Well, Putin's Folly is in it's second day and we've yet to see a nuclear detonation, counts as a win in my book. Don't sell your fallout shelter just yet, there's still plenty of time. The fog of war is still kinda thick on the ground in Ukraine but in the past 24 hours some things have become a little more clear.
Did anybody notice the correlation between countries ruled by authoritarian jackasses and countries that have come out in support of Vlad's Bloodbath? That would explain the GOP's newfound obeisance to Putin. Tucker and Trump's new direct has got to be one hell of a mindfuck coming on top of all that old Cold War programming. It tracks though, in the run up to World War II the conservatives showed similar enthusiasm for Hitler and his Nazis.
Learned today that the Russians have only committed about 30% of the forces they'd assembled. This makes sense when you recall that only a fraction of those troops are trained and equipped to the standards of a modern professional fighting force. Best estimates I've seen are 50-60k troops of that standard, which roughly matches with that 30% number. I'll hazard a guess and say that most of the rest are logistics troops and conscripts meant for occupation duties.
Near as I can tell, Vlad is going for a knockout on his first punch. In World War II the Germans took a similar approach with their blitzkrieg through the Low Countries. They succeeded despite the inferior quantity and quality of their armored forces, in no small part due to the collapse of French morale and willingness to fight. What I've seen so far makes me suspect that Vlad expected the Ukrainians to do the same, because there's just not enough troops attacking to succeed otherwise.
Ukrainian command and control is still intact and the Russians still haven't managed to gain air superiority, both of which point to a lack of effectiveness of Russian strikes and likely continued stiff resistance on the part of the Ukrainians. With the Russians attempting to push into the major cities, house-to-house fighting is likely next, at which point this war becomes a giant meatgrinder. Even in the best of cases with air superiority and plenty of support, urban warfare is a bloody and slow affair and in this case, time is on the side of the Ukrainians.
History has an annoying tendency of repeating itself. Yesterday saw the Russians stage an airborne assault on an airport just outside Kyiv and much like Soviet airborne assaults during World War II, initial successes were not followed up and the assaulting troops surrounded and destroyed. The bit of history that Putin's Folly reminds me of most however is the German spring offensive of 1918, during World War I. In that instance the Germans had assembled their best troops into Stoßtruppen units and then used them to spearhead an offensive to try and win the war before the Americans arrived. Starting to sound familiar yet? While initially quite successful, the continuous employment of the Stoßtruppen bled them dry and the German army, deprived of its best troops, was then unable to check the Allied offensive that followed.
During the First Chechen War, the Russians launched an armored assault on the capital, Grozny. Cities are notoriously unkind to armored vehicles, and the Chechens, many with experience from the Soviet army in the Afghan war, inflicted a devastating defeat on the Russian forces. Eventually the Russians blew hell out of the city and methodically cleared it but it was a long, bloody process. So far they've seemed more interested in surrounding Kyiv but that will likely change soon. When it does, it will likely make the early 'heavy fighting' look mild.
Between the casualties coming back and the economic consequences of the conflict hitting home, Putin may soon have a situation on his hand on the home front. Saw there was already a bit of a run on the banks in Russia which always bodes well. Who wants to wager 1 HIVE that Putin isn't running things a year from now?
So far the casualty counts have all seemed suspiciously low for the scale of the conflict. Pretty much all casualty counts should be considered suspect in a conflict, each side underreports their own and overclaims their enemy's. Russians claimed today to have killed 200 while losing none of their own, but I'm pretty sure Rambo is still here in the States.
Anyways, one thing is certain, it's going to get worse before anything gets better. Until I have something better to send, my thoughts are with you people of Ukraine, stay strong and stay safe.
Photos are all military hardware from the local air show here a few years back. First two are of F/A-18s, the third is a C-130, fourth is a B-52, and the last is a Canadian Air Force fighter/trainer that I am unable to identify.
Me. Hopefully I’ll lose.
Remind me then, I’ll lose track of the bet. In a perfect world, Hive will have mooned and I’ll lose a big bet.
Ha, you're on. Hey, maybe Candide was right and we'll all be rich and neither one notice the loss.
My best friend from college and I are both history & polit sci nerds so whenever we disagree on something we just wager $1 on the outcome, makes disagreeing more fun. Thanks for joining in the fun!
Looks like you won this one, just sent you a HIVE.
And they attacked a country which is 100% defend oriented and that means only one thing - long bloodshed. I also think Putler will fall soon. When homie boys are losing money and power around the world it will backfire. And then again, soldiers are not that uneducated, they know who they are fighting with, for god sake, they even know each other. Rusia and UA are much connected to each other. I just hope this ends soon and there won't be a lot of mothers. wives and sisters crying out loud.
Yeah, that home field advantage is no joke. The soldiers definitely know what the score is, there's so much history between those two. I've seen reports of low morale and desertion amongst the Russian troops, the extent of that remains to be seen but it sounds like the Russian grunts definitely know what the score is and aren't too thrilled to get themselves killed for Putler (I'm stealing that term). I hope you're right, nobody should have to die for the vainglory of an old chekist bastard.