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Since it seems that the situation has settled into another quite period while the sides sort their shit out, any other other DISGUSTING GEAR FUCKERS want to make predictions about the Special Operation?
Last time, I did better than most but still got blown the fuck out 'cause of shocking aggression from Ukraine and surprising incompetence from Russia, but Russia is running out of easy room to be incompetent and Ukraine is reaching the limits of easy aggression.
That said: Newest aid packages to Ukraine add capabilities that they did not have before, eg, a tank with a computer in it that was designed after the end of the cold war that doesn't explode if you sneeze on it, and Russia just dismissed the dude that organized the super clean double retreat across the dnipro (which was shocking; I wasn't sure it would happen but if it happened I thought it would be some combination of snafu and bloodbath).
None of this might matter given the fact that Russians are settles/behind a river.
Even with all this, it seems like the war will not end for the foreseeable future baring Putin dying of cancer and maybe not even then.
95% the war continues into 2024 in some regard
GIVEN PUTIN DIES in the next 5 months: 80% the war continues into 2024 in some regard
85% the war is HOT into 2024
90% no major territorial changes in the next 1 months
70% no major territorial changes in the next 3 months
40% no major territorial changes in the next 11 months
99% no nuclear action taken by Russia over the next 11 months.
60% Ukraine gets ATACMS in the next 3 months.
From an American point of view, while I'm totally sucked into supporting Ukraine and hating Russia's invasion, it's pretty nice that Russia is bleeding itself on the other side of the world with all kinds of internal tension and dissent. I have Ukrainian friends, and while I'd love to see Russia expelled immediately and peace restored, that is only a temporary reprieve from Russia's imperial ambitions. So while a grinding stalemate is terrible for Ukraine, I don't mind seeing the greatest geopolitical blunder in my lifetime be extended indefinitely to Russia's detriment.
I had honestly hoped for greater ties and reconciliation with Russia in 2005ish era. I wonder if that was truly a possibility or just foolish.
Where do you get your information to form a guess of what is happening in the Russia-Ukraine war or inside Russia itself?
/r/credibledefense daily megathreads mostly. Also /r/combatfootage has a megathread
Then you suffer from a very potent information exposure black hole, thankfully you can see the other side of the coin on https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport
example of great footage probably downvoted to hell and therefore hidden on combatfootage
https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/10muegb/ru_pov_a_single_russian_t72b3_with_artillery/
IMO that's a very great footage to contemplate how inept war performance is in the real world.
(not saying that Ukraine soldiers are more inept than russian ones, but that all are, confused, maximizing their survival and fake firing in the general direction) This observation has major implications.
but this subreddit most potent usefulness is not showing ukrainian losses but that it allows to be much more informed about issues in Ukraine, including human rights abuses, accounts of government corruption, etc.
If staying up to date on both sides actually mattered for me, I would. While /r/credibledefense certainly has a majority western perspective and bias, there are plenty of pro russian viewpoints which, if expressed soberly and analytically, get upvoted. Mostly, I am interested in where the front lines are, what do the Ukrainian defensive strategies look like, what is the OSINT consensus on Russian buildup and activity. I have zero interest in consuming Russian propaganda, even though it would balance my information diet. I do like hearing analytical Russian perspectives when they don’t set off propaganda red flags.
Only ukrainerussiareport will show the true Ukrainian military hardware losses which is necessary to have predictive power and when/if its defense capabilities will break down.
Ukrainerussiareport is mostly not propaganda btw, much less so than are the other subs, especially since many commenters are pro-ukrainian which give a certain rare balance.
Individual videos are generally utterly useless for that. Or multiple individual videos without broader analysis. Except cases of extremely rare kills. For example Russia unable to show single attack on HIMARS is a good indicator of 100% survival rate. Or video of Moscov being towed to the port after sustaining damage in storm sinking after Ukrainian rocket attack. War is large and looking at biased sample of 100 videos showing attacks on something is not giving significant predictive power about overall defense capabilities of either side.
Only systematic collection of data on larger scale is useful for predictive power as far as tanks/IFV go. Ukrainian official data is propaganda a bit based on facts. Russian official data is useful only as jokes. Oryx is not ideal but at least reality adjacent. Other sources are not available for randos discussing on the internet.
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Can you give specific numbers for what you think Ukrainian losses are? Numbers from the Kremlin are ridiculous to the point where they fall apart from you start to compare them to what we know Ukraine has. All other estimates I've seen favour Ukraine to some degree when comparing losses
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Thanks. I don't have any experience with those. I'll check them out.
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I really can't imagine what could've been a better geopolitical victory for America short of Putin reading John Locke and deciding to go all out on pushing democracy and individual rights then retiring.
For the record, the RAND think tank recently released a report talking about how the Ukraine conflict, which they originally proposed in 2019 as an effort to "extend" Russia, is now having the opposite effect (i.e. extending the US). Rather than a US geopolitical victory, the US military is actually now talking about how they're going to have to pull back out of the Ukraine in order to avoid becoming overextended and hence unable to deal with China in other theatres.
[citation needed]
Which US military would be even pulling out of Ukraine?
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Aligning with Russia to counter Chinese expansion by pressuring Ukraine to abide by the Minsk II accords would have been a better "geopolitical victory." The current strategy will lead to short-term gains and long term weakening of the GAE generally, although the strategy does ensure deeper American control over its Euro feifs. GAE runs on the dollar economy and it extracts large control and rent from that system; the insanity of the economic sanctions and seizures GAE instituted have ensured dedollarization will accelerate.
What do you form your opinion of Putin and his politics on?
I personally don't trust Russia to ever act as a loyal ally, so I don't think aligning with Russia was a real possibility, short of something like my example of Putin randomly undergoing a big personality shift to choose to align with the US at the expense of his own personal power.
I don't know a ton about Putin, but my basic model of him is that he enjoys having lots of power and likes being respected/feared, and doesn't particularly care about who he has to hurt or helping others. As opposed to someone like e.g George Washington, who stepped down and refused continued presidency even when people were begging him to continue to rule.
Why?
There are current US allies which have done more to undermine the USA than Russia, a non-ally. Putin's entire history from 2000 to now is him establishing Russian sovereignty and attempting to align his interests with that of Europe and NATO even as NATO and the US has expanded ever closer to their borders. Repeatedly. The USA has repeatedly been against any Euro-Russia friendliness because they want to maintain dominance over their Euro satropies. I think this is bad in the long-term for NATO (and the US).
Based on what? Do you think you've ever listened to Putin or consumed pro (or even neutral) putin sources?
Putin did step down and came back after the Clinton state department embarrassed the person Putin picked to take his place (Medvedev) over the NATO Libyan war.
Is this the same as Washington stepping down? No. Putin maintained significantly more control than Washington did after Washington's presidency, but never-the-less, he did step back from his absolute dominance established after the Chechen war.
I think Putin values his personal power too much to make for a good ally. Maybe he could be a crappy ally like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, but pretty much the definition of being that sort of ally is just not complaining when the US puts their military bases near you I think. Which he doesn't seem willing to do given the whole Ukraine thing.
How so?
Nope, that's why I said I don't know a ton about him.
It doesn't count for much when he came back and continued to be an almost-dictator. I don't know much about the NATO Libyan war, but I doubt whatever happened really forced Putin to take power back, I think Russia would've been fine if he just retired.
floating joining NATO, resource agreements with Germans, among others
you don't wonder if your entire belief about Putin (and Russia generally) is based on NATO stooges feeding you what they want you to think?
some dork being quoted in the NYT from RAND isn't some objective source
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Putin attacking China over an island on the Amur instead?
Too much risk of escalation, environmental fall-out etc.
Even China supporting Ukraine would have created a potential conflict of loyalties for Ukraine, just as Soviet-Chinese funding enabled the Vietnamese to take Chinese aid and then turn on them once the US left.
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