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> 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 enci

> 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 5y ago
  Even if successful, they have nowhere near enough soldiers to occupy Ukraine afterwards. See Syria or Afghanistan on how well that goes.
  - _ph_ 5y 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.
sliken 5y ago
The west feared the Russia military and generally considered them the #2 military on the planet. Joke I've heard lately is that Dec 2021: Russia had the #2 military on the planet. April 2022: Russia has the #2 military in the Ukraine. It also seems that Russia underestimated the impact on NATO. Now multiple countries are increasing military spending, several countries are now looking to join NATO, and the supply of weapons to the Ukraine is substantial. The current gen anti-tank weapons are so good that even a few hours to a few days of training can allow a solder or two to take out a tank. Sure intelligence on where the tanks are is helpful, but the Ukraine citizens, foreign powers with satellites, and heavy use of drones have that handled. It's amusing to think of a 1-800-got-tank hotlines causing serious problems for Russia. Keep in mind the GDP of countries helping the Ukraine is on the order of $40T, and Russia is $1.5T. Sure Turkey, India, China, and others are receptive markets, it's unclear how many soldiers and weapons they are going to send, especially since they do not want to lose access to the $40T GDP worth of market. So Russia's advantage in tanks has largely been offset by anti-tank weapons and attacking supply lines. As a result armored vehicles have been withdrawn from various cities. Russia also has a substantial advantage in artillery and missiles, but the reports I've seen who that they are close to burning through their inventory of usable equipment, in particular ammunition and missiles. Apparently quite a bit of equipment is out of order because of the lack of preventative maintenance and production isn't anywhere close to the current burn rate and inventories are dropping precipitously. Sanctions are hurting their ability to produce, the only tank factory in Russia went idle in March for lack of parts, not heard if that's been fixed. I do think the pending attack in the East will be more difficult for the Ukraine. Shorter Russian supply lines, lessons learned on the Russian side, and heavier dependence on completely destroying cities before invading will make things harder for the Ukraine. But lack of training, calling in the reserves (which aren't trained like the a weekend a month/2 weeks a year reservists elsewhere), and lack of preventative maintenance aren't easily fixed. Much will depend on how generous the west is with larger and more sophisticated systems like longer range missiles, better anti-air weapons, tanks, and artillery pieces. I'd say currently Russia is no way going to take over the Ukraine, and even just encroaching from the east to take over a few cities is far from certain. It's looking like the invasion is likely to be one of the biggest blunders of the century. In particular Germany, Finland, and Sweden have made it a priority to increase military spending and provide a unified opposition of Russia. Collectively just those 3 countries have about 3x the GDP of Russia, before the sanctions. Keep in mind Russia can't go all in on the Ukraine, they have to defend various borders from countries they have taken land from, in particular Japan (which all alone has 3x the GDP of Russia) seems quite interested in taking some islands back. I wouldn't want to be Russia right now.

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 5y ago
Even if successful, they have nowhere near enough soldiers to occupy Ukraine afterwards. See Syria or Afghanistan on how well that goes.
- _ph_ 5y 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.

sliken 5y ago

The west feared the Russia military and generally considered them the #2 military on the planet. Joke I've heard lately is that Dec 2021: Russia had the #2 military on the planet. April 2022: Russia has the #2 military in the Ukraine. It also seems that Russia underestimated the impact on NATO. Now multiple countries are increasing military spending, several countries are now looking to join NATO, and the supply of weapons to the Ukraine is substantial. The current gen anti-tank weapons are so good that even a few hours to a few days of training can allow a solder or two to take out a tank. Sure intelligence on where the tanks are is helpful, but the Ukraine citizens, foreign powers with satellites, and heavy use of drones have that handled. It's amusing to think of a 1-800-got-tank hotlines causing serious problems for Russia. Keep in mind the GDP of countries helping the Ukraine is on the order of $40T, and Russia is $1.5T. Sure Turkey, India, China, and others are receptive markets, it's unclear how many soldiers and weapons they are going to send, especially since they do not want to lose access to the $40T GDP worth of market. So Russia's advantage in tanks has largely been offset by anti-tank weapons and attacking supply lines. As a result armored vehicles have been withdrawn from various cities. Russia also has a substantial advantage in artillery and missiles, but the reports I've seen who that they are close to burning through their inventory of usable equipment, in particular ammunition and missiles. Apparently quite a bit of equipment is out of order because of the lack of preventative maintenance and production isn't anywhere close to the current burn rate and inventories are dropping precipitously. Sanctions are hurting their ability to produce, the only tank factory in Russia went idle in March for lack of parts, not heard if that's been fixed. I do think the pending attack in the East will be more difficult for the Ukraine. Shorter Russian supply lines, lessons learned on the Russian side, and heavier dependence on completely destroying cities before invading will make things harder for the Ukraine. But lack of training, calling in the reserves (which aren't trained like the a weekend a month/2 weeks a year reservists elsewhere), and lack of preventative maintenance aren't easily fixed. Much will depend on how generous the west is with larger and more sophisticated systems like longer range missiles, better anti-air weapons, tanks, and artillery pieces. I'd say currently Russia is no way going to take over the Ukraine, and even just encroaching from the east to take over a few cities is far from certain. It's looking like the invasion is likely to be one of the biggest blunders of the century. In particular Germany, Finland, and Sweden have made it a priority to increase military spending and provide a unified opposition of Russia. Collectively just those 3 countries have about 3x the GDP of Russia, before the sanctions. Keep in mind Russia can't go all in on the Ukraine, they have to defend various borders from countries they have taken land from, in particular Japan (which all alone has 3x the GDP of Russia) seems quite interested in taking some islands back. I wouldn't want to be Russia right now.