Prediction Thread: When Will Russia Conquer Ukraine

[PLATO]

At this point the biggest thing holding Ukraine back is not the Russians, it is logistics.

(Edit: although let's be real, this just referring to the NE; in Kherson the Russians seem to be better resisting, if only because of the telegraphed offensive on Ukraine's part. Now they're all on the wrong side of the river with 'tight' logistics, so in all, Ukraine's plan was brilliant, but it will take some time for further advances to be made.

NATO Standards call for kicking off an offensive with no less than three full days of supplies. If Ukraine adopted this, then they may well have to take an operational pause to resupply. I agree that the maintaining sufficient supply lines to keep the offensive going is one of the bigger hurdles they have here. Getting over extended invites a Russian counterattack and any type of encirlcement of the Ukrainians would be devastating.

[PLATO]

Putin might be unemployed soon, if things don't improve in the Ukraine.

I doubt he will leave without some severe internal violence. Not sure the Russian people are ready for that yet. They are certainly closer than they were a few months ago though!

[Geronimo]

I doubt he will leave without some severe internal violence. Not sure the Russian people are ready for that yet. They are certainly closer than they were a few months ago though!

I wonder how things will play out if he decides to impose martial law and full mobilization? That would put enormous pressure on Ukraine and might make Ukraine's allies afraid to send equipment that they fear they may need themselves. He might decide that the political downsides of that are far more manageable than the price of outright defeat in Ukraine.

[PLATO]

I wonder how things will play out if he decides to impose martial law and full mobilization? That would put enormous pressure on Ukraine and might make Ukraine's allies afraid to send equipment that they fear they may need themselves. He might decide that the political downsides of that are far more manageable than the price of outright defeat in Ukraine.

I imagine that if Russia fully mobilizes that the US will respond by deploying more troops in Europe (much to China's delight I am sure) and that would hopefully mitigate any fears in the alliance. It is hard to judge what the Russian populace reaction would be imho. That is an interesting question that I am not sure anyone knows how it would play out. I think that with Marshall law he would be better able to control dissent so it might work out. Could this be part of the Russian playbook? A conventional "Escalate to de-escalate" type of thing?

The longer he is in power, the more I believe that Putin's thought process is drastically different than how westerners are used to. Excellent thought food Geronimo!

[Geronimo]

I think there is a very unsettling interpretation of Ukraine's recent battlefield success. There is in fact a way that all of these Russian misfortunes may in fact be in some sense consistent with Putin's original Feb 2022 plan all along. This could be the case if Ukraine was never really the target but the target instead was NATO. Putin has spent vastly more money on Russian Nuclear weapons and delivery systems than on conventional forces. If all he planned to do was conquer his non-nato neighbors with conventional forces those spending priorities would not have made sense. Instead, Putin may have committed what he judged to be a disposable fraction of his conventional forces to set the stage domestically for a campaign to break NATO with a strike NATO could not properly respond to. If the limited campaign went well he could consolidate conquered Ukraine and enact his master plan later. If it seemed difficult he could throttle the campaign sufficiently to entice NATO to part with significant conventional forces and rally domestic Russian support for a bold strike against NATO in response. He may believe Russians will endure the consequences of such a strike against NATO much more easily than they would if the strike had been made with limited NATO "provocation". The plan may even involve China and reports of limited Chinese support may even be intentional dis-information.

I suppose the good news may be we should know in a few weeks if this was really a risk. It is unlikely the time will ever be more ripe for Putin to enact the NATO-breaking component of such a plan. The bad news is that this explanation probably better explains Russian actions and mistakes better than the mainstream newly revealed in 2022 unlimited Russian incompetence explanation which I otherwise favor.

[Dauphin]

Occam’s razor. Grand plan working perfectly with total subterfuge is much less likely than Russian field **** ups.

[Dauphin]

Brought to you by Conspiracy vs **** up, when things go wrong.

[Geronimo]

Occam’s razor. Grand plan working perfectly with total subterfuge is much less likely than Russian field **** ups.

Ukrainian has already demonstrated remarkable subterfuge. It doesn't seem like an enormous stretch to assume Putin would be capable of the same. Putin's Grand plan wouldn't require a large circle of clued in conspirators either.

[pchang]

You sound more and more like Tucker Carlson.

[Proteus_MST]

Ukrainian has already demonstrated remarkable subterfuge. It doesn't seem like an enormous stretch to assume Putin would be capable of the same. Putin's Grand plan wouldn't require a large circle of clued in conspirators either.

It seems to be more likely, that Putin was blinded by his own delusio de grandeur.
And by underlings which reported wnhat their mayster wanted to hear instead of what was reality (a problem that was already the case in soviet russia)

And so he was lacking the information how poor the readiness level of his forces really are (due to oligarchs putting the military budget rather in their own pockets, than to buy manpacks and spare parts for the soldiers/vehicles) and also mistakenly assumed that the Ukrainians would wwelcome him (and that the war would be over in less than a week)

I am really sure that there is no master plan by Putin ... just an enormous amount of miscalculation
(and a Putin who cannot get out of the quagmire he created, without losing face and making himself vulnerable)

[PLATO]

It seems to be more likely, that Putin was blinded by his own delusio de grandeur.
And by underlings which reported wnhat their mayster wanted to hear instead of what was reality (a problem that was already the case in soviet russia)

And so he was lacking the information how poor the readiness level of his forces really are (due to oligarchs putting the military budget rather in their own pockets, than to buy manpacks and spare parts for the soldiers/vehicles) and also mistakenly assumed that the Ukrainians would wwelcome him (and that the war would be over in less than a week)

I am really sure that there is no master plan by Putin ... just an enormous amount of miscalculation
(and a Putin who cannot get out of the quagmire he created, without losing face and making himself vulnerable)

I agree with this. Reports on Russian tanks are that most of the reactive armor is actually filled with cardboard. I think the Russian military has been one of the largest victims of corruption in history. More importantly, I don't think Putin was aware of what poor shape his military was actually in. If Putin survives this, then I believe we will see a serious purge among the oligarchs and a serious retooling of Russian military procurement. Actually, we will probably see that even if he doesn't survive this.

I think that the real counter argument to Geronimo's theory is that from an intelligence perspective we knew about how many front line weapons that Russia had at the start of the conflict and we know that a sizeable percentage of those have been put out of action. It is highly unlikely that Russia would launch an attack against NATO with second line equipment. I think we must also remember that the weapons that the west have drawn down are actually being used against Russia. Perhaps they would be more effective in NATO troops hands, but the Ukrainians certainly seem to be utilizing them well. It is not as if they are removed from the conflict (should it happen), it is more like they were forward deployed and fulfilled their purpose. Finally, I don't believe any of the Western Nations have so severely drawn down their arsenals as to put themselves into any kind of threat of not being able to defend themselves. Just the U.S, Reserves probably have more frontline equipment than many of them had equipment in total anyway. Just the Sierra Army Depot alone has over 26,000 armored vehicles in mothballs that many countries would consider frontline equipment...unlike Russia's mothball fleet of 1950's and 1960's armor.

Conclusion....Sorry Geronimo, but I think that theory just doesn't hold water.

[Geronimo]

Tucker Carlson IIRC has a reputation for opposing support of Ukraine. I could not disagree more. If Ukraine is allowed to lose, then nuclear arms backed blackmail will surely happen again and again until it finally fails and possibly even after that with this successful precedent.

Ukraine, if at all possible must not be allowed to lose. That doesn't mean I think it will be possible to prevent them losing, much less easy to do so.

[pchang]

While you do not oppose supporting Ukraine, you are prone to think Putin is some sort of super genius.

[Geronimo]

Conclusion....Sorry Geronimo, but I think that theory just doesn't hold water.

Definitely not something I want someone to apologize for. I hate the theory. I just don't dismiss it yet. A month from now, especially if Ukrainian gains continue, then I will more easily dismiss it.

[BeBMan]

If the grand plan is to trash Russian conventional forces in Ukraine to be perceived as a more credible threat on the nuke front the first part is working really well so far

[Proteus_MST]

We really need Serb in order to convincingly convey Putins great plan to us

[Geronimo]

If the grand plan is to trash Russian conventional forces in Ukraine to be perceived as a more credible threat on the nuke front the first part is working really well so far

It would purely be directed to the russian audience. The idea being that directly nuking NATO with no 'provocation' would be much too risky to Putin, whereas hand-picking a 'disposable' conventional force to attack along with hand picking filler equipment to pad it out (ie cardboard inserts in armor blocks in tanks that would not have been deployable) would be substantially safer for Putin.

I don't think this would require super genius of any kind. Just paranoia, extreme confidence (possibly totally unjustified) in Russia's strategic forces and in his assessment of NATO's reaction to the strike as well as a psychotic level of indifference to human suffering. I think Ukraine has demonstrated planning of at least that level of sophistication, minus the depravity so the 'genius' doesn't seem so far fetched for Russia. On the contrary I think such a plan would be one of the stupidest gambles in human history.

If this really was anything like Putin's plan I'm sure he's realizing that there is no point in wasting much if any more time delaying pulling the trigger...if he values his health.

For the record I've generally been more likely to dismiss any 'master plan' in favor of the stupidity/incompetence explanation. But that does leave a couple loose ends. Why, for instance if he was planning to do all of the heavy lifting with conventional forces spend so much more money padding out Russia's first strike strategic nuclear forces instead?

[Proteus_MST]

The equipment destroyed (and/or captures) in Ukraina is no filler equipment, but state of the art.
Actually, in the beginning month, there have even devices been captured which, for russian standards, have been high technology (and AFAIK have been sent to the USA for analysis)

[Geronimo]

I'd love to see some of the links about this if it's not too much trouble. I agree that the more valuable the equipment that Russia deploys in large scale in Ukraine the more likely it seems that Putin was committed to winning using conventional forces. On the contrary, the larger the fraction of T-62's and defective crap we find deployed there the more likely a reliance on tactical nukes seems to become. How certain are we for instance, that the reason we don't see T-14 Armatas and stealth fighters is because Russia didn't have any vs holding the best in reserve for the big surprise?

[Proteus_MST]

Here is an article about the High tech equipment I meant (a high tech electronic jamming system):

https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-hi-tech-warfare-system-seized-ukraine-hold-military-secrets-2022-3

And here something about the modernity of russian equipment in Ukraine:

https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/russia-finally-deploys-high-end-battle-tanks-to-ukraine-what-the-advanced-t-90m-s-presence-could-mean

https://mythdetector.ge/en/what-military-equipment-does-russia-actually-use-in-ukraine-and-what-are-its-losses/

You will, of course, also see a lot of equipment that would be considered obsolete .. but remember one thing:
Only a fraction of the Russian equipment has been upgraded to modern standards ... for each upgraded tank, there are a dozen or even a hundred of tanks in the Russian reserves that haven't been upgraded (due to the costs).
Russia uses a mix of modern and obsolete equipment