[HN Gopher] One Year into the War in Ukraine ___________________________________________________________________ One Year into the War in Ukraine Author : picture Score : 75 points Date : 2023-02-24 20:36 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (acoup.blog) (TXT) w3m dump (acoup.blog) | pphysch wrote: | Is this expertly-crafted satire? I read the blogpost then looked | at the About page. A literal armchair "military strategist", | called "The Pedant". Someone help me out. | Nimitz14 wrote: | It's called making fun of oneself. I know I know, | incomprehensible for Americans. But do try. | wardedVibe wrote: | He mostly does history education through the lens of pop | culture. He's a bit outside his expertise on this subject, but | uses it as a launching off point for educational content rather | than trying to be a "military strategist". He even says as much | at the outset. | | > keeping in mind that I am largely reliant here on the | expertise of others and so am operating from my 'professional | thing explainer' role, rather than as the expert | int_19h wrote: | The guy is a military historian, so armchair military | strategizing is literally a part of the job. Unlike the rest of | us, though, he actually studied for it. | retconekt wrote: | "Urban warfare is brutally difficult and has in the past not been | a particular strength of the Russian Federation." | | Ahem, | | Stalingrad | | Cough, splutter, gurgling blood.. | oriolid wrote: | Usually the defender is expected to have advantage but somehow | Soviet Union ended up with higher casualties than losing side. | int_19h wrote: | FWIW the sheer concentration of artillery firepower at hot | spots in Ukraine exceeds anything seen in Stalingrad. Mariupol | was one prominent example, and the ongoing battle for Bakhmut | is another. | dragonwriter wrote: | > "Urban warfare is brutally difficult and has in the past not | been a particular strength of the Russian Federation." | | > Ahem, | | > Stalingrad | | Ahem, | | "Russian Federation". | | Not the same thing as the USSR. | lnsru wrote: | Urban warfare for russians is a no-brainer - level everything | to the ground. See leftovers of Grozny. | Animats wrote: | Business Insider says 97% of the Russian army is now committed to | Ukraine.[1] That leaves the central Russian government very | vulnerable to its own internal separatist movements, of which | there are rather a lot.[2]. Some of those movements are in areas | landlocked or not economically viable, but the Free Ingria | movement (Leningrad oblast, including St. Petersburg) has | potential. That area is bordered by Finland, Estonia, and the | Gulf of Finland. An independence movement there could be well | supported from Europe. Something to think about. | | There's no part of Russia bordering Ukraine that Ukraine could | take as a bargaining chip to trade for Ukraine's own territory. | There's nothing but farmland and mountains. Which is why this war | is so stuck. | | [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/97-of-russia-army-in- | ukraine... | | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separatism_in_Russia | bigdict wrote: | > Free Ingria [...] has potential | | No, it's a toy movement. | | > There's no part of Russia bordering Ukraine that Ukraine | could take as a bargaining chip | | Transnistria could play precisely that role. | anextio wrote: | The Russians have shown that they don't care about holding | territory in the short term, see Kherson withdrawal, etc. | They are only focused on attrition and minimizing their own | casualties. If Ukraine goes into Transnistria it will not | force Russia to capitulate. | meheleventyone wrote: | > "They are only focused on attrition and minimizing their | own casualties." | | ??? | | That's errr... going poorly. | kibwen wrote: | _> They are only focused on attrition and minimizing their | own casualties._ | | The former, yes. The latter, no. | gerikson wrote: | Isn't Transnistria legally part of Moldova? Russia can't | trade that away against Moldova's wishes, and even if it was | to try , it would be against the international law that made | the invasion of Ukraine and annexing its territory illegal in | the first place. | bigdict wrote: | International law is for client states. | notahacker wrote: | Don't really see Transnistria as remotely useful as a | bargaining chip. Sure it's propped up by Russia and would | _eventually_ be integrated into Russia under Putin 's wildest | imperial fantasies, but it's not Russia, its people mostly | aren't Russian and I'm not sure it's all that valuable | either. | | All a Ukrainian invasion of Transnistria would do is give | Putin's claims about Ukrainian aggression some veneer of | legitimacy and annoy Moldova, which doesn't want to see | something which is constitutionally part of their territory | fought over and then bargained back to Russian control... | pydry wrote: | >its people mostly aren't Russian | | They basically are. They speak Russian and act like | Russians. I doubt they'd mind being annexed. | RivieraKid wrote: | I've recently read that only about 30% identify as | Russians. | yucky wrote: | > An independence movement there could be well supported from | Europe. Something to think about. | | The absolute irony of this line of thinking. | andrey123 wrote: | Last time I checked there was more than 1 million in internal | forces (militia, rosgvardia, troops, probably some others). | They are armed, trained specifically to suppress and loyal. I | (looking from the inside) highly doubt that they will change | sides unless they stop receiving paycheck. Of course, some | regions are a bit special in this respect but they are not in | the central Russia. | RivieraKid wrote: | What is the mood regarding the war in your social circle? How | often do they support it? | hammock wrote: | > Business Insider says 97% of the Russian army is now | committed to Ukraine.[1] | | The UK defense minister said this. | https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-64634760 | miguelazo wrote: | This war is "stuck" because the security state masters want it | that way. The US makes sure Zelensky doesn't agree to | diplomatic solutions, and keeps shoveling weapons at them. | | US General Mark Milley is one of the sole voices of sanity | acknowledging that negotiations are urgently needed and the | only real path forward. | luckylion wrote: | The "just surrender and become one with Russia" diplomatic | solutions? Are those solutions final? | scohesc wrote: | It really does seem that way... | | I think the west is using Ukraine as a way to whittle down | Russian military forces at the expense of Ukrainians and | "Allied" military equipment (instead of some theoretical war | where the US send their soldiers _and_ equipment on the | field, and the resulting PR nightmares, etc. that would | cause) - essentially weakening Russia's military to a point | so that Russia can't respond as aggressively to western | expansionism or continue to meddle in western affairs as | strongly as they have been. | | I wish the west would stay out of conflicts it doesn't have a | stake in, and I wish Russia would stop attacking Ukraine. | Unfortunately mentioning the former makes you a "putin- | apologist" even though there's more than enough things to | attend to in the west instead of sending trillions of dollars | overseas and continuing to fund the industrial military | complex - almost like it's a convenient excuse to help | distract people how much they're getting screwed over at home | - but that's getting into conspiracy theorist territory, | which I'd rather not go down. | | The fastest way out of the war is negotiation unfortunately. | It's only going to get bloodier as both sides get more | desperate to win... | fabian2k wrote: | The Ukraine is in Europe, it is on the borders of the EU. | And there are other former members of the Soviet Union that | are now part of NATO and the EU. This is absolutely a | conflict we have an enormous stake in. | | Do you think we should not help Ukraine, and not supply | them with weapons and leave them to fend for themselves? | JohnFen wrote: | > I wish the west would stay out of conflicts it doesn't | have a stake in | | I think there's a solid human rights reason to be involved | in the way we are. But even ignoring that, I also think we | do have a stake in this. | | > The fastest way out of the war is negotiation | unfortunately | | Russia wants no negotiation that doesn't result in them | stealing territory from Ukraine. You can't negotiate with | that. | andrey123 wrote: | > Russia wants no negotiation that doesn't result in them | stealing territory from Ukraine. You can't negotiate with | that. | | You can negotiate with that, people were and are doing | this all the time. The problem is that it very likely | would result in just a pause and further (probably worse) | conflict later. | kibwen wrote: | _> I wish the west would stay out of conflicts it doesn 't | have a stake in, and I wish Russia would stop attacking | Ukraine._ | | Unfortunately, since the latter has happened, there's no | moral high ground to be gained by "staying out" of the | conflict. Russia started this war. Russia could end it, | today, by leaving. | yks wrote: | The West have their own interests surely but this war is | fought by Ukrainians on their own collective volition. | Negotiation is therefore also should happen on their own | volition. Even with the slowly trickling and insufficient | Western military aid, Ukrainians still prefer to take a | chance to preserve their land, statehood and culture. | | People hate the Western MIC for a reason but in the end | desire to avoid a genocide has to be stronger than hate for | the MIC. | jen20 wrote: | > western expansionism | | Pretty sure you just revealed your agenda there. | yks wrote: | Appeasing the aggressors by giving up territories is not | going to stop the war long term until there is nothing to | give up. Not only history shows it again and again, but the | basic psychology behind this is clear after a first encounter | with a bully which many people do as soon as kindergarten. | | The only outcome of this faux pacifism is the destruction of | Ukrainian state with the following butchering of Ukrainian | culture AND with the following wars further West. Even though | many Americans decided all of a sudden to support Russia in | their conquests, Russians did not stop seeing themselves as | waging war against the US and the West. And why would they | ever stop, if the West keeps giving them what they want. | freefrog334433 wrote: | No appeasement has been the reason for fighting wars since | WW2. This shows a misunderstanding of the wars. In Vietnam, | it was called the domino theory, except Vietnam was a war | of independence. The war on terror - invade Iraq so the | terrorist don't come here. The Russians are not going to | invade NATO countries. | yks wrote: | If anything your examples show that aggressors don't care | about diplomatic compromises as long as they believe in | their total military victory. | | > The Russians are not going to invade NATO countries. | | Depending on how US elections go, NATO can be no longer a | meaningful project anyway. So yes, they are absolutely | going to invade if encouraged to do so. Eastern Europeans | clearly understand that. | fabian2k wrote: | Ukraine is a sovereign actor here, it is defending itself | against aggression. Of course they accept and demand weapons | from the West, because surrendering or losing this war means | a lot of death, suffering and loss of freedom. | | At the very latest after Bucha it is clear that leaving | Ukrainian population under Russian control will cause | terrible suffering. So what should they negotiate about, what | do you think Ukraine should give up to the aggressor? | vondur wrote: | I would be more worried about the Caucasus's. Chechnya is run | by a dictator with Putin's backing. I have a feeling that | Ramzan Kadyrov will have the be very careful moving forward. I | can't imagine he's well liked in Chechnya. | risyachka wrote: | Russia is a military state. They have about a million of police | and other military forces inside the country. | | And internal separatist movements are so tiny you can handle | them with 1/1000 of the force they have. | TylerE wrote: | They also thought they could take Ukraine in about the time | it took Hitler to blitz into Poland. | okasaki wrote: | What does that mean? Is the US a military state? | zztop44 wrote: | Yes, quite obviously yes, I would have thought. All | imperial states are military states aren't they? | FollowingTheDao wrote: | "The current War in Ukraine is, after all, a continuation of what | I've seen termed the War in the Donbas, which began in April of | 2014. " | | I was happy to read that since it is constantly ignored by | American media. | ROTMetro wrote: | You mean the conflict in Donbas that killed 25 people in 2021, | mainly from mines? Hardly justification for Russia's invasion. | yucky wrote: | Thousands have been killed on both sides of that conflict | since 2014, handpicking a temporary downturn in 2021 is a bit | disingenuous, no? | int_19h wrote: | It wasn't a "temporary downturn". If you look at the graph | of casualties in Donbas before 2022, the first 2 years of | fighting in 2014-2015 see the vast majority of casualties, | and then it goes down sharply from there. | | By 2021, this much lower rate was a well-established status | quo, and this was reflected even in official government | briefings from separatist republics and Russia itself. For | example, DNR published | (https://regnum.ru/news/polit/3467017.html) its own stats | claiming a grand total of 70 military casualties and 7 | civilians for the entirety of 2021 - a proportion, by the | way, that tells you volumes about where that fire was | aimed. | JohnFen wrote: | > since it is constantly ignored by American media. | | It is? It seems to be talked about a fair bit for being | ignored. | moremetadata wrote: | I remember the BBC News telling viewers it would all be over in 6 | weeks! | annexrichmond wrote: | "2 more weeks!" (tm) | GaggiX wrote: | Not many predicted that Ukraine would hold out so long, | especially the Kremlin itself which believed that the most | reasonable course of action at the time was to start the | invasion even with such a small number of men. | melling wrote: | Didn't most people expect Russian to easily take Ukraine? | | They are several times bigger, larger military, etc. | FollowingTheDao wrote: | > Didn't most people expect Russian to easily take Ukraine? | | No. Most people knew that Russia had no intention of taking | over Ukraine. They stated their intentions clearly. | melling wrote: | Which stated intentions? | | They initially claimed they weren't going into Ukraine. | riku_iki wrote: | putin literally said in his speech at the beginning that | the goal is to overthrow "drug addict government". How | could they do it without taking over country? | anextio wrote: | They don't have to occupy the whole of Ukraine to do | that, they only have to defeat Ukraine's military and | destroy NATO's materiel on the battlefield. If they | intended to occupy the entire country they would need | several million troops as well as legions of | administrators ready to go, which would be visible. | | They most likely only plan to long-term occupy the parts | of Ukraine where the majority of the population still | living there supports them. The last thing that Russia | wants is fighting a never ending insurgency in Lviv | oblast. | int_19h wrote: | The column that was rushing towards Kyiv consisted in | large part of the Russian National Guard units - those | are the guys whose primary purpose is to beat up people | in opposition protests. And they had the anti-riot gear | packed, as Ukrainians have found out when going through | the wrecks. So, yes, they were absolutely planning to | suppress civilian opposition to the occupation. | SketchySeaBeast wrote: | Putin's stated intentions, which were, and I quote "And for | this we will strive for the demilitarisation and | denazification of Ukraine". So even though they were stated | clearly, they made little sense if you assume they aren't | trying to take over Ukraine. | peyton wrote: | What do you mean? His speech [1] is really clear. I'm | extremely disappointed in the reporting by the news here. | | [1]: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67843 | jen20 wrote: | Clear is not the same as making sense. | | I can say the words "Dog Cat Microwave Book" and they | would be clear, and make about as much sense as the idea | of "denazifying" Ukraine. | mmcclure wrote: | The first section is titled "Predictions Are Hard." ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-02-24 23:00 UTC)