Winning without Territory: Russia's Focus on Destroying the Enemy Army

Winning without Territory: Russia's Focus on Destroying the Enemy Army
posted by Curt, 3 May, 2023

excerpt:

Russia Has Been Winning This War All Along -- And Winning it Big

I've written extensively on this question since it became apparent the Russians had eviscerated the original AFU by late spring 2022.

From the moment in early April when Russian forces on the perimeter of Kiev began to withdraw to new positions in eastern Ukraine, western war propagandists have been trumpeting what they characterized as Russia’s “humiliating defeat”. As one who recognized as early as February 28th that the Russian army was executing a strategic feint in and around the Ukrainian capital, I could only shake my head and laugh at the cluelessness of most of the so-called "experts" who have attempted to sell this interpretation of events to hopelessly ignorant western audiences.
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https://www.floppingaces.net/most-w...y-russias-focus-on-destroying-the-enemy-army/

There are three long Videos in the link that covers it quite deeply.

Very lengthy but very exact & intelligent conclusions in this article.
The United States Military has been reconstituted to be a lethal modern mobile & swift force. It is not designed to overwhelm over a protracted period of time but it is designed for shock & awe. Kind of the Cobra Kai concept, strike first, strike hard. But what happens if the enemy can withstand that? Eventually that overwhelming force to try & take out the enemy quickly will fail. Russia is effectively wearing the U.S. & Ukraine down.

 

Ah, so all of those destroyed Russian tanks and all of those dead Russian soldiers are just a ruse to wear out the enemy. Clever!

 

This is called moving the goalposts. Russia was supposed to occupy Ukraine quickly, +/- a protracted insurgency. Not decisively winning a conventional war against Ukraine is, embarrassing to say the least. That said, it's true that it's Ukraine that has had its infrastructure destroyed and its people displaced. The damage to Ukraine is far greater than the damage to Russia in terms of that. Casualties I'm not sure - doesn't seem decisive for either side though. Russia has always had a lot of manpower at its disposal. It's still a battle of wills. Perhaps Ukraine would have to do more than retake Crimea to get Russia to decide it's not worth it, though.

Wearing the US down though? Don't make me laugh.

 

Don't worry I'm sure this administration will figure out a way to pony up billions and billions more of our tax dollars to waste concerned with a border halfway across the world when they have no concern for our own borders

 

Maybe, but I still don't see any way for Ukraine to win this without NATO getting directly involved.

 

The hope is that Russia will implode and that in fact, 'we' are wearing 'them' out.

My post was sarcasm, in that it was definitely not Russia's plan to be where they are now.

 

I'm sure it wasn't part of the original Russian plan, but if the plan is to wait for Russia to "implode," I think it's a bad one.

 

I think it's the only option for Ukraine. The only way for them to 'win'

 

Then they are probably not going to win this.

 

You could be right.

While we are on the topic do you see Russia 'winning,' though; what would winning entail and how will they achieve this victory?

 

According to the NATO allies and Ukraine, "winning" would mean pushing Russia out of all pre-war territory plus Crimea.

For the Russians, winning would probably mean they would negotiate to keep the territory they have up through some guarantee that Ukraine is neutral and never allowed to join NATO.

Russia is more likely to get it's way than Ukraine and NATO simply because no matter how many beans and bullets we throw their way, they will run out people to fight long before Russia does.

That's why I said in post #5 that Ukraine can't win unless NATO gets directly involved; in other words, World War III.

 

Careful now, is NATO insisting Crimea be taken back??

I think and hope you are underestimating how unpopular this war is in (wider) Russia and how thin they are stretched, resource-wise. And also how demoralised Russian troops are. And possibly how alarmed many Russians are by the impact of Western sanctions. But we don't really know for sure...

The Ukranians don't seem to want to give up Donbass. Can you imagine them doing this?

 

China is laughing a we deplete our war stocks on this senseless war. Russia's ability to wage war will be depleted. Or stocks of weaponry will be largely gone.

China will walk into Taiwan, gaining control of over half the world's production of microcircuits, gaining huge ground to control the economies of the world. While the US and Russia lick their respective wounds, China will continue expanding.

There are big smiles in Beijing tonight.

 

Thats actually one of the oldest military strategies there is. Its called attrition, and its what the Russians used to beat the Nazis.

 

Zelenskyy has said he wants Crimea back, and I can't recall any NATO country contradicting that. Maybe they have in private, but publicly their position is to support Ukraine without reservations for as long as it takes and no matter how much it costs.

It's hard to judge the popularity of the war in Russia (or in Ukraine for that matter) but who is suffering most from the war? The average Russian or the average Ukrainian? I think the war has already severely damaged Ukraine far more than Russia; I mean the war is being fought on Ukrainian soil.

 

It's a proxy war with the U.S.
The U.S. is providing assistance, yes, but is only providing limited assistance when it comes to tanks, and is not actually sending any of its soldiers.
Putin probably knows that due to politics, the Democrat Party currently in control in the U.S. are reluctant to scale up the conflict and do not want to send actual American soldiers.
It's not a full out war, both the U.S. and Russia want to prevent the conflict from getting out of control. There are similarities to the Korean war (1950) and Vietnam (1955-1974).

 

America is sending a lot more than tanks. Its sending Stingers, Javelins, special mission artillery rounds and all sorts of stuff that is expensive and takes awhile to replace. Some require "long lead item" components that may take years to replace. I'm sure Xi, licking his chops in anticipation of his invasion of Taiwan, loves to see us using up our "war stocks" in Ukraine.

 

Putin isn't sure of that.

GB News
Putin desperately preparing plan for Russian defeat as Ukraine mounts new

 

I can't contradict any of that. It might be in the short-term interest of Ukraine to surrender that land. But it absolutely doesn't guarantee that Russia will not try and bite more off. They seem to hate Ukrainians.

I think I'd rather fight to death than be under the Russian thumb. Compare West with East Germany. ****'em. Glad to help and wish more of my tax dollars went that way.

 

Muscovite leadership sees their bleak future.

World
The Daily Beast
Putin Grooms Russians for Defeat in Leaked Crisis Manual

 

Ukraine Conflict Updates
The Kremlin reportedly distributed a new manual instructing Russian state media on how to cover an upcoming potential Ukrainian counteroffensive that, if real, indicates the Kremlin is setting informational conditions both for an effective Russian defense and to mitigate shocks in the Russian information space from Ukrainian successes. Russian opposition outlet Meduza reported on May 2 that it attained the manual, which reportedly instructs Russian state media to “not lower the expectations of the announced Ukrainian counteroffensive” Or claim that Ukraine is not ready to conduct a counteroffensive – instead treating the possibility of a Ukrainian offensive as a given[14] The manual instead reportedly stresses that Russian media should focus on Western security assistance and support for Ukraine.[15] Meduza reported that sources close to the Russian presidential administration stated that the coverage aims to allow the Kremlin to announce a military victory in the event of an unsuccessful Ukrainian counteroffensive and establish justifications for a successful counteroffensive by claiming that Russian losses will be understandable because “the entire West has concentrated huge efforts on the front.”[16] The alleged document suggests the Kremlin is preparing for – if not expecting – Ukrainian successes and is planning to mitigate demoralization in the Russian information space. This is an important Russian adaptation from previous Ukrainian counteroffensives in Kherson and Kharkiv, which produced dramatic shocks and demoralization in both the Russian military and the Russian information space that the Kremlin likely seeks to mitigate[17]

 

Choosing to be dead rather than red is an absolutely legitimate choice, if that's what the Ukrainians choose. I just don't think it has anything to do with us.

 

Ignoring moral issues, maybe very little now. But with no NATO involvement would Russia stop at Ukraine? Who knows what an empowered Russia that is able to quickly and easily force capitulation from neighbouring countries will do next.

Do you draw a line at how many countries - and which countries Russia could invade before US involvement? Estonia? Finland? Poland? Norway?

 

I think the Russian invasion has shown that Russia just doesn't have the capacity to take those other countries (Never mind that they are all NATO countries). The madness of the current age is to compare Russia to Nazi Germany and Putin to Hitler, but Hitler had a 10 million man army when he started invading. Putin has barely a tenth of that, and is facing a multination military alliance.

In other words, I think it's silly to be worried of Putin's tanks pouring through the Fulda Gap in the way we were worried about the Soviets doing that. And of course now days, Russia would never even get as far as the Fulda Gap, let alone pour through it.

 

They keep sacrificing themselves so that Ukraine will wear out their equipment, and soon run out of missiles.

They have yet to realize that they are not the "Soviet Union", and are only a pale shadow of what they once were.

Kinda reminds me of how far the UK had fallen 4 decades ago when they could barely pull together the force to take two small islands from a third world nation.