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Putin’s Move
Hard to say, of course, but Putin seems to be far on his back foot. The “referendum,” partial mobilization, and lack of effective counter-counter-attack so far are the things that make me think so. I do not believe that the referendum or the mobilization were in the works as anything but potential future things before the Ukrainian counterattack.
The laughable referendum sounds like an attempt to create the appearance of a fact on the ground, and will of course be used the same way China waves about its maps with a nine-dashed line encompassing the Vietnam Sea. The mobilization is tricky because a full mobilization would simply advertise that suddenly Russia must go to war on a national footing just to accomplish knocking over a few counties of Ukraine. The strategic damage to Russia of merely declaring a full mobilization seems considerable. So “partial mobilization” it is.
Ukraine seems to have gained a bunch of important ground, which is after all the point, but the meat in this sandwich is the effectiveness of Russian troops on Ukrainian soil, which looks poor. I know Russia has a two-commander problem which is stupidly cross-threaded (the senior commander is in the south, but the northern one gets priority *when Russia’s border is in question*, which is just a recipe for command confusion. From the outside, and squinting through a lens of near apathy, I would say that this is the chief problem for Russia. There is of course the Napoleonic maxim about morale and materiel, a metric that also greatly favors the Ukes. And the Russians have had no answer so far for the advance made by Ukraine. Not a good look for a supposed superpower.
I recall some ops research which was breathtaking in its simplicity of structure yet complexity of result. I have tried to find it off and on for about twenty years, but it went something like this:
Simulate two opposing forces which attrite each other (slightly probabilistically, based on the ratio of force remaining) on two fronts — so each force has two units deployed, and each of those units fights its counterpart. Each side has a single reserve, and may deploy that reserve to either front (one controllable variable) and at any time (the other controllable variable). Allow a computer to run the simulation, and to select both decision points; repeat many thousands of times (Monte Carlo) to see how the results shake out. The high number of repetitions accounts for the “dice” introduced via “probabilistically.” The results were chaotic across most of the domain, with only small islands of generally good combinations of decision points, the opposite of what you would expect.
Lesson learned — predictions are for suckers, and the more anecdata recruited to the prediction, the less likely it is based on anything at all. Still, decisions must be made, and advice must be given. The most valuable part of any such briefing or set of orders could be collected under the heading “unknowns.”
The (naval) Battle of Salamis featured a superior force squeezed into an awkward area, thereby able to bring only a small part of its force to bear at any time. They should have withdrawn — instead they were defeated, and the remnants sailed for home at daybreak. There is a corollary here that all of the aid from the West must still be deployed by the hands of Ukrainians. This is a choke point on a different sort of map, a sort of phase space salient.
I remember back when the Russians were going to carve up Ukraine as easily as peeing a hole in the snow (learned a Finnish adverb today). The Russians should have been able to wipe out the archers before the stockpile of arrows mattered. Yet the Russian effort is hampered internally as well as externally, and good ol’ Russian incompetence and corruption are having their way.
After the Ukrainian advance in the east, it seems that the following can happen to/by them; endless victory all the way to Vladivostok, overextension, stasis with or without consolidation, withdrawal or pushback, or destruction by Russian counterattack. Personally, I hope that on that front, they are able to consolidate while keeping Ivan on the hoof. Depends how much force they have available. Presumably Putin’s logistics get much better across the border, where (presumably) you can simply order up more fuel and trucks will bring it. It would be very easy for Ukraine to overextend and get rolled up.
I very much *like* the idea that Putin just failed with his best, and now will try with the rest. I hope it’s true, and this goofy referendum seems to be a Hail Mary attempt to legitimize the invasion — let us hope that nobody here falls for it. And mobilization? I saw a reference to a thing: “Go ahead. Draft me. Put a gun in my hand. See what happens.”
Your move, Putin.
Published in General
How can you possibly know that there are negotiations that would have benefited Ukraine?
Do you even know what negotiations are?
Or are you in favor of letting someone other than Ukraine, such as yourself or Putin, decide what is a benefit to Ukraine and what is not? (There is a great line about that in the Soviet sci-fi comedy film, Kin-Dza-Dza, that was directed by the late, great Georgiy Daneliya.)
As it should be.
Reports that the PLA has arrested Xi and is sealing off Beijing are showing up in European media now. I saw them in an Indian youtube earlier today.
My knee jerk theory is the PLA has lost any hope of taking Taiwan, and that leaves Xi without a carrot.
Reticulator:
“How can you possibly know that there are negotiations that would have benefited Ukraine?”
Gee, Let’s see. Oh ya, back in April Zelensky and Putin had agreed to a tentative deal that Boris Johnson and our Perv President demanded be broken up.
Now I don’t know the details of that deal but since Zelensky agreed to it I am a thinking that it was good for Ukraine, and that Ukraine now would be much, much better off if that deal would have gone through. Unfortunately now because of the push by Boris, Perv Joe and the WEF for a protracted greater war that destroyed Europe’s and Ukraine’s economy and killed many people on both sides , we likely can’t go back to that point of negotiations.
[redacted for insults]
Excerpted from the Great Wretchard at the Belmont Club/PJMedia:
“Reports that Russia may mobilize one million men to prosecute its faltering war to crush Ukraine means that the great human tragedy and military conflagration there is highly likely to continue. “The hidden 7th paragraph of the Russian President’s decree on partial mobilisation allows the Ministry of Defence of Russia to mobilise 1 million people, a source in Vladimir Putin’s administration has informed the news outlet Novaya Gazeta.Europe.”
No matter how hastily trained, poorly armed or badly led such conscripts are, the introduction of such large numbers will inevitably expand the scale of the current war in terms of death, destructiveness and escalation potential. Instead of winding down, the war is ramping up. There will be enormous pressure on Poland, Finland, the Baltics and Scandinavian countries to respond to the Kremlin mustering on their eastern marches. “Russia will attempt to destroy Ukraine and change its borders, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Wednesday commenting on a partial mobilization announced by Moscow. ‘We will do all we can with our allies, so that NATO supports Ukraine even more so that it can defend itself,’ Morawiecki said, urging more help for Kyiv from western allies.”
The stage is set for a race on both sides to reinforce the front. Putin has clearly bet his political and possibly his personal life on asserting Moscow’s prerogatives as he sees them. According to an official transcript provided by the Russian government, he said that nothing less than the survival of Russia itself is at stake.”
Putin:
“Today our armed forces, as I have mentioned, are fighting on the line of contact that is over 1,000 kilometres long, fighting not only against neo-Nazi units but actually the entire military machine of the collective West. …
Washington, London and Brussels are openly encouraging Kiev to move the hostilities to our territory. They openly say that Russia must be defeated on the battlefield by any means, and subsequently deprived of political, economic, cultural and any other sovereignty and ransacked.
They have even resorted to the nuclear blackmail. I am referring not only to the Western-encouraged shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which poses a threat of a nuclear disaster, but also to the statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.
I would like to remind those who make such statements regarding Russia that our country has different types of weapons as well, and some of them are more modern than the weapons NATO countries have. In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.”
Excerpted from Jim Cardoza at American Thinker “What’s behind the Leftist urge to censor”:
“Ideas matter. Freedom matters. Communication matters. Tolerance matters. Scrutiny matters. History matters. Truth matters. Those are the values promoted by free speech, free assembly and free expression; the ones that made America a haven for intellectual freedom. Those who argue for censorship — whether it be to protect institutional authority, quell resistance to tyrannical policies or simply to avoid triggering the politically unhinged — do so because they fear the compelling nature of the adversarial point of view. Bad ideas can be discredited with good information and sound logic. Therefore, they need insulation from that which can dismantle them. Good ideas need no such protection. In the absence of censorship and deceit, they routinely prevail in the arena of debate.”
I wonder if there are any facts that would substantiate any of this. I am not aware of any myself.
Then why do you support one of the world’s main censors?
1)Russia isn’t homogeneous either- in fact they are “mobilizing” predominantly rural ethnic minorities to be sent as cannon fodder in the Ukranian winter.
2010 census about 77.7% of Russia is ethnically Russian- that nonhomogeneous fictional state of Ukraine is 77.5% Ukranian.
2)Hard to equate reputed Ukrainian crimes with the bodies found in Bucha and Irpin (and soon to be discovered in Izium, Mariupol etc). The UN has found evidence of Russian war crimes-https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/un-mandated-inquiry-concludes-war-crimes-were-committed-ukraine-2022-09-23/
Average male life expectancy in Russia is 66.5. So, you can enjoy, on average, 18 months of retirement after your military service (if you survive).
https://www.statista.com/statistics/971100/life-expectancy-at-birth-in-russia-by-gender/
Russian propaganda- total deaths are about 14,000 before the 2nd Russian invasion- they area portioned thusly:
-3,901 civilians (NB not all killed by Ukrainian forces, many killed by Russian forces). UN figure is 3400 civilians
-about 4,200 Ukrainianservicepersons
-about 5,800 Russian-backed militants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas_(2014–2022)
https://mercatornet.com/did-ukraine-kill-14000-pro-russians-and-civilians-in-donbass/78793/
Very humorous post…
Those cow fields must have been important since the Russians have been retreating-oops I mean regrouping- for days. So far the Russian regrouping from Izyum is almost as expertly done as the regrouping from Kyiv or the towing of the Moskva after her “accident”.
Bakhmut hasn’t been taken by the Russians and the important rail lines running south from Svatove to Rubizhne are now easily with own range of HIMARS.
Putin isn’t comfortable being near any Russian with a gun….
The US military recruitment targets are going much better then the Russian- altho Russia does a better job of recruiting in prison yards. I guess convictions for rape & murder look good on your resume when apply for a position in Wagner. Why do you think all the seats on flights departing Russia filled up? Perhaps the thought of 2 weeks of refresher training after years of military inactivity doesn’t make serving as cannon fodder in Ukraine an attractive idea?
This tweet sums it up pretty well:
Honestly both the ‘the Russians just retreated from cowfields, who even cares about those’ and ‘the Ukrainians drove the Russians out in face of staunch resistance, what a great/terrible army’ positions overstate.
Russia didn’t put men into defending Kharkiv oblast, they did retreat in some fashion – but if they’d been able to there’s no question that it would have been advantageous to stay – if only to pin down Ukrainian fighters in the North.
By the same token, they didn’t try very hard to stay – and arguably that river is an easier to defend line than open country.
Yes, that’s (so far) true – but keep in mind that Bakhmut is on the railway system, and if the Ukrainians are blowing up bridges they are (1) retreating and (2) the railway in Bakhmut is within range of Russian munitions.
I can’t comment on US military recruitment – and I’m not 100% sure how immediately relevant this is since the chance of US and Russian troops clashing face to face in Ukraine strikes me as remote – but Russia’s ability to draft a large number of men (so far untouched by the war) is not good news for the Ukrainians.
Definitely.
To be fair that’s at least partly because the Ukrainian Government has banned men between 18 and 60 from leaving the country. Apparently some still get out (by bribing border guards in Ukraine and Poland/Slovakia/Hungary/Moldova), but what is the likely result of Ukraine getting rid of the ban? Why did they even need the ban if everybody there is so gung ho about fighting for Ukraine?
It might not be good news for Putin, either. I expect that he appreciates the risks; otherwise he would have done it a lot sooner.
Not everybody in Ukraine is gung ho about fighting for Ukraine. However, there seems to be a lot more willingness on the part of Ukrainians to fight for Ukraine than there is on the part of Russians to invade and conquer Ukraine. Ukraine hasn’t so far had trouble with raising manpower voluntarily; their limitation is more with armaments. However, there might be future problems. Wouldn’t be the first time that has happened in wartime. Putin has had trouble raising sufficient manpower using voluntary inducements.
Not true- Putin rejected the deal. He wanted to destroy Ukraine & annex it. The fears of NATO expansion were just a smoke screen. Lies for the gullible:
” Dmitry Kozak, told the Russian president at the early stages of the conflict that he believed the provisional agreement he had hammered out with Kyiv would prevent Ukraine from joining NATO — and remove the need for Moscow to pursue a large-scale occupation…..But, despite earlier backing the peace talks, Putin made it clear when presented with Kozak’s deal that the concessions negotiated by his trusted deputy chief of staff did not go far enough, the sources said. He expanded his objectives to include annexing portions of Ukrainian territory.”
https://nypost.com/2022/09/14/putin-rejected-ukraine-peace-deal-struck-by-aide-as-war-began/
But Russia has not closed its borders to men of fighting age. And apparently they’re conscripting away as we
speaktype.How do we know this? Zelensky declared martial law and general mobilisation in February. Sensible thing to do, given the circumstances, but it also means that there is no ‘voluntarily’ when it comes to joining the military.
Most people don’t want to go to war.
With the partial (????) mobilisation – I think the social outcomes of this will be interesting for Russia. The minorities in Russia already comprise 20% of the population but 30% of conscripts. (Minorities have more children, so it makes sense wrt the number of young men of the right age for armed service. Mostly Muslim minorities, but also people like Buryats.) If this flows through to regular members of the armed forces, that will change the army and in turn change the country.
Thanks for that info. I note there is nothing that says Zelensky agreed to it, which is not surprising, as he is not an idiot.
Does that mean Ukraine accepting the annexation of Crimea? it’s very vague (anonymous sources) plus the Kremlin has stated that it’s untrue. Who knows? Fog of war.
I hear different reports about whether Russia has closed its borders to men of fighting age. It sounds like the border is more in the process of being closed. There are some who are still trying to get out, but now the main problem is airline seats.
But there have been reports (and personal anecdotes) about men being turned down for service, and it is far from the case that all men of sufficient fitness for military service are serving. I suppose it could all be a big lie, but a lie on that scale would be hard to pull off.
Yes.
For what reasons? Do you have a link to the info?
Part of it may be that if they don’t trust men to fight for Ukraine they don’t want them crossing over and fighting for Russia/Donetsk/Luhansk/etc. against Ukraine.
More on Russia’s capacity to raise an army:
There’s a mixed response, with many Central Asians already in Russia not very keen on fighting in Ukraine, but
The Stans are apparently threatening jail terms for their citizens who fight in ‘foreign wars’, but:
But the long and the short of it is that Russia will have access to recruits.
And what a crop they will be.
One large danger in all of this is that Russia is gaining that which can only be had through war — a trained military.
If the highways and railroads that supply your food, fuel, and ammunition pass through those cowfields, they are intrinsically very valuable indeed.
That would have come as a shock to Vladimir. The Russians left behind an awful lot of equipment.
All of my friends with military experience have said the same thing: the areas that the Russians “withdrew” from were a mess. That bespeaks atrocious discipline.
The 1st Guards Tank Army had been in Kharkiv. A significant part of that unit was sent south to shore up the line around Kherson.
And the ethnic Russians (the ones currently in charge, anyway) are prepared to fight to the last drop of their blood. And those same ethnic Russians are going to feed them into the meatgrinder. That will be after they arm these new conscripts.
Given that the Moscow cops are nowhere near as tough as the Ukrainians are, I wonder which way the conscripts will march.
FIFY
There will be no problem whatsoever with sending in 300,000 unmotivated, minimally trained, poorly armed personnel to serve alongside troops with a profound morale problem. All of that is of no consequence. The Russians have done it before.
In 1917.
If Putin wanted to be a tsar, Nicholas II would not be the best choice.
Can he just fall out of a window and we can call this whole thing off?
If I were Vladimir, I wouldn’t go any higher than the second floor.