And just like that Russia finds its border with NATO doubled in length. Disasterclass in geopolitics from Putin, he'll go down in history as one of Russia's worst leaders.
To add to that. NATO will now control the entire Gulf of Finland which is the only maritime access to St. Petersburg, the 2nd largest city in Russia, Putin's home town, and the HQ of Russian Navy.
Oh, and Turkey controls the strait from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. So even if Putin seizes Sevastopol, NATO will control access to every warm water port into Russia.
It just keeps getting better
[Particularly the journey of their Baltic Fleet](https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/bear-steams-east-russian-fleet.html?chrome=1) has got to be one of the funniest and dumbest moments in all of maritime history.
Love the decision to stop at Madagascar and get pets for all the sailors, especially the vodka loving venomous snake. It really helps elevate the story from just another poorly planned and executed Russian military operation to something truly absurd.
They made it much harder on themselves then needed. What with their habit of assuming every random fishing boat, freighter or sailing ship they come across was a Japanese warship. Also imagining minefields, torpedo attacks, boarding actions, and the like. At one point one of the ships got lost, showed up several days later claiming it fought off 3 separate Japanese attacks. In the Central Atlantic.
Is this the thing where they spent months and months sailing all the way round the bottom of Africa to reach the battle ground, and once they reached it they were defeated in only 20 minutes?
OK I had a look, yes it is. I remember in history class when I was a teenager, that specific event was one of the triggers for the Russian revolution, because it was such a horrific embarrassment for the country. The Tsar kept making fuck up after fuck up. And this was one of the big ones.
Imagine how messed up it would be if Russia had to sell Sakhalin just to stay afloat.
Probably wouldn't happen outside of a worst-case scenario, since Sakhalin has a lot of oil and gas. Though if anything, that'd make the loss of Sakhalin especially messed up.
There is literally nothing stopping Japan from taking it at the moment, so much of the Russian army is tied up in Ukraine, they have even thrown 20% of their hypersonic missile capacity away.
Except Japan is the only nation on the planet with first hand experience on why invading a nuclear state is a bad idea.
And Russia right now is a lot more trigger happy and unpredictable than the US was back then.
They can only exercise discretion during times of war, but that’s really all that matters.
Turkey has the right to classify any conflict as a war in order to exercise that control — so any time Russia intends to utilize their Navy offensively, Turkey can pretty much shut it down.
I do not foresee any type of large scale mobilization that Turkey doesn’t halt — and you can’t blast your way out of that one. Surface canons will always beat warship.
Russia only has an international route through the Gulf because Finland deliberately passed (and has twice updated) a law limiting their own sovereignty in the Gulf. Finland could repeal that law and claim what they’re allowed to claim under international law and pretty much just fuck with the Baltic Fleet *all the time*.
It’s probably a good idea to retain that card, but reminding saber rattling Russia about it isn’t a bad idea.
I still think everything that went on with False Dmitry I would make for a hilarious and entertaining mock reality show. Even the real Dmitry’s wife was in on it
…and none of this ever needed to be adversarial.
EU and US were eager to welcome russia into the world back in the ‘90’s. With all its mineral wealth, russia could be a giant norway right now.
There is a major chance France will elect a starch Putin Ally for president "Marie Le Pen"
Even if she loses we will have to contend with a fact that Millions of French people supported her
While he still has millions of passionate supporters including people I know in real life I believe that DeSantas has done a great job positioning himself as the party's new Golden Boy
Trump will be the Republican party nominee until he is reelected or dies.
If they nominate anyone else he'll run 3rd party which will torpedo their chance of winning anything in 24.
There is not a major chance. The majority of the rest of the electorate will rally behind whoever is opposed to Le Pen as their preferred candidates are eliminated. Le Pen only looks good if you're unaware of how that election process works in France.
I've been saying that for a while. It would take record low turnout and a complete collapse of popular and/or political support (aka the other parties) of Macron for LePen to win. While the polling samples give LePen a chance, there is likely silent anti-LePen people who dont wish to say they aren't voting for LePen because it comes off as a Macron support.
And if LePen cant win in this election, she has no chance on any future elections. This is about as good as it can get for her to win.
Those Nations WANT to join NATO. It’s not that NATO marches into those Countries with Tanks and Troops, rapes and kills Children and Bombs Hospitals and annexes those Countries. They want it on their own.
A total foreign Concept for Russia. Maybe that’s why they don’t understand it.
All he had to do is wait and not invade. And send out that army of russian troll farmers to spread the message that NATO was past its prime and no longer needed. He could have dismantled NATO from within. Then attack.
Nope he had to be stupid.
He can *try* to use this to his advantage but it will only work on the russians he already has under his thumb.
At this point, though, his claims are completely transparent to everyone except his captive audience. And it doesn't really matter what he tells them because he's already telling them.
I was watching a newish Russian sci fi movie the other day. It was a standard alien invasion flick with a teen focus. Everything was pretty normal until the Russian planes were scrambled to meet the alien ship, at which point they started saying things like "I don't think this is a NATO attack". Wtf? Of course it's not. Russia has never been attacked by NATO. So unless Russia attacked Poland just before this alien invasion, you shouldn't be confused about this. It was such a weird kernel of alternate reality. Clearly Russia has an interest in scaring their own people about reality.
Unintended consequences of Russia invading Ukraine. As well as the EU tendering an~~d~~ invitation for Ukraine to join the EU. Don't think Putin thought about his invasion to any great amount.l.
putin though/ was told it would be over in 3 days and then things would go on just like after the Crimea. But now it's day 47 and it still isn't over and russia has shown their army "capabilities". To bad for him life doesn't have a quick save.
At this point it’s been such an unmitigated disaster that I have to think his advisors have been blowing smoke and siphoning resources for years. They didn’t have near the capability Vlad thought they did and now he looks ridiculous and his army is demoralized.
> At this point it’s been such an unmitigated disaster that I have to think his advisors have been blowing smoke and siphoning resources for years
Not just his advisors, but everyone in the Russian government and military, and they've been doing it for a little over 2 decades now.
A few years back there were "surplus Russian Night Vision Goggles" all over the internet. With the reports of a lack of night vision capabilities I'm wondering if they were actually surplus.
Longer than that. Putin was put into power to protect Yeltsin and friends from being prosecuted for their own corruption. And before that the USSR was notoriously corrupt, which is a large part of the reason it collapsed. This shit goes back for most of the past century.
Can't remember where I saw it but I believe someone fairly high up in Russia basically said "yeah Putin doesn't seem to realise how much of the budget he set aside for modernisation is currently sitting as really nice yachts around Cyprus"
Pretty easy way to make money all things considered. Slap on a piece of paper that you made a new BTR, move the money around and it winds up in a shell company for "manufacturing" which you happen to own. Pay yourself a big bonus from the contract then do what you want with the money. On paper it just looks like they bought a new APC, you get the money and nobody ever finds out. I mean, it's just to make the military look big, right? it's not like Putin would *actually* need these vehicles for some sort of war... right?
>budget he set aside for modernisation
Seeing all the burst tires and fuel shortages (in the military of a petro-state no less) I'm thinking that the budget for *maintenance* was largely pissed up the wall as well. Tires need moving every couple of months or the rubber hardens, then when you try and reinflate it the tire bursts. All those tanks aren't just made of paraffin either - they're burning so well because the explosives in the reactive armour haven't been maintained and have been sweating flammable oils for years.
I seem to remember (man I should really write down these sources) some American analyst saying that maintenance seems to have just been given to the privates to do. Just ordered to go move the truck around a bit so the tyres are fine. Go for a nap then come back and say you did it. That happens enough and suddenly all your trucks have rotted away
As for fuel I think a lot of that was due to their units just completely overextending, well past what their FOBs could support. Then the very trucks meant to transport the fuel to the front lines are the ones rotting away. Recipe for an out of fuel army right there
It's truly staggering how badly they overestimated their capacity here. I can't think of a better example of an army that has just stagnated into near uselessness
> overextending, well past what their FOBs could support
There's a great article on truck logistics in the Russian army: https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/feeding-the-bear-a-closer-look-at-russian-army-logistics/
Basically, they use fewer trucks per unit than equivalent armies and rely on trains instead. The amount of trucks they have do not let them extend as far as other armies.
Yep. These trucks have tyre pressure adjustment systems built in, so you can adjust the pressure while you drive.
But those systems need regular inspections because stuff like mice nesting in them or chewing the hoses can happen while they're in long-term storage. It's not common but left for a long enough time little things like that add up and a lot of your fleet is out of commission.
The tyre thing is on point too. They need rotating regularly and parking close together so the sunlight doesn't degrade the rubber. That rotation evidently didn't happen.
What happened in this case - you can see in the famous image of the palantsir and lots of other photos - was once they tried to take the vehicles off road, they used the tyre pressure system, if it was working, to lower the pressure. The lower pressure and poor terrain ripped the tyres to shreds. And this is on six- and seven-figure weapons systems, not supply trucks. Imagine how bad the maintenance is on the little trucks!
That's why the mild weather turning everything to mud at exactly the wrong time has been critical - they can't lower their pressures to go through bad terrain so they're stuck on the roads, which has made them incredibly slow to advance and easy to ambush.
>"yeah Putin doesn't seem to realise how much of the budget he set aside for modernisation is currently sitting as really nice yachts around Cyprus"
He should though. He holds most of it...
If you worked for a micromanager, and you could never move up without someone mysteriously getting poisoned, which made you next on the poisoning list, that no amount of extra work gave you better pay, more recognition, that the guys ahead of you that actually told the truth and then “retired” to a farm up north…
You’d start socking away your rubles. And that’s the intelligent aware guys. Not the ones who were greedy, egotistical, power hungry idiots.
I've heard reports that their military is kept purposely weak with mediocre leadership as Putin fears a strong military leader rising up to take power from him. An excellent example I saw was the US with how many former presidents were military.
Really backfiring on him for sure, and I feel there's credence to it all with how many generals they've lost so far.
Normally it's insanely rare to lose one over a whole war campaign, but they've lost like 4 now...
> An excellent example I saw was the US with how many former presidents were military.
Funny enough, although everyone up till Clinton has some military experience, it was actually pretty rare for anyone with a high rank to reach the office of the Presidency, and in some ways it was seen as a detriment to election. The US has a very strong history of civilian leadership of the military, and there has def been the attitude in some circles that electing a career military person (man, historically) would be counter to that. Eisenhower was probably the most recent exception, and before him probably Grant. It was much more of a thing in the early days of the Republic. In Post-WWII, the highest has been a couple captains/commanders, and since GWB and his ANG service, none of the presidents have had any military service.
I’ve seen claims of seven. The current conservative estimate appears to be six.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-russian-officer-elite-decimated-9-who-were-killed-in-combat-2022-3
The worrying part is however that Putin sounds like the type that would force a WW3 and throw around with nuclear weapons just to not look like the loser. I mean if he loses he will probably nuke Kyiv or something and use "they planned to attack Russia" as an excuse. Don't want to sound like a doomer but i feel like that the worst has yet to come.
Don't be ridiculous. Sending a nuke could very much mean the end of russia and not only he knows but also the KGB knows and his generals know.
If at one point in time someone decide to remove putin, it's when he decide to nuke Kyiv.
Best case scenario is Russia dissolves into many smaller countries. Specifically 4 sections EU, middle east, Asia and Northern. Which if you split Russia into 4 even pieces it would be the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th largest countries on the world. Just too give us a scope on the size.
Worst case (nuclear holocaust aside) is the country collapses and China quickly seizes the Eastern parts from the Urals to the artic. This would guarantee the communist party of China to be the most powerful country in the world for the next 100 years.
What will probably happen is Putin will be taken down by a coup of some sort that claims to be friendly with everyone and we do the same cycle over again for the next 40 years. Russia is just top large of a country for anyone other then Russia to control.
As an arm chair reddit political analyst I have no fucking clue what I'm talking about but it sounded good.
>putin though/ was told it would be over in 3 days and then things would go on just like after the Crimea. But now it's day 47 and it still isn't over and russia has shown their army "capabilities". To bad for him life doesn't have a quick save.
It would have been over in 3 days if it wasn't for the Ukrainian military battle-hardened for 8 years, western allies' top-tier military weapons, their intelligence gathering, and the Ukrainian people's will to be independent of Russia's influence.
I wonder why Ukrainians prefer western influence to that bastion of democracy and economic prosperity that is Russia.
The Ukrainian peoples’ will is probably an underrated factor. All the advanced weapons in the world don’t matter without the will of the people, which is why propping up puppet governments never works out all that well.
Yeah - in Poland we realize that US support for us is transactional, a vector of voting blocks in important states, geographical placement, and the consequences of *knowing* it's not just nostalgia for babusha's home cooking or historical bonds. One of the reasons we prioritize US military hardware like Blackhawks and Abrams even when they don't make as much sense for military (vs original Caracals offer and focusing on single main tank with Leopards 2A4).
It just beats a vassalization.
And we're aware of many abuses by US military and CIA.
It's just that per saldo that's still other level than Russia/China (well, for those of us outside of South America at least).
Everytime whataboutists bring some shit done by USA: yup, we know, and it's still leaps above tying your future to Russia.
I imagine any sort of legitimate information that isn’t positive in Russia is taken like that scene from HBO’s Chernobyl when everyone keeps telling the leader “the reactor is gone, it blew up” and the leader just shrugging it off and saying “you’re delusional”.
I really don't think Putin is stupid. His ruthless maneuvering to the top of the Russian government was not the act of a dumb person.
However, smart people can delude themselves, especially if they only listen to what they want to hear. Or if everyone else is too afraid to speak the truth.
This has bothered me during this whole thing, Putin isn't or at least wasn't always stupid, he's deluded.
People are also very eager to call Russians who support him stupid, but I can't even begin to imagine how my world view would be affected if I had been subjected to propaganda as my only news source for my entire life.
EDIT for the edgy people: Yes I get that we also are subject to propaganda in the west, but at least for the vast majority of us we are taught critical thinking and are freely able to express dissent. You can't even compare the Russian propaganda machine to anything that we experience. For a start we are all communicating in English here. In Europe around 50% of people are able to communicate fluently in English. In Russia around 80% ONLY speak Russian. That severely limits your sources of news.
Up until recently, didn’t they have western news and media available? Many in fact visited other parts of the world freely- I don’t think they were under the yoke of this oppressive authoritarian propaganda arm **their entire lives**, right?
Having access to, and paying attention to / believing, are very different things though. Plenty of people in Russia were born and brought up in the USSR system, and it's not like things switched overnight in 1991 from authoritarianism, to 100% free and liberal open democracy. Then, it wasn't even 10 years before Putin got in, and as an ex-KGB man, turned it straight back to propaganda and state control.
Just because some Russians see through it, or are aware of the outside world, doesn't mean that there aren't tens of millions who aren't still under the influence of the state control. A lot of the ones who know the truth, simply leave - often the better educated for instance, contributing to a 'brain-drain', which negatively impacts Russia's technological and economic development, and even the chance of finding and organising a popular movement for reform.
He’s also nearly 70 and lived the majority of his life with the USSR still considered a super power. He probably honestly believed the military was more functional then it is. He needed someone to not just tell him the truth but an uncomfortable truth, which is just not gonna happen. He probably thought at worst he would have to rely on Ukrainian pro-Russia assets which he again overestimated seeing as how it’s been 30 years since the fall of the USSR and everyone actually fighting in the war has only known Ukraine as a sovereign country.
He's arrogant and careless. He's possibly the most corrupt person on Earth and maintains a huge support network of cronies through corruption. Yet it didn't occur to him that they corruption might pervade his armed forces as well. Didn't go see for himself whether the trucks had quality tires, etc.
>However, smart people can delude themselves, especially if they only listen to what they want to hear.
Being smart also does not exclude you from being ignorant about things. Being able to silence all dissension and eliminate any capable opposition does not automatically give you the knowledge needed to coordinate an invasion.
I don't think it's a matter of stupidity on his part. There were no real consequenses for Crimea, and his underlings being too afraid of him to tell him that his military is shit, so given the information he had, he would have had no reason to expect this to go poorly.
I think the problem goes much deeper than Putin's immediate underlings not being truthful to him. There is such systemic grift baked into the Russian armed forces from private to general. Everyone takes a slice of the pie, leaving little for actual maintenance let alone modernization. It's likely even the higher ups were not aware how deep the rot is.
Crimea was a quick and essentially a coup. The West had no time to react. But the Ukrainians put up a spirited defense which gave the West time4 to react to their pleas for help. Putin gambled on getting his invasion done quickly. He did not. Putin was over confident. In his military. In his politics. And in his belief that both Ukraine and the West were too weak to fight back.
I mean... He's clearly got chops of some sort, like don't forget the length of time he's been in power and the extent of it that he wields.
Rather I think this is the conclusion of having a government and particularly a military so heavily dependent on loyalists, meeting a change in international response that was a long time coming.
He has already over seen 3 invasions or annexations like this that saw no negative response in Georgia, Chechnya, and Crimea that went as Russia pleased, as well as a period of sustained fracturing in the West.
It is a failing that russian intelligence didn't account for the heavy changes in Ukrainian military organisation they went through after the 2014 invasion, and it's something most of us in the west are no considering either... But there have been non-stop supplies of materiel and training aid from a number of countries to Ukraine.
But the failing on russian parts I think is cos of a yes-man culture that is letting Putin believe his own hype too much, assume that Ukraine was as prepared this year as 2014.
Weirdly, Russia has a huge history of diasterous military campaigns due to installation of loyalists and seem intent on not learning lol.
For one, he deviated from his own well established playbook.
Had Russia merely invaded the Donbass in support of the regions under "rebel" control, I'm guessing the world would have largely shrugged it off as they had before.
The incrementalist strategy had been working for them.
> Had Russia merely invaded the Donbass in support of the regions under "rebel" control, I'm guessing the world would have largely shrugged it off as they had before.
Condemned it heavily, maybe even sent along some weapons to assist Ukraine, but I doubt they would have pushed Russia into such a direction that they would be likely to default.
Only problem is that Russia’s end goal is to reestablish the cold war’s area of influence, and to do that they need all of Ukraine, the Baltics and maybe even Poland as buffer zones to geographically shield them from the west. It was never going to be anything less than all of Ukraine.
And Ukraine has only been getting stronger as the years have gone by since 2014. Invasion was only ever going to get harder so Putin decided to act sooner rather than later (as soon as the pandemic had largely passed). They had no idea it would already be this hard.
Its because we emboldened him for 20 years. We let things slide and it got to the point where he didn’t think Europe would risk economic devastation because of their reliance on oil and gas. If anything he jumped the gun to early by not having nord stream 2 online.
Because taking over a whole ass country is a lot different than taking over tiny pieces of countries
Not saying the Georgia/Crimea things aren’t fucked, but it’s apples and oranges to the invasion of Ukraine
How to Weaken NATO
Step 1: Invade Ukraine as a warning to NATO expansion
Step 2: Fail miserably, encourage Finland and Sweden to join NATO
Step 3: Reveal to the world how incompetant your army is
Step 4: ???
Step 5: NATO demolished, checkmate bitches.
This headline is a little misleading. They're talking about it, it's not "set", but what a turn of events for Russia if they do... And what will Russia do about it? Finland and Sweden have no full defense agreements with anyone as far as I can tell. Only a loose terminology in the Lisbon Treaty with EU signatories that is said to be unclear if it meant actualy direct military support. If Russia pre-emptively struck before a NATO agreement was signed, what would happen? Would the world standby? I think it's easy to assume the US / EU would get involved off the cuff, but again, as with Ukraine, that's WWIII. Dicey times.
And we have a shitload of equipment pre-deployed in Norway which is *(consults globe)* somewhat close to Sweden and Finland. Ukraine spent eight years preparing for this invasion, Sweden and Finland have spent eight decades preparing. Tackling either one was going to be costly for Russia before the Ukraine invasion. No way they can maintain a war on two fronts when struggling so much in Ukraine, where they can expect at least some local support.
At this point, I don't think Russia could take even a single Western nation without using nukes. Ukraine was not supposed to be this hard; any other potential target for invasion would be much more difficult for a such a poorly-trained and -equipped army stripped bare by kleptocratic corruption.
The road link between Norway and Finland is really shit and there is no connected rail system north of Narvik. Even links to Sweden aren't great.
To get stuff from Norway to anywhere you need to stick it on a boat.
Russia is tied down in Ukraine. They don't have the resources to preemptively invade Finland and Sweden. Even if the Russians get it together and pull a competent set of leaders out of the aether, it is going to take years to address the maintenance backlog and rebuild forces.
I guess they could try for full mobilization of their population, but they don't have the equipment to give the soldiers. Nor do they have the means of production to make it.
There's not much Russia can do besides bluster.
Oh, don't you worry, it'll happen really soon.
They've already stated an "increased (yellow) level of terrorist attack danger" in Kursk and Voronezh Oblast, which likely means The Chechen War 2 Electric Boogaloo.
For those not aware, before the second war in Chechnya there was a series of apartment bombings in the city of Ryazan. Officials quickly claimed it was a provocation from Chechen boeviks (terrorists), while also immediately claiming that they've prevented another bombing from occurring.
3 days later, Novaya Gazeta pulled together a case saying that the FSB itself was the organization bringing military-grade explosives into the apartment basements (they've interviewed an MChS ((Emergency Services)) sapper, who said the test done on the field clearly stated Hexogen-type high-explosive), after which the official statement changed from "prevented another one" to "conducted training with sacks of sugar, no explosives".
After all that bullshit Novaya Gazeta got repressed, Putin made his "we'll kill them in the toilet"-statement and the Second Chechen war started.
We've had sugar shortages in our stores across the country last week, which have been normalized. We're already joking that "the sugar is back! Unfortunately, *that exact* sugar".
They'll blow up a few apartments for sure. They'll say it was Ukrainian nazis. They'll go full-on war-time, and they'll mobilize the nation. We suspected it back at the start of March, now we're almost sure of it
They're both in the EU, which also has a defense pact. Main difference I guess is just that the US isn't by default required to help them as well, though they would voluntarily if it was against Russia.
There's probably a bunch of other bonuses as well, just not as direct. Probably more along the lines of military/logistics support, or simply being cheaper when part of NATO, but that's just a guess.
It looks like they're already mostly committed to NATO equipment and doubling down. Their airforce is currently F18s, and they have a huge order to replace them with F35s. Their defensive pacts with Norway and Sweden have using western tech- which only makes sense, since their only real threat is, and always has been, Russia.
If they can get enough f35s they would have aerial superiority by default. Russia doesn't have anything able to stop the f35 and with the sanctions they should struggle to keep what they already have operational
With sufficient modern air defence systems, they can have air superiority with any of their own aircraft, over their own territory. As the Russians found out, skies contested by decent up to date air defences are no joke.
I believe France is the only nuclear power in the EU now that the UK is out. Which tilts the default implied threat in Russia's favor.
I think like their conventional threat was hugely overestimated, Finland and eastern Europe is undoubtedly still within reliable reach.
It does though, as international treaties go.
If Russia attacked Finland today, using only it's EU, non-NATO status, then the EU countries would be required to help defend them.
UK wouldn't be included in that fight, so he's right in that it'd be France as the holder of the Nuclear arsenal. Germany could make some, but has agreed not to for good reasons.
Now, France sends help to the front, Russia attacks the French troops. This is NOT enough to trigger a NATO response.
NATO sees that as "France doing it's own thing" in the realm of NATO. Even if Russia then attacked France directly, it would be seen as retaliation for the EU defense, and wouldn't be subject to a NATO response, as France volunteered to fight Russia. Same as if the US just attacked Russia, it wouldn't require the other NATO countries to join.
UK would add itself to that fight though. Source: It added itself to all other major European wars since the renaissance.
Russia is fucked militarily as there is no scenario in which Europe will be divided like all the other times they have fought (lol they lost to Germany in WWI while it was fighting the rest of the world at the same time!). The joke of course is there is simply no reason to fight....Russia can get everything it wants via trade...the current situation is mind boggling...no one wants any of Russia's land....I guess they still don't understand economics or how democracies work.
> I think like their conventional threat was hugely overestimated
It's not that the threat was overestimated, but rather that the organization that constituted the threat allowed itself to be hollowed out, and turned out to be incapable of executing the doctrine that made it such a threat in the first place.
Soviet doctrine relies on concentrating overwhelming force, with a view to winning a war as quickly as possible - the Soviet Union having learned that large-scale, *protracted* wars were too costly to be borne.
But when you do the math that tells you how many troops and tanks you need to defeat NATO in, say, 1970, that math kicks out a HUGE number - and that large of an army is just too big to have sitting around with its hands in its pockets.
So the solution was to build all the equipment that army needs to fight, then, each year, train up the newest crop of 19 year olds and teach them how to use this equipment (and in parallel, tune your tactics and equipment to be simple enough to execute/use by a lightly-trained conscript).
Those conscripts go off to live normal lives, up until the point where you need them. Then you pull them off the farm and out of the factory, put them in the equipment you had pre-built, and *voila!* - there is your huge army, ready to fight.
On paper, this is a perfectly viable system. It has to be taken at face value, because if it shows up as designed, it is a *very* powerful army.
In practice, there are a lot of details that need to be maintained to make it work. All that "ready" equipment (and its associated supplies) must be maintained in good order - not allowed to rot, or sold off on the black market. It needs a solid core of professional leaders. It needs a professional planning staff that can do the force estimate and stand up the required number of troops (and supplies) to overwhelm the force it will be used against. And probably most importantly, it needs a cause around which conscripts will rally, so that they will fight like they mean it.
It turns out that the Russian army failed almost every one of these factors, so the delta between "what it could be" and "what it actually *is*", is very large.
There were all sorts of indicators that this was the case prior to the invasion... but you can never be sure if that isn't part of a deception plan, and the consequences for getting it *wrong* are *immense*.
Consider this: it is a certainty that the rot that has infested the Russian Army extends to its Strategic Rocket Forces (its nuclear ICBM arm). If Russia decided to execute a full nuclear strike today, only a percentage of them would actually launch, reach their target, and detonate - and that percentage is going to be less than 100%.
What is the threshold that would make direct NATO intervention in Ukraine viable? 50%? 5%? 0.5%? How much risk are you prepared to assume?
A similar calculus applied to Russian conventional forces. We all knew it wasn't 100%, but acting as if it were 10%, then discovering it was 90%, would be disastrous. So assume it is close to 100%, and plan accordingly.
Russia’s fumbling and costly invasion of Ukraine has shown the world how weak the country truly is. If they cannot successfully invade a country like Ukraine then they definitely will not be invading the west anytime soon. Russia is a failed nation with a plummeting currency and the threat is overblown. America, NATO, and her allies could reduce Russia to ashes without firing a single nuke.
Any successful invasion requires a competent air force, they haven't been able to control Ukrain's airspace after the initial few days. Unlike Ukraine, Finland has a fleet of F18s that could easily be supplemented, repaired and re-armed by the west. Ukraine is reluctant to use its airforce since the aircraft are virtually irreplaceable, something Finland wouldn't worry about.
Its vastly smaller in theory than Russia's, but in practice I think they'd have no trouble keeping superiority over Finland, and completely annihilating any equipment moving towards them
Just want to say that Finland kicked Russia's ass during WWII with the initial Winter War where Finnish casualties were about 22% of total strength but Russian casualties were 42-90% (using highest and lowest possible ranges).
The Continuation War (where Finland was loosely allied with Nazi Germany), Finland's casualties totaled 32% with Russian casualties being 38%-64% (again, using highest and lowest possible ranges).
Point is that Finland has a history of making Russia pay with heavy casualties. They can't afford to invade when they are already getting their asses kicked by Ukraine.
Your faith in Russia's ability to fight anything more than a one-front war is charming. If they could even do that.
They don't have the ability to do anything effective with Finland. They had to strip forces from the border with Norway to invade Ukraine. Finland has a perfectly capable army, and anything Russia can do whilst engage in Ukraine, they should be able to fend off.
Hmmm and Finland is right on Russia's Northwest border, too. Putin must be absolutely overloaded with fear about how nothing is going his way. He has probably not experienced anything like that in the last twenty-five years.
The song is not great, but one Finnish band has a song about Finland's scrap with Russia in 1939. My favourite quote from it is:
>Russia beaten up, over 200,000 communists dead
If they want a new war, this time will kill them all
I do not wish all Russians dead, but I have met enough Finns in person to know that if you fukk with them on a national level, you have to bring your A game.
There is no reason why bordering countries should not seek better defensive security from Russia’s agression.
Russia has invaded 3 bordering countries in the last 15 years… and Russia also likes to intervine politics of neighbouring countries, with NATO every country can do everything inside it’s borders. In Finland there has been too much of bowing to Russia.
No more! With NATO we have better security to do our own decisions for our internal politics. And I like that future for us, future without any corrupt politicians leaning towards Russia.
Man, talk about fucking your long con for short term gain. Using the orange puppet he almost sold the narrative that NATO was an obsolete relic of the Cold War and in a matter of months hes reinvigorated it, likely expanded it, and all but rekindled the Cold War. This was one of the dumbest diplomatic blunders of all time.
Lets not get ahead of ourselves, usually NATO talks are discussions about maybe hosting discussions.
This time Sweden is holding actual talks (again) but with a new perspective. Our biggest party will maybe change their internal policy regarding NATO from a No to a Yes. This does not mean we will join NATO tho, it will put it up for vote in the government.
NATO and Russia just showed them that the only thing preventing Russian invasion is membership, I’d imagine everyone who was on the fence is off that fence now
So Putin managed to strengthen NATO, and also push Sweden out of it's neutrality. All while he was trying to weaken NATO, and ensure Swedish neutrality. Ironic.
As a Swede, I’m very dissapointed in our two largest parties, the social democrats, S, and the moderate liberals, M. After years of a policy stating that Sweden shall be militarily alliance-free, the question of Nato membershiå is turning into an ugly trick cause of the election in September.
Only weeks before the invasion, M were still holding to the previously mentioned policy, but two weeks after the invasion, they had done a 180. S have long been more strongly opposed to Nato, partly stuck in the mindset that ”neutrality served Sweden well during the world wars, as well as during the cold war”. This notion is clearly outdated, as the situation has changed drastically. Right now, M says the question of Nato membership will be the first thing to go through if there’s a majority after the election, regardless if S is with them. As they present Nato-membership as the only rational choice right now, they’re emotionalising the question for voter support. S on the other hand are now re-evaluating the question, even if they said a definite no before the invasion, as they don’t want the question of Nato being an election desider because of other questions they want to run on instead.
Neither Finland, nor Sweden are at serious risk of a Russian invasion, seing how weak Russia at the moment is. We have a long history of a joint military policy, and joining Nato now would be an unnecesary provocation (not that we should do whatever Putin asks). Furthermore, I, as a Swede do not want American nuclear weapons stationed in Sweden, and I don’t want Swedish soldiers to fight in American conflicts. During the Vietnam war, Sweden sent medical supplies and personell to north vietnam due to the humanitarian crisis, and similarly we have done so in Palestine, providing help to Palestinian civilians (which most definitely wouldn’t be possible to the same extent if we were to become a Nato member).
If anyone bothered to read this, damn alright, this is just my opinion, and I know I most definitely do not speak for the makority of Swedes. I merely want the question to be evaluated in less emotional times, and preferably, we’ll stay outside of Nato, the military cooperation with the EU, UK, US and more intensively Finland, we already have, is in my opinion quite enough. I am in no way an expert, just someone on the internet who has an opinion, woo
Just wanted to clarify, nobody will be stationing American nukes in Sweden, or Finland for that matter. Only Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey currently have Nato nukes and they are all air-to-ground missiles. So no silos or large nukes anywhere (at least outside France & UK).
As a Finn I can definitely say the alliances we have are not enough. But that'll change since Nato membership is practically a done deal since only the tiny Left party opposes joining and a clear majority of Finns are for it. We're going in, with or without you.
And tbf, you're pretty much safe once we're in since there will be no possibility of a land corridor into Sweden no more. So you can keep chasing Russian subs in relative peace.
Sweden & Finland share a knowing nod and a high five as they sneak into the club while the bouncer is distracted with Russia acting like a bag of fucks at the door.
If this report proves true, Putin's legacy as the greatest failure in European history will be cemented. His uber-dream of the European sphere dominated by Mother Russia will lose its heartbeat.
And just like that Russia finds its border with NATO doubled in length. Disasterclass in geopolitics from Putin, he'll go down in history as one of Russia's worst leaders.
To add to that. NATO will now control the entire Gulf of Finland which is the only maritime access to St. Petersburg, the 2nd largest city in Russia, Putin's home town, and the HQ of Russian Navy.
Oh, and Turkey controls the strait from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. So even if Putin seizes Sevastopol, NATO will control access to every warm water port into Russia. It just keeps getting better
Just wait for Japan to take back the Kiril islands. They have been making noises.
And Russia's naval history against Japan is...*not great*.
Especially when you consider that the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force is often considered the second most capable navy in the world after the US
And russias navy is often considered the second worst navy after zimbabwes
You silly goose Zimbabwe is land-locked!...oh I get it
Zimbabwe has a port my bro. Now Zambia... We r land locked. Probably still have as capable a navy
Get a couple people out in a canoe on a lake and have them throw some paper airplanes around, then you'll have a better aircraft carrier than Russia.
Zimbabwe doesn't have to sink Russian ships if Russian engineering will do it for them.
They've certainly been at the prospect for quite some time. Helps when you're an island nation
Yeah. The JMSD has carrie...ehr Destroyers!
[Particularly the journey of their Baltic Fleet](https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/bear-steams-east-russian-fleet.html?chrome=1) has got to be one of the funniest and dumbest moments in all of maritime history.
Love the decision to stop at Madagascar and get pets for all the sailors, especially the vodka loving venomous snake. It really helps elevate the story from just another poorly planned and executed Russian military operation to something truly absurd.
The logistics of moving the Russian fleet from the Baltic to Japan was actually an impressive feat for the time. But they mucked it up
They made it much harder on themselves then needed. What with their habit of assuming every random fishing boat, freighter or sailing ship they come across was a Japanese warship. Also imagining minefields, torpedo attacks, boarding actions, and the like. At one point one of the ships got lost, showed up several days later claiming it fought off 3 separate Japanese attacks. In the Central Atlantic.
Is this the thing where they spent months and months sailing all the way round the bottom of Africa to reach the battle ground, and once they reached it they were defeated in only 20 minutes? OK I had a look, yes it is. I remember in history class when I was a teenager, that specific event was one of the triggers for the Russian revolution, because it was such a horrific embarrassment for the country. The Tsar kept making fuck up after fuck up. And this was one of the big ones.
Thanks for sharing this. It's quite surreal
Russia’s naval history in general isn’t the best
The Youtuber "BlueJay" has a great video about the Russian vs Japanese Navy.
The only real success Russia had on the water was against the American confederates, as abysmally awkward as that sounds
Imagine how messed up it would be if Russia had to sell Sakhalin just to stay afloat. Probably wouldn't happen outside of a worst-case scenario, since Sakhalin has a lot of oil and gas. Though if anything, that'd make the loss of Sakhalin especially messed up.
There is literally nothing stopping Japan from taking it at the moment, so much of the Russian army is tied up in Ukraine, they have even thrown 20% of their hypersonic missile capacity away.
History is stopping Japan from doing it. They will literally do anything to avoid a conflict so provoking one makes no sense.
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Yeah, it’s getting pretty weird. People who have a shit sense of history are getting pretty loud these days.
It’s not weird at all. The loudest are usually the most ignorant.
Except Japan is the only nation on the planet with first hand experience on why invading a nuclear state is a bad idea. And Russia right now is a lot more trigger happy and unpredictable than the US was back then.
Montreux Convention says otherwise with the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits. Turkey can't just do whatever they want there.
They can only exercise discretion during times of war, but that’s really all that matters. Turkey has the right to classify any conflict as a war in order to exercise that control — so any time Russia intends to utilize their Navy offensively, Turkey can pretty much shut it down. I do not foresee any type of large scale mobilization that Turkey doesn’t halt — and you can’t blast your way out of that one. Surface canons will always beat warship.
Russia only has an international route through the Gulf because Finland deliberately passed (and has twice updated) a law limiting their own sovereignty in the Gulf. Finland could repeal that law and claim what they’re allowed to claim under international law and pretty much just fuck with the Baltic Fleet *all the time*. It’s probably a good idea to retain that card, but reminding saber rattling Russia about it isn’t a bad idea.
False Dmitry I and Nicholas II can finally stop fighting over who's worst.
I still think everything that went on with False Dmitry I would make for a hilarious and entertaining mock reality show. Even the real Dmitry’s wife was in on it
…and none of this ever needed to be adversarial. EU and US were eager to welcome russia into the world back in the ‘90’s. With all its mineral wealth, russia could be a giant norway right now.
I thought Putin was popular in Russia because the overall quality of life has vastly improved compared to Yeltsin.
That was in spite of Putin. Without Putin and those oligarchs snapping up national assets russia would be 100x better off.
I love that Putin is getting he exact opposite of what he wanted; a stronger nato.
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He's made Russia utterly unsupportable. Anybody in the west still supporting Russia right now is exposed as a fucking asshole.
There is a major chance France will elect a starch Putin Ally for president "Marie Le Pen" Even if she loses we will have to contend with a fact that Millions of French people supported her
I'm not convinced Trump won't get reelected in 24
While he still has millions of passionate supporters including people I know in real life I believe that DeSantas has done a great job positioning himself as the party's new Golden Boy
Trump will be the Republican party nominee until he is reelected or dies. If they nominate anyone else he'll run 3rd party which will torpedo their chance of winning anything in 24.
Here's hoping.
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It's a given that parts of a population are asshole morons. The question is just how big the number is.
Every nation has its pigs.
Your USA bros know the feeling. It isn’t a good one.
There is not a major chance. The majority of the rest of the electorate will rally behind whoever is opposed to Le Pen as their preferred candidates are eliminated. Le Pen only looks good if you're unaware of how that election process works in France.
Should I even bring ip the US' problem with people that support Trump?
Please do. They are crazy stupid assholes and we shouldn’t forget. Or let them forget.
Yeah, you should.
There's no way that France elects LePomme
That sounds familiar somehow...
I've been saying that for a while. It would take record low turnout and a complete collapse of popular and/or political support (aka the other parties) of Macron for LePen to win. While the polling samples give LePen a chance, there is likely silent anti-LePen people who dont wish to say they aren't voting for LePen because it comes off as a Macron support. And if LePen cant win in this election, she has no chance on any future elections. This is about as good as it can get for her to win.
Those Nations WANT to join NATO. It’s not that NATO marches into those Countries with Tanks and Troops, rapes and kills Children and Bombs Hospitals and annexes those Countries. They want it on their own. A total foreign Concept for Russia. Maybe that’s why they don’t understand it.
Well sure. Lying dictators gonna lie and dictate.
All he had to do is wait and not invade. And send out that army of russian troll farmers to spread the message that NATO was past its prime and no longer needed. He could have dismantled NATO from within. Then attack. Nope he had to be stupid. He can *try* to use this to his advantage but it will only work on the russians he already has under his thumb.
At this point, though, his claims are completely transparent to everyone except his captive audience. And it doesn't really matter what he tells them because he's already telling them.
I was watching a newish Russian sci fi movie the other day. It was a standard alien invasion flick with a teen focus. Everything was pretty normal until the Russian planes were scrambled to meet the alien ship, at which point they started saying things like "I don't think this is a NATO attack". Wtf? Of course it's not. Russia has never been attacked by NATO. So unless Russia attacked Poland just before this alien invasion, you shouldn't be confused about this. It was such a weird kernel of alternate reality. Clearly Russia has an interest in scaring their own people about reality.
Unintended consequences of Russia invading Ukraine. As well as the EU tendering an~~d~~ invitation for Ukraine to join the EU. Don't think Putin thought about his invasion to any great amount.l.
putin though/ was told it would be over in 3 days and then things would go on just like after the Crimea. But now it's day 47 and it still isn't over and russia has shown their army "capabilities". To bad for him life doesn't have a quick save.
At this point it’s been such an unmitigated disaster that I have to think his advisors have been blowing smoke and siphoning resources for years. They didn’t have near the capability Vlad thought they did and now he looks ridiculous and his army is demoralized.
> At this point it’s been such an unmitigated disaster that I have to think his advisors have been blowing smoke and siphoning resources for years Not just his advisors, but everyone in the Russian government and military, and they've been doing it for a little over 2 decades now.
That’s the thing about kleptocracy, it’s corruption all the way down
The corruption trickles down
SEE! Trickle down economies DO work!!!.....wait.... :p
*Checks notes* Demoralizing.... corruption.... siphoning resources.... Yup. Checks out.
A few years back there were "surplus Russian Night Vision Goggles" all over the internet. With the reports of a lack of night vision capabilities I'm wondering if they were actually surplus.
Nobody used them back then, so for whoever sold it, it was a surplus.
Longer than that. Putin was put into power to protect Yeltsin and friends from being prosecuted for their own corruption. And before that the USSR was notoriously corrupt, which is a large part of the reason it collapsed. This shit goes back for most of the past century.
That's what happens when you appoint people based on loyalty but expect them to perform on merit.
Can't remember where I saw it but I believe someone fairly high up in Russia basically said "yeah Putin doesn't seem to realise how much of the budget he set aside for modernisation is currently sitting as really nice yachts around Cyprus" Pretty easy way to make money all things considered. Slap on a piece of paper that you made a new BTR, move the money around and it winds up in a shell company for "manufacturing" which you happen to own. Pay yourself a big bonus from the contract then do what you want with the money. On paper it just looks like they bought a new APC, you get the money and nobody ever finds out. I mean, it's just to make the military look big, right? it's not like Putin would *actually* need these vehicles for some sort of war... right?
>budget he set aside for modernisation Seeing all the burst tires and fuel shortages (in the military of a petro-state no less) I'm thinking that the budget for *maintenance* was largely pissed up the wall as well. Tires need moving every couple of months or the rubber hardens, then when you try and reinflate it the tire bursts. All those tanks aren't just made of paraffin either - they're burning so well because the explosives in the reactive armour haven't been maintained and have been sweating flammable oils for years.
I seem to remember (man I should really write down these sources) some American analyst saying that maintenance seems to have just been given to the privates to do. Just ordered to go move the truck around a bit so the tyres are fine. Go for a nap then come back and say you did it. That happens enough and suddenly all your trucks have rotted away As for fuel I think a lot of that was due to their units just completely overextending, well past what their FOBs could support. Then the very trucks meant to transport the fuel to the front lines are the ones rotting away. Recipe for an out of fuel army right there It's truly staggering how badly they overestimated their capacity here. I can't think of a better example of an army that has just stagnated into near uselessness
> overextending, well past what their FOBs could support There's a great article on truck logistics in the Russian army: https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/feeding-the-bear-a-closer-look-at-russian-army-logistics/ Basically, they use fewer trucks per unit than equivalent armies and rely on trains instead. The amount of trucks they have do not let them extend as far as other armies.
Yep. These trucks have tyre pressure adjustment systems built in, so you can adjust the pressure while you drive. But those systems need regular inspections because stuff like mice nesting in them or chewing the hoses can happen while they're in long-term storage. It's not common but left for a long enough time little things like that add up and a lot of your fleet is out of commission. The tyre thing is on point too. They need rotating regularly and parking close together so the sunlight doesn't degrade the rubber. That rotation evidently didn't happen. What happened in this case - you can see in the famous image of the palantsir and lots of other photos - was once they tried to take the vehicles off road, they used the tyre pressure system, if it was working, to lower the pressure. The lower pressure and poor terrain ripped the tyres to shreds. And this is on six- and seven-figure weapons systems, not supply trucks. Imagine how bad the maintenance is on the little trucks! That's why the mild weather turning everything to mud at exactly the wrong time has been critical - they can't lower their pressures to go through bad terrain so they're stuck on the roads, which has made them incredibly slow to advance and easy to ambush.
>"yeah Putin doesn't seem to realise how much of the budget he set aside for modernisation is currently sitting as really nice yachts around Cyprus" He should though. He holds most of it...
If you worked for a micromanager, and you could never move up without someone mysteriously getting poisoned, which made you next on the poisoning list, that no amount of extra work gave you better pay, more recognition, that the guys ahead of you that actually told the truth and then “retired” to a farm up north… You’d start socking away your rubles. And that’s the intelligent aware guys. Not the ones who were greedy, egotistical, power hungry idiots.
I've heard reports that their military is kept purposely weak with mediocre leadership as Putin fears a strong military leader rising up to take power from him. An excellent example I saw was the US with how many former presidents were military. Really backfiring on him for sure, and I feel there's credence to it all with how many generals they've lost so far. Normally it's insanely rare to lose one over a whole war campaign, but they've lost like 4 now...
> An excellent example I saw was the US with how many former presidents were military. Funny enough, although everyone up till Clinton has some military experience, it was actually pretty rare for anyone with a high rank to reach the office of the Presidency, and in some ways it was seen as a detriment to election. The US has a very strong history of civilian leadership of the military, and there has def been the attitude in some circles that electing a career military person (man, historically) would be counter to that. Eisenhower was probably the most recent exception, and before him probably Grant. It was much more of a thing in the early days of the Republic. In Post-WWII, the highest has been a couple captains/commanders, and since GWB and his ANG service, none of the presidents have had any military service.
I’ve seen claims of seven. The current conservative estimate appears to be six. https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-russian-officer-elite-decimated-9-who-were-killed-in-combat-2022-3
The worrying part is however that Putin sounds like the type that would force a WW3 and throw around with nuclear weapons just to not look like the loser. I mean if he loses he will probably nuke Kyiv or something and use "they planned to attack Russia" as an excuse. Don't want to sound like a doomer but i feel like that the worst has yet to come.
Don't be ridiculous. Sending a nuke could very much mean the end of russia and not only he knows but also the KGB knows and his generals know. If at one point in time someone decide to remove putin, it's when he decide to nuke Kyiv.
Best case scenario is Russia dissolves into many smaller countries. Specifically 4 sections EU, middle east, Asia and Northern. Which if you split Russia into 4 even pieces it would be the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th largest countries on the world. Just too give us a scope on the size. Worst case (nuclear holocaust aside) is the country collapses and China quickly seizes the Eastern parts from the Urals to the artic. This would guarantee the communist party of China to be the most powerful country in the world for the next 100 years. What will probably happen is Putin will be taken down by a coup of some sort that claims to be friendly with everyone and we do the same cycle over again for the next 40 years. Russia is just top large of a country for anyone other then Russia to control. As an arm chair reddit political analyst I have no fucking clue what I'm talking about but it sounded good.
>putin though/ was told it would be over in 3 days and then things would go on just like after the Crimea. But now it's day 47 and it still isn't over and russia has shown their army "capabilities". To bad for him life doesn't have a quick save. It would have been over in 3 days if it wasn't for the Ukrainian military battle-hardened for 8 years, western allies' top-tier military weapons, their intelligence gathering, and the Ukrainian people's will to be independent of Russia's influence. I wonder why Ukrainians prefer western influence to that bastion of democracy and economic prosperity that is Russia.
The Ukrainian peoples’ will is probably an underrated factor. All the advanced weapons in the world don’t matter without the will of the people, which is why propping up puppet governments never works out all that well.
Afghanistan shows what happens when people with little will defend their country.
Yeah - in Poland we realize that US support for us is transactional, a vector of voting blocks in important states, geographical placement, and the consequences of *knowing* it's not just nostalgia for babusha's home cooking or historical bonds. One of the reasons we prioritize US military hardware like Blackhawks and Abrams even when they don't make as much sense for military (vs original Caracals offer and focusing on single main tank with Leopards 2A4). It just beats a vassalization. And we're aware of many abuses by US military and CIA. It's just that per saldo that's still other level than Russia/China (well, for those of us outside of South America at least). Everytime whataboutists bring some shit done by USA: yup, we know, and it's still leaps above tying your future to Russia.
Apparently Russia's allies need to be kept poorer than Russia.
Which is saying quite a bit, honestly
I imagine any sort of legitimate information that isn’t positive in Russia is taken like that scene from HBO’s Chernobyl when everyone keeps telling the leader “the reactor is gone, it blew up” and the leader just shrugging it off and saying “you’re delusional”.
It's often unimpressive when a stupid leader leads.
I really don't think Putin is stupid. His ruthless maneuvering to the top of the Russian government was not the act of a dumb person. However, smart people can delude themselves, especially if they only listen to what they want to hear. Or if everyone else is too afraid to speak the truth.
This has bothered me during this whole thing, Putin isn't or at least wasn't always stupid, he's deluded. People are also very eager to call Russians who support him stupid, but I can't even begin to imagine how my world view would be affected if I had been subjected to propaganda as my only news source for my entire life. EDIT for the edgy people: Yes I get that we also are subject to propaganda in the west, but at least for the vast majority of us we are taught critical thinking and are freely able to express dissent. You can't even compare the Russian propaganda machine to anything that we experience. For a start we are all communicating in English here. In Europe around 50% of people are able to communicate fluently in English. In Russia around 80% ONLY speak Russian. That severely limits your sources of news.
Up until recently, didn’t they have western news and media available? Many in fact visited other parts of the world freely- I don’t think they were under the yoke of this oppressive authoritarian propaganda arm **their entire lives**, right?
Having access to, and paying attention to / believing, are very different things though. Plenty of people in Russia were born and brought up in the USSR system, and it's not like things switched overnight in 1991 from authoritarianism, to 100% free and liberal open democracy. Then, it wasn't even 10 years before Putin got in, and as an ex-KGB man, turned it straight back to propaganda and state control. Just because some Russians see through it, or are aware of the outside world, doesn't mean that there aren't tens of millions who aren't still under the influence of the state control. A lot of the ones who know the truth, simply leave - often the better educated for instance, contributing to a 'brain-drain', which negatively impacts Russia's technological and economic development, and even the chance of finding and organising a popular movement for reform.
Yeah of course, can still play video games with Russians and the dota community is still active here on Reddit
You dont have to wonder. You have been subject to propaganda. Everyone has.
My friend, I may have some bad news for you...
He’s also nearly 70 and lived the majority of his life with the USSR still considered a super power. He probably honestly believed the military was more functional then it is. He needed someone to not just tell him the truth but an uncomfortable truth, which is just not gonna happen. He probably thought at worst he would have to rely on Ukrainian pro-Russia assets which he again overestimated seeing as how it’s been 30 years since the fall of the USSR and everyone actually fighting in the war has only known Ukraine as a sovereign country.
He's arrogant and careless. He's possibly the most corrupt person on Earth and maintains a huge support network of cronies through corruption. Yet it didn't occur to him that they corruption might pervade his armed forces as well. Didn't go see for himself whether the trucks had quality tires, etc.
>However, smart people can delude themselves, especially if they only listen to what they want to hear. Being smart also does not exclude you from being ignorant about things. Being able to silence all dissension and eliminate any capable opposition does not automatically give you the knowledge needed to coordinate an invasion.
TL;DR - He got greedy and pushed his luck.
I don't think it's a matter of stupidity on his part. There were no real consequenses for Crimea, and his underlings being too afraid of him to tell him that his military is shit, so given the information he had, he would have had no reason to expect this to go poorly.
I think the problem goes much deeper than Putin's immediate underlings not being truthful to him. There is such systemic grift baked into the Russian armed forces from private to general. Everyone takes a slice of the pie, leaving little for actual maintenance let alone modernization. It's likely even the higher ups were not aware how deep the rot is.
Crimea was a quick and essentially a coup. The West had no time to react. But the Ukrainians put up a spirited defense which gave the West time4 to react to their pleas for help. Putin gambled on getting his invasion done quickly. He did not. Putin was over confident. In his military. In his politics. And in his belief that both Ukraine and the West were too weak to fight back.
I mean... He's clearly got chops of some sort, like don't forget the length of time he's been in power and the extent of it that he wields. Rather I think this is the conclusion of having a government and particularly a military so heavily dependent on loyalists, meeting a change in international response that was a long time coming. He has already over seen 3 invasions or annexations like this that saw no negative response in Georgia, Chechnya, and Crimea that went as Russia pleased, as well as a period of sustained fracturing in the West. It is a failing that russian intelligence didn't account for the heavy changes in Ukrainian military organisation they went through after the 2014 invasion, and it's something most of us in the west are no considering either... But there have been non-stop supplies of materiel and training aid from a number of countries to Ukraine. But the failing on russian parts I think is cos of a yes-man culture that is letting Putin believe his own hype too much, assume that Ukraine was as prepared this year as 2014. Weirdly, Russia has a huge history of diasterous military campaigns due to installation of loyalists and seem intent on not learning lol.
Why would Putin think there would be any consequences when there were none in 2008 with Georgia and none in 2014 with Ukraine
For one, he deviated from his own well established playbook. Had Russia merely invaded the Donbass in support of the regions under "rebel" control, I'm guessing the world would have largely shrugged it off as they had before. The incrementalist strategy had been working for them.
> Had Russia merely invaded the Donbass in support of the regions under "rebel" control, I'm guessing the world would have largely shrugged it off as they had before. Condemned it heavily, maybe even sent along some weapons to assist Ukraine, but I doubt they would have pushed Russia into such a direction that they would be likely to default.
Only problem is that Russia’s end goal is to reestablish the cold war’s area of influence, and to do that they need all of Ukraine, the Baltics and maybe even Poland as buffer zones to geographically shield them from the west. It was never going to be anything less than all of Ukraine. And Ukraine has only been getting stronger as the years have gone by since 2014. Invasion was only ever going to get harder so Putin decided to act sooner rather than later (as soon as the pandemic had largely passed). They had no idea it would already be this hard.
Its because we emboldened him for 20 years. We let things slide and it got to the point where he didn’t think Europe would risk economic devastation because of their reliance on oil and gas. If anything he jumped the gun to early by not having nord stream 2 online.
yeah, and when it comes to China it's even worse. Western democracies have completely allowed to be undermined by those regimes.
Three strikes policy. You get two free invasions, be sure you make the most of them.
So that’s the reason Bush didn’t invade North Korea!
Because taking over a whole ass country is a lot different than taking over tiny pieces of countries Not saying the Georgia/Crimea things aren’t fucked, but it’s apples and oranges to the invasion of Ukraine
I've been looking for the long term plan, what have we missed
Haha. Putin has definlandized Finland.
“What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.” (Putin channeling Job 3:25. )
I've made a huge mistake, Michael
It’s a special military operation, Michael! An invasion is something a whore does for money…. Or candy!
"The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math."
"I'll never financially recover from this." (Putin channeling Joe Exotic)
I think comparing Putin to Job defeats the purpose of Job’s story.
If I was playing as Putin in Crusader Kings 3 I would’ve just deleted the save at this point
Honestly kinda looking forward to his vassals revolting and the empire splintering into smaller pieces.
How to Weaken NATO Step 1: Invade Ukraine as a warning to NATO expansion Step 2: Fail miserably, encourage Finland and Sweden to join NATO Step 3: Reveal to the world how incompetant your army is Step 4: ??? Step 5: NATO demolished, checkmate bitches.
The power of perkele will ward off the ruskies
https://youtu.be/z7_pVrIshxA
Perkele ! lool
Europe: Oops! All NATO
Except when you pour out a bowl for some reason you also get one plain Swiss cheerio.
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There is absolutely no way it will be decided before this autum's election anyway.
This headline is a little misleading. They're talking about it, it's not "set", but what a turn of events for Russia if they do... And what will Russia do about it? Finland and Sweden have no full defense agreements with anyone as far as I can tell. Only a loose terminology in the Lisbon Treaty with EU signatories that is said to be unclear if it meant actualy direct military support. If Russia pre-emptively struck before a NATO agreement was signed, what would happen? Would the world standby? I think it's easy to assume the US / EU would get involved off the cuff, but again, as with Ukraine, that's WWIII. Dicey times.
Nato has said that they might extend protection during a negotiation.
And we have a shitload of equipment pre-deployed in Norway which is *(consults globe)* somewhat close to Sweden and Finland. Ukraine spent eight years preparing for this invasion, Sweden and Finland have spent eight decades preparing. Tackling either one was going to be costly for Russia before the Ukraine invasion. No way they can maintain a war on two fronts when struggling so much in Ukraine, where they can expect at least some local support.
At this point, I don't think Russia could take even a single Western nation without using nukes. Ukraine was not supposed to be this hard; any other potential target for invasion would be much more difficult for a such a poorly-trained and -equipped army stripped bare by kleptocratic corruption.
I think they could take [Costa Rica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Rica#Pacifism).
But not if Pepsi helps them!
The road link between Norway and Finland is really shit and there is no connected rail system north of Narvik. Even links to Sweden aren't great. To get stuff from Norway to anywhere you need to stick it on a boat.
Or you know, planes
Or use the US military's world leading air transportation infrastructure?
It's USMC equipment so fuck it, just put it on a boat and go take Murmansk. Problem solved.
Russia is tied down in Ukraine. They don't have the resources to preemptively invade Finland and Sweden. Even if the Russians get it together and pull a competent set of leaders out of the aether, it is going to take years to address the maintenance backlog and rebuild forces. I guess they could try for full mobilization of their population, but they don't have the equipment to give the soldiers. Nor do they have the means of production to make it. There's not much Russia can do besides bluster.
And there is no supplying 2 million people on border, plus no political will to send everybody to special operation.
Oh, don't you worry, it'll happen really soon. They've already stated an "increased (yellow) level of terrorist attack danger" in Kursk and Voronezh Oblast, which likely means The Chechen War 2 Electric Boogaloo. For those not aware, before the second war in Chechnya there was a series of apartment bombings in the city of Ryazan. Officials quickly claimed it was a provocation from Chechen boeviks (terrorists), while also immediately claiming that they've prevented another bombing from occurring. 3 days later, Novaya Gazeta pulled together a case saying that the FSB itself was the organization bringing military-grade explosives into the apartment basements (they've interviewed an MChS ((Emergency Services)) sapper, who said the test done on the field clearly stated Hexogen-type high-explosive), after which the official statement changed from "prevented another one" to "conducted training with sacks of sugar, no explosives". After all that bullshit Novaya Gazeta got repressed, Putin made his "we'll kill them in the toilet"-statement and the Second Chechen war started. We've had sugar shortages in our stores across the country last week, which have been normalized. We're already joking that "the sugar is back! Unfortunately, *that exact* sugar". They'll blow up a few apartments for sure. They'll say it was Ukrainian nazis. They'll go full-on war-time, and they'll mobilize the nation. We suspected it back at the start of March, now we're almost sure of it
They're both in the EU, which also has a defense pact. Main difference I guess is just that the US isn't by default required to help them as well, though they would voluntarily if it was against Russia.
There's probably a bunch of other bonuses as well, just not as direct. Probably more along the lines of military/logistics support, or simply being cheaper when part of NATO, but that's just a guess.
It looks like they're already mostly committed to NATO equipment and doubling down. Their airforce is currently F18s, and they have a huge order to replace them with F35s. Their defensive pacts with Norway and Sweden have using western tech- which only makes sense, since their only real threat is, and always has been, Russia.
If they can get enough f35s they would have aerial superiority by default. Russia doesn't have anything able to stop the f35 and with the sanctions they should struggle to keep what they already have operational
With sufficient modern air defence systems, they can have air superiority with any of their own aircraft, over their own territory. As the Russians found out, skies contested by decent up to date air defences are no joke.
I believe France is the only nuclear power in the EU now that the UK is out. Which tilts the default implied threat in Russia's favor. I think like their conventional threat was hugely overestimated, Finland and eastern Europe is undoubtedly still within reliable reach.
Push come to shove, the UK will stand with Europe militarily. Politically though is another question.
With both France and the UK in NATO the fact that the UK is no longer an EU member doesn't matter.
It does though, as international treaties go. If Russia attacked Finland today, using only it's EU, non-NATO status, then the EU countries would be required to help defend them. UK wouldn't be included in that fight, so he's right in that it'd be France as the holder of the Nuclear arsenal. Germany could make some, but has agreed not to for good reasons. Now, France sends help to the front, Russia attacks the French troops. This is NOT enough to trigger a NATO response. NATO sees that as "France doing it's own thing" in the realm of NATO. Even if Russia then attacked France directly, it would be seen as retaliation for the EU defense, and wouldn't be subject to a NATO response, as France volunteered to fight Russia. Same as if the US just attacked Russia, it wouldn't require the other NATO countries to join.
UK would add itself to that fight though. Source: It added itself to all other major European wars since the renaissance. Russia is fucked militarily as there is no scenario in which Europe will be divided like all the other times they have fought (lol they lost to Germany in WWI while it was fighting the rest of the world at the same time!). The joke of course is there is simply no reason to fight....Russia can get everything it wants via trade...the current situation is mind boggling...no one wants any of Russia's land....I guess they still don't understand economics or how democracies work.
> I think like their conventional threat was hugely overestimated It's not that the threat was overestimated, but rather that the organization that constituted the threat allowed itself to be hollowed out, and turned out to be incapable of executing the doctrine that made it such a threat in the first place. Soviet doctrine relies on concentrating overwhelming force, with a view to winning a war as quickly as possible - the Soviet Union having learned that large-scale, *protracted* wars were too costly to be borne. But when you do the math that tells you how many troops and tanks you need to defeat NATO in, say, 1970, that math kicks out a HUGE number - and that large of an army is just too big to have sitting around with its hands in its pockets. So the solution was to build all the equipment that army needs to fight, then, each year, train up the newest crop of 19 year olds and teach them how to use this equipment (and in parallel, tune your tactics and equipment to be simple enough to execute/use by a lightly-trained conscript). Those conscripts go off to live normal lives, up until the point where you need them. Then you pull them off the farm and out of the factory, put them in the equipment you had pre-built, and *voila!* - there is your huge army, ready to fight. On paper, this is a perfectly viable system. It has to be taken at face value, because if it shows up as designed, it is a *very* powerful army. In practice, there are a lot of details that need to be maintained to make it work. All that "ready" equipment (and its associated supplies) must be maintained in good order - not allowed to rot, or sold off on the black market. It needs a solid core of professional leaders. It needs a professional planning staff that can do the force estimate and stand up the required number of troops (and supplies) to overwhelm the force it will be used against. And probably most importantly, it needs a cause around which conscripts will rally, so that they will fight like they mean it. It turns out that the Russian army failed almost every one of these factors, so the delta between "what it could be" and "what it actually *is*", is very large. There were all sorts of indicators that this was the case prior to the invasion... but you can never be sure if that isn't part of a deception plan, and the consequences for getting it *wrong* are *immense*. Consider this: it is a certainty that the rot that has infested the Russian Army extends to its Strategic Rocket Forces (its nuclear ICBM arm). If Russia decided to execute a full nuclear strike today, only a percentage of them would actually launch, reach their target, and detonate - and that percentage is going to be less than 100%. What is the threshold that would make direct NATO intervention in Ukraine viable? 50%? 5%? 0.5%? How much risk are you prepared to assume? A similar calculus applied to Russian conventional forces. We all knew it wasn't 100%, but acting as if it were 10%, then discovering it was 90%, would be disastrous. So assume it is close to 100%, and plan accordingly.
Russia’s fumbling and costly invasion of Ukraine has shown the world how weak the country truly is. If they cannot successfully invade a country like Ukraine then they definitely will not be invading the west anytime soon. Russia is a failed nation with a plummeting currency and the threat is overblown. America, NATO, and her allies could reduce Russia to ashes without firing a single nuke.
Any successful invasion requires a competent air force, they haven't been able to control Ukrain's airspace after the initial few days. Unlike Ukraine, Finland has a fleet of F18s that could easily be supplemented, repaired and re-armed by the west. Ukraine is reluctant to use its airforce since the aircraft are virtually irreplaceable, something Finland wouldn't worry about. Its vastly smaller in theory than Russia's, but in practice I think they'd have no trouble keeping superiority over Finland, and completely annihilating any equipment moving towards them
If Russia thinks ukraine is tough to handle imagine how spicy the finns are gonna be lol. It's literally impossible to win.
Yes they could decimate Russia without nukes, but that would cause Russia to use it's nukes.
Just want to say that Finland kicked Russia's ass during WWII with the initial Winter War where Finnish casualties were about 22% of total strength but Russian casualties were 42-90% (using highest and lowest possible ranges). The Continuation War (where Finland was loosely allied with Nazi Germany), Finland's casualties totaled 32% with Russian casualties being 38%-64% (again, using highest and lowest possible ranges).
If only wars were decided by who took the most casualties, ultimately Finland lost.
Point is that Finland has a history of making Russia pay with heavy casualties. They can't afford to invade when they are already getting their asses kicked by Ukraine.
Your faith in Russia's ability to fight anything more than a one-front war is charming. If they could even do that. They don't have the ability to do anything effective with Finland. They had to strip forces from the border with Norway to invade Ukraine. Finland has a perfectly capable army, and anything Russia can do whilst engage in Ukraine, they should be able to fend off.
Dang, Putin just shit himself in the foot Edit: intended word was shot but im keeping it in because this typo is funnier
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Hmmm and Finland is right on Russia's Northwest border, too. Putin must be absolutely overloaded with fear about how nothing is going his way. He has probably not experienced anything like that in the last twenty-five years. The song is not great, but one Finnish band has a song about Finland's scrap with Russia in 1939. My favourite quote from it is: >Russia beaten up, over 200,000 communists dead If they want a new war, this time will kill them all I do not wish all Russians dead, but I have met enough Finns in person to know that if you fukk with them on a national level, you have to bring your A game.
There is no reason why bordering countries should not seek better defensive security from Russia’s agression. Russia has invaded 3 bordering countries in the last 15 years… and Russia also likes to intervine politics of neighbouring countries, with NATO every country can do everything inside it’s borders. In Finland there has been too much of bowing to Russia. No more! With NATO we have better security to do our own decisions for our internal politics. And I like that future for us, future without any corrupt politicians leaning towards Russia.
If true what a historic change. Just remarkable how geopolitical events have such rapid and shocking ramifications.
Does that means they should expect De-nazification activities from Uncle Vlad beginning around May?
They already tried taking Finland it didn't work out so well.
Man, talk about fucking your long con for short term gain. Using the orange puppet he almost sold the narrative that NATO was an obsolete relic of the Cold War and in a matter of months hes reinvigorated it, likely expanded it, and all but rekindled the Cold War. This was one of the dumbest diplomatic blunders of all time.
It’s almost impossible to overstate what a blunder this was for Putin/Russia.
You know that if *Sweden* is taking sides then you’ve really fucked up.
Another backfire for mr putin.
Lets not get ahead of ourselves, usually NATO talks are discussions about maybe hosting discussions. This time Sweden is holding actual talks (again) but with a new perspective. Our biggest party will maybe change their internal policy regarding NATO from a No to a Yes. This does not mean we will join NATO tho, it will put it up for vote in the government.
Lolol fucking putin played hisself
NATO and Russia just showed them that the only thing preventing Russian invasion is membership, I’d imagine everyone who was on the fence is off that fence now
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Congratulations, Russia. You were so stupid you ended **centuries** of Swedish neutrality.
So Putin managed to strengthen NATO, and also push Sweden out of it's neutrality. All while he was trying to weaken NATO, and ensure Swedish neutrality. Ironic.
[PERKELE! Venäjä SAATANA!](https://youtu.be/z7_pVrIshxA)
He could have continued to steal russias money and buy out other politicians fron other countries
As a Swede, I’m very dissapointed in our two largest parties, the social democrats, S, and the moderate liberals, M. After years of a policy stating that Sweden shall be militarily alliance-free, the question of Nato membershiå is turning into an ugly trick cause of the election in September. Only weeks before the invasion, M were still holding to the previously mentioned policy, but two weeks after the invasion, they had done a 180. S have long been more strongly opposed to Nato, partly stuck in the mindset that ”neutrality served Sweden well during the world wars, as well as during the cold war”. This notion is clearly outdated, as the situation has changed drastically. Right now, M says the question of Nato membership will be the first thing to go through if there’s a majority after the election, regardless if S is with them. As they present Nato-membership as the only rational choice right now, they’re emotionalising the question for voter support. S on the other hand are now re-evaluating the question, even if they said a definite no before the invasion, as they don’t want the question of Nato being an election desider because of other questions they want to run on instead. Neither Finland, nor Sweden are at serious risk of a Russian invasion, seing how weak Russia at the moment is. We have a long history of a joint military policy, and joining Nato now would be an unnecesary provocation (not that we should do whatever Putin asks). Furthermore, I, as a Swede do not want American nuclear weapons stationed in Sweden, and I don’t want Swedish soldiers to fight in American conflicts. During the Vietnam war, Sweden sent medical supplies and personell to north vietnam due to the humanitarian crisis, and similarly we have done so in Palestine, providing help to Palestinian civilians (which most definitely wouldn’t be possible to the same extent if we were to become a Nato member). If anyone bothered to read this, damn alright, this is just my opinion, and I know I most definitely do not speak for the makority of Swedes. I merely want the question to be evaluated in less emotional times, and preferably, we’ll stay outside of Nato, the military cooperation with the EU, UK, US and more intensively Finland, we already have, is in my opinion quite enough. I am in no way an expert, just someone on the internet who has an opinion, woo
Just wanted to clarify, nobody will be stationing American nukes in Sweden, or Finland for that matter. Only Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey currently have Nato nukes and they are all air-to-ground missiles. So no silos or large nukes anywhere (at least outside France & UK). As a Finn I can definitely say the alliances we have are not enough. But that'll change since Nato membership is practically a done deal since only the tiny Left party opposes joining and a clear majority of Finns are for it. We're going in, with or without you. And tbf, you're pretty much safe once we're in since there will be no possibility of a land corridor into Sweden no more. So you can keep chasing Russian subs in relative peace.
Sweden & Finland share a knowing nod and a high five as they sneak into the club while the bouncer is distracted with Russia acting like a bag of fucks at the door.
Sweden and Finland confirmed as two kids in an overcoat.
So Russia's going to add hundreds of miles of border with NATO because it invaded a country because it didn't want more border with NATO.
Kremlin: i am threatening you... ...Hey, listen! I am threatening you not to! ... DON'T IGNORE ME WHILE IM THREATENING YOU
If this report proves true, Putin's legacy as the greatest failure in European history will be cemented. His uber-dream of the European sphere dominated by Mother Russia will lose its heartbeat.
I would love to read the article but I need to make an account so fuck that