Ukraine Watch...

[clv101]

It's still possible there will be some kind of palace coup with Putin going the same way as Gaddafi.

[BritDownUnder]

You never know. If the Russian government are faced with an endless war they may cut their losses and give him up.

I think a war crimes trial should be floated as official Western policy to let him stew a bit and reflect on his actions. And have him constantly watching his back of course. Nothing like a bit of paranoia.

[kenneal - lagger]

Don't you mean "a bit more paranoia"?

[BritDownUnder]

Don't you mean "a bit more paranoia"?

paranoia++

A bit of ratcheting up.

[mr brightside]

I think the more paranoid he gets, the more unpredictable he gets, and who wants a (more) paranoid/unpredictable man at the head of a nuclear arsenal.

[Catweazle]

Don't you mean "a bit more paranoia"?

paranoia++

A bit of ratcheting up.

Good idea. A narrative along the lines of "We hold Putin and frontline generals solely responsible for the war crimes" might encourage the political top brass to cut off the head and come to the negotiating table.

[UndercoverElephant]

I am not convinced anybody inside Russia has the power to remove him, but that's just a guess and maybe I will be proved wrong.

There's no way this war is going to end any time soon. The Russians will regroup and probably take a bit more territory in the east, but there's no reason to believe they are going to make a decisive breakthrough. The Ukrainians will continue to resist far more fiercely than the Russian conscripts are willing to fight - there will be more destruction and more war crimes, but the likely outcome is neither side can deliver anything resembling a win, but neither side is willing to realistically negotiate peace. The Ukrainians aren't going to accept significant territorial losses if they still have some hope of retaking territory, and Putin has already burned all his bridges with the west and cannot back down as long as he retains command of his armed forces.

My gut instinct is that the key player in ending this war may turn out to be Xi Jinping. If there's going to be a geopolitical winner, it is probably China.

[PS_RalphW]

So far most of the weapons sent to Ukraine have been defensive - infantry anti tank and anti aircraft missiles, To regain territory and survive the new offensive in the south and east they now need tanks, apcs and long range guides missiles to tank our Russian artillery and command and control and electronic jamming units

Chzecs have sent a few tanks, us are sending some drones and missiles, but they need much more, and the west is cautious of provoking Putin into escalation into chemical or nuclear weapons. The Ukraine president is extremely open and honest in his requests and demands, and so far his people have shown incredible resilience.

[UndercoverElephant]

You think Ukrainian tanks and APCs would fare better than the Russian ones?

Zelensky says the battle for the Donbas will look like WW2. I wonder if it is actually going to end up looking more like WW1.

[automaticearth2]

You think Ukrainian tanks and APCs would fare better than the Russian ones?

Zelensky says the battle for the Donbas will look like WW2. I wonder if it is actually going to end up looking more like WW1.

I think you're right i.e. keep the Russians in there, keep them bogged down, and let them commit bloody atrocities. This might make a case for prosecution and reparations later on more acceptable, especially if the Russian people get to see what has happened. Of course, we could say this was all staged by the Azov Battalion......

I was speaking to a friend from the US who served in GW1, GW2 and Afghanistan in the USAF flying A-10 tank-busters. He was saying that the whole Ukraine invasion is a complete debacle just about worthy of a Laurel and Hardy sketch, which would be funny if it wasn't so serious. He said that the tanks he shot at in Afghanistan were a lot more formidable than the ones he's seeing in Ukraine so far, and said that the columns in Ukraine would have been a 'turkey shoot', especially if depleted uranium shells were used.....

[kenneal - lagger]

A Sky News presenter managed to get Putin's spokesman to admit on air the the Russian have suffered significant casualties but another interviewee said that that admission will never get back to the Russian people, leastways the ones who support Putin.

The general opinion on Quora is that the A10 wouldn't last fie minutes in Ukraine as the Russian anti aircraft batteries are too strong. I don't think that the Ukrainians would want to use depleted uranium in their own country as it leaves a significant radio active legacy behind. With their experience of Chernobyl fresh in their minds and the recent reminder with Russian troops in that area getting radiation sickness I doubt that they would touch them with a barge pole!

They seem to be doing quite well with Turkish drones, NLAWS and various other man carried anti tank missiles without having to risk aircraft and pilots to anti aircraft fire.

The next phase of Russian attacks are likely to be more concentrated and will probably be preceded by mass, long range artillery barrages to soften up the infantry defenders with their short range anti tank and anti aircraft missiles. The Ukrainians will need more artillery of various sorts, and longer range missiles to effect counter battery fire on the Russians. This is probably the sort of weapons that NATO will be training the Ukrainians to use and then supplying them with.

They might even have them already but we won't know that until the Russians launch their attack. I think that they will get even more surprises this time around than they got last time. I do hope so anyway as if the Russians don't get those surprises the Ukrainians are going to have a hard time of it in the Donbas.

I also read that there is the distinct possibility that the incursion into Russian airspace and the attack on the oil depot could well have been a false flag operation by some Russians to cover up the fact that someone in the Russian military had sold off much of the fuel in that depot. Stranger things have happened in this war!!

[PS_RalphW]

Ukraine is accusing Russia of forcibly deporting 600,000 people to Russia, presumably in an attempt to depopulate eastern areas that they control of all native Ukrainians, so that they can claim them as native Russian territory.

Where the 600,000 people may have ended up is not clear.

[Catweazle]

In my amateur opinion it would be a big mistake for Ukraine to try to go head-to-head with Russia in artillery battles, and I can't see any western powers supplying them with that kind of weapon. Far better to keep sending in the high-tech missiles and let Ukrainian infantry keep destroying Russian armour - Putin has a finite amount of tanks and APCs, which are proving no match for cheap modern missiles, and drones can blow up fuel dumps and generals well behind enemy lines.

From a NATO point of view it's worth every penny spent on smart weapons.

The question is what Russia is going to do about it, Putin needs to finish it quickly or he will be increasingly humiliated, so the temptation must be to threaten to murder huge numbers of civilians in order to force Ukraine to the table to give up land in the East.

[UndercoverElephant]

The question is what Russia is going to do about it, Putin needs to finish it quickly or he will be increasingly humiliated, so the temptation must be to threaten to murder huge numbers of civilians in order to force Ukraine to the table to give up land in the East.

I don't think that will work. The Ukrainians won't give in to that sort of genocidal blackmail.

[kenneal - lagger]

This article tells how Russia is boosting it's army by drafting migrants from Central Asian Republics and offering citizenship.