Ukraine

Sanctions comments^^ +1

The geo-politics of sanctions is interesting too. Russia is having to tread a fine line in certain relationships, e.g. with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran.

Russia is exporting oil and gas to Azerbaijan for domestic use, which allows Azerbaijan to export its own “sweet” grade oil. To facilitate the deal Russia withdrew its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh early, allowing Azerbaijan full control of the Armenian territory, which led to Armenia leaving the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)

Russians consider that Azerbaijan favours Ukraine and it’s in the public domain that Azerbaijan has supplied materiel to Ukraine

Russia also uses Azerbaijan’s overland routes to trade with Iran. Azerbaijan and Iran are both majority Shia countries but don’t get on, probably because Azerbaijan is western and Israel-oriented, although relations have been improving in the last year.

The Zangezur corridor was agreed between Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia, which ticked Iran off because their trade route would be bypassed… and so it goes on.

DazH is correct, sanctions are being circumvented, but it’s hard work and this is only one example :)

The demographic thing will take decades to play out. It has millions of young men it can call upon and they have the ruthlessness and authoritarianism to do just that.

I’m not using it in the long-term sense, although Russia does have problems there as well. I’m using it in the sense that men of fighting age are also men of working age. Occupational exemptions from mobilisation include Russian Federation citizens working in the “military-industrial complex”, IT, financial sector and certain media workers

Plumbers, electricians, service engineers, etc.can be called upon to fight and civilian infrastructure will begin to creak

Traditionally the Russian military has done agricultural work to feed itself in peacetime. Who is feeding Russia now that agricultural workers are also mobilised? https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/farmers-among-russians-drafted-into-military-putin-says-2022-09-27/

Traditionally the Russian military has done agricultural work to feed itself in peacetime. Who is feeding Russia now that agricultural workers are also mobilised?

Partially offset I’d have thought though, by the shift to mechanisation of agriculture in the last few decades? Farms that would have once needed dozens of agricultural labourers now need only one or two.  I think Russia is the world’s biggest exporter of wheat? You would think they’d see that as a strategic asset and make sure they had minimum manning to keep the country fed and exporting grain to fill the coffers.

And don’t forget a boatload of potential ‘recruits’ upped sticks and left Russia as soon as they saw they might (literally) be in the firing line.

And a lot of the satellite ex USSR countries used to have people willing to go and work in Russia for more rubles than they’d get at home and send the money back to their families etc. – they ain’t going anywhere near Russia now as they’ll be straight onto the frontline too, so I can imagine less and less manpower is available to run the day-to-day stuff.

I was of the view China was a staunch ally of Russia, maybe that is only as long as Russia can pay….

Nah, China have got their own endgame in mind here. There’s the obvious careful watch how the world reacted to the war as China fancy having a go at Taiwan in very much the same manner. And a very nice discount on oil and gas from Russia now that no-one else wants it, thank you.

They’re also licking their lips at a bit of a land grab into Russia as well to secure some resources for themselves. By all accounts theres some parts of Russia close to China that have a healthy ‘population’ of Chinese residents.

Putin’s calculation all along was that the decadent and venal West would lose interest

TBF the calculation was more the war would be over if not in 3 days then not that much longer. Which was a position broadly shared in the West as well. From everything I read at the time the most likely outcome predicted was swift defeat with a reasonably high likelihood of an ongoing guerrilla war.

If that had proved true then I think it would be highly likely the sanctions would have been extremely limited and probably vanished by now. Its a lot more difficult to rally people behind a government in exile and terrorists/freedom fighters/delete as applicable  vs a nation still fighting. Going “yeah that invasion was bad but think about the impact on me” is a bit harder when you have Zelenskyy standing up at home pointing the rather higher impact on the Ukrainian population.

The effectiveness or not of sanctions is tricky to tell especially since the West has been reluctant to go full out against the obvious sanctions busters (those countries which just happen to be importing a shedton more kit) but there is clearly some impact on Russia both in terms of increased costs (those countries are going to be charging a healthy markup) and for those items which cant be acquired that way.

One example I saw is around their AWACS capability. They did have some shiny new ones under development which have hit a brickwall since they were using the sort of Western components which you couldnt have some third party country  go “yeah we want these chips for our booming errmmmm errrrr e-bike industry, yeah self driving e-bikes since its foggy here we need really good radars for them”.

Trump isn’t going to win, so there’s that.

I really, really hope you’re right, for Ukraine and so many other reasons.

Apologies for total thread drift, but those in Scotland over the next few months (until 26th Jan) might find this Edinburgh Art Festival exhibition about Cold War Scotland interesting. https://theconversation.com/cold-war-scotland-show-reveals-impact-of-conflict-on-scottish-politics-culture-and-memory-238636

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Trump isn’t going to win, so there’s that.

He is quite unlikely to win the popular vote but still has a strong chance of becoming President, via several different routes.

Apologies for total thread drift, but those in Scotland over the next few months (until 26th Jan) might find this Edinburgh Art Festival exhibition about Cold War Scotland interesting

Thank you.
MIght pop in next time I visit son No.3 who lives up the road.

BBC report detailing the deaths of Russian volunteer soldiers. Some as old as 62 and 71.

Note that article is talking about 100% verified and confirmed deaths where there have been obituaries and proper funerals etc. It’s solid journalism but the number should be treated as a absolute base line minimum,

Russia has an active interest in obscuring it’s casualty figures and with the Russian military’s general lack of regard to reclaiming it’s soldiers’ bodies I think it’s fair to say the real number is considerably higher than that, possibly by an order of multiples.

Even in the highly improbable event that the deaths are really that low. 70,000 deaths is still an incredible amount of dead in 2.5 years, by way of contrast the US lost 58,220 dead in Vietnam but that was over 20 years from 1955 – 1975.

On average, the US lost 2.911 people a year in ‘Nam, Russia is losing a minimum of 28,000 in Ukraine, that’s an insane rate of attrition

the casulty chart on the report is telling.

they literally emptied the prisons and told them to run at machine guns….now theyve basically run out of convicts its volunteers and regulars. soon it will be growing numbers of conscripts.

 the US lost 58,220 dead in Vietnam but that was over 20 years from 1955 – 1975.

The vast majority were between 1965 and 1971, with about 40,000 in 1967-1969.

https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics

Russian losses are running 10 times the peak rate of U.S. losses in Vietnam and Russia has half the population the U.S. had back then so the impact will be much greater than Vietnam was on the U.S.

Well that’s another 2 major Russian ammo dumps gone up in spectacular fireballs last night

Anyone else think they might be using the storm shadows already, amongst drone swarms?

Despite  the losses the Russian army still has 1.5 million men which is 500 000 more than at the start of the war.

https://www.dna.fr/defense-guerre-conflit/2024/09/21/en-russie-l-armee-grossit-les-anti-guerre-resistent.

They haven’t run out of men and have lost fewer than 10% even on the higher estimated losses. It’s not a lack of canon fodder that will stop them.

Anyone else think they might be using the storm shadows already, amongst drone swarms?

I’ve just been reading it’s more likely there homemade Ukrainian drones they’ve developed

I thought I had seen a video of Ukrainian drones armed with himars explosives a few months ago? If the Ukrainians are able to land the explosive part of a storm shadow by drone would that be as good as using a whole storm shadow? Or would the reduced impact speed be relevant to the size of the blast?

Despite  the losses the Russian army still has 1.5 million men which is 500 000 more than at the start of the war.

https://www.dna.fr/defense-guerre-conflit/2024/09/21/en-russie-l-armee-grossit-les-anti-guerre-resistent.

It’s nearer to 1.3mn, against Ukraine’s 0.9mn. Around 50%ish greater https://www.statista.com/statistics/264443/the-worlds-largest-armies-based-on-active-force-level/

Russia only decided on the 1.5mn figure earlier this week https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/putin-orders-russian-army-expand-war-ukraine-rcna171429

Yesterday’s ISW update reported that Russia is showing signs of recruitment problems

Three sources close to the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) told Bloomberg in August 2024 that the Russian military has struggled to recruit enough people to replace increasing Russian manpower losses throughout the war, and one individual told Bloomberg that Russian regions, on average, fell short of their recruitment quotas by about one-third. Medvedev claimed in July 2024 that the MoD’s average daily recruitment rate for kontraktniki was 1,000 people, and an unnamed Western official estimated in August 2024 that Russian forces were suffering on average roughly 1,000 casualties per day, presumably throughout the frontline in Ukraine and Kursk Oblast, during an interview with UK outlet Independent. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-21-2024

Is this numbers killed?

They haven’t run out of men and have lost fewer than 10% even on the higher estimated losses. It’s not a lack of canon fodder that will stop them.

Hors de combat will be several times that number

They’ve apparently sent the crew of their aircraft carrier to fight on the front lines. That pretty much means that they’ve accepted that the aircraft carrier will be out of service indefinitely. If that’s not a sign of desperation, I don’t know what is.

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/russian-aircraft-carrier-crew-sent-to-frontline-in-ukraine/

Security guards from Naval bases in Vladivostok and from Nuclear Silos deep in the interior have been found on the front lines in Ukraine, they really are throwing every body they can muster at it.

Hence why I don’t think this will be a long drawn out 10 year war, the level of intensity is just so high and it’s showing no signs of abating.

Russa have had yet another ICBM test go horribly wrong that according to the people watching makes it a 1/5 success rate of launching.(Test launching)

I know they only need 1 to work if they wanted to but if the rest of the stock are that bad (they won’t be testing the really iffy ones)

Ukraine made all the Soviet rockets so they won’t be offering any parts that’s for sure. Adding to the fact that Putin is sticking all the boffins in gulags or the modern version of it’s not working out for him. It’s a shame he has a 99% strangle hold on the Russian population.

It’s a shame he has a 99% strangle hold on the Russian population.

Quite a lot of the US population too judging by the comments here:

.

https://x.com/RussiaIsntEnemy/status/1837430496453603826

That really smacks of despair

Pure projection in that Putler video .

Can anyone say “Bot farm”?

The Sun posts regular Ukraine frontline videos on their YouTube channel (drone footage knocking tanks out etc) – the amount of Russian bot / anti Ukraine, Zelenskyy, Biden commentators is considerable.

I remember reading a Guardian article about Russia going into Georgia over South Ossetia in 2008.

The comments underneath were a sea of “This is America’s fault, NATO are the real villains, Russia has a right to do this.” Etc etc.

I distinctly remember thinking at the time that those sentiments seemed a bit incongruous with my image of the stereotypical liberal Guardianista.

Of course now I realise that was my first known encounter with a Russian bot/troll farm.

I’m surprised there has been no mention of this yet on the thread…

Russia’s ICBM test fails catastrophically and blows itself up creating a 200ft crater in the launch silo.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/23/russias-new-sarmat-ballistic-missile-blows-up-during-test-launch

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russian-missile-failed-during-test-researchers-imagery-indicate-2024-09-23/

@pk13 mentioned it 2 days ago.

oops must have missed that, scrolling too fast.

Nice to read the reports about it though.

Hence why I don’t think this will be a long drawn out 10 year war

Lots of commentators (both economic and military) seem to be saying that Russia’s war time economy will come to a shuddering  halt about Summer next year. Increasing inflation (about 15%) and interest rates (increased again to 19% last month) , civilian jobs trying to compete with wages and bonuses paid to volunteers will see the labour pool collapse, the sanctions (and efforts to get around them) are just adding an extra layer of cost onto the whole thing.

Bets to see if Putin makes moves for a ceasefire before then?

maybe, press has been saying similar for sometime, just like the ‘they will run out of shells / missiles / kit / troops’ comments.

Putin has bet the lot on the Orange Shit Gibbon winning,

Anders Puck Nielsen’s take on how long the Russian economy can sustain the war.  TL/DR Russia’s whole economy is on a war footing.  In the short term that has created jobs, boosted the economy to some degree and insulated ordinary Russians from the effects of sanctions, but that is now changing and is not sustainable in the long term.  A huge economic hangover is on the way.  Also Russia has largely been replacing combat losses of equipment with refurbished ex Soviet stock, which is dwindling rapidly and they don’t have the manufacturing capacity to replace it all with new kit (compounded by sanctions).

Ukraine’s economy is also on a full war footing, but without the impact of sanctions.  They are also supported by Western economies which are not on a full war footing and can sustain that support indefinitely. Or at least as long as there is political will and public support.  If the West holds its nerve and (biggie) the Donald loses the US election – Russia will be looking for an end to it.

press has been saying similar for sometime, just like the ‘they will run out of shells / missiles / kit / troops’ comments

Russia is importing millions of shells from North Korea. They’re doing that because they’ve burnt through their pre-war stocks and can’t produce enough themselves. They have lost thousands of armoured vehicles but have to resort to digging 1960s stuff out of storage to replace them because they can’t build enough new vehicles. Same with aircraft, they just don’t have the ability to replace their losses.

Thanks @blokeuptheroad, interesting video. Sums up what lots of other folks are saying. I’ll subscribe to that channel.

And their personnel problems are covered in this thread.

https://x.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1838843568087093505

Putin has bet the lot on the Orange Shit Gibbon winning,

Lovable Piers Morgan said that Trump may well double down on Russia as the GOP are remembering their Reaganomics.

Bets to see if Putin makes moves for a ceasefire before then?

Tricky since even if it is the best decision for Russia the question would be whether he thinks its best for him or should he keep praying for a hail mary.

Problem with being a strongman leader is, well, you have to appear strong.