https://www.economist.com/news/2022/03/11/could-russia-use-c...
So all the allied bombings in ww2 were pointless?
Question for military analysts: what is the counter to siege / artillery barrage?
Guesses:
1. dig deep bunkers to survive the weeks/months of artillery,
2. organise ambushes on the artillery (taking out a few pieces per day will add up over months), or
3. use flying forces (e.g. Bayraktar TB2).
Would these counters work; are they likely to occur?
Another idea is taking out the transports that resupply artillery ammo, but if they're coming from the North that probably won't work, since it's close and well protected.
From my view, their best options right now are to
1) minimize the number of directions/locations which they have to defend,
2) shelter and minimize losses during air raids/artillery strikes,
3) blow every single strike they make out of proportion to gain sympathy of Western partners and even Russian citizens. I’d even go so far as to start staging fabricated atrocities - the world has a short attention span and international pressure helps their cause).
4) employ unconventional warfare, including coordinated psychological operations directed towards Russian citizens and military members/their families (e.g., their mothers).
These are all things I’m pretty sure they’re doing right now and is part of their strategy. Authoritarian governments have some positives, but central decision making is also a glaringly vulnerability.
The same person who can decide to start a war, is the same person who can be the target of an entire war effort to try and persuade them to stop the war.
Let’s just say, we probably don’t even hear about/know half of what is going on behind the scenes/clandestinely to sabotage Russia’s potential for success right now.
Russian doctrine dubs artillery the “god of war” and they have more artillery than Ukraine, but Western radar and targeting might make Ukraine’s artillery more precise. Hard to tell. Would have been nice to set Ukraine up with that stuff before the invasion.
> Another idea is taking out the transports that resupply artillery ammo
Definitely part of insurgent warfare - attack the weak spots. I don't have it in front of me, but one military expert said the soft underbelly of a seige is the outer ring - the outside of the siege.
If this were the only concern, should we just tacitly support Ukraine until Russia implodes? There are nuclear weapons rattling around in there. Politics is all about managing uncertainties. I should think a calmer, less dictatorial outcome would be everyone's interests.
Or is it? Because Ukraine/Russia, while tragic for those involved, is hors d'oeuvres for the real discussion: Taiwan. Anyone paying much attention these last years knows what's going down as soon as the Ukraine situation is escalated to a full-on regional conflict.
May Fortune lay peace and wisdom upon the heads of all the leaders involved.
I would imagine some sort of interdiction/economic approach would be much more efficient for China. Or just wait until an amenable political group takes power on the island and reintegrate at that point.
2. Rubble still makes for surprisingly good cover in urban combat.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/satellite-images-sho...
The question is, once the war becomes too expensive for Putin, will Ukraine be in a position to take back Crimea and Donbas, and will the EU send peace-keepers to help protect Ukraine's borders like it has in Bosnia:
This is hacker news. You have all dealt with bullies. Have they ever backed down, except after being physically hit?
This is a cheerleading blog for tech startups, run by a VC firm. This audience has more experience with elevator pitches than bullies and geopolitics.
“The Russians are not going to roll over and play dead. In fact what the Russians are going to do is they're going to crush the Ukrainians. They're going to bring out the big guns. They're going to turn places like Kiev and other cities in Ukraine into rubble. They're going to do Fallujahs.”
In some ways it's more like Afghanistan where they thought they'd go occupy some country and then found it too expensive and unrewarding.
I'm not sure Russia, or at least 99% of Russia wanted to invade Ukraine proper which it why Putin asked their parliament to recognise Donbass rather than admitting his real plan. It's kind of one man's project.
If I was to bet on anything, I'd expect Russia to gradually withdraw to the south and then occupy it, digging in for a long negotiation process.
What is that based on? Factually, Russia has invested a lot to conquer Kyiv and Ukraine; the rest is speculation. They may settle for less, but that is not evidence that it was intended as a distraction.
(Also, it is no 'distraction' to the people of Kyiv and Ukraine.)
Stand with Ukraine:
paraphrasing HR: "Medium range air defense and shore to ship missiles ..."
The real humanitarian/strategic answer would be to create a UN-sanctioned peacekeeping zone in the western part of the country, backed up by US/NATO forces. This mirrors the WWII style where as soon as Russia invaded the eastern half of Ukraine, NATO would have invaded the west, but paying respect to our modern notion of borders. That NATO has not done this is likely surprising to Putin, since he's basically operating from the old mindset of fighting a WWII style war complete with an appalling contempt for human life.
A significant population of east Ukraine has family in Russia. This is like New York invading New Jersey. Ridiculous and terrible but they are aware that their family and friends live there.
There are hundreds of videos of Ukrainian civilians trying to climb aboard moving Russian convoys and blocking their paths and knocking out their mirrors and the Russians doing their best to ignore it.
Would it have been possible for Iraqis/Afghans/Syrians to do this to the US army?
Russia's internal propaganda controls are so good that in the early days, two mothers we know refused to believe their sons' reports of being bombed in Kharkiv. Since then, this has become a wider reported story. Our Russian friends in the US have come over to video chat with their relatives back in Russia to convince them of the indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas. And they have not believed. Or at least they are too embarrassed to admit that they have been fooled by propaganda.
Russia will likely deploy chemical weapons in Ukraine as they lose, just as they have elsewhere. There is no humanity, no rules, among their commanders and Putin. And they have suffered zero consequences for their war crimes in the past.
Bringing me some grim joy that Ukranians have picked off at least 2 high-ranking Russian military. The morale setbacks for Russia, just the ones that make the news, are pretty serious. It's not clear there will be a winner of this war, but the losers are already stacking up on both sides.
He's lost the media war facing westward, India and China are temporising friends at best. Inward media is paper thin maintaining "the Ukrainian nazi" story, it's leaking like a sieve. Mobile crematorium won't bring conscripts home any better than body bags, so belief in a victory worth winning is dying on the vine.
Other articles have spoken to systematic corruption in petrol and tyres: these ones haven't been rotated and checked in storage, are cheap import knockoffs and look like a huge mistake.
I still think a repression/occupation is going to materialise in at least part of Ukraine but the outcome is not net advantageous to Putin medium to long term.
It's at best stalemate with adjusted borders.
