Moscow says it will keep pushing its offensive in Ukraine, though NATO doubts Russia has the resources to make a significant breakthrough.
NATO’s top military officer has said Russia’s armed forces are incapable of any major advance.
“The Russians don’t have the numbers necessary to do a strategic breakthrough,” NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe Christopher Cavoli told reporters on Thursday.
“More to the point, they don’t have the skill and the capability to do it; to operate at the scale necessary to exploit any breakthrough to strategic advantage,” the general said.
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They could still hold onto the land and Ukrainian population they’ve taken so far. Anything less than Ukraine regaining Crimea and the rest of its territory will not only be a loss for them, but would tell the Russian government that the West would rather appease them than let allow a conflict to escalate further. Appeasement didn’t work on Hitler, and it won’t work on Putin either.
Considering after two years of a Military Operation that was supposed to last weeks, they are now putting someone in to put them into a “wartime economy footing” I expect them to eventually either lose or have all of Ukraine. There really doesn’t seem to be middle ground for Putin.
Even if they would get all of Ukraine, I would expect quite a bit of underground resistance that would make holding on to Ukraine expensive.
Then why the fuck did they send so many troops to Libya?!
I guess I shouldn’t complain too hard, you never want to correct an enemy when they’re making a mistake.
Because they have strategic interests across the globe. From the Russian perspective, taking control of Ukraine would be great, but preventing them from intefrating into the EU and NATO is the real focus. Ukraine can’t take back the occupied lands, and Russia will be able to l outlast Ukraine in an attritional war.
Okay not that I’m insinuating that this is the same circumstance, but the last time a certain nation said this, it eventually backfired.
Putin’s plan to capture Ukraine failed miserably, but Russia still has a significant fighting force and time to keep drawing this war out as long as they want.
Ukraine’s former general emphasized their own losses and said it was critical that Ukraine train more troops and acquire supplies quickly.
They can’t afford to stock on latest greatest weapons which is why they’ve been overly reliant on donations of old and surplus tech, especially vehicles.
NATO, ie mostly the USA, has failed to supply Ukraine with any significant stock of modern muntions that would give them an edge against Russia. It’s been two years and they still don’t have base block F-16s which would absolutely have helped during the early stages of the war.
Russia can keep the war machine going, slowly rearm, and try again, which could prove detrimental for Ukraine. They need to be decisively defeated in order for Ukraine to succeed.
For Ukraine’s sake, I really hope someone diposes Putin in a coup, considering how much of a wreck he made.
Both can be true: Russia can lack numbers to make a strategic breakthrough, and Ukraine can simultaneously not be able to field enough materiel to be able to recapture their losses.
IMO the most likely outcome is a stalemate that turns into de jure conquest of the territory Russia has captured and it turns into a cold (or at least cooler) war.
For Ukraine’s sake, I really hope someone diposes Putin in a coup
Yeah you don’t want that, the second biggest party is the communists, but from what I hear they’re not really communists, just boomers nostalgic for the USSR.
The nationalists waiting in the wings to seize power are even more psychotic than Putin.
The liberals are a distant 4th want to bring back the 90s, which created the conditions that got us here.
The communists would maintain the war for the same reasons the Putin does
The nationalists would make it 10x worse
The libs might end the war, but would definitely immiserate all of Russia again so the nationalists have an easier time recruiting.
Great, let the Russians break their backs over this.
I’d like to see their military capabilities in traction for a while.
If the Russians can’t succeed with numbers, will they escalate?
… to what?
Are you suggesting we’re still waiting for the real Russian military to show up?
Or are you suggesting Russian deployment of tactical nuclear weapons?
Or is there another way that Russia could further escalate I can’t think of?
I worry that they will escalate with nuclear weapons. Putin seems hell bent on starting WW III.
Nuclear weapons will lose all their remaining international support, as well as NATO launching full conventional strikes against every Russian military asset in the Black Sea and occupied Ukraine. Russia knows that use of tactical nuclear weapons will result in the total collapse of the Russian state, which is why theu are aonky going to use them if NATO troops coming knocking on the doors of St. Petersburg
Nuclear weapon usage does not result in WWIII, it’s an end the world button.
It depends on how retaliation goes. If the side that’s attacked uses conventional weaponry, we’re all fine.
So basically if Russia starts using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, NATO could respond with a conventional invasion of Russia and be done before noon. There’s scenarios where the rest of the world is fine if Russia uses nukes. But there’s no scenario where Russia is fine if they use nukes.
The only leverage Russia has to prevent all of NATO from joining in militarily is nukes. Using a nuke removes that leverage.
Exactly. Russia is not going to nuke anyone because they are not an ideological state like the USSR. They are a kleptocracy. Generals will not allow their grift to be interrupted, and it makes no money if you nuke something.
Russia has repeatedly stated than NATO troops on Russian soil will result in nuclear strikes of NATO targets. Russia has seen two different apocalyptic invasions in the past 200 years, and they are committed to inflicting that onto any realized threats.
There is no scenario short of Russian invasion of a NATO country that will wee NATO forces enter Russia or Belarus. Any Western response will be conventional, but total, strikes if Russian military assets in the Black Sea and occupied Ukraine.
Sure but if Russia is willing to open the nuclear Pandora’s box because they can’t make progress in their war in Ukraine, what do you think they will do if they are about to lose a war to NATO in an afternoon? I don’t see use of nukes here ending a different way even in the case where NATO initially responds with conventional arms only. Who knows though, I’m pretty damn far from an expert here but hopefully we never have to find out.
