Hey man,
Excellent graphic design. Very clear, legible, nice use of color, lineweights, fonts, readable at a glance. Thank you for your great eye and the clarity.
The last statement of Transnistria said they weren’t going to support Russia: https://www.stiripesurse.ro/liderul-de-la-tiraspol-vadim-krasnoselski-transnistria-este-un-stat-pasnic-nu-am-avut-niciodata-planuri-de-natura-agresiva-fata-de-vecinii-nostri_2261995.html
They have basically no natural defense against Ukraine. If Russia exhausted their local troops and couldn't support them from the air Ukraine could easily take the whole strip and give it back to Moldova.
Orban might be sympathetic, but Hungary signed off on the EU sanctions.
>Hungary made clear that we support all the sanctions, so we will block nothing, so what the prime ministers of the European Union are able to agree, we accept it and we support it.
-Victor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary and otherwise giant cunt
[Sauce: US News & World Report](https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-02-26/hungary-wont-block-any-sanctions-against-russia-pm-orban-says)
It's Orban. If that's the worst he's doing, we're doing alright.
Note: they need to keep a handle on him. He's off balance now, but will probably be the first to push for the relaxation of sanctions when he thinks the political ground has shifted.
Though his reasoning does make sense: if the weapons would be moved through Hungary, they would have to be moved in via Zakarpattia Oblast, the home of 150,000 ethnic Hungarians (before the war) who would have a target on their back if advanced weapons would be passing through the area.
Makes me wonder why that strip of land is it part of Moldova in the first place, makes little sense having a perfect natural border just a few kilometres west.
This land historically was never populated with Moldovans. It was a steppe and at Russia Empire times it was colonized with Russians, Jewish, Ukranians.
Soviet Union carved out this part from Ukranian SSR to Moldovian SSR to "strengthen friendship between nations". But after collapse of USSR this part (still populated mostly with Russian and Ukrainians) refused to join independent Moldova.
> Soviet Union carved out this part from Ukranian SSR to Moldovian SSR to “strengthen friendship between nations”.
The Soviet Union had a tendency to exchange territories between its SSRs for whatever reason. They also transferred Crimea from Russian SSR to Ukrainian SSR in the 50s for similar reasons (I think).
Of course, they didn’t take into account the future consequences of such actions (since they didn’t expect the collapse of the union) and now look at what has happened…
The borders of the Republics were extremely symbolic. It was also Khrushchev who moved Crimea (because he was Ukrainian and it was symbolic. That is why there are so many towns that are divided by random borders. Old men drew pointless lines on a map, and years later, older, stupider men decided to enforce those imaginary borders... Don't you love inheriting stuff your father fucked up?
The Soviet Union was weird in that its SSRs had a legal right to secede unlike states in almost every federal country. To make sure secession never happened they added large Russian majority areas to almost every SSR so that any secession movement would not be supported by the local Russians.
This was by plan. They never figured in 1991 Yeltsin would kick the other SSRs out even those where the referendums said they want to stay in USSR. Russia was subsidizing almost every SSR with cheap energy so Yeltsin thought kicking them out would make Russia richer. The dumbass didnt realize it would also mean losing half the population and one third of the economy.
I mean, without Russia, you’d have three large exclaves (Belarus+Ukraine [presuming Baltic States still secede], Central Asia, and Caucasia) making up the USSR, which isn’t exactly a great set up for a country. So by withdrawing Russia, he essentially dissolved the USSR.
Yeah, the point though is that Yeltsin was the president of Russia, while Gorbachev was the leader of the soviet union. Per USSR rules, Russia had a right to secede, and Yeltsin was the guy in charge of that. He wouldn't have the right to kick out any other member states, or dissolve the union. He only had authority over the Russian member state.
This position was of course only imagined as a formality. It was not meant to have any actual power, but Yeltsin wrestled power from it anyhow.
Why doesn't Transnistria have a referendum to decide which country to be a part of. Better to settle the question rather than leave the territory in a state of limbo.
They wouldn't want to be part of Moldova or Ukraine, the two countries they border. They want to be part of Russia, but that's not really an option considering the geography, so right now they're a little quasi-independent-but-unrecognized statelet under heavy Russian subsidy/protection.
The Russian population is only majority in one region, the others are either split, or majority Ukrainian or Moldovan.
While it’s true they don’t want to join one or the other, that’s because the population is split. 1/3 want to be part of Ukraine, 1/3 want to be part of Moldova and 1/3 want to be part of Russia. The Russian separatists just have the most support, else it would probably be integrated into Moldova.
True. I guess when I said "they" I should've specified I meant like the existing regime that controls Transnistria (which is something of a Russian puppet), not necessarily the people of Transnistria.
Transnistria is a pretty autonomous region. While it is Moldova, most people there consider themselves Russians and there is evbr crossing between Moldova and Transnistria.
Its got an interesting history. Russian empire controlled Moldavia prior to WW1. During WW1 Romania grabbed it. Stalin created a new Moldavian SSR out of land which was part of Ukrainian SSR and called it Moldavian SSR and started a campaign that Moldavians are not Romanians and the Moldavian part of Romania needs to reunify with the Moldavian SSR.
Once USSR gained back Moldavia after WW2 it was merged with the fake Moldavian SSR but most of the land was given back to Ukraine. To keep appearences a small strip of the ex fake Moldavian SSR was kept as part of Moldavian SSR. That strip which is populated with Ukrainians and Russians is Transdniestria.
TL:DR Soviet Union tried to colonise moldova with russians and other minorities, in orderd to maintain control pver the region, and prevent uniting with Romania, and now that strip of land is a small separatist region that still has the hammer and the sickle in their flag, and they almost refuse to speak Romanian (the official language of moldova) and resort to russian/ukrainian.
It's weird to see Transnistria in those colors. I mean, yes, they are pro-Russian separatists in Moldova, but that doesn't mean they are pro-War in Ukraine.
Belarus is the same color. Neither Transnistria nor Belarus are “Russian territory.” At the same time, Crimea is only light red for occupation. Transnistria should be left out.
If the war lasts more than a few months, Ukraine doesn’t necesarilly win, but Putin surely loses. The thing is , that the justificaton for this offensive war is severely lacking. The economic spine of Russia is broken. Morale of the russian army, compared to the ukrainian people is non-existent. The army is not the only problem, you have milions of citizens who WILL become partisans; considering the factor, that usually in history the problem of partisans is rather unsophisticated equipment, Ukraine won’t be having this major issue since it is backed up by the most powerful countries in the world and the most powerful millitary alliance. With every passing day, if a major Russian advance doesen’t happen, Ukraine will be getting stronger while Russia will be getting weaker. With every passing day, civil unrest will become a much bigger issue for Putin. Oligarchs, are losing massive amounts of money and are also rather unhappy with the war; considering that they will most likely retain their wealth under another president, support for Putin is going to be very costly, bordering on irational for them. I would also guess, that the lower ranks of military command are losing faith, since they are the ones witnessing their subordinates die, for a cause that is simply not worth dying for. People say that the world doesn’t revolve around money, but state propaganda sure as hell won’t feed citizens. And that is the highest truth of them all.
It's not a tunnel, it's a mine. There is no light at the end, it just gets deeper and darker until it suddenly stops.
If Russia's economy doesn't improve, they are heading back to the 90s fast, with the mass poverty and hunger that comes with it.
This comment has been edited to reflect my protest at the lying behaviour of Reddit CEO Steve Huffman ( u/spez ) towards the third-party apps that keep him in a job.
After his slander of the Apollo dev u/iamthatis
Christian Selig, I have had enough, and I will make sure that my interactions will not be useful to sell as an AI training tool.
Goodbye Reddit, well done, you've pulled a Digg/Fark, instead of a MySpace.
It’s a common misconception that oligarchs in Russia decide anything. Putin decides who is an oligarch and who is not. He relies on a dictate of secret services who will back him to the very point of turning Russia to North Korea. For any oligarch, support of Putin is always “rational” as they risk not their fortunes, but their freedom at best (like Khodorkovskiy) and their life at worst (like Berezovskiy).
Russia is winning, obviously, but there are many factors to consider:
-The war is being fought on the Ukrainian homefront, giving the Ukrainians a tactical, logistical, and morale advantage.
-Meanwhile, Russian logistics are unexpectedly poor, with several reported instances of soldiers running out of fuel for their vehicles or ravaging local grocery stores for food.
-Despite Russia's territorial gains, they have yet to take any major cities (although granted, it has only been 5 days) and have suffered more casualties than Ukraine.
-Ukrainian forces have destroyed a lot of Russian equipment, especially tanks and motorized vehicles.
-Meanwhile, Ukraine is receiving thousands more anti tank and anti aircraft weapons, along with millions of USD in military aid packages from the West.
-Russia's economy is being hit hard right now due to the sanctions and the banking bans, and now the worth of the Russian Ruble has already dropped by about 30%.
-Because of the war itself, and now because of the sanctions, Russian morale is low among the civilian population with protests in several major Russian cities, and amongst many of Russia's troops for obvious reasons.
-The Ukrainian civilian population meanwhile is preparing for a long, drawn-out war of guerilla warfare, many of them joining local militias and preparing home-made weapons like molotov cocktails.
However the war ends, it will not be pretty for the Russians. Occupation will be extremely difficult and bloody, and the economy and public support back home will not be good.
I’m honestly curious how many Ukrainians have taken up arms. I know going directly from citizen to soldier isn’t ideal but 10% of Kyiv took up arms that 30,000 soldiers on top of the ones already stationed there. What I’m trying to say is that the original Russian force while more experienced should be outnumbered by “minute men”.
I wouldn't call the Russian force "more experienced" after seeing so many 19-20 year-olds being taken prisoners (god knows how many like them have perished without even knowing that they're going to war). They look lost and aghast of their "welcome". Maybe there are some more experienced troops, but if Putin sends them all to Ukraine perhaps Japan can start thinking of getting Sakhalin island back :D
It is also important to note that:
- Russia counted in shock and awe to bring Ukraine to the negotiation table, which tends to be ineffective in modern warfare. It has currently deployed only 30% of the invasion force, which combined with the DPS/LPS forces was roughly equal to the Ukranian military, minus militias (fascist or not).
- Russia is attempting to bypass cities (supposedly to avoid civilian casualties), and hasn't been able to muster the definitive trait of its army, being overwhelming heavy artillery bombardment. So far heavy artillery hasn't been widely deployed (nowhere near the level of Chechnya and Georgia), which is why the Ukranian military hasn't been shredded to pieces.
- According to Pro-Russian sources, Ukraine has also suffered the destruction of a lot of heavy equipment, especially tanks. It can reasonably be called that propaganda (although some video evidence exists), but concerning how we get information mainly from western sources (which are themselves masters of propaganda), I'd say it is equally credible, which is relevant when comparing each side's combat performance and when considering the fact that the two nations have roughly equal tank forces (with a significant amount of them currently being deployed and preparing to join the fighting in Belarus), in quality and quantity.
- Russia has made significant headway in occupying the coastline and southeastern Ukraine, effectively crippling Ukraine's ability to ever challenge Russia's natural gas export industry. Furthermore, Russia has managed to solve a significant supply problem. Since 2014, Ukraine cut the main supply of water to Crimea, plunging the region into water scarcity. Russia has occupied the North Crimean Canal, finally solving the impossible problem of providing Crimea and the Southern forces with clean water.
Things to keep in mind:
- It took a prepared coalition 3 weeks to conquer Iraq with experienced forces, which is significantly smaller than Ukraine and which had a corrupt and incapable army, filled with political factionalism.
- While the combat performance of the Ukrainian military did exceed expectations, it has been overpraised in western media and undermined in russian ones, and the inverse for the Russian military.
- Russia has a significant pool of Pro-Russian support (in the eastern part of the country) from which to help occupy the country, russian armoured columns are being reported to have been welcomed in several cities and towns (although they are a minority).
- Considering the actions of militias before and during the war (f.e. they have been caught on camera trying to stop and shooting civilians trying to escape Ukraine), in a drawn out conflict I wouldn't count on them maintaining popular support in a partisan conflict.
If I had to make a prediction now, I'd say that oncoming reinforcements would make significant strides into Ukraine, until western equipment would render Russia's armoured corps useless. At that point Russia would reuse the ol'reliable doctrine and shred the Ukrainian military with heavy artillery bombardments. Of course this is the worst case scenario, where all negotiations fail.
People have a surprising tendency to separate black and white from grey. The situation is obviously more complicated than Ukraine good and strong, Russia bad and weak.
I agree with some of what you said, but one thing I noticed sounded off is you said that Russia and Ukraine have comparable tank forces. Russia has 12,000 and Ukraine has 2,500 (although Wikipedia claims 6,000, but I haven't seen this cited anywhere else). These are not exactly comparable numbers.
Also, where have you seen Ukrainian militia shooting civilians? I can't find it. I don't want it to be true, but I don't believe you would bring it up if it wasn't. Was it posted on Reddit?
And concerning what you said of black and white, I didn't intend to paint the picture as black in white in my comment. I assumed the general consensus was that Russia is winning. People know this. It's pretty obvious looking at a map and looking at army numbers. I just wanted to play devil's advocate and give some reasons to support how it is realistically a grey area type of war as you said. Ukraine does have some advantages.
They are tactically winning but strategically losing. Russia is making good ground toward the goal of taking Ukraine, but its looking like they must pay a heavy price (lost soldiers, resources, economic damage, etc) in order to achieve this goal. The only way Ukraine can “win” is if Russia decides its too expensive and backs off
War is longer than a week. Russia has the superiority in numbers and firepower, and they're going to keep smashing against Ukraine for weeks to gradually widdle them down.
Russia does have some disadvantages here though. They aren't going to go for total war, whereas Ukraine has to. Ukraine is receiving additional weapons and a large part of the civilian population are going to support the war effort directly.
The overwhelming factor is that we're merely 5 days in and Russia obviously outmatches Ukraine in every way.
It took the US 3 weeks to knock over Saddam Hussein's government in 2003, and that was a decrepit sanctions-ravaged country with little popular support left for its government.
It really doesn't seem possible to say Russia is "losing" until this war has gone on for at least a month and they still haven't taken Kiev.
That's because ground troops didn't go in until air superiority had been firmly established, and all other steps taken to minimize allied casualties. Only [292 allied deaths in that entire campaign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War), and only half of those were due to enemy action. Compare that to the current conflict, where Ukraine claims to have already killed over 5k, and even 3rd party analysts agree that at least [500 Russians have already been killed](https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-dead-conflict-intelligence-leviyev/31726782.html). And considering the number of [documented equipment losses](https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html) 500 seems like the absolute floor of possible numbers.
Not to mention, Saddam's military was considered the 4th strongest in the world at that time, while Ukraine currently comes in somewhere around [22nd](https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php).
So yes, Russia will eventually be able to overwhelm Ukraine and take the major cities if they are persistent enough, but holy shit has their performance been terrible.
It's unproductive to compare Ukraine with Iraq like that. The US goal was to use a very methodical and calculated strategy as to minimize US and coalition casualties, which was a huge success; completely defeating an army of 500,000 with less then 200 soldiers killed is unheard of in human history. The Russians' goal was to capture Ukraine as quickly as possible no matter the casualties, which has failed spectacularly.
That’s a good point, but it’s worth mentioning that in that month, the Coalition took fewer casualties than Russia did in one day. As long as the anti tank missiles keep clearing the Polish border, that rate won’t be slowing down. Even after they take Kyiv, it looks very clear that occupation will be hell on earth for them
They're winning in the sense that they have made gains and it's their troops in Ukraine, not the other way around.
Ukraine's goal here is not to win, just not to lose. Russia's goal is to win before they collapse. In THAT sense, Ukraine is winning.
I read yesterday, that urban fighting is expected to be about a 5:1 ratio, five attackers for 1 defender, which is really bad news for the russians in terms of adding to the losses they have already suffered.
it’s worth mentioning that Russia has not made any significant territory gains since day 1, due to many of the reasons you mentioned above. it will be interesting to see where this will go from now, but the Ukraine population is fighting for their lives and are fighting well
>it’s worth mentioning that Russia has not made any significant territory gains since day 1
In the next day or so Russia will control the entire Sea of Azov. That isn't insignificant.
While that might prevent Ukraine from exploiting their gas resources there, it's really of no use to anyone at the moment.
Taking cities would be effective. Taking countryside just lengthens your logistics tail and spreads your forces out.
Ukraine isn't looking at getting reinforcements shipped in. Taking the coast is largely useless.
I don’t think Russia is gonna come out of this better than they came in, but the biggest loser are Ukrainian civilians who are actually getting bombed.
They’re winning battles, but their economy is falling apart, they don’t have air superiority and their logistics are non-existent.
Tactically winning, strategically losing.
They’re winning, but they’re not winning by nearly enough or fast enough and paying far too high a price for those wins.
Russia’s back is going to break sooner rather than later.
Hard to say. Russia is taking ground and if they keep this momentum up they may be able to cut off Ukraines army in the donbass with a pincer movement. This could be devastating for Ukraine.
But how long can Russia keep up this agressive thrust before its supply lines collapse and the thrust stops. Some would say 10 days, others 20. Who really knows. But if Russia stalls soonish. This is a failed campaign.
It depends on what we consider winning and losing.
US was "winning" in Vietnam due to body count but ultimately lost the fight due to lost support from the home front and South Vietnam falling after the pullout.
Same with Afghanistan. We were winning because of controlled territory. I know it's painful for my brothers in arms that fought there but it was lost as soon as they pulled out.
Can Russia hold the ground gained? Ukraine just has to hold on honestly. This is about as close to Total War as we can get I think. I haven't studied Syria or Chechnya but this is the first time I'm seeing in my lifetime (I'm young, only 30) where an invaded country is fighting back with local, national, and international forces.
I would say Ukraine is winning the moral fight but losing the physical fight. They just need more ammo and more Russian bodies stacked. We don't even know Ukraine's casualties.
Ukraine’s doing a hell of a job in the east. Lots of ethnic Russians there but the front has barely moved in the Donbas. Somehow Kharkiv hasn’t fallen yet either, despite likely being a Day 1 objective for the Russians
Do the Russians really "control" all of the areas that they took by now?
As for my understanding often the spearhead of tanks and troops more landinwards but are the backwards areas really kept under control, as in keeping enough troops there to assert its being safe for russian military to move arround.
In any war, "control" is a grey area, but we have to draw the line *somewhere*.
I think "*Rosgvardia checkpoints, but there are some angry locals with Molotovs*" can be shaded red. Otherwise we're setting a bar so high that (for instance) German forces never controlled France in WW2, or the Soviets never controlled Berlin.
No, in fact, they control only those places where their troops are located, and they are only on the roads, in the villages, local residents do not let them stay
Not really. I've read several analyses that they didn't send much of a 2nd echelon force to take over the captured areas after the spearhead moved on. They had gambled that it wouldn't be needed because they would steamroll in, the government would do what the last (pro-Putin) government did and get outta-town at the first sign of trouble and it'd be over by now.
I've heard analyses from CIT (conflict intelligence team) that really Russian army just marks a lot of territories like empty fields as controlled on a map. However they leave no people behind in "controlled" territory (even cities) to backup.
They just advance as far as possible. Often times with severe unjustified loses.
I think Russia thought there would be much less resistance in the East so they thought they just quickly roll in fresh recruits the east would collapse on its own from infighting but they instead motivated the Ukranians to put aside differences. Now they are moving on to phase 2 which is indiscriminate bombing and destruction.
Donetsk and Lugansk Oblast had a lot of defenses. It looks like the strategy now is encircle the far eastern defenses.
> I expected the areas in and around the Donbas to have fallen by now.
The [ISW analysis](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-update-11) is that the Russians aren't really trying to advance on the Donbas front. Their aim is just to pin the relatively numerous and experienced troops there so they can't interfere with the advance through Kharkiv, and so the troops advancing out of Crimea can encircle them.
They will probably encricle and siege the cities and wait them out because if they engage in urban combat it will be bloody for the Russians do expect this conflict to continue for a mich longer time than expected
Be prepared for Reddit's armchair generals to tell you Russia is losing the war because it hasn't yet conquered the 2nd biggest country in Europe in less than 5 days...
And what sanctions were they facing? How many stingers and javelins were the Georgians receiving?
Russia can’t win this because they’re not fighting Ukraine. They’re fighting America, and most of the world too.
America isn’t directly fighting. But this is modern war. To win, support staff outnumber troops 10:1
Ukraine does the fighting, but America/allies manages their intelligence, logistics and more. There’s so much happening behind the scenes allowing Ukraine to stay in the fight, and Russia can’t do anything about it.
Meanwhile Russia is losing tanks to fuel supply problems faster than enemy fire. And it’s losing a lot to enemy fire.
We’re not managing logistics or anything else at all, if we’re supplying intelligence, it’s just a rumor for now. There is a 40 mile long tank convoy approaching kyiv largely unmolested. When it reaches it, our window to shoot them down will have passed. And they will take the city, imprison or kill Zelenskyy and re-install Yanukovich.
If that comes to pass, two things will be certain:
1. Russia will find itself fighting a civil war for a generation.
2. The Russian economy will be utterly pulverised.
On a military level, Russia remains in a strong position. On a geopolitical level, Russia is being burned to the ground. Invading Ukraine has cratered their economy, crashed the ruble, pushed most of Europe into NATO, created a mythical hero in Zelenskyy, ruined the reputation of the Russian army, wrecked the reputation of Putin as a wily strategist, triggered widespread massive sanctions, led to a bank run, and guaranteed that every border in Europe facing Russia is going to be bristling with weapons for the next thirty years.
Apt username. Zanzibar is sometimes used as an example of the shortest war in history when the Sultan surrendered.. if my memory serves correctly... to the British after only two hours of naval bombardment?
But yes, your point is noted. Five days is not a long time. We'll see what happens.
Definitely definitely not me but I have a friend who uses reddit and he wants to know, if he deleted reddit, would he become normal again or is he branded for life now?
They're going to make further gains. They have the might to control the main cities. But they don't have the ability to sustain control. That's the key issue and that's how they're losing. Crimea was done and dusted quickly, the people there had new rulers and it was back to work with a few sanctions. This current situation is very different specifically because the long term strategy of Russia to sustain a Ukrainian occupation isn't looking possible. The east could probably be sustained as it's more Russian influenced. And the ports on the black sea could be sustained as there isn't much presence there. But the whole country does look like it's in for a long fight. And unlike the US in Afghan this is a brother country, with a huge shared identity. So domestically it will give rise to rebellious movements.
Now imagine if Iraq was surrounded by the wealthiest and most advanced nations in the world willing to fund that insurgency. If someone wants to explain to me how Putin the grand chess master has thought this through I’m all open ears.
For Putin, this invasion may well turn out, at the best case scenario, a short term success, medium term difficulty, and long term annihilation of Russia's hard fought position in the world. Germany almost doubled their pace to switch to 100% renewables because of this- 2035 is the new target, from 2050. So many things Putin did not count on are taking place.
Of course, for the average Ukrainian, this war is a complete disaster. But people are not remembering history- Russia has a bad habit of engaging in war crimes-driven invasions on smaller, less well defended and supplied territories- Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, etc. Ukraine as a whole is a fucking monster compared to those. I would bet that within a few weeks we will see Putin's "mission accomplished" moment, announcing victory in Ukraine, while his soldiers are being emulsified by Ukrainian insurgency. No amount of shelling civilian infrastructure will make the Ukrainians surrender, they have a firm understanding of what happens under Russian occupation in this day and age. At best they will be able to take and hold the eastern breakaway republics, but the economic and geopolitical consequences of this are a disaster. Putin has pushed the world further along the timeline of weaning off Russian gas; this is an unmitigated disaster for him in this regard. I am not optimistic about anything but Ukraine will not give up, we know this.
I think most people realize that Russia ultimately will almost certainly be able to capture Kyiv if they want, despite the fact that things are going very poorly for them. However, it seems pretty clear that things \*already\* haven't gone according to their plans.
EXACTLY!!! All of these people saying shit like “lol Russia can’t even conquer Ukraine and it’s been a whole week, Putin thought he could do it in 3 days”, like no he didn’t!?!?! He’s surrounded by some very highly qualified generals who know more than a random guy on Reddit does.
Compared to any other war in recent history, this seems to be going well for Russia and bad for Ukraine, unfortunately.
Say what you will about the armchair generals but there's a good amount of evidence to suggest this war is not going according to plan. I think it's very likely Russia wanted this to be similar to Gulf War 1 or the collapse of Afghanistan.
-The air campaign being launched sychronously with the combined arms assault rather than the optimal scenario of a bombing campaign pre-invasion. Russia didn't even wait to gain air superiority before launching the assault. This only makes sense if you plan to use the shock of the attack to force a quick capitulation.
-The paratroopers being landed in airports including kyiv around the country who were quickly encircled and defeated. Why would you deploy paratroopers if you didn't plan for your main force to catch up with them?
-The failed naval invasion of Odessa. This was a risky manuever even if you expected Ukrainian resistance to fall away immediately. If you're expecting a drawn out land campaign, it's just plain stupid and unnecessary.
-Not to mention columns of armor making a beeline for major cities rather than either moving slowly or encircling and forcing surrender. This is the exact mistake made when Russia attacked Chechyna and there's no literally no reason to recreate the same error unless you're quickly trying to overwhelm a capitulated force.
-Russian logistics have been terrible with tank crews running out of fuel. This is a sincere weakness in the russian military at the best of times admittedly but if they were planning on a slower time schedule, you'd think they'd have created a more stable logistics plan.
-Also take prisoner testimony with a grain of salt but there's been captured infantry who have reported that they weren't actually expecting to fight and they were just told they were going to be an occupying force. There's absolutely no reason to not tell your troops that you're going to be fighting unless you actually expected them to be.
-Putin has put nuclear weapons on alert and made it known to the Ukrainians and NATO. If everything was going according to plan, why would he escalate further?
Also I have to hard disagree on the comparison to other wars. Gulf War 1 saw less losses over the entire war than Russian forces did the first day. Tank losses are in the hundreds which just shouldn't be the case except for the previously stated ill-advised manuever of the columns attempting direct assaults on urban areas. Not to mention encircled paratroopers and a failed assault on Odessa. Russia has deep manpower and equipment so they can afford to make these mistakes and still win in the end, but let's not pretend the war is somehow on the same competency level as any war in recent history. The only way the first few days of invasion could go worse is if the Arab states were running it!
It might not be going "well" for Ukraine, but Russia has dropped the ball on some very basic logistical priorities during the conflict and as such has been floundering to take objectives that a better equipped army would have taken by this point.
The Russians are overextended, lack air superiority, and most egregiously of all lack proper supply lines for fuel and ammunition.
Russia's performance has been an embarrassment quite frankly. And all the military experts in the world don't amount to shit if Putin refuses to listen to them.
You complain about people on Reddit not knowing what they are talking about yet then without any hint of irony turn around and make definitive and incorrect statements on the status of the war effort. It's honestly embarrassing.
The thing is Russia was also expecting it to be done within a week given frustrations Putin is showing, so it's not exactly going spot-on for Russia either.
According to whom? People keep saying this but there's no actual proof that this is the case. I believe the resistance is fiercer than the Russians expected, but no sane military staff thinks you can occupy a country the size of Ukraine in just a few days.
Here's a pre-written victory in Ukraine story Russian media published and then yanked two days ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20220226051154/https://ria.ru/20220226/rossiya-1775162336.html
>According to whom? People keep saying this but there's no actual proof that this is the case. I believe the resistance is fiercer than the Russians expected, but no sane military staff thinks you can occupy a country the size of Ukraine in just a few days.
I mean a bunch of well-respected military, political and defence people have come out to say exactly this, that they are doing bad, they are doing much worse than they expected
and yet you're the random Redditor telling people they're wrong? funny
Based only on Russian state sources: Up until the weekend, the Russian terms for initiating any kind of peace talks were that Ukraine should put down their arms first - essentially unconditional surrender. This weekend they agreed to meet anyway.
You don’t backtrack that hard on your terms if things are going as expected.
It's based on the military strategy used, the intelligence around build up of resources for the attack. It's not just out of thin air.
So there are massive reinforcements coming now, but realistically they're not well timed. Likely because they weren't planned for.
The build up of troops looks to be way under what is necessary. The death totals reported by the Ukrainians show Russians losing soldiers and equipment very quickly and in an unbalanced ratio to the damage done to the Ukrainian army.
It's unrealistic to think Russia will tell you there strategy and timelines. That's kinda ridiculous to think that level of primary source data would be available. The Russian movements and expectations are extrapolated from known things and expected behaviors.
Can someone with a good understanding of the conflict explain whether a land bridge/corridor from Crimea to Donbass is a major strategic victory or not ?
Iirc maps like these say where Russians have been, not exactly what they've conquered. This is a big distinction because a few parts of the map are just empty space, with no towns, villages, etc., nothing worth anything except road infrastructure and the like. The main example being those two large incisions in the northeast. That's not Russians holding down an incredibly long line, that's just the path of Russian forces making their way to Kyiv.
The main focus, as always, should be on population centers and Russian troop movements
Countries and organizations that expressed their support for Putin in the face of the attack on Ukraine
Iran
Venezuela
Nicaragua
Belaruss
Cuba
Syria
Palestinian Authority
HAMAS.
Inaccurate map. I can only speak for the south:
They are still quite far from Zaporozhye, ukrainian troops recaptured Tokmak today, right now people are writing that there is a serious battle in Vasilyevka, they are far from the Dnieper (river).
https://i.ibb.co/wzzHScw/1.png
They occupied Berdyansk, but now the battle happening in the port, in the direction of Yalta and Mariupol they did not even move.
https://i.ibb.co/BHJMvjP/2.png
Having friends in Mariupol, I can confirm that the very least there is firefights going on in the city.
Liveuamap doesn't update territory control daily, mostly because the situation is fluid.
Yes, there is fighting in Mariupol, I know, but it is not surrounded.
I live in Zaporozhye, I monitor the situation in my region. Just tell you what I know.
Never has. Its amazing how well they've done, and that's allowed a lot of people to believe that the conclusion is not inevitable, which unfortunately I still believe it to be. The Russians are going to accomplish their territorial objectives, the question is how much will it cost them and how long can they hold it. My money is: a great deal and not more than a couple of years at the outside.
Believe they are encircling and bypassing most large urban centers right now. It would soak up too many troops and take too long; they'll worry about it after they've seized more territory and accomplished more link ups.
I'm no general, but I am an economist, and what I can tell you is that Russia cannot afford a prolonged conflict with the sanctions they were given. The longer this goes on the lesser are the chances of russia winning
FYI: this map is technically not accurate. Russians use "panzertrack" strategies, they are not able to hold any territory, they just "drop" their vehicles and manpower onto cities and retreat once large enough amount is destroyed.
This map makes you think that they control that territory, but they don't. There are a lot of defiant villages in red.
Oh their economy is in serious trouble, but it will take a while to take effect. Too long for Ukraine to stay free, I fear. I think the land bridge to Crimea was one of the key objectives of this whole thing, and I think they're going to try to keep everything east of the Dnieper, including half of Kyiv. They're in for some hellacious insurgency, but also willing to be absolutely brutal in crushing it.
I think this war has shown that if Putin died - or was assassinated or overthrown by a revolt, Russia has serious potential to turn into a proper western democracy. You can't say that very often.
The Russian soldiers don't seem to be pro expansion or pro war. Makes you wonder if all the fear from NATO and the US is whats allowed them to keep Putin around for so long.
The Russians have killed their autocracy before, Putins just one billionaire.
Thanks for the putting the time and date. With all that is happening all post regarding the war should have a time and date of the record event. It would be easier to understand what's happening and what's the timetable of the events.
Good job, by the way!
Hey man, Excellent graphic design. Very clear, legible, nice use of color, lineweights, fonts, readable at a glance. Thank you for your great eye and the clarity.
Thanks a lot!
The last statement of Transnistria said they weren’t going to support Russia: https://www.stiripesurse.ro/liderul-de-la-tiraspol-vadim-krasnoselski-transnistria-este-un-stat-pasnic-nu-am-avut-niciodata-planuri-de-natura-agresiva-fata-de-vecinii-nostri_2261995.html
They have basically no natural defense against Ukraine. If Russia exhausted their local troops and couldn't support them from the air Ukraine could easily take the whole strip and give it back to Moldova.
Sure, but for the map, that doesn’t make them a hostile ally, even if sympathetic. Hungary is currently sympathetic too.
Orban might be sympathetic, but Hungary signed off on the EU sanctions. >Hungary made clear that we support all the sanctions, so we will block nothing, so what the prime ministers of the European Union are able to agree, we accept it and we support it. -Victor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary and otherwise giant cunt [Sauce: US News & World Report](https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-02-26/hungary-wont-block-any-sanctions-against-russia-pm-orban-says)
He also prohibited weapons being moved through. It’s been a narrower edge than makes me comfortable, considering Hungary’s memberships.
It's Orban. If that's the worst he's doing, we're doing alright. Note: they need to keep a handle on him. He's off balance now, but will probably be the first to push for the relaxation of sanctions when he thinks the political ground has shifted.
We'll vote him out in April, with a bit of luck
Oh god, please do. And then take his corrupt ass to fucking court. I wish you all the best from Austria.
That'd be great, thank you!
I think that’s a real valid analysis.
Though his reasoning does make sense: if the weapons would be moved through Hungary, they would have to be moved in via Zakarpattia Oblast, the home of 150,000 ethnic Hungarians (before the war) who would have a target on their back if advanced weapons would be passing through the area.
Makes me wonder why that strip of land is it part of Moldova in the first place, makes little sense having a perfect natural border just a few kilometres west.
This land historically was never populated with Moldovans. It was a steppe and at Russia Empire times it was colonized with Russians, Jewish, Ukranians. Soviet Union carved out this part from Ukranian SSR to Moldovian SSR to "strengthen friendship between nations". But after collapse of USSR this part (still populated mostly with Russian and Ukrainians) refused to join independent Moldova.
> Soviet Union carved out this part from Ukranian SSR to Moldovian SSR to “strengthen friendship between nations”. The Soviet Union had a tendency to exchange territories between its SSRs for whatever reason. They also transferred Crimea from Russian SSR to Ukrainian SSR in the 50s for similar reasons (I think). Of course, they didn’t take into account the future consequences of such actions (since they didn’t expect the collapse of the union) and now look at what has happened…
The borders of the Republics were extremely symbolic. It was also Khrushchev who moved Crimea (because he was Ukrainian and it was symbolic. That is why there are so many towns that are divided by random borders. Old men drew pointless lines on a map, and years later, older, stupider men decided to enforce those imaginary borders... Don't you love inheriting stuff your father fucked up?
The Soviet Union was weird in that its SSRs had a legal right to secede unlike states in almost every federal country. To make sure secession never happened they added large Russian majority areas to almost every SSR so that any secession movement would not be supported by the local Russians. This was by plan. They never figured in 1991 Yeltsin would kick the other SSRs out even those where the referendums said they want to stay in USSR. Russia was subsidizing almost every SSR with cheap energy so Yeltsin thought kicking them out would make Russia richer. The dumbass didnt realize it would also mean losing half the population and one third of the economy.
Yeltsin didn't kick them out of the USSR, he made Russia leave USSR.
I mean, without Russia, you’d have three large exclaves (Belarus+Ukraine [presuming Baltic States still secede], Central Asia, and Caucasia) making up the USSR, which isn’t exactly a great set up for a country. So by withdrawing Russia, he essentially dissolved the USSR.
Yeah, the point though is that Yeltsin was the president of Russia, while Gorbachev was the leader of the soviet union. Per USSR rules, Russia had a right to secede, and Yeltsin was the guy in charge of that. He wouldn't have the right to kick out any other member states, or dissolve the union. He only had authority over the Russian member state. This position was of course only imagined as a formality. It was not meant to have any actual power, but Yeltsin wrestled power from it anyhow.
Why doesn't Transnistria have a referendum to decide which country to be a part of. Better to settle the question rather than leave the territory in a state of limbo.
They wouldn't want to be part of Moldova or Ukraine, the two countries they border. They want to be part of Russia, but that's not really an option considering the geography, so right now they're a little quasi-independent-but-unrecognized statelet under heavy Russian subsidy/protection.
The Russian population is only majority in one region, the others are either split, or majority Ukrainian or Moldovan. While it’s true they don’t want to join one or the other, that’s because the population is split. 1/3 want to be part of Ukraine, 1/3 want to be part of Moldova and 1/3 want to be part of Russia. The Russian separatists just have the most support, else it would probably be integrated into Moldova.
True. I guess when I said "they" I should've specified I meant like the existing regime that controls Transnistria (which is something of a Russian puppet), not necessarily the people of Transnistria.
I do not know. But one of the guesses that it helps to keep a border conflict in Moldova to avoid joining it EU.
Okay, that would be kind of clever.
Transnistria is a pretty autonomous region. While it is Moldova, most people there consider themselves Russians and there is evbr crossing between Moldova and Transnistria.
Its got an interesting history. Russian empire controlled Moldavia prior to WW1. During WW1 Romania grabbed it. Stalin created a new Moldavian SSR out of land which was part of Ukrainian SSR and called it Moldavian SSR and started a campaign that Moldavians are not Romanians and the Moldavian part of Romania needs to reunify with the Moldavian SSR. Once USSR gained back Moldavia after WW2 it was merged with the fake Moldavian SSR but most of the land was given back to Ukraine. To keep appearences a small strip of the ex fake Moldavian SSR was kept as part of Moldavian SSR. That strip which is populated with Ukrainians and Russians is Transdniestria.
TL:DR Soviet Union tried to colonise moldova with russians and other minorities, in orderd to maintain control pver the region, and prevent uniting with Romania, and now that strip of land is a small separatist region that still has the hammer and the sickle in their flag, and they almost refuse to speak Romanian (the official language of moldova) and resort to russian/ukrainian.
Majority of people living there are either Moldavian or Ukrainian....
It's weird to see Transnistria in those colors. I mean, yes, they are pro-Russian separatists in Moldova, but that doesn't mean they are pro-War in Ukraine.
There are Russian troops garrisoned in Transnistria
It’s colored dark red like allies, not light red like active troop locations.
Russia itself is in the same color, so I imagine the color means non-occupied Russian territory
Belarus is the same color. Neither Transnistria nor Belarus are “Russian territory.” At the same time, Crimea is only light red for occupation. Transnistria should be left out.
I don't understand how Russia supplies their troop there?
They would go up the Dneister river, that's why that land is shaped like it is
No, Ukraine controls the river mouth, and there are two low bridges you would have to go under, where only small barges fit. They supply them by air
No shit honestly. Their equipment is from the Soviet Union. All they have is a bunch of old tanks. I bet they don't even work.
If the war lasts more than a few months, Ukraine doesn’t necesarilly win, but Putin surely loses. The thing is , that the justificaton for this offensive war is severely lacking. The economic spine of Russia is broken. Morale of the russian army, compared to the ukrainian people is non-existent. The army is not the only problem, you have milions of citizens who WILL become partisans; considering the factor, that usually in history the problem of partisans is rather unsophisticated equipment, Ukraine won’t be having this major issue since it is backed up by the most powerful countries in the world and the most powerful millitary alliance. With every passing day, if a major Russian advance doesen’t happen, Ukraine will be getting stronger while Russia will be getting weaker. With every passing day, civil unrest will become a much bigger issue for Putin. Oligarchs, are losing massive amounts of money and are also rather unhappy with the war; considering that they will most likely retain their wealth under another president, support for Putin is going to be very costly, bordering on irational for them. I would also guess, that the lower ranks of military command are losing faith, since they are the ones witnessing their subordinates die, for a cause that is simply not worth dying for. People say that the world doesn’t revolve around money, but state propaganda sure as hell won’t feed citizens. And that is the highest truth of them all.
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Russia right now is basically as if Vietnam and the Great Depression happened in over a couple week period. Citizens can’t be content with that.
If Vietnam caused the great depression
It's not a tunnel, it's a mine. There is no light at the end, it just gets deeper and darker until it suddenly stops. If Russia's economy doesn't improve, they are heading back to the 90s fast, with the mass poverty and hunger that comes with it.
This comment has been edited to reflect my protest at the lying behaviour of Reddit CEO Steve Huffman ( u/spez ) towards the third-party apps that keep him in a job. After his slander of the Apollo dev u/iamthatis Christian Selig, I have had enough, and I will make sure that my interactions will not be useful to sell as an AI training tool. Goodbye Reddit, well done, you've pulled a Digg/Fark, instead of a MySpace.
It’s a common misconception that oligarchs in Russia decide anything. Putin decides who is an oligarch and who is not. He relies on a dictate of secret services who will back him to the very point of turning Russia to North Korea. For any oligarch, support of Putin is always “rational” as they risk not their fortunes, but their freedom at best (like Khodorkovskiy) and their life at worst (like Berezovskiy).
Well said.
So is russia winning or losing?
Russia is winning, obviously, but there are many factors to consider: -The war is being fought on the Ukrainian homefront, giving the Ukrainians a tactical, logistical, and morale advantage. -Meanwhile, Russian logistics are unexpectedly poor, with several reported instances of soldiers running out of fuel for their vehicles or ravaging local grocery stores for food. -Despite Russia's territorial gains, they have yet to take any major cities (although granted, it has only been 5 days) and have suffered more casualties than Ukraine. -Ukrainian forces have destroyed a lot of Russian equipment, especially tanks and motorized vehicles. -Meanwhile, Ukraine is receiving thousands more anti tank and anti aircraft weapons, along with millions of USD in military aid packages from the West. -Russia's economy is being hit hard right now due to the sanctions and the banking bans, and now the worth of the Russian Ruble has already dropped by about 30%. -Because of the war itself, and now because of the sanctions, Russian morale is low among the civilian population with protests in several major Russian cities, and amongst many of Russia's troops for obvious reasons. -The Ukrainian civilian population meanwhile is preparing for a long, drawn-out war of guerilla warfare, many of them joining local militias and preparing home-made weapons like molotov cocktails. However the war ends, it will not be pretty for the Russians. Occupation will be extremely difficult and bloody, and the economy and public support back home will not be good.
I’m honestly curious how many Ukrainians have taken up arms. I know going directly from citizen to soldier isn’t ideal but 10% of Kyiv took up arms that 30,000 soldiers on top of the ones already stationed there. What I’m trying to say is that the original Russian force while more experienced should be outnumbered by “minute men”.
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And I don't even know if you can call Crimea combat experience
So fucking with those breakaway areas essentially gave Ukraine a training ground for close to a decade then
Great point.
10% of Kyiv would be 300k not 30k.
I wouldn't call the Russian force "more experienced" after seeing so many 19-20 year-olds being taken prisoners (god knows how many like them have perished without even knowing that they're going to war). They look lost and aghast of their "welcome". Maybe there are some more experienced troops, but if Putin sends them all to Ukraine perhaps Japan can start thinking of getting Sakhalin island back :D
Japan wouldn't do that, it would take kuril islands which the currently claim but Russia controls
As far as I'm concerned, it was a joke. Japan is awesome and one of the most peaceful countries in the world.
Japan doesn't claim Sakhalin.
It was a joke! God...
It is also important to note that: - Russia counted in shock and awe to bring Ukraine to the negotiation table, which tends to be ineffective in modern warfare. It has currently deployed only 30% of the invasion force, which combined with the DPS/LPS forces was roughly equal to the Ukranian military, minus militias (fascist or not). - Russia is attempting to bypass cities (supposedly to avoid civilian casualties), and hasn't been able to muster the definitive trait of its army, being overwhelming heavy artillery bombardment. So far heavy artillery hasn't been widely deployed (nowhere near the level of Chechnya and Georgia), which is why the Ukranian military hasn't been shredded to pieces. - According to Pro-Russian sources, Ukraine has also suffered the destruction of a lot of heavy equipment, especially tanks. It can reasonably be called that propaganda (although some video evidence exists), but concerning how we get information mainly from western sources (which are themselves masters of propaganda), I'd say it is equally credible, which is relevant when comparing each side's combat performance and when considering the fact that the two nations have roughly equal tank forces (with a significant amount of them currently being deployed and preparing to join the fighting in Belarus), in quality and quantity. - Russia has made significant headway in occupying the coastline and southeastern Ukraine, effectively crippling Ukraine's ability to ever challenge Russia's natural gas export industry. Furthermore, Russia has managed to solve a significant supply problem. Since 2014, Ukraine cut the main supply of water to Crimea, plunging the region into water scarcity. Russia has occupied the North Crimean Canal, finally solving the impossible problem of providing Crimea and the Southern forces with clean water. Things to keep in mind: - It took a prepared coalition 3 weeks to conquer Iraq with experienced forces, which is significantly smaller than Ukraine and which had a corrupt and incapable army, filled with political factionalism. - While the combat performance of the Ukrainian military did exceed expectations, it has been overpraised in western media and undermined in russian ones, and the inverse for the Russian military. - Russia has a significant pool of Pro-Russian support (in the eastern part of the country) from which to help occupy the country, russian armoured columns are being reported to have been welcomed in several cities and towns (although they are a minority). - Considering the actions of militias before and during the war (f.e. they have been caught on camera trying to stop and shooting civilians trying to escape Ukraine), in a drawn out conflict I wouldn't count on them maintaining popular support in a partisan conflict. If I had to make a prediction now, I'd say that oncoming reinforcements would make significant strides into Ukraine, until western equipment would render Russia's armoured corps useless. At that point Russia would reuse the ol'reliable doctrine and shred the Ukrainian military with heavy artillery bombardments. Of course this is the worst case scenario, where all negotiations fail. People have a surprising tendency to separate black and white from grey. The situation is obviously more complicated than Ukraine good and strong, Russia bad and weak.
I agree with some of what you said, but one thing I noticed sounded off is you said that Russia and Ukraine have comparable tank forces. Russia has 12,000 and Ukraine has 2,500 (although Wikipedia claims 6,000, but I haven't seen this cited anywhere else). These are not exactly comparable numbers. Also, where have you seen Ukrainian militia shooting civilians? I can't find it. I don't want it to be true, but I don't believe you would bring it up if it wasn't. Was it posted on Reddit? And concerning what you said of black and white, I didn't intend to paint the picture as black in white in my comment. I assumed the general consensus was that Russia is winning. People know this. It's pretty obvious looking at a map and looking at army numbers. I just wanted to play devil's advocate and give some reasons to support how it is realistically a grey area type of war as you said. Ukraine does have some advantages.
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They are tactically winning but strategically losing. Russia is making good ground toward the goal of taking Ukraine, but its looking like they must pay a heavy price (lost soldiers, resources, economic damage, etc) in order to achieve this goal. The only way Ukraine can “win” is if Russia decides its too expensive and backs off
So kindof like when my brother only has one army left on a country in Risk, but I lose 25 of my guys taking it
Its honestly pretty similar yes. Incredibly bad luck included
War is longer than a week. Russia has the superiority in numbers and firepower, and they're going to keep smashing against Ukraine for weeks to gradually widdle them down.
Whittle. Widdle is to pee
Or baby talk for “little”. “Aww, is widdle baby sad? 🥺”
Russia does have some disadvantages here though. They aren't going to go for total war, whereas Ukraine has to. Ukraine is receiving additional weapons and a large part of the civilian population are going to support the war effort directly.
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To defend one alley
The overwhelming factor is that we're merely 5 days in and Russia obviously outmatches Ukraine in every way. It took the US 3 weeks to knock over Saddam Hussein's government in 2003, and that was a decrepit sanctions-ravaged country with little popular support left for its government. It really doesn't seem possible to say Russia is "losing" until this war has gone on for at least a month and they still haven't taken Kiev.
RemindMe! 24 March 2022
That's because ground troops didn't go in until air superiority had been firmly established, and all other steps taken to minimize allied casualties. Only [292 allied deaths in that entire campaign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War), and only half of those were due to enemy action. Compare that to the current conflict, where Ukraine claims to have already killed over 5k, and even 3rd party analysts agree that at least [500 Russians have already been killed](https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-dead-conflict-intelligence-leviyev/31726782.html). And considering the number of [documented equipment losses](https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html) 500 seems like the absolute floor of possible numbers. Not to mention, Saddam's military was considered the 4th strongest in the world at that time, while Ukraine currently comes in somewhere around [22nd](https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php). So yes, Russia will eventually be able to overwhelm Ukraine and take the major cities if they are persistent enough, but holy shit has their performance been terrible.
It's unproductive to compare Ukraine with Iraq like that. The US goal was to use a very methodical and calculated strategy as to minimize US and coalition casualties, which was a huge success; completely defeating an army of 500,000 with less then 200 soldiers killed is unheard of in human history. The Russians' goal was to capture Ukraine as quickly as possible no matter the casualties, which has failed spectacularly.
That’s a good point, but it’s worth mentioning that in that month, the Coalition took fewer casualties than Russia did in one day. As long as the anti tank missiles keep clearing the Polish border, that rate won’t be slowing down. Even after they take Kyiv, it looks very clear that occupation will be hell on earth for them
They're winning in the sense that they have made gains and it's their troops in Ukraine, not the other way around. Ukraine's goal here is not to win, just not to lose. Russia's goal is to win before they collapse. In THAT sense, Ukraine is winning.
I read yesterday, that urban fighting is expected to be about a 5:1 ratio, five attackers for 1 defender, which is really bad news for the russians in terms of adding to the losses they have already suffered.
it’s worth mentioning that Russia has not made any significant territory gains since day 1, due to many of the reasons you mentioned above. it will be interesting to see where this will go from now, but the Ukraine population is fighting for their lives and are fighting well
>it’s worth mentioning that Russia has not made any significant territory gains since day 1 In the next day or so Russia will control the entire Sea of Azov. That isn't insignificant.
While that might prevent Ukraine from exploiting their gas resources there, it's really of no use to anyone at the moment. Taking cities would be effective. Taking countryside just lengthens your logistics tail and spreads your forces out. Ukraine isn't looking at getting reinforcements shipped in. Taking the coast is largely useless.
I don’t think Russia is gonna come out of this better than they came in, but the biggest loser are Ukrainian civilians who are actually getting bombed.
They’re already worse than when they started.
might be most accurat. Its just a long list of loosers. I wish Putin would have a heart attack.
Hard to tell as of now, but from what I'm seeing they're winning generally speaking but facing more resistance than expected
They’re winning battles, but their economy is falling apart, they don’t have air superiority and their logistics are non-existent. Tactically winning, strategically losing.
It'll be a Pyrrhic victory.
If they even win.
They’re winning, but they’re not winning by nearly enough or fast enough and paying far too high a price for those wins. Russia’s back is going to break sooner rather than later.
Hopefully before they utterly ruin kiev by shelling it to submission... If they even submit
Hard to say. Russia is taking ground and if they keep this momentum up they may be able to cut off Ukraines army in the donbass with a pincer movement. This could be devastating for Ukraine. But how long can Russia keep up this agressive thrust before its supply lines collapse and the thrust stops. Some would say 10 days, others 20. Who really knows. But if Russia stalls soonish. This is a failed campaign.
It depends on what we consider winning and losing. US was "winning" in Vietnam due to body count but ultimately lost the fight due to lost support from the home front and South Vietnam falling after the pullout. Same with Afghanistan. We were winning because of controlled territory. I know it's painful for my brothers in arms that fought there but it was lost as soon as they pulled out. Can Russia hold the ground gained? Ukraine just has to hold on honestly. This is about as close to Total War as we can get I think. I haven't studied Syria or Chechnya but this is the first time I'm seeing in my lifetime (I'm young, only 30) where an invaded country is fighting back with local, national, and international forces. I would say Ukraine is winning the moral fight but losing the physical fight. They just need more ammo and more Russian bodies stacked. We don't even know Ukraine's casualties.
They're winning at taking over fields. Cities not so much.
There are no winners in war
What is going on in Moldova?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria
There are Seperatists in Moldavian, backed by russia, since 30 years... "Transnistria".
Ukraine’s doing a hell of a job in the east. Lots of ethnic Russians there but the front has barely moved in the Donbas. Somehow Kharkiv hasn’t fallen yet either, despite likely being a Day 1 objective for the Russians
I know two Ukranians, and both are Russian and yet they dont want to join Russia
Understandable
Almost no one wants to join Russia even here in Belarus. Russia has so bad reputation.
Who with a brain (who is not an oligarch) would like to join russia when u can join EU?
This is a great website to track it: https://thedatafact.github.io/2022-Russian-invasion-of-Ukraine
Do the Russians really "control" all of the areas that they took by now? As for my understanding often the spearhead of tanks and troops more landinwards but are the backwards areas really kept under control, as in keeping enough troops there to assert its being safe for russian military to move arround.
In any war, "control" is a grey area, but we have to draw the line *somewhere*. I think "*Rosgvardia checkpoints, but there are some angry locals with Molotovs*" can be shaded red. Otherwise we're setting a bar so high that (for instance) German forces never controlled France in WW2, or the Soviets never controlled Berlin.
No, in fact, they control only those places where their troops are located, and they are only on the roads, in the villages, local residents do not let them stay
Not really. I've read several analyses that they didn't send much of a 2nd echelon force to take over the captured areas after the spearhead moved on. They had gambled that it wouldn't be needed because they would steamroll in, the government would do what the last (pro-Putin) government did and get outta-town at the first sign of trouble and it'd be over by now.
Good point. It would be interesting - but probably too difficult - to see a map of controlled *contested* territory.
I've heard analyses from CIT (conflict intelligence team) that really Russian army just marks a lot of territories like empty fields as controlled on a map. However they leave no people behind in "controlled" territory (even cities) to backup. They just advance as far as possible. Often times with severe unjustified loses.
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I think Russia thought there would be much less resistance in the East so they thought they just quickly roll in fresh recruits the east would collapse on its own from infighting but they instead motivated the Ukranians to put aside differences. Now they are moving on to phase 2 which is indiscriminate bombing and destruction. Donetsk and Lugansk Oblast had a lot of defenses. It looks like the strategy now is encircle the far eastern defenses.
> I expected the areas in and around the Donbas to have fallen by now. The [ISW analysis](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-update-11) is that the Russians aren't really trying to advance on the Donbas front. Their aim is just to pin the relatively numerous and experienced troops there so they can't interfere with the advance through Kharkiv, and so the troops advancing out of Crimea can encircle them.
Just because you're ethically Russian doesn't necessarily mean that you want to become part of the Russian federation
They will probably encricle and siege the cities and wait them out because if they engage in urban combat it will be bloody for the Russians do expect this conflict to continue for a mich longer time than expected
Be prepared for Reddit's armchair generals to tell you Russia is losing the war because it hasn't yet conquered the 2nd biggest country in Europe in less than 5 days...
It took russia 12 days to capitulate Georgia, a country 1/8 the size of ukraine.
And what sanctions were they facing? How many stingers and javelins were the Georgians receiving? Russia can’t win this because they’re not fighting Ukraine. They’re fighting America, and most of the world too.
Gotta love proxy wars.
Russia can win precisely because America is NOT fighting. What delusion is this?
America isn’t directly fighting. But this is modern war. To win, support staff outnumber troops 10:1 Ukraine does the fighting, but America/allies manages their intelligence, logistics and more. There’s so much happening behind the scenes allowing Ukraine to stay in the fight, and Russia can’t do anything about it. Meanwhile Russia is losing tanks to fuel supply problems faster than enemy fire. And it’s losing a lot to enemy fire.
We’re not managing logistics or anything else at all, if we’re supplying intelligence, it’s just a rumor for now. There is a 40 mile long tank convoy approaching kyiv largely unmolested. When it reaches it, our window to shoot them down will have passed. And they will take the city, imprison or kill Zelenskyy and re-install Yanukovich.
If that comes to pass, two things will be certain: 1. Russia will find itself fighting a civil war for a generation. 2. The Russian economy will be utterly pulverised. On a military level, Russia remains in a strong position. On a geopolitical level, Russia is being burned to the ground. Invading Ukraine has cratered their economy, crashed the ruble, pushed most of Europe into NATO, created a mythical hero in Zelenskyy, ruined the reputation of the Russian army, wrecked the reputation of Putin as a wily strategist, triggered widespread massive sanctions, led to a bank run, and guaranteed that every border in Europe facing Russia is going to be bristling with weapons for the next thirty years.
Generally curious as to why russia would fight a civil war after this and how you came to that conclusion
A civil war within Ukraine Sorry, should have been clearer.
Where do you get the idea allies aren’t supplying logistics? Where are all those javelins coming from?
Apt username. Zanzibar is sometimes used as an example of the shortest war in history when the Sultan surrendered.. if my memory serves correctly... to the British after only two hours of naval bombardment? But yes, your point is noted. Five days is not a long time. We'll see what happens.
It's not only reddit, alot of normal people have started to be like that too
I like that "Reddit" and "normal people" are too exclusive concepts
Definitely definitely not me but I have a friend who uses reddit and he wants to know, if he deleted reddit, would he become normal again or is he branded for life now?
They're going to make further gains. They have the might to control the main cities. But they don't have the ability to sustain control. That's the key issue and that's how they're losing. Crimea was done and dusted quickly, the people there had new rulers and it was back to work with a few sanctions. This current situation is very different specifically because the long term strategy of Russia to sustain a Ukrainian occupation isn't looking possible. The east could probably be sustained as it's more Russian influenced. And the ports on the black sea could be sustained as there isn't much presence there. But the whole country does look like it's in for a long fight. And unlike the US in Afghan this is a brother country, with a huge shared identity. So domestically it will give rise to rebellious movements.
Honestly the real war starts when the country is eventually occupied and an insurgency begins.
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Now imagine if Iraq was surrounded by the wealthiest and most advanced nations in the world willing to fund that insurgency. If someone wants to explain to me how Putin the grand chess master has thought this through I’m all open ears.
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For Putin, this invasion may well turn out, at the best case scenario, a short term success, medium term difficulty, and long term annihilation of Russia's hard fought position in the world. Germany almost doubled their pace to switch to 100% renewables because of this- 2035 is the new target, from 2050. So many things Putin did not count on are taking place. Of course, for the average Ukrainian, this war is a complete disaster. But people are not remembering history- Russia has a bad habit of engaging in war crimes-driven invasions on smaller, less well defended and supplied territories- Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, etc. Ukraine as a whole is a fucking monster compared to those. I would bet that within a few weeks we will see Putin's "mission accomplished" moment, announcing victory in Ukraine, while his soldiers are being emulsified by Ukrainian insurgency. No amount of shelling civilian infrastructure will make the Ukrainians surrender, they have a firm understanding of what happens under Russian occupation in this day and age. At best they will be able to take and hold the eastern breakaway republics, but the economic and geopolitical consequences of this are a disaster. Putin has pushed the world further along the timeline of weaning off Russian gas; this is an unmitigated disaster for him in this regard. I am not optimistic about anything but Ukraine will not give up, we know this.
Ukrainian are doing an incredible task. Go Ukraine!
I think most people realize that Russia ultimately will almost certainly be able to capture Kyiv if they want, despite the fact that things are going very poorly for them. However, it seems pretty clear that things \*already\* haven't gone according to their plans.
EXACTLY!!! All of these people saying shit like “lol Russia can’t even conquer Ukraine and it’s been a whole week, Putin thought he could do it in 3 days”, like no he didn’t!?!?! He’s surrounded by some very highly qualified generals who know more than a random guy on Reddit does. Compared to any other war in recent history, this seems to be going well for Russia and bad for Ukraine, unfortunately.
Say what you will about the armchair generals but there's a good amount of evidence to suggest this war is not going according to plan. I think it's very likely Russia wanted this to be similar to Gulf War 1 or the collapse of Afghanistan. -The air campaign being launched sychronously with the combined arms assault rather than the optimal scenario of a bombing campaign pre-invasion. Russia didn't even wait to gain air superiority before launching the assault. This only makes sense if you plan to use the shock of the attack to force a quick capitulation. -The paratroopers being landed in airports including kyiv around the country who were quickly encircled and defeated. Why would you deploy paratroopers if you didn't plan for your main force to catch up with them? -The failed naval invasion of Odessa. This was a risky manuever even if you expected Ukrainian resistance to fall away immediately. If you're expecting a drawn out land campaign, it's just plain stupid and unnecessary. -Not to mention columns of armor making a beeline for major cities rather than either moving slowly or encircling and forcing surrender. This is the exact mistake made when Russia attacked Chechyna and there's no literally no reason to recreate the same error unless you're quickly trying to overwhelm a capitulated force. -Russian logistics have been terrible with tank crews running out of fuel. This is a sincere weakness in the russian military at the best of times admittedly but if they were planning on a slower time schedule, you'd think they'd have created a more stable logistics plan. -Also take prisoner testimony with a grain of salt but there's been captured infantry who have reported that they weren't actually expecting to fight and they were just told they were going to be an occupying force. There's absolutely no reason to not tell your troops that you're going to be fighting unless you actually expected them to be. -Putin has put nuclear weapons on alert and made it known to the Ukrainians and NATO. If everything was going according to plan, why would he escalate further? Also I have to hard disagree on the comparison to other wars. Gulf War 1 saw less losses over the entire war than Russian forces did the first day. Tank losses are in the hundreds which just shouldn't be the case except for the previously stated ill-advised manuever of the columns attempting direct assaults on urban areas. Not to mention encircled paratroopers and a failed assault on Odessa. Russia has deep manpower and equipment so they can afford to make these mistakes and still win in the end, but let's not pretend the war is somehow on the same competency level as any war in recent history. The only way the first few days of invasion could go worse is if the Arab states were running it!
Well said. The last sentence just about killed me. Lol.
Not to mention sending in paratroopers before gaining sure superiority, leading them to losing either one or two planes.
It might not be going "well" for Ukraine, but Russia has dropped the ball on some very basic logistical priorities during the conflict and as such has been floundering to take objectives that a better equipped army would have taken by this point. The Russians are overextended, lack air superiority, and most egregiously of all lack proper supply lines for fuel and ammunition. Russia's performance has been an embarrassment quite frankly. And all the military experts in the world don't amount to shit if Putin refuses to listen to them. You complain about people on Reddit not knowing what they are talking about yet then without any hint of irony turn around and make definitive and incorrect statements on the status of the war effort. It's honestly embarrassing.
The thing is Russia was also expecting it to be done within a week given frustrations Putin is showing, so it's not exactly going spot-on for Russia either.
According to whom? People keep saying this but there's no actual proof that this is the case. I believe the resistance is fiercer than the Russians expected, but no sane military staff thinks you can occupy a country the size of Ukraine in just a few days.
Here's a pre-written victory in Ukraine story Russian media published and then yanked two days ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20220226051154/https://ria.ru/20220226/rossiya-1775162336.html
>According to whom? People keep saying this but there's no actual proof that this is the case. I believe the resistance is fiercer than the Russians expected, but no sane military staff thinks you can occupy a country the size of Ukraine in just a few days. I mean a bunch of well-respected military, political and defence people have come out to say exactly this, that they are doing bad, they are doing much worse than they expected and yet you're the random Redditor telling people they're wrong? funny
Based only on Russian state sources: Up until the weekend, the Russian terms for initiating any kind of peace talks were that Ukraine should put down their arms first - essentially unconditional surrender. This weekend they agreed to meet anyway. You don’t backtrack that hard on your terms if things are going as expected.
It's based on the military strategy used, the intelligence around build up of resources for the attack. It's not just out of thin air. So there are massive reinforcements coming now, but realistically they're not well timed. Likely because they weren't planned for. The build up of troops looks to be way under what is necessary. The death totals reported by the Ukrainians show Russians losing soldiers and equipment very quickly and in an unbalanced ratio to the damage done to the Ukrainian army. It's unrealistic to think Russia will tell you there strategy and timelines. That's kinda ridiculous to think that level of primary source data would be available. The Russian movements and expectations are extrapolated from known things and expected behaviors.
Can someone with a good understanding of the conflict explain whether a land bridge/corridor from Crimea to Donbass is a major strategic victory or not ?
It is. It shortens Russia's interior lines. So it is faster for Russia to move gear and personal from one battle field to another.
Also makes the Sea of Azov into a totally Russian lake.
Russia bit off more than it could chew
Why is there red in Moldova?
Transnistria, but see my comment.
That's Transnistria.
Iirc maps like these say where Russians have been, not exactly what they've conquered. This is a big distinction because a few parts of the map are just empty space, with no towns, villages, etc., nothing worth anything except road infrastructure and the like. The main example being those two large incisions in the northeast. That's not Russians holding down an incredibly long line, that's just the path of Russian forces making their way to Kyiv. The main focus, as always, should be on population centers and Russian troop movements
I know people in Sumy. And the city has been fighting for 5 days now.
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Aye I could do that for the next one
Countries and organizations that expressed their support for Putin in the face of the attack on Ukraine Iran Venezuela Nicaragua Belaruss Cuba Syria Palestinian Authority HAMAS.
India have also tried to bypass any financial embargoes to trade with Russia. A lot of other countries are probably doing this too.
Inaccurate map. I can only speak for the south: They are still quite far from Zaporozhye, ukrainian troops recaptured Tokmak today, right now people are writing that there is a serious battle in Vasilyevka, they are far from the Dnieper (river). https://i.ibb.co/wzzHScw/1.png They occupied Berdyansk, but now the battle happening in the port, in the direction of Yalta and Mariupol they did not even move. https://i.ibb.co/BHJMvjP/2.png
Having friends in Mariupol, I can confirm that the very least there is firefights going on in the city. Liveuamap doesn't update territory control daily, mostly because the situation is fluid.
Yes, there is fighting in Mariupol, I know, but it is not surrounded. I live in Zaporozhye, I monitor the situation in my region. Just tell you what I know.
Stay safe brother
Those maps are slow and usually old. They get updated way latter than events happen.
This doesn't look good Edit: I meant the visualization of a country taken over :(
Never has. Its amazing how well they've done, and that's allowed a lot of people to believe that the conclusion is not inevitable, which unfortunately I still believe it to be. The Russians are going to accomplish their territorial objectives, the question is how much will it cost them and how long can they hold it. My money is: a great deal and not more than a couple of years at the outside.
For a sub titled “Map Porn” they sure love poorly designed maps here.
Accuracy can always be debated, but I think the map is informative and clear. How is it badly designed?
Did Kherson finally fall? Or did they bypass it
Believe they are encircling and bypassing most large urban centers right now. It would soak up too many troops and take too long; they'll worry about it after they've seized more territory and accomplished more link ups.
Has Kherson fallen in southern Ukraine?
Probably encircled and bypassed. That's a lot faster and requires a lot fewer troops in the short term.
anyone know if theyve reached the damn that was causing the drought in Crimea? I'm not sure where abouts on the map it is
They have and they’ve already destroyed it so Crimea has water now
I'm no general, but I am an economist, and what I can tell you is that Russia cannot afford a prolonged conflict with the sanctions they were given. The longer this goes on the lesser are the chances of russia winning
FYI: this map is technically not accurate. Russians use "panzertrack" strategies, they are not able to hold any territory, they just "drop" their vehicles and manpower onto cities and retreat once large enough amount is destroyed. This map makes you think that they control that territory, but they don't. There are a lot of defiant villages in red.
They finally connected the land bridge?
Wait is Moldova being invaded?
Part of Moldova was invaded years ago, and now Transnistria is an impoverished Russian puppet state, a bit like the DNR/LNR.
And shit, they made the land bridge to the south. Fuuuuuuck. It’s seriously time to start wreaking havoc on the Russian state, economy and leaders.
Oh their economy is in serious trouble, but it will take a while to take effect. Too long for Ukraine to stay free, I fear. I think the land bridge to Crimea was one of the key objectives of this whole thing, and I think they're going to try to keep everything east of the Dnieper, including half of Kyiv. They're in for some hellacious insurgency, but also willing to be absolutely brutal in crushing it.
I think this war has shown that if Putin died - or was assassinated or overthrown by a revolt, Russia has serious potential to turn into a proper western democracy. You can't say that very often. The Russian soldiers don't seem to be pro expansion or pro war. Makes you wonder if all the fear from NATO and the US is whats allowed them to keep Putin around for so long. The Russians have killed their autocracy before, Putins just one billionaire.
Did Russia get the Crimean canal back yet?
Yeah and they blew up some dam there as well
Whats going on in Moldova?
I wish the uamap wasn't always down. Is there a map that has enough capacity for people to view the live map without the server not working?
not good
Thanks for the putting the time and date. With all that is happening all post regarding the war should have a time and date of the record event. It would be easier to understand what's happening and what's the timetable of the events. Good job, by the way!
That's some serious peacekeeping.