History in the Making: Russian Invasion

VolvoHeretic said:

I am just an amateur war expert, but just in case, just how would the US and NATO establish a no fly zone over Ukraine and the Black Sea, just for arguments sake? I know that many of you don't want to talk about what ifs, but What If? I mean, we did do just that over Bosnia.

As Clausewitz wrote, "Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult." The creation (easy) and enforcement (hard) of a No-fly Zone if fairly straightforward, but it raises a lot of difficult questions, especially if it's contested. The devil is in the details. What are the Rules of Engagement? Do aircraft have to be visually identified before being engaged? Does the US shoot first? What about ground-based air defense? Is that targeted, and if so, what are the rules for that? The potential for political damage here is significant, even without considering escalation. If you have permissive ROE, what's to prevent Russia from flying an airliner full of political prisoners in for the US to blow out of the sky just in time for the evening news? Or putting a SAM site next to a church that just happens to be near a bus full of Russian state media?

The major factors against this are: 1) escalation risk, 2) force commitment, and 3) logistics. The escalation risk is enormous and obvious. The size of the force necessary to do it - not just fighters for CAP, but all the other aircraft involved in controlling the airspace and keeping the fighters in the air - would be significant, at a time when the US is pivoting assets toward the Pacific. The logistics involved are massive, and not just the fuel and munitions issues. The basing question - based in Ukraine or outside - has major political implications, and if outside, are NATO countries willing to increase the risk of being targeted by hosting US aircraft enforcing the NFZ on their soil?

In short, it's not worth the trouble. Russia's air force is a factor, but it is not dominating the airspace, and Ukraine is being provided with air defenses that are mitigating its effectiveness. Far less risk and cost to doing it this way, and far too little to gain even by successfully closing Ukrainian skies.

Edited to correct the Clausewitz quote - I was working from memory in the initial post.

This thread has been so informative I don't even bother reading the news on the war, I just come here for updates. Thanks to those of you who are knowledgeable and well read on the current status, but also the reasons it got to this point. 

There's a dance going on, and we don't really know what moves each side is going to try and even what is going on right now. We're like wallflowers peering through the darkness going: "I think that's a Tango" And "damn, it looks like he just stepped on her toes". I read yesterday where the Turks were being pressured to protect Ukraine's grain fleet, since they are the strongest naval force in the Black Sea. But what if Russia sinks a Turkish ship? How much closer to WWIII would that take us? 

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

I believe the Russians want to stay on the good side of Turkey, as Russia would like to use Turkey as a wedge into NATO cohesion.  Whether it would be worth sacrificing that to keep Ukraine from shipping/profiting grain exports, that's a whole 'nuther question.  

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

There's a dance going on, and we don't really know what moves each side is going to try and even what is going on right now. We're like wallflowers peering through the darkness going: "I think that's a Tango" And "damn, it looks like he just stepped on her toes". I read yesterday where the Turks were being pressured to protect Ukraine's grain fleet, since they are the strongest naval force in the Black Sea. But what if Russia sinks a Turkish ship? How much closer to WWIII would that take us? 

Pressured by whom? No sane NATO leader should be pushing for Turkey to put its warships in the line of fire. A violent encounter there, even if purely accidental, could be catastrophic. The UN and the WFP could be making noises, but they have no leverage here.

The grain deal was set to expire in November anyway, so the Russian suspension of participation is more than likely a tactical move more than anything else. I suspect you'll see more discussions - probably involving Turkey again - resulting in some sort of modified arrangement. I very much doubt the Russians see any benefit in sinking commercial shipping, since doing so would radically raise the cost of insurance on the ships moving in and out of its own ports via the Black Sea.

In reply to 02Pilot :

I also think the russian grain position is kind of a bluff at this point, too.  Grain exports are some of the last legal ways that russia is getting any money from the rest of the world- so if they sacrifice that by stopping Ukraine's grain exporting- it would not go over too well.  Let alone it really strengthens the US position to feed the world- which is hardly what russia wants to happen.

I think the real reason for russia to balk right now is to try to get more money for their grain.

Ukraine's grain sales were successful today- all 12 ships reached Turkey.

VolvoHeretic said:

I am just an amateur war expert, but just in case, just how would the US and NATO establish a no fly zone over Ukraine and the Black Sea, just for arguments sake? I know that many of you don't want to talk about what ifs, but What If? I mean, we did do just that over Bosnia.

In addition to o2's response, I would add two points:

No fly would have to be enforced, as noted, by fighter cover and maybe some SAM coverage (which would have to be from outside of Ukraine), with the serious concerns O2 noted.  It would also create a very real risk and concern with Russian air defense, which is still very much a viable threat to most US planes.  Not to mention the Russian navy's air defense capabilities.  It would be a VERY strained situation and pretty much asking for trouble.

The other aspect is that there is not much to enforce.  I don't think the Russians are doing much aviation intrusion into Ukraine or even over the Sea of Azov these days.  Most of the cruise missile launches are certainly being done outside of Ukrainian airspace.  There is certainly activity near the front lines but that is also where the air defense gets super intense (thus everything is done a super low altitude).

If we are talking about cruise missiles and drones, air cover might be able to deal with some of the cruise missiles, but not likely with the drones.  So, the only effective way to close the airspace would likely be a large amount of ground based defense, but that is troops on the ground, so, likely not.

Updates:  The Russians seem very much to be going full defensive in Kherson, and again with the dam thing... argh.

Some indications of things going on in Belarus, north of Kyiv.  It does seem like a feint to draw off Ukrainain forces though.  If the Russian try to push, their certainly less than full skill troops, down from there, it would likely be a blood bath.  That area is both heavily wooded and swampy and the Ukrainians are fully prepared now.

Russians do not want any snooping civilians in Kherson:

Occupation authorities announced evacuation in range of 15kms to Dnipro river

• Russian forces launched another massive wave of strikes against critical Ukrainian infrastructure, further damaging the power grid and leaving much of Kyiv without water.
• Russian officials again changed their minds about the risk of Ukrainian forces destroying the Kakhovka dam, ordering evacuations of areas that could be flooded. There is no scenario in which Ukraine would benefit from destroying the dam, and this rhetoric is likely meant to speed evacuations and provide informational cover for Russian withdrawals from the west bank.
• Russian forces are continuing to withdraw from the west bank of the Dnipro River even as they set conditions to fight for positions around Kherson City.
• Wagner Private Military Company financier Evgeniy Prigozhin sought to bring charges against the St. Petersburg mayor for corruption and announced the imminent opening of the PMC Wagner Center in St. Petersburg. Prigozhin also attacked “oligarchs” and “elites” for living in comfort and preventing the full mobilization of Russia.
• Russian sources continued to claim that Ukrainian troops conducted counter-offensive operations in northeastern Kharkiv Oblast and along the Svatove-Kreminna line on October 30 and 31.
• Russian forces continued defensive operations and Russian sources reported that Ukrainian forces continued counter-offensive operations in Kherson Oblast on October 30 and 31.
• The Ukrainian interdiction campaign is reportedly damaging Russian forces exfiltrating across the Dnipro River.
• Russian forces continued ground attacks around Bakhmut on October 30 and 31.
• Russian sources claimed that Russian troops made incremental gains in the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area on October 30 and 31, but ISW cannot verify these claims.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) is likely attempting to prevent draft dodging by trying to deceive the Russian population into believing that autumn conscripts will not be sent to fight in Ukraine.
• The MoD also announced the end of partial mobilization on October 31, executing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order to end mobilization by the end of October
• Local Russian governments remain responsible for even basic provisions to mobilized personnel, demonstrating the inefficiency of crowdfunding efforts and uncoordinated supply lines to support a modern military.
• Russian occupation authorities in Kherson Oblast announced that they would allow the use of Ukrainian hryvnias alongside Russian rubles, demonstrating the failure of their months long rubleization efforts in Kherson.
• Russian officials continue to create poor conditions in occupied parts of Kherson Oblast, likely to drive local inhabitants to evacuate.

Some more interesting updates, more in the area of rumor, but not wild:

We may have a record!

It is rumored that a recent offensive by the Russians (eastern area), likely using a lot of their (not so "trained") press gang troops, has apparently resulted in 950 deaths in one day / attack!   Always looking to outdo themselves I guess.  Apparently the Russians did an advance and the Ukrainians absolutely pounded them into little pieces of meat with artillery, likely when they got to a pre-sighted area.  This is a bit of turning the table on Russia since they are traditionally the artillery wonks.  Of course, this is also very similar to what the Germans did to the Russians in their retreat, which resulted in massive Russian casualties (they didn't really care then though).

Some inside information from Russia (people who process payments to families who lost soldiers) seems to confirm 71,000 Russian soldiers dead.

Ukraine apparently has artillery superiority in the Kherson (south west) region.  Another bit of turning the table.  Russians are setting up defensive lines, but they are likely manned by their "paper cutout" soldiers (they look like soldiers, but don't actually do much of anything a real soldier would do). 

In other news (not so confirmed).  There are US weapons inspectors in Ukraine now inspecting shipments.  Apparently, the reason they are there is because:

- US is shipping Ukraine large amounts of M16 and M4 (carbine version of M16) out of stocks, including the National Guard.  This is of course to get them on the NATO standard.

- Some of those shipments are not arriving to their destination in Ukraine... someone is taking them... and likely selling them...   To whom I wonder?  Well, I do know someone in that area that is desperately looking for small arms for their army.....   Not saying we will soon be seeing dead Russians with US supplied M16's (not sure if they have the ammo anyway), but you never know.

The point is:  Ukraine gonna "Ukraine", and one thing Ukraine is known for is corruption.

Hey, it's not like the US is not used to it.  Say what you will about the (S-show of a) retreat out of Afghanistan, and complain about what the US is sending to Ukraine, but the US is likely saving money in comparison (certainly for the observed result).  The war in Afghanistan averaged 300 million a day!  Aprox. 2 trillion for the duration!  And you can damn well be sure a good % of that went where it wasn't supposed to!!

In reply to aircooled :

They should just toss an airtag in every crate. 

aircooled said:

Not saying we will soon be seeing dead Russians with US supplied M16's (not sure if they have the ammo anyway), but you never know.

The Russians make .223/5.56 ammo. The USA was a market for them until the Russian imports into the USA were shut down. That means that they likely have a lot of waiting components. Lucky for the rest of the world, their ability to run logistics is sucky enough that despite having the resource, they would just screw it up. Selling/trading for restricted electronic components would serve them better.

In reply to aircooled :

My understanding is that the US monitors are in-country primarily to ensure that sensitive technologies don't go wandering off to, say, a Conex bound for China. The US has a long history of collecting and exploiting FME during conflicts, so the defense establishment is acutely aware of the value of doing so, and wants to make sure US tech committed in-theater remains as secure as possible. I'm sure they're also watching for small arms being diverted (here I suspect organized crime more than state entities), but I tend to believe that's a secondary concern.

In reply to 02Pilot :

"FME"?

stroker said:

In reply to 02Pilot :

"FME"?

Foreign Material Exploitation would be my guess.

In reply to stroker :

Foreign Materiel Exploitation is correct (and yes, I realize my usage in context was redundant). Here's a good primer on the Cold War effort via the National Security Archive.

It would appear the developing countries have more leverage than what Vladimir thought...

In reply to stroker :

I wonder how much pressure China put on them.  There are a lot of African countries indebted to them due to the belt and roads projects, and I'm sure China does not want the political instability that would come from mass starvation.

Some financial stuff in Russia:

Russian force generation efforts combined with Western sanctions are having long-term damaging effects on the Russian economy, as ISW has previously forecasted. Financial experts told Reuters that the Kremlin will face a budget deficit that will “drain Moscow’s reserves to their lowest level in years” due to projected decreases in energy revenue, sanctions, and the cost of Russian mobilization.[1] One expert predicted that payouts to mobilized men including social benefits may cost the Kremlin between 900 billion rubles and three trillion rubles (around $14.6-$32.4 billion) in the next six months. The number does not account for payouts to other categories of servicemen within the Russian forces such as BARS (Combat Army Reserve), volunteer battalions, and the long-term commitment to veterans' payments to contract servicemen, volunteers, non-military specialists who moved to occupied territories, and proxy fighters.[2] ISW previously estimated that one volunteer battalion of 400 servicemen costs Russia at least $1.2 million per month excluding enlistment bonuses and special payments for military achievements.[3]

The Kremlin is continuing to rely heavily on financially incentivizing Russians to fight in Ukraine, which will likely continue to strain the Russian economy for decades. Russian officials have been promising salaries to volunteers and mobilized men that are more than twice the average Russian civilian salary before and during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.[4] The Kremlin has been attempting to deflect part of the cost of the force generation effort onto Russian federal subjects but will likely need to tap into the federal budget more heavily soon. United Russia Party Secretary Andrey Turchak, for example, stated that Russian servicemen from all regions must receive uniform benefits and noted that the federal government must cover the difference if the federal subject is unable to fully compensate all participants of the “special military operation.”[5] Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Head Denis Pushilin even acknowledged that there are insufficient measures in place to support mobilized personnel and their families in occupied Donetsk Oblast during a United Russia meeting.[6]

The Kremlin is already facing challenges in delivering promised compensation, challenges that are increasing social tensions within Russian society. Russian Telegram channels released footage of mobilized men in Ulyanovsk protesting payment issues.[7] Other footage from the Chuvashia Republic shows a presumably Russian local official yelling at protesting mobilized men that she had not promised them a payment of 300,000 rubles (about $4,860).[8] Families of mobilized men publicly complained to Voronezh Oblast Governor Alexander Guseyev that they have not received promised compensation of 120,000 rubles (about $1,945).[9] The Kremlin will need to continue to pay what it has promised to maintain societal control and some resemblance of morale among Russia’s ad hoc collection of forces. ISW has also reported that the Kremlin is igniting conflict within Russian military formations amalgamated from different sources by offering different payments, benefits, and treatment.[10] Social media footage from October 31, for example, showed a physical fight between contract servicemen and mobilized men reportedly over personal belongings and military equipment.[11]

Another interesting tidbit:

Most Russian weapons require chips.  For some reason, most of those chips come from the US(!), which they are not getting anymore of course.  The chip are rather simple in many cases and can be even found in appliances....

....Russia has been importing large amounts of western appliances.  Russians have also been seen looting appliances from the "nazis".

https://time.com/6226484/russia-appliance-imports-weapons/

Armenia imported more washing machines from the European Union during the first eight months of the year than the past two years combined, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from the EU’s Eurostat database. Kazakhstan imported $21.4 million worth of European refrigerators through August, more than triple the amount for the same period last year.

Armenia is aligned with Russia, as note previously.

Officials in Europe have already said publicly they have seen parts from refrigerators and washing machines showing up in Russian military equipment such as tanks since its invasion of Ukraine. People familiar with the assessments said it was quite possible that components and microchips from other household goods were being used for military purposes, too, even if mostly in relatively low-grade equipment.

In reference to the potential missing weapons:

Pentagon acknowledges "a small team" of US personnel has for months conducted weapons inspections throughout Ukraine, though "not near the frontlines." Says "no evidence of widespread diversion," inspections consistent with US activity in Ukraine before Russia's invasion

If you trust the Pentagon on this of course.  They are a bit like a long abused spouse at this point and might tend to think what others would consider significant "beatings" are pretty much the standard.

I would tend to agree any missing weapons might be more attributed to gangsters then the government, but in Russian and traditional Ukraine, I am not sure there is very much difference realistically.

In reply to aircooled :

Seems like a really expensive way to get chips like that.  And they are limited in terms if I/O by what the appliance is supposed to to.  Sure, they work- but it's paying a massive amount for lesser capability.  Interesting.

In reply to alfadriver :

It wouldn't surprise me much if the washing machine costs less than the milspec chip they were previously buying.