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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.
I dislike percentages as a means of numeric false certainty, but I'll make a few predictions.
I expect the war to continue into 2024, barring a Putin death scenario leading to a Russian withdrawal. As long as Putin lives and the Russian army is not comprehensively destroyed in the field, I do not see him withdrawing from Ukraine before a fall of Crimea, which I do not see in 2024 barring major Russian conventional defeats in eastern Ukraine.
I expect both a Russian and Ukrainian this spring after the mud-season, with Russia's prioritizing the Donbas. Ukraine's will be aimed at advancing a southern corridor to cut the land-bridge to Crimea, though it may be also/instead intended to cut at the Russian southern supply lines for the Donbas offensive.
I expect this year's Russian strategic goal to secure the administrative boundaries of the Donbas and other eastern regions, with some additional buffer as possible, before transitioning to a posture of strategic defense and trying to present fully-occupied province annexations as fait accompli and basis for armistice lines while trying to exhaust European support. I do not expect the Russians to seriously press for all the claimed annex territories, ie. reclaim Kherson, and I expect that the Russians will be unable to sustain broad-front operations despite mobilization due to attrition of precision fires and modern maneuver equipment.
I expect this year's Ukrainian strategy to cut the land-bridge to Crimea, and as possible start of a logistical siege of Crimea by the end of the year while forcing Russia to relocate forces from mid-eastern Ukraine to south-eastern. The Ukrainian goal will be to continue to attrit Russian maneuver warfare capabilities, especially in modernized mechanized and precision fires, while developing their own maneuver warfare capability.
I expect the Russians will at least temporarily cancel the agriculture shipping deal, and attempt to use the disruption to agricultural exports to pressure Europeans to reduce support for Ukraine / end Russian sanctions. I do not expect this to succeed, even as I do expect middle eastern instability as a result. The russian disruption will likely be most relevant in the context of preventing Ukrainian agriculture from being planted, even if it allows a resumption of the deal.
I expect Russian economic resiliance to sharply deteriorate by mid-year as European energy and insurance sanctions take sharper bites and the short-term Russian economic controls are extended indefinitely. I think it is possible, but not necessarily likely, that China starts subsidizing the Russian economy to allow it to sustain a long-term war footing, including monetary loans and sale of ammunition. I expect Putin to continue the war regardless of economic deterioration, or Chinese (and other) terms of sale.
I expect European willingness to continue to support Ukraine economically to continue. Opportunistic actors like Orban will leverage vetos on Ukrainian aid to enable their position, but current political dynamics continue to make it easier for European states to leverage that for moderating sanctions for compromises than to simply block Ukrainian support. In key European nations (Germany, Italy, and France), pro-Russian political interests will remain easy political targets for domestic political rivals, meaning that pro-Russian coalition politics will continue to be undermined or sold out on case-by-case benefits.
I expect NATO countries to consider expanding aircraft support in earnest this summer, based on the results of the Spring offensives. I expect pressures and war economics will support drones over manned air-superiority fighters. If a fighter is sent, it will likely be in the role of a missile-bus for long-range fires.
I expect that Zelensky will continue to remain in power in Ukraine, barring an assassination. I expect Zelensky to use the context of the war, western pressures, and European Union ascession criteria to justify counter-corruption purges of the Ukrainian government. These will likely catch genuinely corrupt officials, but also have secondary effects of functionally purging suspected pro-Russian oligarchs, and undermine the formation of a counter-Zelensky oligarch coalition party. Opposition parties in the 2024 election will most likely form behind other war leaders/heroes on an anti-Russian axis, not in a pro-Russian fifth columnist, and direct criticism of Zelensky (barring personal scandal) will be muted.
I expect Zelensky to run for re-election, and to be the leading candidate bar personal involvement in corruption scandals. I expect end-of-year strategic priorities (during the next winter/mud season) to be the increased defense of, or attempt to liberate, a 'major' urban area in order to include it in the March 2024 election process.
I expect NATO weapon shipments to hit a qualitative and quantitative critical mass by late 2023 that makes Ukraine favored/expected to launch an offensive, in the early 2024, barring escalating Chinese support for Russia in the form of material.
I do not expect any nuclear weapon use.
Zelensky to run for re-election? What elections are we talking about, 90% of the parties have been banned
Martial law in Ukraine was declared on 24 February 2022. On 15 March 2022 the Parliament deprived Opposition MP Illia Kyva of his mandate.[9]
On 20 March 2022, several political parties were suspended by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine for the period of martial law:[10][11]
Opposition Platform — For Life
Derzhava
Left Opposition
Nashi
Opposition Bloc
Party of Shariy
Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine
Socialist Party of Ukraine
Socialists
Union of Left Forces
Volodymyr Saldo Bloc
The property of the party and all its branches were transferred to the state.[13] The decision was open to appeal at the Supreme Court of Ukraine within 20 days.[13] At the time Opposition Platform – For Life was one of two of the 20 March 2022 suspended parties that was subject to an attempt of getting banned in court, Opposition Platform – For Life was the only party to defend and participate in the case.[13] (The other party was the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine.[67]) On 15 September 2022 the final appeal against the party's ban was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Ukraine, meaning that the party was fully banned in Ukraine.[14]
Ukraine judiciary system is utterly broken and has become among other things, an active puppet of the U.S, see for example this fascinating video from Joe Biden, you'd believe it's too big and blatant to be true but no the man even brag about it, so potent!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=azLKK0xTOFI
Let's not forget "fuck EU" or the fact Biden personally said the night of the sponsored coup, to Yanukovich on the phone that it was over and he would get killed if he didn't flee to Russia.
Zelensky actively promoted the maintenance of the corruption by recently appointing a corrupt person at the top of the top anti-corruption organism of Ukraine.
IMHO It's hard to know what is the moral compass of Zelensky but he is at best utterly powerless.
Zelensky was elected for promising peace in the donbas but he quickly learnt the hardway that he was not the man in commands, it is the military that ruled and still rules Ukraine https://www.kyivpost.com/post/6652
https://youtube.com/watch?v=SIaTAnhgMT4
What kind of delusion is that? Even with the west support it will slow down but not at all reverse the attrition losses.
This will not favor Ukraine, whatever that means, Ukraine because of the extreme non-linearity of the effect of attrition losses on defense capabilities, should and will stay in a defensive position with a goal of 1) reducing hardware losses and 2) slowing down russia territorial expansion, in that order of priority.
Most of their tank/IFV/aircrafts/and anti-air (S300s) budget has been spent and we have no signal they have factories running making new hardware, IIRC the T80 factories are located in Kharkiv, too close to the front.
While russia also suffer from attrition, their existing reserves being considerably larger, they will obviously win this attritive war, unless the U.S sends tanks in the thousands at a minimum.
That's for the quantitative argument, as for the qualitative one, I have extensively debunked this ego-boosting myth in many of my past comments.
"The Opposition Bloc - For Life (OPZZh) was lead by Yuriy Boyko and had 25 members in the Verkhovna Rada. In order to comply with sanctions against Russia after the invasion, OPZZh had to dissolve itself and immediately reform as a new party with a different funding structure. The party is now called Platform for Life and Peace (PLP) and has the same members in the Verkhovna Rada as before, including Yuriy Boyko. The opposition politicians all still have their seats, nobody was banned."
https://old.reddit.com/r/NAFO/comments/101c3rw/how_to_respond_to_claims_that_zelensky_banned/
Yes that's a source with a clear anti-Russian bias, but you ban parties with funding from Russia but allow the same people in a formally different organization to have the same ideas, same structure, same leadership, same people in office, ext, and don't block then from running for office, you still can have free and fair elections, and the ideas and groups that were "banned" still get to participate in that election.
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