UKRAINE WAR - 1 YEAR AND GOING.

[Eternal_Freedom]

and at the moment it's just them saying "we'll train pilots in cooperation with other countries and then in future maybe give them jets."

It's an actual war. Not like we should assume they're going to give a detailed and accurate summary of their plans.

This is true, but I'm comparing this to the previous announcements of arms deliveries, like the Leopards/Challengers, or HIMARS. This...sounds a lot more woolly. I hope they go through with it so the war ends faster, but I'm not gonna hold my breath at this stage.

[Ralin]

Honestly, at this point it seems to me that the world needs to gather their sphincter, walk up real close to Russia, look them in the eye and go "do it ..I dare you" and be ready to hammer down because Russia is not going to quit unless they have their metaphorical teeth kicked in. Their government is a runaway train and we are going to have to deal with it regardless.

The last year has shown major shortcomings in the Russian military and done a lot of damage to their own image of themselves as a close second to the US. But do you know who apparently doesn't believe they're a paper tiger despite all the lol so incompetent stories we've heard?

Joe Biden. And by extension the US military and intelligence community he leads. The fact that the guy who gets a daily CIA newspaper with their best analysis of what's going on still thinks he needs to be careful with what support he sends and avoid escalating (from an actual war) should be a sign that people in the know still consider Russia a serious threat.

[Gandalf]

Honestly, at this point it seems to me that the world needs to gather their sphincter, walk up real close to Russia, look them in the eye and go "do it ..I dare you" and be ready to hammer down because Russia is not going to quit unless they have their metaphorical teeth kicked in. Their government is a runaway train and we are going to have to deal with it regardless.

Hammer down?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Ukraine war: US to support providing F1-6 fighter jets to Ukraine



Considering how long they've been asking for Fighters and people have been stalling, this seems like big news.

It is, they want them for their spring offensive. Denying Russia air superiority is a game changer.

Russia is already throwing a hissy saying "NOOOOOO DON'T GIVE THEM JETS!!!!"

That alone make it worth it

[Khaat]

But do you know who apparently doesn't believe they're a paper tiger despite all the lol so incompetent stories we've heard?

Joe Biden. And by extension the US military and intelligence community he leads. The fact that the guy who gets a daily CIA newspaper with their best analysis of what's going on still thinks he needs to be careful with what support he sends and avoid escalating (from an actual war) should be a sign that people in the know still consider Russia a serious threat.

But how much of this is Biden a) remembering that Russia still has nuclear weapons and some might even still work if anyone is stupid/crazy enough to launch with orders to do so, and b) wants to be able to deal with a mostly-defanged yet still dangerous (even if only because of their new "friend") post-Ukraine Russia?

In the "international poker game where everyone cheats", leaving Russia some honor is diplomacy. Kicking their teeth in would just be creating the next despot and bad for long-term international stability. Besides, Russia has cozied up to China, and China is the real contender. It isn't like Russia would cease to be a nation, and making an enemy out of the people is bad statesmanship*.

*not endorsing Biden as a great statesman or anything, but at least he isn't a narcissistic ass-clown every other world leader would give a swirly to if they could keep their own suits dry doing it.

[LadyTevar]

It is, they want them for their spring offensive. Denying Russia air superiority is a game changer.

Russia is already throwing a hissy saying "NOOOOOO DON'T GIVE THEM JETS!!!!"

That alone make it worth it

IKR?

WAGNER is claiming they've taken Bahkmut. Ukraine is saying "It's Complicated"

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Russia is already throwing a hissy saying "NOOOOOO DON'T GIVE THEM JETS!!!!"

That alone make it worth it

IKR?

WAGNER is claiming they've taken Bahkmut. Ukraine is saying "It's Complicated"

Russia has been claiming that for months, though some say Ukraine's plan is to encircle the merc group.

[Lord Revan]

But do you know who apparently doesn't believe they're a paper tiger despite all the lol so incompetent stories we've heard?

Joe Biden. And by extension the US military and intelligence community he leads. The fact that the guy who gets a daily CIA newspaper with their best analysis of what's going on still thinks he needs to be careful with what support he sends and avoid escalating (from an actual war) should be a sign that people in the know still consider Russia a serious threat.

But how much of this is Biden a) remembering that Russia still has nuclear weapons and some might even still work if anyone is stupid/crazy enough to launch with orders to do so, and b) wants to be able to deal with a mostly-defanged yet still dangerous (even if only because of their new "friend") post-Ukraine Russia?

In the "international poker game where everyone cheats", leaving Russia some honor is diplomacy. Kicking their teeth in would just be creating the next despot and bad for long-term international stability. Besides, Russia has cozied up to China, and China is the real contender. It isn't like Russia would cease to be a nation, and making an enemy out of the people is bad statesmanship*.

*not endorsing Biden as a great statesman or anything, but at least he isn't a narcissistic ass-clown every other world leader would give a swirly to if they could keep their own suits dry doing it.

Yeah it's just good policy not assume your enemy is a total joke, it's probably that Biden doesn't know a big secret that shows Russian capability to be much greater then it's been shown to be, but rather he knows (as should most of us) that Russia still has teeth so US government doesn't want to escalate into a situation where the question about the state of Russian nukes is answered.

TL:DR Biden and the US government hasn't got the luxury (and this is true of all pro-Ukraine governments) to assume Russia is a total joke, so they don't

[Ralin]

it's probably that Biden doesn't know a big secret that shows Russian capability to be much greater then it's been shown to be,

I think it's more likely that Biden has a better perspective on how much their capability is (less because he is smarter and better educated than us and more becaused he as a staff of generals and spymasters whose job it is to make sure he understands what he's hearing) than that he knows about the secret mech troops Russia is still holding in reserve.

Also honestly I suspect the pace that they've been escalating aid to Ukraine has more to do with needing to stagger it so that it arrives in a useful way than fear of angering the Russian bear and prompting them to retaliate by...what exactly? Nuking someone?

[LadyTevar]

That alone make it worth it

IKR?

WAGNER is claiming they've taken Bahkmut. Ukraine is saying "It's Complicated"

Russia has been claiming that for months, though some say Ukraine's plan is to encircle the merc group.

Ukraine has made great strides in flanking Bahkmut, so that is a possible game plan. It would humiliate Putin and Wagner both, and if they're lucky they might even capture Wagner's boss and send him up for war-crimes.
Not gonna hold my breath.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

IKR?

WAGNER is claiming they've taken Bahkmut. Ukraine is saying "It's Complicated"

Russia has been claiming that for months, though some say Ukraine's plan is to encircle the merc group.

Ukraine has made great strides in flanking Bahkmut, so that is a possible game plan. It would humiliate Putin and Wagner both, and if they're lucky they might even capture Wagner's boss and send him up for war-crimes.
Not gonna hold my breath.

Well according to the Wagner boss the regular Russian army sucks compared to their own units so it would explain why the flanks are collapsing. When he says they've taken the city he really means the part he was attacking, so complicated indeed. I doubt the Wagner boss would remain, if he sees they're about to be encircled he's gonna flee

[Broomstick]

The last year has shown major shortcomings in the Russian military and done a lot of damage to their own image of themselves as a close second to the US. But do you know who apparently doesn't believe they're a paper tiger despite all the lol so incompetent stories we've heard?

Joe Biden. And by extension the US military and intelligence community he leads. The fact that the guy who gets a daily CIA newspaper with their best analysis of what's going on still thinks he needs to be careful with what support he sends and avoid escalating (from an actual war) should be a sign that people in the know still consider Russia a serious threat.

My thinking is that... well, maybe the Russian nuclear program is as fucked up and useless as the rest of their military. But... even if only 1 in 20 of their nukes is workable in any form that's still more than enough to really, really fuck up life on this planet for the rest of us. Then there are all the hijinks with poisoning people with rare atomic isotopes, nerve agents on doorknobs, and the like.

And, don't forget, as ineffectual and inept as their military has been they have still killed tens of thousands of people and reduced cities to rubble and ruin.

Perhaps in 2022 the world over-estimated Russia. I do hope in 2023 we due not under-estimate them.

[Lord Revan]

To be fair most leaders seem to have more sober estimates of Russian capabilities and it's the public that's convinced because they're having major issues they must be utterly useless (I'll admit I've been guilty of that too).

We shouldn't assume too much from their capabilities either, if they had the capability to utterly crush Ukraine I doubt they'd be holding it back, like I said on this or the previous thread on the subject the "hidden reserve" myth makes no sense once you think about more then a few seconds.

Russia is capable of massive damage even if it chose to pivot and attacked the Baltic or Finland instead the cities on the border would most likely be devastated and depending on NATO response possibly deeper into the countries too.

[The_Saint]

Regarding Bakhmut, what Ukraine has done since this time last year is create the perfect textbook killing ground of an army. The closest example I can think of that would be internationally known might be Stalingrad.
At first Ukraine had been trading ground for time, then it was trading ground for Russian casualties. But while the casualty ratio favoured Ukraine (at one point it was rumoured to be 10:1 although earlier this year it was down to perhaps 3:1 at best), with Wagner declaring that it WOULD be captured it became the perfect site to hold a chunk of the Russian army and bleed it dry. The city is effectively gone so there was no specific need for Ukraine to hold it, geographically there is better defensive positions to the West anyway but because the Russian's needed to capture it, by forcing Russia to grind away all their reserves, not have enough to make an overwhelming push anywhere else in the front and probably most importantly destroy a fair chunk of Wagner's forces (at the start Wagner was considered some of the best troops available to Russia) ... Bakhmut has become a hangman's noose around the Russian armies neck while Ukraine slowly saws away at the legs of the stool underneath.

If we live through this for the history books it will be interesting to see how the Ukrainian command structure has been planning this all out but I've thought for a while with the building Ukrainian forces, once Russia had committed themselves to Bakhmut (Ukraine could choose to withdraw, the honor of losing a city rubble is outweighed by preserving combat forces whereas Russia couldn't afford the loss of casualties then giving up what they claimed as theirs) how much of the slow fall back has been to force Russian forces into the city, hold them there, then punch forward on the flanks, surround it and eliminate from the equation a good proportion of the forces in that whole area.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Everyone else in the war can see it:
Ukraine says it advances on Bakhmut's flanks to entrap Russians

KYIV (Reuters) - Ukraine said its forces north and south of Bakhmut were advancing on Monday, to entrap Russians inside the ruined city that Moscow says it captured over the weekend after Europe's bloodiest battle for ground troops since World War Two.

Russia's proclamation on Saturday that it had finally captured the final few blocks of Bakhmut culminated a battle both sides have called a meatgrinder, and gave Moscow its first chance to declare a substantial victory for more than 10 months.

But even as the Russians pushed forward inside Bakhmut, their forces on the city's northern and southern outskirts were retreating at the war's fastest pace for six months, giving both sides reasons to claim momentum had now shifted their way.

Moscow says capturing Bakhmut now opens the way to further advances in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine says its advance on the Russian forces' flanks was more meaningful than its withdrawal inside the city, and Russian reinforcements sent to hold Bakhmut will weaken Moscow's lines elsewhere.

"Through our movement on the flanks - to the north and south - we manage to destroy the enemy," Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said on Monday in televised comments.

"By moving along the flanks and occupying certain heights there, our armed forces have made it very difficult for the enemy to stay in the city itself."

Ukrainian forces were still advancing, particularly south of Bakhmut, Maliar said, though she said the intensity of fighting on the northern flank had subsided for now. Reuters could not independently verify the situation in either location.

Maliar also said Ukraine still held a foothold inside the city itself, although independent monitors say any remaining Ukrainian presence there is unlikely to be substantial.

"Wagner Group mercenaries likely secured the western administrative borders of Bakhmut City while Ukrainian forces are continuing to prioritise counterattacks on Bakhmut’s outskirts," the Institute for the Study of War think tank said on Monday.

The battle inside Bakhmut so far has been led by Wagner, a private Russian army whose leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has been issuing daily audio and video messages mocking the leadership of Russia's regular armed forces and accusing them of abandoning their flanks even as his own forces advanced.

In his latest message on Monday, he repeated a vow to pull his troops out of Bakhmut, beginning in three days, and hand over the defence of the newly captured city to regular troops.

"On the western edges, defensive positions have been set up, and so Wagner will be leaving Artyomovsk between May 25 and June 1," he said, using the Soviet-era name for Bakhmut.

"If the Defence Ministry's own forces aren't enough, then we have thousands of generals - we just need to put together a battalion of generals, give them all guns, and it'll all be fine."

The Ukrainians say they have pushed the front back in places north and south of Bakhmut by more than a mile since last week, the fastest it has moved since they recaptured the southern city of Kherson in November.

Moscow's defence ministry has acknowledged that some Russian troops fell back outside Bakhmut last week, but has denied Prigozhin's repeated assertion that the flanks were crumbling, or that the military had withheld ammunition from Wagner.

The warring sides hold opposing views of the importance of the battle over Bakhmut, once a small mining city of 70,000 people, now an uninhabited ruin lain to waste by eight months of street-to-street combat and bombardment.

Moscow has consistently portrayed Bakhmut as a vital strategic objective towards its aim of securing control over the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine it claims to have annexed last year. Kyiv portrays the city as a "mousetrap" for Russian troops, important mainly because of the opportunity the battle presented to destroy the attacking forces in huge numbers.

Coming weeks are expected to demonstrate the impact that the huge losses in Bakhmut have had on the fighting strength of both sides in the next big phase of the war - Ukraine's first counteroffensive for six months, expected to begin soon.

Kyiv has thousands of freshly trained troops equipped with Western tanks and armoured vehicles, and says it aims to drive all invading Russian forces from its land. Moscow has been digging fortifications across the entire front line to defend the parts of Ukraine it has seized and claims to have annexed.

With the Ukrainian counteroffensive looming, Russia has launched missile and drone strikes across Ukraine several times a week this month, the fastest pace of such strikes since the war began. In the latest Russian attack, some 15 blasts were heard overnight in the southern Ukrainian city of Dnipro, a frequent Russian target lately.

"Thanks to the defence forces, we withstood the attack. Details will come in due time," the governor, Serhiy Lysak, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukraine also said Russian shelling had knocked out power lines to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, located in Russian-held territory near the front.

The past week saw a major diplomatic push by Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, demonstrating newfound confidence in world travel to attend the G7 summit of big powers in Japan, stopping on the way at an Arab summit in Saudi Arabia. The previous week he visited Rome, Berlin, London and Paris.

It provided a contrast from Russian President Vladimir Putin who has left the former Soviet Union only once since ordering the invasion - for a day trip to Tehran last July - and has yet to make any official international visits so far in 2023.

[The_Saint]

R: "We captured the city"
U: "Choice: keep it and die or leave it and waste all the effort"

[LadyTevar]

R: "We captured the city"
U: "Choice: keep it and die or leave it and waste all the effort"

Don't forget --
R: We captured the City!
U : We have all the city's coordinates for bombing grid locked.

[Lord Revan]

What's even funnier the "allow enemy to overextend and then crush their flanks" as a tactic is so old that it's probably as old as warfare itself, yet Russia seems to walked straight into it. This one the few tactics that favor a side with fewer numbers too since if done right the force those flanks got crushed will end up with cut supply lines thus their size becomes a liability rather then strength.

EDIT:It wouldn't surprise me at all if the leaders of the Wagner force would be recalled to Moscow just before the Ukrainian noose closes totally and thus don't share the faith of their men.

[Broomstick]

Wouldn't surprise me if the Wagner commanders aren't recalled to Moscow and are crushed with their rank and file as a convenient way for Putin/the Kremlin to be rid of them.

[Eternal_Freedom]

"Allow the enemy to overextend and focus on one position, then crush their flanks" - isn't that pretty much exactly what the Red Army did to Paulus at Stalingrad?

[Lord Revan]

"Allow the enemy to overextend and focus on one position, then crush their flanks" - isn't that pretty much exactly what the Red Army did to Paulus at Stalingrad?

More or less, also what Finns did in larger scale during the Winter War, though in that case it wasn't one but several points where soviets overextended and Finns were able to cut off and isolate the soviet forces.

EDIT:It's such an old tactic it's probably easier to find all the wars where it wasn't used then finding all the wars where it was used.

[LadyTevar]

"Allow the enemy to overextend and focus on one position, then crush their flanks" - isn't that pretty much exactly what the Red Army did to Paulus at Stalingrad?

More or less, also what Finns did in larger scale during the Winter War, though in that case it wasn't one but several points where soviets overextended and Finns were able to cut off and isolate the soviet forces.

EDIT:It's such an old tactic it's probably easier to find all the wars where it wasn't used then finding all the wars where it was used.

I'd be very surprised if it's not in "The Art of War" (Sun Tzu).

[LadyTevar]

Russia Vows "Harsh Response" over Belgorod Attacks

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has promised a "harsh response" to cross-border incursions from Ukraine.

His comments came after Moscow said it had defeated an attack in the Belgorod region.
However, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said there had been a "large number" of drone attacks overnight.

Ukraine denies involvement in the raid - and two Russian paramilitary groups opposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin say they were behind it.
Attackers entered Russian territory from Ukraine on Monday.

Reporting to defence ministry officials on the incursion, Mr Shoigu said "more than 70 Ukrainian nationalists" had been killed and the rest pushed back into Ukraine.
"We will continue to respond to such actions by Ukrainian militants promptly and extremely harshly," he said.

The two Russian paramilitary groups - the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) and Liberty of Russia Legion (LSR) denied that they had sustained any casualties, and said a Russian motorised rifle company had been destroyed.
The casualty claims by the warring sides have not been independently verified.

Russia also says that Western military vehicles were used in the incursion.
It posted pictures of destroyed US vehicles apparently at the scene of the fighting but some Ukrainian military experts and bloggers have suggested they could have been staged.
The US said it was sceptical that reports of US-supplied weapons being used in the incursion were true and did not "encourage or enable strikes inside of Russia".

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the vehicles were evidence of growing Western military involvement in Ukraine.
"It is no secret for us that more and more equipment is being delivered to Ukraine's armed forces. It is no secret that this equipment is being used against our own military," he said.
"We are drawing the appropriate conclusions."

Meanwhile attacks in the region appear to be continuing.

Mr Gladkov said overnight attacks by drones were mostly dealt with by air defences, but some damage was caused to cars, private houses and administrative buildings in and around Belgorod city, as well as in the border district of Borisovka.
No-one was injured in the attacks, he added.

A "small fire" began after a gas pipeline was damaged in Grayvoron district.
Low-level attacks in Russian border regions such as Belgorod and Bryansk have become frequent in recent weeks.

Mr Gladkov said that agricultural workers were going out into the fields wearing helmets and bulletproof vests because of the threat of attacks.
Villages in Belgorod near the border were evacuated on Monday after coming under fire.

Monday's raid led Moscow to declare a counter-terrorism operation, giving the authorities special powers to clamp down on communications and people's movements.
The measures were only lifted the following afternoon, and even then, one of the paramilitary groups was claiming it still controlled a small piece of Russian territory.

1. Re: Western Weapons in Ukraine -- Uhh... DUH? That's been in the news for months. Were those actual shots of NATO equipment in Belgorod? Probably not.

2. Is Ukraine responsible, or is it all the Russian Partisans, and did Ukraine arm them with NATO Weapons?
With all the BlackOps shit the US has pulled over the decades, I'd not be surprised if the Partisans had Western Backing.

[bilateralrope]

Wagner chief says Russian defense forces "not ready to resist" anti-Putin fighters inside Russia

The head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner is reacting to the cross-border attack by anti-Putin Russian groups, admitting his army is not ready to resist them. CNN's Salma Abdelaziz reports.

There is a video at the link that I don't have the bandwidth to view right now.

Still, if Wagner is at the point where they admitting they aren't ready, they must be worried.

[Lord Revan]

"Allow the enemy to overextend and focus on one position, then crush their flanks" - isn't that pretty much exactly what the Red Army did to Paulus at Stalingrad?

More or less, also what Finns did in larger scale during the Winter War, though in that case it wasn't one but several points where soviets overextended and Finns were able to cut off and isolate the soviet forces.

EDIT:It's such an old tactic it's probably easier to find all the wars where it wasn't used then finding all the wars where it was used.

I'd be very surprised if it's not in "The Art of War" (Sun Tzu).

Even if the exact tactic isn't the basic principle behind it is (fein weakness where the enemy is strong while attacking where they're weak).