, it was a nightmare. Russia was supposed to be one of the best army on earth for the last 15 years, but they can't enter a city like Kharkiv, Ukraine being one of the poorest european country. Good luck with the "not a botched war" theory. It was supposed to be a less than a week operation, we are closer to a 2 month war. Russia is already economically on his knees, they need billions to stay in Ukraine and more sanctions are coming... All they can do is bassicaly blindly destroy cities with artilery and commits war crimes out of frustration until the money runs out. Russia will probably make ukrainians suffer a lot at least for too many weeks, but they won't win the war. Even China and India aren't going to fully support them, there are a lot of negative signs for Russia, like this one : https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220316-live-un-security-council-members-call-for-emergency-ukraine-meeting-thursday https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220316-live-un-security... Germany and Switzerland broke their neutrality traditions. Sweden and Finland were neutral since the WW2, now they are probably about to join NATO. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/13/finland-and-sweden-could-apply-for-nato-membership-in-weeks https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/13/finland-and-sw... Russia basicaly lost everything. Their economy was already stagnant for the last 8 years just with a few sanctions, I bet they'll have a lot of fun during the next 5/10 years. But they'll have Mariupol (after killing thousand of Mariupol's civilians) and some east countryside, good for them.

by a0-prw 5y ago

zibzab 5y ago

This is probably one area where software projects and wars differ: When things go bad in a war, you can always throw more bodies on it to turn it around.

mcv 5y ago
I think that's about as successful in war as it is in software projects, except many of those bodies will end up dead. If there's one thing that the Russian invasion shows, it's the massive difference that morale makes. But also planning, coordination, logistics. You need to have soldiers who know what they're doing.
hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
Until you can't.
torginus 5y ago
This is not true. Most credible military analysts say that Russia's Achilles heel in this war is the lack of trained personnel in sufficient numbers.
vintermann 5y ago
Oh no, you definitively can't. Not when you're the one invading. People always bring up WW2, but in WW2 USSR was being invaded, and had a lot of material support from the west. They could keep "throwing more bodies on it" because 1. Those bodies were still very motivated, since they were being invaded and, 2. They had useful equipment for those bodies, in significant part from western support (lend/lease etc. Ukraine is more like WW1 for Russia. That didn't end so well for the Russian leadership.
- meepmorp 5y ago
  Just to expand on that a bit, the USSR received ~$11 billion in lend-lease assistance from the US, which is roughly $130 billion in current dollars. The scale was incredible - hundreds of thousands trucks and jeeps, thousands of tanks, thousands of airplanes, as well as small arms, ammo, explosives, etc. Food, too, and lots of oil. A huge part of the Red Army's success was having the US backing them up.
- maratc 5y ago
  The Napoleon invasion in 1812 started with deep Russian humiliation. But then the Russians won. The Winter War of 1939 started with deep Russian humiliation. But then the Russians won. The WW2 started with deep Russian humiliation and mind-bogglingly terrible losses. But then the Russians won. On the other hand, the Russo-Japanese war and the WW1 were lost because of the political decisions rising from unrest at home. This war started by Russian humiliation. How it's going to end remains yet to be seen.
  - tim333 5y ago
    Though a lot of countries manage to cope with the neighbouring countries being independent and not invading them or installing a puppet ruler. Perhaps Russia will be able to get used to it too.
    - maratc 5y ago
      Here's hoping.
- tim333 5y ago
  People also forget that the of the red army fighting Hitler about 4.5 million of the troops were Ukrainians fighting on the Russian side. They were supposed to be some of the best troops.
Isinlor 5y ago
Not always, Russia lost war in 1920 with Poland. Russia was trying to give military support to communist movements in Europe going across Poland. While Poland was trying to restore lands occupied by Russia in partitions of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772-1795 that lead to Poland not existing for 123 years. Russia lost that war and had to settle borders with Poland in the Treaty of Riga.
- dekhn 5y ago
  I'm all for Poland and Lithuania joining forces again and invading russia.

_kbh_ 5y ago

Botched indeed, the visual losses for Russia alone are staggering. Give it another couple more weeks with losses like they have no now in their tank force alone and they will have trouble running any sort of armour battalions. Heres a list of Russias visually confirmed losses, the real numbers are likely much higher. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-docum...

sharken 5y ago
Another point is that Ukraine might now have enough weapons to destroy all Russian tanks, planes and helicopters operating in Ukraine. But even though things look hopeful, there really is no countermove to Putin bombing every major Ukrainian city. So it looks like a stalemate unless Putin successfully conquers Donbas, at which point he might negotiate some kind of peace. But with heavy vehicles such as tanks starting to arrive for the Ukrainians, a quick resolution to the invasion seems a long way off.
- _kbh_ 5y ago
  Theres anecdotal evidence that Russia is also running out of missiles, which would make it a lot harder to bomb the Ukrainian cities into rubble, not that they aren't doing that already anyway.
  - sharken 5y ago
    That would be very good news if true. It also looks like Russia will have to spend Dollars from sale of gas and oil on debt payments. If that happens it will be even harder to manufacture more missiles.
    - tim333 5y ago
      Amusingly it seems they can't make cruise missiles because the engines are made in Ukraine.
- tim333 5y ago

yakak 5y ago

The west has now had time to create a pipeline, so as long as Ukraine doesn't have to accept a ceasefire it can keep all of Russias troops in a hopeless defense of whatever part of the east they can cover. But at least they won't need as much fuel, right? The Russians should be more concerned that the longer this goes on the more handheld weapons are going to stockpile in Ukraine. What portion will end up traded or given to groups that want a rematch in Syria, Belarus, Chechnya, ..., even if the Ukraine doesn't decide a policy of destabilizing Russia is the easiest road to short term security?

JeremyNT 5y ago

> Let's see how well "botched war" does in the coming weeks and months. There is a big, as in enormous, battle coming in Eastern Ukraine and if the Russian encirclement is successful, there will be very little between Kiev and Russia. I don't suppose there's ever been any doubt that Russia can defeat Ukraine. The numerical superiority makes a Russian "defeat" essentially impossible. That still leaves plenty of ways to "botch" the war, even in "victory." Russia is doing this both by wasting resources in poorly planned attacks and by incurring collateral damage amongst the civilian population. They're also botching the "PR" aspects of the war. All of this is going to make the ongoing occupation/subjugation of the Ukrainian population much more challenging than it needed to be for them, so it makes sense that heads would need to roll.

tim333 5y ago
Depends how you define defeat. They could easily end up in an Afghanistan situation and have to withdraw after a while.
_ph_ 5y ago
Unless Russia can overwhelm the Ukraine defenses in one massive battle, victory is all but assured. They failed to do so in the first attack and now the west is pouring ressources into the Ukraine. As long as the west is willing to do so, the Ukraine might actually have a better supply perspective, not counting even the embargo cutting Russia off a lot of supplies. After all, that Russia managed to defend itself against the Germans in WW2 had a lot to do with the supplies it got from the US.
- sliken 4y ago
  Even if successful, they have nowhere near enough soldiers to occupy Ukraine afterwards. See Syria or Afghanistan on how well that goes.
  - _ph_ 4y ago
    That for sure. Especially as all the Ukraine resistance fighters would find open borders to e.g. Poland across which they could resupply easily. However you look at it, this war cannot have a positive outcome for Russia, unless just laying Ukraine to waste is enough for them. This is my greatest fear that complete destruction would be a success for Putin and he would be willing to go all the way to achieve it. Like using nukes. My big hope though is, especially after withdrawing from quite a lot of regions of the Ukraine already occupied, that after all the losses, the Ukraine together with the supply from the west might be able to hold new offenses from the east and perhaps even push them back. That depends a lot of how many reserves Russia still has and which further weapons they are willing to use.

FlyingCapybara 4y ago

Kiev is something like 100km from the belarussia border, Kharkiv (second biggest ukrainian city) is 20km from the russian border. We're still waiting for Russia victory. No "they just take care about the civilans", we all know it's a lie, they use artilery on civilians zones and commited insane war crimes during the last weeks. Kharkiv was a mess, russians got destroyed in this city, just take a look at any photos/videos from Kharkiv. Russian bodies and burned armors all over the place, it was a nightmare. Russia was supposed to be one of the best army on earth for the last 15 years, but they can't enter a city like Kharkiv, Ukraine being one of the poorest european country. Good luck with the "not a botched war" theory. It was supposed to be a less than a week operation, we are closer to a 2 month war. Russia is already economically on his knees, they need billions to stay in Ukraine and more sanctions are coming... All they can do is bassicaly blindly destroy cities with artilery and commits war crimes out of frustration until the money runs out. Russia will probably make ukrainians suffer a lot at least for too many weeks, but they won't win the war. Even China and India aren't going to fully support them, there are a lot of negative signs for Russia, like this one : https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220316-live-un-security-council-members-call-for-emergency-ukraine-meeting-thursday https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220316-live-un-security... Germany and Switzerland broke their neutrality traditions. Sweden and Finland were neutral since the WW2, now they are probably about to join NATO. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/13/finland-and-sweden-could-apply-for-nato-membership-in-weeks https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/13/finland-and-sw... Russia basicaly lost everything. Their economy was already stagnant for the last 8 years just with a few sanctions, I bet they'll have a lot of fun during the next 5/10 years. But they'll have Mariupol (after killing thousand of Mariupol's civilians) and some east countryside, good for them.