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Putin’s Worsening Problems
- melling 5y agoHmmmm… I think people are overlooking the fact that Putin is willing to simply lay siege and use artillery to shell the Ukrainians into submission.
- khyryk 5y ago1. This was done every single day and night of the war. 2. Rubble still makes for surprisingly good cover in urban combat.
- melling 5y agoNo, the convoy near Kyiv was only recently deployed. The artillery can strike from 18-20 miles away. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/satellite-images-show-russian-convoy-outside-kyiv-largely-dispersed-artillery-in-firing-position https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/satellite-images-sho...
- tomjen3 5y agoPutin is a bully and needs to be treated as such. We should have established that no fly zone long ago. Russia only understands strength. We should make it clear that we are stronger, don’t even consider his point and he will back down. This is hacker news. You have all dealt with bullies. Have they ever backed down, except after being physically hit?
- spacemanmatt 5y ago> This is hacker news 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.
- readthenotes1 5y agoWhat do you think he's been trying to do since the war started? Play footsie?
- pm90 5y agoNot really. Artillery needs to be constantly resupplied. UA has been pretty great at disrupting those lines, and there are pretty good indicators that the Russian military is simply not logistically prepared to execute on such a long term operation.
- throwmeariver1 5y agoIt’s not only logistics it’s also maintenance and medical assistance. While rudimentary maintenance can be done in the field providing medical assistance is a lot harder especially in a -20 Celsius cold snap and if you can’t supply it the moral of your fighting force goes even lower because they know what’s coming for them.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y agoSomeone clued me in to the magnitude of the problem recently -- a former fire control sergeant in the Israeli army. He told me that a whole flatbed truck can only resupply one or two MLRSes. And apparently logistics is the big weakness of the Russian military, so this is apparently a big problem for them.
- crooked-v 5y agoIndiscriminate bombardment of cities does very little to achieve any military objectives, especially when a substantial part of the country 'under siege' is actually entirely untouched by enemy troops. In purely military terms, doing that would be almost the same as just having all that artillery sit around and do nothing while the Ukrainians execute major counter-offenses.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- gruez 5y ago>Indiscriminate bombardment of cities does very little to achieve any military objectives, especially when a substantial part of the country 'under siege' is actually entirely untouched by enemy troops. So all the allied bombings in ww2 were pointless?
- magicalist 5y ago> So all the allied bombings in ww2 were pointless? More bombs were dropped in Vietnam. Pointless was your word but to address the GP, how effective was that militarily? Stationed artillery is not an occupation.
- melling 5y agoTo answer his question and not provide a meaningless comparison, YES ALL THOSE BOMBINGS IN WW2 were effective. Now, if someone wants to digress into Vietnam…
- heavenlyblue 5y ago> YES ALL THOSE BOMBINGS IN WW2 were effective. How exactly?
- Timshel 5y agoSome strategic ones at least appear to have ben effective: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_campaign_of_World_War_II https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_campaign_of_World_War_II Not do much for area bombing (cf https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_Wor...). In both case we are talking of multiple years of bombing.
- nomilk 5y agoIt's the horrible thought we don't want to think but it's a possibility. 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.
- bladegash 5y agoThink the biggest issue with the more offensive actions they could take is that it’s very difficult to make troop movements or position your personnel when they are pinned down with artillery. 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.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- gruez 5y ago
- smitty1e 5y agoTo what effect? So that Ukraine can join Vietnam and Afghanistan and form a "Do Not Do This" triefecta for military history? 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.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y agoIf anything, this has made me doubt that Taiwan's eventual takeover will be via a hot war. The country is smaller, but its military is actually slightly larger than Ukraine's was, and they have better technology than the Ukrainians did. And the Chinese would need to cross 180km of water to get there. And the only point of taking over Taiwan is for what's already there -- the people, the technology. Shelling it would be counterproductive to say the least. 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.
- wolverine876 5y agoEveryone fights the last war. An attack on Taiwan would be nothing like Ukraine, and if it happens, everyone will readjust their expectations for the next war - and be surprised again.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tarsinge 5y agoExcuse my candor but isn’t the status of Taiwan way more contentious than Ukraine? Honestly I’m not the sure the claim is illegitimate enough to stop China (at least that’s what I get after just reading Wikipedia), so while unfortunate for Taiwan at least I hope public opinion in other countries might not want a war, given it’s not even recognized by a lot of countries. The strategic importance it has for the US (and Europe?) is problematic obviously though.
- dane-pgp 5y agoEven if millions of civilians flee or die, Putin still has to maintain an expensive occupation force (with its stretched supply lines) while the Ukrainians fight on as an insurgency amidst the rubble of their cities. 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: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Althea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Althea
- epistasis 5y agoArtillery are far less of a concern now than chemical weapons. Russia is laying the groundwork to say that Ukraine is using chemical weapons on its own people, which means that in actuality Russia will be using them and blaming Ukraine of a false flag attack: https://www.economist.com/news/2022/03/11/could-russia-use-chemical-weapons-in-ukraine https://www.economist.com/news/2022/03/11/could-russia-use-c...
- notacoward 5y agoHow long before some of those artillery pieces are captured and turned on their erstwhile comrades? The Ukrainians have already been quite successful capturing Russian equipment, and the more they seize the easier it becomes to seize more. Putting more equipment into the theater without adequate personnel and logistical support (which the Russians don't seem to have) won't help at all militarily, and indiscriminate bombardment will only worsen their diplomatic/economic situation. That's why Putin has refrained so far - not some imaginary respect for human life or humanitarian norms that he simply doesn't have.
- Exmoor 5y agoYou would hope that the Russians, more than anyone, would realize how much resistance a city under siege can put up given that their most lauded military accomplishment is being on the opposite end of that equation in Stalingrad.
- dzhiurgis 5y ago40M citizens using NATO weapons > 140M citizens using Russian weapons...
- empressplay 5y agoI get the need for flag waving but Kyiv is at best a distraction. The real aim here was to create and occupy a land bridge between Donbass and Crimea and that seems to be pretty much done. 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.
- wolverine876 5y ago> Kyiv is at best a distraction 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.)
- macrolocal 5y agoTo bolster empressplay's comment, I read on iz.ru before the invasion that Putin's aims would be (a) to "rescue" Donbass and establish a land bridge to Crimea, and (b) to destabilize NATO. Pundits there also said that claims he intended to attack Kiev were western propaganda. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- wolverine876 5y ago> ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I disagree. We're not guessing blindly. We have plenty of evidence. Russian media predictions are not evidence, were plainly wrong, and are now plainly propaganda.
- macrolocal 5y agoThey're a proxy for what Putin wants Russians to believe, ie. he wants a withdrawal to the southeast to play well domestically (regardless of his actual goals).
- andrewclunn 5y agoIf the Ukrainians are allowed to protest, then Russia is fighting this while trying to minimize overt civilian casualties (most likely to avoid video of such acts becoming galvanizing propaganda tools against them). If things go poorly, then what? If Russia then starts fighting to destroy rather than conquer Ukraine intact, then it's a whole different story. This piece reads of wishful thinking.
- iab 5y agoWay too much hopeful rationalization
- ggm 5y agoIt's certainly not blitzkrieg, more blyatzkreig. The western belief was 72 hours to complete. He didn't even make 400 hours, it lost momentum. The materiel by volume and age does not speak well of supply chain logistics. There is no rational plan of battle which puts your weakest armour first. 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.
- spacemanmatt 5y agoAs long as western weapons flood in, there's no hope for boosting the morale of Russian troops.
- ggm 5y agoPresumably attacking Lviv has dual benefit: close refugee paths (increase terror and social pressure to compromise) and interferes with materiel delivery to the east where the action is.
- omgJustTest 5y ago
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- rasengan0 5y agoTo reduce the level of rando mass murder by Putin from long range positions: Stand with Ukraine: paraphrasing HR: "Medium range air defense and shore to ship missiles ..." https://youtu.be/MDpTACez5cY?t=473 https://youtu.be/MDpTACez5cY?t=473
- gruez 5y agoNo fly zone seems like an great way of escalating the conflict, with a nuclear power no less.
- mindslight 5y ago"No fly zone" doesn't have a side effect of escalation, its entire substance is nothing but escalation. I think people have some rose tinted view of no fly zones as some objective neutral declaration, but that's basically an artifact of how they have been used to market what was essentially heavy US involvement in other wars. Instead of saying "no fly zone", saying "US jets should attack Russian jets" makes for a more honest description. 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.
- lamontcg 5y ago> saying "US jets should attack Russian jets" makes for a more honest description. Saying "US jets will directly attack and destroy Russian SAM missile batteries several hundred kilometers within Russian soil" gets the picture across better.
- sliken 5y agoIt's just guessing if things will escalate. But it does seem plausible that providing anti-air weapons is less provocative than enforcing no fly zone with foreign jets.
- it 5y ago
- leobg 5y agoMearsheimer’s prediction, based on the assumption that this is a superpower feeling under existential threat: “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.” https://youtu.be/ppD_bhWODDc?t=1257 https://youtu.be/ppD_bhWODDc?t=1257
- tim333 5y agoThing is Russia itself isn't under existential threat and never was. No one was thinking of invading it or attacking it. This seems more about trying to re-establish a Russian empire where it controls other countries. 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.
- leobg 5y agoJump backwards a minute or two from the timestamp I linked to. Addressed exactly this point.