From my perspective, Russia is in the right on this. We have a family of 5 Ukrainian refugees staying with us and they are more or less pro-Russian. The horrors of the Nazis in Khakov they recount to me just re-affirm my belief. They are angry at Putin for NOT invading in 2014 when everyone in Ukraine was hoping for it. They felt abandoned and then horribly abused by the Nazi regime which got much worse after Zelensky came into power. Now their home was destroyed by the Ukrainians in downtown Kharkiv and they have left Ukraine forever and are heading to Spain. And yes, they are real bold-faced dyed in the wool Nazis. The US leadership’s support just shows who they are and probably always have been thus. Pelosi giving the Ukrainian Nazi salute in Congress is mind-blowing.
This brings into question another end game problem. I believe Russia will be forced to take the whole country and it will be easy once the majority is removed from battle. The way west will be unimpeded until they reach the area of Lviv and then they will systematically wipe out all Nazis. But the refugees, and it looks like a large majority leaving from west Ukraine are in fact non-Ukrainians including Indians, Africans, Middle East, etc. The ethnic Russians all went East which goes unmentioned. The Hungarians went into Hungary or Slovakia and the Nazis’ are heading into Poland. If they can manage a way to cross the border without being shot by the Ukrainian police for cowardice.
So, if Ukraine becomes split and I think this is the best solution with the Polish area hoping back to Poland, the Hungarian to Hungary, and the Romanian back to Romania which doesn’t leave too much if the country is divided down highway 95. Odessa and Mariupol will go the whatever is formed in the east but it won’t be called Ukraine. Kyiv is a big question and is a serious tar baby. So, what will be left to call Ukraine will be a tiny part west of highway 95 and east of the Polish, Hungarian, and Romanian (not to mention Moldova and Transnistria). They will have no big cities (unless Kyiv goes to them which would be a mistake) so can rule the countryside. Citizenship will be a big issue for everyone who left and from where they left from and what country that area becomes. Of course, the US will maintain the Zelensky regime as a government in exile and will try and block entry into the UN of the countries formed from the remains of Ukraine. It could end with the dissolution of the UN which is basically impotent anyway. The US breaking UN rules by denying visas for UN personnel is a symptom of why the US cannot host the UN any longer. So, maybe it is easier to form something new and leave the western nations out of it.
Russia and China both need to leave the IMF and World bank both conveniently located in Washington and very firmly under US control. They need to stop all trading in dollars everywhere that recognizes that the US crossed a line that cannot ever be redeemed by seizing Central Bank assets. No one will trust the US ever again permanently. Credibility like virginity once lost cannot ever be regained. The US is now definitely agreement incapable and absolutely untrustworthy.
One thing I have noticed is the US has slowly moved 100,000 soldiers into Europe. Most people are unaware that US forces are really quite small and even then have support to combat forces of 20:1. Meaning for everyone 20,000 soldiers there are only 1,000 gunfighters. The US depends on force multipliers like aviation to make it viable. Russia has effective anti-aircraft and aerospace forces near-peer enough to take on the NATO (US) and can easily negate their effect. Precision weapons to take out all runways and supply dumps negates the NATO ability to fight. They still organize as in WWII so easily defeated. Another thing is Russian weapons systems are designed for real combat by real men in harsh conditions. They are far simpler, more robust, repairable in the field, and can be managed by relatively unspecialized soldiers. Western stuff is delicate and requires a lot of training and specialization. Russian aircraft, as an example, all have screens to keep debris out of the engine intakes so can take off and land on damaged runways. If you look at USAF runways they must do a walk down the runway every day usually with 50 or so men to remove pebbles and small items which if ingested into the engines will destroy them. Russia doesn’t bother as it isn’t a factor at all. This is why a single cruise missile can take out a runway for days. It is like that for everything. MiA2 tanks use turbine engines and have zero user maintenance. They must be returned to depot maintenance for air filter changes etc. every 100 hours. They also consume massive amounts of JP4 which is more needed for aviation assets (and command HQ which runs turbine generators and requires 10,000 liters a day to operate) than tanks. My point is Russia designs and trains to fight actual peer adversaries. Additionally, without aviation dominance, the US cannot re-supply at all. If you examine where the S-500 batteries are located they cover all of Europe. This doesn’t even get into Russian jamming and EMP weapons which we haven’t seen much of yet.
Posted by: Old Microbiologist
An observation from reading the Russian intelligence reports on the 2003 Iraq invasion. (Stolzuntermensch’a site) All the things western analysts are saying the Russian army is going through reads like a recap of what the US/UK experienced in Iraq. It was a comedy of errors replete with running out of fuel, not having enough reserves because they just thought it would be a pleasant trip to Baghdad. The tanks didn’t work because it was sandy, the fancy imaging gear didn’t work because it was sandy, the air support they depended on couldn’t fly when it was sandy.
There were command demands that objectives be captured in a set time because of the schedule and perception. The whole thing almost failed miserably because it was poorly planned and poorly executed. The mighty US army was nearly beaten by Iraq after a decade of sanctions. The US finally “gave up” securing actual military victories, raced to the government buildings of Baghdad, took them and declared victory. While settling in for a long insurgency it is still losing.
It becomes clear that the US expectation was that Russia would act the same as the US and obviously suffer the same setbacks. That does not appear to be happening beyond the scale of all military operations not happening just as planned. NATO isn’t coming to save the day, it’s scared. It’s been 20 years since it almost got whipped by a force nothing like Russia and in an environment that should have given the US a massive advantage. In fact if not for limited Iraqi mobility on open ground against US air power, the US may well have lost.
Of particular note is an editorial that to fight the US, Russia would have to invest in air defenses and combining air defense with the Air Force was a terrible mistake. It does, however, look the Russian military took the advice to heart and concentrated on air defense systems over fighters.
