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Warfare Russia/Ukraine War
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older article but illustrates nicely what will happen over time to Ruzzia.
time.com
Sonnenfeld is a TIME columnist, global governance expert, and senior associate dean and Lester Crown Professor of Management Practice at the Yale School of Management. He helped advise the development of the Abraham Accords and helped organize and produce the 2019 Peace Through Prosperity Conference, which served as a foundation for the normalization of diplomatic relations between Israel and Arab nations.
Tian is research director of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute.
Nearly 18 months into the Russian invasion of Ukraine now, amidst last week’s failed coup attempt, battlefield setbacks, and global diplomatic condemnation, Putin is coming under increasing strain to finance his increasingly-expensive war—and there’s a history lesson for how this will all end.
Far from the prevailing narrative on how Putin funds his invasion, Putin’s financial lifeline has his merciless cannibalization of Russian economic productivity. He has been burning the living room furniture to fuel his battles in Ukraine, but that is now starting to backfire amidst a deafening silence and dearth of public support. That is far from the prevailing narrative on how Putin funds his invasion. Ample western commentators posit that Putin is pulling in billions from trade to finance the invasion thanks to high commodity prices, weak western sanctions, and sanctions evasion.
But energy prices across both oil and natural gas are now cheaper today than before the invasion, as are grain, wheat, lumber, metals, and practically every commodity that Russia produces. Amidst lower commodity prices across the board, thanks in part to the effective G7 oil price cap, Russia is now barely breaking even on oil sales with unwanted Russian Urals oil trading at a persistent discount but continuing to flow in ample volumes – exactly as it was designed. In short, the world has now largely replaced Russian supplies so commodity exports are no boon to a desperate Russia right now.
It is often overlooked that Putin is funding his invasion of Ukraine not only through marginal commodity exports or trickles of sanctions evasion but through the cannibalization of Russia’s productive economy. As an extractive authoritarian dictator with state control over 70% of the economy, Putin will never really run out of money since he can always pull the authoritarian equivalent of finding money under the couch, or pull a schoolhouse bully act and shake down kids (i.e. oligarchs) for their lunch money at recess time.
Read More: The Failed Russian Mutiny and What Happens Next
Putin has levied draconian “windfall taxes” on basically anything that moves. Many thought last year’s record $1.25 trillion ruble windfall tax on Gazprom and certain other Russian state owned businesses was a one-time occurrence, but Putin has only doubled down and ordered more windfall taxes in the months since, raising trillions of rubles more from companies and oligarchs alike. Likewise, first Putin resorted to levying onerous taxes on both companies and people leaving Russia after the invasion before he dropped all pretense and just started indiscriminately seizing money and property instead.
URALs prices went under 60 again
tradingeconomics.com
How Putin Cannibalizes Russian Economy to Survive Personally
Putin’s financial lifeline has his merciless cannibalization of Russian economic productivity. It's unsustainable
time.com
- BY JEFFREY SONNENFELD AND STEVEN TIAN
Sonnenfeld is a TIME columnist, global governance expert, and senior associate dean and Lester Crown Professor of Management Practice at the Yale School of Management. He helped advise the development of the Abraham Accords and helped organize and produce the 2019 Peace Through Prosperity Conference, which served as a foundation for the normalization of diplomatic relations between Israel and Arab nations.
Tian is research director of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute.
Nearly 18 months into the Russian invasion of Ukraine now, amidst last week’s failed coup attempt, battlefield setbacks, and global diplomatic condemnation, Putin is coming under increasing strain to finance his increasingly-expensive war—and there’s a history lesson for how this will all end.
Far from the prevailing narrative on how Putin funds his invasion, Putin’s financial lifeline has his merciless cannibalization of Russian economic productivity. He has been burning the living room furniture to fuel his battles in Ukraine, but that is now starting to backfire amidst a deafening silence and dearth of public support. That is far from the prevailing narrative on how Putin funds his invasion. Ample western commentators posit that Putin is pulling in billions from trade to finance the invasion thanks to high commodity prices, weak western sanctions, and sanctions evasion.
But energy prices across both oil and natural gas are now cheaper today than before the invasion, as are grain, wheat, lumber, metals, and practically every commodity that Russia produces. Amidst lower commodity prices across the board, thanks in part to the effective G7 oil price cap, Russia is now barely breaking even on oil sales with unwanted Russian Urals oil trading at a persistent discount but continuing to flow in ample volumes – exactly as it was designed. In short, the world has now largely replaced Russian supplies so commodity exports are no boon to a desperate Russia right now.
It is often overlooked that Putin is funding his invasion of Ukraine not only through marginal commodity exports or trickles of sanctions evasion but through the cannibalization of Russia’s productive economy. As an extractive authoritarian dictator with state control over 70% of the economy, Putin will never really run out of money since he can always pull the authoritarian equivalent of finding money under the couch, or pull a schoolhouse bully act and shake down kids (i.e. oligarchs) for their lunch money at recess time.
Read More: The Failed Russian Mutiny and What Happens Next
Putin has levied draconian “windfall taxes” on basically anything that moves. Many thought last year’s record $1.25 trillion ruble windfall tax on Gazprom and certain other Russian state owned businesses was a one-time occurrence, but Putin has only doubled down and ordered more windfall taxes in the months since, raising trillions of rubles more from companies and oligarchs alike. Likewise, first Putin resorted to levying onerous taxes on both companies and people leaving Russia after the invasion before he dropped all pretense and just started indiscriminately seizing money and property instead.
URALs prices went under 60 again
Urals Oil - Price - Chart - Historical Data - News
Urals Oil increased 4.20 USD/Bbl or 7.46% since the beginning of 2023, according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark market for this commodity. This page includes a chart with historical data for Urals Crude.
tradingeconomics.com
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Interesting article
dgap.org
Preventing the Next War (#EDINA III) | DGAP
With its imperial ambitions, Russia represents the greatest and most urgent threat to NATO countries. Once intensive fighting will have ended in Ukraine, the regime in Moscow may need as little as six to ten years to reconstitute its armed forces. Within that timeframe, Germany and NATO must...
dgap.org
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I don't think so, as the offensive moved the frontline about 8km forward. It did not happen after 4 days but took a few months.
I remember when some of our members were posting some stupid memes with Leopard 2s next to T-62s, trying to convince us that the offensive would be successful. I was sceptical from the beginning, listening to a retired Polish Chief of Staff.
The general made a lot of points before and during the offensive:
i. The Russkies are very good at building fortifications and minelaying. You can say a lot of bad things about their army, but they really know how to fortify their positions and lay mines. Their minefields were multi-layered, they were mixing anti-personnel mines with anti-tank mines, and mines that were difficult to detect, with normal mines. You could detect 5 metal mines next to you, but you could fail to detect a plastic one between them. Some anti-tank mines were triggered by anti-personnel mines, so if you hit an anti-personnel mine, the anti-tank mine below could kill several soldiers around you. He quoted the battle of Kursk where Soviet tanks were easily destroyed by German tanks, but the latter were damaged by mines, so very few tanks were combat-ready on a daily basis, as the damaged tanks spent a lot of time at repair workshops.
ii. According to the general, if you want an offensive to be successful, you need to have an advantage of 3:1 in armoured forces and 4:1 in artillery to support your attack. If you don't have it, you don't start an offensive, while the Ukrainians clearly did not have it. Simple as that.
iii. The offensive also requires a lot of ammunition, while the RuZZians had much more of it.
iv. If you want to start and offensive, you don't announce it in advance and don't tell anybody where it would be. The Ukrainians had been telling about the location of the future offensive for a few months before it started.
v. You attack your enemy where he's the weakest, while the RuZZian defence is the strongest in the Zaporozhya sector. The general was flabbergasted.
vi. According to him, most Western military advisors in Ukraine know nothing about the RuZZian tactics and they try to make the Ukrainians fight as if the latter were a NATO army that is normally supported by very strong aviation. That's why the RuZZians were able to use attack helicopters against the modern Ukrainian tanks, as the latter actually don't have any effective aviation that could protect them from the sky.
vii. The Ukrainians did not use big units to attack the RuZZian positions. They were using companies as storm troops, and replaced them with different companies, if the first ones suffered excessive losses. You could see a Ukrainian brigade moving forward but, in fact, it was one battalion, while 3-4 other battalions from the same brigade stayed in reserve. You cannot move fast enough if you attack your enemy with such small forces, while the Ukrainians were not ready to deploy bigger forces at the same time, as their priority was to avoid too big losses.
viii. The Ukrainians don't have divisions and the cooperation between some brigades is really bad. Their actions are not coordinated effectively, while you normally need coordination at a corps level to make a breakthrough.
ix. They have not used their most effective core tank brigades, as they want to keep them in reserve in case of the RuZZians started an offensive in the north/north-east.
x. Zaluzny is in a conflict with Zelensky. The former does not like Zelensky's meddling and giving him unrealistic targets. Zelensky, on the other hand, is pressed by Western politicians who tell him officially if Ukraine does not make good progress, they will cut the military help and advise him to ask the RuZZians for peace, as the current level of assistance is unsustainable in a long term.
I can see some messages posted by a Polish/Ukrainian blogger. He said Ukraine is preparing for a strategic defence. It means Ukrainian forces may abandon some problematic positions where they have very little protection from enemy fire. We won't see a Ukrainian offensive any soon.
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It may be time to winter up. Straighten logistics, try to leave the Russians a line of advance and control which is possible but terrible.
Trying to get brigades to work together would seem crucial. But I think the West has made that very difficult with the method of delivery for supplies, and the types of training provided.
The West didn't deliver supplies in bundles that would support a brigade, and then increase the amount of bundles. The West delivered supplies by weapons type and class across the top end of an organization that already was struggling to provide logistics. Weapons were delivered in the salesman approach, not in the approach any rational supply chain would have asked for.
Training suffers a similar problem. We didn't take an entire brigade, and train the whole brigade and support elements at once. At least it didn't appear so.
Imagine if you took the worst performing infantry brigade and the worst attached supporting units. Trained them together for a year out of country starting out with all their new gear in a package. Infantry school, NCO school, logistics, comms, arty, Intel. The whole shot. A truly cohesive program to end up with one fully functioning, trained and equipped brigade.
Rinse and repeat until you have a rotation cycle. Then you would have brigades working together.
Or we can keep on as we are.
You have selected option 2
Sigh.
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It doesn't help that Ukraine gives the most modern equipment to the greenest formations. I can understand not wanting to move important formations to the rear for an extended amount of time on a larger scale, but both technologically as well as tactically conscripts straight out of (western) basic training aren't going to get the most out of the systems, even more so they will make rookie mistakes leading to otherwise avoidable losses of rare modern equipment.
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A retired Polish officer said it takes 2.5 years to raise and train a brigade, if you want its units to cooperate efficiently, including cooperating with units that don’t belong to the same brigade. It’s not just about driving a tank and shooting a gun.
Another officer said the Ukrainian army’s quality has dropped compared to February 2022, as many experienced officers and NCOs have been killed, while the new ones are either inexperienced or taken from reserves. The latter graduated from Soviet military schools and use the Soviet tactics. They basically fight like the Orcs and don’t care about their losses. Such officers were inefficient in 2014 when the Ukrainian army underperformed.
Zaluzhny appears to be a capable general, but his balls are tied up by politicians. Zelensky ordered him to defend Bakhmut at all costs where good Ukrainian brigades suffered excessive casualties. The Orcs suffered bigger losses, but they were mostly suffered by the Wagner guys who were released from prisons.
Speaking of ammo deliveries, there are not only the Ukrainians who destroy RuZZian ammo dumps with artillery. There are the Orcs who do it to the Ukrainian ammo dumps as well. As most of us focus on supporting one side, these videos are not posted here.
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According to a Polish military analyst on Twatter, a yearly production of 155mm artillery shells in the West is:
Rheinmetall - 450k
BEA - 40k
NAMMO - 20k
CSG - 100k
PGZ - 50k+
All companies in the USA - 336k
A total of 996k
The plans are: 2.7 million in Europe and over 1 million in the USA in 2025.
The catch is, most EU companies that produce 155mm shells are private (the Polish PGZ is not). Large part of their production is delivered to other countries rather just Ukraine. If a particular country signed a big contract with, let’s say, Rheinmetall, to buy a lot of shells, the German government cannot force a private company into prioritising Ukraine.
The next thing is, a 155mm shell cost $2000 in 2021, while producing it in the EU costs as much as $8000 presently due to the high demand. It costs $3000 in the USA, but no information has been given if this price is for non-U.S. customers as well.
Rheinmetall - 450k
BEA - 40k
NAMMO - 20k
CSG - 100k
PGZ - 50k+
All companies in the USA - 336k
A total of 996k
The plans are: 2.7 million in Europe and over 1 million in the USA in 2025.
The catch is, most EU companies that produce 155mm shells are private (the Polish PGZ is not). Large part of their production is delivered to other countries rather just Ukraine. If a particular country signed a big contract with, let’s say, Rheinmetall, to buy a lot of shells, the German government cannot force a private company into prioritising Ukraine.
The next thing is, a 155mm shell cost $2000 in 2021, while producing it in the EU costs as much as $8000 presently due to the high demand. It costs $3000 in the USA, but no information has been given if this price is for non-U.S. customers as well.
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New RuZzian tactic: Send in a single BMP as bait then start lots of drones to spot the weapons engaging the BMP.
Look at the vid in the article.
kyivindependent.com
Look at the vid in the article.
Ukraine holds back Russian assault on Avdiivka as long winter battle looms
DONETSK OBLAST – “Our working hours are as follows: first you do a 12-hour shift, then another one, until you’ve done seven of these 24-hour-shifts, and that’s your week” said Oleksandr Kolesnikov, a 47-year-old surgeon, sitting hunched over on a bench-turned-overflow hospital bed at a Ukrainian...
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I can't say I am too surprised by the current situation. I remember speculating that the counter offensive would end up with a small dent in the defenses and turn into static artillery lobbing.
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Ukraine's priority is to avoid excessive losses, while the RuZZians don't care about theirs.
Speaking of demographics, there are just 25 million people living in Ukraine presently and that number may decrease even more if the RuZZians start attacking Ukrainian power plants this winter as they did one year ago.
Let's be realistic, most of the 9 million Ukrainians who moved abroad will never come back, so Ukraine has a massive problem with recruiting new soldiers.
Tens of thousands of experienced soldiers have been killed or wounded, while a big chunk of the ones who have been fighting for one year or longer need to be replaced. They had contracts and were not supposed to fight for 2-5 years without any breaks. Zelensky has decided not to announce a mass mobilisation, but he may have no other choice at some point.
The Ukrainian offensive reminded me of water drops hollowing a rock very slowly. In contrast, the proper offensive reminds of a situation when you punch somebody with your fist very hard, but you take a risk that your fist may get injured, while success is not guaranteed.
The current tactics, on the other hand, focus on minimising Ukrainian losses due to the demographics. The Ukrainians try to outrange the RuZZian artillery and focus on counterbattery fire. The thing is, the RuZZians have learned a lot as well and improved their tactics. For the Ukrainians to be successful, their losses need to be 1:4 which is not the case now.
The core tank brigades are kept in reserve and they would be used as fire brigades if the RuZZians broke Ukrainian defences at some point. It's like Napoleon kept the Old Guard in reserve until the battle of Waterloo. He decided not to use it during the battle of Borodino. If he had done it, the outcome of the RuZZian campaign may have been or may not have been different. We cannot guess it, but the Ukrainian strategy is similar.
Last edited:
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Yes. I also think that one of the elements to Russia's successes has been, that it doesn't feel any fear or pressure from NATO unlike they say in their propaganda. They "feel threatened" by Finland in NATO yet have no problems in completely emptying their border garrisons. Before the war quite a few people seemed to think that Russia can't throw too many troops in one conflict, because its size and because it needs a strong (or at least some) military presence in most of its long borders.
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Thats why its called iron fist and not iron finger.
But as I said before its not Ukraines fault. They don't have the firepower needed.
Anybody could see that.
RuZzia allegedly lost 1300 soldiers in one day.
www.fr.de
Seing how they are pushed fwd senselessly or even as bait this sounds credible.
But as I said before its not Ukraines fault. They don't have the firepower needed.
Anybody could see that.
RuZzia allegedly lost 1300 soldiers in one day.
Russland verliert angeblich 1300 Soldaten an nur einem Tag
Ukrainische Drohnen treffen wohl ein russisches Treibstofflager – Selenskyj hofft auf weitere Unterstützung aus den USA. Der News-Ticker zum Ukraine-Krieg.
Seing how they are pushed fwd senselessly or even as bait this sounds credible.
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Russia is basically unguarded now with 430000 soldiers in Ukraine.
That could be exploited forcing him to relocate troops.
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That just screams for a second front... The question is, does anyone else have enough balls in their pants to stand up to RuZZia?
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You don't need to do anything actually just shift forces. But Putler knows his lies best so he won't do anything - even then.
But maybe worth a try. If its even just to expose his lies publicly.
The Gröfaz needs more children to burn in his wars.
www.independent.co.uk
www.newsweek.com
But maybe worth a try. If its even just to expose his lies publicly.
The Gröfaz needs more children to burn in his wars.
Putin asks Russian women to have ‘eight or more’ children amid deaths in his war
Russian president says women having large families is ‘our goal for the coming decades’
www.independent.co.uk
Russia's desperate scramble to stave off demographic catastrophe
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said his country has an acute abortion problem.
www.newsweek.com
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Their president is the biggest abortion.Russia's desperate scramble to stave off demographic catastrophe
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said his country has an acute abortion problem.
Maybe if someone had done something about poverty, AIDS and domestic violence in Russia in say the last 20 years instead of creating laws against NGOs, more people could have the luxury of having children.
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