[HN Gopher] Russia's Ill-Fated Invasion of Ukraine: Lessons in M...
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Russia's Ill-Fated Invasion of Ukraine: Lessons in Modern Warfare
Author : omnibrain
Score : 25 points
Date : 2022-06-04 21:24 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.csis.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.csis.org)
| tus666 wrote:
| Make sure you have the smartest smart missiles and smart drones
| and the best anti-drone defence systems.
| ripvanwinkle wrote:
| >Russia has failed to achieve most of its objectives in Ukraine
| because.... .
|
| The opening comment makes its seem like this is now all in the
| past. I think its a bit early to comment on how much Russia
| achieves here - this is very much WIP with a lot dependent on the
| solidarity in the West and the reaction of the populations to the
| cost of the war and the war effort as it drags on.
|
| It's fair to say though that Russia bungled the start and
| miscalculated the cost benefit of this war.
| KVFinn wrote:
| >>Russia has failed to achieve most of its objectives in
| Ukraine because...
|
| >The opening comment makes its seem like this is now all in the
| past. I think its a bit early to comment on how much Russia
| achieves here - this is very much WIP with a lot dependent on
| the solidarity in the West and the reaction of the populations
| to the cost of the war and the war effort as it drags on.
|
| Essentially, the manner in which Russia will have to prosecute
| to the military side of the war to 'win' their military
| objectives, will make the political objectives that were the
| reason for the war in the first place, unachievable.
|
| In the first few days of the war it was possible to imagine
| Russia achieving those political objectives. Ukraine might have
| given up the capital immediately. Huge parts of the country
| might have decided they preferred to join Russia. But it soon
| became apparent that those assumptions were wildly off. Any
| victory now will, at best, include absolutely massive
| quantities of troops perpetually kept in Ukraine at an
| incredible cost of resources and lives over future years.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Russia made its objectives very clear, and then changed them
| when they failed to manifest. It's very fair to say they failed
| to achieve their goals. They're now shooting for much milder
| goals.
| civilized wrote:
| Yes. Ukraine is already struggling to halt the slow grinding
| Russian progress in the east. I don't see the conflict ending
| until Ukraine either retakes the lost territory (in months?
| years?) or loses Western support and becomes simply unable to
| carry on logistically.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| > Ukraine is already struggling to halt the slow grinding
| Russian progress in the east.
|
| This war was supposed to last 3 days. It is now day 101.
| Russia was supposed to take kyiv. It was entirely pushed
| back. It then tried to take Kharkiv, and was entirely pushed
| back. It's now trying to settle for severodonestk in the east
| and it's not clear that they will take it despite a very
| large manpower advantage in that area. Meanwhile their
| control of southern areas like Kherson is beginning to
| falter.
|
| Already struggling to halt progress in the east seems like a
| wildly misleading claim. Significant advances have been
| completely repelled.
| civilized wrote:
| I have been reading ISW's daily updates since the war
| started. The shift from enthusiasm for Ukraine's victories
| to frustration in the east has been palpable. Ukraine is
| fighting at its limit and Russia still inches forward.
| Opportunistic counteroffensives near Kherson have not yet
| broken out.
|
| I want Ukraine to win quickly and decisively and every
| dollar we spend sending them stuff is well-spent. But I
| think it's going to be a slog. OTOH Ukraine will not back
| down and I think the Western backing is probably pretty
| deliberate, serious, and long-term. We want this to be
| Russia's second Afghanistan. But Afghanistan is about what
| I'm expecting.
|
| Grimly, I am somewhat satisfied that Europeans are being
| reminded of the fury they must summon when an enemy arrives
| aiming to crush them like ants.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| I'm surprised you can read the ISW updates and have that
| be your take on the situation.
|
| My primary takeaways from them recently:
|
| * Russia is having serious problems getting troops
|
| * their execution is terrible and all of their successes
| are very costly. Even Russian mil bloggers are
| complaining about this.
|
| * the push for the east is coming at great cost but
| provides basically no strategic benefit
|
| Recent news as of today has suggested significant
| Ukrainian success in severodonestk but let's see. I
| expect the city will fall eventually. If it doesn't
| then... idk, I feel like Russia has all but lost the war.
| civilized wrote:
| ISW has shifted to trash talking the Russian military
| effort because news from the front isn't fun anymore. I
| enjoy the news of Russian dysfunction as much as any
| Ukraine ally, but if you read below the fold it's exactly
| as I said.
|
| I am hopeful that Ukraine can grind some asymmetric
| attrition out of Severodonetsk. Maybe that is why we are
| beginning to see some good news out of the city. Maybe
| they hope to turn it into Stalingrad with Russia on the
| other side this time.
| orbifold wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| They are nowhere near taking Odessa. It is extremely
| unlikely that they will achieve that in the foreseeable
| future.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| FranzFerdiNaN wrote:
| Russia has also suffered massive casualties amongst its
| officer corps and is expected to barely be able to recover
| from this.
| mercy_dude wrote:
| Yeah that opening line was a giveaway. I thought Ukraine's own
| defence minister says Russia now controls 20% of Ukraine as
| little as a few days ago. What changed?
| oneoff786 wrote:
| It used to be a much higher percentage. They've abandoned the
| entire northern front.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| I don't think much can be learned from this war aside from some
| interesting drone and mortar tech.
|
| Russia's performance has just been so poorly executed. Learning
| lessons on the general state of modern warfare would be a
| terrible training set.
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(page generated 2022-06-04 23:01 UTC)