[Werthead]

King Botox's speech (an online friend came up with that one) was decidedly meeeh. He even acknowledged Ukraine is going to go on fighting and nobody really seemed to be buying anything he was saying. The US and France saying they won't recognise the sham votes is one thing, but Kazakhstan, Serbia, India and Turkey saying it's all bollocks is another.

The interesting question is if we are going to hear anything from China. Letting this slide given their commitment to territorial integrity - code for, "We're not remotely approving anything that could bite us on the ass over Taiwan" - is a bit of a problem for them.

Also Ukraine has formally applied for NATO membership, almost at the same time as Putin's speech and the collapse of the Russian position in Lyman. Epic, epic troll game.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 30 September 2022 - 02:45 PM

[Werthead]

Lots of grisly reports from Lyman. Even hardened Ukrainian soldiers very - understandably - angry about the invasion seemed to have been startled by the sheer numbers of Russian casualties they inflicted. Indications now that the Russians sustained absolutely massive casualties, and as reinforcements have arrived in the area, the Ukrainians suddenly switched from the southern end of the line to the northern, catching Russian forces out of position and driving forwards en masse.

Reports of a renewed offensive in the NW of Kherson oblast, two Ukrainian tank battalions making progress.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 01 October 2022 - 08:41 PM

[Cause]

https://www.cnn.com/...e12a4ff46407fae

"Putin ally slams Russian generals after Lyman withdrawal and encourages "using low-yield nuclear weapons""

I mean this has to be just talk right. I don't know what they think that talk achieves but nobody sane really thinks you can drop a low yield nuclear bomb in Ukraine and go on like normal. I would support sanctioning russia back into the stone age at that point. Nukes exist, we cant put the genie back into the bottle but unless tanks are about to roll into your capital city its too early to use them.

This is a problem, every nation on earth will eventually realize they need one nuke of their own to keep the nuclear armed at bay. If russia can behave like this and they are on the security council which is always preaching nukes for us but not for you its going to break the system.

[Garak]

Is it Kadyrov that made that statement? The guy is missing a few screws, everything out of his mouth is crazy talk.

[Werthead]

The United States has made it abundantly clear that that Russia using WMD in Ukraine would 100% entail a response by the United States. The severity of the response would depend on the situation: Russia detonating a low-yield bomb in an empty field somewhere in territory behind Russian lines would be treated differently to them dropping a bomb on a town and incurring civilian casualties. The response would range from a retaliatory US tactical strike on Russian positions in Ukraine to a massive air strike and cruise missile attack, and the introduction of a no-fly zone over the territory of Ukraine.

Obviously that would be a tricky moment, but the US would avoid attacking pre-February 23 (or at least pre-2014) Russian territory in the first instance.

What's bizarre about that is that there are some Russian politicians and military bloggers saying the Russia cannot "lose" to Ukraine as that would be abjectly humiliating but it can lose to the United States and NATO, and such a "defeat" would fuel the narrative of the US and NATO taking over Ukraine and would then rally Russians for effectively a new Cold War and possibly a direct confrontation with NATO later on. Obviously that's a risky strategy, especially as almost nobody is buying it. It might be a way for Putin to "lose" and retain power ("See, I was right!"), whilst if Russia simply loses to Ukraine because of Putin's own ineptness, there's no way he'll be able to retain power.

It is believed that China is trying to discourage the use of nuclear weapons behind the scenes because of the danger of the collapse of non-proliferation, and in particular the risk of nations on China's doorstep like Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Taiwan acquiring WMDs, effectively preventing any future conventional military confrontations in the future in areas of China's interest. It's also not in Russia's interests: Kazakhstan, Georgia, Turkey and Poland, to start with, would also be likely to try to acquire such weapons based on their geopolitical position and threat posture (and Poland acquiring them might encourage Germany to do the same). My sense is that although Putin wants to keep China on-side, there are limits to that.

[Mentalist]

Z-Heads on TG are whining that UAF had a 30km breakthrough along the R bank of the Dnipro and "we are unable to stabilize the frontlines"

45 klicks to go to Beryslav, which is just upstream from the Kakhovka dam crossing. If the UAF can blitz there, the Izyum and Lyman routs will look like child's play, b/c the orc forces trying to hold the 70 km frontline from the Inhulets' bridgehead to the riverbank will have nowhere to run once the Beryslav road is cut at at the source. trying to fall back across the empty farmland towards kherson, between 2 enemy pincers, to try to get tehir back to the Inhulet's river, where the UAF has been blowing up ponttons and bridges to limit the orc's ability to cross. That entire plain would become a killing field. Here's hoping.

EDIT: and apparently the attempts to build a defensive line on the edge of Luhans'k Oblast from Svatove to Kreminna is already in shambles. Should be another interesting week...

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 02 October 2022 - 08:58 PM

[Werthead]

The messaging and briefing here and in the US over the last week or so appears to have established a pattern of sorts.

• NATO and the west believe that another mass Ukrainian success like in Kharkiv could "force" Putin into an escalatory act.
  
• The two options on Putin's table are detonate a WMD on Ukrainian territory (either targeting a military formation or a demonstration on Russian-claimed territory in the - highly mistaken - belief that will not trigger a response) or target logistics hubs in Europe with conventional weapons, probably hypersonic missiles. One suggestion is that Putin may believe that a strike on a logistics hub will be less escalatory than detonating a WMD on Ukrainian soil (suggestions that he might detonate one on Russian soil as a warning have been dismissed: that would just be Russia testing a weapon on its own territory and would be meaningless), as he believes that the weapons supplies to Ukraine mean that NATO is an active participant in the conflict already, which is an erroneous belief (if NATO was a direct participant in the conflict, Russia would already be pointedly aware of that fact).
  
• NATO and the US in particular have delivered private assurances to both the Kremlin and their Russian military counterparts with whom they have direct contacts (surprisingly, a lot) that both actions will entail a direct NATO response against Russia, with a range of options available depending on the severity of Russia's act.
  
• Some of these options include "sinking the entire Black Sea Fleet, rendering every airfield in Crimea unusable and then air-striking every Russian military position in Ukraine into oblivion," at the lower end of the response options, running up to "NATO sending a hundred thousand troops into Ukraine." There seems to be some satisfaction that Russian military and at least some political leaders have accepted that this will happen. There have probably been assurances that attacks on Russian soil itself will be limited to long-range artillery, AA systems, and stand-off aircraft inside Russian and Belarusian airspace, so as not to cross Russia's nuclear response doctrine.
  
• NATO and the US believe that they can achieve air superiority over Ukraine from Russian forces in literally hours, if not immediately, given that Russian aircraft right now can barely operate over the front.
  
• There is no longer any real belief or confidence in NATO circles that Putin will order a WMD strike against NATO targets, or that these orders would be followed if issued.

Obviously some risks remain there, but the messaging from NATO and the United States seems to suggest their patience is nearing exhaustion, and either any kind of strike on a NATO country or even a severe escalation in Ukraine itself will trigger NATO's involvement, and that involvement will not be at the "blowing up a single arms dump somewhere" levels of response.

One of the key limiting factors why NATO is not getting involved right now (as it is believed that Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and the maybe the Czechs, at least, are urging behind the scenes) seems to be the absolute 100% belief that Ukraine can now win this war without NATO's direct involvement, and that would be far more preferable so as not to create some BS future narrative that Ukraine only won because of NATO's help. But obviously there are limits on how many dead civilians will be tolerated for that.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 03 October 2022 - 09:27 AM

[Garak]

Oh the BS scenario that they won because of NATO will happen anyway.

[Werthead]

Garak, on 03 October 2022 - 09:26 AM, said:

Oh the BS scenario that they won because of NATO will happen anyway.

Oh 100%, but there's a difference between, "NATO sold Ukraine some hardware" and seeing footage of actual American troops and Abrams tanks storming into Mariupol.

As noted earlier, there's this crazy idea floating in some Russian circles that they want to get NATO directly involved so they can "lose with honour" (!) to a superior opponent, which is deranged when they can literally just go home.

[Garak]

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov says his three sons, aged 14, 15 and 16, will soon travel to the Ukraine front line to fight with Russian forces.

The fricking hell???

[Werthead]

Garak, on 03 October 2022 - 03:45 PM, said:

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov says his three sons, aged 14, 15 and 16, will soon travel to the Ukraine front line to fight with Russian forces.

The fricking hell???

Maybe he meant "fight against Russian forces" and this is an oblique way of saying he's switching to the winning side (which is absolutely 100% Kadyrov's playbook). Expect to see confused Ukrainians being joined by Chechens filming TikTok videos of their victories three weeks after the fighting has ended.

[Werthead]

Apparently Ukraine couldn't decide between collapsing the Kherson or Luhansk fronts and decided, "why not both?" The Ukrainians apparently bypassed a Russian defensive line in Luhansk altogether, resorting in comments like, "That's not fair!" Reminiscent of classic British sitcom DAD'S ARMY when Sergeant Wilson tells Captain Mainwaring that the Germans have gone around the Maginot Line:

Quote

"That's a typical shabby trick, you see the sort of people we're up against Wilson."

The Kremlin has also caused tremendous confusion with different officials saying different things about where exactly the borders of the territories they've annexed actually are. Some say it's the full oblasts but that raised a legal point of order that they cannot poll a region without actually controlling it and visiting every address*, which they were unable to in large parts of Kherson, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia due to, y'know, people shooting them. As a result the borders can only extend to the areas occupied by Russian forces at the time, which at the moment is significantly smaller than when the annexation was announced.

* This sounds deranged, but unwieldy Russian bureaucratic procedure is actually a very real thing, even in this war.

[Cause]

Werthead, on 03 October 2022 - 04:33 PM, said:

The Kremlin has also caused tremendous confusion with different officials saying different things about where exactly the borders of the territories they've annexed actually are. Some say it's the full oblasts but that raised a legal point of order that they cannot poll a region without actually controlling it and visiting every address*, which they were unable to in large parts of Kherson, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia due to, y'know, people shooting them. As a result the borders can only extend to the areas occupied by Russian forces at the time, which at the moment is significantly smaller than when the annexation was announced.

* This sounds deranged, but unwieldy Russian bureaucratic procedure is actually a very real thing, even in this war.

If somebody in Russia wants to waste their time contemplating the legal merit of a sham ballot that they can’t militarily enforce let them. I don’t think anyone else has far deigned to even read it to find out.

I wonder if it’s already too late for Putin to remain in power. I actually have no idea of the machinations of Russian politics but Putin seems to be the only one who can’t admit defeat for his own personal political reasons. I doubt he can even call the status quo at this point anything but a defeat. If he can’t back down and no one else can gain anything only lose how long before someone retires him through a window.

Ukraine has a winning hand, unless the west forced them to the negotiating table and even than Ukraine might not agree. they see total victory on the horizon. The west also doesn’t seem to have any reason to negotiate either beyond the risk of nuclear escalation which I think they actually have to prove a tactic that won’t work or Russia, NK and everybody else will copy it.

Someone in the right position it seems could easilly earn himself a few billion and a presidency and have the people cheer him as he does it. I actually don’t see how else this ends.


Also what’s about several countries now saying they approve of Ukraine joining nato. I thought typically any country experiencing a conflict couldn’t join. What happens if NATO sets a deadline for Ukrainian memberships and asks Russia to call its bluff.

This post has been edited by Cause: 03 October 2022 - 06:54 PM

[Werthead]

Cause, on 03 October 2022 - 06:43 PM, said:

I wonder if it’s already too late for Putin to remain in power. I actually have no idea of the machinations of Russian politics but Putin seems to be the only one who can’t admit defeat for his own personal political reasons. I doubt he can even call the status quo at this point anything but a defeat. If he can’t back down and no one else can gain anything only lose how long before someone retires him through a window.

Someone in the right position it seems could easilly earn himself a few billion and a presidency and have the people cheer him as he does it. I actually don’t see how else this ends.

There are some scenarios floating around, including Putin being allowed to retire to his dacha in Sochi etc, but there's also a lot of headaches on the issue. A lot of Russians have big problems with Putin and Putin's position is much shakier than it was in February, but that's also coming from a very low bar, so you couldn't say a coup or removal was imminent, but then again if he was deposed tomorrow that wouldn't be the most shocking thing either.

Quote

Also what’s about several countries now saying they approve of Ukraine joining nato. I thought typically any country experiencing a conflict couldn’t join. What happens if NATO sets a deadline for Ukrainian memberships and asks Russia to call its bluff.

Under NATO rules a country engaged in a conflict cannot join, something Putin is well aware of and probably partially behind how he handled Georgia and Ukraine in 2014, by splitting the borders he effectively stop them from ever joining NATO in the future.

I suspect the discussions of the last few days have been along the lines of Ukraine defeating Russia, reclaiming its full borders (including Crimea) and then joining an expedited process to join NATO afterwards, otherwise squaring the rules will be quite difficult.

[stone monkey]

Werthead, on 03 October 2022 - 07:51 PM, said:

Under NATO rules a country engaged in a conflict cannot join, something Putin is well aware of and probably partially behind how he handled Georgia and Ukraine in 2014, by splitting the borders he effectively stop them from ever joining NATO in the future.
I suspect the discussions of the last few days have been along the lines of Ukraine defeating Russia, reclaiming its full borders (including Crimea) and then joining an expedited process to join NATO afterwards, otherwise squaring the rules will be quite difficult.

Which does play into Putin's hands more than a little, even should he lose the larger conflict. Barring a change to NATO's rules, which has numerous issues attached, as long as he keeps a small war going on, which wouldn't be all that difficult given the circumstances, he can permanently prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. And all he has to do is kill a few people that he doesn't care about anyway. Because one of the many problems with wars is that both sides have to agree that they're over.
I would be hugely surprised if that particular piece of deeply unpleasant political calculus hadn't occurred to him, or those in his circle, already. "War is the continuation of politics by other means" - it's a truism because it is, unfortunately, true.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 03 October 2022 - 08:18 PM

[Werthead]

stone monkey, on 03 October 2022 - 08:14 PM, said:

Which does play into Putin's hands more than a little, even should he lose the larger conflict. Barring a change to NATO's rules, which has numerous issues attached, as long as he keeps a small war going on, which wouldn't be all that difficult given the circumstances, he can permanently prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. And all he has to do is kill a few people that he doesn't care about anyway. Because one of the many problems with wars is that both sides have to agree that they're over.
I would be hugely surprised if that particular piece of deeply unpleasant political calculus hadn't occurred to him, or those in his circle, already. "War is the continuation of politics by other means" - it's a truism because it is, unfortunately, true.

Yes, this is why him using WMD in Ukraine or attacking NATO directly would be a horrendous mistake, not just because he'd lose and get a lot of Russians killed in the process, but it's likely the fastest way to create the very situation he's been trying to avert, Ukraine in NATO on Russia's doorstep after NATO rinses Russia and boots them out of Ukraine, and there is nothing he can do to avert that short of 100% getting himself killed (which Captain 300-Foot-Long-Desk-to-Avoid-COVID is unlikely to relish) along with a lot of other people. Then again, it would be the next step in a series of very moronic mistakes he's made in the last few years.

Putin's Xanatos forwards-thinking reputation (which I think was based a lot more on luck than people gave him credit for) was pretty much smashed to pieces in 2013-14 anyway. Based on Ukraine's demographics, the smartest thing would have been to let the revolution ride out and probably within a few years the political pendulum would have swung back and a moderately Russian-friendly government would have come to power again and any attempt to join NATO would have been kicked into the long grass etc. The stupidest thing to have done would have been to have pulled the Russian-leaning areas out of Ukraine (Crimea and the Donbas) altogether and ensured the Russian-leaning political forces in Ukraine would have never achieved a majority again, so obviously that's what he did.

[Mentalist]

Werthead, on 03 October 2022 - 08:49 PM, said:

stone monkey, on 03 October 2022 - 08:14 PM, said:

Which does play into Putin's hands more than a little, even should he lose the larger conflict. Barring a change to NATO's rules, which has numerous issues attached, as long as he keeps a small war going on, which wouldn't be all that difficult given the circumstances, he can permanently prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. And all he has to do is kill a few people that he doesn't care about anyway. Because one of the many problems with wars is that both sides have to agree that they're over.
I would be hugely surprised if that particular piece of deeply unpleasant political calculus hadn't occurred to him, or those in his circle, already. "War is the continuation of politics by other means" - it's a truism because it is, unfortunately, true.

Yes, this is why him using WMD in Ukraine or attacking NATO directly would be a horrendous mistake, not just because he'd lose and get a lot of Russians killed in the process, but it's likely the fastest way to create the very situation he's been trying to avert, Ukraine in NATO on Russia's doorstep after NATO rinses Russia and boots them out of Ukraine, and there is nothing he can do to avert that short of 100% getting himself killed (which Captain 300-Foot-Long-Desk-to-Avoid-COVID is unlikely to relish) along with a lot of other people. Then again, it would be the next step in a series of very moronic mistakes he's made in the last few years.

Putin's Xanatos forwards-thinking reputation (which I think was based a lot more on luck than people gave him credit for) was pretty much smashed to pieces in 2013-14 anyway. Based on Ukraine's demographics, the smartest thing would have been to let the revolution ride out and probably within a few years the political pendulum would have swung back and a moderately Russian-friendly government would have come to power again and any attempt to join NATO would have been kicked into the long grass etc. The stupidest thing to have done would have been to have pulled the Russian-leaning areas out of Ukraine (Crimea and the Donbas) altogether and ensured the Russian-leaning political forces in Ukraine would have never achieved a majority again, so obviously that's what he did.

Lmao, I've been saying the exact same thing since this thread started.

If he allowed the revolution to fizzle out, chances are good he would, be gotten the entire country by the next election cycle - especially if he backed someone who was a "moderate pro-Russian", and not a controversial thrice-convicted felon.

Instead, he decided to finish forging the Ukrainian political nation. And now we will gladly bury him.

News are coming thick and fast, but it remains to be seen if we're going to see another true breakthrough this week on either frontline. There's certainly potential for things to unravel very quickly, but I'm not ready to call it inevitability just yet.

[Werthead]

Pretty solid reports coming in that Davydiv Brid has fallen, basically completing the collapse of the entire northern sector of the Kherson front.

The Times in the UK has tapped a source who has said that Russia may be considering a test firing of a tactical nuclear warhead in the Black Sea, whilst the Poseidon drone is test-fired in the Kara Sea. However, they do not believe an actual use in Ukraine is imminent. It does appear the mood music has changed since last week, when the reports were of Russia test-firing a missile onto Ukrainian soil or a direct conventional attack on a logistics hub in Europe, so, weirdly, it seems that this might be a climbdown from the previous positions, and would not necessarily trigger the kind of overwhelming conventional response that NATO members had been impressing on their Russian counterparts.

More than 700,000 Russian men are reported to have left Russia in the last fortnight to avoid conscription. The shock to the Russian economy that has caused is going to be huge.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 04 October 2022 - 04:17 PM

[Mentalist]

Werthead, on 04 October 2022 - 01:23 PM, said:

Pretty solid reports coming in that Davydiv Brid has fallen, basically completing the collapse of the entire northern sector of the Kherson front.

The Times in the UK has tapped a source who has said that Russia may be considering a test firing of a tactical nuclear warhead in the Black Sea, whilst the Poseidon drone is test-fired in the Kara Sea. However, they do not believe an actual use in Ukraine is imminent. It does appear the mood music has changed since last week, when the reports were of Russia test-firing a missile onto Ukrainian soil or a direct conventional attack on a logistics hub in Europe, so, weirdly, it seems that this might be a climbdown from the previous positions, and would not necessarily trigger the kind of overwhelming conventional response that NATO members had been impressing on their Russian counterparts.

More than 700,000 Russian men are reported to have left Russia in the last fortnight to avoid conscription. The shock to the Russian economy that has caused is going to be huge.

Collapse feels a bit premature.
They've abandoned the Inhulets' strongholds, and we're not sure how far back they will fall back, and whether it's possible to set up a defensive line before the Kakhovka Dam (prior experience around Lyman suggests: not very), but this is a withdrawal where they could've stayed and been surrounded, so for now it's too early to use the word "rout". Once they've moved past Beryslav and abandoned most of their heavy equipment, then sure. RN, they are trying to cobble togetehr a new defensive line in the steppe, and it'll take a few more days to see just how badly that'll go for them.

[Cause]

Black Sea seems like a poor choice as well. Has that ever happened before?

It has no international waters. It’s essentially owned by Russia, Georgia turkey etc. Seems like it would rile up a lot of people for no reason. As you say if it oooks like a de escalation already it has no pull as a warning