Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

[giga.gigan]

Lurker here.

Regardless of where you may stand on the Russian-Ukrainian war, I think the Kursk Invasion/Incursion now represents a unique opportunity for outsiders like us to peer past the fog of war and gain some actual insight into the current military strength of the Russian Army and for the relative political security of the Putin Regime itself. The way I see it, there are three broad responses Russia may choose to take in response to this crisis.

1) Russia may choose to redeploy forces currently stationed on other fronts and send them to Kursk in order to combat the Ukrainians. This I feel would be most the expedient and optimal option under normal circumstances as it would require only the use of already mobilized active duty personal.
If they can do this, then I think we can make the following inferences: That a) The Russian Army currently out numbers Ukrainian Army, B) They are able to leverage those numbers in order to defend their own territory without meaningfully detracting from their own strategic objectives in Ukraine, C) and therefore speculation about Russia's losses and manpower issues have been greatly exaggerated, or at the very least Insignificant.

2) Russia may choose to enact the draft and conscript more forces to combat the Ukrainian forces in Kursk, which unlike previous drafts would be fully within their constitutional rights to do so because Kursk is universally understood to be sovereign Russian territory. This I see as the second best option that Russia may choose to pursue, because while it would take some more time, Ukraine has now given Russia the perfect excuse to deal with any extant manpower issues without relying on it's current expensive enticements and public willingness to self-enlist.
If they can do it this way then I think we can make the following inferences: A) The Russian Army does not currently out number the Ukrainian Army (force projection-wise), B) it cannot currently defend it's own territory without undermining it's own strategic objectives in Ukraine (stretched too thin), C) speculation about the apparent political weakness of the Putin Regime is unfounded, and the Russian People are in fact willing to answer the call to defend the Motherland.

3) Russia may choose to do nothing in a sense, and not significantly alter it's strategies in order to address the Ukrainian invasion of Krusk. I think we can all agree that this would be the least favorable option Russia may choose to pursue, but there still some reasons to do so. Fighting the Ukrainian's at Krusk would be costly in terms of material and manpower, and Russia may value those resources being spent on conquering more territory in Ukraine then regaining what is now being lost in Russia. Russia might also be under the impression that Ukraine's occupation of Krusk will only be temporary and they will soon be withdrawing from the region of their own accord. It's also possible, that despite appearances, the war in Ukraine will soon be over and what territory Russia loses today it would prefer to regain through negotiation.
But no matter to what ends Russia might choose non-action as their response, in such a situation then I think we can make the following inferences: A) Russia cannot currently defend it's own territory without detracting from it's own strategic objectives in Ukraine (stretched too thin), B) The credibility of the Putin Political Regime less valuable then it's goals for the war, and/or it's political integrity at home is stronger then it's hold over Ukraine C) choosing forgo the draft option when the need for more manpower is both immediately apparent and politically justified means it must not be primarily political constraints holding Russia back but logistical ones, D) and so therefore Russia is running out of resources to continue fighting the war.


Keep in mind any actions Russia does take to address the situation is Krusk will likely take weeks or even months to fully manifest and so I foresee Ukraine having tactical superiority in the area for sometime yet.

[Paul Atreides]

The international community should strongly condemn the Ukrainian Armed Forces terror attack in the Kursk oblast in order to terrorise civilians and to in their own toilets. The German tanks in Kursk requires the botox-infused bunker-midget in Kremlin to employ the same strategy as his God Emperor Idol, Comrade Stalin.

1. Beg on your knees for Lend-Lease from USA and UK
2. Send elite Ukrainian forces to the breach

On a more serious note, if Agent Orange wins the election in November, it is probably game over for Ukraine because Putin seems to have grabbed most of GOP notables by the pussy unless Europeans (in addition to Scandinavia, Balts, Finland and Poland) start taking this situation seriously.

[Kyriakos]

There is no "unless" there. Eu will literally do what the US government tells it to, so if Trump does win, the war will be forced to end (and not in favor of Ukraine).
That said, Trump may well lose.

[Alastor]

There is no "unless" there. Eu will literally do what the US government tells it to, so if Trump does win, the war will be forced to end (and not in favor of Ukraine).
That said, Trump may well lose.

Because if Trump loses, the war will end in Ukraine's favour? There is no winning for Ukraine, no matter how many propaganda victories Zelensky and his team accomplish. As I have said a long time ago, they are propaganda masters alright. But that won't win the war. It's downright delusional to believe otherwise.

[Kyriakos]

If Trump loses, the war can get even uglier than now, because the Dem party doesn't wish to part with the massively lucrative euro-rearmament project. Currently Eu is entirely controlled energy-wise by non-continental countries - and the major of them is an ocean away.
But there is always the chance we will sleepwalk into world war.

[mishkin]

If Trump loses, the war can get even uglier than now, because the Dem party doesn't wish to part with the massively lucrative euro-rearmament project. Currently Eu is entirely controlled energy-wise by non-continental countries - and the major of them is an ocean away.
But there is always the chance we will sleepwalk into world war.

No, we will slowly move towards a cooling of the situation. In five or ten years we will no longer remember Ukraine. People who keep mentioning nuclear apocalypse and World War III should focus on improving their lives and forget about a big debacle that will end everything. Sorry, it's not going to happen. No third world war, no zombie apocalypse, no alien visit. Just the same boring ing life as always. Again, apologies/enjoy the western dream lethargy

[reavertm]

It's mind boggling that Russia could not stop Ukraine from crossing its own established border.

It's not mind boggling at all actually. In Putin's view, Russia has no borders. It just works in both directions 😂

[Ludicus]

Eu will literally do what the US government tells it to

In 1975, following the illegal invasion of East Timor by Indonesia, citizens of Western democracies preferred to look the other way, allowing their governments to contribute decisively to the massacre of the Timorese population. This attitude of tolerance towards Jakarta had already been anticipated by a senior official of the U.S. Permanent Mission to the UN when asked what Washington and the Security Council would do if a bloodbath were to occur in East Timor: “Nothing, I’m afraid.” In the days following the invasion, the Portuguese press asked the Prime Minister of the first Portuguese Provisional Government after the April 1974 revolution, “So, Mr. Prime Minister, what does the government decide to do?” Adelino da Palma Carlos was a man of great candor and replied, "Nothing is decided here. The decisions are made by the USA, Russia, and China."

It should be known that one day before the invasion, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and President Gerald Ford discussed East Timor with President Suharto, giving him the green light to invade. Operation Lotus was the largest military operation ever conducted by Indonesia. Daniel Moynihan later admitted that, as the U.S. ambassador to the UN, he had advocated for a “shameless” policy regarding East Timor. After twenty-four years of oppression and suffering, the people of East Timor were finally able to exercise their right to self-determination.
East Timor genocide
--

‘Illegally and Beautifully’: The United States, the Indonesian Invasion of East Timor and the International Community, 1974–76

...Suharto regime, whose growing importance in the regional political economy overshadowed its defiance of international law.

[Coughdrop addict]

There is no "unless" there. Eu will literally do what the US government tells it to, so if Trump does win, the war will be forced to end (and not in favor of Ukraine).

You give us too much credit. Zero governments worldwide are under US control, sometimes hardly even our own.

All US allied countries are in that position because their people and governments CHOSE to be US allied and ASKED the US to protect them. Even then we don't control them and they regularly do things we would rather they didn't, with Brexit the most obvious example.

It's only countries like Syria, Iran, Cuba etc where the rulers are not elected by the people, which have sham elections and ban opposition, that chose to lay in bed with Russia.

[Kyriakos]

When you control the entire flow of energy to Eu, you do very really and fully control what they do. Sure, they can go against you, and have nothing running in their country next month- since they can't import from Russia either.
That's without even going into the monetary/corporate control, where again most Eu countries are directly under the say of the US due to massive exposure.
There was a reason Germany/France weren't originally into the Ukraine issue, and backed the Minsk agreement. It wasn't that back then they thought it was a good agreement for Ukraine, nor that one day they woke up and cared about the views of baltic slav/other populations in the Eu. It was that the flow of russian energy into the Eu was crucial and cheap in relation to the now imported from an ocean away.

[Ludicus]

Zero governments worldwide are under US control..All US allied countries are in that position because their people and governments CHOSE to be US allied and ASKED the US to protect them.

You see your country's history through rose-colored glasses. The US has been involved in regime change operations since at least 1898. The US chooses to sleep with any dictatorship, as long as it benefits its geostrategic interests. This political obsession that some of you have with wanting to look like unpolluted virgins is a bit annoying. I've just given you an example of how American diplomacy contributed to the biggest genocide in history since the Holocaust. (around 44 percent of the entire 1975 population). The chauvinism and idealism in American political culture is slightly irritant. Albeit in a minor way, it is a trend that is starting to spread across Europe. Henry Kissinger and the Murder of Timor-Leste

...The United States has, like no other society, “more firmly insisted on the inadmissibility of intervention in the domestic affairs of other states, or more passionately asserted that its own values were universally applicable,” wrote Henry Kissinger in “Diplomacy,” in 1994. He added that “America serves its values best by perfecting democracy at home, thereby acting as a beacon for the rest of mankind.”
In Timor-Leste, that beacon lit the way to genocide.

[Paul Atreides]

This thread reminds me of reading the manifestos of Finnish communist lunatics in 1980s and 1990s. "America bad baby eaters! Soviets good, only bring peace with their nukes!"

Ah, nostalgic. Then again, NATO dismantled the horribly failed Soviet experiment with around 2% of their GDP, money well spent.

[Kyriakos]

Yet no one here supported the soviets. Let's also not forget that the bulk of Russia-haters were in the soviet block not long ago - and Finland was finlandized.
Sometimes hatred can make you irrational. Like thinking Russia, which has around 17 million square kilometers, is now in threat of collapse because Ukraine controls (by their own claims) 1000 square kilometers in Kursk (=roughly 1/150 of what Russia controls in Ukraine and roughly 1/17.000 of Russia).

[AqD]

There is no "unless" there. Eu will literally do what the US government tells it to, so if Trump does win, the war will be forced to end (and not in favor of Ukraine).

That's not true.

The war concerns EU security. So long as EU leaders are not braindead, EU can side with China against US, selling their secrets and break all Trump's plans. If US won't protect our future, there won't be one for US either.

[Kyriakos]

China, the ally of Russia? Yes, I am sure they will be supportive of Ukraine.
Besides, switching blocks isn't as easy as that, let alone China geographically not being able to play the US role in Europe.

[Coughdrop addict]

https://www.businessinsider.com/ukra...-report-2024-8

As Ukraine enters the second week of its incursion into Russia's Kursk region, its soldiers are seemingly making a point of trying to help Russian civilians, in stark contrast to some of the actions of Russian soldiers in Ukraine.
Since its surprise attack on August 6, Ukraine says its forces have taken control of 74 settlements in the Russian border region as of Tuesday, seizing about 386 square miles of territory.
That is almost as much territory as Moscow's grinding advances have taken in Ukraine so far in 2024.
Experts at the Institute for the Study of War think tank, meanwhile, estimate that Ukrainian forces were operating in or near about 41 settlements in Kursk as of Tuesday.
But instead of targeting civilians and infrastructure like Russia has in Ukraine over the past two and a half years, Ukraine is providing aid and relief to Russian civilians, according to reports and Ukrainian officials.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian daily news program TSN reported that Ukrainian troops had started providing humanitarian aid to locals in the city of Sudzha in Kursk Oblast.
One soldier told the program that the Ukrainian armed forces have given civilians water, canned goods, biscuits, and other necessities, per a translation by Ukrainska Pravda.
On Wednesday, Ukraine said it had launched a 24-hour hotline for humanitarian aid and evacuation to Ukraine for Kursk residents through its Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, the ministry head, Irina Vereshchuk, said the Ukrainian armed forces were planning to conduct humanitarian operations to support civilians and open humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians — both toward Russia and Ukraine — with the help of international humanitarian organizations.
Vereshchuk repeated the same message in a Facebook post written in Russian — to make it clearer to Russians, she said — adding that the humanitarian effort and evacuation of Russian refugees were carried out in compliance with international humanitarian law.

I have to say that the Ukrainians are better people then myself. If I were in their position I don't think I would be so nice.

The longer this goes on the more Putin's strongman image is called into question in Russia at large. If it goes on long enough it could potentially destabilize the Russian government enough that ethnic minorities start breaking away, or even lead to civil war.

[Laser101]

https://www.businessinsider.com/ukra...-report-2024-8I have to say that the Ukrainians are better people then myself. If I were in their position I don't think I would be so nice. The longer this goes on the more Putin's strongman image is called into question in Russia at large. If it goes on long enough it could potentially destabilize the Russian government enough that ethnic minorities start breaking away, or even lead to civil war.

That depends very much on your willingness to believe Ukrainian propaganda shoots. The Russians made similar claims after all, and we know how that turned out.

[Kyriakos]

I think that the only good strategic value of Ukraine's invasion of Kursk is that Russia is unlikely to be able to use complete obliteration tactics there - unlike what it does in Ukraine. But for this to matter, surely Ukraine would have needed to have far more troops in Kursk- otherwise they will be brute-forced out even without carpet bombing of everything.

[Ludicus]

The war concerns EU security.

There's no point in trying to mislead the unwary that the Russian bogeyman has plans to invade the European NATO countries. The longer the war goes on, the bleaker Ukraine's future will be. What Ukraine needs is a Western diplomatic offensive. The sooner, the better for Ukraine.

[Kyriakos]

I never got how that line (Russia will invade the Eu) convinces some people. Is it the same Russia which in two years hasn't won against Ukraine (with Nato backing)? Is Russia suicidal?
Or maybe it's just a line to try to "explain" why Ukraine is (for non-Ukrainians; for Ukrainians it obviously is and should be) so important.
Besides, in a war "with the Eu", nukes would be used, so there isn't a defense against that; Russia would die too, of course. Maybe those people secretly think that the Eu will rather sacrifice the baltic outremer.