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A drawn out conflict favors Russia, even though they surely preferred to solve this with a decapitating strike within a week. Ukraine’s economy has collapsed, R

A drawn out conflict favors Russia, even though they surely preferred to solve this with a decapitating strike within a week. Ukraine’s economy has collapsed, Russia’s economy has suffered but not as much, the sanctions on oil actually will likely result in higher profits. Last time I checked Russia had a 10/1 advantage in heavy artillery, has not mobilized its army but is fighting with 1/5 of its available peacetime forces, whereas Ukraine is fully mobilized and has suffered massive casualties among its most capable forces.

throwyawayyyy 4y ago
> A drawn out conflict favors Russia Probably true. But there's no situation in which Russia ends up richer for having gone to war than had they not bothered in the first place. Which is to say, everyone has lost already. It's a tragedy for all parties -- and it's Putin's fault.
- orbifold 4y ago
  If they manage to capture the coast including Odessa and the Donbass, they will have recovered a large chunk of the Russian speaking population lost after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and add a lot of industrial capacity. Long term this would benefit Russia, Ukraine would be reduced to a rump state. But yeah the pre-2014 situation would be vastly better for all sides involved. Ukraine could have taken the Belarussian or Khazak trajectory.
  - oneoff786 4y ago
    They are nowhere near taking Odessa. It is extremely unlikely that they will achieve that in the foreseeable future.
    - Teever 4y ago
      People don't seem to realize that Odessa has 2500km of catacombs.[0] Taking Mariupol will seem like a walk in the park compared to trying to take Odessa. There's no way that Odessa falls to the Russians. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odessa_Catacombs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odessa_Catacombs
  - tomjen3 4y ago
    How much of that industrial capacity is left? Russia is corrupt through and through and cannot built new companies. If the industrial capacity is bombed, it will be useless for them. As for Belarussia? What trajectory is it to become Putins labdog?
    - wrp 4y ago
      While Donbas has historically been an important mining and industrial region, I've read that it has been in steep decline for many years. Due to low productivity of the industries and the high cost of services for the aging population, it is seen as a net economic loss for whoever takes it. I've read speculation that this is one reason why the Kremlin resisted annexing Donbas for so long. (There were initiatives from Donbas to get annexed the way Crimea was, because they were tired of being in legal limbo, but the Kremlin refused.)
oneoff786 4y ago
Russia has had significant difficulty finding troops, and has taken various and ominous steps such as expanding the age limit of eligible soldiers, sending in their training teams, drawing troops from otherwise important geopolitical areas, and dipping into pretty much every reserve they have. Russia has many many more people, but it has shown hesitancy to do a general conscription. People don’t want to fight in this war.
- orbifold 4y ago
  It is save to say that they are not fighting an all out war and it is not just because it is unpopular but because they don’t need to yet. Ukraine has already mobilized everyone they will likely ever be able to mobilize and has run out of domestically available stockpiles.
  - oneoff786 4y ago
    It’s not safe to say that at all. They’ve abandoned 2 major objectives and have lost tens of thousands of troops. Morale is at rock bottom. It will be very difficult to pull off a general mobilization in Russia, especially in Moscow.
    - orbifold 4y ago
      An all out war would mean full mobilisation of the 2-4 million soldiers Russia has, strategic bombardment on a much larger scale, a war economy. Russia is fighting with a full-strength expeditionary force, Ukraine has conscripted every man of fighting age they could find and has forbidden men from leaving the country.
      - oneoff786 4y ago
        Ukraine has huge reserves of applicants for war that need training time. They’re hardly at max strength. It’s just a gradual build up. Russia doesn’t have strong strategic bombardment capabilities, nor even air superiority. They’re also running out of military hardware needed to make use of. Their shitty 80 year old tanks are scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Again, yes, Russia could go all out. They could launch nukes. But it’s something that would be very difficult. Putin may not survive if he tries to mobilize Moscow.
FranzFerdiNaN 4y ago
Russia has also suffered massive casualties amongst its officer corps and is expected to barely be able to recover from this.
wisemanwillhear 4y ago
> A drawn out conflict favors Russia... There's a strong argument that "the West" is supporting Ukraine to such an extent that Russia is at the disadvantage in the long game. The Price of War - Can Russia Afford a Long Conflict? (Perun) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEpk_yGjn0E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEpk_yGjn0E
- orbifold 4y ago
  I am unsure, a long term conflict would lead to both rising food and energy prices, both China and India still trade with Russia. It might further motivate technological independence from the west of those countries. Overall it could just accelerate the decline of the West and Europe in particular and a final shift of power to Asia.
  - wisemanwillhear 4y ago
    China and India cannot make up for the loss of the European markets, at least not for many years to come. The gas and oil pipelines can't be moved to pipe the other way. Technological independence is easy to say and incredibly hard to do. Neither does independence means superiority or equality. Many forget that investment in technology takes time and comes at the expense of other things. China and Russia have budgeting constraints that will pull them away from investment in technology.
kosherhurricane 4y ago
> A drawn out conflict favors Russia What I'm about to say maybe be totally shocking, but it's the truth. A few people have started to notice it, and it will be more apparent as time goes on, and there will be no reversal from this trajectory. We are witnessing the total implosion of the Russian military force. The causes will be analyzed for decades (was it corruption? was it misguided doctrine?). What's the basis for my claim? Some of the Russian (DNR and LDR, included) forces that are fighting currently (you can say conscripts or whatever, but they are troops in Uniform) are showing up with zero training. Zero. Think about why that might be happening to the 2nd largest military in the world, that's not generally mobilized, fighting a small country in a "special operation".
- mc32 4y ago
  I think you have a point. On paper, they had lots of equipment, materiel (and I guess training too) but corrupt officials diverted the monies that were supposed to go for equipment and training and diverted them to their own interest. Moreover, given Putin's coy approach where he tried to pretend they were exercises and not actual war, gave these corrupt officials no time to try and scrounge up some of their ill-spent monies and prepare their military for actual conflict. That said, I don't think the PLA is as corrupt and if they decide to have some exercises across the straits, they will probably be better prepared and equipped. so we had better have some contingencies for a second theater.
  - kosherhurricane 4y ago
    > so we had better have some contingencies for a second theater. USA doesn't have a first theater yet--no troops have been mobilized into Europe. The $1T/year US military budget is insanely large. Chucking a few $B to Ukraine is not deteriorating anything. Supporting Ukraine is basically a cheap way to tie up Russia and use up old equipment that would have been retired anyway. US defense industry is known to keep making new stuff and retiring the old in order to keep production lines from dying. There is a very deep reserve for all that stuff. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CmXz8Qd9yw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CmXz8Qd9yw As for Taiwan, after the war started, Biden made removed the ambiguity around US involvement. And Taiwan has been preparing for a Chinese invasion far longer than Ukraine preparing for the Russian invasion (mostly since 2014). At this point, it's clear that if China invaded Taiwan, they'd have to do it entirely themselves. I don't think they're ready to take that risk.
attentive 4y ago
> whereas Ukraine is fully mobilized and has suffered massive casualties among its most capable forces. That's largely false. The bottleneck is weapons, not people. That's not coming fast enough with Germany stalling or outright lying etc.
tomjen3 4y ago
It is obvious that Russia is favoured relative to Ukraine, but that doesn't mean this is good for Russia. Also personally I don't want us to remove sanctions on Russia, ever. They are too dangerous for the world and will have to be defanged.
rasz 4y ago
>A drawn out conflict favors Russia IT would take one small ($1 mil?) covert operation to blow up NS1 in two-three places to erase 40% of Russia budget revenue overnight. Sadly the only countries capable and crazy enough to do it seem to be leaning on wait and see approach (Israel) if not outright appeasing Putin (France).
- orbifold 4y ago
  Blowing up NS1 would be seen as an act of war by Germany aswell, so whoever did that would be in a world of hurt sooner or later.
  - rasz 4y ago
    The trick with covert ops is you dont tell anybody it was you.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> A drawn out conflict favors Russia No, it doesn't, except in the sense that the conflict would have to shift to favoring Russia for it to be plausible for it to be “drawn out.” Russia has already seen casualties that are probably on the order of those the (much larger) Soviet Union saw in its decade long war in Afghanistan, and significantly higher among senior officers—and that wars toll was a significant factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union. And the toll on equipment which they have basically no way to replenish has been high as well. > Last time I checked Russia had a 10/1 advantage in heavy artillery Don't know when you checked, but Ukraine has been getting a flood of artillery from the West, with longer range guns than the Russians have. > has not mobilized its army They haven't done a formal mass conscription, instead doing a backdoor mobilization, but that's kind of irrelevant since they are running out of first-tier combat-ready equipment, pulling older stuff out of stores to send to the front. > fighting with 1/5 of its available peacetime forces Maybe in total manpower. One of the many reasons for the high casualties in senior officers (besides the inability to delegate in land forces) is that their combat-capable pilots are a narrow corps that is senior-officer heavy, and they have a similar issue with other critical specialty forces, and those can't be replenished on any reasonable timescale. > has suffered massive casualties among its most capable forces. Russia has suffered massive casualties both overall and among its most capable forces, and expended a lot of its most capable equipment, and no one is rushing them replacements.

throwyawayyyy 4y ago

> A drawn out conflict favors Russia Probably true. But there's no situation in which Russia ends up richer for having gone to war than had they not bothered in the first place. Which is to say, everyone has lost already. It's a tragedy for all parties -- and it's Putin's fault.

orbifold 4y ago
If they manage to capture the coast including Odessa and the Donbass, they will have recovered a large chunk of the Russian speaking population lost after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and add a lot of industrial capacity. Long term this would benefit Russia, Ukraine would be reduced to a rump state. But yeah the pre-2014 situation would be vastly better for all sides involved. Ukraine could have taken the Belarussian or Khazak trajectory.
- oneoff786 4y ago
  They are nowhere near taking Odessa. It is extremely unlikely that they will achieve that in the foreseeable future.
  - Teever 4y ago
    People don't seem to realize that Odessa has 2500km of catacombs.[0] Taking Mariupol will seem like a walk in the park compared to trying to take Odessa. There's no way that Odessa falls to the Russians. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odessa_Catacombs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odessa_Catacombs
- tomjen3 4y ago
  How much of that industrial capacity is left? Russia is corrupt through and through and cannot built new companies. If the industrial capacity is bombed, it will be useless for them. As for Belarussia? What trajectory is it to become Putins labdog?
  - wrp 4y ago
    While Donbas has historically been an important mining and industrial region, I've read that it has been in steep decline for many years. Due to low productivity of the industries and the high cost of services for the aging population, it is seen as a net economic loss for whoever takes it. I've read speculation that this is one reason why the Kremlin resisted annexing Donbas for so long. (There were initiatives from Donbas to get annexed the way Crimea was, because they were tired of being in legal limbo, but the Kremlin refused.)

oneoff786 4y ago

Russia has had significant difficulty finding troops, and has taken various and ominous steps such as expanding the age limit of eligible soldiers, sending in their training teams, drawing troops from otherwise important geopolitical areas, and dipping into pretty much every reserve they have. Russia has many many more people, but it has shown hesitancy to do a general conscription. People don’t want to fight in this war.

orbifold 4y ago
It is save to say that they are not fighting an all out war and it is not just because it is unpopular but because they don’t need to yet. Ukraine has already mobilized everyone they will likely ever be able to mobilize and has run out of domestically available stockpiles.
- oneoff786 4y ago
  It’s not safe to say that at all. They’ve abandoned 2 major objectives and have lost tens of thousands of troops. Morale is at rock bottom. It will be very difficult to pull off a general mobilization in Russia, especially in Moscow.
  - orbifold 4y ago
    An all out war would mean full mobilisation of the 2-4 million soldiers Russia has, strategic bombardment on a much larger scale, a war economy. Russia is fighting with a full-strength expeditionary force, Ukraine has conscripted every man of fighting age they could find and has forbidden men from leaving the country.
    - oneoff786 4y ago
      Ukraine has huge reserves of applicants for war that need training time. They’re hardly at max strength. It’s just a gradual build up. Russia doesn’t have strong strategic bombardment capabilities, nor even air superiority. They’re also running out of military hardware needed to make use of. Their shitty 80 year old tanks are scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Again, yes, Russia could go all out. They could launch nukes. But it’s something that would be very difficult. Putin may not survive if he tries to mobilize Moscow.

FranzFerdiNaN 4y ago

Russia has also suffered massive casualties amongst its officer corps and is expected to barely be able to recover from this.

wisemanwillhear 4y ago

> A drawn out conflict favors Russia... There's a strong argument that "the West" is supporting Ukraine to such an extent that Russia is at the disadvantage in the long game. The Price of War - Can Russia Afford a Long Conflict? (Perun) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEpk_yGjn0E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEpk_yGjn0E

orbifold 4y ago
I am unsure, a long term conflict would lead to both rising food and energy prices, both China and India still trade with Russia. It might further motivate technological independence from the west of those countries. Overall it could just accelerate the decline of the West and Europe in particular and a final shift of power to Asia.
- wisemanwillhear 4y ago
  China and India cannot make up for the loss of the European markets, at least not for many years to come. The gas and oil pipelines can't be moved to pipe the other way. Technological independence is easy to say and incredibly hard to do. Neither does independence means superiority or equality. Many forget that investment in technology takes time and comes at the expense of other things. China and Russia have budgeting constraints that will pull them away from investment in technology.

kosherhurricane 4y ago

> A drawn out conflict favors Russia What I'm about to say maybe be totally shocking, but it's the truth. A few people have started to notice it, and it will be more apparent as time goes on, and there will be no reversal from this trajectory. We are witnessing the total implosion of the Russian military force. The causes will be analyzed for decades (was it corruption? was it misguided doctrine?). What's the basis for my claim? Some of the Russian (DNR and LDR, included) forces that are fighting currently (you can say conscripts or whatever, but they are troops in Uniform) are showing up with zero training. Zero. Think about why that might be happening to the 2nd largest military in the world, that's not generally mobilized, fighting a small country in a "special operation".

mc32 4y ago
I think you have a point. On paper, they had lots of equipment, materiel (and I guess training too) but corrupt officials diverted the monies that were supposed to go for equipment and training and diverted them to their own interest. Moreover, given Putin's coy approach where he tried to pretend they were exercises and not actual war, gave these corrupt officials no time to try and scrounge up some of their ill-spent monies and prepare their military for actual conflict. That said, I don't think the PLA is as corrupt and if they decide to have some exercises across the straits, they will probably be better prepared and equipped. so we had better have some contingencies for a second theater.
- kosherhurricane 4y ago
  > so we had better have some contingencies for a second theater. USA doesn't have a first theater yet--no troops have been mobilized into Europe. The $1T/year US military budget is insanely large. Chucking a few $B to Ukraine is not deteriorating anything. Supporting Ukraine is basically a cheap way to tie up Russia and use up old equipment that would have been retired anyway. US defense industry is known to keep making new stuff and retiring the old in order to keep production lines from dying. There is a very deep reserve for all that stuff. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CmXz8Qd9yw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CmXz8Qd9yw As for Taiwan, after the war started, Biden made removed the ambiguity around US involvement. And Taiwan has been preparing for a Chinese invasion far longer than Ukraine preparing for the Russian invasion (mostly since 2014). At this point, it's clear that if China invaded Taiwan, they'd have to do it entirely themselves. I don't think they're ready to take that risk.

attentive 4y ago

> whereas Ukraine is fully mobilized and has suffered massive casualties among its most capable forces. That's largely false. The bottleneck is weapons, not people. That's not coming fast enough with Germany stalling or outright lying etc.

tomjen3 4y ago

It is obvious that Russia is favoured relative to Ukraine, but that doesn't mean this is good for Russia. Also personally I don't want us to remove sanctions on Russia, ever. They are too dangerous for the world and will have to be defanged.

rasz 4y ago

>A drawn out conflict favors Russia IT would take one small ($1 mil?) covert operation to blow up NS1 in two-three places to erase 40% of Russia budget revenue overnight. Sadly the only countries capable and crazy enough to do it seem to be leaning on wait and see approach (Israel) if not outright appeasing Putin (France).

orbifold 4y ago
Blowing up NS1 would be seen as an act of war by Germany aswell, so whoever did that would be in a world of hurt sooner or later.
- rasz 4y ago
  The trick with covert ops is you dont tell anybody it was you.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> A drawn out conflict favors Russia No, it doesn't, except in the sense that the conflict would have to shift to favoring Russia for it to be plausible for it to be “drawn out.” Russia has already seen casualties that are probably on the order of those the (much larger) Soviet Union saw in its decade long war in Afghanistan, and significantly higher among senior officers—and that wars toll was a significant factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union. And the toll on equipment which they have basically no way to replenish has been high as well. > Last time I checked Russia had a 10/1 advantage in heavy artillery Don't know when you checked, but Ukraine has been getting a flood of artillery from the West, with longer range guns than the Russians have. > has not mobilized its army They haven't done a formal mass conscription, instead doing a backdoor mobilization, but that's kind of irrelevant since they are running out of first-tier combat-ready equipment, pulling older stuff out of stores to send to the front. > fighting with 1/5 of its available peacetime forces Maybe in total manpower. One of the many reasons for the high casualties in senior officers (besides the inability to delegate in land forces) is that their combat-capable pilots are a narrow corps that is senior-officer heavy, and they have a similar issue with other critical specialty forces, and those can't be replenished on any reasonable timescale. > has suffered massive casualties among its most capable forces. Russia has suffered massive casualties both overall and among its most capable forces, and expended a lot of its most capable equipment, and no one is rushing them replacements.