20743

Actually, this is false. Russia’s problem during much of the war is the fact that they have too much armor and too little infantry. This allowed Ukrainian infantry the ability to ambush and kill Russian tanks, IFV’s, and APC’s again and again.

Their IFV’s and APC’s oftentimes only had crew members but carried no supporting infantry. Without adequate infantry to dismount and screen and protect their armor when necessary, their armor were sitting ducks. Thus has been noted multiple times by Western analysts during the war.

The fact that you are not aware of widely known assessment is surprising - or maybe not?

20744

They won’t have a choice. Their frozen reserves in the West will be used to rebuild Ukraine

20745

This so bogus, it’s mere parroting of Russian propaganda. Since 2014 NATO has helped transform the UA into a western style force. Tens of thousand of Ukrainian troops were trained and there were annual exercises with Ukraine and NATO forces.

I listened to a podcast where a retired US general described what they did and the obstacles they faced from an officer corp trained to think and fight in the Soviet style and it was very interesting - and sometimes funny. The process wasn’t perfect, there were bumps in the road, and the process was ongoing, but the UA was heads and tails better and improved from when the process was first begun. And they certainly were better than the Russians.

Here’s just one article on the impact of this training (and I can share many more):

In addition, this denies agency to the Ukrainian people. The idea that NATO is directing this war, that Ukraine is just a puppet tool of the West is just Russian propaganda, and is insulting to Ukrainians who are fighting and dying for their country.

After your last few posts, I have to wonder just how widely read you are on the subjects we are discussing, beyond watching a few YouTube videos. You constantly make broad and often incorrect sweeping statements, with little in the way of supporting evidence. It’s definitely a pattern.

20746

Thank you, said better than I could. The belittling of Ukrainians every few posts has really started to bug me so I’m glad you called that out too.

20747

At this point I’m pretty sure Janster is just drawing his theories from old textbooks he still has from his time earning a degree from the University of Tom Clancy.

20748

Tom Clancy at least talked to actual military experts.

20749

I re-read Red Storm Rising a few months ago, and while Clancy had a much higher opinion of the Russian gear and soldiers, he did call out most of the institutional problems with Russian leadership and their way of doing battle in general. It wasn’t a huge part of the book but there was a lot of skepticism about Russia even back then.

20750

I’m not calling out Tom Clancy here - he was an excellent author and his work demonstrated that he researched many of his topics thoroughly while writing (although some decidedly less well). I’m just making a tongue-in-cheek comment about people who have read his work and subsequently deem themselves experts in the field :)

20751

There is nearly $300billion in Russian central bank reserves, frozen in Western countries. It might be unprecedented to confiscate that money as reparations for Ukraine, but also completely justified.

20752

Crippling reparations would be a disaster anyway. What we need from Russia is for their war criminals to be brought to justice. How we end up in the situation where that happens, I don’t know. But that just goes back to the fact that any realistic endgame scenarios for this war are hard to see right now. Regardless, we in the West need to be prepared to provide Ukraine the resources to rebuild. And if Russia cleans house we need to be ready to help them too.

20753

The only way we’re getting those folks is abducting them, which risks tit for tat. (imagine 100 Griners)

It’s a tool we shouldn’t reject out of hand completely, but it’s a tool that should be very rarely used.

20754

I don’t think that’s the only way. The other ways just require some really big changes in Russia which would require things to get way worse for them internally first. Will that actually happen? No idea, but if Putin just keeps on doubling down on Ukraine it very well may.

In a way Russia just pulling out of Ukraine in, say, the next 6 months will probably the worst outcome where Ukraine wins in the long run for the global community. Good for Ukraine for this to end ASAP but we’d pretty much be back in another very tense cold war with Russia.

20755

We can at least agree that your assertion that this tranche of mobilisation included the already trained reservists that just need equipping and sending to the front lines was completely incorrect according to Perun?

20756

And in fact according to the very sources Janster has repeatedly quoted the number of mobilized troops sent to the front is in the 50-60k range, is supposed to be made up of already trained reservists and specialists but in fact from battlefield accounts on both sides includes a significant number of untrained and very poorly equipped and led men.

Analysts best guess is that Russia is trying to constitute a new army from this mobilization wave (which will take months) while trying to cling to their occupied territory by rushing a certain portion of those troops to the front.

This new army, if all goes perfectly well, will be something like 150-250k strong, and probably they hope this will be enough fighting power to take to the offensive in the spring. But… there is every chance it will be fed into the fray piecemeal much as has most of the current Russian army.

20757

Oops

20758

No one is saying you’re lying. But you talk up your power bill as if this is a normal thing and people are going to go crazy over power prices, when the fact is that to rack up that kind of bill in Scandinavia you either have a terrible power contract, a hugely energy-inefficient house, and/or an absolutely huge house (like 3-4 times the average home size in Norway). #1 and #2 are things you could have done something about (and still can), and #3 makes you not representative of the average person.

The reality is that power prices in Scandinavia are not primarily being driven by the war at this point, and in fact the prices in Norway this autumn/winter have generally been lower in 2022 than they were in 2021 (when there was no war). In addition to which the high energy prices we’ve had for more than a year now has also made people better saving power (~15% lower energy consumption than 2021, on average). So no - people are not suddenly going to change their opinion about the war due to energy prices, and the governments certainly won’t.

20759

Okay, a lot of back and forth here, I think I will sum my thoughts up quick and answer Strategy above.

  1. 300k are being deployed, piecemeal, we have amble evidence of troops being sent out with just a couple of days of basic training, or nothing at all. Come december, I think all of them will be doing something on the frontline, maybe not all fodder but you know, something.

  2. Open ended mobilisation, Perun says so, Task and Force says so, these are my two go to guys and I agree with that, they don’t state any number, however this is my assement, 300k is NOT ENOUGH, they need a really huge force to get this job done, if they want to win…A million sounds good.

  3. Yes, its a shit show, but its not impossible for them to do so, I don’t get why this should be so hard to understand, this isn’t US army we’re talking about ,its just trucks, people and living of the land, yes, they are THAT callous.

I don’t know where you get your numbers from, but my spotprice app doesn’t agree with your assessment, look for yourself.

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Prices are down right now because of wet autumn, but soon winter comes and we’re going to be fucked, cause those spikes you see are in the SUMMER were power generally has cost nothing here.

So, yes, energy prices and gas prices will influence things in the future, it would be wise to include them into your Strategy.

20760
20762

You were advocating shutting down nuclear power plants, if I recall.

20763

I remember being at a political meeting taking heavy shit 4 years ago advocating the exact opposite, I really hope I haven’t written anything to that extent Timex, cause that would undermine my position these last 10 years.

I just don’t think they should be built on faultlines.