Ill-equipped armies caught in a Russian winter have come to grief in the past. (Napoleon, Hitler)
Wouldn’t it be ironical if a Russian army came to grief in the winter because they were ill-equipped?
Of course, Ukraine’s climate is warmer than northern Russia, but still.
Wendy
In my opinion, bringing 300,000 troops to the front as a well-oiled and well-equipped military machine is not likely and having these troops even moderately grouped before winter hits is mearly aspirational.
My surmise is that they aren’t bringing “these” troops to the front, many/most of them will relieve troops stationed elsewhere, usually at the borders with China, India, etc. where the newbies can be “trained” as replacements, and the troops already at those border points (and elsewhere, if applicable) can be shuttled in to the Ukraine. That would make the transition possible within a few days or weeks at most, and would put troops already in the system into the meat grinder.
Eventually, of course, these new “recruits” would also be sent into the maw, but probably not immediately. It would be exceptionally stupid to take people off the streets, size them for a uniform, give them bad weapons and send them to the front lines. Nobody would ever do that!
Oh wait!
In short, after throwing whatever stuff they could easily lay their hands on into Ukraine earlier in the war, idle minds wounder whether they have been holding back the warehouses full of modern tanks, artillery pieces and so on - not to mention uniforms, trucks and so on which will be required along with the required massive logistical support needed.
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Why do you think they did not use their best tanks and artillery already?
Jaak
In my opinion, bringing 300,000 troops to the front as a well-oiled and well-equipped military machine is not likely and having these troops even moderately grouped before winter hits is mearly aspirational.
Wasn’t it the Russians who threw people out of airplanes wrapped in hay bales during WWII to see if they could find a substitute for parachutes?
Easy to see why Russian vets are buying plane tickets.
That analysis assumes none of the new conscripts go into support and logistics.
Of course, people in those roles also need some equipment and supplies - and having the people in place to ship stuff doesn’t help if there is no stuff for them to ship.
It was stated, I think in the NYT, that the 300k would be gradually brought into the military operations over the entirety of 2023.
The decree signed on Wednesday by Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to allow for wider mobilization than he suggested in his Wednesday morning speech.
“We are talking about partial mobilization,” President Putin said on Wednesday in his televised address. “In other words, only military reservists, primarily those who served in the armed forces and have specific military occupational specialties and corresponding experience, will be called up.”
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, too, said that “there is no question of any mobilization of university students and there will be none under no circumstances.”
The first paragraph of the decree signed by President Putin talks about a “partial mobilization.”
But it does not define those eligible as narrowly as Russia’s leader did in his address. Instead, it says that the only people to which it does not apply are those who are ineligible because of age, sickness, or imprisonment.
In paragraph two, it says that the president has decided “to call up citizens of the Russian Federation for military service by mobilization into the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Citizens of the Russian Federation called up for military service under mobilization shall have the status of enlisted military personnel performing military service in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on a contractual basis.”
Ekaterina Schulmann, a Russian political scientist and associate fellow at Chatham House, said on Telegram that while the decree “describes the mobilization as partial,” it “sets no parameters of this partiality, either territorial or categoric.”
“According to this text, anyone can be called up except for those working in the military-industrial complex who are exempt for the period of their employment. The fact that the mobilization applies only to reservists or those with some particularly necessary skills is mentioned in the address, but not in the decree,” she said.
Russian human rights lawyer Pavel Chikov, also on Telegram, said that the decree sets out mobilization “in the broadest terms.”
“The president is leaving it at the Defense Minister’s discretion. So in fact it is the Russian Defense Ministry that will decide who will be sent to war, from where and in what numbers.”
Also, note that all the stories of new conscripts under this edict show groups coming from the Russian Far East which is like seven time zones away from Ukraine. They are less likely to sympathize with Ukrainian Europeans.
Jeff
From a fellow in the modding community who is considering bug-out options…
They sent the conscription summon document to a man who is in C category (allowed under severe restrictions) and has health issues… So they don’t send only to A (allowed perfectly) and B (allowed with some minor issues), but basically everyone.
Yeah, nothing to see here… no general conscription… move along… move along…
Yeah, nothing to see here… no general conscription… move along… move along…
They can’t move. Evening news showed a 10 mile long traffic jam at a border crossing, folks trying to get out.
Steve
“We are talking about partial mobilization,” President Putin said on Wednesday in his televised address. “In other words, only military reservists, primarily those who served in the armed forces and have specific military occupational specialties and corresponding experience, will be called up.”
Translating from the original Russian to English:
“In other words, only those with a pulse"
Mike
Looking for love in all the wrong places.
In an early sign of how seriously Moscow is ramping up its efforts, the Human Rights Council of Russia has proposed that immigrants from central Asian countries who have had Russian citizenship for less than 10 years will undergo compulsory military service in Russia for a year.
“We are preparing proposals for new citizens of the Russian Federation who have Russian citizenship for less than 10 years to do compulsory military service for a year for people from Central Asian countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan,” council member Kirill Kabanov wrote on Telegram Thursday.
“Refusal to perform military duty should entail the deprivation of Russian citizenship not only for a person liable for military service, but also for members of his family,” he added.
At least 1,300 people were detained across Russia on Wednesday for participating in nationwide anti-war protests – with some directly conscripted into the military, according to a monitoring group
Jeff
In an early sign of how seriously Moscow is ramping up its efforts …
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Russian protests are spreading, people are fleeing Russia, criminals from jails are being let lose and troops are surrendering.
People in Central Asian countries would rather lose the stinking Russian citizenship than die in the Ukraine from USA bullets.
Time for the Red Army and FSB to quietly remove Putin to his dacha permanently.
Jaak
War is certainly not going the way Russia planned. I think some desperation is starting to set in now
War
Be careful-we are
We have to be very careful about making assumptions. Most of our data about this conflict is being provided by Ukraine, ether directly or through supporting Western country’s military/intelligence agencies. We classify any reports by the Russians as disinformation, but seem happy to accept everything from the “good guys” as gospel.
Ukraine does not divulge any casualty reports, but granting that they are giving more abuse than they are taking, I’m guessing both the number of casualties and wrecked pieces of military equipment on their side has to also be substantial.
Russia has been telegraphing the potential of opening a new front on the northern border with Belarus and, while their force may be modest in size, the border is long and Ukraine will be force to drain resources from the active fronts to address this.
The elephant in the room is that the war will undoubtably slow to mutual pounding by artillery of various flavors once winter takes over. While Ukraine has been taking the brunt of this sort of activity when civilian cities are involved, they have apparent also been retaliating by hitting Russian towns across the eastern border. One could argue that the Russians are hitting Ukraine in retaliation for their attacks on what Russia feels is their territory (including in Crimea). I’m guessing that the more incursions Ukraine makes into Russia-proper which hit non-military infrastructure, whether by uniformed military or saboteurs, the more likely it will be for the Russians to hit their civilian power plants during the winter and occasionally blow up random buildings.
Once spring blooms, we can expect to see the 200-300 thousand recruits just accumulated by Russia enter the battle. Sure, they will have just a few months of training and might be carrying AK-47’s and be accompanied by Soviet period tanks, but they will be fresh and there will be a whole lot of them.
While it’s easy to sneer at the Russian generals for being incompetent, just as in WWII, the rotten ones will be continually replaced until they collect competent ones in the top command. The “forever war” favors the Russians winning by attrition (assuming the EU/US/UK/NATO do not get directly involved). While Ukraine is within its rights to demand back every bit of their original territory, my guess is the best they can hope for is giving up Crimea and likely going back to their boundaries at the start of this leg of the conflict.
It is important to remember that this is a war and both sides are doing their utmost to make life (or death) unbearable for the other. Assuming that one side has all thee light and the other all the dark does not allow for objective thinking.
Jeff
Or it could go another way entirely. Let’s remember Afghanistan:
The long-term impact of the invasion and subsequent war was profound. First, the Soviets never recovered from the public relations and financial losses, which significantly contributed to the fall of the Soviet empire in 1991.
Good point SB (and all the rest of the 20 characters)
We don’t know exactly how the war is going for either side, but we can make some estimates. Open sources have documented Russian and Ukrainian losses. While Russia started off with a whopping equipment advantage, they have documented losses of more equipment than most armies even own. Interestingly, Russia recently started modernizing 800 T-62 tanks. The T-62 was retired in the 1970s. Even with upgraded optics and explosive reactive armor, it belongs in museums. That indicates the Russians are either running out of tanks, or are anticipating running out of tanks. This can’t be good.
The newly conscripted soldiers are already arriving on the battlefield. But they haven’t been training for months, more like a couple of days.
A half-dozen Russian soldiers talk about being shipped to an area of intense fighting in eastern Ukraine just 11 days after their mobilization. Asked about his shooting practice, a bearded conscript says, “Once. Three magazines.”…
…Elsewhere, scores of relatives of freshly drafted Russian soldiers crowd outside a training center, passing items through its fence to the recruits — boots, berets, bulletproof vests, backpacks, sleeping bags, camping mats, medicine, bandages and food.
Russia’s Achilles heel throughout this conflict has been the lack of effective combined arms fighting. Instead, they have relied on their massive artillery advantage–which is steadily being eroded. Hundreds of thousands of poorly trained conscripts won’t fix that problem.
I don’t know what kind of training regular Ukrainian conscripts are getting, but thousands are being trained in the UK and other NATO countries, and outfitted with modern equipment. That’s surely better than what the Russians are getting.
The key here is the Ukraine is being resupplied by the West (in a lumpy manner, to be sure). Ukrainian air defenses are getting stronger, artillery is getting better, foreign infantry fighting vehicles (but not tanks) are being deployed in increasing numbers. At the same time, Russia is digging deeper into their inventory of Soviet-era junk.
I don’t know how this will play out in the next few months, but I don’t see any hope of the Russians holding onto their existing gains, much less being able to conduct an offensive.
It’s also important to consider motivation - both of the soldiers and the general populace.
The first piece on 60 Minutes yesterday was a heart-breaking look a the civilians in Ukraine killed by the Russian army. Events like that tend to harden the survivors, making them more willing to fight and more accepting of the personal difficulties of supporting their country in war.
And we should not forget the lesson of wars in places like Vietnam and Afghanistan and perhaps London (early WWII). People fighting for their own country and land are far more resilient and creative and tenacious than those on the invading side. Invaders will eventually tire of trying to beat the invaded into submission. The invaded will keep fighting to the very end.
If Ukraine can avoid straight up retaliation on civilians in Russian territory and limit their attacks to proper military objectives - with limited civilian casualties - they may be able to win on the psychological front. And that could give them some advantage to offset the likely numerical advantage on the Russian side.
–Peter
What I keep thinking of, while watching “news” coverage of drone attacks on Ukrainian civilian areas, are the V-1 strikes.
For the record, mass production of V-1s did not start until spring 44, when the noose was starting to close on the Nazis. The first launches were a few days after the Normandy landing.
Appears that, like the Nazis, Putin has resorted to terrorism to offset battlefield losses.
Steve
We have many examples of how terrorism is counterproductive. Hitler’s indiscriminate bombing on London only made them more cohesive and more willing to fight against him. The 9/11 attacks brought America together in a way that hasn’t been replicated since December 7, 1941. The occasional bombing of military recruiters by extremists during the Vietnam war only set the population against the anti-war advocates.
We used aerial bombing “correctly” in the Gulf War, to take out important strategic targets with minimal collateral damage: communication centers, military HQs, etc.
It’s possible, I suppose that with enough terror bombing the populace might finally say “OK, we’ve had it”, but that hardly argues for a peaceful resolution to things, and I can see internal guerilla campaigns against “occupiers” going on for years, if not decades.
I have a Ukrainian flag in front of my house (and donations to various groups); I hope that we have the political will to continue to support them. Putin will never be satisfied with “just enough”. We might as well step off an airplane waving a peace of paper and say “Peace in our time”; it would have equivalent value.