Too much residual polonium?
Had you noticed that working out well for the States?
Not those articles, but it was discussed in the thread when it was initially reported two days ago.
-Tom
They’ve also stayed there for a while and it’s a relatively populated area. Russian troops near Kiev march from Belarus, you can look at the map and see that Homel - one of the biggest Belarusian cities - is on the border with Ukraine.
“An army marches on it’s stomach” is like, one of the oldest most well known phrases about this sort of thing. It suggests huge dysfunction if - if! - these reports are all borne out as representative rather than just exceptional anecdote.
The fog of war is real, and I’m really not sure what to believe (though it’s clear Russia is, at best, in for a bloody occupation dealing with insurgents for years to come).
Wendover tackles Russia’s logistics problems. Very nicely explained.
I guess one needs to define complimentary to have this discussion. China needs a lot of energy and agriculture, as well as some types of military hardware. Russia needs consumer and industrial manufactured goods. In my view that is complimentary.
Most of the analysis to the contrary seems to focus on how small the trade relationship is from China’s point of view. By that definition nearly no country is complimentary to China’s economy, since it trades heavily with pretty much every country. I think this is merely evidence of the obvious, that Russia is the junior partner.
TLDR: The Russian military’s logistics have always sucked when forced to extend outside their own rail network.
Supposed FSB leak. It may be Ukrainian pysop but those that have studied thus sort of stuff says it has a ring of truth/authenticity:
Aleck
6163
I can’t wait to see pictures of the meeting with the Israelis. I have a theory that Putin is suffering from a Pinocchio-like condition, but with each lie the tables (rather than his nose) get longer.
It agrees with some thoughts expressed by other analysts e.g. possible Ukrainian over-commitment in the East, Ukraine’s probable lack of any operational mobility. But really, using that map just kills any willingness I have to believe that he’s expressing honest good faith opinions. That map is so out of sync with all the other information that is out there, and when you take away that map the words suddenly sound a lot less plausible.
The second map showing possible Russian encirclements shows how far he is in fantasy land:
Those 200km long red arrows describe an encirclement operation that’s bigger and more complicated than Stalingrad. We know for sure now that the Russian army can’t do this. By everything we’ve seen, they couldn’t even supply it.
Amazing read. Don’t know how to know if it’s real or crap, but thanks for posting anyway.
It’s a bit like the famous Trump hurricane sharpie move. Don’t like the situation on the ground? Draw some long lines!
But I’m sure those vans will get right through
Remember when Trump wanted a tank parade in downtown DC? This is why the generals told him it was a bad idea.
I hadn’t considered the questioning at the end on doubts of whether Russia could even successfully launch a full nuclear strike. What are the odds it’s all been properly maintained vs that maintenance money just disappearing with falsified maintenance records.
I guess the odds are above zero, for sure…but testing that hypothesis essentially is Bug Bunny testing shells on the munitions assembly line…
I’m certainly not interested in testing it and I hope the man in charge isn’t either. Just an interesting thing to consider.
