Quote from: paxmao on Today at 12:35:24 AM

Quote from: DaRude on August 30, 2024, 11:48:30 PM

Quote from: paxmao on August 30, 2024, 10:01:20 AM

Quote from: be.open on August 30, 2024, 08:32:28 AM

Quote from: metamorphosyys on August 30, 2024, 07:37:54 AM

We need to do something near Pokrovsk, the front is collapsing. Yesterday, the commander of some Azov unit said that everything is falling apart and not as beautiful as the authorities say. If this goes on, the city will be taken without a fight.

The Ukrainian problem is much larger than the environs of Pokrovsk. Russia's current strategy seems to be to attack in all directions across the entire width of the front, avoiding excessive efforts in areas with strong resistance. And this strategy is successful because Russia has a noticeable numerical advantage, while Ukraine is uselessly burning up its reserves trying to hold a bridgehead in the Kursk region.

Russia launched a diversionary strike in the Kharkov direction to draw the enemy's resources away from the Donbas - and it worked. Ukraine launched a mirror-symmetrical response in the Kursk region to draw the enemy's resources away from the Donbas - and it didn't work.

Ukraine has liberated more Ruzzian land in the last couple of weeks than Ruzzia occupied in Ukraine in the last 3 months, and as of now there is a large pocket that may be soon liberated. It has diverted troops from Ruzzia -as there were only conscripts and tik-tokers there, but Ruzzia has decided to laregly sacrifice a chunk of Kursk to keep the two main vectors in Donbas. It does not look like a wise decision trade more for less.

Quote from: metamorphosyys on August 30, 2024, 07:37:54 AM

We need to do something near Pokrovsk, the front is collapsing. Yesterday, the commander of some Azov unit said that everything is falling apart and not as beautiful as the authorities say. If this goes on, the city will be taken without a fight.

The attack on "all fronts" - except Kursk - has been a constant during nearly all the war, nothing new. In fact as of now there are more less active areas, even inactive in some sections than ever in the last two years. You have to look at all the map, not the bit you like. Ruzzia has enough to keep 3, sometimes only 2, main vectors in the Donbas: around Vulhedar, Prokrovsk and little else.

It is foolish to think there is no plan or response, Ukraine is well away from running out of resources.

Quote from: DaRude on August 30, 2024, 03:01:11 AM

[...]

Ukraine is getting over 100 glide bombs thrown at them every single day, not much trenches can do when Russia is moving only one km/day like that. Like you previously said it was either loose slowly or try something radical. Boris somehow once again managed to convince Zelenskiy to attack instead of negotiating and saving lives. Selling point was that i'd be impossible for Putin to let the insult go unavenged, well then i guess the impossible happened

Quote from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/08/28/if-ukraines-invasion-of-russias-kursk-oblast-was-a-diversion-it-has-failed/

If Ukraine’s Invasion Of Russia’s Kursk Oblast Was A Diversion, It Has Failed. Russian troops continue to march on Pokrovsk.
...
When the Ukrainian command, headed by Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, opted to invade Kursk with a strong force of thousands of troops drawn from eight or more brigades, it surprised some observers. Why weren’t those troops reinforcing Pokrovsk, instead?
...
One generous reading of Ukrainian strategy in Kursk is that the invasion was meant to draw Russian regiments away from the east, relieving the pressure on Pokrovsk. In that sense, the invasion of Kursk may have been a diversion.

If so, it failed. “The offensive in the Kursk region not only failed to prompt the redeployment of some Russian forces from Donetsk, but also exacerbated the shortage of [Ukrainian] personnel in the region,” the pro-Ukraine Conflict Intelligence Team concluded.

Instead of rushing its best troops into Kursk to blunt the Ukrainian advance, the Kremlin scraped together a motley counter-invasion force, including many young and poorly trained conscripts. These reinforcements have slowed but not halted the Ukrainian invasion. More importantly for Russian strategy, they’ve allowed the Kremlin to keep its eastern forces intact.

The result, three weeks into Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk, is that the Russian offensive in the east is not only continuing—it’s gaining momentum. “Although we anticipated that the town of Novohrodivka would be captured in the coming days,” CIT noted, “the pace of the Russian forces’ advance has exceeded our expectations, not only failing to slow down as it approached the town but even accelerating.”

The terrible part is that now after they didn't get the expected results, they're trying to double down and get US to let them use missiles to attack Moscow Kyiv wants to launch Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles at Russia’s heartlands as ‘demonstration’ attacks Luckily Biden has only few months left and can't really escalate now for the fear of reinforcing Trumps narrative that he's the only one that can prevent WW3.

Edit: As far as economic pain Russian economy shows solid growth despite Ukraine war sanctions. The Russian economy has shown solid growth in many sectors while unemployment remains at a record low, new data showed on Wednesday, prompting officials to hint at a brighter outlook for the year despite Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

You are aware that three prime ministers have been there after Boris, don't you??? You are one with fixations are you not?

Glide bombs have been a problem for Ukraine and it makes defence more difficult. But they are a problem, not a wonder weapon.

The Kursk invasion is progressing at a much slower pace, but there are several vectors still well active and mid-sized localities are still being encircled and captured due to the lack of defensive positions for Ruzzia. When you bite more that you can digest you get backslash, you can ask Ruzzia in Kherson for details on how that works. The area south of the Seim is very promising in terms of putting Ruzzian troops in a very dire strait. I would not be surprised if Ukraine can pull a "gesture of goodwill" inside this Ruzzian territory.

Ukraine has been asking to allow the use of ballistic missiles inside Ruzzia since they got them. Seems like Ukraine has developed (or is about to develop) their own, which means that they many not need permission in the mid-term. Another good argument at any negotiation table.

My guess is that they would not use them on Moscow, but may certainly pay back on the Ruzzian electrical grid, just to get even Steven, and on a few military production facilities too.

Ruzzias economy has 18% interest rates. This is near a shitcoin level. Using your own source:

Quote

However, they also pointed to overheating, which forced the central bank to hike its benchmark interest rate by 200 basis points to 18% in July, the highest level in more than two years. The central bank said persistent labour shortages and wage growth, as well as high inflation, were the main signs of an overheated economy and promised to maintain tight monetary policy and fight inflation until it cools.

First thing to note, this is based on Ruzzian official information. This is the clear sign of someone selling the furniture to buy bread.

Quote

New statistics showed that real wages rose 6.2% year-on-year in June, following an 8.8% increase in the previous month, while average nominal wages rose 15.3% year-on-year to 89,145 roubles a month.

And here is it: people are working on a non-economically productive war. If you grow at 4% and your wages grow at 15%, you have a certain problem - and it shows in the 18% rate for the rouble.

To attack you preferably need 3:1 advantage. If UA sent 20k troops that would mean RU would need to send about 60k to push them out fast. Or they could just scrape 20k from conscripts and troops from outside of UA, to just contain and hold the line while bombing them and continuing to push in Donbas only now with 20k less UA troops. We can all see what RU chose. This clearly didn't go according to UA's plan thus why now UA issued a request for international assistance via NATO’s emergency response mechanism and why US holds firm against Ukraine using American weapons to strike deep inside Russia despite Ukrainian Defense Minister, Rustem Umerov, and Andriy Yermak, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, arrived with a list of Russian targets that Kyiv believes it could strike using U.S. weapons if given permission. But escalations for Biden now would mean a guaranteed loss to Harris, so democrats just need Ukraine to sit quiet and don't make a lot of noise now.

As far as glide bombs, can you name another RU weapon that caused more damage in UA outside of artillery? Hard to reinforce positions against 3-ton bombs gliding to your coordinates. It's like HIMARS for UA only much more destructible and on a much larger scale (100s/day and growing).

I'm only aware of reports of Boris torpedoing UA/RU negotiations, have you heard of other UK's PMs doing it too?

Ukraine producing ballistic missiles at scale while not being able to keep their lights on against RU missiles is pretty funny. Best case they can hope for is to cross out ~~ATACMS~~ and slap "totally made in Ukraine" stickers on couple of US missiles per month in Poland.

On the economy, sure it's not a viable long term solution, but it worked for almost 3yrs now, and i see no reason why they can't keep it going for at least 2yr+ more.

It is simple, you can capture settlements and land in Kursk for "x", if you want to gain or hold that in other parts is "10 x ".

I am not interested in you views about glide bombs and I am not going to bother on the numbers you have given nor comparing it with HIMARs, a completely different animal nor go over the Ukrainians use of the french equivalents. It is a problem for Ukraine, like drones hitting oil depots and other targets on a daily basis is for Ruzzia. Perhaps the only worth note is that throwing a glide bomb is much more expensive than just the bomb.

Boris is a private citizen AFAIK and is not even in the current governing party in the UK. His influence in Europe and UK is not much at the moment.

The reason why US does not escalate is so that Ruzzia does not escalate. However Ukraine is absolutely ok with using anything they can invent and produce to maximum effect. And they do. I guess that if Ruzzia can use "western components" - while promoting hate to "the West" - Ukraine can do the same. You are free to suspect stuff, as you usually do, but try to differentiate between what you "think" versus what is actually there in all evidence.

I guess we can totally ignore the strategic value of the lost land in Donbas and the consequence that it should lead to in the near future. Also, outside the PR benefits can you explain how holding land in Kursk would be 10x easier militarily than in other parts Huh

Right, Ukrainian ballistic missiles are coming in scale real soon, right after they test them on a mission to Alpha Centauri. Plus it won't change anything, ATACMS have a max range of 300km and their production is very limited, RU will just adapt and use airfields beyond that range, guess UA will have to ask for ICBMs next.