I mean the reason they end up sieged a lot of the time is because they try to hold on to every inch of the ground in fear that retreating will sour their western sponsors.
Yeah but if they just retreated all the time then they would lose their strategic objectives, which is to hold onto as much “Ukrainian” territory as possible and make taking it costly for Russia. Yeah they could have half as many losses if they just retreated when things got bad, but then they’d also already be in trenches outside of Kiev.
I mean they’re going to lose them one way or the other. And it’s actually far more costly for Ukraine than Russia this way because what happens is that Russians create cauldrons and then Ukrainians send troops there to be picked off without fail. This dynamic played out in single city and town that Russia has taken. It’s the Ukrainians who end up leaving their dug in positions and trying to reinforce the forces that got surrounded.
Oh I am aware, but the role of Ukraine is not to win. It’s to drag out their defeat so long that it weakens, damages and incapacitates Russia as much as possible. If not for the Ukrainian coup and Russia having to focus on Ukraine, Syria would not have fallen to Al-Jolani as Russia would have had much more forces in the region to stabilize it. The USA doesn’t expect Ukraine to win, they expect them to fight to the last Ukrainian to inflict some amount of damage, especially on Russian oil and gas production. Can’t do that if you’re always retreating and running away to preserve troops.
Bleeding Russia out was indeed the plan as was laid out in numerous policy papers. However, I’d argue that the plan didn’t really work out. Russia has now decoupled from the west and successfully reoriented trade towards the Global South. Russian domestic industry is seeing a revival out of necessity created by the war, and Russian army is now over 1.5 million strong and seasoned by 4 years of war. On the other hand, we have Europe which is now collapsing economically, deindustrialized and cut off from energy. And we have NATO which has largely run through its existing stockpiles, and is unable to produce weapons anywhere near the rate they’re being consumed at. So, the relative balance of power has shifted significantly towards Russia, and once Russia wins in Ukraine there will be a political crisis in Europe the likes of which we have not seen.
There’s also not much evidence that there is any structural damage to Russian oil and gas production. In fact, I haven’t seen any strikes on Russian energy infrastructure in weeks. Ukraine has shifted towards attacking Wildberries warehouses at this point. I also imagine that the whole drone campaign took a long time to set up, and it’s not a stunt the west can repeat easily given that the US can’t even make magnets at this point.
While Syria was a win for the empire, it’s difficult to say whether Russia would’ve been able to stop it. The rate of collapse suggests that Assad really let things slide, and he consistently refused help from Iran which could’ve helped stabilize the situation. I think problems there ran pretty deep. However, it’s not really clear that toppling Syria mattered that much in the end. It’s certainly not doing much to help the US against Iran right now.
There’s another, arguably bigger, problem which is that Ukraine is a proxy and optics are really important to them. So, instead of pulling troops out of positions that can’t be defended, they just leave them there to the last because they’re afraid western support will drop if they’re seen to be losing.
my fav part is how all of NATO still hasn’t figured out a counter after 4 whole years
There’s not really a counter to being outnumbered and sieged except to get more resources and soldiers
I mean the reason they end up sieged a lot of the time is because they try to hold on to every inch of the ground in fear that retreating will sour their western sponsors.
Yeah but if they just retreated all the time then they would lose their strategic objectives, which is to hold onto as much “Ukrainian” territory as possible and make taking it costly for Russia. Yeah they could have half as many losses if they just retreated when things got bad, but then they’d also already be in trenches outside of Kiev.
I mean they’re going to lose them one way or the other. And it’s actually far more costly for Ukraine than Russia this way because what happens is that Russians create cauldrons and then Ukrainians send troops there to be picked off without fail. This dynamic played out in single city and town that Russia has taken. It’s the Ukrainians who end up leaving their dug in positions and trying to reinforce the forces that got surrounded.
Oh I am aware, but the role of Ukraine is not to win. It’s to drag out their defeat so long that it weakens, damages and incapacitates Russia as much as possible. If not for the Ukrainian coup and Russia having to focus on Ukraine, Syria would not have fallen to Al-Jolani as Russia would have had much more forces in the region to stabilize it. The USA doesn’t expect Ukraine to win, they expect them to fight to the last Ukrainian to inflict some amount of damage, especially on Russian oil and gas production. Can’t do that if you’re always retreating and running away to preserve troops.
Bleeding Russia out was indeed the plan as was laid out in numerous policy papers. However, I’d argue that the plan didn’t really work out. Russia has now decoupled from the west and successfully reoriented trade towards the Global South. Russian domestic industry is seeing a revival out of necessity created by the war, and Russian army is now over 1.5 million strong and seasoned by 4 years of war. On the other hand, we have Europe which is now collapsing economically, deindustrialized and cut off from energy. And we have NATO which has largely run through its existing stockpiles, and is unable to produce weapons anywhere near the rate they’re being consumed at. So, the relative balance of power has shifted significantly towards Russia, and once Russia wins in Ukraine there will be a political crisis in Europe the likes of which we have not seen.
There’s also not much evidence that there is any structural damage to Russian oil and gas production. In fact, I haven’t seen any strikes on Russian energy infrastructure in weeks. Ukraine has shifted towards attacking Wildberries warehouses at this point. I also imagine that the whole drone campaign took a long time to set up, and it’s not a stunt the west can repeat easily given that the US can’t even make magnets at this point.
While Syria was a win for the empire, it’s difficult to say whether Russia would’ve been able to stop it. The rate of collapse suggests that Assad really let things slide, and he consistently refused help from Iran which could’ve helped stabilize the situation. I think problems there ran pretty deep. However, it’s not really clear that toppling Syria mattered that much in the end. It’s certainly not doing much to help the US against Iran right now.
Armchair general here…
Ukraine is at a material disadvantage, so in order to survive and have a shot at winning, they need to entrench themselves.
So the Russians branch around them and start fighting, and then the Ukrainians retreat due to the flank.
If Ukraine had sufficient force, they could try to stop the branching, but that would require a posture not totally dependent on being entrenched.
There is no counter without the material circumstances to allow it.
There’s another, arguably bigger, problem which is that Ukraine is a proxy and optics are really important to them. So, instead of pulling troops out of positions that can’t be defended, they just leave them there to the last because they’re afraid western support will drop if they’re seen to be losing.
good bot