If the Russians cant supply their army, fuel for the tanks, shells and ammo for the squaddies, cant offer air support which appears to be the case right now then yes Ukraine is winning, can't is the important word though, we all assume Russia has thousands of support vehicles ready to send in.
The trouble with this assumption though is we have seen a lot of clips of tanks and AFV's out of fuel, they dont run out of fuel alone, its not like you and your buddies on a road trip and he puts a full tank in and you can only put in 20 bucks, they all start with a full tank and have roughly the same range, once one runs out within a mile or two they all run out at which point they are sitting ducks for hand held missiles, if the Russians had the ability to get fuel to them they would have, you have to assume by now this is the full extent of their ability, they may have more tanks and men but without logistics they are just as useless.
It does seem they've lost, they cant afford to keep wasting equipment, they cant afford to lose much more face, they seem to have no ability to actually reach their objectives and they will increasingly need what forces they have left in reserve to go back and maintain order in Russia, on top of this if the war devolves down to just infantry on the ground the Ukraine actually ends up with a large tactical advantage, they have more soldiers that are better supplied, have much higher morale and defense is in and of itself a tactical advantage
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My wife is Russian and a Permanent Resident. She is in Russia right now with our daughter and trying to get out via Azerbaijan or Kazakstan. I wonder about potential backlash when she gets back when people find out she's originally from Russia.
That's terrible. You see increased vitriol being spewed about "Russians" on internet message boards and even the call to expel them from countries simply for being Russian (I can understand the reasoning if they are oligarchs or are connected to them), despite these people not having done anything wrong other than I suppose being born Russian? Sorry to hear about what your wife and daughter are going through.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarchHare
I certainly hope everyone is able to separate the common Russian citizen from the actions of their country's dictator. Ordinary Russians -- even some of the soldiers currently fighting and dying in the invasion -- are just as much a victim of Putin as the people in Ukraine are. I'd like to think that the average Canadian/American/European/etc. isn't going to hold Russian immigrants accountable for a war they had absolutely no control over, but after seeing racist idiots direct hate towards Asian immigrants over COVID, I'm not so confident that will be the case.
Good post and yup, good example with the hate we received over COVID and tons of other examples in our history including the mentions earlier about Germans being subjected to rape, robbery, etc. after World War 2 because they were... German.
Last edited by activeStick; 02-27-2022 at 01:46 PM.
Ukraine might not be using Eastern bloc fighters in the future. EU agrees to sell Ukraine Western jets. Typhoons, Rafales? This is part of the 450M Euro arms deal being sent Ukraine's way. https://twitter.com/user/status/1498029493033881601
Considering that Russia doesn't have air superiority over Ukraine right now, won't they be sitting ducks?
Yeah tank columns are pretty old school if you ask me. I have a feeling their weapons systems are more archaic than initially thought. Which is awesome.. still super scary though 😔
Is that Russian convoy actually a sitting duck for airstrikes, though? Russia doesn't have air superiority over Ukraine, true, but do the Ukrainian defenders have air superiority themselves? According to wikipedia, before the invasion, the Ukranian Air Force had a total 98 combat aircraft of all types to cover the entire country, and some of those have surely been destroyed by now. Of the total, 29 are dedicated ground attack planes (Su-24 and Su-25, think of them as something like a Soviet-era A-10 Warthog), and the remaining are Mig-29 and Su-27 multirole fighters.
If anything, I think that convoy is at a greater risk from either artillery strikes or ambush attacks by Ukrainian ground forces armed with Javelins and NLAWs.
No, of course they're not winning. They're just outperforming expectations. A realistic view on Friday was that they wouldn't last the weekend. They're just trying to hold on, and every time they make it through the night is a victory, judged on that curve. If they'd lost in 24 hours, none of these sanctions or promises of support from other countries that are coming hourly would have happened in the way that they have. The longer they hold out, the more they make this hurt Russia, and the more they make it cost Russia.
But "winning", in the sense that they're going to somehow repel this invasion? Absolutely not. That's not even on the table.
IF the Russians are really losing troops and equipment at the pace reported and their support lines are as weak as some reports, and the morale is as low as reported, things could genuinely be extremely bleak for the Russian side.
I mean, if those 1000+ men lost per day numbers are close to the reality, no army can sustain that for any length of time.
Things that are least SOMEWHAT true:
- poor morale, units are reported to be essentially hiding from the war
- troops are scattered over a large area and moving rapidly in smaller units to be faster
- air support is unreliable
- units are running around seeming somewhat lost and seem to have only vague idea of what they're supposed to be doing
- they are fighting a motivated enemy with superior air and satellite reconnaissance (provided by the US) that knows the ground much better.
Much less reliable info, but plausible:
- support lines are stretched and troops entered the country with very little food or fuel
That's a lot of IF's, but in any case, it's not really that Ukraine is outperforming expectations, it's that the Russians seem to be massively underperforming.
IF that's really an accurate picture of the Russian troops in Ukraine, it's basically a perfect scenario for units getting isolated and more or less wiped out without the support a superior force should be enjoying at all times. A situation like that could really mean extremely lopsided military casualties, which combined with poor morale could trigger mass surrenders or revolts within the Russian troops.
So I would say a Russian loss is actually on the table, although it would take the co-operation of unmotivated Russian troops.
Of course we have no idea what shape the Ukrainian army is in currently. Neither side has an incentive to talk about the losses Ukrainians are taking, since the Russians are still claiming to their own public that "this is just a little skirmish that will quickly be over".
If, if, if, obviously.
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This is tactically nuts, there's no way the APC is going to get through the barricade, clearly they dont have much in the way of fire support judging by the lack of concern the HUNDREDS of civilians have on the barricade, it just doesnt make sense what the Russians are doing.
Molotov Cocktails should be a pointless waste of time and the life of the poor schmoe that throws it against a modern AFV, again that they are proving effective in the Ukraine says a lot about how awful the Russians are
This is tactically nuts, there's no way the APC is going to get through the barricade, clearly they dont have much in the way of fire support judging by the lack of concern the HUNDREDS of civilians have on the barricade, it just doesnt make sense what the Russians are doing.
Molotov Cocktails should be a pointless waste of time and the life of the poor schmoe that throws it against a modern AFV, again that they are proving effective in the Ukraine says a lot about how awful the Russians are
Molotov Cocktails should be a pointless waste of time and the life of the poor schmoe that throws it against a modern AFV, again that they are proving effective in the Ukraine says a lot about how awful the Russians are
Nah, what the Ukrainians are doing is effectively making little bottles of napalm with styrofoam. Far from an expert but you throw that into any open exhaust port, and bombard the vehicle and they're inoperable. They're sticky as f**ck and stay burning. Simple yet effective.
Winning and losing is determined at the end of the war. You can lose most of the battles but still win the war if the enemy eventually runs out of steam. In fact, it seems like many modern wars go that way. It's classic rope-a-dope. Hold on long enough, then take it back at the end. This is essentially what happened in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, probably others. In those wars, the defenders suffered more losses but the aggressors still failed to meet their objectives.
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Last edited by FlamesAddiction; 02-27-2022 at 02:20 PM.
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