Auto Driller

I occasionally check out rt.com to see how things are being spun for the Russian public. For the first time, they’ve started calling it an “invasion” and acknowledged “nearly 500” military deaths. Also an article about how the UN passed a resolution condemning their actions. Seems like they realize that they can’t keep this thing hidden forever. Side note: the only countries voting against the UN resolution were Russia, Belarus, Syria, North Korea, and Eritrea. Some company.

A couple of random thoughts: - Ukraine is absolutely, 100%, without a doubt winning the propaganda battle. But it’s not only because they really are on the right side of history. It’s because Russia can’t fight back. See, the party line in Russia is there’s not even a war going on at all. They’re simply performing some targeted air strikes to help defend the “Donbas People’s Republic”. If they start filling the airwaves with images of tanks and artillery running over Ukrainian villages it’s going to be apparent that (1) the military is much weaker than they’ve been led to believe and (2) that they’ve been lied to since the beginning. It’s debatable whether (2) even matters because allowing a strongman to run over their rights seems to be baked into Russian DNA. - A lot of speculation has centered around the idea that Putin didn’t know the weakness of the military (particularly logistics) and is now scrambling to figure out a solution. I actually think he did know these things and planned around them. The idea was that he would mass an invasion force on all sides to scare them into submission. Throw in a couple of go-fast spec ops raids on airports and government HQ and he would never have to send the armor at all, thus negating their biggest weakness and preserving the myth of overwhelming strength. The problem was that the Ukrainians decided to fight back and he was forced to do it the “conventional” way. Now he’s trying to figure out how to fight a war while also telling the population that no such war exists. In the age of social media…pretty tough to pull this off.

A large percentage of their stockpiled currency was held in foreign banks and is now frozen.

The entire EU and NATO are going to ensure this is not the case. Relentlessly shelling civilians in a capital city and “having” that city are very different things.

China taking a big L on this one too. In addition to looking like a bunch of jackasses for having tacitly supported Russia in the lead up to the invasion, the world has now clearly seen that a smaller country can effectively resist a full scale invasion from a “super power”. Taiwan suddenly isn’t looking so vulnerable.

He’s not going to be there personally. He’ll send a representative.

This seriously could not have gone worse for Putin. I’m trying to think of literally one thing that has worked out for them, and I’m coming up blank.

Russian military doctrine seems to include a heavy dose of “drive your equipment into the open without infantry support, stop, and wait to get shot with a rocket.”

The outpouring of support and western tilt have already happened. There’s no going back there. I think that Putin and his generals are going to find a way to “declare victory” by taking a small slice of southern/eastern Ukraine and claiming that was the objective all along. But the world knows they wanted the whole pie so it will be widely viewed as a humiliating defeat. One thing that’s important is that the impact of sanctions are going to make it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for them to replace all of this smoldering military equipment we see posted on twitter. Already they are sending 1980s-era tanks from eastern-based units. At a certain point they can’t continue to prosecute this war without materially weakening their actual self-defense needs. A javelin costs less and is much easier to replace than a tank/APC/helicopter. We’re pretty much following the Soviet/Afghan war plan and they’re no better prepared to handle it than they were last time.

Russia: you dun goofed.

So following Russia’s incoming military defeat, they get to spend the next decade begging to be allowed back into the global financial system? And hope that someone other than Syria honors their passports? This Putin guy is a strategic genius.

Who could have guessed that Twitter would turn into a command and control tool during a major war.

Ukraine, fuck yeah!

All of the advantages that led to a Russian victory in WWII - strong national identity and hatred for the invader, civilian participation in defense, supply chain problems for the enemy - are firmly in favor of the Ukrainian side in this conflict. They also have none of the advantages that the Nazis had - highly disciplined and experienced forces, efficient industrial production, hatred of the enemy. Add to this that basically the entire world (sans China, who is just using this as an opportunity to economically subjugate Russia) is united against them. I’m beginning to think that Putin loses his head over this little adventure.

This right here. I voted for option 3 but only because it was closest to what I think makes sense. Provide lethal and non-lethal aid, training, and intelligence support. No boots on the ground or planes in the sky.

Considering that the Russian Air Force seems to be struggling to contain Ukraine’s fliers, I’m pretty sure we’d establish air superiority in 24 hours or less.

Is this the military equivalent of “better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt” for Putin?

If the press conference he held prior to the invasion is any indication, everyone in his inner circle is terrified to tell him anything he doesn’t want to hear. His generals may have known that this would go poorly but didn’t want to be sent to the gulag.

I can’t imagine that this is going according to plan for Putin.

I thought the conventional wisdom was that you need a 2-3x numerical advantage to overtake an entrenched defending enemy. 190k troops to overrun a country of 45 million seems low, no? And as others have said, the Ukrainians almost certainly have a huge advantage in motivation. Russia most likely prevails eventually, but there’s no way the plan was to fumble around and get your air assets and armor destroyed for the first 24 hours, THEN unleash the real assault.

Is there any chance that the Poles take an active role in holding the western line? You have to think that they won’t feel comfortable watching the Russians role up on their border. Interesting because this brings NATO into play.

So he has no allies in this effort at all, right? Belarus doesn’t count. And China is more likely to take advantage of his weakness than anything else.

So Putin considers NATO presence on his borders an existential threat. His solution is to forcibly annex a neutral country, thereby placing NATO on his border? This guy just seems like an asshole. I hope the Ukrainians are ready to fight and that we are ready to support them.

Russian citizens are not cut off from outside information sources though, right? Do they actually believe Kremlin propaganda or are they just conditioned to accept it, lest they end up in a gulag?

Would it be cheaper if we just arrested people with chest tattoo extending to the neck on sight? Waiting for them to actually commit a crime might be a waste of time.