there are Ukrainian forces roaming the countryside
This article explains why Russia can’t advance far from railheads. They don’t have enough trucks, plus there are Ukrainian forces roaming the countryside attacking convoys behind the Russian advance.
https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/feeding-the-bear-a-closer-look-at-russian-army-logistics/
Thats an interesting read! Seems Poland can't be invaded by Russia mostly because it has a different gauge railway to that of Russia and Ukraine, yet there is one wide gauge railway line between Ukraine and Warsaw, so an attack on Poland may be feasible if Russia conquers Ukraine first and secures the railway line.
I suspect Poland will have plans to destroy or disable that railway line at the first sign of any Russian aggression to them.
And having a wide gauge railway in Ukraine made them vulnerable to invasion in the first place, so when all this is over, Ukraine needs to swap out it's railway infrastructure to a non-wide gauge system at the earliest opportunity...
And this demonstrates why Ukraine is never going to trust Russia to abide by any ceasefire or peace treaty that isn't enforced by a powerful Ukrainian or NATO military.
https://twitter.com/amanpour/status/1506347979673939972
The Russian supplies all have to be hand loaded and unloaded from the trucks (the stuff in pictures isn’t palletized and they won’t have forklifts at the frontline), so the turnaround for each truck at each end of the journey will be slow.
I mentioned way back somewhere in this thread that I was a cold war warrior. Early in my career in the 1980s I worked at an Ammunition depot in Germany which amongst other things stored Lance tactical nuclear missiles, but mostly lots and lots of war reserve conventional ammunition. Artillery ammo, mortar bombs, mines, grenades, small arms ammo etc. Our wartime role which we practised regularly, was to quickly empty the depot and disperse the stock to dozens of remote field storage sites dotted around the countryside. Generally in forestry blocks or farms. As a sproggy Ammunition Technician corporal, I 'commanded' one of these field storage sites. Mostly shitting myself about the spetznaz that would inevitably be coming to slit our throats whilst we slept!
Each site would have a couple of 'Eager Beaver' off road forklifts to load and unload pallets of ammo from trucks. They were articulated in the middle with massive balloon tyres and superb on rough ground. Unlike the image, the ones we had did not have a cab rollover cage. Sadly a young lad died at the depot when he rolled one.
useless factoid: the US army invented the palletised shipping container to make shipping shit to Vietnam easier. It's since moved to the wider shipping and logistics world going on to make global commercial capitalism grow at an exponential rate since the 70's
Thanks US army, good work 👍 (irony)
So Putins 3 day 'special operation' has dragged onto a month long war with many 1000s dead and no end in sight.
Even if Russia is failing to take Kyiv the push in the South is progressing slowly.
Theyre will be no let up for the civilians trapped in horrendous conditions in besieged cities.
I can't see Putin backing down until Donetsk & Luhansk oblasts and Odessa and the entire coast captured and Kyiv pummeled
Another month of this at a minimum?
useless factoid: the US army invented the palletised shipping container to make shipping shit to Vietnam easier.
No, they popularised something that was invented long before the Vietnam war (patented in 1956).
So Putins 3 day ‘special operation’ has dragged onto a month long war with many 1000s dead and no end in sight.
Yep, it's just turned into a messy indiscriminate destructive nightmare now.
I'm still not sure what the expectations were - walk in there, be welcomed as conquering heroes, barely a shot fired? Quick skirmish with "Ukrainian loyalists" then into Kyiv in time for tea and medals?
Now it's just another Yugoslavia which may well be one of the few ways it can end with regions carved up 🙁
"Another month of this at a minimum?"
I think it's likely we'll be looking at many months yet, if not years. I'd never be happier to be proven wrong though.
Also, reports of extensive railway sabotage in Belarus could mean that the railhead to the north has potentially moved back a meaningful distance.
predictive text kept changing it to Binners 😂
He acknowledges he's a big-boned chap! 😀
Most obvs with no military expertise but as history has shown someone fighting for their homeland will fight harder and longer than a paid/conscripted soldier
As Stalin observed numbers have a quality of their own.
As Stalin observed numbers have a quality of their own.
He did. But he was also fighting The Great Patriotic War, for Mother Russia, against the Nazi Invader.
It’s been estimated 400,000 Ukrainians have completed National service in the Eastern conflict since 2014. Add that to the regular army of 200,000, they have a lot of decent soldiers.
In 2014, the Ukrainian army was woeful, poorly equipped and just capitulated in Crimea/Donbask. Since then the West has been arming/training them. They have more Western anti tank portable weapons than Russia has tanks. Any old basic RPG will take out a truck/armoured personnel carrier.
Add in the fact that the Russians can’t leave the roads (Rapistuta mud season) and the roads are blocked with destroyed/broken down/out of fuel vehicles, the Russians around Kiev are in a world of s@@t!
If this carries on for another month you have to wonder how much of an army Russia will still have left.
Hopefully not unlike the Iran Iraq war the Ukrainians can turn around and start to invade Russia. Wishful thinking.
Can't imagine they would bother. Russia looks like it will be an economic basket case after this
the Ukrainians can turn around and start to invade Russia
Why on earth would you wish for that?!?
Some more on Ammo and supply.
Ukrainians are reporting that they're currently using a weeks supply in 20 hours. (so shortages could be an issue for them as well) and have reportedly blown up a Russian supply dump in Luhansk. Also remember that the Russian didn't plan for a 4 week war of attrition, they planned for a 3 day parade into Kyiv.
The Ukrainians are very good at their messaging and PR. Different bits aimed at different audiences. They want the West to get them re-supplied ASAP. Plus they want to tell the Russians how much stuff they are getting.
Why on earth would you wish for that?!?
To topple Putin hopefully, with a popular revolution. And prevent another Putin.
No one is going to invade Russia to help remove Putin.
To topple Putin hopefully, with a popular revolution. And prevent another Putin.
I think invading Russia would harden public opinion in Putin's favour as well as potentially unleashing the nukes. So get the Russians back inside their borders then stop. For borders I also mean out of East Ukraine and Crimea.
I think Lukashenko might be concerned about an internal uprising though.
Oh well never mind - as you were.
No, they popularised something that was invented long before the Vietnam war (patented in 1956).
Korean War? Internet says (yeah I know - https://www.easycargo3d.com/en/blog/history-of-shipping-containers/)...
During World War II, the United States Army began experimenting with container transport. They used that experience in 1948 when they developed the so-called “Transporter” – a standardized, all-metal, stackable container that could be loaded from a ship directly onto a truck and vice versa. Its dimensions were 8 ‘6″ in length, 6’ 3″ in width and 6’10” in height. The Transporter proved itself during the Korean War (1950-1953). Thanks to it, the army was able to significantly speed up the supply of its troops and increase the safety of transported goods
Ref Stalin 'numbers' quote
He did. But he was also fighting The Great Patriotic War, for Mother Russia, against the Nazi Invader.
Important point, well made.
Buy your gas in roubles
Interesting to see if this forces the hand of countries deliberating the EU response as this would be a big escape from sanctions if buyers did it.
Another interesting article from Kamil Galeev, this time on the ethnic makeup of the invading Russian army. Interesting to see Kamil's comments on the willingness of ethnic minorities appetite for fighting.
N.B. - Some of the images within the thread are very graphic & distressing.
https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1506479259866394625
Buy your gas in roubles
Interesting to see if this forces the hand of countries deliberating the EU response as this would be a big escape from sanctions if buyers did it.
I don't understand the logic of that. Surely, as the value of the Rouble plummets, gas becomes cheaper for the purchasers?
Interesting Oldbloke. I was wondering how Russia would leverage the gas supply issue with EU countries. They need to wake up. You can't apply such wide reaching sanctions on Russia while also being dependent on them for gas.
They need to wake up
I'm not sure they have much choice, Putin has them by the balls on this, do they shut down their economies and allow citizens to freeze in their homes, or do they keep buying Russian gas?
I don’t understand the logic of that.
They can set the price whatever they want in Roubles, but that will force people to buy them to make the transaction which will prop up the value.
European gas demand in the summer is around half that in the winter. It tails off significantly from the end of March. Potentially, they have 6 months to sort things out one way or another.
Russian climate envoy Anatoly Chubais has stepped down and left the country, citing his opposition to President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the situation, becoming the highest-level official to break with the Kremlin over the invasion.
Chubais announced his resignation in a letter to colleagues and friends Tuesday, according to people who saw it. Last week, he hinted at a darkened outlook, saying in a post on Facebook on the anniversary of the death of Yegor Gaidar that the fellow economic reformer “understood the strategic risks better than I did and I was wrong.”
Gaidar being the now pilloried figure in Russia for introducing the share scheme that eventually led to the oligarchs consolidating control of utilities. There's something about the last 30 years for Russia that was damned whichever way things went. You can't just lose a geopolitical game of almost 100 years and not expect some fairly intense aftershocks. Let's hope we're watching the actual final end of that drama playing out
I'm not sure I believe these numbers, would imply that Russian efforts on the ground are close to collapsing
Even as they are pushing on in South East and apparently making renewed efforts toward Odessa in South west
https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1506671619875520525?t=g3aX1p7FuH9hiuILyICfzQ&s=19
If these reports are true, and ukranians actually have ability /resources to push further could we expect a lot more Russians taken prisoner?
https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1506594877999656963?t=46r0vAZdjIYwUgvqofRTUg&s=19
I can't see Putin taking that ki d of humiliation well
If it's possible, the best thing for Ukraine to do with prisoners is keep them warm, dry and well fed, and give them phones.
Absolutely. But they’ll struggle to keep anyone safe and well in many areas already, and in more areas soon. Never mind where they are close enough to troops to capture them.
They should put all the POWs in a nice warm kindergarten, or perhaps a maternity hospital. I'm sure they'll all be perfectly safe there, right?
I didn't mean it for humanitarian reasons, by the way - I was thinking of it as a propaganda weapon.
They should put all the POWs in a nice warm kindergarten, or perhaps a maternity hospital. I’m sure they’ll all be perfectly safe there, right?
With "POWs" painted on the road outside.
Move them to Poland let them go home from there. Having been looked after.
I didn’t mean it for humanitarian reasons, by the way – I was thinking of it as a propaganda weapon.
Agreed.
Ukraine has the moral high ground, with thevworld and wavering Russians. It can't be seen to be undermining that position and lose that support.
