History in the Making: Russian Invasion

Russia Media Monitor has the strangest things. Truly it's bizarro world over there. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1xmM2bwG8k

"Like it or not, Russia is enlarging"

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

To what extent is the fact that English is the defacto language of banking and international business due to our being the pre-eminent  military power as well?

"English".

English being forced on people was a thing since before the US was a thing.  The countries in purple are the ones that they have not invaded at some point.

Now, I will allow that the standard is shifting from British English to American English, but in this respect I point the finger to media.

02Pilot said:

alfadriver said:

In reply to Opti :

So we know you want all U$ out.  Fine.  

Can you accept that others would like to see russia pushed out of their gains before we talk about stopping backing?  Come on.

I ACCEPT footing the bill, especially noting that much of what we have sent are items that are not on the active list of usable arms.  Instead of just throwing them away, some actual value to this is happening.  Seems like a great use of my money instead of just trashing it.  

Nobody has said that Ukraine is corruption free, so stop making up reasons that we just blindly send stuff- that's no help at all.  And stop pretending that we are just willy-nilly sending cash over and it's ending up in the hands of people who are corrupt- that's no help and is false.

This is nowhere near what the US spent in the middle east- we have a decade of current spending to get there.  And this hasn't even been 12 months of support.  Let alone, why in the world would we suggest to Ukraine to stop when they still have all of the  momentum in geting russia out of their country.  Are we France all of a sudden?

I suppose at least part of the issue here is not so much the raw sums being spent, but rather the apparent one-way street when it comes to defining and reaping the benefits derived from it. The US role has been basically to provide arms and support, while trying to hold the reins on Zelensky tightly enough to minimize the risk of unwanted escalation. I have not seen any evidence of the US (or NATO, or the EU) laying out a clear plan for what their preferred post-war vision looks like. This is worrying, as the Ukrainian hardline has become the de facto position of Zelesky's government and its supporters; any deviation is looked upon as marking a potential split or softening of support, which is only because there are no competing visions on the table. This is a US policy failure, perhaps a calculated one (not wanting to undermine Zelensky's support or encourage Russia), and one that opens the administration to charges of simply throwing money at the problem.

Also, I don't quite understand the reference to France. The French are quite prone to supporting their military efforts to the bitter end, no matter the cost - witness WWI, Indochina, Algeria....

I think our position in Ukraine, as vague as you say it is, isn't a failure. See Iraq I or II, Afghanistan, Bosnia, etc. Maybe this is better.

Our position in Ukraine right now, has been a total success.

02Pilot said:

I have not seen any evidence of the US (or NATO, or the EU) laying out a clear plan for what their preferred post-war vision looks like. This is worrying, as the Ukrainian hardline has become the de facto position of Zelesky's government and its supporters; any deviation is looked upon as marking a potential split or softening of support, which is only because there are no competing visions on the table. This is a US policy failure, perhaps a calculated one (not wanting to undermine Zelensky's support or encourage Russia), and one that opens the administration to charges of simply throwing money at the problem.

I imagine it's because like Ian F said (not allowing Putin to build tactics against future goals) but also because things are so chaotic now that there's no real point to making a post-war clear plan. Noboy thought Ukraine would put up this scale of fight, nobody thought they'd be winning, and while Zelensky may talk about NATO enterance nobody really knows if Ukraine will want to at the end, or if there will be much of a Russia to have a NATO to ally against.
 

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to 02Pilot :

I'm certain the lack of clear policy is calculated as if goals and/or expectations were stated, it would give Russia something to work towards or around. We can pretty much guarantee during Zelensky's visit to the US, there were classified face-to-face talks with clear goals and expectations stated. There is zero need for that discussion to be made public.

I suspect those conversations were more about setting limits ("Don't do X.") versus setting out a vision of the future ("In an ideal world, we would like the post-conflict world to look like Y."). Washington tends to be rather bad about thinking ahead in this way; perhaps it's endemic to a system of government as dynamic as ours, though one expects more from the professionals at State and elsewhere than tends to emerge (certainly some good work never makes it through the political side of the equation to become policy). Sure, there's no reason to telegraph what you'll accept to the enemy, but I haven't seen anything suggesting that such a unified vision exists behind closed doors either. I'd love to think that a realistic preferred end-state exists somewhere in official Washington, but it seems to me that Zelensky is a lot clearer on what he wants from this conflict than anyone calling the shots inside the Beltway.

02Pilot said:

Concerning reporting on the new Ukrainian law allowing for significant control of media by the state. Stories like this will not help Zelensky, especially if followed up by enforcement actions that are viewed as suppressive by the West.

Thanks for posting this-I hadn't seen it. 

I think this won't really affect support that much. I continue to believe that a large part of the value for the US is that we're using Ukraine to weaken a strategic enemy. We've been happy to provide arms/money to some pretty evil SOBs over the years, as long as its in our best interest to do so. Sometimes that works out, sometimes not so much.

In reply to CrustyRedXpress :

I don't think the law alone will have much impact, except among journalists. But if the enforcement is seen as arbitrary or used to suppress internal dissent, and punishments are harsh, there may be more backlash in the West.

The problem is not with supporting less-than-ideal leaders - as you rightly note, the US has done that many times before - but in the potential hypocrisy of backing Zelensky if he squashes the press, the West having criticized Russia's leadership for doing exactly the same thing. Russia is sure to take note, as will neutrals such as China and India, along with smaller countries in Africa, Asia, and South America. It could be damaging to Ukraine's backers, if not so much to Ukraine itself.

So... here is the result of the Russian "cease fire":

My guess is this is a bit of a missile artillery spazm as the result of rejecting the "cease fire"... you will now see the might of the awesome Russian millitary!!!!..... yawn....

I'm dearly hoping this Ukrainian Intelligence isn't accurate.  

https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-mobilize-new-conscript-military-intelligence-war-ukraine/

Moscow to mobilize 500,000 new conscripts, Kyiv military intelligence says

Ukrainian officials predict the new Russian draft effort will begin after January 15.

Russia is planning to mobilize 500,000 more conscripts from mid-January | Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP via Getty Images

BY VERONIKA MELKOZEROVA

JANUARY 7, 2023 5:53 PM CET

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KYIV — Ukrainian intelligence officials are warning that the Kremlin plans a new mobilization wave for up to 500,000 men to fight in Ukraine starting in mid-January.

The new conscription drive, which would be larger than last autumn’s Russian draft of 300,000, would include a push in big cities, including some strategic industrial centers in Russia, Andriy Cherniak, an official with the Main Military Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, told POLITICO on Saturday.  

Russian President Vladimir Putin in December said a suggested new conscription wave would be pointless as currently only 150,000 previously mobilized soldiers have been deployed in the invasion of Ukraine. The rest are still training or serving in the Russian rear.

Russia announced the end of the earlier “partial” mobilization of 300,000 men on October 31. But Cherniak claimed that Moscow has continued secret conscription all along. 

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Now, Ukrainian military intelligence expects a new major wave of official mobilization might begin after January 15.

“This time the Kremlin will mobilize residents of big cities, including the strategic industries centers all over Russia,” Cherniak said. “This will have a very negative impact on the already suffering Russian economy.”

Moscow plans to use the 500,000 extra conscripts in a possible new massive offensive against Ukraine, the Guardian reported, citing Vadym Skibitsky, deputy chief of Ukrainian military intelligence.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that Russia has seen more than 100,000 soldiers killed in action in Ukraine. The latest blow that Moscow’s army has endured was in Makiivka, a town in the occupied part of Donetsk Oblast, where hundreds of newly conscripted Russian soldiers were killed or wounded in a high-precision strike by Ukrainian forces on January 1. Although the number of casualties cannot be verified independently, the Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged the deaths of 89 soldiers, which makes it the biggest one-time military loss recognized by Moscow in the Ukraine war.

Ukrainian Armed Forces Chief Commander Valery Zaluzhnyy, in a December interview with the Economist, said Russia will conduct a new attempt at a massive offensive against Ukraine in February-March 2023. It might not start in Donbas, but in the direction of Kyiv through Belarus.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine keeps watching Russian steps in all directions.

“Russia will not be able to conceal in silence its preparations for a new wave of aggression against Ukraine and the whole of Europe. The world will know in all details — how and when the aggressor is preparing a new escalation in this war,” Zelenskyy said in an evening video statement on January 5.

“And every new mobilization step of Russia will be known to the world even before Russia makes it,” Zelenskyy said. “We will ensure this.”

In reply to 84FSP :

While I do not dismiss the possibility of Russian shadow conscription taking place, or the prospect of a new wave being initiated, it is also very much in Ukraine's interest to maximize the size of the threat, as well as the imminent nature of it, to strengthen the case for more aid sooner. The US has sufficient technological surveillance assets to determine Russian movement of materiel (vehicles, other systems), as well as to monitor behavior of strategic forces to watch for escalation, but US HUMINT assets in Russia are limited. If the mobilization is announced publicly, this is a non-issue, but there are a lot of reasons why Putin would prefer not to do so. Thus Ukraine's opportunity to embellish intelligence on the Russian threat is limited to HUMINT, the only area where they have a better network inside Russia than any Western nation. Declaring that Russia is planning to throw hundreds of thousands more men into the war is difficult for the US to definitively confirm or disprove. I'm not saying Ukraine is lying, or even embellishing, but the possibility cannot be ruled out.

Opti said:

In reply to 02Pilot :

Anything we hear from either country needs to be viewed skeptically. Just because Ukraine was invaded doesn't mean they'll are above suspicion of propaganda. Any country at war would be dumb not to utilize it. See the Ghost of Kyiv

No question. I don't think anybody here is so brainwashed as to just believe everything they hear from Ukraine, even if we want it to be true. At this point I'm assuming that any figures released by the Ukrainian government are, uh, optimistic, and anything the russians say is an outright lie.

It is interesting to keep on eye on certain subreddits (or probably dozens of other places around the internet) to see what people are saying, and then watch for the story to get picked up - or not - by major news outlets. Sometimes there are sizable disparities, sometimes not, and often the big-name outlets will say "Ukraine claims" and "russia states" in ways that make clear that the figures have not been independently verified. Anyway, it's interesting to try to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Was the Ghost of Kyiv actually official propaganda? I thought it was more or less fan fiction that was immediately disavowed by the Ukrainian government. Hell of a legend, though.

I have seen numerous predictions about additional Russian mobilizations. It seems to be an assumed eventuality. They certainly need them to finish their conquest. The primary issues seems to be internal resistance and how exactly to go about it.

I would also say 500,000, seems wildly optimistic and could very easily be a Ukrainian overstatement for the effect O2 is talking about.

There also have been guesses about a new offensive on Kyiv, which would certainly require more meat for the grinder. I would guess they (or the US) is seeing something, or it's a play to appear distracted by it (?).  Such an attack seems rather unwise at this point.  Not that that would stop them, since they command the greatest fighting force known to man... in their eyes.

It's not all bad news though.  As noted, the the mobilization have been handled rather poorly and many times fail to follow their own rules (not shocked? well, you shouldn't be by now), and has great potential to create more internal resistance to the war (think Vietnam war in the US).

As has been shown in the last mobilization, the resulting troops seem to be mostly useful for drawing fire in attacks (bullet sponges).

The Russians are slowing slipping into a clear technological disadvantage which only makes the casualty potential go up..... and the bodies keep showing up at the Russians mothers doorsteps... who had their sons sacrificed for....

02Pilot said:

In reply to 84FSP :

While I do not dismiss the possibility of Russian shadow conscription taking place, or the prospect of a new wave being initiated, it is also very much in Ukraine's interest to maximize the size of the threat, as well as the imminent nature of it, to strengthen the case for more aid sooner. The US has sufficient technological surveillance assets to determine Russian movement of materiel (vehicles, other systems), as well as to monitor behavior of strategic forces to watch for escalation, but US HUMINT assets in Russia are limited. If the mobilization is announced publicly, this is a non-issue, but there are a lot of reasons why Putin would prefer not to do so. Thus Ukraine's opportunity to embellish intelligence on the Russian threat is limited to HUMINT, the only area where they have a better network inside Russia than any Western nation. Declaring that Russia is planning to throw hundreds of thousands more men into the war is difficult for the US to definitively confirm or disprove. I'm not saying Ukraine is lying, or even embellishing, but the possibility cannot be ruled out.

It is foolish   to believe that the US with all its intelligence capabilities doesn't know precisely what is going on in the war.  Our satellites can clearly see muzzle flashes  and missile launches.   Thus establishing front lines very exactly. Further the success or failure can be confirmed with our on the ground assets.  ( probably more than a few Russian soldiers as well  since conscripts would have little reason for loyalty.
    Further as deteriorated as Russia is now word from inside Russia is getting out through disgruntled Russian citizens not only through American but all of our NATO embassies.  
Doubt the politicians all you want  but don't count on America to be easily fooled. 

84FSP said:

I'm dearly hoping this Ukrainian Intelligence isn't accurate.  

https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-mobilize-new-conscript-military-intelligence-war-ukraine/

Moscow to mobilize 500,000 new conscripts, Kyiv military intelligence says

Ukrainian officials predict the new Russian draft effort will begin after January 15.

Russia is planning to mobilize 500,000 more conscripts from mid-January | Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP via Getty Images

BY VERONIKA MELKOZEROVA

JANUARY 7, 2023 5:53 PM CET

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KYIV — Ukrainian intelligence officials are warning that the Kremlin plans a new mobilization wave for up to 500,000 men to fight in Ukraine starting in mid-January.

The new conscription drive, which would be larger than last autumn’s Russian draft of 300,000, would include a push in big cities, including some strategic industrial centers in Russia, Andriy Cherniak, an official with the Main Military Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, told POLITICO on Saturday.  

Russian President Vladimir Putin in December said a suggested new conscription wave would be pointless as currently only 150,000 previously mobilized soldiers have been deployed in the invasion of Ukraine. The rest are still training or serving in the Russian rear.

 

Russia announced the end of the earlier “partial” mobilization of 300,000 men on October 31. But Cherniak claimed that Moscow has continued secret conscription all along. 

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Now, Ukrainian military intelligence expects a new major wave of official mobilization might begin after January 15.

“This time the Kremlin will mobilize residents of big cities, including the strategic industries centers all over Russia,” Cherniak said. “This will have a very negative impact on the already suffering Russian economy.”

Moscow plans to use the 500,000 extra conscripts in a possible new massive offensive against Ukraine, the Guardian reported, citing Vadym Skibitsky, deputy chief of Ukrainian military intelligence.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that Russia has seen more than 100,000 soldiers killed in action in Ukraine. The latest blow that Moscow’s army has endured was in Makiivka, a town in the occupied part of Donetsk Oblast, where hundreds of newly conscripted Russian soldiers were killed or wounded in a high-precision strike by Ukrainian forces on January 1. Although the number of casualties cannot be verified independently, the Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged the deaths of 89 soldiers, which makes it the biggest one-time military loss recognized by Moscow in the Ukraine war.

Ukrainian Armed Forces Chief Commander Valery Zaluzhnyy, in a December interview with the Economist, said Russia will conduct a new attempt at a massive offensive against Ukraine in February-March 2023. It might not start in Donbas, but in the direction of Kyiv through Belarus.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine keeps watching Russian steps in all directions.

“Russia will not be able to conceal in silence its preparations for a new wave of aggression against Ukraine and the whole of Europe. The world will know in all details — how and when the aggressor is preparing a new escalation in this war,” Zelenskyy said in an evening video statement on January 5.

“And every new mobilization step of Russia will be known to the world even before Russia makes it,” Zelenskyy said. “We will ensure this.”

 

 

 

143 million people in the biggest country on the planet. That means large parts of Russia are completely empty of anything resembling viability  just old men and women. Scattered at that.  
  If you drive through much of western America  it is completely devoid of people,  sometimes for miles.  Yet America is 333 million people. And less than 1/3 the size.  500,000 men is about what the whole state of Wyoming has. 
    Conscript all of those young men and throw them into a meat grinder war?   Russia's population is shrinking already.  There are already 7 million more women in Russia then men. Of those 500,000, how many  of those young men are drunkards, drug addicts, diseased?  A very large portion are.   An estimated 1 million. Military aged men.  A major portion of the well educated, have already left. 
  Conscript that many?  Who is going to work in the factories to make new weapons, fight fires, act as police?  Oh and then guard their borders so more don't get out?  
   Children as young as 16 men in their 40's?  

deleted

Opti said:

In reply to 02Pilot :

Anything we hear from either country needs to be viewed skeptically. Just because Ukraine was invaded doesn't mean they'll are above suspicion of propaganda. Any country at war would be dumb not to utilize it. See the Ghost of Kyiv

 

 

Holly Cow Opti, you sound just my Senator John Hoven, who 3 years ago flew to Moscow on the 4th of July to pick up his brief case of money and complained about how Russia was our poor persecuted friend? I don't see your point?

frenchyd said:

02Pilot said:

In reply to 84FSP :

While I do not dismiss the possibility of Russian shadow conscription taking place, or the prospect of a new wave being initiated, it is also very much in Ukraine's interest to maximize the size of the threat, as well as the imminent nature of it, to strengthen the case for more aid sooner. The US has sufficient technological surveillance assets to determine Russian movement of materiel (vehicles, other systems), as well as to monitor behavior of strategic forces to watch for escalation, but US HUMINT assets in Russia are limited. If the mobilization is announced publicly, this is a non-issue, but there are a lot of reasons why Putin would prefer not to do so. Thus Ukraine's opportunity to embellish intelligence on the Russian threat is limited to HUMINT, the only area where they have a better network inside Russia than any Western nation. Declaring that Russia is planning to throw hundreds of thousands more men into the war is difficult for the US to definitively confirm or disprove. I'm not saying Ukraine is lying, or even embellishing, but the possibility cannot be ruled out.

It is foolish   to believe that the US with all its intelligence capabilities doesn't know precisely what is going on in the war.  Our satellites can clearly see muzzle flashes  and missile launches.   Thus establishing front lines very exactly. Further the success or failure can be confirmed with our on the ground assets.  ( probably more than a few Russian soldiers as well  since conscripts would have little reason for loyalty.
    Further as deteriorated as Russia is now word from inside Russia is getting out through disgruntled Russian citizens not only through American but all of our NATO embassies.  
Doubt the politicians all you want  but don't count on America to be easily fooled. 

I'm well aware of many of the capabilities the US intel community has at its disposal, and they are quite impressive. However, US intel tends to focus on the tech side of things, rather than the human assets, especially at low levels. While I'm sure we have assets in the Russian government, I'm quite skeptical that we have as many low level assets in Russia as does Ukraine, simply due to geographical proximity and border porosity.

Put another way, how many muzzle flashes and missile launches would our orbital assets recognize in Russian recruitment centers, Russian village halls, Russian supermarkets, and Russian bus stops? It's conversations and observations in places like that that Ukraine is relying on for much of their intel on Russian plans and intentions, not what's happening in the trenches.

02Pilot said:

Concerning reporting on the new Ukrainian law allowing for significant control of media by the state. Stories like this will not help Zelensky, especially if followed up by enforcement actions that are viewed as suppressive by the West.

As a US President has said, "our enemies will use our freedoms against us."  Russia is really, really good at disinfo and agitprop.

Sucks, but alternatives are worse.

In reply to 02Pilot :

Both America and Ukraine have plenty of people recording and reporting such information as I'm sure Russia does both here  in the US and there in the Ukraine.  
  Sure, Russia is plenty secretive. But 1. You can't watch everyone, not if you're taking hundreds of thousands of conscripts. 
2.  The results of the loss of that many young men will show up in other sectors like farming and industrial production.  Imagine if that number of younger American men were drafted. And we have more than twice the population  with only a fraction of the land mass. 

An interesting analysis of Russian missile stocks:

Russian forces reportedly continue to deplete their missile arsenal but will likely continue to be able to threaten Ukrainian critical infrastructure and civilians at scale in the near term. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov published an infographic on January 6 detailing that Russian forces have expended roughly 81 percent of their strategic missile stocks and 19 percent of their tactical missile stocks.[9] Reznikov reported that Russian forces reportedly have remaining of their pre-war and post-invasion production stocks:

92 Iskander 9M723 missiles (11 percent),
52 Iskander 9M728/9M729 missiles (44 percent),
118 Kh-101 and Kh-555/55SM missiles (16 percent),
162 Kh-22/32 missiles (44 percent),
53 Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missiles (84 percent), and
59 sea-based Kalibr missiles (9 percent).[10]

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) stated that it would never run out of sea-based Kalibr missiles while conducting a massive series of missile strikes on December 29, 2022.[11] Russian forces last used sea-based Kalibr missiles in Ukraine during their ninth large-scale series of missile strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure on December 16.[12] Although the Russian military’s tactical missile stock is less expended, S-300 and 3M-55 Onyx missiles are less precise systems than Russian strategic missiles, which is likely why Russian forces have not used these systems extensively in large-scale missile strikes against Ukrainian critical infrastructure.

Reznikov reported that Russia has managed to produce since the February 2022 invasion:

290 Kh-101 and Kh-555/55SM missiles (65 percent of the pre-war stock),
150 Kalibr missiles (30 percent of the pre-war stock),
36 Iskander 9M723 missiles (5 percent of the pre-war stock),
20 Iskander 9M728/9M729 missiles (20 percent of the pre-war stock),
and 20 Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missiles (47 percent of the pre-war stock).[13]

The Russian production of strategic missiles since the start of the invasion of Ukraine in comparison to the Russian military's pre-war stock highlights that Russia has not mobilized its military industry to support Russian military operations in Ukraine. A country would normally increase the production of missile, rocket, and other weapons systems and munitions before embarking on a major war and would normally put its military industry on a war footing once the war began.  Russia has done neither.  Putin’s failure to mobilize Russian industry to support the Russian war effort in Ukraine may result from fears that further economic disruptions could produce further domestic discontent in Russia because Western sanctions regimes have placed significant constraints on Russian military industry, or because of inherent limitations of Russian industry and military industry—or some combination of these factors. The current level of the Russian military’s depletion of strategic missile systems may constrain how often and at what scale Russian forces conduct future massive series of missile strikes in Ukraine, but Russian forces will be able to continue their campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure at scale in the near term and threaten the lives of Ukrainian civilians.

Russian forces have also reportedly depleted their arsenal of Iranian-made drones following an increased pace of drone attacks in Ukraine in the past month. Russian forces have reportedly expended 88 percent of their stock of the Shahed-131 and –136 drones that they have so far received from Iran, with only 90 Iranian-made drones remaining according to Reznikov.[14] ISW previously assessed that Russian forces increased their use of Shahed drones in attacks on Ukraine over the past month in order to maintain the pace of their campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure without further depleting their more valuable missile stocks.[15] Russia’s contract with Iran reportedly stipulates that Iran will send an additional 1,000 Shahed drones to Russia.[16] Russian forces will likely be able to conduct only a handful of massive drone attacks in Ukraine in the near term until Russia receives from Iran another delivery of drones, which reportedly come in batches of 200 to 300.[17]

In reply to aircooled :

Speaking of Iranian drones, captured today in photo by US intelligence, apparently Iran is turning a cruise ship into some kind of Drone and missile carrier. I'll post pics when I'm not on work.

In reply to aircooled :

Thank you for that.  Very informative  

What do you estimate the average cost of a Russian missile?  It sounds like one in ten is getting through. If they cost around $100,000 each that's a million dollars to blow up the occasional power source or water plant?  
Am I anywhere near correct?  

In reply to aircooled :

Just out of curiousity, whats the difference between a strategic missile and a tactical missile?