With almost 6 months of this war approaching, I think it’s time to kinda recap, reevaluate and redicuss this war. Curious what yous think about the state of the armies, the strategies of either side, what are your predictions, what do you think the goals are and who’s closer to achieving them?

I’ll go first and mostly talk about the Russian side to keep it shorter and because it’s the active party mostly.

Strategy

Honestly even after 6 months I find this incredibly hard to pin down. What are their plans with this war geopolitically and on the ground? Yes, we’ve heard “demilitarization” and “denazification” when things first started, talk about creating a multipolar world has since started too. But let’s be real, that’s all incredibly vague and the Russians really aren’t communicating anything more specific at all. The liberation of Donbass is the one concrete goal I can make out.

Do they want a landlocked Ukraine, destroy it completely, demilitarize and destabilize the entire West, just liberate Donbass? I don’t know and to me it feels like they didn’t start this war with a clear, concrete goal. Maybe they had one but didn’t anticipate the dimensions this would take, maybe it’s all going according to plan - I’m just unable to tell and to me it feels like nobody on either side is able to tell either.

What’s the strategy on the ground? Again, Russia is obv tight lipped about this, but I still can’t tell this one either. What feels somewhat certain is the following

  • The pace is absurdly slow
  • This whole thing has mostly become a positional artillery war of attrition
  • Russia is unwilling or incapable of sacrificing large amounts of men, civilians and equipment in big armored assaults
  • Size of the invasion force has been constant despite Russia being outnumbered

So where does that leave us? My most generous interpretation is that Russia is content with shelling the Ukrainians to hell, while fixing its own economy, doing its best to erode US and EU positions around the world and deepening their internal crises. That they’re unimpressed with the fallout of sanctions, they don’t care about completing things fast at all and really the kinetic war has been relegated to second priority, behind the larger economic and geopolitical calculations. That it’s useful, because the West needs to dig itself deeper into the mess the longer this goes on and because it allows Russia to demilitarize NATO at a comfy pace without engaging it directly.

The least favourable interpretation is that Russia is not capable of going any faster than it is currently, either because it isn’t viable politically (eg declaration of war, higher casualties) or it militarily just can’t. That they didn’t have a clear plan going into this, got caught off-guard by the Wests rabid response and now don’t have the means or the plans to end both the kinetic war and the fires it started.

No idea which is closer to the truth and I’m not going to be a smartass and just say it’s something in the middle. It doesn’t feel super well thought out and planned, it doesn’t feel like a panicked, incompetent adventure at all either and it also doesn’t feel like some mix of the two.

Predictions

Always hard to make in war and politics, but especially so in this war. Just a couple I feel somewhat confident in

  • This war isn’t ending this year
  • Ukraine doesn’t have and won’t have any offensive potential
  • Russian offensives on Kharkiv, Odessa, Nikolaev, etc are hopium. They won’t assault them, they won’t encircle them and they won’t besiege them this year. If they could or wanted to they would’ve done so early in the war
  • Bakhmut-Siversk line will take at least another month to take/break
  • Unless UAF collapses somehow, Slavyansk & Kramatorsk won’t fall this year

Fall and winter are approaching and I’d imagine that’ll slow the absurdly slow pace even further at some point. But I reckon winter will decide this war anyway with the economic and social crisis really kicking the EU in the gut by then. They won’t be able to support Ukraine past a point and Ukraine is simply not capable of surviving without foreign help anymore.

Other than that I only see a few options how this whole thing could change its dynamic. A declaration of war and mobilization, a collapse of the West, a collapse of the UAF or deployment of Russian reserves in Ukraine after the referendums to free up more regulars for combat. Last one seems most likely, but no idea if that’ll really change things that much.

Bottom line

Rereading this feels like a whole lot of “idk”, but honestly, despite heavily engaging with this conflict almost everyday for the past 6 months, that’s still pretty much where I’m at. It’s uniquely strange to me and just very hard to really make sense of - propaganda and fog of war certainly aren’t helping.

Keen on reading your opinions and whether you guys have been able to make more sense of it than my dumbass.

Cheers

  • @Mzuark@lemmygrad.ml
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    122 years ago

    It’s a shitshow. A part of me still thinks none of this is even happening and it’s all a big show.

    Ukraine has been trying to make this a global conflict for months (atrocity propaganda, alleged chemical weapon attacks, false flags, the Nuclear plant standoff) and I’m kinda shocked that America hasn’t just stepped in yet. Considering all the money and guns we’re sending over, this is clearly a big deal for us. But it’s interesting, the longer this goes on the more and more overt it becomes that Zelensky is both corrupt and actively prolonging the war for money.

    Russia is genuinely fucked no matter what they do. If they pull out, the nazis are going to rebuild better than ever because of the obscene amounts of aid they’ve been getting, and the Ukraine pfps will probably start calling for a counter-invasion. But if they stay, it’s a money sink and their reputation in the west will continue going down the tubes. Caitlin Johnstone said it the best “Grown adults think Russia invaded Ukraine for no reason or just because their evil” the levels of propaganda surrounding this whole mess is almost surreal.

    • @RedSquid@lemmygrad.ml
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      142 years ago

      I’m sorry but… why the hell should Russia care what western bozos think? It is far more valuable that they maintain good relations with China, with India, with Iran, with so many nations in the global south that aren’t considered ‘important’ which it seems they are managing just fine, India notably, in spite of all their west-worship, has refused to go along with our insane demands for sanctions.

      I also don’t see them pulling out from the territories they taken. What would they gain from such? A genocide of the people of those regions by a deranged band of neo-Nazis and the average whitey mcfashface would still hate Russia - hell they’d probably celebrate the ethnic cleansing.

      • @Mzuark@lemmygrad.ml
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        72 years ago

        At this point, I’m concerned about what’s going to happen to Russians who live abroad. They’re already trying to strip away visas and send students home for the crime of being born in “the bad country”

      • @Shrike502@lemmygrad.ml
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        72 years ago

        why the hell should Russia care what western bozos think

        Because west has been a money sink for our capitalist class for decades. Not just western Europe - all of the “international community”. Cyprus, Australia - you name it. I would imagine these types would very much like to go back to sending their kids to French schools, while sipping coffee in Austria. And since we are a capitalist country, these types have a lot of say.

        There are other considerations. For example, we’ve been buying a lot of medicine from Germany, medicine that is now banned or limited. There could be alternatives from other countries - i.e. India - but they don’t seem eager to enter the market. Likewise with other commodities. And it sure doesn’t look like the moneybags want to invest into homegrown production, not when it’s easier to buy shit for gas money.

        Finally there is a cultural aspect. Intuitively Germany and even USA feel closer from a cultural standpoint than India or China. Perhaps it isn’t so. But that’s the idea that’s been hammering into people’s heads for a while.

    • @jollyrogue
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      72 years ago

      The military-industrial complex in the US is happy to get sacks of money, and the US is happy to not need to send troops over in yet another war.

      Besides, the US Military would rather focus on China. Sinophobia is an easier sell to the public, and China has better funding.

      • @PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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        2 years ago

        It;'s more about geopolitics. USA since 20 years pushed Russia from the closing with EU, which even Putin tried to do very hard. So, as obvious consequence, we have EU eating USA ass and Russia closing to China. And USA obviously did predicted that when they started that politics, but they did not predicted two things: that the Russia will rebound from the disaster of 90’s and neither the giant rise of China. So instead of two poor countries divided by compradors and half controlled by western capital they have legit threat of ending their hegemony.

        China is bigger threat but also harder to strike at, as USA realised when their bid at Hong Kong failed. So they turned their attention to destabilise Russia - in short 3 years we had supporting Navalny, coup attempts in Belarus and Kazakhstan, multiple other attepts along the Russia’s border - all failed, so they activated their trump (no pun intended) card, Ukrainian puppet state. But as we see it goes poorly, so they are now shifting to China again, with Taiwan being obvious first vector of meddling.

        • @jollyrogue
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          32 years ago

          Western Europe never accepted the Russians, or eastern Europe really, so Russia in the EU was probably a pipe dream.

          I don’t see the US starting a hot war with China. Cold Wars over long periods of time are better for the defense industry, and they have much lower body counts. Plus, the US needs China. The US exported manufacturing to China in the '80s, and now they’re stuck. A hot war would cripple the US like China’s COVID lockdowns did.

          The US is in it’s own decline. It needs to quit sinking so much money into the defense industry, and spend the money of domestic programs. $3B to Ukraine was announced today. That money would have gone a long way to improving the lives of many people in the US.

    • @quality_fun@lemmygrad.ml
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      52 years ago

      “But if they stay, it’s a money sink and their reputation in the west will continue going down the tubes.”

      is there no way for russia to win, then? it’s an unwinnable war like iraq was for the us?

      • @PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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        2 years ago

        About Ukraine it will be hard. I mean winning the war will not be very hard, but later will be. They need to repeat Chechenya. Thing is, Chechens were less fanatical than the ukronazis and Ukraine is much bigger with much more people. It’s possible though.

        The world? There is a way and they are doing it. West, after 3 decades of duplicity, finally openly declared itself as enemies for even the dumbest people to see clearly. So Russia should just stop minding them and seek closing with other opponents of the west and neutral countries along the economical line - which they are doing atm. Now is the first great opportunity to strike at the foundation of USA imperialism - dollar.

      • 小莱卡
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        52 years ago

        In every war there are winners and losers, but it is wrong to talk about whole countries as winners or losers. The ones that “win” wars are the capitalists that profit over wars (military industrial companies, construction material companies, banks, PMC, etc) while the ones that “lose” wars are the capitalists that do not profit from the war AND the working class people of both sides (they always lose because not only they provide their life as manpower they also provide their money to the state through taxes, which go directly to subsidize the capitalists that are directly involved in the war, and ALSO have to directly subsidize the other capitalists that are not directly involved in the war through inflation.

      • @Shrike502@lemmygrad.ml
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        42 years ago

        It would make sense from a NATO perspective. I fail to see another reason why they were doing near damn everything in their power to make this war happen in the first place.